but then you are assuming that people will only play to see the level counter go up? I mean seriously, on a HR, you expect to have ALL spells within a week yeah? And so essentially progression is extra mp/hp and the odd 1-1 every day or so? I think people who play HR expect all skills immediately, there is no effort for those skills, HR essentially removes any effort at all, and yet, if you had a nutcase grinder, whether it be low rate or high rate, he's still going to be a million levels in front, it's just the lazy folk have all the skills too.
Then again, we are yet to see a server that makes people level to 40 in over a couple of weeks, server owners want longevity, yet the community want all the skills now.. it's a tough ask.. Personally I'm thinking a server, even if it is low rate, can easily be entertaining, and giving you that feeling of progression, certainly with the quest option and with the gazillion skins for armours and items.. What server owners NEED to do is make leveling MORE linear, if a low rate for example, give quests etc, every level from 31 onwards, a new armour, a new weapon, armours are the best example as they make everyone stand out on screen, but you get my drift.
I think that's what 99% of servers are missing, they have the new items / quests / moves, but nobody seems to have a clue when it comes to playability. Before starting a server, the team should actually sit back and decide how character progression is going to happen. This is why they all fail, everyone just jumps in and then realise it isn't going to work. With euro they could get away with it because it was so slow, they had months, even years to plan ahead. This is why personally a low rate is always going to win for longevity, purely because you have time with which to map out character progression.
Your argument about longetiviy is invalid as all it is a number range, The large the number the more the player feels like there progressing, also you can have more stat variety. Whats the difference of 0-40 or 0-400 (x10) or 0-4000 (x100) or 0-40,000 (x1000) there is no difference except the number is larger.
Granted it would be abit wierd if everyone was running around with 72k DC, but ive yet to actually see that on a server, most stay under the 10k Mark.
A LR can never work, as todays MMORPG gamers are content junkies, . The reason we all hold euro mir so dear is for the majority of us it was our first MMORPG, and the it was addictive for a year or so. Euro mir's declined started around 7 years before it actually closed , and the reason for that is No new content, and it was to Grindy for the european market. Not to mention bad management, rampant cheats and exploits and corrupt game masters. It was actually one of the worst games ive ever played and i quickly moved to private servers.
People like to progress, yes they also like to feel like they've achieved something but there's a balance to be struck between this for example hunting OK for 4 years to get a DSS is not "progression or achievment" its just pure dumb luck.
A HR Can also effectivly re-balance the playing field with every major expansion and gives the user the feeling of a new world to explore, for example TH HR started out as 0-200, then moved 200-300, effectivly nulling all the gains the player had made in the previous expansion (much like WOW does, which is the most popular MMORPG in the world).
Obviously we dont want to go down the road of copying WOW totally, as thats a PVE game, mir is a PVP/social based game, anyone who plays it for PVE is just a wierdo imo.
The majority of the fun in Mir is guilds competeting each other for worthwhile rewards, any server which doesnt reconise this will die very quickly regardless if its LR/HR as people will do the content, then look to their guilds and social interactions to provide the entertainment (e.g OKS/MK/ZT fights on euro) If a server doesnt promote this type of gameplay people get bored very quickly.
E.g Ace Mir V1 , Nothing to actually do once you've completed the Euro content you've all ready done 100x's over which is why there was a rapid population decline after the first 2 months. On the other coin you have Three heros, were they have BW/MW wars through the day and group bosses (which cant be solo'ed) which majority of the time drop something usefull (motivating players to go and for guilds to compete) and that has always (when ben ran it) had a stable UC of around 100-150, rarely ever dipping. People arnt going to be motivated anymore to travel an hour to solo a boss which 99% of the time drops a HP Pot, The days of that are long gone and just simply dont work anymore. In todays instant gratification society people want to see measurable progress over time, Not hit a brickwall for 3 years , which is ultimatly what will happen in a LR.
+ The whole concept over a LR being better for "Longetivity" when its content is capped at a maximum of level 50-70 is totally illogical. How is something that is caped at level 50-70, better than something which has no high end cap? Obviously a HR is going to be able to progress alot more and keep people interested and playing more.
If you make the game to "Hard" i wouldnt actually call it "Hard" as euro mir was not "Hard" it just had really low drop rates(which is not based on skill, or time/effort put in, its based on pure dumb luck), people will get bored the minute they feel they are no longer progressing, as that is the whole point of a game. If you hit level 40-44 and then have nothing to do other than camp bosses for gear, after 3 months of camping the same bosses and just recieving a HPPot for your time, your going to be pretty ****ed off and most likely quit.
The whole idea of Mirs skill leveling system is retarded, anything that can be done AFK does not belong in a RPG. Quests also dont belong in Mir, this isnt WOW we are a sandbox social driven game, not a theme park handholding festival, no1 wants to do 600 kill 10 of this quests, there boring and there not even quests there simplying grinding which restricts your movements and makes the leveling more Linear and strict.
basiclly, Grinding for years on the same ****, is not fun and never has been fun, we just simply didnt know any better at the time as the MMORPG genre was relativly new. People like to progress at a steady pace, and being a LR doesnt offer that after the first 3 months as the very nature of a LR means you will hit a massive progression brickwall.
and your idea of making the journey to 40 last longer than a couple of weeks, no-one would play that, No-one likes to be a n00b forever running around with **** looking weapons/armours and crap skills. PVP is totaly boring nowdays without 2.3 skills aswell.
At the end of the day, people will always disagree and prefer what they like, How-ever any LR based server will always fail within 6months - 1 year. The same people are repeatdly letting Nologista rule over reason/progression pushing for LR's then complaining CONSTANTLY when their on the LR's that there is no new content and their progression is stalled..........*facepalm*.
/Rant over.
P.s Scorps a Douche and Arcadia is ****. hoho~~