News from PAX

Given the way this game's population has always done things, I'm a little surprised that a solo incarnate path would have been a hindsight thing.

I'm not sure that it matters, though. If Freedom is hugely successful, then it will be partly because we're getting an influx of players from other games where constant end-game raiding is the standard way of doing things. They'll not only be fine with it - they'll expect it as the accepted way of doing things.

We who are here now will slowly become the minority in expecting something different.

Speaking of "historically accurate": I thought it might be interesting to show how Red Sonja looked in her first appearance. The artists changed her up as time went on.

Give me those boots and that "bottoms with skin" option as leather/animal skins and I'm happy. I wouldn't even mind that chainmail shirt, really, but as we've seen it can already be approximated pretty well.

I suspect that the real reason we have Sexy Barbarian is that it was an easy way of leveraging existing assets. I suppose there's nothing to really say to that except "here's hoping that Freedom is wildly successful so that they can double or triple the development budget/staff".

Did we ever get clarified if the 7-day timer is per arc or per character?

In short, this is no good. There is no point in grouping when you can max out one or more types of defense via IOs and speed through solo content to get whatever you want. This is just no good. No matter how much you think giving the solo player equal reward, it will never happen. If you have 5 people, 3 of which solo because they are IOd out to the gills, and 2 of which try to group as much as possible, guess who is more likely to quit. Hint, its not the solo'rs. And the loss of those groupers will be felt. The game was always meant to encourage grouping, not trivializing it. Unfortunately, thats exactly what happened.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane Thank you for clarifying, but to be honest, you guys never promised us a viable solo path, which is kind of the problem. We were given the standard "we hear your complaints" reply, but you never publicly committed to bringing us one, just that you understood we wanted one. Again, this is reasonable, but this information could have been made known sooner. We don't get to see the big white board. We don't know where you are in the development cycle. We don't get to see that you shuffled things around to put a solo path into i22 so we can stop going on about it unless you tell us. I feel I have to point something out to you. The above quote, should be a red flag. If Trials would shrivel up because players were given an alternate yet equal way of getting the rewards they offer, maybe that's an indication that the majority of people don't like Trials. You don't have to BRIBE people to do things they want to do, that they enjoy. Because essentially, what you're admitting to is exactly that; bribing people to run content they really wouldn't want to run on its own merit. Now, obviously some people *gasp* love running the trials in and of themselves, and some people surely love to team. But since you think the Trials would shrivel up if you took the Trial-only-carrot away, that must mean you think they are in the minority. So, why are you creating content that you know and admit only appeals to the few and putting their desires ahead of the majority? IMO that is exactly what you do with Trials and other "team content": With only a couple exceptions, ALL regular arcs can be run by solo players AND teams. 'Team content' like trials can really only be run by teams. In other worlds: -Soloable content serves both camps of players; those who solo and those who team. -Trials, TFs and other 'team content' only serves one camp. And again, you can't argue that you honestly think the solo camp is minor or insignificant since you say Trials would shrivel up without them. .

There's a lot to be said about intrinsic rewards (indeed, it's a major reason why I play, versus actual in-game rewards)

However, I have to side with Posi on this one. Inherently, some players are lazy*; they'll take the fastest route to get rewards. Unfortunately, trials need all the people they can get, including the lazy ones. In-game systems need to be designed around all sorts of players, and sometimes you need to force the lazy players to actually work for their rewards.

We've all seen what happens when systems designed around intrinsic rewards are farmed and exploited by lazy players who go for the easiest-to-tap feeder bar.... the MA system

Edit: that's not to say there might be better ways to do it, like the cooldowns mentioned above..

*Lazy players may or may not include players who prefer solo-friendly content, but it's not all inclusive, obviously - simply a case-by-case basis.