Traditionally, MMORPGs follow the typical formula of create a character, level up, end-game. My question is, are levels really all that necessary?
The Good
Levels give new players much needed guide rails. You know when you see that "Level 1" printed on your character sheet that its time to go out and get some experience points. They also separate content that's meant for higher level characters - something that might be difficult to do without a level system.
The Bad
They separate content that's meant for higher level characters. Yes, that can also be a bad thing. What if all content was available to you as soon as you create a character? What if there were other forms of advancement?
This bleeds into another bad point about leveling: ~90% of in-game content is designed to help you level up. With a different type of progression system, you can still feel like your character is growing and advancing, without the need for wasted content, IE, everything is end-game. There could be a reason to go back to any zone!
This thread discussed why leveling is necessary, but all anyone could muster to say that made any sense was that it gave players a scale to show how they've advanced. Well there can be other scales (gear, class advancement, skill progression, titles etc.), and to me those make more sense flavor-wise than levels do.
I feel that a skill-based combat system can negate the need for level-based advancement. But some of you might say: How do I know which monsters I can beat when there are no levels? Well, that can be remedied in any number of ways. But first and foremost, a little common sense never hurt anyone - if a player see's a wolf, he knows he can probably kill it. If its small, he can probably kill it. But if its a giant magma elemental, that player might have enough sense to call a few friends to aide him. If not, trial and error - and we'll talk about death penalties later (that's a whole other can of worms).
This tradition of leveling up - it feels dated. Nowadays, [some] players want immediate action, and levels (not to mention consistently increasing level caps) prevent them from getting that. The term 'end-game' doesn't have to exist.
