Former World of Warcraft designer says streamlined MMO levelling is a mistake: "Getting to level cap shouldn't be a blip, but an accomplishment"

World of Warcraft: The War Within, despite all reasonable doubts, has so far proven to be a pretty decent game. It's got a story that is trying to regain its composure and nippy, alt-friendly leveling and gameplay. You can level up characters in a jiffy with a stacking XP boost.

Greg 'Ghostcrawler Street', a veteran designer of both World of Warcraft and the League of Legends MMO (which is still in purgatory), however, seems to believe that this direction for MMO is a step too much, as he explained in a set of tweets he sent recently (thanks GamesRadar).

"Someone asked if it was a mistake for me to streamline the leveling experience and let the players get to the final game asap, because that's what the love. Street writes, "My answer is yes." "I believe it's because of the leveling experience that we fell in love and invested in MMOs. I think reaching level cap should be a big deal, not just a blip.

This is all within the context of Ghost, the designer’s new MMO, which is being developed by Netease’s Fantastic Pixel Castle. While he believes that a good endgame is important, "I also believe the levelling should be challenging. It should require a bit more effort than just cruising through it so you can raid." Even when I played WoW, I held this opinion.

While I can feel the nostalgia goblin in my chest rising to cheer, a larger part of me is not sure we can return to those halcyon times Street is referring to, here. Even World of Warcraft: Classic was a huge change. Players were able to mug Ragnaros in less than a month. A feat that took months in 2005.

It's not that all MMOs don't focus on the journey. Final Fantasy 14 is an excellent example. But it's a single-player narrative role-playing game with an MMO on the underbelly. And even then, getting to the next story beat is more important than the levelling process. A single character can also switch between jobs outside of combat (although they still need to level them separately).

Street responded with a simple "No" when asked if Ghost's players would have to replay its entire campaign again to experience all the options and classes it promises. At the very least, Street's team is taking this into consideration.

Variety and flavour are two of the strengths of briskly leveling in WoW and similar MMOs. It's satisfying to have a group of alts that you can switch between. The Warbands feature allowed me to play the main campaign with my rogue, while stopping to do side quests on my mage. Now that the journey is over, I don't see the point in repeating it.