Hey, midgame MMORPG players! I see you! Yeah, you. You don’t really like playing baby toons or “finished” characters; you gets tons of characters to 35 or 40 and enjoy them but don’t really see much need to push on to endgame because the part of the game you liked is in the middle. You like the journeying across overland zones that are still pleasantly pretty, the feeling of meaningful progression that isn’t too fast or slow, the focus on questing or hunting rather than dungeoning or gear grinding.
We live in a genre laser-focused on the endgame, but if you’re not that kind of gamer, that can be so frustrating. This is one of the reasons I’ve been pleased to see LOTRO add several zones over the last few years that are nowhere near the endgame but instead give characters in the lower third of leveling brackets something fresh to do because let’s face it: More players are going to see those zones than anything tacked on to the end. Similarly, it’s why I love MMOs that adopt level-agnosticism of one flavor or another because it makes most of the game the midgame.
Should MMOs focus more on their midgame content and players?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
