NQ: Suggestion for new resource/mechanic

[Deathknight]

I love this game, it has captured my heart like no other. I have seen the massive potential from the first time I played. I have always had this wistful fantasy of what it could one day be.

 

Over the course of the beta, there have been many changes, the game has become much more stable, and these changes touch on many different avenues of gameplay. One area that doesn't seem to have received any attention at all however, is making the game more social.

 

The best memories I have in DU involve coming together with other players. It might be pure shenanigans, or to mine together, or maybe to build collaboratively. 

 

All of the scenarios I mentioned eventually stopped happening. There are many aspects of this game that heavily incentivize players to do particular things. For example, taxes heavily incentivize players to make money, not to hang out with friends and race ships.

 

How can we expect there to be any social scene in the game when both carrot and stick are being used to drive people toward things that NQ wants us to do? We can build really awesome creations, player designed marketplaces full of gorgeous player made ships, but how do we get the bustling "living" feeling in the world, where people are together in an area, like is shown in promotional material and has been spoken about as a desire of NQ through development?

 

In my opinion, if this game is going the route of having so many costs and those being balanced with carrots that the players will want to pursue, then there needs to be a currency or commodity for socialization. My proposal is that some form of influence system is created, which will reward players and orgs that contribute to projects that cause players to gather and build together.

 

This system would also need to provide a benefit to players that visit these areas. We currently have a job system that lets us hire people to pick up our market orders and deliver them to us, without ever seeing the hauler. Super convenient! It does not feel like a massively multiplayer game however, when we never go to a place and see other people.

 

Now if we had player created market areas (these types of locations have already been created, but many get no traffic) we could incentivize players for using them. Builders that gather and build with other builders that have accumulated some influence, could grow their influence. Orgs that provide these market areas could gain influence as people visit. The visitors could gain some small degree of influence by just shopping.

 

There really are a lot of directions this could be taken. Maybe an very influential player or org might see a benefit from other players claiming hexes around them, and also building influence. The core driver of this player interaction should be rewarded for helping players gather. Players should in turn be rewarded for their part in creating this living part of the game world. Maybe the most influential player/org in the area gets reduced taxes, or a portion of the tax revenue of those tiles around them?

 

I leave it to you to flesh out the mechanics and how the rewards should work, but I will suffice it to say that players have been asking for social features for a long time, and now that the game is less free-form and you are strongly encouraged to do specific –profitable– things, we really could use a reason to interact, now more than ever.

 

Deathknight
 

Edited July 16, 2022 by Deathknight

[Yoarii]

Well said, @Deathknight