Joseph Ridgeson
WarRavens
League of Infamy
229
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Posted - 2013.06.16 13:49:00 -
[1] - Quote
There are a few reasons. In no particular order:
1. By having an Active gain, you have more people playing. More people playing means the game can actually be experienced. In EVE if no one is online, you can still play totally fine. You can mission, mine, run equipment over to other locations, go Ratting, do installations, there are a lot of different options. In DUST, we can only play and shoot other people. If there aren't a lot of people playing (and many are playing because of the Active SP, Skinner Box  ), it is almost impossible to play. How many games die because people are not playing, be it time of day or otherwise? DUST only has like 10,000 active players; there needs to be a reason for them too fight.
2. ISK is not enough of a reward. "I got money so I can keep playing" is what it boils down to. Basically, it is a grind so that you can play to play. Yes, I know you should play because you want to but read through some of the posts; people are grinding because they feel they have to rather than playing because they want to. It pushes people to play which adds longevity.
3. Monetization. Active Boosters give CCP another way to get some income.
4. If ISK was the sole reason to play, it ends up being a complete non-reward. If you can make more money than you use, you will eventually end up with so much more than you could even use. "Yay, I have 10,000 of my favorite suits. Guess I can play now."
CCP is using, I believe at least, basic psychology that is almost ubiquitous amongst other MMO's: Skinner Box. "Fill that bar, you got a level!" Dolling out small rewards over time of investment is probably the reason why DUST has an Active and a Passive rather than solely Passive. It is probably evil, like on the level of washing your dishes in the Church's Holy Water, to use the Skinner Tactics but they are effective. After all: how many of us are playing now because we aren't capped?
Be well.
(Edit: I think there should be an Active SP, with a Cap, but I REALLY want the Rollover system. If that existed, it wouldn't feel like a chore.) |