ry ry wrote:So heres the thing, games need goals. Perpetuum is a game first an a sandbox second, it has a variety of short-mid term goals but nothing to aim for beyond that.
This is interesting, what sort of long term goals should a player generated content game, that isn't a game, provide?
Industrial players, wishing to finish the research tree, is certainly a long-term goal.
NPC farming players wanting to fit out a full T4+ MK II bot is also a very long-term goal.
If your asking, "Yeah, but what do they do after that?" as being long term, then you have to move out of the realm of individual acheivements and into group achievements.
As I posted above, there are always limits on how long-term any personal achievements can be, as provided by the 'game'. Many many games offer repeatablity as players develop their own goals, like speed-runs, and this trend has been integrated into many other games as acheivements.
If there were 1000 personal acheivements added to Perp tomorrow, would that qualify as long-term goal?
In many senses, acheivements actually limit the creativity of players to generate their own goals, and place an artificial cap on what is 'achievable'.
Here's some long-term goal for anyone interseted.
"Start a corporation that can build and defend a gamma outpost".
"Have a fully T4-Fit Heavy MK II from each faction, and be able to pilot all of them"
"Get a Kill on every PVP player on the server."
"Buy out every non-seeded order on the market"
Feel free to add more!