Talk:Deep Darkness Dragon Lord/@comment-172.97.244.18-20180421220927/@comment-45.56.46.26-20180603140342

I would draw a distinction between "not max level" and "low level".

I would tend to believe that players below max level could plausibly remain interested in Yggdrasil despite knowing that the service would shut down in months precisely because they could still look forward to leveling up to max level. It would only be those who were already max level when Yggdrasil went into decline and eventually announced the shutdown of service who would have nothing to look forward to.

If I were just one level away from maxing out and would only have a few days left before the service shut down, that would strike me as an incentive (maybe not compelling or overriding all other concerns, but not nothing) to grind hard and try to get that last levelup.

So while I think most max level characters would tend to drop out, I feel this applies less to anyone below max level, even very high level characters, as long as they'd never hit max level before.

On the other hand, the existence of XP draining skills and spells suggests that many high-level characters might be dropping levels during the final days of play in order to go all out in seeking various other achievements. For example, relentlessly exploring unknown areas despite dying frequently, or otherwise costing them XP.