This Game is Missing Something Crucial

[Bob Dole]

MMORPGS are skill/gear treadmills with a game attached to them. Every successful MMORPG uses that design, and the ones that don't are very niche and struggling desperately to stay afloat.

Runescape is a skill treadmill of 1-99, with a game tacked onto it.
World of Warcraft is a gear treadmill, with a game tacked onto it, and many others follow that design.
Eve is a time-based skill treadmill with a game tacked on to it.

All the above games would be playable for a time with just the game alone, but there would be no player retention. This is why they all have treadmills.

!!! You. Still. Have. No. Treadmill. !!!

 

[Feature109]

I am willing to bet that more "niche" games have died than made it. I am 100% sure I know nothing about what makes or breaks a game design nor do I care to.
This game will reward you for ingenuity, gathering, and networking, can't these tread milly functions fill that void? Just because you don't get a badge for doing them, they held the carrot in front of us to make the wheel go round and round.

City of Heroes
Release date: April 28, 2004
Died: November 2012

Minions of Mirth
Release date: December 2005
Died: September 2017

Club Penguin
Release date: October 2005
Died: March 2017

The Matrix Online
Release date: 2005
Died: August 2009

Dark and Light
Release date: June 2006
Died: 2008

Phantasy Star Universe
Released: August 2006
Died: September 2012 (Japan)

Dynasty Warriors Online
Release date: 2006 in Japan, 2010 in NA
Died: January 2014 (English servers only)

Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine
Release date: April 2007 in Japan, December 2008 in NA, January 2009 in EU
Died: 2014 in NA, 2016 in Japan

Starquest Online
Release date: 2007
Died: 2014

Tabula Rasa
Release date: November 2007
Died: February 2009

Fantasy Earth Zero
Release date: 2006 in Japan, 2010 in NA
Died: 2011 in NA

Myst Online
Release date: February 2007
Died: 2008

Pirates of the Caribbean Online
Release date: October 2007
Died: 2013

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
Release date: January 2007
Died: July 2014

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
Release date: September 2008
Died: 2013

Free Realms
Release date: April 2009
Died: March 2014

Battlestar Galactica Online
Release date: February 2009
Died: February 2019

Hello Kitty Online
Release date: 2010
Died: August 2017

Mythos
Release date: February 2012
Died: January 2014

Darkfall Unholy Wars
Release date: November 2012
Died: May 2016

Marvel Heroes
Release date: June 2013
Died: November 2017

Firefall
Release date: July 2014
Died: July 2017

Wildstar
Release date: June 2014
Died: November 2018

EverQuest Next
Release date: N/A
Died: March 2016

Landmark
Release date: June 2016
Died: February 2017

 

[Bob Dole]

This game will reward you for ingenuity, gathering, and networking, can't these tread milly functions fill that void?

You could say that about those other popular games too. Sure, gathering, networking, making friends, all those things can fill the void of no treadmill. Certainly. For a few weeks, or maybe a month.

Why do raiders in world of warcraft no longer want to raid when they have best in slot gear? Maybe answer that and you'll figure out why a treadmill is more important than ANY gameplay/ingenuity/friends, in terms of longevity and player retention.

This tried and true formula which EVERY SINGLE SUCCESSFUL mmorpg uses, might be broken one day, but it won't be by Starbase. People don't play this game for a month and quit because it's in alpha, they play it for a month and quit because after they got their fill of the content, and there was no treadmill to keep them here.

Could you imagine runescape without the skill treadmill? That game would have died out a month after launch with it's pathetic gameplay, but it's more popular than ever, and the bland gameplay had very little to do with it.

 

[Shulace]

I kind of get what you are trying to say, but that isn't exactly a rule to make successful video games.
In essence what you are describing at its core are more rogue-like/lite games that have infinite treadmills, I personally dislike such games. But they do have an audience, It does not seem like that is what Starbase is aiming for though.

When you look at what Starbase currently has to offer, what do you see?
I personally see a asteroid mining, shipbuilding MMO space sim. This makes me moist(this is my treadmill so to speak). However, those are not the only features in the game, and there will be more over time because the game is new. There is time to grow and improve.

Elite Dangerous, No Man's Sky also doesn't use that "Formula" you speak of, they are doing just fine, people don't have to constantly keep playing it but go back whenever they feel like playing again(this applies to all live service games/MMOs) so long as the game didn't burn them as in the case of Dual Universe(slim chance of going back to that).

The MMO genre is niche hence why MMO releases are like a drought these days. It's hard to pull players away from an already established, developed experience with a new one that does not have as much to offer in short term. Compounding on that problem, the whole space sim genre in itself is niche, not to mention that the space sim genre is subdivided into its PvE and PvP niches as well. So you can see why there are lot of opinions on how people want SB to eventually be.

The most successful games cast a wide net for player base, and tries to accommodate as many playstyles as possible. In terms of space sims Eve rules supreme in that regard, but that's only because they have been in the game for SOOOO LONGGGG and had that time to make the game they have now. I do not think SB will get there anytime soon but with enough time and smart game design decisions that are aimed to grow their base and improve the experience, it could get there eventually.

 

[Cavilier210]

Am I the only one annoyed at these doom and gloom posts cropping up?

 

[max]

Am I the only one annoyed at these doom and gloom posts cropping up?

No, they also annoy me.
They seem to be especially frequent since the announcement of the early access release date.

Also I don't believe that a game needs a treadmill to succeed in the long term.
I'd say that the community and how it behaves will be the most important point for the long term success of Starbase.

 

[XenoCow]

For me, I see Starbase (raw gameplay wise) as less like an RPG and more like a factory game (despite our current lack of factories). I think it shouldn't be compared so much to RPGs and rather games like Factorio, Minecraft Technic/Buildcraft etc., Satisfactory. These are games about working to try and design pipelines, processes, and tactics to make the most of limited resources.

In Starbase's case, the limited resources are not limited to natural ones, there are also player counts to handle. Additionally, other players pose both a hazard and a benefit as you can trade and fight with them.

In any case, the factory games don't rely on much but the player's desire to build better and better systems. As long as those players stick around, they can provide the factions with ways of fighting and giving new ranks/roles to their players (the treadmill), but the base doesn't need a treadmill of its own.

 

[MrRoboto]

SB has a treadmill from the beginning: designing, building and upgrading space ships and stations.

 

[Bob Dole]

SB has a treadmill from the beginning: designing, building and upgrading space ships and stations.

A treadmill is something that keeps you walking on it for years. What you are describing is a few weeks- 1 month of gameplay at most.

 

[Cavilier210]

A treadmill is something that keeps you walking on it for years. What you are describing is a few weeks- 1 month of gameplay at most.

Been doing that for a year with no signs of stopping, sooooo....

 

[Walord]

SB has a treadmill from the beginning: designing, building and upgrading space ships and stations.

isnt that space engineer as well? i though starbase was supposed to be something more than that, but let me bring an actual point other than just saying that you are wrong (you aren't really tho)
I love the ship desing/fight/upgrade really anything that touches the ship, but thats not an mmo ,it could be a standalone. the part thats missing is stuff to do with other people, right now we have; fighting for no real reason other than i dont like you, mining, building a station and thats about it. We'll get the full community aspect of the game once it releases, (aka bring in trading and economy stuff) but right now all people like me can do is worry

Been doing that for a year with no signs of stopping, sooooo....

as a side note dont forget that during that one year they kept adding stuff to play around with in the ssc.

 

[Breadley]

MMORPGS are skill/gear treadmills with a game attached to them. Every successful MMORPG uses that design, and the ones that don't are very niche and struggling desperately to stay afloat.

Runescape is a skill treadmill of 1-99, with a game tacked onto it.
World of Warcraft is a gear treadmill, with a game tacked onto it, and many others follow that design.
Eve is a time-based skill treadmill with a game tacked on to it.

All the above games would be playable for a time with just the game alone, but there would be no player retention. This is why they all have treadmills.

!!! You. Still. Have. No. Treadmill. !!!

In all the games that you have mentioned the players have a very limited way and scope to interact with the game world itself. Those games survive by providing content packs as there isn't much else to do in them.

Better sandbox games like Minecraft or Space Engineers provide players a lot more freedom and tools to interact with the game world and give players as much freedom as possible to build/create stuff. If you have any sort of creativity and not a brainwashed Skinner box slave ( that needs a pat on the shoulder and a cookie for every 100 steps you take ) you can find near endless things to do in those sandbox games.

At the end of the day it comes down more to if you like the genre at all and are you willing to define goals for yourself or want a TODO list fed to you.

 

[XenoCow]

@Bob Dole
I hope that you don't feel so discouraged by all the arguments against your point. So, I wanted to say thank you for expressing your concern. I'm sure that there are many players that do want that treadmill and I agree that Starbase doesn't have that same kind of treadmill built in. I think it's up to us players to create that, like many other aspects missing from the base game.

 

[Bob Dole]

@Bob Dole
I hope that you don't feel so discouraged by all the arguments against your point. So, I wanted to say thank you for expressing your concern. I'm sure that there are many players that do want that treadmill and I agree that Starbase doesn't have that same kind of treadmill built in. I think it's up to us players to create that, like many other aspects missing from the base game.

Players don't know what they want. They think treadmills are a bad thing, because the idea of artificially making you walk on a skill path to make the game longer doesn't appeal to them, however, those same people played runescape for years, when the only content is that very same pointless exp grind that they are "all" against, and even still play while at the same time rallying against it. I can assure you if they got what they want they would quit in droves.

Avoiding a bias that doesn't even truly exist doesn't drive player retention, and those few that play despite having no treadmill are the exception, not the rule. You'll still find a few mice that will continue to walk through the maze when the cheese is gone, but the majority will look elsewhere.

 

[MrRoboto]

isnt that space engineer as well? i though starbase was supposed to be something more than that, but let me bring an actual point other than just saying that you are wrong (you aren't really tho)

I love the ship desing/fight/upgrade really anything that touches the ship, but thats not an mmo ,it could be a standalone. the part thats missing is stuff to do with other people, right now we have; fighting for no real reason other than i dont like you, mining, building a station and thats about it. We'll get the full community aspect of the game once it releases, (aka bring in trading and economy stuff) but right now all people like me can do is worry.

I can't take away your worries - as I share them with you.

On the one side, SB demands a lot of creativity and inventiveness due to its many possibilities, especially when building ships. Through the experience gained from one's own creations and the inspiration from the creations of others, there is always a reason to create something new.

In this, SB even surpasses the typical treadmills of typical MMORPGs.

On the other side, the developers will still have to do a lot to make SB an MMO that offers enough incentives to play together or against each other in an organised way. Capital ships could become such an incentive if they implement them well.

In doing so, however, they will hardly be able to access evaluated mechanics from other MMO games, because they have already gone too far in their own way for that.

 

[Croomar]

I think one crucial issue in this thread here is that people compare Starbase, a (primarily) 1st person sci-fi Sandbox-MMO, to traditional MMORPGs with the occasional sandbox elements.

Last I checked, Starbase wasn't declared as an MMORPG. In fact, there's no actual RPG element in Starbase. No progression, no levels, no character stats, no classes, rpg-typical gear, skills or anything like that. Since we lack the typical RPG features, I don't see why Starbase would need the RPG-typical 'treadmill'.

As a sandbox-game, players should come into the game with the expecations of a sandbox. Create your content yourself.
I'd argue if you come into the game expecting a treadmill, you were looking for a different game and misjudged what Starbase is trying to offer.


Though I also understand and agree with the underyling problem that is stated here. Especially for new players, but overall as well, there isn't really any gameplay loops that allow you to actively play the game outside the deeper sandbox experience. There still isn't really anything particular to do, nothing to guide you through the game. No missions, no active combat, nothing in particular to progress along.
The game is no different to you after 1000 hours than when you first started it up.
The starter jobs were originally a good means to compensate for this lack of orientation and destination a typical MMO(RPG) would give you.
But they've been made redundant and serve no other purpose than act as the in-game tutorial. Personally, I feel even the dev-factions have moved away from the 'get in and play' playstyle they were created for.

Though at the same time, I think fixing this issue is also outside the scope of the game. It simply is the nature of a sandbox game, and practically all of the solutions for this problem would require NPC interactions in various ways. And that's simply not what Starbase does, on the contrary, it is supposed to be a game without NPC interaction, active progression, and ultimately, a treadmill.

I would be open to a discussion about how to compensate for the lack of a treadmill though rather than creating one. I think it would do well to give players orientation where it's possible and fits in with the rest of the game.

 

[Walord]

Though at the same time, I think fixing this issue is also outside the scope of the game. It simply is the nature of a sandbox game, and practically all of the solutions for this problem would require NPC interactions in various ways. And that's simply not what Starbase does, on the contrary, it is supposed to be a game without NPC interaction, active progression, and ultimately, a treadmill.

well, first of all it would help to make the world less homogeneous and add points of interest, it wouldnt fix everything but it would make people contest places in the world and create an incentive to expand somewhere in the belt in the early state of the game. They did add something like that with the moons and atmosphere mining. The issue was that they were really hard to access and fight for, would make some interesting fight but with the capital ships that can teleport it can fix that (lets be honest you dont want to carry an armada on a 5 day travel the old way, trust me ive done it with a ship made for it and it aint fun)

also, some kind of events, or weekly rotation, there could multiple way to do that, some localized events every week could count as points of interest, but it could also so be like the hunger game arena in the 2n movie (i think its that one but i really dont know), so like events that rotate around the belt or pop out in their own quadrant every few weeks or days depending

what i mean by event is that it could be an actual event like we have right now but more realistically speaking, it could be a spatial anomaly that could buff or debuff some parts of ships, or help refinery, anything really, but it could also be a bit of respawning resources (thats just my opinion, but i know how it couldnt work) or just boosted or reduced visibility

in a nutshell, there could be many ways to make the game less homogeneous and dynamic, either in time or location

it wouldnt be much of treadmill or stop the game from becoming stale, but it would delay it depending how often it would change

 

[scrublord]

This thread is redundant becuase Starbase isnt a mmorpg its a sandbox. Also this game revolves around nation building/corp building so if you are a solo player that dosent like to interact with the community at large and you only like to look at self gains this game isnt really designed for you. The loops are designed to keep factions relevant and for players to create their own content to keep themselves engaged. This does not mean solo players are not relevant but expecting frozenbyte to change their entire design premises because you said so is so Narcissistic its crazy. Overall if you would like a theme park mmorpg there are many options available to you and if you want a space themed sandbox that revolves around faction activities and corp building then starbase is where its at.

 

[Shulace]

This thread is redundant becuase Starbase isnt a mmorpg its a sandbox. Also this game revolves around nation building/corp building so if you are a solo player that dosent like to interact with the community at large and you only like to look at self gains this game isnt really designed for you. The loops are designed to keep factions relevant and for players to create their own content to keep themselves engaged. This does not mean solo players are not relevant but expecting frozenbyte to change their entire design premises because you said so is so Narcissistic its crazy. Overall if you would like a theme park mmorpg there are many options available to you and if you want a space themed sandbox that revolves around faction activities and corp building then starbase is where its at.

What....are you even on about...?

You have some notion that the game is supposed to be a certain way for a certain playerbase in your head and its so wrong lmao.
You wanna be a pirate? You wanna have an org/alliance? You wanna be a market tycoon, ship builder, miner, trucker, industrialist, do any of those solo? The option is there already or will eventually be there for any of those.

The game does not revolve around any one of those points, the only thing Starbase revolves around that makes it stand out is ship building and mining, that's it.

Starbase is not and will not be for a long while "the premier org/alliance" experience, that is what Eve is(they do it well and have had almost 2 decades polishing that experience). The only thing Starbase does that is different/new is its shipbuilding and mining. That is what is primarily going to draw people in and like I said; the option is there to do all those other things to liven up the experience.

It's like you haven't been interacting or paying attention to what the devs have been saying all along. Go to the discord, the devs actually talk to people there and stop spreading nonfactual nonsense on the forums about how you think the game is designed and who for.

 

[shado20]

This thread is redundant becuase Starbase isnt a mmorpg its a sandbox. Also this game revolves around nation building/corp building so if you are a solo player that dosent like to interact with the community at large and you only like to look at self gains this game isnt really designed for you. The loops are designed to keep factions relevant and for players to create their own content to keep themselves engaged. This does not mean solo players are not relevant but expecting frozenbyte to change their entire design premises because you said so is so Narcissistic its crazy. Overall if you would like a theme park mmorpg there are many options available to you and if you want a space themed sandbox that revolves around faction activities and corp building then starbase is where its at.

you are totally correct!
some players just don't know what they are looking at.

the only problem i see not having a skill tree is that if a player is found cheating or overly toxic and gets banned . its only buying the game again and they are back in. not much is lost if you belong to an organization.