I have this collegue, who like me, likes to play computer games, mostly the online variety. This collegue however has never had a top tier character nor has he ever reached any end game content. He blames it on “alt-itis”, you know that affiction where you start one character get it to leverl 20 or 30 and start another.
We’ve discussed some of why this happens. Sometimes it’s lack of satisfaction with the character. It just doesn’t feel right. Sometimes it turns out to be not as much fun to play.
Right now I have two level capped characters in Rift. One I pretty much abandoned shortly after I got there. The other I’ve been fairly dillegent in playing and have even done a few dugeons with. What I have noticed is that now she’s as high as she can go until the expansion hits and playing her mostly feels like work.
Really, at the top end playing that character feels more like a job whe I go to play her. I have crafting dailes to do. I have to go farm the high end materials to do the Master Crafting dailies. And on top of that, because I didn’t do dungeons as I went along leveling, now I need to go back and do dungeons to get mark to get good gear to get to the next level of dungeons.
We’re going to skip some of the reasons I didn’t do dungeons all along and stick with one of the main reasons I still don’t do dungeons. My character role is DPS. DPS tend to be a dime a dozen, though I think the going rate these days for a dozen DPS might be closer to about 2 pennies. You usually need 2 to 3 DPS for a basic 5 person dungeon. Since everyone is DPS, there aren’t enough people queues for the other roles so a DPS person might be waiting 45 to 90 minutes for a dungeon when playing solo such as I. I do not have the interest or the patience to wait that long just to run through a dungeon as fast as someone can and not get to experience the place. Or get the loot or materials that might be lurking there.
Once you get to the level cap, where the endgame content begins, this is where I think the game becomes work. Lest you think I am picking on Rift, I will share that I felt the same with my character in World of Warcraft.
Perhaps it is the way I choose to play these games. Maybe it is the wat the game is designed. I think it has more to do with the evolution of the culture within the game as it is played. I suspect it is a little of all of it.
I do know, that for me, it is the leveling process that is fun. Getting to see new areas and challenges. Getting new skills to try out and getting new gear. Those are the fun bits. Just working to get the gear to do a dungeon or raid? That’s too much like a job.
Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.
