[dtech]

Specifically, with World of Warcraft it's a game that takes all of your time.

It's an endless treadmill with diminishing returns. It's full of (digital, ultimately meaningless) rewards which make you stand out above the rest of the players. Some of them are worthless in a few weeks/months (e.g. gear), some of it is timeless (e.g. mounts) but takes 100's of tries (every try 30-60 min) for that 1-5% chance to some mount.

When I played the game, there were people who did nothing all Wednesday (when they could try again for the week) but running hours and hours of dungeons just so they could have a change to get the last 10-100 rare mounts they missed.

The highest-tier end-game content requires large groups (20 players + reserves) to coordinate schedules and tackle dungeons together. This causes enormous social pressure to keep showing up because otherwise the group can't play the game and everyone is mad at you.

It's perfectly possible to play it casually without participating in the above, but it's a game that has a lot of traps for people prone to addiction to fall into.

[guildan]

I would add that you can suffer from "Altolism" too and this was my case. I could not commit time for raiding or doing high-end content so I would just levels characters to max level.

So one main for solo content of the week and then back to leveling alts.

[jsgo]

the game kind of forces this with 2 trade skill max for characters (provided you are interested in that part of the game, that is. But I've always gravitated towards that from my first MMO Ultima Online playing a blacksmith/miner).

And then Legion with the content that was specific to each class. Loved that idea, but it really made you feel like you were missing out if you didn't have x class to see something.

If FFXI's leveling wasn't so group focused and slow, I'd probably love that system above anyone else: I do like the idea of needing to level various classes, but I'd prefer it be all on one character instead of 12 or so I need to manage.

[lreeves]

>If FFXI's leveling wasn't so group focused and slow, I'd probably love that system above anyone else: I do like the idea of needing to level various classes, but I'd prefer it be all on one character instead of 12 or so I need to manage.

Wouldn't FFXIV fit the bill?

[jsgo]

FFXIV's mechanic is that you swap gear and that swaps class or something to that effect (I'm not 100% sure). So if I leveled to 15 in ClassA, put on gear for ClassB, I'm a level 15 ClassB.

I'd prefer the job system where you switch to ClassB, but have to level accordingly. I'd hate to be max level of ClassA and then want to try another class and out level content to really practice the class properly (or be swamped with skills early) or end up being unable to help a group because skill in another class is inadequate.

So basically, FFXI but with soloable leveling (in FFXI apparently you could solo with beastmastery or something as a subclass, pet tanking I believe, but it wasn't a starting class so you'd have to work to get it).

[nightski]

No you have to level all jobs individually in FFXIV. Changing the weapon does change the class but you still have to level.

[jsgo]

oh, well I may just have to give that another look then. Thank you both for correcting my misunderstanding of that mechanic.