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Ok here is my questions. Are the only missions available going to be player created missions? Further, are doing missions the only way of gaining rank?
There reason why I ask is:
1. If you need rank inorder to be able to create missions and all missions are player missions, then how would you ever get rank?
2. As I have read, waiting for missions with nothing to do is going to be boring. If there is not an essentially steady flow of missions for the taking (whether player created or game generated) then you will have a lot of downtime. This will kill the game. No one wants to pay for a game where you spend a lot of your timing waiting for something to do.
Comments
there are player created mission which are the main focus, and basic system created missions. [low xp & payout!]
not all factions give rank on XP, if they see that you're playing an active part in the faction you should be able to get rank4+ without problems.
missions with nothing to do... sure, thats a problem.
its up to the players to create the content in player created missions, with the last few tweaks on the mission system [objectives, easier and faster creation] this shouldnt happen that much anymore.
also cause of retail and pay to play, players act more responsible then in open beta.
Kind Regards,
Daniel "Smoker" Weiffen
Face of Mankind Community Manager
Your experience really depends on the faction you join and, to an extent, your timezone.
Our factions runs mission almost every 2 or 3 in game hours (thats every half to one hour real time).
We have plenty of ranked members to make missions.
Our faction totally ignores XP as the basis of promotion to higher ranks. We have found many people with large amounts of XP who dont know how to do things in game and dont know how the rules of our faction.
We test for ranks 2 and 3 on in game knowledge and a practical test for rank 3.
Upper ranks are decided by the ranks above voting on your suitability. (eg: Rank 5 vote on approving rank 4 and so on.)
Is this done (possible) with all factions or just the one and which one would you belong to? Is it guild/group level (meaning that if you're part of X corporation they will rank you on missions their votes; however if you're not part of X corporation you will rank up under normal conditions) or does this apply to the entire faction? Also, couldn't this type of system be susceptible to the "good ol boy" syndrome where people are promoted not based upon skill/ability but just because they're generally liked by the voting community?
I'm not trying to scrutinize the structure just curious about the details along with the game itself. I've scanned the official site as well as posts here to which the concepts sound interesting; however, I can't find anything definitive per se about the game. From the outside it looks like a ground/character based Pseudo EvE Online which would make for some interesting game play if handled correctly.
Ranking up is done on a factional basis not by the clans/guilds.
And yes, the 'good old boy' syndrome is a possiblity and this is a problem on occasion. Rank is merit based though and it quickly becomes obvious if someone is not pulling their weight. We have a clear and extensive list of things you can do with rank and a smaller list of things you must do and not do for your rank.
If someone is not doing the job they are usually not doing it in a big way then we demote them based on their not doing the job or breaking our factional rules.
For the higher ranks we have a majority of the rank above them vote for the promotion. This way they have to work with the people they vote in.
It's not perfect and it may not scale up when are a lot more players but so far, so good.
Out of curiosity I downloaded the client program last night to see what it's like. First impression is somewhat mixed as how things are setup here. I joined the Brotherhood of the Shadows and they too run on a hierarchy like what you've mentioned. The people there are helpful and have been nice but scarce at times.
As for missions, well, they're not too awful bad either but can seem far and few in between. I roamed around for a few hours but the only missions available were for mining and production to which my toon at the time couldn't do either since I started as a combatant. Later I changed my profession over to trader so that I could start earning money and play with the crafting system. The missions for trader seem to be generated via the system and have rather low payout in both xp and money but still gives me something to do in game.
After a few mining missions a combat mission finally appeared; however, I couldn't run with the group since traders aren't allowed to perform combat tasks (combatants can't do trader tasks so it balances). The only downside is that it seemed to take too long for combat missions to appear so that's somewhat a holdback point for the game in my opinion; however, I'd guess that missions would increase as players rank up and more join.
I did get the opportunity to run in a group mission for traders to which wasn't bad but was lacking in content. We had to mine 3 units of a chemical, place it on a market and avoid being arrested. Four people mining for 3 units of chemical (approximately 2 minutes) and after placing the stuff for sale just hanging around for an hour. The payout was great considering that it was about 100x more than the basic mission and the shoot out at Pax was interesting as well.
The population has started retail with a few hundred subscribers so you wont see a lot of people so far.
We hope it will build. They are patching almost daily and are a lot more communicative about their plans.