I have returned (imagine sinister laugher) and i would like to talk about ‘‘a reason to log into the game’’ this is purely my personal opinion on the topic at hand. if you plan to read the entire thing then keep that in mind, and also point out which systems, ideas you like and dont like, also feel free to add your own points and systems.
the games i am going to use will mostly consist of f2p games, which is heavily a part of the negative side, so the rant will go pretty far around. we ready? great. lets do this.
‘‘Reason to log in: Difference on forcing and encouraging players’’
that is a rather odd title wouldnt you agree? but yes. the rant is about the reason to log in. i know i know, some will already think now ‘‘well hurr durr, you just log in to play’’ which is absolutely correct, however many gamers, including myself, have waaay too many games, so even though we might want to play a certain game, we might need that extra push to feel like ‘‘it is worth while’’ to log into the game.
the line between encouraging and forcing players to play is a pretty vague one at times, but the general idea is that some games will encourage you to enter a game (things like a daily win for mobas, daily quests. etc) and forcing players (putting limiations on how much a person can do in a certain timeframe)
for encouraging players
Elder scrolls online: Crafting Writ System:
The crafting writ system is not that old, but it is a great example of encouraging players to log in. it works as following.
The player picks a crafting style he wants to make writs for (blacksmith, clothing, woodworking. etc…) now every day the player can go to the crafting board and pick up his daily crafting writ. the writ will be a generated quest in which he has to make 2 times 3 different items, within the given players crafting range (if you can only make tier 1 you get tier 1 writ, tier 2 get tier 2. etc…)
the player will then get a quest looking like this
The player then goes craft the required items. when everything is crafted you have to move down to the docks where an award will await you. the reward is a exp for the crafting writ you used and then a ‘‘material box’’ for that crafting style. the material box have several different materials, also a great way to get the rarer ones.
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(sorry for poor quality, was the only one i could find)
Reason for being encouraging rather than forcing:
The system is great, if you log in daily and do this, you get materials and crafting exp. however if i miss out i dont miss anything what so ever. and if i really want to level crafting then i could go from 0 to max within a day having the materials. so it is not the only way for players to craft, but it awards players for crafting daily.
Guild wars 2: Daily achievement system:
Man do i love this system. it is so simple, yet genius.
okay. so the idea of GW2’s achievement system was that there were 3 achievement types (in general)
Daily
Monthly
Permanent
The daily quest system always made it feel like a great reason to logging into the game, the game would pick 10 or so achievements from a predetermined set and you needed to complete 5 of the 10 to complete the daily achievement. some of these achievements were
Kill x creatures
Harvest x ingredients
Kill x different types of creatures
Kill x veteran creatures (slightly harder creatures)
Craft x items
and the iist goes on. when you completed the daily achievements you got achivement points for the counter. but the best thing was that you got ‘‘laurels’’ which was a form of currency you could use at a specific vendor to buy certain items such as companions. dyes. gear pieces and other good stuff
Daily win system
This system is mainly used in MOBA’s although they vary from game to game, they generally work the same, as a bait to get people playing the game on a daily basis.
League of Legends is one of the games which uses this system, it is pretty simple, every day you can play the game and get a daily win bonus. the bonus gives the players more IP (the ingame curency) almost the double amount actually, so it s a great way to encrouage getting online for the game.
Smite is also another moba with the system however they have changed it slighly. given a bonus amount of ingame currency for every different gamemode.
Other MMO’s actually also use this system to a certain degree, in most games a daily win in pvp modes will give more reward, this system could also translate into first time you complete a dungeon in that day you get more exp. it is a pretty broad system.
Daily Log:
i also imagine alot of people have seen this. it is used in a bunch of different games, mostly free 2 play games. the idea is that every day in a row you log in, you get a better reward, if you dont log in one day the counter will reset. some bigger games such as gw2 does it where you just dont lose your progress.
the system is great because of how simple it is, you dont need to do a ton of fancy stuff. you just have to get ingame and then you earned it. the trick is that when you are ingame alot of people feel like ‘‘well might as well play a bit since we are here’’ and the system have fullfilled its goal
Mixed systems:
automated timesinks:
i have an entire post dedicated to it here:
https://forum.oortonline.com/t/automated-timesinks/645
In short, it can be done really well or really poorly. the biggest example of pooly was the eso trait system, it wasnt bad, but the time scaled was absolutely whack (can be read about in the post)
Daily quests:
Most MMO players know these, one of the most wellknown MMOS ‘‘World of Warcraft’’ uses this system, and over time other MMO’s have started copying the system.
Since oort online is almost confirmed to not have quests it wont be a problem. however this is a system (as said) used in quite a bit of MMO’s they can be done really well. where you are encouraged to play every day, and then they can be done really poorly, in wow there is a certain mount where you need to farm dailies everyday for 3 months to get enough reputation with the thing. it is absolutely horrible.
Systems forcing players to play:
I will use 2 systems which really bothers me,
Energy system:
ah yes, the energy system. most likely the most annoying and money grapping system ever made, this is commonly found on IOS games, sadly it seems some games on pc thing that this system is actually good and have adopted it.
the energy system for those who dont know, is a way to get money on free IOS games. players use energy everytime they do an action for the game (building, entering a fight… etc…) when players run out of energy they cannot play the game anymore in that time energy will recharge naturally but you can ofc pay some money to get more energy instantly.
this is almost only for mobile games, and i dont think the dev team would ever do something like that, however it is worth a mention for a horrible system.
Trove gold system
Trove is another pretty great F2P voxel mmos, andi know that they have to make money, but this system was insanely frustrating.
In trove you get gold for use in the cashshop on classes or mounts from clearing dungeons. the system itself is really good. however there is a max amount of gold which a player can earn in a day. meaning that after you have hit that limit, you will for some magical reason, not get more gold for that day. which means if you want a new class you have to log back in and farm every single day.
This system is purely limits the amount gold which players can get over a time period. and there are no other ways to get gold ingame. this is basically saying ‘‘thanks for playing, we are not gonna reward you at all anymore for today’’ very very bad system
So for those who survived the rant. congratulations. i would like to hear thoughts on this. which systems do you think would work well with oort? did i miss some systems you think is worth mentioning?
as always. lets get a discussion going!
