Of all the MMOs I've played, only DAOC really left me with a feeling that I'd earned it. It took me 7 months to hit 50, granted I solo'd 90% of it, but the grind took real grit and that final ding was an awe of accomplishment. Nothing sense has ever gave that feel and I believe it may be due to carebear lvling.

Should there be a gritty level grind all the freeking way to 50? Should you earn it? Or should it be effortless and expected?

The game should be fun enough that you don't care about things like how long it's taking you to get to the next level.

I remember my first level 50 in DAoC. Watching the bubble slowly increase, telling /guild I was .5 bubs. It was great.

DAoC levelling is a thing of the past. The grind aspect isn't something that is going to come back any time soon. Spending hours in the same dungeon, same spot killing the same mobs just isn't what the MMO community wants any more. I do, sounds like you do as well but we're minorities nowadays.

When a game is about looking at a bar while killing stuff and turning in quest that you haven't read to get to the next level, then I call it bad game design.

When a game is so fun and engaging that you don't even notice that you increase in level (or care), then I call it very good game design.

I prefer the latter.

The level should (in my opinion) be the means with which you access more content, not the goal itself. And the more seamless that progression becomes, the better.

i am all for getting to experience that again

Even daoc was a downward tune of the leveling experience from previous mmos.

I got bored watching that that last 10 lvls go by in daoc and it coincided with that three month drop off point that a lot of mmos seem to have. I left about month 4 or 5 due to just not having any real purpose other than grinding out the last lvls that seemed to take for ever.

Pretty much the same thing for me in wow.

I hope that the lvl boost for Cryodiil takes some of that away and I hope they put in some kind of housing system that I feel more attached to rather than just spawning in some random npc town beside the bank when I log in every time. MMO's have a retention problem and I think it is directly related to becoming lost in endless progression and leveling fatigue. But also what to do once you get there. The only reason I play a game like Skyrim so long is that I can make a new character and play the game totally different several times. The game does not get stale as fast that way.

TES games have always been good in that by just playing the game, the character levels mostly take care of themselves. I have never had to grind for a level in these games. I may have grinded a skill just before level up, but that was infrequent, and only if I needed a skill level for a faction or something. Hopefully TESO is the same way.