The required time to level thread got me thinking...
The purpose of this thought excercise is to discuss a way to intentionally shift more casuals together (or more hardcore away). I will leave discussions of whether or not this is a healthy goal for game developers and game producers who know the business.
This server would allow experience gain at the normal rate for say ~3 hours per day per character. This would be a cumulative time since the server opened (perhaps capped at some point and perhaps readjusted at expansions or other times to allow catch up). Meaning if you joined on day one of server open you would have 3 hours at normal gain before moving to a reduced rate. If you join on day 10 or create a new character on day 10 you would have 30 hours (plus 3 the next day etc etc).
Averaged across a week that would give a player 21 hours of full exp gain to be used whenever, all on the weekend or whenever. Going on vacation? Max exp gain hours get banked. Etc etc. This method is vastly superior to an hour per day of bonus Experince and the like as those methods basically reward smaller play time sessions while simultaneously rewarding you to play everyday... something I don't think is necessarily healthy for people or a game. How many people have skipped going out with friends to get that bonus time in? But if your time is banked and you have nothing to do tomorrow anyway why not go with friends today and play extra tomorrow?
There are lots of benefits I see, but I'm on my phone and need to go for now. I believe I would play on such a server. As a person who is a bit of a min/maxxer with OCD and type A personality who likes to excel at all things I tend to run with the power gaming highly skilled group... until I get out leveled/geared because I just can't keep up with the game and real life together... then I'm frustrated all my game friends left me behind and I quit. I wonder how many others are like me?
Edit: Maybe instead of time based it was based on actual experienced gained in some manner as to not reward/penalize efficient/inefficient play.
Don't care if others play on a server like this, but I definitely would not.
I pay my fee to play when I want to play and however much I want to play.
If my friends get too far ahead of me, I could always work harder or they could mentor down or create acts, and vice versa.
I don't buy an unlimited plan to only use it occasionally.
Hey Nydan
This sounds like it could be misconstrued as a form of parental control or perhaps an attempt to moderatee gameplay to provide artificial protections to players who can not play lots yet do not wish to be left behind.
Unfortunatly this is based on then underlying assumption that it is OK to artficially and unjustly deny people progression for playing lots. VR would effectively be with-holding EXP from people who work hard and as a result would actively be discouraging people from working hard.
If implemented on every world in every Realm (Shard / Whatever the terminiology) the likely response from the average gamer who values hard work (or at least values THEIR work) would be over-whelmingly negative (IMO) as people tend to value their own free time very highly. Any member of the press or a competative company/press with an axe to grind would use it as a negative against VR. Such negative press could potentially be disasterous for VR.
Even if implemented on a single world in the game it would be a huge development efforyjust for one world and be cost prohibitive.
The bottom line is that you are advocating for a system that punishes players for playing the game (beyond what you define as optmial), I am finding it difficult to envisage any situation where this proposition is received positively by the majority of potential customers of Pantheon, the press and the video games industry as a whole.
WoW had this system actually. There was huge (pretty much universal) backlash against it so what did they do? They changed it very slightly but mostly changed how they marketed it and people ate it up. Instead of an exp penalty for playing more than a certain amount per day they made a rested exp "bonus" and instead changed the baseline exp to be that of the rested exp rate and made normal exp the same as the previous penalty.
DuxDux said:Hey Nydan
This sounds like it could be misconstrued as a form of parental control or perhaps an attempt to moderatee gameplay to provide artificial protections to players who can not play lots yet do not wish to be left behind.
Unfortunatly this is based on then underlying assumption that it is OK to artficially and unjustly deny people progression for playing lots. VR would effectively be with-holding EXP from people who work hard and as a result would actively be discouraging people from working hard.
If implemented on every world in every Realm (Shard / Whatever the terminiology) the likely response from the average gamer who values hard work (or at least values THEIR work) would be over-whelmingly negative (IMO) as people tend to value their own free time very highly. Any member of the press or a competative company/press with an axe to grind would use it as a negative against VR. Such negative press could potentially be disasterous for VR.
Even if implemented on a single world in the game it would be a huge development efforyjust for one world and be cost prohibitive.
The bottom line is that you are advocating for a system that punishes players for playing the game (beyond what you define as optmial), I am finding it difficult to envisage any situation where this proposition is received positively by the majority of potential customers of Pantheon, the press and the video games industry as a whole.
Wow dude. Did you miss the word "alternate", the phrase "thought experiment" and the wishy washy words like "believe"? Im not advocating for anything. Just brainstorming.
I bet you're tons of fun poo pooing ideas at work brain storming meetings. And a failure review board building a fault tree? I think youd be run out of the room lol.
Iksar said:WoW had this system actually. There was huge (pretty much universal) backlash against it so what did they do? They changed it very slightly but mostly changed how they marketed it and people ate it up. Instead of an exp penalty for playing more than a certain amount per day they made a rested exp "bonus" and instead changed the baseline exp to be that of the rested exp rate and made normal exp the same as the previous penalty.
As long as the normal (non-bonus) EXP rate is still good and people don't feel cheated out of rewards for their hard work that could work well.
The big worry about a system that applies a negative to your reward after say 2 hours is, what happens after 4 hours? Does the penalty get applied twice? After 6 hours does it get applied 3 times? The WoW system had it right, provide a boost for a small amount of time and then fall back to a standard amount afterwards. Just dont make people feel like they are punished for working hard.
Iksar said:WoW had this system actually. There was huge (pretty much universal) backlash against it so what did they do? They changed it very slightly but mostly changed how they marketed it and people ate it up. Instead of an exp penalty for playing more than a certain amount per day they made a rested exp "bonus" and instead changed the baseline exp to be that of the rested exp rate and made normal exp the same as the previous penalty.
However in WoW I never felt like I needed rested exp. I didn't even feel bad when I failed to logout at a inn or a place that gave rested exp, it was nice but it wasn't THAT worth it. The normal exp rate was fine so if they increased the amount of exp needed to level to slow down progression of non-rested EXP players than IMO they did a good thing, Vanilla WoW had a decent leveling speed for the amount of content it had. I would have preferred a slower leveling rate in WoW if it had more content that was meaningful.
With that said 3 hours of rested exp is a bit extreme. In WoW for example I could blow through a day's worth of rested exp in 15 - 30 minutes at most. It meant rested exp added a very, very trivial amount of exp for the time I played. 3 hours of rested exp would have basically of told me I can level for 3 hours a day and then for the remaining hour or 2 I play I might as well not even bother trying to level, it's pointless.
Personally I would say no to a server of this type but if it did happen it would have to be based on % of level per day. So you can have 1/2 of a level of rested exp per day for example, possibly with a bonus 1/2 of a level for a level per a day for characters under level 30 or something. Basing it off of kills like Trasak suggested would just encourage power levelers to kill high XP targets only.
If someone is willing and able to log a dozen hours a day in the game and grind their way to cap, I have nothing against that. My problem is the other extreme: when developers can't figure out a way to keep players logging in every day and start putting out daily repeatable content. It becomes a chore, and even more so to people with little time to play who must then choose either to do dailies or something else.
asfar as I see thereis only a few reasons to speed level.
1 you want to "there first"
2 you want to be powerfull enough to go get thse special items.
3 you want to get enough gold to live properly
4 your in a guild that wants to experience it all.
These are all valid reasons to level fast. however there is another reason. GREED
If your reason is to be able to sell gold for profit and camp items to sell which seriously restricts other players from getting said items than that is a nonvalid reason to me.
I would not be adverse to VR taking another year of development if they would work on a solution to the greed and gold seller problem that is rampant in All other games
Just my 2 cents worth, and I have been alive long enough to know when 2 cents could actually buy something.
Another year of development (not another year from now another year over and above what is currently planned) could easily kill the game. People get tired, people move on to other things, people die of old age. There is a word for games that are in development for year after year after year - vaporware. Money runs out.
They need to take what they have now, go through the testing cycles and release it whether that takes 6 months or a year but hopefully not longer. With many improvements to be sure but no major reworks or going back to start over.
I don't see a real problem with people moving to level cap at different speeds - given that this will happen with absolute certainty. I doubt if many people would want a server with artificial caps on how fast you can level as long as the basic ruleset was true to the Pantheon core concepts - slow leveling, slow traveling, stop and sniff the roses design. We don't especially need a slower than slow server, I suspect.
If this was a discussion on the EQ2 or Rift or even LOTRO forums I would be likely to agree with the OP but given the nature of Pantheon as currently expected the need for this is less clear.
Isaya said:asfar as I see thereis only a few reasons to speed level.
1 you want to "there first"
2 you want to be powerfull enough to go get thse special items.
3 you want to get enough gold to live properly
4 your in a guild that wants to experience it all.
These are all valid reasons to level fast. however there is another reason. GREED
If your reason is to be able to sell gold for profit and camp items to sell which seriously restricts other players from getting said items than that is a nonvalid reason to me.
I would not be adverse to VR taking another year of development if they would work on a solution to the greed and gold seller problem that is rampant in All other games
Just my 2 cents worth, and I have been alive long enough to know when 2 cents could actually buy something.
Why would you not consider all of those as greedy reasons? Wanting to be first is definitely greedy, as it wanting all the best items and wanting to experience everything.
So long as players can hand currency to one another there will be gold sellers. Guaranteed. I'll bet you right now there are people who paid to get into pre-alpha and on specifically to figure out the best ways of earning money just to turn around and sell it. There is no solution, but there are methods to monitor monetary transactions and take appropriate actions.
I don't think pride should be confused with greed. I am sure there are players out there motivated to level up quickly for the sake of greed, but I don't think that's the driving factor with most players. Wanting to experience all of the content or have the best items has nothing to do with greed in my opinion. Some players do it because they appreciate a challenge, and when the most difficult encounters in the game require some of the best gear, it's simply a means to an end. As far as people camping items for the sole purpose of selling them for a profit ... that is absolutely positively a legitimate reason to level up quickly and farm the best camps. It's called supply and demand ... any in-game economy is built around it.
RMT is going to exist, one way or another. As Vandraad pointed out, though, there are methods to monitor transactions and if someone is caught participating in RMT the punishment should be severe. But let's not put too much emphasis on that rotten aspect of MMO's. If tickets are being sold to an event, you can pretty much guarantee that some people will be buying them just to resell. It is what it is ... you handle the issues as they come along ... it just doesen't make sense to get caught up in the potential negatives when your focus should be on making the event the best it can be.
I never remember RMT being too much of a factor in any game I played until systems like kronos were adopted. Because of systems like that, the entire culture for a game would shift and greed would become much more rampant. We need to stay away from kronos type features and just fight the war against RMT the best we can ... but again, don't get too caught up in the noise. I think our community has been around long enough to have a trained eye when it comes to identifying gold farmers/sellers. Do your part and report them when you can ... other than that, sit back and enjoy the ride.
Could this not be combined with the other ruleset server threads?