New Holding: First Impressions

fruitvendor12

So my fleet ran through it today. We compared notes across the armada.

First off, the positive stuff. It's a gorgeous map. Nice that we can use hoverboards. A kick in the groin that we can't use jet packs but ok different laws of physics is a lame thing to fall back on.

Ah sorry, I couldn't even note the nice things with being irritated and unable to keep out the negatives.

So here they are.

It's not working. The mini-games aren't fun. Simply retreads that have begun to show up more and more the last two years. I can't imagine the designers were overwhelmed by player requests to have even more four year old minigames pushed on them. Not all of us are numbed out potheads clicking buttons whilst burping baby on our shoulder wondering when wife will bring home pizza.

The requirements are still absurdly high. Not sure why smallish fleets are being singled out. It's not like this is the first time enforced social mechanics have been tried. Ask Raph Koster - he failed to make it work with UO in 1997, he failed even more miserably with Star Wars Online. Everquest One and two should finally have proven that nonsense simply fails.

There is more but I simply do not have the energy. At least learn from other game providers' mistakes. Heck, even CCP / EvE Online is starting to adapt, something most of us gave up on years ago.

Armada consensus is we help each other get past tier 1 then forget about it.

And given the beauty of the place I can't help but think some folks on the design staff are despaired.​​

evilmark444

Jetpacks aren't allowed because the map wasn't built for it. If you flew up high and looked down, you'd see holes in the world, untextured geometry, and various other tricks game developers use to improve performance when players are only able to see from a certain angle. To enable jetpacks, they would literally need to scrap the entire map and rebuild it from scratch.

And I don't remember SWG having any social mechanics like this, what exactly are you talking about? If you're trying to say SWG's crafting and entirely player driven economy was a failure then we must have been playing completely different games, SWG's biggest problem (other than the NGE patch) was the same as STOs: lack of content.

As for the holding itself, my first thought when I checked it out earlier was "why is there no coffer for Dilithium ...", seems like the coffer system could have been the perfect solution for when you want to donate but all projects are on 20 hour cooldown.

fruitvendor12

I don't doubt the time to craft a flight friendly map is tedious. SWG under Raph tried to enforce socialization and player vendor interdependency.

I think the concept of the holding is great. But I'd like to see the time gating / grinding dialed back again.​​