I think this is a sort of unsaid fear that's been simmering beneath the surface of the forum about making EC: 1. A great game (to which we all have a great deal of faith) 2. An Eternally great game. I wrote 2 very similar threads about how EC would age like wine if development viewed the factions like the colors of Magic and catered to their lore with varying abilities, and how players could edit maps as readily as their character, but I think that the issue goes much deeper. It goes so far as to say: Reward - the instant gratification of securing an objective, satisfying combat, killing a player, or even winning campaign may be the core experience of the game, but it is not enough to keep players interested years down the road. Accomplishment - a great deal of rewards culminating into a sense of identity or player guided purpose. The moment where you may have even said to yourself, "Yeah, I did that." For some in games, its making top level. For us it may be winning a campaign, or even a series of campaigns. In table top, this was achieved by the building of an army and perhaps winning a tournament with it. A story was forged by it, its identity was core to its destiny - you, as its commander wanted it to succeed. You could forge an planetary empire with it. Therefore, I say that although at launch, fighting over planet Arkohna is a great goal, it is not great enough to stay there. Over time I surely hope that players gain the sense that their efforts to accomplish something have not been in vain as they usually are in just about every other game out there so far - which makes the game feel stagnant and repetitive. I certainly hope that Arkohna is central to a whole system of planets, and if a faction earns the accomplishment of controlling a planet by winning multiple campaigns, they can safely oversee the construction of a planetary empire upon it. Although it is likely players won't be able to make it completely their own planet, they can at least leave their mark upon it - an Empire they would likely fight ever the harder to defend when it is threatened by the other factions. Your thoughts on Reward vs. Accomplishment?
Demitri all I have to say is this is a genius idea. Thank you for putting something that has made or broken many games into perspective. Hopefully this topic hours far.
There needs to be something lasting, I agree that players should be able to leave a permanent mark, thus making the virtual world their own. If you cant have that, its basically a really big battlefield that keeps playing itself out campaign after campaign. Personalisation is a key to immersion, immersion is the key to have players/customers keep coming back. One way you could do it is having a log of your character, if you obtained a cappoint achievement, lets say cap 50 capturepoints, the game saves 20 seconds of footage of you capping the 50th point. A year later or whenever you go through your achievements, you dont just see a badge, you also see a small screen with the 20 secs footage. Especially years later its cool to see what kinda armor/loadout you had back then etc. This can also go for finishing moves achievs etc.
It'd be a shame if EC didn't have some sort of ongoing motivation, so it's only reasonable to think about ways to keep players in the game. Personally, I think the first great start was the idea of writing a story about the ongoing conflict based on the outcome of our campaign. There's nothing more everlasting than reading a book where you can read about the triumph you personally achieved! But on the long run, there might be something to make it entertaining. There will be probably a lot of motivation as long as new races join the campaign, new ingame events occur, etc. I'd love to see some feel of accomplisment after the sixth campaign or whatever. It'd probably ignite the flame of zeal in most of us.
you could do the usual tricks for extra content, substory/achieve/quests line per chapter of each faction, etc.
I wrote upon this topic as well before, the impact made by factions (if they win a territory in a long campaign) should indeed be seen and felt. Just resetting everything to its original state after each campaign will do no good for the game and must be avoided. Simple example would be GW2's RvR, they need to steer clear of mostly everything they went about in that mode, its bland repetition of the same each week primarily.
