MMO's. It's a game, not a job.

[Rota]

Please don't make STO another job. I want it to be a fun game to escape to.

What I don't want is the daily grind. Cumbersome upkeep for your character is just annoying.

SWG required you to login everyday and get resources from your harvesters.
WoW has a plethora of dailies you must grind through every day. One set of dailies make you grind an hour every day in order to eke out a few tokens everyday so you can buy a banner after a month. Because you can only gain X tokens on any day, then a player that does the upkeep once every day has a huge leg up on the weekend warrior that puts in 7 hours on saturday. Both have the same amount of gameplay, but the guy that makes the MMO a "job" gets vastly more rewards.
...and there are many many more examples of cumbersome upkeep in almost every MMO

Please please don't force us to have to "find an hour or two" (or four) every day in order to access all the goodies in the game.

The bottom line is: Please PLEASE do whatever you can to avoid the cumbersome upkeep tasks for characters. I should be able to go on vacation for a week and still be able to keep up with anyone whom I have similar "total gameplay hours" with. people who can't log in everyday but can put in extra hours on the weekend should not be handicapped in the race to see who has the most goodies.


What are some "upkeep" tasks other MMO's have made you do that dragged down the game rather than enhance it?
I look forward to seeing responses

[CandymanCD]

"Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do."

Marky...

[Hellsfire]

Agreed,pleasure not pain please :)

[cyan29xx]

Please don't make STO another job. I want it to be a fun game to escape to.

What I don't want is the daily grind. Cumbersome upkeep for your character is just annoying.

SWG required you to login everyday and get resources from your harvesters.
WoW has a plethora of dailies you must grind through every day. One set of dailies make you grind an hour every day in order to eke out a few tokens everyday so you can buy a banner after a month. Because you can only gain X tokens on any day, then a player that does the upkeep once every day has a huge leg up on the weekend warrior that puts in 7 hours on saturday. Both have the same amount of gameplay, but the guy that makes the MMO a "job" gets vastly more rewards.
...and there are many many more examples of cumbersome upkeep in almost every MMO

Please please don't force us to have to "find an hour or two" (or four) every day in order to access all the goodies in the game.

The bottom line is: Please PLEASE do whatever you can to avoid the cumbersome upkeep tasks for characters. I should be able to go on vacation for a week and still be able to keep up with anyone whom I have similar "total gameplay hours" with. people who can't log in everyday but can put in extra hours on the weekend should not be handicapped in the race to see who has the most goodies.


What are some "upkeep" tasks other MMO's have made you do that dragged down the game rather than enhance it?
I look forward to seeing responses

You do realize that in both WoW and SWG, you could play the game without doing any of that stuff?

You certainly do not have to do dailies every day in WoW, they are optional, your character does not get "fired" or deleted if you fail to do them every day.

[The.Grand.Nagus]

I agree that "character upkeep" shouldnt be a required part of an MMO. That said, the more you play, the more reward you should get for that time spent. Therefore, if you can only play 1 hour a week and someone else can play 10, obviously they are going to have more reward than you, since they have more time invested.

[MadAlaskan]

Indeed, keeping the upkeep low is good and fun, but I always run into the same problem with any MMO. Only so much to do at end game (farm/raid/pvp). Dailys or more interesting ways to 'farm' are a little bit better, but not by much. My point is: with a low amount of upkeep, end game is a little more defeating rather than it would be. SSDD is a killer.

[Rota]

You do realize that in both WoW and SWG, you could play the game without doing any of that stuff?

You certainly do not have to do dailies every day in WoW, they are optional, your character does not get "fired" or deleted if you fail to do them every day.

I agree that "character upkeep" shouldnt be a required part of an MMO. That said, the more you play, the more reward you should get for that time spent. Therefore, if you can only play 1 hour a week and someone else can play 10, obviously they are going to have more reward than you, since they have more time invested.

I realize that these upkeeps aren't required. Playing the game is not required. But the upkeeps are required for certain rewards players will want.
I'm not saying that someone who puts in more gametime shouldn't have more rewards.
I'm merely asking for STO to not require daily tasks. Someone who plays one hour a day all week and one person who plays 7 hours just on saturday should be able to access the same rewards.

I may not have been clear in my initial post. For that, I'm sorry.

[The.Grand.Nagus]

Someone who plays one hour a day all week and one person who plays 7 hours just on saturday should be able to access the same rewards.

I agree...unless the person who played every day was part of some special event that is not a normal thing.

[tburrfoot]

i am curious (to the OP) as to what you see as a daily upkeep?
while i understand your posting and rant, i have to agree with the poster that stated if one person plays 10 hours and you only play 2, then of course they will gain more reward as fitting.
then again, there are more aggressive players verses others and they will go for certain aspects as to a casual gamer, may have the same game time, but prefers to take it easy...how do you compare this then? does the casusal gamer get to be where the aggressive player is just due to hours played?

[Rota]

I agree...unless the person who played every day was part of some special event that is not a normal thing.
Of course.

If thursday was the halloween event with freebies for participating, then of course the saturday only player didn't get that reward. I'm merely talking about the standard, always available rewards.

i am curious (to the OP) as to what you see as a daily upkeep?
while i understand your posting and rant, i have to agree with the poster that stated if one person plays 10 hours and you only play 2, then of course they will gain more reward as fitting.
then again, there are more aggressive players verses others and they will go for certain aspects as to a casual gamer, may have the same game time, but prefers to take it easy...how do you compare this then? does the casusal gamer get to be where the aggressive player is just due to hours played?

I'm not comparing 10 hours of gameplay to 2 hours. I'm comparing ten hours of one day gameplay to five days of 2 hour gameplay.

I agree that some players are more or less skilled than others. more or less aggressive about chasing rewards. I am only abstractly comparing two gamers in the initial post. Let's assume they have the same skills and desire level for chasing rewards.

[tyranastrasz]

SWG required you to login everyday and get resources from your harvesters.
WoW has a plethora of dailies you must grind through every day. One set of dailies make you grind an hour every day in order to eke out a few tokens everyday so you can buy a banner after a month. Because you can only gain X tokens on any day, then a player that does the upkeep once every day has a huge leg up on the weekend warrior that puts in 7 hours on saturday. Both have the same amount of gameplay, but the guy that makes the MMO a "job" gets vastly more rewards.

Um... those don't sound like upkeep. Upkeep would be if you were penalized for not doing those things. Both of those sound like ways to get resources, items, or money. Sure, if you don't log in for a day, you don't get the extra resources/tokens for that day and that puts you a day behind everyone else, but how does that REALLY hurt you unless you REALLY care about being the FIRST PERSON EVER to use crusader emblems to buy a neat-looking mount or something?

[cyan29xx]

I realize that these upkeeps aren't required. Playing the game is not required. But the upkeeps are required for certain rewards players will want.
I'm not saying that someone who puts in more gametime shouldn't have more rewards.
I'm merely asking for STO to not require daily tasks. Someone who plays one hour a day all week and one person who plays 7 hours just on saturday should be able to access the same rewards.

I may not have been clear in my initial post. For that, I'm sorry.

The idea behind limiting how often a player can do a repeatable quest is to limit the rewards.

You only use 2 examples, the guy who plays 1 hour 7 days a week, and the guy who plays 7 hours 1 day a week.

You seem to be leaving out the guy who can play 7 hours 7 days a week, the limitations on repeatable quests are to keep someone from doing the quest 10000 times a day.

Or why are you not mentioning the guy who write a program to have his character do the quest 10000 times a day while he is not even at the computer?

There is a clear and obvious reason for limiting how often some things can be done.

You are looking at these types of alleged "upkeeps" the wrong way.They do not make quests dailies to force you to do them every day, they are actually making them "daily" to limit how often a player may do them.

[tburrfoot]

Of course.

If thursday was the halloween event with freebies for participating, then of course the saturday only player didn't get that reward. I'm merely talking about the standard, always available rewards.



I'm not comparing 10 hours of gameplay to 2 hours. I'm comparing ten hours of one day gameplay to five days of 2 hour gameplay.

I agree that some players are more or less skilled than others. more or less aggressive about chasing rewards. I am only abstractly comparing two gamers in the initial post. Let's assume they have the same skills and desire level for chasing rewards.

ok, understand.
but as a poster said of quests....
what if you take a quest that offers only 50xp points and an upgrade for better phaser (example).
then the other toon (same specs) takes a quest that offers 120xp and a promotion (example).
you each take 1 hour to complete.
this is where i asked what you meant by upkeep. by this example, you each played the same time frame, but just chose different quests. now your out of alignment and are no longer even just due to one quest.

this is just to say - not that it can, but i guess i am asking what you mean by upkeep. i do not play WoW, but play L2 instead, and i see some things as daily for some players, but not for me.

maybe a larger view of what you mean besides game play time is needed.

[Rota]

The idea behind limiting how often a player can do a repeatable quest is to limit the rewards.

You only use 2 examples, the guy who plays 1 hour 7 days a week, and the guy who plays 7 hours 1 day a week.

You seem to be leaving out the guy who can play 7 hours 7 days a week, the limitations on repeatable quests are to keep someone from doing the quest 10000 times a day.

Or why are you not mentioning the guy who write a program to have his character do the quest 10000 times a day while he is not even at the computer?

There is a clear and obvious reason for limiting how often some things can be done.

You are looking at these types of alleged "upkeeps" the wrong way.They do not make quests dailies to force you to do them every day, they are actually making them "daily" to limit how often a player may do them.

I totally get that. I understand the reasoning behind the limitation of tokens.

But if STO only has those rewards for one-time quests. STO could simply not have special rewards for repeatable missions. Or not have repeatable missions at all.

I get the reason for the limit, but if there is no cause to create that limitation, then gameplay is rewarded instead.

ok, understand.
but as a poster said of quests....
what if you take a quest that offers only 50xp points and an upgrade for better phaser (example).
then the other toon (same specs) takes a quest that offers 120xp and a promotion (example).
you each take 1 hour to complete.
this is where i asked what you meant by upkeep. by this example, you each played the same time frame, but just chose different quests. now your out of alignment and are no longer even just due to one quest.

this is just to say - not that it can, but i guess i am asking what you mean by upkeep. i do not play WoW, but play L2 instead, and i see some things as daily for some players, but not for me.

maybe a larger view of what you mean besides game play time is needed.

Well this thread has turned into a flame-me thread. Which I suppose is fine. I totally see the arguments against my post.

What I was really hoping for was people posting things they hated to "have-to-do" when they logged in to this or that MMO. I just wanted examples of upkeeps people don't like doing, which detracts some of the fun from what is supposed to be a game.

[Phymon]

Dailies were originally created to keep players who had lots of time on their hands busy working towards a goal, which were trade in epics. You didn't have to do any of them if you didn't want to. Those that wanted to, did so and were rewarded for their efforts.

Every MMO should have things to do that cater to all types of players. Those who invest their time and effort should be rewarding accordingly. Like everything in life - even gaming - what you get out should be proportionate to what you put in.

That being said I don't expect to be rewarded as much if I put 15 hours a week as someone putting in 25-30. The more time a person puts in, the more they should get out of the game if that is their goal.

[Rota]

That being said I don't expect to be rewarded as much if I put 15 hours a week as someone putting in 25-30. The more time a person puts in, the more they should get out of the game if that is their goal.

I agree. but with daily tasks, you can get more rewards in 15 hours spread through the week, than another player who puts in those 25 hours on just saturday/sunday. That's all I want to avoid

[DarkShrike]

What about 'raid' content? We know it will be there and honestly I want to participate in it however I would PREFER that it not be designed such that I have to dedicate a major portion of my free time in order to participate in it.

I would like to see something that can be completed in 2-3 hours. If you need to make it longer than that perhaps the completion of each part would unlock the ability to move on to the next segment of the raid however I would not hopefully be required to do the ENTIRE thing say in one week.

Even better find some way to allow me to move on to the next entire raid after completing the first one instead of being to forced to rinse and repeat until its mind numbingly boring because I HAVE to get all the drops for advancement.

[DarkShrike]

I agree. but with daily tasks, you can get more rewards in 15 hours spread through the week, than another player who puts in those 25 hours on just saturday/sunday. That's all I want to avoid

I disagree with this thought. IF you are doing and completing more content then you should be able to collect more rewards.

[tburrfoot]

I totally get that. I understand the reasoning behind the limitation of tokens.

But if STO only has those rewards for one-time quests. STO could simply not have special rewards for repeatable missions. Or not have repeatable missions at all.

I get the reason for the limit, but if there is no cause to create that limitation, then gameplay is rewarded instead.



Well this thread has turned into a flame-me thread. Which I suppose is fine. I totally see the arguments against my post.

What I was really hoping for was people posting things they hated to "have-to-do" when they logged in to this or that MMO. I just wanted examples of upkeeps people don't like doing, which detracts some of the fun from what is supposed to be a game.

i was not flaming, i was seeking to get more information as to what you refered to as daily upkeep since i do not play WoW and am not certain as to the definition you are using.
i hate to grind, but that is just a fact of MMO's.
the idea of getting 500 of this item is just too time consuming and little reward at the end.
i prefer quests which can give the XP and rewards without the time grind added to it. i think completing quests in STO would be more akin to the game verses a kill 500 x type pirates (example) to gain in the game.
is this more what you refer?

[Rota]

I disagree with this thought. IF you are doing and completing more content then you should be able to collect more rewards.

That's not what I said at all. Of course if you do more, you should get more rewards. The hypothetical comparison is between two players that do the same stuff with the same skill. But one person that does twice as many tasks because they play twice as many hours should get twice as many rewards.

However with daily tasks a person that plays less hours but plays everyday can get more rewards than a similarly skilled weekend player who plays twice the gameplay hours

[Sorez]

I'm a big fan personally of you get out what you put in

If someone has a silly amount of free time and no life then they should be able to expect some kind of benefit/reward for the time they're spending ingame (to an extent) such as doing more missions hence access to ships faster more prestige etc etc, what it shouldn't be is that they can progress ranks so quickly they've blasted through everything and then quit due to boredom, this can easily be countered with artificial caps on rank progress etc, however that opens another can of worms :p

Everyone has the opportunity to do everything ingame, but the casual player takes longer to do it, its not really a problem, its a fact of mmo's really, as there (hopefully) is no kind of rank upkeep etc then casual play shouldn't cause any lack of character development

[Sukhanh]

I am all for having less needed time to achive goals but realistically I do not see how that is possible. In life we get paid to work. We get paid more for working more in a standard job. In a game we enjoy by working with our characters to achive dictated goals and the more you do the more pixalated payments you receive. How would to change? I work to achive the dictated goal, I repeat and get less, I repeat again leading to less and less payment... This would end up getting boring... So i stop playing... um.. something seems wrong. its not fun anymore...

[cyan29xx]

That's not what I said at all. Of course if you do more, you should get more rewards. The hypothetical comparison is between two players that do the same stuff with the same skill. But one person that does twice as many tasks because they play twice as many hours should get twice as many rewards.

However with daily tasks a person that plays less hours but plays everyday can get more rewards than a similarly skilled weekend player who plays twice the gameplay hours

Well the problem that, i guess, you are not seeing is that the game genre is NOT limited to just those two types of players.

1 player plays 1 hour 7 days a week, another guy plays 7 hours on a weekend, that is only two types of players, you really have to consider that there is a great variety of players, not just these two types you keep talking about.

Hopefully you do not need an explanation as to why a developer cannot create a game based around only the two types players who play around the time frames you keep describing.

[Phymon]

I agree. but with daily tasks, you can get more rewards in 15 hours spread through the week, than another player who puts in those 25 hours on just saturday/sunday. That's all I want to avoid


I see what you're saying, but if the 25 hour a weekend person did more quests, explored more of undiscovered space (if credit is given for that), maybe PvP or raided a little, they should get more out of the game.

That will give them more options for rewards than the 15 hour a week person. The 15 hour person might seem like he's making more progress because he's focusing on achieving one particular goal (ex: Daily to get x reward), but the 25 hour person still has additional time to accomplish more by getting involved in more activities. 10 additional hours is a lot of time to get involved in other things.

[Rota]

Hopefully you do not need an explanation as to why a developer cannot create a game based around only the two types players who play around the time frames you keep describing.

I'm not asking developers to cater to just this player. I'm aware of the 7 day 7 hours/day player. I merely used the two hypothetical players as an example to show the downside of dailies.

Yes there are upsides too.

I see what you're saying, but if the 25 hour a weekend person did more quests, explored more of undiscovered space (if credit is given for that), maybe PvP or raided a little, they should get more out of the game.

That will give them more options for rewards than the 15 hour a week person. The 15 hour person might seem like he's making more progress because he's focusing on achieving one particular goal (ex: Daily to get x reward), but the 25 hour person still has additional time to accomplish more by getting involved in more activities. 10 additional hours is a lot of time to get involved in other things.

Yes. That is undeniable. The extra hours will result in other rewards. But not the reward from the "daily" system. Which is why I hope there simply won't be daily systems for special rewards. There may be. there may not be. We don't know. Either way, it's not a gamebreaker.



I was really hoping this would be a thread of people telling cryptic the daily tasks they didn't like from other MMO's and wanted to avoid in STO. I wasn't looking for arguments or being forced to get defensive about what seemed like just an idle thought at the time.

[DarkShrike]

Well the problem that, i guess, you are not seeing is that the game genre is NOT limited to just those two types of players.

1 player plays 1 hour 7 days a week, another guy plays 7 hours on a weekend, that is only two types of players, you really have to consider that there is a great variety of players, not just these two types you keep talking about.

Hopefully you do not need an explanation as to why a developer cannot create a game based around only the two types players who play around the time frames you keep describing.

The biggest issue is making content that the person who only plays one hour a day cannot do. Now personally I think that one hour would be too low for that limitation factor but two or three hours would be a good figure to aim for.

Will the person who can only play a small amount of time be able to do anything in game? yes.
Will they get there as fast as someone who has more time? no, but that really shouldn't be a factor.


I am all for having less needed time to achive goals but realistically I do not see how that is possible. In life we get paid to work. We get paid more for working more in a standard job. In a game we enjoy by working with our characters to achive dictated goals and the more you do the more pixalated payments you receive. How would to change? I work to achive the dictated goal, I repeat and get less, I repeat again leading to less and less payment... This would end up getting boring... So i stop playing... um.. something seems wrong. its not fun anymore...

True - it all depends on the amount and type of content. Honestly there is little you can do to guarantee an endless source of entertainment for a person who has a nearly unlimitted block of time to throw at the game but you can certainly make it quite daunting for the casual player. This should be ideal since they are the ones who tend to stick around for the long haul.

What I hate about MMos is when they create artificial time blocks in order to force someone to stick around for a certain period of time in order to 'advance' - e.g. the dreaded reputation grind in WoW. How, exactly, IS that fun and if you enjoyed doing it once do you really want to do it again for any alts you could conceivably play up to that same level?

[Itsbeenalongroad]

Long time stalker of the forums ;), but I just want to throw in my two cents as well. I completely understand the OP's point of view as the token reference in particular is one of the things that made me not want to try out WoW when I heard my friend talking about having to do it after work everyday.

However, having said that, I also do agree with other posters that there must be some type of content that can keep a wide variety of players happy on the day to day after end game. These daily tasks seem as good an option as any when coupled with deeper content. I would simply say as long as these 'tokens' are for superficial parts of the game only, such as a new paint job for your ship, or something like that, than I see no problem with them. As long as player X who plays one hour a day for 7 days, and player Y who plays 7 hours on the weekend can earn the same amount of rank/prestige/credits, basically anything that actually AFFECTS your gameplay, then everything is alright.

On a side note, I find it funny that these tasks are designed so that players cannot 'farm' them day to day, which is a good idea. Yet gold farming still exists in every game that I know of. It would be interesting if they could apply as much energy to stop online farmers from farming the actual meat of a game, instead of stopping them from farming a part of the game that means very little in the end.

[tburrfoot]

ok - as i said, i do not play WoW and am not aware of your "daily" upkeep.
there may be aspects of L2 i should do daily, that others do, but i dont and to be honest dont care too. when i log in, i do what i want....quests, raids, seiges, wars, and grind.

i gueess since i am not a player of WoW i cannot see what you refer to.

if there is a benefit for people to log in a hour each day and do a "daily" for a reward, then why should they not get it?
if it is a requirement, then no, i would be against it, as real life would more then not interfere with this as it is.
but if you earn x points for each hour played as an even ground then ok. it would not matter then of you did 1 hour each day or 7 hours on one.

meh.....

[cyan29xx]

Yes. That is undeniable. The extra hours will result in other rewards. But not the reward from the "daily" system. Which is why I hope there simply won't be daily systems for special rewards. There may be. there may not be. We don't know. Either way, it's not a gamebreaker.

.

Well some rewards have to be limited, so what would you do?

Bi-daily? bi-weekly? or should they just not limit anything and let people go crazy writing programs to do repeatable quests thousands of times in a row?

You do not think having a time-frame limit on a quest is fair to certain people based on playing times?

you do realize that even if you come up with a system that is fair to that particular group of people, another group of people with different play-times will pop-up and tell you that what you thought was a great idea, is not fair to them.

[Rota]

Well some rewards have to be limited, so what would you do?

Bi-daily? bi-weekly? or should they just not limit anything and let people go crazy writing programs to do repeatable quests thousands of times in a row?

You do not think having a time-frame limit on a quest is fair to certain people based on playing times?

you do realize that even if you come up with a system that is fair to that particular group of people, another group of people with different play-times will pop-up and tell you that what you thought was a great idea, is not fair to them.

Agreed. There is no truly fair system. One system will cause gamer group A to QQ, but another system will make gamer group B whine and moan about how they have been nerfed.

But "daily" limitations are just way to short. I'd like to see weekly limits that reset on tuesday or wednesday. Like wow's raids.

[wrussandrews]

Yeah I love the crafting system in SWG but it kept me busy. I got too busy irl to keep up so I canceled. Maybe I will go back, maybe not.

[Ensign.Ricky]

Please don't make STO another job. I want it to be a fun game to escape to....



Fun is relative. You get what you put in from MMOs. Almost all games have some alternative to grinds. Its up to you to mix it up occasionally and keep it interesting.

[Rota]

Fun is relative. You get what you put in from MMOs. Almost all games have some alternative to grinds. Its up to you to mix it up occasionally and keep it interesting.

of course there's going to be some "grind" parts to STO. I just hope it's minimized. If people add the upkeeps they hate to this thread then cryptic can see if a similar upkeep is in STO, and if it's avoidable.

[Phymon]

I'm not asking developers to cater to just this player. I'm aware of the 7 day 7 hours/day player. I merely used the two hypothetical players as an example to show the downside of dailies.

Yes there are upsides too.



Yes. That is undeniable. The extra hours will result in other rewards. But not the reward from the "daily" system. Which is why I hope there simply won't be daily systems for special rewards. There may be. there may not be. We don't know. Either way, it's not a gamebreaker.



I was really hoping this would be a thread of people telling cryptic the daily tasks they didn't like from other MMO's and wanted to avoid in STO. I wasn't looking for arguments or being forced to get defensive about what seemed like just an idle thought at the time.

Don't be too concerned about defensive posts. There are a few people here who agree with the issue, but not your solution.

Repeatable quests were created to give people something to do when they have a lot of time to play. I agree that the downside to it all is that it tends to reward the multi-day player over the multi-hour player, but I think a MMO without repeatable quests in general will make it very difficult for developers to keep up with new content demand.

Some heavy login players will complain that there isn't anything to do because they've done it all. Repeatable quests just keeps them busy while developers work on adding new stuff for everyone to enjoy. A MMO without repeatable quests won’t keep the heavy login players interested for long once they’ve reached cap and did all of the quests offered to enhance their avatar.

[Elboulevardo]

ideally there will be so much to do in game with the procedurally generated content that there wont be a need for "daily quests"

remember, WOW used daily quests cuz that game is extrordinarily gear/reward centric, that they had to do something to keep feeding the beast.

lets pray STO is nothing like that

i agree with the general sentiment that any missions that are produced as filler to give those with time on their hands looking for cheap rewards, shouldnt feel taxing or like a grind. They should be fun to do, and not so repettive that they get boring after one or two times through

but thats hard to pull off when its a daily mission lol. Hopefully the fact that its a daily STARTREK mission will automatically mean its fun :)

[Phymon]

Love the sig Elboulevardo. The Romulan Senator from "In the pale of moonlight." My quote is from the same episode! It's my second favorite ST episode ever, which is why your quote stood out as it did. :-)

I know about the auto-generation system STO will be utilizing, but everything I read about it so far indicates that it will be able to generate planets, solar systems, and other space stuff (environment). I'm think quests will have to be created by the devs because it won’t be able to generate dialog and rewards. If this isn’t the case send me a link or two. I’d like to read up on it.

[cyan29xx]

of course there's going to be some "grind" parts to STO. I just hope it's minimized. If people add the upkeeps they hate to this thread then cryptic can see if a similar upkeep is in STO, and if it's avoidable.


I think alot of people are responding against your post because you are using the word "upkeep" incorrectly.

Upkeep- the process or activity of providing an establishment, machine, person, etc., with necessary or proper maintenance, repairs, support, or the like: The machine's faulty operation shows that no one has attended to its upkeep.

You see, when you use the word "upkeep", you are making it sound like the developers are "forcing" players to do something.

Whereas that is completely false, taken directly from your SWG and WoW examples, i have never done a single quest for those tokens for the new area with the stupid "horse" fights. I do not enjoy those quests, so i simply do not do them. So those quests are clearly not something i am forced to do.

Now lets look at SWG harvesters, you claim they are a "daily" thing to check on. I played pre-NGE so do not know if anything is different now, but i planted harvesters and only checked them weekly, or sometimes less.

At times, i did not enjoy messing with the harvesters so i completely stopped using them for a while, and i was still able to play the game and enjoy myself. Again, not an upkeep.

[Rota]

I think alot of people are responding against your post because you are using the word "upkeep" incorrectly.


fair enough. I have made semantic mistakes more than a few times.

I'm just looking for avoidable "grinds" and a little more equity in gameplay rewards than most MMO's.

[Norexan-Guy]

At least, if there were "dailies" of any sort, make them variable and randomly assigned, yet bear some similarities. And make them have rewards similar to that of other quests.

Hopefully STO won't be gear-centric.

[Elboulevardo]

Love the sig Elboulevardo. The Romulan Senator from "In the pale of moonlight." My quote is from the same episode! It's my second favorite ST episode ever, which is why your quote stood out as it did. :-)

I know about the auto-generation system STO will be utilizing, but everything I read about it so far indicates that it will be able to generate planets, solar systems, and other space stuff (environment). I'm think quests will have to be created by the devs because it won’t be able to generate dialog and rewards. If this isn’t the case send me a link or two. I’d like to read up on it.

agreed 100% Phymon...its the only episode of DS9 i have, and i could watch it over and over without getting sick of it...its one of the most pivotal moments in Starfleet modern history...and great episode for character exploration/building...screenplay and writing was phenominal..truly one of the best episodes of startrek of all time IMO.

on to business...i think its still an unknown as to how much content and what type of content the Genesis system is going to produce...it'd have to incorporate some pretty nifty logic to spit out fun missions and such...but if they somehow find a way to pull it off...ooooooohhhhhhhh baby!!

while Rota's use of the often vague english language has people harping on him, i do agree with the basic principle of Less Grind = more fun...how STO Dev's manage to manifest that into the game is still a huge ???...best to let them at it, instead of taking pot shots at eachother :D

[wolfing]

The main thing is, make sure they're optional. In SWG I was a crafter, I *loved* crafting in SWG, but I *hated* harvesting, like you said, it became a second job for me, it was not fun, and I had to spend like an hour each session to see what harvesters needed to be replaced in different planets. I just decided to buy resources from those who like that part and it made the game much more enjoyable to me. But it was totally optional, nobody was forcing anybody to a) craft or b) harvest.
I like a game that provides those optional things to do that are time consuming. Some people like one, others like another, others don't like anything and just concentrate on combat. As long as these extra activities are optional, I'm ok with that.

[Kaybok]

On behalf of sufferers of MMO Grind Syndrome everywhere I approve this message.

[Thibor]

Please please don't force us to have to "find an hour or two" (or four) every day in order to access all the goodies in the game.

WoW's aren't "required", they provide an optional/alternate path to gear/gold.

Simply put, time in equals progression. Those who have the time to play more will progress faster. If you feel the need to "keep up with the Joneses" then you're going to try and play more to accomplish it.

My advice, enjoy the game at your pace and don't worry what the others are doing or how fast they're getting to what content.

[sandman105]

I would love to be a casual player and be just as effective as a hardcore player, but i just dont see how that
could happen. While im at work for 10 hours, others are playing the game for 10 hours, thus reaping the
rewards for the time they spend in the game. I come home and play for a couple hours, but ill never catch
up the people that play for 10 hours.

It might not seem fair to some of the casual players, but i accept this as an inevitability. Being a casual player myself, i would not expect to be as effective as a hardcore player. While i might start the game at the same time as some 15 year old during summer vacation, you can almost gaurantee that 15 year old is gonna be able to obliberate me if i go against them in pvp.

Lots of time spent in the game per day= lots of good gear and promotions, high lvl skills, and high tier ships
A minimal amount of time in the game per day= playing catch up to the hardcore players

So Im just gonna play the game because its a Star Trek mmo, and im thrilled about it! Im going to take my
time doing missions, getting ships and enjoying the ride. I would rather get enjoyment out of the game
and make my subscription money seem worth while, then speed through the game and miss out on content
here and there.

[Norexan-Guy]

If there were going to be any kind of dailies, make them open-ended.

[OuroborosAgain]

I think what one person may consider "work" or "job-like" another might consider enjoyable or relaxing

I spent a lot of time on UO mining and crafting, and I was on Siege Perilous, a PVP based shard, and I enjoyed it, it was dangerous, but worth it

I agree that what should be considered important content should be efficient, fun, original, and rewarding but those abstractions could come in a variety of forms.

WoW's collusium dailys are a good example of bad content, in my opinion, it took entirely too much time to complete and after about a week of doing those dailys it became a brainless, joyless grind

Content should be open-ended, sandboxy, thats what makes a good game, i think, allowing all types of people to enjoy it in their own way, causually and hardcore.

Working for top end skills, items, titles, and raids are much much more rewarding when they arent easy to get to, but its the journey that make it fun, if the journey is boring then whats the point except to pad your own ego? I think you lose people in that type of system.

i think you lose people when things are too easy too, you get bored quick of same old same old.

Star Trek has a HUGE universe to work in and I hope, I HOPE, theres a variety of things to enjoy and explore, discovering the unknown i central to the Star Trek premise and hopefully we will all get to enjoy that in our own way soon.