Powerleveling

While playing Pokemon, I had some trouble with a Gym. The solution? Powerleveling. Powerleveling is when you go fight monsters only to level up, not to beat quests or something like that. Ussually, it is just clicking on monsters and it is not very fun. But, it is nessecary in most rpgs. And most gamers are okay with that. I am. But just leveling up for the sake of leveling up will alienate most casual gamers who can't afford to spend hours grinding will be put-off. There is no easy solution, but most casual gamers will not touch Oblivion or Zelda or any rpg, just because they do not have enough time to play.

Normally, this would not be a problem. Many genres thrive without the support of casual gamer. But the rpg genre is HUGE. It will be fine without the support of the casual market, just not as fine. But this whole problem could be bypassed, had rpg makers simply put adjustable difficulty setttings in their games. Any casual gamer who is serious about playing an rpg will probaly have to run a shared account, where a more experienced gamer helps them out. But, this will lead to arguments and is probaly not the best choice.

If said casual gamer is playing an mmo, he can hire a powerleveling service to level him. They work like this: You give then your credit card number. Then you give them your name and password. Then they hack your account and start playing. Well not playing, grinding. Grinding is when you go to an area where the enemys are low enough level not to be a threat, but are high enough level to give some good exp. You will level there very quickly. It is also very boring while grinding. So while the company is leveling your character, you sit back and relax.

After a couple of days, you will get an email of notification of your leveling is completed. Then you can log on play on your newly high level character. The downside to this is that you will not know as much about your character as you should, your quests won't be done and other players will avoid you as you will not know any abbreiveations. You gear will be crap. And you will have lost hundred to two hundred dollars.

Only time will tell whether people will get smart to powerlevleling services, or whether rpg maker's will include difficulty settings.