This post has been brewing a few days, so please excuse its length but I hope it will be thought provoking and an interesting read. If you don’t like long reads or concentrating please leave now 
After playing the powerplay beta for a few days I’ve noticed a trend within the new mechanics to increase what I call ‘keeping the wheels spinning’. That is the effort required by the player to simply maintain their progress in the game.
But before we move onto those let’s address the issue of content. One of the criticisms most levelled at ED is ‘But there’s no content’ which if you are used to the spoon fed, linear progression and theme park game approach is true. In other words, if you are a consumer of content it’s likely you will get bored sooner rather than later
However, the true content of Elite comes in the shape of the world/s your imagination chooses to weave, how much notice and participation you do with regards of Galnet, Community Goals and Player run events. Basically, If you are a contributor of content be that in your own imagination or within the excellent community here it is unlikely you will ever run out of things to do.
With that in mind, Powerplay adds significant content to the game and Frontier should be applauded for the effort and work that’s gone into the game to add another dimension of richness to the game. Basically, if you are a contributor of content it’s fantastic.
Before we go on, it’s important to realise that there is no in game economy in the traditional MMO sense, there is in fact an economy simulation. We cannot influence costs of ships, modules or commodities(except within pre-set and local bounds) This has a critical effect on gold sinks and how both Fdev and the playerbase should approach money in game.
Traditionally, there are two reasons for gold sinks in a game. Firstly, to give players something to spend their money on, and secondly to prevent inflation reducing the value of said money.
The key aspect here is that in Elite Dangerous there is zero inflation. A python costs the same at launch as it does now(excluding special time limited sales). There are no player to player trades, crafting or the like to drive prices up. So, for example 1,000,000 credits now, buys exactly the same as it did in December.
So that just leaves us with ‘giving players something to spend their money on’ essentially, this is a content based issue. Do we, the developers give the players enough shinnies, bling and stuff so they want to keep playing to earn the money they need to obtain/keep such things?
Now if you are a content consumer you will want bigger, better, faster, more powerful(and more expensive) ships and modules because, after all you measure your success on how near the ‘top’ of the progression tree you are. If you have a billion credit Anaconda you are god, if you have a sidewinder you are a nobody..
Content consumer’s tend to enjoy grind, gear treadmills and mechanics that encourage keeping the wheels spinning. Content Consumers are rarely satisfied for long, and it’s a never-ending arms race of content vs whine for a developer to keep up.
It’s an arms race where experience has shown the only way for the developer to win is not to play
If you are content contributor you don’t need the latest shiny thing, you see ranks, ships and modules as tools in which to help you create the content you want to do. Money, ships and status are enablers, not objectives
Content contributors tend to dislike grind, gear treadmills and reject mechanics that encourage keeping the wheels spinning. Content contributors can go longer periods without any actual new stuff, so long as the tools and basics are there to allow them to create and share.
If your playerbase and game design is for the consumer then gold sinks to reduce the stacks of credits makes sense. If your playerbase is contributer centric then gold sinks etc are in fact detrimental to not only the player(read customer) base but also erode the core principals of the game’s design.
This is where the ability to turn in game money into a currency which can be used in the in game store is now so useful(be it plex in eve or gems in GW2). Rich players can then use credits/gold whatever for cosmetic bling thus reducing the need for more traditional and punitive gold sinks... just a thought
Of course, in any game there are contributors and consumers and ideally the balance between the two groups should be set towards which group your game is designed for. For example, WoW is geared more towards the content consumer, and newer online games such as GW2 and I would argue Elite Dangerous are designed around the content contributor. Both are casual friendly sandbox games in which skill is at least as important as gear. Would minecraft have been the global hit it was, if there had been a fixed world with gold/time sinks such as material decay or a fixed world design I wonder.
The danger comes is when a consumer focussed game switches emphases to contributor and vice versa, as it loses its focus and becomes well.. the Bran Flakes of the gaming world. Neither one thing nor the other, containing mechanics that are annoying to both sets of people, with the net result of a huge increase in moaning on forums and social media.
Now, let’s take a look at how Fdev are addressing the former group, the content consumer. In most MMO’s the way of addressing the content consumer is to replace content with grind, add in RNG to loot drops, increase the XP required to level each time you do, introduce Vertical progression and increase gold and time sinks into the game.
Basically, they increase or put in measures that just keep the players wheels spinning in fear that not doing so will result in a cacophony of “I played for a week and there was nothing to do” on forums, reddit and youtube. It’s an understandable but knee jerk reaction with often long term and detrimental consequences.
Powerplay brings in mechanics such as the 10% loss on modules sold, reputation decay and to some extent the move toward specialist ships(the less general your ship is, the more credits you spend on lots of ships rather than one) . All these mechanics are designed to satisfy the content consumer. They actually add very little in the way of content, but are proven methods of keeping the wheels spinning.
The risk I see to Fdev going forwards in that instead of keeping true to the vision of a game that allows freedom to do anything, of a place where content contributors can allow their imagination to fly. The game then switches focus to the content consumer. Some will call them ‘entitled’ but they’re not, they just want to know the next goal to move to in the treadmill of perceived progress.
Certainly, the direction of travel in new online games is towards the contributor. Free re-specs, horizontal progression, casual friendly game play are all increasingly becoming the norm and expected mechanics now. Old style gear treadmill, gold and time sinks are proving ever less popular as people seem to want to embrace community rather than content.
So(and nearly done I promise) how does this relate to elite and indeed power play? Well for the content contributor there is a huge richness being added and so long as you have an imagination it will expand the game into hitherto unknown and rewarding directions.
The questions I believe Fdev should be asking themselves going into powerplay and beyond is who is this change or feature going to serve, Consumer or contributor? Is the change still relevant and true to the original game principals? And finally, and most important ‘Is it fun?’ Because if we the players don’t find something fun then why the heck are we still doing it? And if we’re not still doing it, then that’s bad news for everyone.
The Good news is, is that Fdev have shown time and time again they listen to the players and actively take part in reasoned discussions on the forums and beyond. Long may it continue.
Thanks for reading and I hope it’s been at least little thought provoking
After playing the powerplay beta for a few days I’ve noticed a trend within the new mechanics to increase what I call ‘keeping the wheels spinning’. That is the effort required by the player to simply maintain their progress in the game.
But before we move onto those let’s address the issue of content. One of the criticisms most levelled at ED is ‘But there’s no content’ which if you are used to the spoon fed, linear progression and theme park game approach is true. In other words, if you are a consumer of content it’s likely you will get bored sooner rather than later
However, the true content of Elite comes in the shape of the world/s your imagination chooses to weave, how much notice and participation you do with regards of Galnet, Community Goals and Player run events. Basically, If you are a contributor of content be that in your own imagination or within the excellent community here it is unlikely you will ever run out of things to do.
With that in mind, Powerplay adds significant content to the game and Frontier should be applauded for the effort and work that’s gone into the game to add another dimension of richness to the game. Basically, if you are a contributor of content it’s fantastic.
Before we go on, it’s important to realise that there is no in game economy in the traditional MMO sense, there is in fact an economy simulation. We cannot influence costs of ships, modules or commodities(except within pre-set and local bounds) This has a critical effect on gold sinks and how both Fdev and the playerbase should approach money in game.
Traditionally, there are two reasons for gold sinks in a game. Firstly, to give players something to spend their money on, and secondly to prevent inflation reducing the value of said money.
The key aspect here is that in Elite Dangerous there is zero inflation. A python costs the same at launch as it does now(excluding special time limited sales). There are no player to player trades, crafting or the like to drive prices up. So, for example 1,000,000 credits now, buys exactly the same as it did in December.
So that just leaves us with ‘giving players something to spend their money on’ essentially, this is a content based issue. Do we, the developers give the players enough shinnies, bling and stuff so they want to keep playing to earn the money they need to obtain/keep such things?
Now if you are a content consumer you will want bigger, better, faster, more powerful(and more expensive) ships and modules because, after all you measure your success on how near the ‘top’ of the progression tree you are. If you have a billion credit Anaconda you are god, if you have a sidewinder you are a nobody..
Content consumer’s tend to enjoy grind, gear treadmills and mechanics that encourage keeping the wheels spinning. Content Consumers are rarely satisfied for long, and it’s a never-ending arms race of content vs whine for a developer to keep up.
It’s an arms race where experience has shown the only way for the developer to win is not to play
If you are content contributor you don’t need the latest shiny thing, you see ranks, ships and modules as tools in which to help you create the content you want to do. Money, ships and status are enablers, not objectives
Content contributors tend to dislike grind, gear treadmills and reject mechanics that encourage keeping the wheels spinning. Content contributors can go longer periods without any actual new stuff, so long as the tools and basics are there to allow them to create and share.
If your playerbase and game design is for the consumer then gold sinks to reduce the stacks of credits makes sense. If your playerbase is contributer centric then gold sinks etc are in fact detrimental to not only the player(read customer) base but also erode the core principals of the game’s design.
This is where the ability to turn in game money into a currency which can be used in the in game store is now so useful(be it plex in eve or gems in GW2). Rich players can then use credits/gold whatever for cosmetic bling thus reducing the need for more traditional and punitive gold sinks... just a thought
Of course, in any game there are contributors and consumers and ideally the balance between the two groups should be set towards which group your game is designed for. For example, WoW is geared more towards the content consumer, and newer online games such as GW2 and I would argue Elite Dangerous are designed around the content contributor. Both are casual friendly sandbox games in which skill is at least as important as gear. Would minecraft have been the global hit it was, if there had been a fixed world with gold/time sinks such as material decay or a fixed world design I wonder.
The danger comes is when a consumer focussed game switches emphases to contributor and vice versa, as it loses its focus and becomes well.. the Bran Flakes of the gaming world. Neither one thing nor the other, containing mechanics that are annoying to both sets of people, with the net result of a huge increase in moaning on forums and social media.
Now, let’s take a look at how Fdev are addressing the former group, the content consumer. In most MMO’s the way of addressing the content consumer is to replace content with grind, add in RNG to loot drops, increase the XP required to level each time you do, introduce Vertical progression and increase gold and time sinks into the game.
Basically, they increase or put in measures that just keep the players wheels spinning in fear that not doing so will result in a cacophony of “I played for a week and there was nothing to do” on forums, reddit and youtube. It’s an understandable but knee jerk reaction with often long term and detrimental consequences.
Powerplay brings in mechanics such as the 10% loss on modules sold, reputation decay and to some extent the move toward specialist ships(the less general your ship is, the more credits you spend on lots of ships rather than one) . All these mechanics are designed to satisfy the content consumer. They actually add very little in the way of content, but are proven methods of keeping the wheels spinning.
The risk I see to Fdev going forwards in that instead of keeping true to the vision of a game that allows freedom to do anything, of a place where content contributors can allow their imagination to fly. The game then switches focus to the content consumer. Some will call them ‘entitled’ but they’re not, they just want to know the next goal to move to in the treadmill of perceived progress.
Certainly, the direction of travel in new online games is towards the contributor. Free re-specs, horizontal progression, casual friendly game play are all increasingly becoming the norm and expected mechanics now. Old style gear treadmill, gold and time sinks are proving ever less popular as people seem to want to embrace community rather than content.
So(and nearly done I promise) how does this relate to elite and indeed power play? Well for the content contributor there is a huge richness being added and so long as you have an imagination it will expand the game into hitherto unknown and rewarding directions.
The questions I believe Fdev should be asking themselves going into powerplay and beyond is who is this change or feature going to serve, Consumer or contributor? Is the change still relevant and true to the original game principals? And finally, and most important ‘Is it fun?’ Because if we the players don’t find something fun then why the heck are we still doing it? And if we’re not still doing it, then that’s bad news for everyone.
The Good news is, is that Fdev have shown time and time again they listen to the players and actively take part in reasoned discussions on the forums and beyond. Long may it continue.
Thanks for reading and I hope it’s been at least little thought provoking
