[Wild_Bill]

Good idea GG!

[Aphelion]

Originally Posted by daslog

New players are going to expect the following:

1) Static quests (missions) that they can do alone
2) Static questions (missions) that they can do with a group
3) The ability to reach the maximum level without having to engage in PvP
4) Penalties for PvP need to be minimal.

New players will be expecting this. The question is, will the game be able to cater to their needs, and still cater to ours, the vets. I would like it if you could do 1-4 above, and still get involved as a vet, ie what WoW players would call "endgame content." For us vets though, I'd still like to be able to hop into my lvl 9 Cyclone and kick one of those lvl 50's ass.

[Raz]

People who love WoW-style grinding probably won't be playing this game.

We have to understand that WoW managed to appeal to a broad market of people.

People who don't care about flight sims.

I feel like I'm repeating myself, but WoW succeeded not because it's a 'perfect game', but because they came up with a design philosophy, revolved the WHOLE GAME AROUND IT (Doesn't everything seem like it's in place in that game?) And made a rock solid game engine.

Blizzard has MUCH MORE CAPITAL than NetDevil. There are 8 people working on this project.

Saying 'We need to copy WoW' is a setup for failure, because this game is not WoW and never will be WoW.

(Haven't you guys seen all the WoW clones coming out since then I believe one of them was called Auto Assault. What happened to it again?)

4) Penalties for PvP need to be minimal.

There's no better way to run people out of a sandbox game than to make their actions not mean anything.

A balance may need to be struck, but don't just cater to WoW because it managed to snag a bunch of casual players.

[daslog]

NetDevil has already stated they want to reach "beyond the flight sim crowd"
I would link the actual quote, but the the site is blocked from work. The best way to get player to HATE PvP is to punish them for trying it. PvP dealth penalties do a great job of that

Penalties tell players they did something wrong. I'm not saying there should be no penalty. It's perfectly fine to scale the penalty so it affects the Veteran pilots, such as higher penalties for death in Unreg.

[Raz]

The best way to get player to HATE PvP is to punish them for trying it. PvP dealth penalties do a great job of that

Jumpgate never really has 'punished' you for PvPing. It gives you the majority of your money back and you need to get more equipment based on the economy. It's a time downtime more than anything, which works okay enough.

Just can't fall into Counter-Strike syndrome. PvP in Jumpgate has to have a point.

[daslog]

Originally Posted by Raz

Jumpgate never really has 'punished' you for PvPing. It gives you the majority of your money back and you need to get more equipment based on the economy. It's a time downtime more than anything, which works okay enough.

Just can't fall into Counter-Strike syndrome. PvP in Jumpgate has to have a point.

For Vets, this is true. For newer players with not much money, losing 5% of your Cargo was pretty expensive.

[Aphelion]

Raz said: People who love WoW-style grinding probably won't be playing this game.

I would tend to disagree.

Fact: Many former Jumpgate players played WoW and got some, hollow, loot-grinding, level-building, mouse-clicking satisfaction out of it.
Fact: Many players in Jumpgate were proud of attaining Opti or even triple-Opti.

I mean, yes, the people like Raz and myself will realize that the level grind is not what Jumpgate or Jumpgate Evolution is about, but if "random-gamer-guy69" bought the game or trial'd it, he'll instinctively try to level up first. It's almost an RPG/MMO instinct. Hopefully, he'll be turned on by the awesome flight model, PvP action, or market-economy (prays) that Jumpgate Evolution has to offer and he'll either stop leveling to start (what we would consider) playing the game, OR he can continue the leveling grind like a good WoW convert should, then go out seeking end-game content, maybe arti's or something. The key is getting the "average MMO-Joe's" to notice the game so they don't just level up, get bored at Opti, then unsubscribe.

Any of that make sense to anyone else but me?

[Raz]

The funny part about it is that the reason I play WoW on a PvP server is sorta-kinda the same reason levelling in Jumpgate was fun for me in the first place.

The game mechanics in WoW (playing a mage on a pvp server) and Jumpgate (learning how to fly a precision ship) both take time to learn and perfect.

So, the levelling in both cases provided me with time and stuff to do to learn the game and improve. Grinding only feels like a grind if you're not learning anything. (I'm 52 in WoW, getting bored of the grind now)

Levels are fine, but you have to be careful about catering to treadmill players because they demand that their 'in game skill' (as far as items and ships) increase with time. That turns off the skill crowd, who doesn't want to grind for 3 months to have a ship like SuperGrinder.

I think the current arty system is a great compromise, with great balance already. It just needs a fun injection.

The first Jumpgate's levelling system was acceptable, I think. The levelling process just needs to be more fluid and fun, which I think this new game is going to accomplish