I stopped playing for a month or so, and when I came back I was pleasantly suprised by this new update. the only thing that upsets me is the whole skill/level thing, for instance, some players might allready have the skills needed, but they still have to go kill stupid bots in a bus until they reach level 1 etc. then go get a license, this reminds me a bit too much of Gran Turismo in wich you had license tests etc. In fact, I stopped playing the game because the license tests were upserdly hard, I just want to warn the devs that maybe you should watch out for this.

Also, I dont know forsure your plans, so I'm just gonna blurt this out. Felxibility is a good thing, like in the game Freelancer where you can so called "do what you want", you really cant because you have to follow a mission story line to level up and get better ships, and you CAN NOT advance unless you do the missions... now this doesn't sound like freelancing to me... I just dont want to see this game go down the same road as some other games as it might take alot of fun out of the game in exchange for repetitive aspects you see in alot of other games.

I'm tired, and that prolly made about ZERO sense, but just my thoughts.

I had the same situation. I stopped playing for a few months then saw the update and decided to give it a try. I loved the new vendetta the missions gave it a purpose and solved many of the problems that vendetta had in the past and I REALLY love the whole faction thing, but I was always under the impression that there wouldn't be "levels" and that missions gave you access to special equipment and money but they weren't essential.

I know the skill thing is tedious, (lord knows level 10 trade is a lot of skill points 500 at a shot) but also keep in mind that this is the first, most basic implimentation of it. Part of me wonders if the devs didnt make it reptitive on purpose in order to generate lots and lots of bug data to look at. (besides they gotta do something to keep us busy while they work on the next update :) )

but they also gota find something to do with traders!
I, a trader, am going crazzy from botting. but i must do it if i want to get any where in the game...you need to bot and to trade to get the realy good stuff...mabye what i'm saying does'nt seem like a bug, but if a player who was there for the game and not for the testing would have left this game with out second thoughts....a trader must be able to get along with equipment such as engines and battaries just as fast as a fighter if not faster for all the long distances he has to do for his trades!

also, for a trader fighting is an anoying work. as a trader you consider every second precius (for making a fast trade) and chasing after bots is precius time which i feel some times is waisted while i could have traded so much in that time...

i hope you see my point here....because it would be frustraiting explaining it any other way.....

I get the impression that the current rewards of missions and maybe even the missions themselves are temporary.

I get the impression that they had written code for missions, licenses, and skills and needed to test them. So they tested them with what they had on hand. I mean, given the tools available, how else could you/would you set up missions?

I'd bet in another month or so, 3.4 will disappear and be just another temporary milestone on the way to whatever the devs are actually making.