This is primarily intended for MindArk, but also affects all planet partners and Entropia participants… Note: I have intentionally left traces of the old SEE and MindArk cooperation structure in this writing. I feel that this is best because A) I do not have a sufficient understanding of MindArk's new intracompany structure, and B) using "MindArk" to refer to the platform provider and "SEE" or "FPC" to refer to Calypso's planet partner makes the writing easier to understand than it would be if I used "MindArk" to refer to both. I do not believe MindArk, planet partners, or Entropia participants will be confused by this imprecision, and I would encourage anyone reading this to consider the Entropia-related content, rather than the technical accuracy of my writing. Information related to the switch can be found at http://www.mindark.com/partners/ and on the forums. I believe now is a very important time to evaluate the direction Entropia is headed, in terms of its degree of game play linearity. I began playing Entropia during the VU 9 era, and remember the inscription on the statue at Port Atlantis, stating: THE WORLD IS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS REACH FOR IT AND MAKE IT YOURS Such an expression seems to indicate that pre-planet-partner-model MindArk envisioned a relatively nonlinear atmosphere for Entropia. That is to say, Entropia was developed to be quite an open-ended universe (the term "sandbox" is sometimes used, but I will avoid doing so in order to separate this topic from the discussion of defining what constitutes a sandbox game). This open-ended universe philosophy, from my observation, was very clearly reflected by many of MindArk's design decisions. The large scale example is that Entropia does not force its participants to select a limited number of Profession(s) per avatar, as many other MMOPRGs do, but the philosophy is reflected by lesser design decisions as well. Lists within windows and menus (such as Teleporters on the map window, Professions in the Professions menu, etc.) are organized alphabetically or otherwise logically, as opposed to having an organization for each individual colonist that depends upon the order he or she unlocked the content. This layout allows the windows and menus in Entropia to retain a neat and professional appearance as content is unlocked, without requiring colonists to unlock it in a particular order (i.e. collecting the Teleporters in alphabetical order). The easiest way to formally summarize the overall effect of these design decisions is to say that no two participants' accounts could become irreversibly different from each other, except where implementing such a thing is impossible for any game (i.e. avatar names and gender cannot be changed after account creation in any reasonable game [second life is not a reasonable game]). Respecting this model when making design decisions allows Entropia to remain open-ended, and ensures all parts of the virtual world are at our fingertips within our reach. Recently, this open-ended universe philosophy has been challenged, to a minor degree yet in a significant way. Mission and Achievement systems have been introduced into Entropia, allowing colonists to track their past accomplishments in the game. These systems were well designed, for the most part. Missions, in particular, have become quite popular among colonists, in part due to their attribute rewards. The only apparent drawback is that a very small number of these Missions and Achievements have been implemented in such a way that it is possible to permanently miss the opportunity to complete them. Some examples include all Missions on the Calypso Gateway, select Missions from the 2010 Harbinger event, the Mission used to track Merry Mayhem 2010, and Achievements related to Operation Hammerhead and the Mad Prophet Mission. I have also heard rumors of a Mission exclusively for Community Advisers, a test Mission(s) that some folks received before the first five Swamp Camp Missions were introduced, Missions in the Genesis starting area, and a Mission available for a short time on Planet Arkadia when it was first launched (I have no idea whether any of these rumors are true). There are also at least two Missions whose completions are mutually exclusive with each other. Recently, it has been announced that a group of Next Island's Missions will be completely removed from Entropia after June. Overall, it seems to me that the various Missions and Achievements have been designed quite well thus far. Most of them appear to comfortably fit within the "perceived structure" of Entropia (or the "feel" of Entropia, if you will) that participants have grown accustomed to as a result of the open-ended universe philosophy. Very few Missions and even fewer Achievements are problematic in their current state. This is why it is important to consider the issue soon; producing a solution is still a simple matter. Currently, the overwhelming majority of Entropia's planet partner content has been designed by SDS Planet Calypso developers, many of whom were likely the same people who helped form MindArk's open-ended universe philosophy years ago. Though a few mistakes have been made by FPC/SDS (which were included in those I mentioned earlier), I think the planet partner has done a reasonably sound job of creating content that adheres to MindArk's open-ended universe philosophy. However, as time moves forward, Entropia Universe is becoming less and less synonymous with Planet Calypso, and the rate of this change is sure to increase as new planets are introduced, and as ROCKtropia, Next Island, and Planet Arkadia are further developed. Since non-SDS planet partner employees have not had the same history working with MindArk as many SDS employees, they will be less equipped to handle matters in a manner that is consistent with MindArk's vision for Entropia. This is to be expected, and presumably MindArk has structured the relationship between the platform provide and planet partners accordingly. What we need now is a bit of structure for the Mission and Achievement systems. MindArk has a few options. Of course, doing nothing is always possible, but it seems to me (an uninformed Joe Shmoe) that a solution could be implemented at a very low cost, and that doing so would be worthwhile (preserving a major component of the "feel" of Entropia). At the other end of the extremity spectrum, MindArk could delete all records of the few stray Missions and Achievements that currently exist, and communicate to planet partners some guidelines for how to develop Missions and Achievements that fit within the feel of Entropia that participants have grown accustomed to as a result of the open-ended universe philosophy. This solution would certainly fix the matter at hand quite well. However, it may initially be a bit more invasive to planet partner content than what is necessary. After all, MindArk has recently stated that "each planet can use what MindArk develops differently to suit the specific planet and its environments the best." It may be desirable to seek a solution that empowers planet partners to create content in a more structured way, rather than merely imposing limits to Mission and Achievement structure via contract, document, etc. Let us take a look at the Mission and Achievement systems separately for a moment. Perhaps a simple and fitting solution for the Mission system could include a control for planet partners to use to categorize Missions as either temporary or permanent (alternatively, MindArk could choose to retain the power to categorize Missions; doing so may especially make sense if MindArk already reviews the content of Missions before planet partners release them). Permanent Missions (which would classify almost all currently implemented Missions; kill 10K mobs, visit Swamp Camp, etc.) that a colonist finishes are transferred from his or her Active Quest/Mission Log to his or her Completed Quest/Mission Log (just as is currently the case with all Missions), while temporary Missions (which would classify limited-time Missions, Missions requiring access to potentially inaccessible areas, sets of mutually exclusive Missions, etc.) are simply removed from his or her Active Quest/Mission Log. Temporary Missions would still offer colonists item(s) and/or skill(s) as reward for completion, but no record of which colonists completed such a Mission would be kept. The duration status of an active Mission would be displayed in a colonist's Active Quest/Mission Log (perhaps temporary Missions could be highlighted in a different color). This setup would severely reduce the aforementioned limits to Mission structure. Planet partners would be free to develop content for Missions as they currently do. The only necessary consideration would be that temporary Missions could not serve as prerequisites to permanent Missions, as no record of their completion would be kept (this would not be a smart design decision anyhow, in terms of allowing Entropia to remain open-ended). Temporary Missions could, in fact, serve as prerequisites to other temporary Missions, if the record of a prerequisite temporary Mission was not deleted immediately after a colonist completed the Mission, but at some later point in time (perhaps a "Temporary Quest/Mission" section could be added to the Completed Quest/Mission Log, allowing colonists to track i.e. their Mission progress on the Calypso Gateway; the temporary section and all missions within it would be removed from the Quest/Mission Log when the colonist leaves the Gateway, when the Harbinger event ends, etc.). I think this Mission-categorizing setup makes sense; after all, what is the point of keeping around i.e. Merry Mayhem 2010 in our Completed Quest/Mission Logs? The only reason it became a Mission in the first place was to exploit the mob kill counter built into the Mission system. However, a separate fix would need to be considered for the Achievement system in order to have a complete solution. Another possible solution could be for MindArk to provide a way for participants to "purchase" miss-able Missions and/or Achievements. Purchased Missions would be added to the buyer's Completed Quest/Mission Log, while purchased Achievements would be added to the buyer's Achievement window. Once the price was paid, there would be no indication of whether a Mission or Achievement was completed naturally, or purchased. The buyer would have essentially completed the Mission or Achievement. This system would likely be presented through some sort of interesting lore, such as an underground psychic selling memories. Prices would likely depend upon the difficulty level of the Mission or Achievement, and could consist of PED and/or items that a participant must spend. These are a few suggestions for a solution to the recent challenge to Entropia's open-ended universe structure. There are certainly many different ways to combine or tweak the different suggestions, and I would wager that the folks in charge have the knowledge and resources at hand to develop a much more thoroughly planned solution. I do hope that this issue is taken at least a bit seriously. I realize that some colonists could not care less about the matter, but I also know that there are many who would appreciate such an improvement to the Mission and Achievement systems. I have seen far too many newcomers become disappointed when realizing they are unable to complete the Calypso Gateway Missions due to a broken gun (of course, this situation can be remedied if one can gather enough surplus of items on the Gateway to trade for a gun, but only until he or she teleports off the island). These Missions do not offer any magnificent rewards; it is simply part of the nature of gaming that players strive to complete everything a game has in store. I find it saddening that the best possible response to these newcomers is "learning to handle disappointment is part of Entropia." While this is technically true, other instances of disappointment in Entropia are temporary setbacks. These usually result in economic loss and/or wasted time, but they can be recovered from, once again thanks to the open-ended nature of our universe. Failing the Gateway Mission, along with screw-ups related to other Missions and Achievements, is a permanent and unnecessary type of disappointment. I, personally, had spent most of my gaming time playing console games, before I discovered Entropia. If a player misses the opportunity to collect an item, upgrade, etc. in i.e. The Legend of Zelda, he or she can choose to restart the game from the beginning in order to reach the 100% completion mark. Unfortunately, this is not practical in Entropia, as it is common for a single participant to invest thousands of hours into advancing his or her avatar, and a participant may only own one avatar at a time (additionally, some opportunities to complete Missions and Achievements expire at a set date, as opposed to expiring based upon in-world decisions, so restarting wouldn't help anyhow). Another point to consider is that the content of console games (at least older, offline ones) can be studied and understood, while Entropia is constantly expanding and developing. This raises the question of whether forcing participants to make gameplay-altering decisions while completing Missions is even fair in a game like Entropia. Not even the entire community can always put together enough information necessary for participants to make informed decisions in time, which is why I believe MindArk and/or planet partners should limit the effect such decisions have on a participant's gameplay experience. The Mission and Achievement systems should better reflect the open-ended universe philosophy that feels so central to Entropia, and something should be done soon, while the planet partner model is still young. Finally, I would like to parenthetically add that the open-ended universe philosophy should be considered when designing future systems, such as Treasure Hunting. Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts, and I hope this can help shape the future of Entropia in a small way. This will be sent to the support department, and posted at the following addresses for discussion: http://www.entropiaplanets.com/forums/forums/general-entropia-universe-discussion.42/ http://www.entropiaforum.com/forum/270-ask-mindark/ http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?6-General-Discussion http://www.neverdie.com/general-rocktropia-chat/ http://www.nextislandlife.com/general-discussion/ http://www.arkadiaforum.com/forumdisplay.php?8-General-Discussion
Hi Omega, in my humble opinion the "Missions" and "Achievements" don't fit the open-ended approach of EU at all, are done not even sufficiently, and had better been omitted (in their current form) in favor of something more useful. And I can explain why I do think so: "They don't fit because ..." ... they are just copied from (more successful) games that are of a complete different kind. In those games missions like the ones we got are the bread & the butter of the game play, often in a much more sophisticated version; they are what is used to develop an avatar, they are the absolutely essential part of the game that comes before the "end game". And so, IMHO, does it make no sense at all to "burrow" such a mechanic - it's just not needed. The same with the achievements - in those games where they originate from they are used to bridge the time when the end game is beaten by sufficiently many participants and the game play gets boring, until the next expansion/ content is released. No need for such here. We are already occupied in our Universe, it's not that somebody has to tell us that we have to kill some mobs, right? And we have a lot of ways to shine among our co-participants, is it really this satisfying to find a certain building in PA and use the televator to the roof? The only reason for such missions would be to use them in the tutorial areas, to teach the new participants the basics. It seems for this they was made, but then not developed further. Just then implemented widely into the game, making newcomers from other games "ROTFLOL"ing as soon as they discover them. Which leads to the next point: . "They are done not even sufficiently ..." ... because - well? Has EU already applied to an entry in the Guinness book of records for "The most stupid hard-core grinding missions ever, in all MMO history"? 10K mobs to kill each, and 23 of these alone on Calypso, not even counting the few K mobs you have to kill to reach one of those missions? Isn't this insane? 16,600 mobs to kill for 1 mission line? There's 23 (!!!) of it, so to complete them all it's 381,800 mobs to kill on Calypso only. Three hundred eighty one thousand eight hundred. Speak this loudly. Think of it. (hope I spelled this correctly ...) What do we have but those incredibly stupid "Kill a bazzillion of certain mobs" missions? Well, we have all the usual stereotypes: Mentioned "Kill something until you vomit" "Kill something until it loots something, bring this back/ to NPC XY" "Go there, then there, then there" "Go there, interact with NPC XY" Isn't this a sure sign of mental poverty among the creative team? Just adapting the few most old, over-abused, cheapest mission types available in the whole MMO history, and blowing them up to levels of insanity not known until now? Then the "Achievements" - utter armax dung, isn't it? "Get to the roof of this building", "Drive some kilometers in your buggy", "Fall to death" - how cool, refreshing and inventive! How proud can we be to stumble, on a mining run, randomly onto a spot designated as "achievement spot"! How proud can we be to fall to death! How proud can we be just to use our vehicle for a certain time! Achievements, yeah ... . And to add insult to injury, many of those poorly implemented MMO basics are still bugged beyond believe ... . "They had better been omitted (in their current form) in favor of something more useful." Adding an achievement, with a title ("the Insane", "the Sicko" or such), for killing insane numbers of a special mob would have been nice, for me. Adding an achievement, with a title ("the Brave", "the Unbelievable" or such), for killing a mob ways beyond the participants possibilities would have been nice, too, for me. (to determine: use HP * max. Dam {with used weapon} to compare) Adding an achievement, with a title ("the Stupid", "the Mad" or such), for doing insane numbers of a "rolling the dice" in all professions combined would have been nice too, for me. Get the idea? Achievements and titles for something done in game. For something everybody can do, for a title, not more. For missions outside of the tutorial I could think of: "A [mob] [direction & distance] of [location] has killed [an NPC] and stolen [an item]. Find, kill, retrieve." You'd get designated an area and a mob, and any mob there would have a chance to drop the item you're after, for you. Not this much better, I know. But better, right? => Go to the area, kill designated mobs until the item is looted, loot the item, bring back. Maybe a time limit (12 RL hours?) because the item might be digested and destroyed such? . "[An NPC] in [direction & distance] of [location] is under attack by [X] [mob type and maturity]. Save him/ her!" Rush there (NPC HP limit, it gets damage) and kill the X mobs. Then talk to the NPC then before it despawns (after maybe 5 min when all X mobs are down?).=> In the area an NPC with X mobs would spawn. The mobs would have a slightly different color/ type, and would not loot anything, so ppl not having this mission would be well advised to avoid. They would attack the NPC, and your task would be to distract them, and dispose them. . "We received a strange signal from [direction & distance] of [location]. Seems there's something in the ground, and it might be [enmatter/ ore/ archaeological stuff]. Get your mining gear ready, find it, and bring it here!" As said - go there, mine, only you'll be able to find it. => Find it. Maybe a time limit (12 RL hours?) because the item might rot and be destroyed such? . "We have detected some irregularities concerning [a blueprint]. Could you try this for us?" Craft this, only you'll be able to loot a special item. => Craft for your life. Loot the item. Again, time limit. . Just some ideas, very basic ones. There could be much more. Difference would be that you'd get these missions from a mission terminal, maybe one for each profession each RL day. Do it, or do not, next day there'd be other ones. All these would be tailored to your level. Hunting missions would consider your stats and the gear carried when accepting, mining missions would consider your stats & gear carried, crafting missions would consider your stats, as well as BP's available and your stuff in storage. So any mission would be doable. For a limited time. These missions would yield another currency, tradeable" mission vouchers". These then could be used to buy access to "beacon"-like instanced encounters, or just to buy some advanced gear, at the "Mission terminal". For sure, many would be needed. Wouldn't this be a much better incentive? Wouldn't this be more compatible with the different planets? Wouldn't this be much more interesting, every day some new tasks, instead of stupidly whacking down X * 16,600 mobs? Have a good time! PS: Nobody will ever read this. I added a huge wall of text to your huge wall of text. If you want, I'll delete. But nobody but a few lunatics will ever read this
I have read the two walls of text... *pant* *pant* I understand each of what you are saying and I think that the missions should be redone to incorperate the feal and ideals of what Entropia universe is about. BUT...... I don't think that EU is the same anymore other then its going to be connected by space. I think it is more important to let the PP's do there thing with the idea and direction they wish to take thier planets and the lore behind each. So to have a mission that is designed strickly for thier planet, whether it be time sensitive or not, should be at the discretion of each PP's. I don't mind having a mission in my list that I can't complete. This is not what I am here for. I do the missions I wish to do at what ever time I wish. So if I don't get my longtooth mission complete I won't lose any sweat over it.. (won't gain any either ) I like the idea of better missions as posted by Xandra. I think it would be more interactive. I do understand why we have the missions we do today. (1) it is designed to increase spending (2) the missions where just testers for better future missions. (can't remember where I read this but I do recall FPC saying that the first missions wouldn't be anything too special as they test the mission system to get better knowledge as to how they work and how people would react to them.. ) Not as good as they hoped but they did serve a purpose. I think that MA has a bigger plan in the end. I also believe that is why space was made. It is to seperate the planets into sub games. So if your a fan of the the Calypso game you would spend your time there. If you get bored of that planet you have the choice to move to another (game) planet and choose your adventure there. In the end its multiple games under the same universe. So to have an Micheal Jackson planet it wouldn't interfere with the other games going on. The reason most people where upset at the thought of this planet being made was because of the current system used. There was no disconection between the planets. Now with space and the the way the auctions are being seperated, I think it will be more seperation between the games. This is why each PP has to market and bring thier own clients in. Also think of space as another game with the benefit of being able to jump games. So in the end I think it will be more clear as to why the Planet Calypso feel and missions, with its ever invading threat of Bot's and the lore it offers, will not be used on each planet. I for one think this is fantastic. I can even see a WOW planet in the future. *ducks* P.S. I also think that the Gateway missions are not supposed to be finished but used strictly as a tutorial as to how to play the game..
I agree with all you said, except for this point. while increased spending may be the end result, no one is forced to accept any of these missions. like xandra, I think many (if not most) missions lack creativity and are often just clones of things in other games which don't really apply here, so, that said, arkadia's development team has the opportunity to show the rest of the universe how it could be done. will they be up to the challenge?
This lunatic read your and also Omega's wall of text. I have to agree with you though. But then, I don't really care for the missions or achievements. I get them if I run into a mission NPC and sometimes I complete one because I just do what I always do. Kill pixels. Missions and achievements, as they are now, are terrible stupid IMO.
In any other game where missions ARE part of the game and usually are driven by the story line of the game they are a necessity that makes that game what it is. Achievments inthose games are the special thijngs above and beyond the normal game play. Thats what makes them interesting to play is to follow a story line in a timely manor to see what happens next. In EU we are our own story line. There is a back story to it stating why we are here and each new planet will hve its own version. The story line part in EU is very underused (until Arkadia which I hope they keep up and kepp adding and following thru with theirs) The missions they have come up with are to do NOTHING more then generate income. Ther is no reason to kill a bajillion mobs specially since the mission mobs looting is extremely different then when they were not a mission based mob. The grinding missions to hunt a species to extinction scream Carnaval to me.. I half expect to see a mission broker dressed like a clown who simply asks "Hey are you brain dead enough yet to go blindly kill this mob for a month or so?" Then when yu do finally get to that point and actually go thru it all you see that Clown again and he tells you "good job heres a cookie". "But if you hand me back that cookie and go kill this mob for 6 months Ill give you a lollipop instead" If you take the cookie and stop you get the achievment "You earned a cookie your new title is "Crumbler"" There is NOTHING in this world that can fix something that simple and lame. Grinding missions are just plain sad and pathetic. Story missions could serve well in this environment tho as the diversity and amount of things a story based mission could be developed for is nearly unlimited. That would take creativity and effort the two things MA has a huge aversion to. Bottom line tho to fix the things the OP brought up would take a big change of thought at MA to work out a system for the pp's to use in a manor unique to EU and they simply dont have the ambition nor the vision to do that stuff anymore. They are old men corrupted in the creative sides of their brain that brought EU to life by the simple formula of money in vs money out. Until those old timers are replaced with younger minds that function in the gamer way we are doomed to copy paste crap and fly by night schemes for quick cash taken from other games in which they served a purpose in their originality.
Hi, at first: Thank you! I have to admit I'd never had thought that really somebody would read this much text, not in these days anymore. You have given me back a bit of belief in humanity. Maybe we're not this doomed yet? ;-) A few comments: I agree with this, this was my first thought after finding out about the way they are made. Especially the iron challenge missions - they give invaluable stats as reward, so they are close to mandatory for many participants aiming for the "higher regions". I fear the arkadia team will have a hard time doing so - after all the mission mechanics are made by MA, and as far as I know there's no new, more advanced mission mechanics yet? And I really doubt that MA will spent more developing power into them - they already have what they aimed for. They got their own area now (Space, lootable PvP), they got Calypso back, they'll have other problems, I bet ... And: This. I guess this is the big, fat main problem. MA has shown over and over that they, since long, have lost any contact to the ordinary gamers reality. They are surrounded by their friends from the good old times, by those few Ubers that got fat & saturated before most of us others even learned to know about Project Entropia. By people that now do nothing anymore but rolling huge, expensive dices day-in day-out, and rejoice of the crazy MU they get doing this. Who in a sane state of mind would come to the conclusion that it's any good to introduce more and more big, phat, insane HP & Regen monsters that do only ridiculous low damage? Yes, those old men, surrounded by their Uber friends. Who in a sane state of mind would come to the conclusion that it's any fun to whack such monsters down stupidly, one after the other, betting high stakes for a huge HoF? They don't understand that no ordinary gamer these days will be impressed by such anymore. And this is the reason why EU is still such a niche game - it's not aiming for the needs and expectations of the todays gamers crowd, it's hand tailored for the wishes of a few old Ubers that are gambling with dice no ordinary gamer can even dream of anymore, today. They concentrate on quarterly cash-flow only like any business economics maniac, ill-advised by their old friends, forfeiting any chance to make this game the success it could have. They seem to succeed, still. But we had no real growth since the initial CND deal, atm bad news are frequent (SEE!), and while the whole game industry is booming EU is stagnating, if not declining. The mission and achievement mechanics they made are just a sign for this - quick money instead of long term growth. What a pity! Have a good time!
True that it is our choice. One of the reasons I am still on the 1000 mob kill missions and not the 10k kill mob mission.. But the end result is the same. You need to spend the peds in order to finish the mission. I think Arkadia will be up to the task. I have seen what they are capable of and am still here now. I am in no rush to jump ship but I would like to visit space.
Hmm, so you would essentially propose that the Completed Quest/Mission Log be ditched entirely, and Mission Vouchers would be the only reward for completing Missions? I could see this working. Missions would become more lightweight, as no record of completion would be kept, sort of like the Wave Events and Fort Event Battles. Perhaps Attribute gains could be randomly rewarded by the follow-up "beacony" encounters, if folks didn't want to do away with them. Appreciate it. Sorry for my first post on the forum being off topic. Then perhaps it is the Mission system structure that needs enhanced, eh? I think I proposed a couple potential solutions that covered this, the "Mission-categorization" solution and the "Missions/Achievements for sale" solution are examples of what MindArk could do to provide this structure. However, I bet they could come up with some ideas themselves. Excellent, then we don't need to keep any record of who finishes them. This whole thing is turning out to be even easier to fix than I imagined. Absolute nonsense, I've worked it out for them three time already right here in this thread. Perhaps my intentions have been misunderstood just a tiny bit. I am not asking for the Mission system to be reinvented. Other folks in this thread are, and they raise some good suggestions, but I am not. What I suggested was that if MindArk ties up a loose end or two (quickly and cheaply), it would do wonders in terms of preserving the open-ended feel of Entropia.
My point is that the grind missions are anything but open ended and go completely against the "Feel" of EU. The only way they could be open ended under the present structure is to simply keep adding bigger numbers of same mob to kill. Im sorry but..."Snore" The fact they added attribs as rewards shows how truely blind they are as to what gameing really is. And as for your resolutions...MA does not understand the concept of either quick nor cheap. Adding skils as a reward may be pheaseable. That provides growth of the ava AND contributes to attrib gains down the road. Under this lame ass structure of easy attribs they backed themselves into a corner and further isolated the non scandinavian every day player and handed still more advantage to the goofy rich that simply toss money at EU. Now with the attribs so easily gained there is nothing but nerf forever to follow that. The avg player cant afford to grind all the 10k+ missions and the nerfs to make everyone competative simply bone the new player from the day they step out of the revive the first time. Like the one comedian says..."You cant fix stupid" and IMO grind missions in EU are just that.. stupid, ranking right up there next to "Regen"
Hi Omega, Yes. It makes no sense to me anyways. Just unnecessary overhead. Who cares? It's just a requirement for the current, IMHO dull & stupid, mission & achievements system. A better system wouldn't need it. It would feature other kinds of missions, more challenging, more tailored to the single participant, and more diverse. More lightweight, as you say, and more entertaining, with more fun. Achievements, I'm no friend of them. But some people love them, so why not? But not as we have now. A few, carefully thought of achievements that yield a title to show, as we currently can show a profession standing. I've given a few examples already, why not, for example, an achievement & title for making a discovery, reaching level 50, 70 or 90 in a profession, collecting 100K of sweat, having been on all available planets, or other strange things? Giving attributes and skills in the way it is now is IMHO a big mistake. It only suites those that already have loads of them, sometimes gained in a way that is not possible anymore. It widens the chasm between the established Ubers and the newcomers, discouraging the latter even further. The only way such should be given might be in a series of "tutorial missions", made to educate newcomers to the various means of playing this game, as an incentive to do them all. After having done all those "tutorial missions" such an avatar would have the planned starting attributes. I'd not limit these to the tutorial areas, it should go further - for instance, "Get [at least 50% of the available] TP's on this planet", "Visit another planet", "Get a loot in hunting, mining and crafting each", "Trade something that you have looted yourself to another player", "Sell something that you have looted yourself in the auction", you understand? Any other mission should just give some kind of "mission currency", collectible and tradeable. With this currency there should it be possible to buy entrance for instanced encounters like beacons - people loved them! Or to buy (changing) gear and commodities where the balancing manager thinks they are too rare atm, maybe? Or to buy a title? Endless possibilities. But, this are dreams. Such would add fun, excitement and entertainment to the game, such might even attract or, beware!, keep new players! This is not the MindArk way. They'll continue to spoon-feed their old time Uber friends as role models for a small crowd of heavy losing hard core gamblers, and ignore anybody else. As long as they can survive with it. And not even a single Planet Partner will be able to change this. Have fun!
