Thu Apr 03, 2003 7:22 am
Pacing, Online
I ramble alot when I have an idea and a keyboard, so feel free to skip through if this gets boring.
Does anyone else wish there was some sort of pacing in multiplayer?
I find myself getting bored being able to get VHFS within an hour or so on a server. I know characters aren't exactly long term investments in the Freelancer Online world, what with server stability issues and all, but it would still be nice to have SOME sort of reason to buy ships other than frigates and VHFS.
The single player game was paced perfectly, IMO, with the level requirements being limited by ones ability to complete missions, giving you a real reason to consider buying a Defender or Dragon or any other cool ship nobody would consider using online, due to the fact that the only thing restricting you from a purchase online is your ability to make money. I know MP can't have missions, and so the level requirement from SP would be rendered moot, but that doesn't mean there isn't a way to pace it, at least somewhat. Currently, people who have played the game have zero reason to use 90% of the ships and items.
One way of pacing progression would be bringing back some sort of level requirements for items and ships, from SP. But levels are arbitrary without real missions, because money is almost worthless when (from the very start) you can make 100k within 20 minutes trading in a rhino, if you know the universe decently. If there were just some sort of way to create progression... something a little faster than SP, but which limited the ability of people to frigate straight up to VHF in a few hours. Can anyone really say they wouldn't like to see a duel between a bloodhound and a defender? When the two people were actually compelled, by the game mechanics, to use those ships?
Perhaps... this is just a wild shot:
Introduce some sort of tax on trades? Depending on current rank. So, if you ran out and tried to do a trade run that would give a huge wad of cash, but you were only rank 5, there would be a massive tax on your profits... the tax could fade until you reached a high rank and would be considered on your own, perhaps. It could be explained through some sort of big brother deal with the liberty officials, it might encourage people to buy a lower ship and make money on missions. But then, higher players could just give them loads... then net worth would have to be modified to ignore credit trades... oh, and item trades...
bleh, I can see where this is going. As long as rank/level is based on money, there's probably no way to pace any level requirements online. Of course, there aren't even the requirements right now.
Anyway, maybe it would work as a mod, after some tweaking. I doubt DA would go through the trouble of adding a server feature that made the online facet of the game more complicated in any way, judging by the ship control features strangely absent from my keyboard config menu. I just wish there was a real reason to utilize the pleathorea of ships and items one usually ignores after completing the game, because that's a whole lot of stuff to waste as training wheels...
Does anyone else wish there was some sort of pacing in multiplayer?
I find myself getting bored being able to get VHFS within an hour or so on a server. I know characters aren't exactly long term investments in the Freelancer Online world, what with server stability issues and all, but it would still be nice to have SOME sort of reason to buy ships other than frigates and VHFS.
The single player game was paced perfectly, IMO, with the level requirements being limited by ones ability to complete missions, giving you a real reason to consider buying a Defender or Dragon or any other cool ship nobody would consider using online, due to the fact that the only thing restricting you from a purchase online is your ability to make money. I know MP can't have missions, and so the level requirement from SP would be rendered moot, but that doesn't mean there isn't a way to pace it, at least somewhat. Currently, people who have played the game have zero reason to use 90% of the ships and items.
One way of pacing progression would be bringing back some sort of level requirements for items and ships, from SP. But levels are arbitrary without real missions, because money is almost worthless when (from the very start) you can make 100k within 20 minutes trading in a rhino, if you know the universe decently. If there were just some sort of way to create progression... something a little faster than SP, but which limited the ability of people to frigate straight up to VHF in a few hours. Can anyone really say they wouldn't like to see a duel between a bloodhound and a defender? When the two people were actually compelled, by the game mechanics, to use those ships?
Perhaps... this is just a wild shot:
Introduce some sort of tax on trades? Depending on current rank. So, if you ran out and tried to do a trade run that would give a huge wad of cash, but you were only rank 5, there would be a massive tax on your profits... the tax could fade until you reached a high rank and would be considered on your own, perhaps. It could be explained through some sort of big brother deal with the liberty officials, it might encourage people to buy a lower ship and make money on missions. But then, higher players could just give them loads... then net worth would have to be modified to ignore credit trades... oh, and item trades...
bleh, I can see where this is going. As long as rank/level is based on money, there's probably no way to pace any level requirements online. Of course, there aren't even the requirements right now.
Anyway, maybe it would work as a mod, after some tweaking. I doubt DA would go through the trouble of adding a server feature that made the online facet of the game more complicated in any way, judging by the ship control features strangely absent from my keyboard config menu. I just wish there was a real reason to utilize the pleathorea of ships and items one usually ignores after completing the game, because that's a whole lot of stuff to waste as training wheels...