Statesman speaks at serious games summit
By
2Negative,
Posted on: 2006-10-31 18:17 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I do beleive that bases are way to expensive.. I have a small VG, and its taken us a very very long time to get a funcational base. We just finally placed our 7th room for the vault and now need to place the 8th as well. but that will probably be a ways off.. this is after they have been out for a year?? thats crazy, granted we haven't been playing for a few months of that year, but still, its taken us a long long time to get a working base. And now to keep up with the rent, its getting harder and harder. It seems that we just pay the rent and then it is due again. I see several things you could do to make this better, 1) remove base rent or cut it down to 75% of what it is now. or 2) remove the infamy/influence reduction at lvl 25. why do we have to choose between making prestige or making inf?
I have always wondered why you came up with prestige for base funds, why have two seperate money values in a game? wouldnt it be better to just use infamy/influence to pay for bases? I played UO for 5 years and they have had houses for a long long time and you can fully customize a house in that game and all it costs is the same old gold you get in game.
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But what's clear from this thread - and from many, many posts - is that bases are "too expensive". To me, that's interesting (as it is to the Serious Games crowd). Costume changes come with a minimal cost that no one really complains about, but we complain about the costs of bases. Evidently, the costs exceed the perceived value of creating one's own HQ (btw, I confess that many other games have the notion of personal property, but aside from Second Life, I don't think they offer as much customizability as our bases).
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True, but I teach English not Social Studies
It shows.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
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So why not lower the cost of base plots? If not the Secure ones (which allow as many IoPs as you like), then how about just the Hidden ones, which is what an non-IoP SG base will have anyways. Since rent is going to be plot-size based, lowered costs for Hidden base plots can be reflected in the updated rent values (nothing too insane, I'd imagine, since Hidden plots only allow for one IoP). This will allow the semi-active SGs, as well as the slower SGs in the long run, to be able to expand their base size, and maybe even take a shot at the Citadel of Pain (more players doing something that takes a lot of resources to make!), and since they can only have one IoP in their Hidden base... well, it should be balanced. <_<
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Or even better create a new plot type that doesn't allow any IoPs, call it Public and reduce the cost by 3/4s or 1/2. This will really allow the non-PvP oriented SGs to do their thing without impinging on the PvP balances. Of course it will show that a vast majority of the playerbase don't care about PvP...
The author of this post is speaking in generalities from his personal experience.
Your experience may vary.
First off, thanks for taking the time to reply, Statesman.
Secondly, Clintonian (and others) did a fantastic job of explaining the differences between costumes and bases, so I won't go into that much. I do feel like one thing was missed in that regard, however:
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Intestingly, costumes have no gameplay value. They don't boost damage. They don't boost resistance. They don't boost defense. They're only for show.
Now, let's take a look at bases. Take away the teleporters, take away anything game related.
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You can't take away the functionality of bases to make this comparison. Bases are not just about looking cool or unique in the way that costumes are. They are also about giving players specific benefits. In fact, these features (such as base raiding) seemed to be hyped far more than the customization prior to CoV's release. If you want to compare the costs of both bases and costumes, the benefits of both have to be taken into consideration as well.
What benefits do I get from building a base? I can teleport to other zones, rez in the base, make items for my base, store things, get some buffs etc. Is that worth the price (both in prestige and meeting the various restrictions - eg power, control, etc.) to use them? Others have covered already why a lot of these benefits are just not worth getting and spending thousands of prestige.
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Get the point?
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There's some interesting stuff in your post, but I really think you're straining to make the 'government type' metaphor work. Entertainment works on slightly different priorities than real-world institutional concerns. All the same principles apply, but there's are just different priorities and 'physics' to entertainment and hobby pursuits, including generally a much higher threshold for tolerating fascist-like decisions. Then again, look at how this country has turned over the last few years...
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Bases in CoH/V are not as popular as one might have expected because the system inherently produces a social structure that is decidedly un-American.
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Well, when was the last time you visited a planning and zoning meeting for your municipality? I think most people who get exposed to real "American" democracy in action would be surprised.
I'm not sure that there's much consensus on what being "American" is, though, considering it's a hodge-podge of a variety of governing philosophies ranging from libertarianism to socialism with more and more flourishes of fascism in recent years. Considering that the definition of "American" depends on one's situation and perspective, how would the developers divine how to make the game more "American"?
Ultimately, I'd argue that people don't want something exactly like real-life in their entertainment and there's only so much one can learn from real life to guide virtual life design, so imposing real-world doctrines realistically might be just as flawed as what has been done with bases. As an example, base rent is realistic and logical and simulates capitalist opportunity costs to an extent, but falls apart as something useful in the current Prestige economy and interms of CoX's gameplay.
I don't think most people fault the devs for not inherently knowing what "fun" is, but that the feedback loop for discovering what will be fun for most people in this unique game isn't as effective as it might be.
*cough*
I'm so bored waiting to go out tonight, lol. 
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That's what the point of the talk was. I completely agree with many of the suggestions raised in the Base Construction forum, as well as one's mentioned here, would improve Bases to some degree or another. Posi and I go through them at length; really, it's just a question of time & resources. Some things would take astronomically long to do - or perhaps there's something else even more requested or popular.
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Thank you for clarifying all this. It really does help.
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<QR>
Hey States, any talk of PvE base raids?
Like if you do so many SG missions from the SG computer (yeah, that's not in either) against a specific NPC group, they get upset and attack your base?
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LOVE this idea.
Imagine this - you've been running PB missions from the SG computer all day, when you get the next tip. Only this one is in a different color ...
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"Hey <SG NAME>, we're hearing some nasty rumors about <VILLAIN_GROUP>. Seem's they are happy with you for taking down so many of their people. I'd suggest you dig into this and find out the truth!"
WARNING - Taking this mission will lead towards a raid on your base by (VILLIAN_GROUP). This raid will happen shortly after you finish this mission, and will be sized according to the number of heroes in your base.
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If you take that mission, you'll get the usual "Kill All in map XYZ" mission. You'll then get the clue that the group is already heading to attack your base! 10 minutes after mission complete, the raid begins.
Mob groups will begin to spawn in your base, and try to destroy the base by placing bombs. If they place X bombs, you lose. The groups will spawn in waves, with each group working towards a different room to place their bomb.
This mission could be done only once per week, per SG, to prevent farming. There are obvious balance issues, but the core concept seems pretty cool.
-- War
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Heck they could throw in SG missions like the ones from brokers/police band. I think that would be pretty cool.
The author of this post is speaking in generalities from his personal experience.
Your experience may vary.
Sorry, I'm about 200 posts or so behind on this, and given the trend not willing to risk reading someone saying 'dev apologist' again(There's this vein in my forehead, it starts popping out everytime because of the sheer force of stupidity behind that phrase).
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All good reasons to pass through your base, but no good reasons to stay there.
The real problem, IMO, is that there's never a reason to stay in your base for any length of time, so there's therefore no good incentive to individualize your base to any significant degree.
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Honestly, I'm sorta twisted here.
I don't see a base as a place to stay, I see it as a place to get together, prep, and leave. I was under the impression that was what a base was for myself, a central point to keep some supplies you may need.
But as for individualizing a base, I do it just to have a cool base. We have like 5 or six of those '50's ish retrotech monitors in our control room, just because they look cool and fit the general feeling of the base. It's the little individual touches in the base which make it nice to be in, I can see a bit of each of the main guys in the SG going room to room.
That's why I do it myself, if that's not enough for other people, I don't know what to tell you. Course the main guys are the only ones in the SG(and apparently they're back, which I'm quite happy about), which may explain the greater bit of their touch in the base compared to most I've seen.
For almost any super group, the base is painfully spartan, just one or two items per room. Why? I'll tell you why.
Let me offer you an example: the now long-defunct Aeon University Cheerleading Squad on Virtue. We had two very heavy (four to six hour a day) players, another four several time per week players, and three or four players who played at least three or four hours at a time once per week. A small villain group, I grant; we were bringing in about 25,000 prestige per week on a good week.
It took us six months to afford to put in that 6th teleporter beacon and a medical transporter. And nobody ever used the medical transporter twice. We never did get the badges necessary to put in the extra gear that would make a medical bay even vaguely useful. And when everything collapsed at about the six month mark (I was the main organizer, and quit out of disgust over patron power pools to go play Auto Assault for a few months), we still had neither the prestige nor the necessary salvage to finish upgrading the (then mostly useless) buff-creation stations; we had the tech one done, but the magic one was only to level 2. We had a supergroup mission computer, but to the best of my knowledge it never got used.
And because we were absolutely always tightly pinched for prestige, we had exactly zero decorative items, and no decorative rooms. Which really hurt the aesthetics of the base; it never really felt like a villain group base, and there's something just plain pitiful looking about a huge grid of undecorated and 75% empty rooms. When I envisioned building my own base, I envisioned something that would look like a Council base map or an ultratech lab map or an Arachnos lab map, with all kinds of things piled up and lit up and moving around. Not a tiny map of identical 2x2 rooms without a single door that opens and closes and with one tiny 1x1 item per otherwise blank room.
Now, I've done the math and discovered that one person with all 12 character slots in the same SG, at 240k prestige, is just about perfect for a one room workshop plus a salvage rack, inspiration storage module, and both level 1 empowerment stations. And if salvage weren't constantly desperately short, those empowerment stations would qualify as an occasionally good reason to visit the base now that the durations have gone up. But from that initial startup investment in prestige until the base gets enough power and computing power to pay for everything needed to put in teleporters is a long, long time.
Not only does nobody outside the group ever see the secret lair, for the first several months until a full set of teleporters is installed, nobody inside the group has any particular reason to see it except for a few minutes every couple of weeks to drop off salvage.
To beat a dead horse, I don't see any reason for decorative items to cost anything, period. I don't see any reason for non-functional decorative rooms to cost anything, period. I don't see any reason why crafted items should be less effective for their prestige cost than standard purchased items are, but they all are. I don't see why anybody would want a medical bay, at the very least until all zones have teleporter beacons, when it's less functional than a hospital, returning you to the map in a less guarded spot, at less than full health, as far from the mission door as the hospital or farther. Nor do I see any reason why a teleporter is restricted to two beacons.
There are several thousand super groups on the larger servers. There are maybe ten groups per server that are well positioned to use any of the features.
Statesman, could you please total up the prestige cost to put a teleport beacon in every CoH zone that's supported by the next issue? Remember to include a big enough base plot to include the necessary number of rooms, the cost of the necessary rooms, and to factor in the power and control costs. Then add the cost of even a bare-bones workshop with the 3 storage racks, 2 empowerment stations, and a basic table. Feel free to include or leave out the cost of a raid teleporter, a vault, and beacons; the PvE base costs are depressing enough. Then data-mine the server logs to find out how much prestige per player hour is the average for people in supergroup mode, and divide it by that. Then please find out for yourself, and tell us, how many player-hours it takes to build a fully functional but stark and completely undecorated supergroup base?
Then you'll have your answer as to why hardly anybody cares about bases. At least influence and infamy can be spent.
When bases were announced, we all thought of batmans cave or spidermans apartment or the xmansion. What we got was an empty wherehouse.
Only with the oversight center did bases become useful and attainable. They are cost prohibitive and are not really that much fun for all the same reasons people have said.
The decorating and personalization would go a long way if they intruduce the /moveitem command from SWG. All items in SWG could be moved, rotated, lowered, nudged hover anywhere in space the designer liked. This is where you get the scale model ships and full aquariums. CoH bases have rigid placement of items and desks that you cannot place items on.
Another neet feature in SWG was in the building plot you purchased. Small, Medium, Large or Guild. The rooms were static but the walls and stairs and ceilings looked like a building you'd want to stay in. In CoH we get a cavernous labryinthe where items can only be placed in specific rooms. Why can't the teleporter be in the same room as the generator?
The decorating isn't really that great, only 1 person ever decorates anyway, costs are way too high and no one can see your base anyway to show off.
I really post here to show support to other well thought out posts here that explain why bases are just not that good. The Pocket D teleport and hospitals negate the need for a base anyway.
Just a couple of points I want to make here.
You draw parallels between the expense of modifying a costume, with that of modifying a base. Yes, costume changes are expensive, but they do not contain a recurring cost. How would you like it (thinking as a player now) if there was a recurring cost every few weeks for that helmet that just perfectly fits the concept of your character?
Similarly, you point out (rightfully) that often, one person in a SG decides upon a uniform, and no one in the SG complains when they must dedicate one of their costume slots to that costume. I don't feel constrained by creating a SG costume, because I know that I will eventually have 3 additional costume slots on my character that I can customize to my heart's content.
So, on a supergroup of 20 characters, there are a total of 80 (or 100, if you allow the extra "Halloween" costume) possible costume slots. One-quarter (or one-fifth) of those are consumed by a dedicated SG uniform; three-quarters (or 4/5ths) of those costumes are left to the creativity of the individual player.
That same supergroup will have one base. That one base will be dedicated specifically to the needs of the supergroup, and often, a single architect will wield total control. So, while all 20 members of the SG can utilize the base, only one person out of 20 actually feels ownership of the base and can internalize it to their character.
I really think that we need to draw a clear separation in use and expectation when it comes to bases. By and large, users equating bases with the equivalent to a personal lair are going to be disappointed; a small minority of users are going to have editing control, and even those that do, must work within resource guidelines. Users equating bases with an opportunity to power game a little bit, and raid other SGs in a friendly and competitive manner, are going to love them, especially if they have control.
I feel that it is time that we recognize that the Base system, as it is designed and as it exists, is not there for the "socializer" aspect of the community. It doesn't serve this need, nor will it ever serve this need. Instead, some of the technology that is there can probably be carried over to a "lair" setup, which neither the cost of bases, nor their gameplay benefits. Instead, these would avoid the cost and scarcity issues of bases, while providing users a similar level of customization.
I would suggest something like a single room "lair" opening at level 10, with additional rooms being added (with no recurring cost) at later levels, but I fear I've gone on well past what the majority of users will read.
This is what I expected from bases:
Transportation hub:
I wanted to be able to teleport from any point of the world into the base, not having to go to a specific spot on the map. That sort of felt artificial, bases should had granted every plaer that joined a SG a Teleport to Base temp power. Should had been part of the base, not a veteran reward.
Also wanted to teleport straight into a mission, see JLA, they do not teleport to New York City or any other city and walk from there. They usually get teleported straight to the building they were headed to.
Missions:
I expected the bases to have a huge super computer that would grant us missions that would go beyond 8 member teams. After all, this is Super Group content, and I know few super groups that are only 8 member large. I wanted to see generic, newspaper style missions that always had multiple AVs inside, with Elite Bosses galore and not a single minion anywhere. Tough content that required the collaboration of some 16 or 24 players.
I expected special huge task forces with cinematics and, again, multiple AVs throughout EACH map.
Customization:
I expected variation in geometry, not necessarily textures. I wanted to be able to pick a cavern as a map layout and build the base inside of it, or an underwater or outer space base built as a bubble. I expected to see a bio-organic geometry set that allowed me to live in a slimy-living base. I realize this is art intensive but its what I expected.
I expected trophies. A super groups should get their own kill count badges, unlocking each should yield trophies, Skulls masks to Banished Pantheon totem masks and Rikti inactive drones and broken Fake Nemesis. Special trophies should be also awarded from each Taskforce. Again, this should had not been part of vet rewards, but something the SG be proud of obtaining as a group.
Danger Room
I expected to get a controlled enviroment where there was no debt or experience, where we were able to jump in and be crazy and experiment strategies at, as the Xmen constantly do.
Data Center:
I expected to be able to build a database with information about every enemy repeatedly defeated by the super group. Similar to kill counts and badges, killing, perhaps 1000 skull smashers, would open up a database entry with a small lore about the specific enemy, along with known combat information (known powers).
Storage:
I expected this from the start, we got it now, thankfully.
I love the base design editor - heck when you could get lots of prestige on test just by creating an sg I made several bases just for fun.
Bases are expensive but tbh I don't think that is why people seem less interested in them than costumes.
In my sg we have 6 bases. A main one for the main villain and main hero group and then 4 bases for the alt groups. All the alt sg's have enough prestige to make reasonably sized bases and we are a large group - we can have around 30 people online during the course of an evening.
The main group bases are overseen by the three sg leaders (I'm one of them) and we wanted to come up with a way of sharing the base feature, because it is so good.
We put four different officers in charge of the four base groups and they designed them as they wanted to, but they had to fit in a reasonable size social room. The idea was that four normal members a month could each have a room to do what they pleased with - design it around their char concept/host parties in there etc - just have a play around. Then at the end of the month when somebody else wanted a go that room would be passed on. That way within the sg, including leaders and officers in charge of a base, 54 people would get to have a go with it.
But we found that people just didn't really want to. The social rooms remain pretty empty!
So why don't people want to play with bases even when they can?
It's time consuming - takes longer to build a base than it does to make a costume.
Nobody gets to see it except the sg members who go into them - and even then the majority of rooms won't get visitors
Once done it's kinda forgotten - you don't see it while you play, whereas your costume is very much on screen all the time.
Bases are pretty buggy. Team mates can't get in even when permissions are set. You can get thrown out of your base for no real reason. Often things go wrong in the base editor leading to much frustration. People just don't want to play with buggy stuff (don't get me started on the arenas which kick you out mid match!).
I love bases - I love building bases - I don't think that the reason they aren't embraced in the same was as the costumes isn't totally cost related.
I think *individual* player housing using the same editor would be more popular though.
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3) Are bases a failure? They were designed for the long-haul. Even a year after their implementation, the SGs that I'm familiar with that have been the most dedicated towards Prestige acquisition are just now approaching the 50M mark. The most expensive plot off the top of my head costs 136M. Rent mechanics (and their impending changes) notwithstanding -- these SGs are looking to max out their
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I got the impression (I was there to see most of his speech) that Jack and the rest of the Cryptic staff were happy about the costs; that they were structured to suck cash away from groups who had accumulated a big pile of it at least as much as they were structured to fit the game world. He didn't go into a great deal of detail about it, since most of the audience wasn't familiar with CoX and he had a lot of ground to cover, but it was clear that (in his opinion) this feature of the game was way over-designed and missed its mark with players.
I think there are a lot of reasons why bases are mostly abandoned, and self-expression is only part of it. Cost is another -- my SG on Freedom is having trouble making rent this month (somewhere around a quarter million prestige), and it isn't really all that big a base. We have teleporters, sure, and some people use them; we have crafting tables, but we can't afford to make and place items so the bins sit there jammed full of stuff. And we still have to have our SG meetings in secluded spots of the normal playing world because not everybody can get into the base.
Bases have/had some promise, but how many people want to pay taxes to equip a temple they don't worship at?
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Other really excellent ideas have been offered that would have been easy to create, but have also been ignored.
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I would not presume that any of our ideas are "easy". One thing I've learned from being a coder, most of the time you can't really tell how difficult something is until you know the legacy code.
I would not assume the devs are ignoring us. This is all a complex cost/benefit analysis. Remember, most of the game is not bases, so significant effort put into bases is benefiting a minority of the game. For example, if the choice comes down to adding some features to bases or making missions more dynamic, I'd choose the mission upgrades without question.
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OK, so we already have a wide variety of wall decorations, including umpteen variants on SG banners. We have pieces of artwork and charts of differing sizes. But creating a rectangular 2-dimensional object with a black background, a few "stars" and an image of the Earth on it as a wall decoration would be very difficult because .....?
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I think there's some misinterpretation here - or my speech wasn't clear.
Let's take a look at costume creation. It's been embraced beyond belief by players...we have in game costume contests and events organized by you the players...Some say it's the best part of the game. The single most requested item in CoH is to make the costume creator standalone...
Intestingly, costumes have no gameplay value. They don't boost damage. They don't boost resistance. They don't boost defense. They're only for show.
Now, let's take a look at bases. Take away the teleporters, take away anything game related.
As just a resource for expressing something unique, base creation is on par tech wise with costume creation. Admittedly, there's not quite the same amount of textures, colors, etc., but there's still a lot of versatility. And the layout possibilities are endless.
But what's clear from this thread - and from many, many posts - is that bases are "too expensive". To me, that's interesting (as it is to the Serious Games crowd). Costume changes come with a minimal cost that no one really complains about, but we complain about the costs of bases. Evidently, the costs exceed the perceived value of creating one's own HQ (btw, I confess that many other games have the notion of personal property, but aside from Second Life, I don't think they offer as much customizability as our bases).
Let's turn to the idea of an architect. We foresaw that some people would feel alienated if they weren't the architect. That's why some things (Personal Items) can be "crafted" by individuals and placed in the base. But even if there's an architect: many super groups have a member who designed a single costume which all then use. In other words, they're more than willing to accept someone else's opinion in the group identity for their avatar appearance. Again, the primary difference is cost (I think).
That's what the point of the talk was. I completely agree with many of the suggestions raised in the Base Construction forum, as well as one's mentioned here, would improve Bases to some degree or another. Posi and I go through them at length; really, it's just a question of time & resources. Some things would take astronomically long to do - or perhaps there's something else even more requested or popular.
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Not to sound disrespectful, Jack, but this post still ignores what I believe are the three most common complaints about bases:
(1) Rent.
(2) Bugs (especially the infamous and never-mentioned-by-the-devs random base booting bug).
(3) Bases are not yet complete (There are no scheduled raids, no IoP trial, and nobody expects them in the foreseeable future).
And your idea that personal items somehow fills the gap between the base architects and rank-and-file members really, really points out why so many of us say that bases (which are a good concept) were poorly developed. Personal items are not the least bit personal. I am unaware of anyone who thinks of them that way.
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Everything is too expensive.
Our small supergroup (about 7 active members, a year old) has a decent base with an empowerment station salvage and inspiration racks and teleportes to 8 zones. It took us FOREVER to get there as well as our rez circle. Our monthly upkeep is close to 90,000 prestige (!) and many of us can't even play long enough per month accumulate that much.
PLEASE raise the influence to prestige transfer ratios. It's silly that all that money sits on my alts because the conversion rate is so poor.
We're not interested in base raids at all either. Those are just more expensive.
We wanted a cool lair like Batman has, we have a fairly stark area with some functionality. It's more like an office than a home. :/
I'm very surprised at Statesman's comments on costumes as well. No functionality? They ARE our super heroes and villains. It's what makes people recognize us in the streets. They are our identity.
Bases should be, they are not.
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I don't buy this Concept one bit that "Costume" and "Badges" are really a Big Hit... Maybe they're still a big deal for everyone's who's still here, but look on the damn Servers, all but 2 Servers in this game are consistantly referred to as "Ghost Towns"...
Who remembers the days when even on the unpopulated servers, you'd see multiple instances of Atlas Parks, Hollows, Galaxies, and even King's Row? Where are those people now?
If there's anything to be addressed here, it's the stark lack of Variety in Missions and means of leveling. Every mission operates on the same predicatable Spawn-Algorythem and the only time you get "suprises" is when 2 groups spawn together in an Intersection. THIS is something where bases really could have been used to shake that bullcrap up. When players first heard of bases, they were drooling over the possibility of Arch-Nemesis systems and "Create your own Map of nasty mobs that'll defeat your opponents" options. And all the Mechanisms for That are ALREADY there thanks to Gladiators and junk.
But no... Most Servers continue to empty out and the one unifying call among everyone is "so much lost potential". Badges and Costumes are not frikkin Potential and the Devs need to stop trying to Spin that angle and insist that they're some kind of suprise-success b/c the the bigger suprise is obviously that everyone gets sick of leveling faster than most any other MMO, and the Devs had no Plan-B to fall back on to actually deal with that Loss. now they're adding l00t and just more Badges and Costumes to try and cater to the remaining playerbase and silinetly saying "Oh well" to the majority of players who leave immediately after discovering just how static and repetitive the actual Gameplay here is. When they COULD be trying to win those players back with a persistant option for Player-Created Missions/Base-PvE... as well as Progression-through-PvP like Guildwars just added.
All the baubles and "rewards" in the world mean nothing if the process to attain them is a long grinding road that's completely devoid of real variety and suprises. "Playing for Rewards" is addicting....go watch people in Atlantic City and Vegas to see the extremes of that concept... "Working for Rewards" through a predictable and min-maxxable process simply leads to fatiigue and until Positron starts acting like he grasps that concept a little better, the Empty Bases and Empty Servers will continue to remain Empty but full of Group-Apathy.
I think the biggest differences between costumes and base are as such.
-I can have up to five different costumes so allowing one to be for SG is not a huge hit to my own style. You only have one base.
-Each and every one of us is allowed to make our own costumes. Bases have to be built by a selet person or persons.
-I really don't see the bases them selves as costing too much, however the rent is getting to the point where we have to have people out farning prestige just to keep a positive gain. I think you can keep the prices of everything in the bases, but please take a look at the rent itself.
Lastly my suggestion is to allow a door in the base that operates as the dorms. Once you in the base you can go to the door and click on it. THen a list of all the SG members names pops up and if you click on that name you go to there room. Each person's room would be costumizable by that person. You could also consider allowing people to enter he room from the outside map and allow them to make the room open to the public.
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And your idea that personal items somehow fills the gap between the base architects and rank-and-file members really, really points out why so many of us say that bases (which are a good concept) were poorly developed. Personal items are not the least bit personal. I am unaware of anyone who thinks of them that way.
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Completely agree. I saved up enough salvage to make a teleporter. Big deal, someone else in my SG did the same exact thing.
If they want "personal items" they should go a route that makes housing much more popular in other MMOGs. That is, reward people's accomplishments with base items. For example, in EQ2, I can do a quest and get an item to hang in my house. Whenever someone enters my house, they can see I worked hard to get that particular item. CoH tries to do with with the SG badges, but so many of those are just passive accomplishments (eg healing) where you don't feel like you're accomplishing anything at all since it comes naturally. There's nothing to work towards on a personal level for bases.
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If there's anything to be addressed here, it's the stark lack of Variety in Missions and means of leveling. Every mission operates on the same predicatable Spawn-Algorythem and the only time you get "suprises" is when 2 groups spawn together in an Intersection.
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You know, I have to say it's pretty sad that a game that can pride itself on such huge diversity in its costume and base system continues to have such a tiny and highly repetitive selection of mission, but I digress.
Just to clarify,
My post regarding policitcal ideologies was not intended to place the same importance on "hobbies" that should be placed on real world affairs. Perhaps my pedantic nature got the best of me. To boil it down, what I was suggesting is that we, as Americans, have an innate abhorance of working for some one elses gain. Just ask any working class American. The problem with bases, simply put, is that it requires too many people to earn enough prestige to enjoy the building and decorating, and yet only 1 or 2 of those people have the "permission" to do so. This is not to suggest that there is any "in game" situation that compares to the problems of conflicting ideologies in our world. It was a metaphor, and nothing more. When my current local, state, or national government does something that I do not agree with, I am often frustrated. With bases, I simply choose not to go through the hassle.
This does not negate the fact that bases are elitist. The are simply elitist in a game that is, after all, merely a game.
Speaking of elitism, to the individual who replied to my comment about not being a social studies teacher with "it shows." I would like to believe that you simply saw an opening for a quick bit of humor and took it. If that is not the case, then show me the evidence to suggest that anything I said about socio-economic philosophy or political ideology was incorrect. Otherwise, stop assuming that because a man chooses to teach in a certain subject area, he must be limited in education and perspective to that area alone.
Finally, just to prove that an ideological metaphor can be be applied to MMO's (and possiblly to show off a bit. Hey, my ego was just bruised. Excuse me), here is a solution to the problem of balance.
Political ideologist and contemporary philosopher John Rawls once proposed a thought experiment aimed at developing a new social contract. Rawls suggested that you imagine yourself in an original position behind a veil of ignorance . Behind this veil, you know nothing of yourself and your natural abilities, or your position in society. You know nothing of your sex, race, nationality, or individual tastes. Behind such a veil of ignorance all individuals are simply specified as rational, free, and morally equal beings. Thus, the key is that people make decisions based on what is good for their community as a whole, and without regard to their own self-interest (since they operate behind a veil of ignorance and don't know enough about what would benefit them).
Cryosteel
Cryosteel 46 ice/ice Blaster
Bonfire Blaze 25 Fire/Fire Blaster
Dream of Shadows 25 Staff/Willpower Scrapper
+ 17 alts
I don't know if anyone else brought this up;
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But what's clear from this thread - and from many, many posts - is that bases are "too expensive". To me, that's interesting (as it is to the Serious Games crowd). Costume changes come with a minimal cost that no one really complains about, but we complain about the costs of bases. Evidently, the costs exceed the perceived value of creating one's own HQ (btw, I confess that many other games have the notion of personal property, but aside from Second Life, I don't think they offer as much customizability as our bases).
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I know how much inf I can earn, and what it will take. Prestige, however is much more difficult to gain in sufficent quantity.
Its like I make $20 an hour fighting. I can pay for costumes and enchancements with this salary. And the prices are sufficent for what I am capable of earning.
For Bases I earn $3 an hour fighting. I must pay for items in the base and rent (yes, I still use that word, changing it to "maintence" still makes it rent). The costs for this far exceeds what I am capable of making.
Making it all inf would defiently simplify the system.
Having bases flagged as public or private. Also a friends list could be made, who could enter regardless of the privacy setting.
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But what's clear from this thread - and from many, many posts - is that bases are "too expensive". To me, that's interesting (as it is to the Serious Games crowd). Costume changes come with a minimal cost that no one really complains about, but we complain about the costs of bases.
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I haven't complained about it, but I would like to point out what may be some key distinctions between bases and costumes.<ul type="square">[*] As a character advances in level, they get to have more than one costume choice at a time. A character only gets one base and that's to share with the SG.
[*] A character only has to pay for the costume change once, when it happens. Maintaining a base means getting a monthly charge.
[*] Costumes can be paid for with Influence/Infamy, which gets easier to acquire as a character advances, and which can also be donated by a kinder, richer character. Bases require prestige, the gathering of which begins to inhibit a player's Influence/Infamy acquisition as level accrue, which in turn makes it more difficult to afford Enhancements that actually do affect game play.
[*] There have been several tokens granted over time for players to make a free costume change (Thanks!). Bases do not benefit this way.[/list]
I think that those distinctions are important ones. If each character had a personal base to which they could openly invite others, even if it is entirely cosmetic, then a more direct comparison could be made with costumes.
The non-sequitur and, in fact, the violation of Godwin's Law, is yours. I specifically stated at the start of my post that I refer to Fascism specifically in the context of politcal ideaology. I did not refer to Hitler, Nazis, or the 5th Column for that matter. You, on the other hand, were the first to mention Nazis and/or Hitler simply by linking to the Godwin's law reference.
So there!
Cryosteel
Cryosteel 46 ice/ice Blaster
Bonfire Blaze 25 Fire/Fire Blaster
Dream of Shadows 25 Staff/Willpower Scrapper
+ 17 alts