I am not sure how many people here enjoy playing WoW, or MMOs in general. I enjoyed much of the time I spent playing WoW. But I have not been playing for quite some time. I have sampled a range of other MMOs. While I really enjoyed Eve Online. Most of the other games just don't seem to have the right touch to be really great games like WoW has the potential to be.
I don't have a paid account with blizzard right now so I can't post this on their forums. I am hoping this idea leaks over to them somehow and maybe someday this will be implemented in some way. I would go back to Warcraft if I was able to roll back my character in some way that made sense, and made more quality content available at the level of challenge for which it was designed.
I am sorry this is so long. But I am really seeking to address people who may be able to use this idea and carry it forward, rather then the masses of uninterested bystanders.
It seems odd on the surface that when players enter the game they are more or less encouraged to try their best to fast forward through the content and disregard everything the game has to offer except what is necessary to level. It is like going to see a movie and fast forwarding through most of the movie to get to the last few scenes. Just skipping the movie scenes may actually be more enjoyable but there is no skip button only a fast forward, so people are stuck grinding through the lower levels for what can be quite a while. Some parts of that grind may be said to be enjoyable but I think it is safe to say that often that grind becomes boring and unpleasant. Then players seem to arrive at the end and it is almost like at that movie if once we got to the last few scenes someone kept playing the last scene over and over. People get tired and bored of it and wait desperately for even just a little new snippet. This continues until a whole new section is added to the game at which point the majority of people again fast forward themselves to the new ending for a repeat performance.
While this may be fun and exciting way to play a game for a great many people. There are a lot of people that would enjoy a chance to delve into some of the rest of the game content without having to reroll every time we want to see Blackfathom Deeps again at level, or be challenged again by the ominous vastness of Blackrock Depths. To add to that, it would be great for some guilds and friends playing Warcraft to be able to challenge themselves together in an instance or raid before end game. All those long hours spent leveling may not feel quite so lonely (soloing 70-80 levels of an MMO?) if once in a while the guild or friends could unwind the clocks a bit to go run something fun and interesting with their lower level friends. This would be a great way to see more of the amazing content spread all around the world, and a chance for new and old players to gain confidance and skill instancing and even raiding in all types of content.
Part of the reason the rush to end game takes place I think is that is the only level at which you are sure to meet up with your friends level wise. During leveling sometimes if you are lucky a friend or two will be around your level for a few instances worth of content but then something usually happens to that and you are stuck again soloing your way up, until you rejoin everyone at end game. Giving players the choice to retroactively meet up with their friends would be an amazing way to help build a more robust gaming community throughout the entire game, not just at the end.
There are going to be many players that do not understand this idea and why someone would want it. Many players, I think, enjoy getting the biggest baddest newest gear. That high end gear seems to be the crux of the game for them. That is a fine way to play, and if you enjoy that I say stick with it. Just please realize that there are many players (perhaps not as many, but still quite a few) who enjoy simply playing through the creative and imaginative content, and for whom the rewards may not be as concrete as a phat purple drop, but may be something as silly as some knickknack they found while wandering around some forgotten instance, or just the memories of having faced amazing challenges with their friends.
If you would give players the ability for some kind of comprehensive roll back system I would come back to the game, and I would be bringing some friends. How all the details work out are fairly immaterial so long as the basic concept gets implemented at some point. That being said I have a few ideas for some of the details. These ideas regarding details should not be taken by smaller minds to constitute the backbone of the idea. But rather it should be kept clear in everyone's mind that the overall big idea here is that many of us would like some way to roll back our characters so that we could enjoy game content with our lower level friends, or just lower level content that we may have missed. (Who hasn't thought it would be cool to play through Deadmines, at level, as a Deathknight just once?)
Detail 1: Scale back or roll back?
There would be many ways to roll back or scale back characters. It may be worth giving players a choice if that is possible. But maybe it would just be basically one or the other. This choice would need to be made for several separate areas and could have a different answer in each of the areas. The areas I see would be Talents, Gear, and Spells. A scale back in each of these may involve less fuss and be more seamlessly applied then a full roll back. Any area a scale back was applied to would simply need a scale applied to it and very simply (from the players point of view) all their stats from gear, power of spells, and benefits from talents would be simply scaled back to make them more appropriate for the level they have chosen to roll back to. On the other hand, in a full roll back for each of those areas, players may have to deal with more fuss but overall I think the experience may be more authentic. Rolling back each of these areas would simply mean having the person chose the talents to lose to take him back to the number he would have had at that level, to make the person bank his high level gear and go find a few pieces from AH or off some dead critters to put on over his underwear, and for spells simply deactivate any spells that wouldn't have been available at that level and roll the others back to their appropriate level. I think giving the players the opportunity to chose to roll back or scale back these things would be great. But I guess any mixture of the two that works would still be cool.
Detail 2: Experience Rewards
Now obviously people rolling back and playing through old content may get a chance to earn some retro reputation with various factions. But what about experience? I think what you wouldn't want is too much reward here, so that it is seen to be easier to roll back to level, but some small rewards could still be in order. Perhaps just giving the experience that lower level mobs already give would be scaled well enough to work. It would take an awful lot of level 10 murlocks to budge a level 79s experience bar much. The other way to do it would be to reward rested experience instead of actual experience. That way people rolling back aren't actually "progressing" until they go back to their original level and begin to use up some of the rested experience they built up. You could reward rested experience based on the mobs original experience rewards for the level. So again a level 10 murlock would reward a lot less rested experience then a level 30 or 70 murlock would.
Detail 3: Retro Gear (Certified Gear)
One of the complaints that I think everyone hears more then once, has something to do with the scarcity of options concerning how your character looks in gear with good stats on it. The gear one earns in dungeons, raids, or pvp at higher levels can often blend in a little too well with what the guy next to you earned. There is a slight loss of individuality there. While more varied gear sets help this somewhat, I think there would be a way to introduce some retro gear into the mix, to give players a wide range of options on the appearance of their characters. To do this would simply require each instance to be rated based on what level is most appropriate for the instance. For instance Deadmines may have a level rating somewhere between 15 and 18. Please don't start an argument about what the level would actually be. This is just for the sake of example. For example, lets say it was decided that Deadmines Certified level was 17. Then when a group went in that had no player over 17 (though some of the players may have had to roll themselves back to 17 and may actually be level 80) they would have the option to certify gear that dropped inside. What could then happen if perhaps Smites Hammer dropped and one of the level 80s who rolled themselves back to 17 rolls for it and wins the drop. Now that item is soulbound and certified to level 80. If it was a level 65 who rolled themselves back the item would be certified to level 65. What this would mean is that there would be some process in the game, either a NPC or maybe something for scribes or enchanters, so that stats from high level gear could be infused into the certified gear. The level of gear that could be infused would be based on the true level of the player when he obtained the certified gear. In another example, lets say someone liked the way one of the tier sets from classic or BC content looks. They could set out to earn the old gear certified to 80. They could then take the stats from high end gear and have them applied (or infused) to the Certified gear. Then people could really go crazy individualizing their characters and I think it would be a lot of fun to see what people came up with. You may expect to see a few armor sets from scarlet monastery come back, or classic raiders gear, or even Kara gear people liked. The gear could be set so it gave the original stats when the player scaled themselves back again, and then give the higher stats when the player returned to their true level. This way guilds or players could be working on raiding sets from Classic, BC, or current end game content.
Again, I want to say these 3 details are marginal in importance. They are simply some tidbits to flesh out how some of the main idea could gain traction with a wide range of people. Of course all of this should be completely optional. And of course the rewards gained from roll back fun should never equal the rewards that can be obtained by progressing at true level. But the big idea is to give people the option to roll back characters temporarily for any reason they may chose. I think giving people this option would greatly increase the overall satisfaction with the game that many players are currently lacking. I think it would help tremendously with the in-game community. Please consider this. I want to come back, to a great game with a lot of great content. But I really don't want to be involved in the virtual rat race as it exists in the game currently. While, I know, some people enjoy that style of play, opening up options to people with different styles of play would be a very healthy thing for the World of Warcraft.
Sincerely
Styzx, Egan, N Co
I don't have a paid account with blizzard right now so I can't post this on their forums. I am hoping this idea leaks over to them somehow and maybe someday this will be implemented in some way. I would go back to Warcraft if I was able to roll back my character in some way that made sense, and made more quality content available at the level of challenge for which it was designed.
I am sorry this is so long. But I am really seeking to address people who may be able to use this idea and carry it forward, rather then the masses of uninterested bystanders.
It seems odd on the surface that when players enter the game they are more or less encouraged to try their best to fast forward through the content and disregard everything the game has to offer except what is necessary to level. It is like going to see a movie and fast forwarding through most of the movie to get to the last few scenes. Just skipping the movie scenes may actually be more enjoyable but there is no skip button only a fast forward, so people are stuck grinding through the lower levels for what can be quite a while. Some parts of that grind may be said to be enjoyable but I think it is safe to say that often that grind becomes boring and unpleasant. Then players seem to arrive at the end and it is almost like at that movie if once we got to the last few scenes someone kept playing the last scene over and over. People get tired and bored of it and wait desperately for even just a little new snippet. This continues until a whole new section is added to the game at which point the majority of people again fast forward themselves to the new ending for a repeat performance.
While this may be fun and exciting way to play a game for a great many people. There are a lot of people that would enjoy a chance to delve into some of the rest of the game content without having to reroll every time we want to see Blackfathom Deeps again at level, or be challenged again by the ominous vastness of Blackrock Depths. To add to that, it would be great for some guilds and friends playing Warcraft to be able to challenge themselves together in an instance or raid before end game. All those long hours spent leveling may not feel quite so lonely (soloing 70-80 levels of an MMO?) if once in a while the guild or friends could unwind the clocks a bit to go run something fun and interesting with their lower level friends. This would be a great way to see more of the amazing content spread all around the world, and a chance for new and old players to gain confidance and skill instancing and even raiding in all types of content.
Part of the reason the rush to end game takes place I think is that is the only level at which you are sure to meet up with your friends level wise. During leveling sometimes if you are lucky a friend or two will be around your level for a few instances worth of content but then something usually happens to that and you are stuck again soloing your way up, until you rejoin everyone at end game. Giving players the choice to retroactively meet up with their friends would be an amazing way to help build a more robust gaming community throughout the entire game, not just at the end.
There are going to be many players that do not understand this idea and why someone would want it. Many players, I think, enjoy getting the biggest baddest newest gear. That high end gear seems to be the crux of the game for them. That is a fine way to play, and if you enjoy that I say stick with it. Just please realize that there are many players (perhaps not as many, but still quite a few) who enjoy simply playing through the creative and imaginative content, and for whom the rewards may not be as concrete as a phat purple drop, but may be something as silly as some knickknack they found while wandering around some forgotten instance, or just the memories of having faced amazing challenges with their friends.
If you would give players the ability for some kind of comprehensive roll back system I would come back to the game, and I would be bringing some friends. How all the details work out are fairly immaterial so long as the basic concept gets implemented at some point. That being said I have a few ideas for some of the details. These ideas regarding details should not be taken by smaller minds to constitute the backbone of the idea. But rather it should be kept clear in everyone's mind that the overall big idea here is that many of us would like some way to roll back our characters so that we could enjoy game content with our lower level friends, or just lower level content that we may have missed. (Who hasn't thought it would be cool to play through Deadmines, at level, as a Deathknight just once?)
Detail 1: Scale back or roll back?
There would be many ways to roll back or scale back characters. It may be worth giving players a choice if that is possible. But maybe it would just be basically one or the other. This choice would need to be made for several separate areas and could have a different answer in each of the areas. The areas I see would be Talents, Gear, and Spells. A scale back in each of these may involve less fuss and be more seamlessly applied then a full roll back. Any area a scale back was applied to would simply need a scale applied to it and very simply (from the players point of view) all their stats from gear, power of spells, and benefits from talents would be simply scaled back to make them more appropriate for the level they have chosen to roll back to. On the other hand, in a full roll back for each of those areas, players may have to deal with more fuss but overall I think the experience may be more authentic. Rolling back each of these areas would simply mean having the person chose the talents to lose to take him back to the number he would have had at that level, to make the person bank his high level gear and go find a few pieces from AH or off some dead critters to put on over his underwear, and for spells simply deactivate any spells that wouldn't have been available at that level and roll the others back to their appropriate level. I think giving the players the opportunity to chose to roll back or scale back these things would be great. But I guess any mixture of the two that works would still be cool.
Detail 2: Experience Rewards
Now obviously people rolling back and playing through old content may get a chance to earn some retro reputation with various factions. But what about experience? I think what you wouldn't want is too much reward here, so that it is seen to be easier to roll back to level, but some small rewards could still be in order. Perhaps just giving the experience that lower level mobs already give would be scaled well enough to work. It would take an awful lot of level 10 murlocks to budge a level 79s experience bar much. The other way to do it would be to reward rested experience instead of actual experience. That way people rolling back aren't actually "progressing" until they go back to their original level and begin to use up some of the rested experience they built up. You could reward rested experience based on the mobs original experience rewards for the level. So again a level 10 murlock would reward a lot less rested experience then a level 30 or 70 murlock would.
Detail 3: Retro Gear (Certified Gear)
One of the complaints that I think everyone hears more then once, has something to do with the scarcity of options concerning how your character looks in gear with good stats on it. The gear one earns in dungeons, raids, or pvp at higher levels can often blend in a little too well with what the guy next to you earned. There is a slight loss of individuality there. While more varied gear sets help this somewhat, I think there would be a way to introduce some retro gear into the mix, to give players a wide range of options on the appearance of their characters. To do this would simply require each instance to be rated based on what level is most appropriate for the instance. For instance Deadmines may have a level rating somewhere between 15 and 18. Please don't start an argument about what the level would actually be. This is just for the sake of example. For example, lets say it was decided that Deadmines Certified level was 17. Then when a group went in that had no player over 17 (though some of the players may have had to roll themselves back to 17 and may actually be level 80) they would have the option to certify gear that dropped inside. What could then happen if perhaps Smites Hammer dropped and one of the level 80s who rolled themselves back to 17 rolls for it and wins the drop. Now that item is soulbound and certified to level 80. If it was a level 65 who rolled themselves back the item would be certified to level 65. What this would mean is that there would be some process in the game, either a NPC or maybe something for scribes or enchanters, so that stats from high level gear could be infused into the certified gear. The level of gear that could be infused would be based on the true level of the player when he obtained the certified gear. In another example, lets say someone liked the way one of the tier sets from classic or BC content looks. They could set out to earn the old gear certified to 80. They could then take the stats from high end gear and have them applied (or infused) to the Certified gear. Then people could really go crazy individualizing their characters and I think it would be a lot of fun to see what people came up with. You may expect to see a few armor sets from scarlet monastery come back, or classic raiders gear, or even Kara gear people liked. The gear could be set so it gave the original stats when the player scaled themselves back again, and then give the higher stats when the player returned to their true level. This way guilds or players could be working on raiding sets from Classic, BC, or current end game content.
Again, I want to say these 3 details are marginal in importance. They are simply some tidbits to flesh out how some of the main idea could gain traction with a wide range of people. Of course all of this should be completely optional. And of course the rewards gained from roll back fun should never equal the rewards that can be obtained by progressing at true level. But the big idea is to give people the option to roll back characters temporarily for any reason they may chose. I think giving people this option would greatly increase the overall satisfaction with the game that many players are currently lacking. I think it would help tremendously with the in-game community. Please consider this. I want to come back, to a great game with a lot of great content. But I really don't want to be involved in the virtual rat race as it exists in the game currently. While, I know, some people enjoy that style of play, opening up options to people with different styles of play would be a very healthy thing for the World of Warcraft.
Sincerely
Styzx, Egan, N Co
) and I am in the same boat as you, to a certain extent. 
