I think it's partly that, but I also think that it's as much a symptom of a larger issue as anything else. I think MMOs desperately need to do away with leveling systems. I wish the marketing, launch, and internal issues with FunCom weren't so bad, because I would have been interested to see where they took The Secret World.
I'm convinced that there's nothing worse for the health of a game than leveling systems, especially when paired with WoW's version of expansions, where everything old in the game becomes 100% irrelevant for anything but leveling. When a level system is in place, there's an automatic goal of reaching cap in play, with the expectation that cap is where all the fun stuff actually is. But games don't launch with most of their at-cap content, because that's what patches are for.
Leveling systems are fine in single player games, because they're used to pace players--there isn't much backtracking in most RPGs. The fact that Lulu can 1-hit KO flans with her dolls outside Besaid doesn't really mean much when you have no reason to be fighting things outside Besaid when she's that powerful.
If you remove a leveling system, then you have fundamentally removed the notion of endgame. Everything becomes content, because nothing ever stops being relevant. There's no notion that what you're doing doesn't matter, like leveling dungeons tend to feel like. When you're leveling, you tend to do whatever makes you level fastest. That generally means running a dungeon for some quests, and maybe chilling in the queue, but it's a means to an end. You're not there to do it because it's fun to do, you're there to do it because you need the experience to get the content you actually want to access.
I think it's a terrible system. That's why I've been dwelling on EVE's skill point system in this thread, because EVE has some amazing "endgame" content. It could do with a fair bit more PVE stuff (like AI-controlled dreadnaughts occasionally being an issue), but there's no lack of epic fights, because there's nothing keeping a battle of all frigates from being epic. And, every so often, you'll see something truly crazy happen, like battles with hundreds of ships, from dreadnaughts all the way down to drones.
There's clear lines of progression, because there's always something new to learn to do, which opens up new opportunities for the player, but it's fun because you never have to slog through useless content (even if it has the guise of being epic) just because you're a low level.
[EDIT]
I mean, let's face it, what good reason is there that a "level 20" character not be able to take part in a raid? The only reason they can't is because they're too weak to, and the only reason they're too weak to is because the leveling system only lets people who have treked all the way up to 90 raid. There's no super meaningful difference between a level 20 player and a level 80 one, besides what abilities they have access to (which is also just a symptom of our leveling system, since you need access to everything to be useful). The worst part is that a level 20 character can be played by someone who is super experienced and capable, and if it wasn't for the absence of a few thousand strength and a few locked abilities, they'd do just fine.
I'm tired of MMOs trying to pretend like they're doing anything but putting in one massive gating system. I think it's stupid. Just give me a freaking sandbox and let me play the game.
Edited, Mar 1st 2013 12:43pm by idiggory