JohnCapital
Slayer
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2006
- Posts
- 9,831
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- Colorado
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- Freelancer
- Avatar Name
- John Teacher Capital
Lots of complaints about space, mostly about its PVP aspect. The specific complaint depends on your personal opinion. You all know where you stand on this subject. This thread is NOT about those things, so please don't bring up tired debates already posted.
However, something that I don't think many have truly considered is "Why is space lootable PVP?"
The simple fact is, MA's latest business model (planets run by individual small businesses) required this move.
Each of the "planets" are independent small businesses, each working under a payment condition that says they earn less if players go to someone else's planet. They are dependent on player activity on their planet for income. For example, If one of us goes to Arkadia, the business that runs RockTropia does NOT get any revenue. Nothing. Nada. Zero. (Except for a small amount if that ava was born on Rocktropia, but it truly is a small compensation compared to being able to keep that ava on RT.)
MA wants as many planet partners as they can sign on, and each of these businesses are supposed to be responsible for advertising and bringing in their own quantiy of new players. MA also doesn't want to have to deal with one or more of them complaining that planet so-and-so is stealing their players (read: income base). They anticipated (or more likely learned quickly from the actions/activities of the first two/three planets) that they needed a way to discourage mass planet transportation. However, they also want every player to use the same avatar on all planets, and want/desire a small amount of trade between them. It is a nasty cath-22.
So how does MA encourage the planets to focus on getting their own new customers instead of just making big promotions aimed at established players? Pretend you're MA. It's your job to figure out how to restrict transportation, while still allowing it. Keep in mind that players will always adjust their actions based on the circumstances. How can you accomplish this? Worse yet, how to accomplish it without having to create a whole complicated new system foreign to MA's RCE model?
Simple: Make transportation between planets a pain in the ass, while still allowing such if you are brave enough.
And hey-presto! Lootable space.
The truth is, lootable PVP was the easiest, and honestly, best method MA had to keep planets (I.E. separate small businesses) both highly separate, yet able to interact with a single avatar. Of course there are plenty of opinions about "non-PVP corridors", and other ideas ranging from simple to two shades below brain surgery. And perhaps changes may occur as MA matures in this dept. However for now space is lootable PVP, and now hopefully we have a better understanding of why.
If your response is simply "PVP was a bad idea", please don't bother replying. It's what we have and you've already likely bitched about it in plenty of other threads. The only responses I hope here are whether you disagree about why they made space this way, or similar on-topic comments.
However, something that I don't think many have truly considered is "Why is space lootable PVP?"
The simple fact is, MA's latest business model (planets run by individual small businesses) required this move.
Each of the "planets" are independent small businesses, each working under a payment condition that says they earn less if players go to someone else's planet. They are dependent on player activity on their planet for income. For example, If one of us goes to Arkadia, the business that runs RockTropia does NOT get any revenue. Nothing. Nada. Zero. (Except for a small amount if that ava was born on Rocktropia, but it truly is a small compensation compared to being able to keep that ava on RT.)
MA wants as many planet partners as they can sign on, and each of these businesses are supposed to be responsible for advertising and bringing in their own quantiy of new players. MA also doesn't want to have to deal with one or more of them complaining that planet so-and-so is stealing their players (read: income base). They anticipated (or more likely learned quickly from the actions/activities of the first two/three planets) that they needed a way to discourage mass planet transportation. However, they also want every player to use the same avatar on all planets, and want/desire a small amount of trade between them. It is a nasty cath-22.
So how does MA encourage the planets to focus on getting their own new customers instead of just making big promotions aimed at established players? Pretend you're MA. It's your job to figure out how to restrict transportation, while still allowing it. Keep in mind that players will always adjust their actions based on the circumstances. How can you accomplish this? Worse yet, how to accomplish it without having to create a whole complicated new system foreign to MA's RCE model?
Simple: Make transportation between planets a pain in the ass, while still allowing such if you are brave enough.
And hey-presto! Lootable space.
The truth is, lootable PVP was the easiest, and honestly, best method MA had to keep planets (I.E. separate small businesses) both highly separate, yet able to interact with a single avatar. Of course there are plenty of opinions about "non-PVP corridors", and other ideas ranging from simple to two shades below brain surgery. And perhaps changes may occur as MA matures in this dept. However for now space is lootable PVP, and now hopefully we have a better understanding of why.
If your response is simply "PVP was a bad idea", please don't bother replying. It's what we have and you've already likely bitched about it in plenty of other threads. The only responses I hope here are whether you disagree about why they made space this way, or similar on-topic comments.