I don't want to be disrespectful about the huge efforts put into the capital ships and their implementation, but it seems... odd that there are still no strict MMORPG elements. The problem is that the few players that join on a trial realise that the PvE content is severely lacking, and leave for other MMO projects where its more prominent. If all the effort is being plugged in to standalone cool feature then it *won't* provide the draw to the average player, no matter how much us seasoned Vendetta players try and convince them how fun it is.

One major problem is that since the combat is so skill-based compared to most MMO games that new players get frustrated easily. As far as I can see, getting a good solid mission/trigger system perfected and polished would allow a player to gain the combat skills they need *before* going in to battle with treacherous Itani scumbags.

And the backstory is so slick and so cool it is literally a *crime* not to make that one of the main features of the game when it's so bloody good...

That's why I think PvE should be the main project. Whilst I have no idea what's *actually* going on, I know from past experience that it would be a huge HUGE advantage over the current competition if the current grind got fun. I'm not so much throwing this out as a suggestion as an opinion poll on what you guys (players) think is the more important, so we can actually begin to shape Vendetta for the mass market- because I want it to succeed. Actually to blow a huge hole in the present perception of what a MMO game can be. The hardened veteran community is there, lets build on it!

Oh, and as a secondary poll, do I post too many suggestions threads? >.>

Can ANYONE post too many suggestions if they are thought out and well reasoned? :)

I concur, the PvE should be enhanced to help draw in and retain new/lower level players.
Maybe I should revisit the survey of ideas for content thread at the top of this forum and see if I'm inspired.

in my opinion there are a few things that he mission system needs that would make it signifigantly better:

1. the trade guild mission gives too much faction too esily, i think the amount of faction gained by the trade guild mission should be halved at the very least.

2. there should be a similar combat mission where players can choose what typ of targets you wanty to hunt. I recomend having for mane catagories: colectors, combat bots, queens, players.

after selecting each main catagory you would then choose the exact mission. this way a player can change up what he hunts without having a pre generated list.

3. you should be able to take multiple trade missions simultaniously. doing this would alow traders to increase their profets. while that isn't nesesary for experienced player i think it will help interest low levev players more.

I double agree no TRIPLE agree with 2 and 3

1 I only agree with.

2 and 3 I agree with..

NO! on 1!

I can't stand trading, we have to do too much as it is.

I realy wish there were missions we can take to restore standing with factions that hate you... I blew up Lin in Sedina L2 A LOOONG time ago and my standing is stuck at -611 forever. I want to be able to dock at XangXi stations again.

I'd like to propose a bribe the offical mission where you buy back a faction standing of -599.

I agree with this but with an amendment: I think the most fundimental element of any MMORPG is socialization. Thus the majority of new missions should be focused on teamwork and group play. There are lots of single player space games. People play MMO's to play with other people.

On a related note, I found it very easy as a newbie to ask for help and contribute to general chat, but very difficult to find other newbies to group with. In fact, I didn't even know grouping was an option until I had used about 6 hours of my 8 hour trial.

I recommend a simple "looking for group" feature to help low (and high) level players find each other. Also, a starter mission to introduce group play would be a great way to break the ice between newbs. I've also read recommendations in other threads to group newbies into a common starting zone. If I recall, other MMO's have started doing this and I agree its a good idea.

i agree that trading is tedious, but it is way too easy to have +800 faction with everyone. this way taking a faction hit is something to be avoided and not taken lightly. i think that if you anger one faction too much than you deserve to get cut off from their stations. this gives an incentive to those of us who try to avoid angering most factions.

also i definately agree that a new player grooping mission would be a good idea.

Actually, PvE -is- what we're working on now. Ray's working on the mission system, and I've been gradually attempting to decrease the stupidity of the bots (but there have been a few hiccups with getting the new BSP-based pathfinder to work properly and robustly), and the next area of development is the Hive, which has something we intend players to go hunt down as a group.

gylf: That's good insight. What's the best way to make a "looking for group" function work in the context of our game?

well I was watching CSI: Maimi last night and one of the characters had a phone that sent out messages to all the other phones in the area asking if they wanted to "hook up" interested girls would have thier phones sned a response.

Could a player who is looking for a group set a "transponder" on their account that had a range of 3-4 systems and if anyone else also with an active "transponder" was in range they would get a message in the group chat color "player ABC is looking for a group" and then it would be up to you to make the connection.

[EDIT]
I think the system range should be limited because it is hard waiting for a player to travel from Eo to Dau to join your group.

also you may want to include a filter for the type of group desired or player nation

It could be a special screen when docked or in flight (or both), or as simple as a slash command that lists players. Players should be encouraged to add themselves to the list, and should be able to remove themselves from the list if they want to solo. The list could show whether the availible player is grouped or solo, what their current level is, what their looking to do (missions, PvP, etc), or anything else particularily useful in finding a group. Communication and arranging the group could all be done via private messages.

Some ideas are: a seperate list for "looking for a mining group" or "looking for a combat group", etc. This could be done as a 'post on the virtual bulletin board in the bar' which is shared by every friendly station in the galaxy. Or it could be done via slash command from the mission computer. Regardless, only players within a certain reasonable level range appear on a player's list (ie, player's who would want to group and do missions with that player)

I'm a relatively new player, so I'll leave the identifying of that "reasonable range", and other more specific details to players with more grouping experiance then me :)

As a noob I was quite content with all that was there to learn and all the new ships and weapons to play with. Once I was able to buy nuets and kill tycorps with ease is when things started getting a bit stagnant...I don't mean that in a bad way, maybe mundane would be a better description...It was just that there wasn't much to look forward to anytime soon. Levels were getting farther away and botting was becoming a chore instead of fun. I think what noobs need is variety, perhaps missions against same level NPCs. I can think of a mission much like the border patrol mission, without the bots. Perhaps a lone Serco spy has infiltrated the Itani border and You alone are needed to take him out. "Fairly n00b" enters a certain sector where a simillarly leveled NPC is roaming around, and will attack on sight. This can be expanded to better ships with better weapons (in line with what the player's levels and available equipment are) and then multiple ships to engage. Great PvP training can be learned by this as well, not to mention I believe many vets would even take those missions. Also this would satisfy the more war-like atmosphere I think we need - on a mission level.

n00b grouping - Broadcast at certain times on channel 1 (much like what the Devs have done with the queen raids) that "all itani lvl 2 combat pilots report to Eo D4 for immediate training" when they enter the sector broadcast a sector message (like with the racetracks) with grouping info and then throw some denteks at them in waves or something. Just an idea to expand upon. I'm trying to think of ways to work these out without having to re-program everything, but from just re-working the things we already have in place.

GO DEVS!

kernel.panic

"2. there should be a similar combat mission where players can choose what typ of targets you wanty to hunt. I recomend having for mane catagories: colectors, combat bots, queens, players."

...no, no, no, no, I'm sorry but unless I'm grossly misunderstanding, this is a baaaaaad idea.

Repeat after me: convenience = boredom.

You want to have focused, attainable goals, not "let's see what I feel like killing today... hmm, I think I'll pick queens."

Combat missions should be "A hive queen has invaded Dau H-6! All capable pilots are to report to Dau Senate immediately for further briefing."

Or better yet... once the Hive population and behavior becomes *dynamic*, high ranking players could *create* combat missions based on intelligence and where bots are starting to become serious problems.

Militaries could develop generals in charge of assigning missions to lower ranking players... they could pick the sector and type of bot as well as number of bots to be killed. The xp reward would be automatically scaled to prevent abuse.

So.... actually that is a pretty cool idea, but it would have to be implemented the right way. No-one should be able to arbitrarily pick what they want to kill and get rewarded for it. It needs to somehow be based on necessity and finite goals.

Re: gylf + a1k0n

I'm fully for the idea of more teamwork/group missions, but right now putting those before the single player missions would be a bit dumb. To have multiplayer missions as the main focus with the current player counts, that is.

However if the single player missions can draw enough people in, then the multiplayer ones would naturally follow. :P

"...but right now putting those before the single player missions would be a bit dumb. "

I have to disagree with that for two reasons. First, most players play a MMORPG to interact with other people. The majority of those who want single player gaming will go buy a game with no monthly subscription that focuses only on that. Static "quests" (missions in VO) have always been a love/hate feature for MMO players in that they pay good, but are usually boring and repetitive.

Second: from a business perspecitive, the sooner a newb finds friends in the game the more likely they are to be a long term subscriber. When players start working togeather they get to know one another, and eventually make friends in-game. These friends are an extremely strong tie to the game.

I understand your concern about the player count. I would agree that early group missions should be repeatable and open to a wide range of levels. They should also be very profitable to ensure there are players willing to do them. I also like the idea of newbs being able to start a mission, but anyone he/she invites gets a reward for aiding in its completion. This would help ensure players are always willing to help each other out on missions.

I would think some major bulk cargo supply missions and mining missions could be added for groups especially if there was a time limit for accomplishing the task.

These mission could be open to players of all levels and and roles could be found for most players as escorts,transports, scouts. Maybe the group mission would allow the players to sign up for roles in the mission and XP bounses will be assigned based on their performance in that role. For example a cargo transport mission where you have to transport 150N crates of cargo (N is the number of group members) if the mission was successful everyone would get XP but the desiginated transporters would get bonuses based on the % of crates they transported, defeners could get XP bounses if they defended the mission against attack, and so on.

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/6352

There's a few simple group mission types that would be nice to see.

Also, I think one of the important points UncleDave is making is that there are no storyline missions. We have plenty of generic missions, but none that follow a common, incremental thread.

I think storyline missions should be geared toward new players because that is what they are expecting out of an MMORPG. Once a player reaches high levels they can take part in shaping the universe by participating in CtC, cap ship battles, running convoys or whatever. Storyline PvE missions should be a way of getting a new player up and running and also inducted into a particular sub-faction/profession.

Here is how I see a natural progession of storyline missions taking place:

1) General intro missions to gain exp

2) Being recruited into one or more sub-faction and having faction specific missions become available.

3) Running high level missions versus other factions, gaining access to faction special equipment.

4) Turncoat missions: once you are high level rival factions might approach you and try to get you to join their side.

This cycle becomes a kind of "web." You start out in the middle with general missions, and as you advance, more faction-specific missions become available. You can also get lateral missions leading to a different faction, completing the web.

In order for this to be interesting, each faction needs its own history (we already have this for Itani, Serco, UIT, TPG... what about the others?) And to have well defined relationships with every other faction.

I could post at length about each phase of the storyline missions, 1-4, but I wanted to get others opinions about this "mission web" structure in general. Keep in mind that these phases would be extremely general, I could see dozens of different types of missions falling under each phase.

In reply to a1k0n asking about a "Looking for Group" interface..

This should probably be something available even while flying (Possible interface with, say.. ALT+G as a shortcut.

In this window, people would be able to do the following:

Flag themselves as Looking For Group (General, Raid (for the hives)).
Unflag themselves.
Search for other LFG-Flagged players within X amount of jumps.

Limit the search to your side (Itani, Serco), with Neutral being able to find groups on either side.

This kind of thing would involve fairly simple database work, especially if you're using an SQL-based DB. I know I could throw something together like that just using PHP in about 20-30 minutes (not counting making it look good!).

I had to comment on this subject.

One of the things this game lacks the most is Role Playing.
The game has no hability to offer roles to players and I'm not talking about just trader or fighter role but roles like spies, diplomats, assassins, etc... Roles completely immersed in subplots generated by the game engine itself.

Below are the ratings of players taken from the site mmorpg.com

Graphics: 9.6
Sound: 9.2
Role Playing: 8.6
Value: 9.4
Fun: 9.3
Community: 8.9
Performance / Lag: 9.2
Customer Service: 9.2

As you can see, the roleplay value is the lower one.

Moriel

Sorry,

The rating values i posted were from guild wars game.

The correct values for vendetta are:

Graphics: 6.8
Sound: 6.6
Role Playing: 6.2
Value: 6.9
Fun: 6.6
Community: 6.8
Performance / Lag: 7.8
Customer Service: 7.6

Still, the roleplay value is the lower one.