What do you want out of end game?

I have never made it to end game in an online game...don't really know or care what it is. A game that is fun to me is one that keeps me striving to improve my character. It keeps me exploring and discovering things. I don't care about the new dungeons, or the big raid, or the redundant rift

I will experience the story in this game because, it's a story I can experience. I won't need a group of elite friends to help me see it. I can find it and feel it with myself and a few like minded friends. That's what I want out of this game. Also, to find no end game but an endless game.

 

Ender's Game?

Paper + Dye + Feather Quills = in game notes, papers, artwork, books. They could be traded, collected, sold for high prices, piled up in the bottom of your basement. Sell a one-of-a-kind painting for someone's nice big house. Write novels or record the present events for future generations to find.

Craft a printing press for wide spread dissemination of all these works or allowing people to have limited prints of famous paintings.

Record your musings or scientific findings on the relationship between the shattered moon and the way magic works. Figure out how the Tesla Towers work and harness their energies for good. Make combos between the science stuff and the magic stuff.

Basically the $2.25M stretch goal to add modding support and art creation (including text, not just pictures). Plus a 'meta-game' system to moderate and manage all the details for these kinds of things.

 

It has all already been said for me here. I want a game where the best fun is the fun we create with the tools given to us be the devs. I spent many of hours in UO on the fly roleplaying, shooting the turd with other players in a random encounter, crafting / selling goods, pvp or avoiding in. Was all golden even after UO/R on the "fun" had. Could be rose colored glasses but for me up until EA slapped me the lasttime (Ninjas!?) I loved being a citizen of Sosaria. But soon after the SA I left. No other ever compared to me, I tricked myself into thinking the EQ model was fun, but after a long stint in WoW I woke to realize it was gone... I wasn't having FUN anymore. DayZ brought back that feeling but the community there spoiled it for me after, So I just jam out to Minecraft awaiting SotA. ( and playing all the games I bought and never played. Damn you Steam sales most I don't enjoy even, what kind of sickness is that?)

 

The whole concept of an "end game" is the problem with most MMOs. That is why games such as WoW are constantly playing catchup with the playerbase - increasing the level cap, creating more leveled zones, adding new higher level raids, and so on. You need to give the playerbase the tools to create their own fun right from the very start. If you do that then you don't need an end game.

A U7 style story to go with it doesn't hurt at all though!

 

There is only one true endgame. Standing around Brit bank selling stuff.

 

I'm convinced that 'The End Game' to SOTA is to become the one true Avatar! To accomplish this is a 3 step process:

1. Complete all 5 episodes with perfect virtue
2. Never die or even reset the game on your account
3. At the end, figure out the one way to kill Lord British (virtuously!)

The first to accomplish these three tasks successfully wins!

 

Surely unless you manage to follow the three steps as outlined by Miracle Dragon, there is no end game as there is no 'win', it is an open world and isn't that the whole attraction.

 

No endgame. period.
wow fans pls read about ultima then post on these forums.

 

Err, I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but are you assuming I must be a WoW fan that's never played Ultima because I want to know how you want the game to stay fresh after you've explored all the main content? Saying "no endgame please" is nonsensical to me - are you saying you want to stop playing after you've hit max level and completed the main storyline?

 

I dunno, I didnt even read the op post.
Also, I dont intend to complete any storylines.
Whats max level? Whats the purpose of levels?
if there's stuff like "this sword requires you to be lvl 10 to equip it" then Im afraid I'll have to stop playing even before installing the game.

 

I don't see any trolls in this thread...

I don't think anyone is saying they want to stop playing after reaching max level. Perhaps instead, they prefer no "max level" or even "level" in the first place.

Forgive my UO referencing: Ultima Online pulled this off. With the absence of player levels and the consumable nature of almost all usable items in the game leads to an infinite progression monetarily. The skills system was capped but that did not really govern an end-game. In fact, for some people, this is when the game truly exits the prologue to chapter 1.

One could argue that having a max skilled character would be considered end-game in UO, but it was too diverse. If you spent a lot of cash to max out a mage to 7x, you weren't likely to have anything close enough to buy a keep or a castle, which could also be considered another players "endgame" I suppose.

The dynamic nature of the game lets people choose goals and set on a path to achieve those goals. "Endgame" activity could consists of planting daisies, running a supervendor, becoming a pvp villain, slay a huge dragon, or whatever your current long term goal is.

 

Any RPG I felt has reached EndGame, random events have always re-sparked interest.

 

Uhh, even TemplarAssassin? His second post is basically an admission that the first one was a troll post, and is satirically trolly itself.

I would prefer no level, as well. I loved the UO system more than any I've played in another game. It doesn't change the fact that the devs have repeatedly and explicitly stated that there will be levels, and a level max, in SotA. And, as you mention, there were caps on skills and stats in UO, which means you maxed out your character there in a different way.

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about - UO was great, even after you've explored every dungeon, acquired the best equipment, maxed all your skills, and basically have "done everything once" (which is how I defined "endgame" in my OP). What made UO so great after this point? What made you going back? What parts would you need in SotA to make it like that, or what could be added to SotA to make this even better? What would you like to see that, for you, would allow SotA to remain interesting and avoid the grindy endgame in many modern MMOs?

 

Eve too pulled this off. How bout that?

 

I've been out of the loop a bit, but don't the character levels govern available skills and spells? Isn't that ALL they are suppose to do?

Assuming I am correct, it's practically the same thing, a skill leveling system. Let us not forget the ability to alter a character upon completion to meet our new definition of completion (leveled your first mage all the way up with no resist? You ain't done yet!).

I'm not too familiar with EVE. I tried a trial once and I don't think I have the patience to appreciate it, although I've heard nothing but good things.

 

We know they govern amount of points you have to spend on skills and on stats. So it's going to pretty directly indicate how powerful you are. Sounds like a pretty traditional leveling system to me, but presumably (based on what Chris said during the Kickstarter) the power gain by going up one level won't be as steep as in other games.

 

To some people every online game in some way pulled off no end-game, because they are about their online interactions, and not just about the story and content. I don't believe UO pulled off no end-game any better than WoW did. They both had to come up with new features to keep players interested, they both had to make regular and special events to keep players playing. If UO really pulled off no end-game I wouldn't have started/stopped it several times over the years as new content came out., just as I did with wow and many other online games. UO wasn't my first online game, nor was it my first online graphical game. When UO first came out to me it was described as a graphical mud, but the best one out there, so I gave it a shot, and yes, it was the best graphical mud out there.

 

For me:

• Procedurally generated underground content.
• Procedurally generated above ground wilderness content.
• Temporary and dynamic hex resource adjustment/control, for both individuals and guilds.
• Outpost and fortress construction and defense for guilds.
• NPC's that have a constant demand for all outputs from players.
• Predictable equipment damage/repair/loss from combat & death.
• Customization of all equipment, stats, appearance, and skills, per character.
• A completely unique story, per character.
• Dynamic/selectable challenge and/or multi-path scenarios.
• Dynamic world events and appearance based on season/weather/astronomy.
• Personal loot, Smart loot, personal gathering.
• Global player-npc-vendor search for location, inventory and prices only.
• Regional NPC faction system, based on player activity in said region.
• Meaningful world plot mechanic with tangible & dynamic changes affecting all players.
• NPC based bounty/justice/criminal system

 

Its not just about online interactions... Is there an end game in strategy games like Civilization? You might beat a game, and you might beat a game on the highest difficulty, but as long as a strategy game is challenging, its fun to start a new game and try to win all over again. Its true you can get bored of it and want to move on to something else, but getting bored is a different thing than an end game. You can get bored of chess, but there isn't an end game if you're talking beyond a single game.

I hope they design some of the non-player-driven content in the game so it doesn't stop being interesting or challenging, so if people stop, its because they want to do other things, not because they've "reached the end." One of the things that's going to help is throttling the leveling system.

As for online interactions, that's going to need to be more than tea parties. The world needs to be rich enough and give players enough tools that they can create their own stories, so the narrative content in the game doesn't end when the dev-written story ends.

 

Games like civilization and chess are designed to have variations in each gameplay session. If you played civilization on the same map, same difficulty, same everything, it is the same thing over and over again and it's boring. A single game of civilization can take hours to days depending on how you play and what setting you choose. A single game of SoTA is intended to last much longer and intended for a 1 time play through, because they only have 1 character per account. So then, how do you get all those variations in game play when you are playing just a single time through? You can't go back and change settings on maps. You can make "end-game" content more challenging. You can't select a different ruler. You can change skills out. This is why on most games I have multiple characters, to try different ways of going through things. I have a feeling they might change the 1 character per account rule for that reason.