I used to like the Weekly Strike Targets in CoX, and a discussion on another thread about zones going mostly empty made me think of this:
What if the game had a thing where every Tuesday (defining that globally might be a thing, but whatever works works), any brand new toon you make begins play with some sort of perk. The idea being that the perk is a way of encouraging people to roll up new alts on Tuesdays, so as to organize the playerbase a little and give the new toons someone to team up with from level 1 forward, at least through that first day. The perk would only last until you get up to some higher level (say level 8, I don't know). It might be temp attack power, or a double XP bonus (with a timer, or maybe a total amount of added XP limit that you will eventually exhaust, etc), or even a defense power or self heal or something.
In the case of XP bonuses, I think that should be thing that all new toons just get on that particular Tuesday. If it's a temp power, maybe give people a choice.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
*sings*
[I]Hello, Newbie Tuesdays![/I]
[I]We've got a great game for you![/I]
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
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Um, I never found the regular flow of XP in CoH to be... slow. I could generally push a new character through level 10 in one (extended) game-session, on regular content. Once we had 'Death From Below', leveling new characters became laughably easy. I don't see the need to make an event out of it.
Be Well!
Fireheart
In response to Fireheart:
1) That was "late years" CoX, in the early years, CoH was slower leveling than that.
2) CoT, whatever it is at roll out, will not be CoX. We can't assume that just because leveling was lightning fast in CoX in the later years that it will be the same in CoT when it rolls out. That said, most people generally want to get from level 1 to 30 (or 50) faster if possible, I would think. It's certainly possible to make the early levels a little long without the double XP from the Tuesdays, but you probably don't even have to do that. Or just don't do the Double XP thing if that's an issue, but have other perks, I don't care.
3) Why NOT make an event out of it? Even with DFB, it was still more fun with more people, and increasing the odds that people will meet future SG mates and so forth can only be a good thing, I think. If you want to solo and be left alone, make a new toon on ANY other day of the week. Or just ignore people on Tuesday. The actual perks are not terribly important to me, I'm not married to any one perk. I'm more interested in, as I said, organizing the player base a little to try to increase the odds that when you make a new alt, it may well be at a time when someone else also chose to make a new alt too, so you have some people to roll with.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
IMO this is something you bring in after the game's been running for a few years to freshen it up once people already have max level characters.
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team and Forum Moderator[/color]
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kinda agree with Mino on this one.
that said, not sure how it would really "organize the playerbase" though. assuming folks jumped on board with it on a relatively decent scale, sure, you now have a horde of lowbies runnin around but that doesn't inherently "organize" the playerbase. what organizes the playerbase is the players themselves...folks willing to step up and start organizing teams, etc.
don't get me wrong I like it, but think it should be held off on till after the game has been out for a bit...say, a year or so.
just my 2 IGC's :)
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Okay, by "organizing the player base" I mean "give people the sense that there is an optimal day of the week to make a new alt, and that people in the know make their new toons on that day". I think that would be a lot more effective in maybe giving people a better chance at teaming up with someone, and maybe making new friends, than leaving it to random chance. I think expecting the players themselves to construct something like that by ourselves makes it far less likely to actually happen. For any one player to try to do that is herding cats. The devs, on the other hand, have the ability to add in perks and as such they can affect people's behavior by making real perks to nudge people in the desired direction.
I mean, on the forums, as soon as one guy goes "Hey everybody, let's all agree to make Tuesday 'New Alt Day' whatta ya say?" a lot of the response is going to sound like "I can't do Tuesdays, I have to work, so let''s make it a different day..." and "What's in it for me?" and "Who do you think you are to invent this? To hell with you, I'm going to make my new alts on Wednesday now." etc. If the devs do it they can just do it. No parliamentary discussion arguments in the forums, no alternative models to discuss with the forums, just *boom* there it is.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I agree that you probably don't need this during the first 6 months when people are making their very first toon 24/7 anyway.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
So much for my plans of Moosely Tuesdays.
________
This looks like a job for SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSE!!!!!!!
[color=#ff0000]Composition Team[/color]
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Erm, yeah, I know, I was there, and it wasn't that bad. Later, it became kinda ludicrous to me.
I plan to make my first SIX characters shortly after launch... and then, maybe another six. Then, when they start opening up the Specifications... well, I might go crazy. It ought to take me a while to run out of 'newbies'.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Moosey Tuesey? :D
Mighty Moose Monday!
Be Well!
Fireheart
So you get free antlers if you make the toon on Tuesdays that aren't available at any other time ?
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team and Forum Moderator[/color]
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Yeah, don't know why it's needed right away, when usually the first run through is fun for anyone and has everyone on equal footing.
While I am not opposed to this idea, I'm not sure there is a genuine need for it.
Some players don't need an excuse to make a new character. Some players make one character and play that character from day one until the servers get shut down. And there is an entire spectrum between these two extremes. When the content is entertaining enough, and when there are nearly unlimited variations on skillsets, the game itself provides the incentive to roll new characters or reroll old ones.
The way powersets and customizability are being designed in this game, I suspect players will find a great deal of incentive to make new characters. Those who dislike having alternates are not going to make any. That is just the way they are and there is nothing wrong with being that way, unless they start complaining about level caps and "lack of endgame content". But I'm the kind of player who finds such thinking somewhat idiotic. For me a MMORPG is all about two things: socializing and experimentation. I don't need extra incentives (or even worse, hard-code imposed requirements) to socialize, make new characters, tell different stories, or search out hidden gems. I already play the game this way.
I'm not convinced adding incentives to reinforce my playstyle is necessary. I suspect only a small number of players would be impacted by such incentives. Naturally I would not want to see the game impose my playstyle on others through disincentives to play only a single character or imposing limits on how fast a character can reach level cap. Neither would I want to see the game force players into a "one-character race to level cap to play the real game" style of game design.
I favor improving replayability through enhanced character customization, diverse powersets, diverse powerset enhancement schemes, and a wide variety of alternative narrative routes from 0-level cap. If there are multiple routes to success, more players will seek them out. If one of those routes is extremely accelerated, many players will only focus on that one route, and while this should not be discouraged, neither should they be rewarded when they declare the game "boring and repetitive".
Massive, constantly expanding customization options along with widely diverse, constantly expanding narratives from 0 to the cap. That is the game design paradigm I favor and one that has not seen near enough attention in the world of online gaming.
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My main concern is that the idea is to limit this to a single day of the week. Some people will be unable to take advantage of this idea as they cant play on Tuesdays (or Wednesdays depending on where in the world you live).
Rather if we do go down this kind of path at whatever stage it'd probably be better as a "New Titan Week" where for the entire week all newly created characters get "something". They could also have Additional Character Slots on sale in the Store to allow people to spend some stars/cash to allow them to make new characters if like me they have already hit their default character limit.
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
To Greyhawk: This idea is not intended to get anyone to make a new alt that doesn't want a new alt. The perks should not be things that would give the tuesday toons any kind of permanent advantage that can't be gotten any other way. They should be things that help the new alt, not stuff that unlocks for the whole account, etc. And even then they should be things that the new alt only get's to use for a short period of time. Things like a temp power that goes away at a given level, etc. Even if it's something costume related it should be something you can grind for in other ways fairly easily. The purpose of the idea is that a person who WANTS to make a new alt, and WANTS to play cooperatively with other people will maybe have a greater chance of actually finding a team for their new alt if they plan ahead and do it on "New Alt Day". Also, people who are complete newbs would be able to take advantage of that too, maybe team up with one of the many helpful veterans we're going to have (like me) and get shown the ropes, so to speak. CoX had a fantastic community of friendly people as compared to all the "NOOBS get PWNED!" games out there. This would showcase and leverage that a little.
To Cybermitheral: I understand the problem of picking a given day or whatever, but that problem exists no matter what day, or week you decide to use. There will always be someone who can't do it in that time frame and is shut out. Since that problem is not solvable in the first place, I would be in favor of just going with a day of the week, because it's easier to remember than having to look up which week is new alt week all the time. That said, you could maybe make it "the 1st through 7th of each month" I suppose. I wouldn't be against that, I guess.
If it is one day per week, it could be argued that a weekend day might work better, which actual day of the week it would be is debatable.
To those who've said "This just isn't necessary" I'm not going to tell you you're wrong, it's just an idea, But speaking as a person who really would like to have someone to team up with at the early levels, I would like having it.
From my point of view, it helps to give people a schedule that is advertized in advance for stuff. I mean, if you run a game store and you have a sign that reads "Tables are available for open gaming, 11am through 8pm weeknights and weekends" then you're basically relying on the customers to organize and plan their Warhammer, Magic, Netrunner, Warhammer 40k, Dungeons and Dragons, etc. you get a bunch of people showing up all at the same time some nights and nobody at all other times.
If you structure the schedule so that each game has it's own day and time slot, everyone knows when to show up for which game, and you have officially organized tournaments, with door prizes that are advertized, you get much better attendance. Sure, some people still can make Tuesday night for their game of choice, but that will ALWAYS be a problem, and you can't let the one percent of people who have a conflict on their schedule be the deal-breaker when SO many other people could be helped by it.
And like I said, we're not punishing people for NOT making alts at the prescribed times, we're just adding a little incentive to encourage people to make the new alts they WANT to make at a certain time so as to increase the chances of others being online and ready to do some level 1 content at the same time.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
If this is done I think this should be an event that is not on every week/month but rather a few times a year, obviously with the date advertised well in advance.
Sure some people will go on holidays during that week but that's just unlucky (unlucky to be going on a holiday?? Huh?? :)).
If the main goal of this is to encourage teaming at low levels I think there maybe better ways to do this such as making the way Team XP works better understood (you get XP for teammate kills, etc) and when in teams there are more/tougher enemies so you gain XP faster. Maybe have a Team Momentum like FFXIV does?
I personally never needed a "bonus" to team with people. Either I wanted to run around with a PuG or wanted to solo. But that said an incentive to team may help some.
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
I agree that I don't always want to team with people either, and I'm really not trying to get anyone to do anything they don't want to do. I just like the idea of advertizing in advance when the "best" or "most appropriate" time is to do stuff. It sucks when you get the creative urge to make anew toon, and you make it, and then everyone you know is playing their level 50, or they're on the test server, and there's nobody else at level 1 to team up with. If you can encourage those who wish to make anew alt to do so at the same time, then they will collectively benefit from having each other to play and team up with, if they want to.
And yes, as I already said, you probably have SO many new alts being made for the first 6-12 months that you wouldn't need this right away.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
what if we give cowbell to Newbies?
whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster and when you look into the abyss, the abyss also look into you, -Friedrich
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Would YOU wear the cowbell, then?
Be Well!
Fireheart
yes cowbell> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsiNM1NqUM0 hahahehe
whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster and when you look into the abyss, the abyss also look into you, -Friedrich
[img]http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm106/hinata1032/Kitsune.jpg[/img]