I know, comparatively, I have not been in Entropia for as long as others. However, I have seen a good handful of events within Entropia since joining Dec '05. From my first robot invasion, to the yearly Eomon migration and high maturity creature migrations, the mysterious Atrox egg (still mysterious), the introduction of Borums (for some reason they were specially introduced, unlike other new mobs), the strange and creepy story about the Orb(s)/Argos/Umbranoids (still not sure where this was going, but there were so many side stories if I think too hard I might explode), to our current Robot War.
As the events rolled on, I have become increasing frustrated with the more-of-the-same feeling I am getting from all of the events. We all love a clever story line, some tasty loot and some extra slinky new mobs.
But it occurred to me that the core player involvement has continued to be the same: hunt (mine and craft is appearing now) the event mobs, loot rare items, and (maybe) turn it in for a reward.
I love events in my games, always have, and I am sure many others will as well. I love, even more, an event that actually feels like I have some part in the story. That my game play can actually be affected by the event.
So when I consider taking out the entire concept of hunting for hours on end for the extremely unlikely chance of looting one of the few rare parts in order to obtain an item, I've realized that Entropia would not be any different during this time of "war." The ending has already been written out. We as players are just killing and looting. We aren't needed to collectively take action to alter the story, or even really coming together to win anything as a community. 15 people are slated to win. Who, we don't know, but the rest of us, after it ends it ends.
A good storyline is fantastic and I love to be captured by a good story. It doesn't help that we can't seem to come to some conclusion for any of the stories we embark on in Entropia. That just makes it worse. Not only are we given an elaborate story (even on EForum here, we have some story going on), we see loads of updates about the troubles on Calypso. But log into the game, pick up a gun (or get on a machine or drop a bomb), and nothing is really different.
So what is my point?
My point is, they have the technology to give us so much more...
WARNING: Are you sure? You are attempting to teleport into hostile forces. Defense systems are off-line. Restoration in progress, 68%.
- Concentrated simultaneous invasions in multiple locations involving short spawns but requires groups of hunters to split up in order to counter them all. Hunters are needed to keep the robots away from the city. If robots enter the city, the defense system ticks down. They're robots with advanced technology, don't you think they can easily take our guns down? Or even revival? Crafters are needed to create components specifically turned in to an NPC that essentially acts as a counter. With enough components, turret or even revival systems can be restored. If you really want to go crazy, you can have minerals that loot only during this time.
- Anti-Robot limited weapons and ammunition, crafted or looted, it doesn't really matter. Specific ammunition that has added damage to bots? Gimme. Crafted from robot parts? Why not. Limited anti-bot weapons that aren't rare would certainly be helpful.
- Robot beacons - So the robots are invading. I have not been on a beacon recently, but I imagine they are unchanged. But it was, at some point, a possible concept to build robot beacons. And it would not really break the system to create blueprints that will build one time robot beacons using more event robot parts looting from the bots themselves. Loot more beacons during mining. Why? For any reason, but what if completing the boss on a sequence of robot beacons could mean chasing away one of those towering spaceships above the towns?
- Loads of small, not so rare treasures - kill a robot. Find a little key code. Encrypt it if you'd like. EForum continues to be very clever in decoding robot speak. Decode it, and find a location. Ask others for help, it doesn't matter. Only the person holding the key can activate the little spaceship that will be there so its not just about getting there first. Loot an item that somewhere a crafter is holding on to a 1 click BP for, in order to create an item that is then needed to make something for the anti robot effort. If it doesn't happen, its okay, it can loot somewhere else. OR an anti bot gun. Or anti bot ammo. Anything.
I can probably go on all day, trying to think of ways to actually band players together during an event while taking into consideration the current fuctionality of the game. I understand that some things just can't be done, (we can't run around visually trashing cities and abducting players, no matter how much I'd love that, simply because it would be unreasonable to try and build that into the game).
But really...they can give us so much more.
As the events rolled on, I have become increasing frustrated with the more-of-the-same feeling I am getting from all of the events. We all love a clever story line, some tasty loot and some extra slinky new mobs.
But it occurred to me that the core player involvement has continued to be the same: hunt (mine and craft is appearing now) the event mobs, loot rare items, and (maybe) turn it in for a reward.
I love events in my games, always have, and I am sure many others will as well. I love, even more, an event that actually feels like I have some part in the story. That my game play can actually be affected by the event.
So when I consider taking out the entire concept of hunting for hours on end for the extremely unlikely chance of looting one of the few rare parts in order to obtain an item, I've realized that Entropia would not be any different during this time of "war." The ending has already been written out. We as players are just killing and looting. We aren't needed to collectively take action to alter the story, or even really coming together to win anything as a community. 15 people are slated to win. Who, we don't know, but the rest of us, after it ends it ends.
A good storyline is fantastic and I love to be captured by a good story. It doesn't help that we can't seem to come to some conclusion for any of the stories we embark on in Entropia. That just makes it worse. Not only are we given an elaborate story (even on EForum here, we have some story going on), we see loads of updates about the troubles on Calypso. But log into the game, pick up a gun (or get on a machine or drop a bomb), and nothing is really different.
So what is my point?
My point is, they have the technology to give us so much more...
WARNING: Are you sure? You are attempting to teleport into hostile forces. Defense systems are off-line. Restoration in progress, 68%.
- Concentrated simultaneous invasions in multiple locations involving short spawns but requires groups of hunters to split up in order to counter them all. Hunters are needed to keep the robots away from the city. If robots enter the city, the defense system ticks down. They're robots with advanced technology, don't you think they can easily take our guns down? Or even revival? Crafters are needed to create components specifically turned in to an NPC that essentially acts as a counter. With enough components, turret or even revival systems can be restored. If you really want to go crazy, you can have minerals that loot only during this time.
- Anti-Robot limited weapons and ammunition, crafted or looted, it doesn't really matter. Specific ammunition that has added damage to bots? Gimme. Crafted from robot parts? Why not. Limited anti-bot weapons that aren't rare would certainly be helpful.
- Robot beacons - So the robots are invading. I have not been on a beacon recently, but I imagine they are unchanged. But it was, at some point, a possible concept to build robot beacons. And it would not really break the system to create blueprints that will build one time robot beacons using more event robot parts looting from the bots themselves. Loot more beacons during mining. Why? For any reason, but what if completing the boss on a sequence of robot beacons could mean chasing away one of those towering spaceships above the towns?
- Loads of small, not so rare treasures - kill a robot. Find a little key code. Encrypt it if you'd like. EForum continues to be very clever in decoding robot speak. Decode it, and find a location. Ask others for help, it doesn't matter. Only the person holding the key can activate the little spaceship that will be there so its not just about getting there first. Loot an item that somewhere a crafter is holding on to a 1 click BP for, in order to create an item that is then needed to make something for the anti robot effort. If it doesn't happen, its okay, it can loot somewhere else. OR an anti bot gun. Or anti bot ammo. Anything.
I can probably go on all day, trying to think of ways to actually band players together during an event while taking into consideration the current fuctionality of the game. I understand that some things just can't be done, (we can't run around visually trashing cities and abducting players, no matter how much I'd love that, simply because it would be unreasonable to try and build that into the game).
But really...they can give us so much more.