Experience point
From Free net encyclopedia
Experience points (often abbreviated as exp or xp) are a representation of a character's advancement and improvement in skills in role-playing games. Experience points are generally awarded for the defeat of opponents, monsters and other obstacles, but may also be awarded for successful role-playing. Image:Ct experience points.PNG In games derived from Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), an accumulation of experience points increases a character's level (known as leveling or leveling up), which gives the character a predetermined improvement in his or her abilities. In other games, such as GURPS, RuneScape and the World of Darkness games, experience points are spent on specific abilities or attributes chosen by the player. Experience levels fell out of vogue during the late 1980s and most of the 1990s, but began to come back with the 2000 release of D&D 3rd Edition and the d20 System. Some systems that use a level-based experience system also incorporate the ability to purchase specific traits with a set amount of experience; for example, D&D 3rd Edition bases the creation of magical items around a system of experience expenditure (known as burning xp).
In most games, as the difficulty of the challenge increases, the experience rewarded for completing it also increases. As players gain more experience points and/or levels, the amount of experience needed to gain new abilities or levels typically increases. Other games (mostly video games) produce a similar effect in a different way, by keeping the amount of experience points per level constant, but progressively lowering the experience gained for the same tasks as the character's level increases. Thus, as the player character strengthens from gaining experience, they are encouraged to accept tasks that are commensurate with their improved abilities in order to advance.
Some RPGs (notably MUDs and MMORPGs) place a limit on how much experience a character can gain from a single encounter or challenge, hoping that it will reduce the effectiveness of powerleveling.
Remorting, or to remort, is another technique, while encouraging powerleveling, can alleviate the ill effects that powerleveling can cause by still giving the player a sense of achievement but keeping a balance with other characters of lower level within the RPG.
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Leveling up
In some role-playing games, leveling up is a process which occurs when a character passes a threshold number of experience points. The character often increases in one or more character attributes, such as hit points.
Use
The phrase "Levelling up" is used today in many RPGs when referring to the event of gaining a level. When a player character gains a level, he or she is considered to be more powerful. Characters are encouraged to increase their power in order to be able to overcome more difficult challenges in the course of their adventures. In many games, characters are required to be of a certain level or higher to perform certain actions, such as wielding a certain weapon, entering a restricted area, or earning the respect of a non-player character. Some games use a system of "Character Levels", where a higher level character always has an absolute advantage over one of lower level. In these games, statistical character management is usually kept at a minimum. Other games use a system of "Skill Levels" that measures advantages in terms of specific aptitudes, such as weapon handling skill, spellcasting proficiency, and stealthiness. These games allow the players to customize their characters to a good extent.
Remorting
Remorting is a technique used within some role-playing games, notably MUDs, whereby once the player character reaches the level limit within an RPG, the character can elect to start over or be remorted back to a weaker version of the player's character (back to level one usually). Yet the character has an added advantage, or power, that the player was unable to achieve before remorting. The advantage is usually access to different races, avatars, classes, skills or even different lands within the game that are not available to characters that have not remorted.
The term's origins are unclear but are thought to distinguish re-mortals (reborn characters) from mortals (normal characters) and immortals (retired characters).
Another explanation comes from MUDs where the players may apply to become immortal characters who tend to the administrative issues within the game, game development, design and such. The administrators are generally expected to keep a certain distance to the game, and their interaction with mortal characters may be severely limited. When such an administrator chooses to leave this position and to start playing the game as a mortal once again - usually from level one just as any other new character - he is said to have remorted.
Remorting is also known by numerous other names, such as ascension or reincarnation.
Powerleveling
Powerleveling is the process of sustained, fast leveling in computer role-playing games. It is essentially the RPG equivalent of speedrunning, but many RPGers dislike the practice believing that, as an attempt to "beat" an RPG, it misses the point of role-playing. Powerleveling can mean different things depending on whether or not other people are playing the game.
Sometimes in single player games it refers to a player strategically playing with the sole intent of gaining experience points as quickly as they can. This definition can also be used in multiplayer games, but it is typically displaced by a much more charged meaning.
Powerleveling is most frequently used in multiplayer games, where it usually refers to a player that is of much greater power assisting a player of much lower power in defeating enemies that are far too powerful for the low level player, but are easily and quickly killed by the more powerful player. Defeating high level challenges rewards the lower level player with experience points more rapidly than normal. In general this is considered a form of cheating, or manipulation of the game system for unintended results.
To combat powerleveling, game designers have devised better means of rewarding a player based on their actual contribution to the completion of the task. Another method used is to cap how much experience a character can gain at any single moment. For example, the game might not allow a character to gain more than 20% of the experience they need to level up by defeating an enemy. This is controversial in that it also punishes players who are skilled enough to face challenges more difficult than regular players or that band together with other players to face more difficult challenges. Another anti-powerleveling method is to base the experience given out on the highest level within the party that killed the enemy - powerlevellers get around this by what could be called "passive powerleveling", where a high level character who has access to healing abilities heals the lower level character as he or she fights the enemy, or places beneficial spells on the low-level character while placing curses on the enemy.
Powerleveling increased in EverQuest as it became more common to sell characters through the Internet, which could go for as much as $5000 USD. Estimates of possible annual income one could generate as a full-time EverQuest player range from $6000 to $30,000 depending upon particular practices of the player. Of course, techniques of kill stealing and powergaming would make this pursuit considerably more lucrative.