Greetings all.

I’m new to P.O. but old to MMORPGS, and from my helicopter view point I can see some flaws in the game with regards to catching new customers.

There is a verily explained storyline and a total absence of a quest line. Unless you have been through the site and forums you don’t know where you are and why you’re there. Naturally the first question that comes to one’s mind in such a state of utter confusion is: “why do I care, let me go back to WoW”.

At least very early on players will hook onto a well written storyline. I fell that the “RPG” part of MMORPG has been truncated. When you get in the game for the first time you ought to fall toe to toe with a 3D female top model called RUBY telling you how well you did during you preliminary training on earth and how amazing you are and how much they count on you to save the world on this spectacular world called Nia. The tutorial should kick in after that.

After your 10 tutorial missions you’re still bewildered by this new environment and open hearted like a child in a new house, then comes the cold shower: here’s a Castel now go grind. Barely one hour after opening the P.O box you’re thrown into the work like environment of grinding. Kill the 10 robots at location X or deliver package to station Y, rinse and repeat. You were just getting into the game and now you feel like your back in your office chair.

Hardcore gamers and genre loving are still hanging on at this point because they know there is more to it, but the rest have dropped out before getting that precious 1.0 standing with some or other faction.

Once the tutorial mission line is over you should keep on being basket in a world of robot lore and technological mumbo jumbo that really makes you feel like you are a robot pilot. Better yet you ought to feel like “THE ROBOT PILOT” who is going to save the WORLD, or at least the corporation for which works the marvelously pixeled 3D super model called RUBY that welcomed you when you first created your avatar. So after receiving a virtual pat on the back and a digitalized compliment from a flirty immaterial npc, you ought to be sent to another station where they absolutely need YOUR EXPERT help to recover the holy hand grenade or something of such.

For a number of hours too great to fit in a normal gaming day, the player should be kept in a chain of very varied missions, and he should have a greater sense of purpose than trying to NEC and EP for the next robot and the reputation for the lvl 2 agent down the line.

Once you’ve settled in the game nicely, the incentive of getting a bigger robot and waiting for an “OP pwning EP skillset” is sufficient to keep you going. In the first gaming hours it’s not the case for anything short of the hardcore gamers.

PS The recruitment channel should be open per default on startup and it should flash RED and makes jingle tune when someone posts a recruitment add. It should be so visible and emphasized that it be impossible for someone to have retrieved the holy hand grenade before joining a corporation and feeling as a part of the community. Give the channel a big heading like “UNTIL YOU JOIN A CORPORATION RUBY WILL NOT SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN”.