[Injustice]

When I left Jumpgate and started playing SWG, the thing I missed most was the action, the thrill of skill-based gaming. When I left SWG to play WoW, the thing I missed most was the immersion. I loved playing in the Star Wars universe. When I left WoW to play EVE, the thing I missed most was the fun of knowing there was something new to see and do every day.

I went to EVE thinking it would be the best of both worlds with space combat, a questing system, and tons of stuff to do. What I got wasn't exactly what I bargained for with a tutorial that was seven hours long and a crafting system that almost needed an engineering degree to understand. The PvP balance that relied more on how long a player had played the game and how much money he had than anything else (not just dexterity, but ingenuity can also have a big impact on PvP in most MMO's) really didn't help matters either.

Jumpgate is the one game in existance that promises both excitement and immersion in a completely unique environment, but the gameplay itself, especially the "grind" is repetitive. "Take this and deliver it here", "Fly to here, there, and that other place, then come back", and "Kill this many of that mob and return" aren't what I would call conducive to an epic, on the edge of your seat storyline. Don't get me wrong, a quest-based system is full of those kinds of missions, but Jumpgate has so much storyline worth developing, both fan-based and official, that it'd be a shame to let it all fade away. Why not take all that literature and give those missions a purpose?

[Ambrosius]

Well I generally dislike RPGs, and that sounds awfully RPG-ish to me. To me, the mission system should include a few "grind"-type mission for those that want them, and a few higher-level, multi-part missions that either directly impact the overall game, or react in a timely way to in-game situations.

"The overstock of Explosives at Oct core has created an unsafe situation. Go to Oct core and give this data disk to the Dockmaster. 100u of Uranium will be sold to you at 50% of the market price for your efforts."

"The Quartermaster at Wake has put out a request for the excess supply of Sport+ at Cornea to be removed to his station. This work order athorized you to buy up to 300 Sport+ at Cornea and deliver them to Wake with a bonus of 5000c per unit, as well as a 2-point PR bonus for your efforts."

Mining missions that dramatically increase payout for sorely-needed ores.

Military missions that bounty specifc flippers in your space.

Espionage missions that provide you with a docking key to access enemy stations. Perhaps with follow-up sabotage missions that can damage station functionality or destroy certain supplies.



... and such.

[Wild_Bill]

I admit I like Ambro's twist better, but even the RPG-type quest would be intersting to me.

[Jump]

However it's done, they need to have jobs for the player who has one hour to play as well as the one that has ten hours to grind. Otherwise, they won't sustain the player numbers.

[QrazyKermi]

The RPG-style quests that Inj mentioned would be very useful for getting a noob to level 6 or 9. The quests could be structured so that they get exposure to most of the game mechanics and mission types, some equipment creation, some exposure to how the economy works, get to see far off lands, etc. etc. Basically a tutorial. After that, I would lean more towards Ambro's way.

[Ambrosius]

Don't be leaning this way! You stay over there, bug-breath!

[beginner]

I do like ambro's idea. But once they start repeating. It will start to get boring.

[Reece]

The text in the box is moot unless it's truth. If the server monitors player actions and creates missions based on what's really happening in the universe...you'd have something worth doing.

[Pyrophred]

while i would like to see Ambros idea implemented, the reason it would be hard is that Jumpgate isnt a static place. the reason you can get the 10 part epic quest in games like EQ and WoW is because the world is static.
That bear or orc or dragon will always be there on that ledge waiting for you, even if you killed him the last 5 saturdays in a row.doing this in Jumpgate would be much harder because stuff moves and changes. not to mention it would be very dependent on the players on both sides of the mission willing to play along

[Injustice]

Actually what I was thinking of was something along the lines of the "themepark" system in SWG. For those who're unfamiliar with it, SWG had a series of missions you could take where you interacted directly with the familiar characters from the Star Wars movies. If you were Imperial, you would go to the Emperor's Retreat and recieve missions from the likes of Grand Admiral Thrawn, Darth Vader, and Emperor Palpatine, if you were a rebel it would be people like Mon Mothma, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Chewbacca. Either side could do the Jabba's Palace themepark where you interracted with Jabba the Hut and Bobba Fett.

The missions where more often than not mundane, and due to the nature of the game itself, they were often buggy and frustrating at times, but being able to immerse yourself through interraction with those characters made it fun. In Jumpgate, we often use our factions respective leaders as a catalyst to initiate an RP storyline.

During the Sol/Quant beacon war, we bashed ourselves against each other like a couple of bucks in heat for weeks because of a disagreement between the Fa'hil Memta and the STCC, yet no one has met or interracted with any of these people as far as I know. Your average new player isn't going to read any of the fan fiction or do more than scan the TRINN news releases, and most of them won't bother to read the history of the five systems, so having (like QK mentioned) a tutorial storyline quest available to familiarize players with thier factions' modus operandi would do a lot to "capture hearts and minds" IMO. After completing their factions tutorial, a pilot could then choose to pursue the other factions missions, given their political rating with that faction is high enough (a Quant that's reverred with Hyp would be considered an asset to them and thus be called upon to perform tasks for the Hyperial government, for instance).

The player RP will always be dynamic and the political climate may change, but the five factions will always have that distrust of one another. The STCC will always be the STCC, Amananth will always be the mysterious question mark, the Fa'hil Memta will always be the Protectors of all that is Righteous and Spiritual in the Universe (see what I did there?) .

[Radi]

Quest system: yes for begginers. Problem is end-game. After a while you will be done with it.


Like already mentioned, Jumpgate is not static. Things change.

I think what we really are looking for is player-driven missions (of course there would be also GM controlled events).



I like what Fence did. Players having some impact on "official" RP. Maybe there should be allignment that squads can choose. Pro-factional, pirate, merc etc.

And even work for that alignment. For example, in order to be a pirate, you have to steal. And after couple times, you can declare yourself as a full blown feared pirate of unreg space. Same for pro-factional squads. Defend from conflux, kill bountied pilots, work on economy etc. Of course, it would be optional and can be changed at any point in time.

Maybe by aligning yourself with some faction or activity, you can gain optional features or abilities.

[alphabet]

Injustice hit the nail on the head.

Everyone needs to think outside the box here. Questing missions are indeed a huge draw to players. How many million subscribers to WoW right now?

Some of the opinions expressed here come from minds locked into the jumpgate world. Go play a few games other than Jumpgate. Heck go play a few games that have nothing to do with space at all.

Those games like, Everquest, WoW, etc. have immursive questing systems, that pulls the player into the game world and they can indeed be incorporated in Jumpgate without changing the overall gameplay.

Quit being so closed minded.