What does Treasure Hunting mean to you?

indiana jones

 

indiana jones and the last crusade

 

This assumes everyone is a hunter...how do you do this for players who mine or craft to make them equally available to get this reward?
Many players have high skills and long term in game but do not hunt.. do they not deserve the same chance at something nice concordant with their abilites? Besides hunter mentality would in most cases never have the intel to figure out puzzles to begin with thats why they let a gun do their talking.

 

*raise my hand*

Um... I'm a miner. And I don't like hunting that much. EU is not a hunting game for me. But on Calypso, there are around 300 Missions for hunter and just one for miners - and that one is stupid. "Find a Azzurdite Global with more than 50 PED worth in under 3 hours." Yeah, right. FPC didn't have the guts to try a time sensitive hunting mission. But we miners? Yeah...

On the other sides, puzzles I like very much.

So, it is called "treasure hunting". And not "slaughtering the whole planet". In the last Indiana Jones movie Dr. Jones said it - he is a part time teacher.

And Cyrus:

 

SURE! That was the time when I got this used $1.5k graphic device with the ability of 16 million colours and the installation program told me to set it to "high color". LOL!

I think the riddles of Myst cannot be a pattern for - let's say - missions. But in generally I would like to have complex missions with different stages wich lead me to a final result. Like an item composed by several components I've found during the mission. Or a mission wich has only one result: Enable me to do another mission wich is hidden to others who didn't the first one.

 

Hehe, I am a hunter. But I think prospectors are predestinated to discover secrets and treasures! What about the idea of interprofessional teams? To solve a mission miners and hunters have to work together. For example: A quest where high skills and equipment are required. An uber may do the job alone. But midlevel player may do it as a team. Next question regarding planet partner's abilities? What about "team missions"?

 

I think the team idea would be good for midlevel or new players. However with the current team setup up I dont think it would work. Most teams are based on damage etc. How do you rate puzzle solving skills? Its possible that they extend or create a new team that allows the team to negotiate their own personal take from whatever treasure is looted. Having a more negotiable team setting would allow for fairness.

What do you all think?

I think as many have discussed before forming teams during noob orientation would give them the contacts and possible treasure hunting members. Probably the only other option for new players is to join a society and find a team there. Otherwise how is the noob to find someone trustworthy to team up with?

Just some thoughts

 

Team missions would be great except for two things.... 1st EU is NOT team friendly to miners. I have tried many many times to go with a socmate to clear mobs for me so I can mine areas I know have great rare resources gaurded by serious mobs. My soc mate did phenominal hunting..I got bupkiss for my mining efforts seems like hunters suck the ped from the area not just the mob.

2ndly getting MA to reward one person with something decent is hard enough let alone a team reward.

Ill quote a phrase from the movie "Shawshank Redemption"....: I never knew a warden who's asshole wouldn't pucker tighter then a snare drum when asked for extra funds for the inmates"

 

The team system has to be changed for that idea. That means: MA must do it and it would be available for all planets. Maybe they can restrict the loot distribution to 50/50? Dunno if this would be a reasonable solution ...

 

One wich is at the Wishlist section too ... special clothes (again) and armor parts in loot! At least Arkadia armors are a must since we deal with the remainings of a war.

 

I like "puzzles" games, and i was adept of games like MYST and URU, RHEM, ALIDA if anyone knows...
Those games have a major advantage to me compared to EU : you need to think, search, be creative and follow a path to go further.
To get thru you need to solve different enigms that open a new stage.
I like this idea of progression. Thought would be the same in EU with the skills, but I am frankly disappointed that they deserve nothing except buying more expensive items.
I think it would be nice to get a reward (treasure) at each stage that could be necessary (or very useful) in the next one.
I would also like to see a world where you can spend time doing actions that are for the benefit of oneself and others whithout necessarily spend money. As an example : in Second Life, you can craft whatever you imagine without having to pay anything ; it is difficult, long, but useful for all (or not) ; if it as a crap nobody wants it. Point.

 

MA is doing fine putting in so many new things not necessary to the game on their own.. Having 20k more non creative people adding stuff we dont really need want or desire would be a really bad thing. I couldnt imagine thousands of people naming items after themselves as we see happening already with the ND branding on a good percentage of in game stuff.

as far as doing things to benefit self and others there are many many things that can be done already. Helping new players is one of the biggest that does not cost money. setting up informal hunts or events is also a way to keep busy and my build your personal reputation.
Going to the various outposts that players commonly get stuck at and help to guide them out again can also bring rewards.

The puzzle thing can be a great addition and I am sure that will evolve a bit in EU as the mission system gets learned more and they can switch from the run to spot X kill so many things run to point Y type missions. Of course I dont see FPC nor MA pushing much past that as they are simple focued on taking money out of EU and not growing its potential for a better future for all. I think once Arkadia is up and going there are enough well known creative people working here this will not be an issue for them. They just need to get past the bricks that cant rub 2 brain cells together to make smoke at MA to get what they need done.

 

Hmmm, a lot of good articles here, it's easy to see what things each person likes.

One thing I'm sure the company is going to keep in mind is: most people are not college grads with interests in archeology,or history, or even puzzles. Most people are in any game for FUN. If it becomes too stressful, then they leave, without a second thought. The idea of 'Treasure Hunting' can be misleading. As a miner on Entropia for a long time, treasure hunting to me would be finding something worth a lot,somewhere you'd never imagine it to be. Sometimes you'll find it after hard work, other times you'll get it as a reward for doing a good deed for someone, but treasure can be ANYWHERE, not just hidden underground or under water, which are both good ideas too.

Say, your out hunting/mining when you hear a call for help. You run over and see an old man being chased by some creature, you have a choice, do you help him or let him die? Make the right choice and he lives and you might get a big reward, wrong choice and your faction with someone will fall, and you get nothing. That's just one example.

Another example would be: your out mining, and you get a reading that says there's rare gems nearby. This is very odd, since gems are rarely found ,so you investigate, and the scanner shows you that they're in some cave. You go in, and have to fight to stay alive, but if you do, then you find an old case with 'stolen'? jewelry inside, hidden by some pirate or thief that never got back to find it. Another example of treasure hunting, when you least expect it. There's a million ways to find treasure and many of them don't need a shovel and since it's in the far future, mining equipment wouldn't be so primitive anyways..lol.

 

Had some time to think on this. Considering the Lore of the planet,aka: "It's after a massive war, possibly between battles,and there are huge fields of metal and equipment all around the planet from the older battles, and obviously crashed ships, city's in ruin, and hidden things all over the planet.

SO...treasure hunting here would be almost a fight to survive, not just for the private individual that might wind up getting left behind if the military is forced to leave, but for the military itself. Not all supplys can be carried that far, or get there in time. So ammo would have to be made, or found, weapons will break and need replacement, vehicles will be needed and those they brought will be used for things other than military after the bases are set up.Finding things will need some planning, maybe missions saying things like: "We have evidence that a small manufacturing community was located at coordinates XXX/XXX. We need you to go there and see what can be found, this might include vehicles that are usable, weapon or food caches and other materials. Perhaps blueprints can be had that show us what the previous owners of this world used to defend themselves."

This type of mission would suit the puzzle people, it would be their first clue to the location of some treasure. But it would not be the only type of mission, as a miner, I'll be all over. Literally running, flying or whatever looking for minerals and materials to use or sell. Anything that an alien civilization would have that's still usable would be considered 'treasure' to me. Yes, there would be some places where hidden caches of weapons.armor and food could be found, all needed by the bases and you. Also vehicles, many in used condition, some needing small repairs: "This vehicle needs a starter component type 1 to operate" then you search for the needed component, which will NEVER fall from animals, but be found in other wrecked vehicles. This could include flying vehicles as well. In a rare case you might find one in usable condition as is, even shuttles that could be used to 'mine' the wreckage in space.That would give the military some badly needed help explaining what the aliens technology was like, and even find things like weapons from ships that can be used to set up defense towers on the planet.

Mining in space would be easy, it would only need scanners that pinpoint the resource, and a beam to bring it in. The beam could be a 'transporter device' or 'tractor beam' of some type but no real explanation is needed past a name, fuel is also needed and could be found floating in the debris, as well as in areas on the planet. This is a future war on a highly advanced planet, so don't even think "shovels and brushes" they too would be considered treasure after a thousand years..lol.

 

What i wouldn't like is for some treasure you are looking for to be taken by someone else. Let's face it there are way too many people with no real life playing MMO's, so that mean the hardcore games would get everything leaving out the casual/ normally addicted players.

What i would like is like others have said as well are team missions. Even go together and kill 100 of x missions (or do that ias a part of the mission), FPC's missions are too focussed on grinding solo.

What i would also like is for some missions you are not being able to use vehicles/mindforce. I don't know if you guys did the crater missions on FPC, But when i ran over there, looking around trying to figure out how to enter the crater and avoid the mobs that were too strong for me, i really got a kick out of it. When i went there the second time with a vtol and a tp chip, it was plain boring (although a lot easier ofc ).

I would love random missions, what i mean is for example find object x, but that object x is located on some different coordinates for each player, that way you can really feel like a treasure hunter, since there is no website that will tell you where to find all the treasure. Or that if a missions has 4 submissions, the order in which they come is random. So it's not all straightforward.

And lastly since giving out rewards is a bit tricky in a real cash economy, how about a ranking level? If you get10 archeological finds, you are promoted giving you acces to some new files with information (background story or more missions). if you get 10 more arhceological finds the same continues. And make it so that you can put your 'rank' as treasure finder also under your name when people look at you

 

Other than thinking, what real life skills can you transfer to a game? Physical abilities? No...I'm disabled with terminal asthma, but my guy runs all the way across Calypso. Any real life skills can't really be used other than mental abilities, like special training, but then very few people have those and the game wont make special missions that the average person can't do or figure out. As far as treasure that someone beats you to...thats imposible, since even Calypso has minerals,metals and other things that regenerate over time. So if you get there and the treasures gone, it'll return soon, even mining, the resources regenerate in around 4 hours.Nothing is truly a once in a lifetime deal.