Crackedcubes wrote:This game has extremely long legs for players that are interested in long-term development. Danik's comment regarding specialization makes that perfectly clear. One could spend a year working on just a single specialization, such as warehouse development and party card routes) and still have plenty of opportunities for long-term play and exploration in the many other facets of the game.
the nature and difficulty of how this game is developed and maintained makes it a perfect platform for minimizing the potential for game stagnation.
In my opinion, these older players should be using their considerable game knowledge to present ideas that bring new players into the game and keep them in the game. Such as, game missions. ideas for new game missions would be a welcome change. These older players know the ins and outs of the game and can present ideas that feed the new player with bits of game tips and tricks that keep the newbie in the game.
+1 to Dej's comment regarding "port missions".
I dunno where you get this idea that there is no path for new players to aim for : when I started here 2 years ago there were 2 : become a big fleet trader or be a pirate : that was it ; What did you do with your hard-earned coin? Again, few choices : you built more ships, built warehouses, or you buried it in the ground at enormous turn cost. Did you want credits? Buy them with RW money. Did you want a loan to get you started : forget it.
I dont think newer players see how far this game has progressed in terms of choices and opportunities in the last year. But what I do see is players seemingly demanding older players stagnate whilst they progress : they seem to object to any notion that older players might benefit from any development at all : then complain they are not progressing either, the game isnt giving them an easy path to riches : its the same side of the coin, folks : older players have spent treasure and time developing all the strategies and ways to get rich, and many have lost countless millions refining and finessing them : the big fleeters lost millions daily as they worked out how to minimise loss to pirates : many, myself included, just gave up the struggle to keep more than 10 fleets running : why do all that work to be farmed by the pirates? Ah yes, the pirates, the poor hard-done by-heroes of our game, who, out of some evangelical fervor, keep on losing fortunes daily, all faces turned against them, bound by cruel rules and mean-spirited limitations.. ahem, well, no, they dont, not if they know their business. And, if you choose your mentors and guilds wisely, all that hard-won knowledge will be passed to you free of charge and you wont lose millions and dozens of ships while you figure it all out.
Older players have earned their place in the game, over weeks and months of fighting, trading, winning, losing and sometimes sheer fecking boredom : new players will also have to take that path, learn, make mistakes, mess-up, succeed, endure and finally triumph. You cant have a game which only lets new players progress while it limits older players to marking time until the new guys catch up. Well, you could, but its not one that anyone will be playing for more than a few weeks.