Moisture farming in MMORPGs

[Rageburst]

Star Wars\' upcoming MMORPG allows you to be a moisture farmer.

I\'m sure this sounds very appealing to everyone... but you gotta ask yerself... is it really FUN??

The point I want to make is that a game should be centered on an enjoyable gameplay... and stay far away as possible from daunting chore-like leveling up.

Everquest was is subscription-based so the gameplay was designed to extract as much cash as possible from their members. Since planeshift is supposedly free, I\'d really like it that it avoids a gameplay based on the amount of time devoted to it.

An example of really bad gameplay is Runescape. I played runescape for a few minutes and got ultimately bored when I forced myself to collect eggs from chickens to sell \'em for a penny each.

I hope these RPG clich?s won\'t make it through the final version... such as the miner, the cook, the fisherman, and the clothes weaver. I mean if I really want to be a clothes weaver... I\'d at least want some real clothes!

... On the other hand, my ambition is really to become a moiture farmer. With all the moisture I\'ll be collecting, people will be clobbering over me with respect.... hehe

[Jamiro]

I agree that the developers should not put in time-sinks to keep subscribers paying.. but then since the players won\'t be paying why would they?.. well I think it is worthwhile to bring it up just to keep our devs thinking about this.. though I suspect they have.  

I do think that although a player should not have to perform overly tedious jobs to level, if it\'s too easy the game will get boring too fast.  Instead I think players should have the option of doing long tedious jobs if they produce a result that is desirable to them but not necessarily a NEED.  i.e. player made guild armour.. or a way to make cash outside of gathering/hunting.

I\'m not against having to work hard at leveling up since that makes the levels mean something.  Diablo style play is just hack and slash and level fast, but you are bored of it in a week.  EQ was long and slow leveling but it held my attention for two years, if I never had to pay I\'d still be playing...

Just my two cents,
Jamiro