WoW was the same, it was just that most of the playerbase ended up at max level and so that is where most of the content was developed.
You are talking as if players just happened to stumble into max level. Like Blizzard reps went into work one day and saw, "Oh hey everyone. Most of our playerbase is max level. What do we do?"
If you think the concept of "end game" was developed in retrospect, by any gaming company, after realizing that players were reaching max level, you are sadly mistaken.
And as for WoW being "action packed" throughout the leveling process, surely it is so wonderfully fluent that they didn't decide to reduce the required level for slow mounts, and put the minimum dungeon finder level at 15.
Do you actually remember hoofing it on your Tauren over to Org before you had the FP? Do you remember running from Stormwind to Redridge to get that one? If you think for one moment that was "action packed and eventful", perhaps you should hop off of your 310% flying mount, and give that journey another run-through.
As it is now, PoE takes a huge amount of time investment to even reach the point of good combat.
Right. You can get to level 70 in 3 days played or less. How long does it take you to reach the level 70 equivalent (ie. able to do end game content) in many other games? Let's see... WoW without BoAs, D3 without BoAs, D2 without rushes, FFVII without Game Genie...
I feel like most of these arguments are so black and white. PoE has a lot of great ideas (highly customizable characters, refillable flasks with affixes) but it has a long way to go before it is the same quality level as D3.
Better combat (especially early on) would do wonders for the game.
I guess you missed the part where you can get to level 20 in like 2 hours, yes?
Calling people fanboys is silly. You're just categorizing me to make things easier for you. Stick to debating arguments rather than people.
I've played all of the games you are talking about extensively except for PoE. Personally I never felt like FF7 was a grind, in most good rpgs the experience of getting to max level is better than being at max levels/stats/whatever. I can't say the endgame of dying to emerald weapon eight thousand times was fun tbh.
In retrospect, vanilla WoW leveling seems bad but it was great at the time. Also remember the original endgame was pretty terrible too. UBRS and Stratholme were like the only good instances to do until they introduced Molten Core. I played paladin at launch which was probably the most boring class and still enjoyed the sheer amount of stuff Blizzard had put into one mmo.
I have 2 level 40ish characters from PoE and I think you are vastly underestimating the time it takes to level a character unless you are just facerolling through content. I know I've played each character for more than three days each and I'm not close to 70. I have a feeling you'll say something about that Either way, early game is incredibly important in video games. There should be excitement and curiosity from the beginning or the game may lose fans.
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Calling people fanboys is silly. You're just categorizing me to make things easier for you. Stick to debating arguments rather than people.
I've played all of the games you are talking about extensively except for PoE. Personally I never felt like FF7 was a grind, in most good rpgs the experience of getting to max level is better than being at max levels/stats/whatever. I can't say the endgame of dying to emerald weapon eight thousand times was fun tbh.
In retrospect, vanilla WoW leveling seems bad but it was great at the time. Also remember the original endgame was pretty terrible too. UBRS and Stratholme were like the only good instances to do until they introduced Molten Core. I played paladin at launch which was probably the most boring class and still enjoyed the sheer amount of stuff Blizzard had put into one mmo.
I have 2 level 40ish characters from PoE and I think you are vastly underestimating the time it takes to level a character unless you are just facerolling through content. I know I've played each character for more than three days each and I'm not close to 70. I have a feeling you'll say something about that
3
Well yeah, D3 is the better game.
1
Those copies were not free, having to pay for a full year of WoW is an entry cost. This is extremely nitpicky on your part.