"Hey, let's make the game worse in every conceivable way for no apparent or even stated reason."

Reason 1: Add strategic depth to the energy system.

Reason 2: Provide content for players when out of energy.

Reason 3: Limit inflation of crowns.

1: Something unnecessary and stupid.

2: Something unnecessary and of no value.

3: Something unnecessary and misguided.

I apologize for not writing you a one-sentence executive summary, Hazel, as apparently that's all you're capable of reading before growing bored and making an ignorant, offhand and totally incorrect comment.

I read the entire post a couple of times, actually, and you failed to bring up a real reason for this that would counteract how terrible(I really cannot put into words how terrible this is, exactly) this suggestion is. A free dungeon with no rewards and no cost is a neat idea, but it should not come at the cost of progression capability. I'd rather not see the game put itself under video game house arrest.

I realize you're being an idealist and think this will "make people smarter about CE blah blah boo boo" whatever, but it won't. Moreover, it will also make CE purchases plummet, kill off most of the playerbase, and alienate the remaining playerbase in a horrifying way. Absolutely any system that puts a hard cap on progress per day is a system designed by someone with a crippling mental deficiency.

"Strategic challenge" isn't the name of the game for economies, bro. If you want strategic challenge, suggest nifty puzzles involving switches and stairways. Not gimping the entire game.

SirNiko, we meet again. I see you mentioned KoL yet again, and I am starting to think that that game is the only other experience with MMO that you have. This suggestion is horrible, you are actually putting a cap on gains to put a timer on advancement....which turns playtime into gametime. We briefly spoke about skillsets and such (which you spouted on and on about how you are a consultant, which I shrugged off considering that I have never heard of you in the MMO world which I am directly tied), but this sounds a lot like you are wanting playtime to directly correlate with skill (those who started earlier will have an advantage to those who did not).

In that type of world, only the oldest characters have the reputation, recognition, and richness that the game provides. Allowing them "first dibs" on just about everything the game will bring to the table. How exactly is this fair to newcomers? Some games, like tycoononline, resets after a couple months in order to "balance" everything. WoW doesn't put a cap on gametime, allowing those who play 'harder' more rewards, but this could happen in a day, or 2 years (all depending on how casual you play it), but ultimately balances everything out in the PvP section by separating level gaps (PvE stays somewhat separate anyway because each territory is a different level allotment). I won't even get into Runescape, which is less to do with skill and more to do with just doing _something_.

I can understand that you want to cap it so that players don't *instantly* become bored with the game and move on to a different toy. The problem is, they would become even more bored if unable to advance play past a cap per day...sounds like a double-edged blade. Boredom is going to creep up regardless, the only thing you can do is keep ADDING to the game, and hopefully you are adding faster than you are losing players to boredom. Putting a hard limit on playtime will not slow down the boredom process at all, and I actually argue it will do the opposite. What I don't understand is why 3R has gone through this long of a beta-test and they still do not have:

1. auction house
2. player houses (so we can "furnish" it, making it somewhat a crown sink)
3. guild halls (again "furnishable", and even consumable furnishings like "banquets" that only last hours or days).
4. tab-able chat, and/or user-created chatrooms
5. possibly programmable UI, so that some can get rid of the horrible roundishness of it (I prefer a hardcore look), too bad the game feels cartoonish
6. better gate control (instead of spending millions for a +1 increase)
7. item reduction and repairing (crown sink)
8. quests

Those alone would have kept players busy for a long time before additions would need to be made. At this moment, the game seems more like an outfit game rather than a fighting one...put the right gear on for the right stratum (or at least it tries to be like this, it fails because most enemies are avoidable, and those that aren't are the ones you dress for, so everyone ends up with roughly the same gear anyway).

"Newton, I'm very interested - you said Kingdom of Loathing turned you off when you ran out of turns. Did you not experience the same situation with Spiral Knights? When you run out of Mist Energy you must stop playing or buy CE. If Spiral Knights wasn't so fresh I'd consider it further evidence of the non-threat of play caps."

It's true I was disappointed at first when I ran out of my first mist energy and found no free content, but even simply having the ability to buy CE meant there was the chance to continue whereas in KoL I didn't see any way to get more adventures. Later I learned about the CE system where people sell CE for crowns and it struck me as an elegant system.

Simply put, there is quite a bit of strategy and skill involved already in the system, if you look for it. A good player will get far more mileage for his 100 energy than a bad one, with a multitude of ways.

1. Skilled players won't die and have to use energy to revive themselves, or if they do die, strategic players can determine whether the cost of resurrection will be worth it. If you are at the very beginning of a level it may be worth ressurecting, or if you are quite deep and think you can handle the monsters. Since deeper monsters within a tier always give more rewards, there's some major mathing out to be done here.

2. Skilled players may try to go solo to increase the amount of materials they gather, or they may find that having faster runs with more people offsets the higher cost of energy per materials.

3. Strategic players will bring plenty of money with them in case the terminal has several loved recipes, like the Owlite shield line or Wolver line.

4. Good players will take on danger rooms because the cost per energy benefit is often worth the risk, unless you think your party will be destroyed. Another risk / benefit balance.

There may come a time, as the cost of energy rises, that the less skilled and strategic players simply cannot get enough crowns for their energy for buying it to be worth it. This skill-related soft cap is a much more positive one than the hard cap that puts veteran players in constant advantage over newer ones.

In a soft cap situation with steadily rising energy costs, smart players will find the balancing point where strategic and skillful advancement gets cut off by steepening energy costs. At this point they can either cease playing the game, lengthening the lifetime of the game for them, or pay money to advance further. Either way, it's a system where Three Rings wins while the player can have as much fun as they can afford.

"Newton, I think you are missing the point of why people are saying its a bad idea"

That's not me. That's someone else! t('.'t)

You are just an idiot.

I'm in agreement with Hazel, stop making the game worse then it already is.

> "The point (as I stated in the other thread) is that per-day limitations create a strategic choice."

The problem with that thought is you expect everyone who plays this game to be at the same level of knowledge, competency and foresight. A person may not have any of those things, and cannot "strategize" how to best use their levels/ME. Grinding in a free area will most likely yield no crowns, no heat, no items...just the experience of fighting. This will not teach them that even numbered stratums (the one after mid-terminals) yield the highest value returns in order to purchase CE and keep going. It will not teach them that using their energy to open every door is a good thing because it can yield greater rewards, but also keeping in mind at which point it would become too difficult (chance of having to revive and cost ME may risk being at a loss rather than profit).

Yes, it could take several attempts before a new player can understand well enough to profit. However, this puts him at a disadvantage because the older players already have played the game WITHOUT a hard cap...so if you impose the cap, then the older players can better strategize than the newer players. It will also keep the distance between older and newer players in wealth because older players already have their T3 gear. I'm not an old player, but I finally got my last 4* piece myself, and it took nearly 3k CE of grinding/crafting/etc. (not even 5* yet, and imagine how long it would take a new player with a hard cap to get to that point?). That length of time that newer players are "out of luck" in getting in T3 area, leaves them rummaging through T1/T2 (although you get some profit, it's more in T3)...this makes older players richer faster (widening the gap).

Games should be about equality. If a game imposes a hard cap, then you aren't really giving that equality. BUT, since the game is mostly a one-player game (having others with you is nice, but it increases the health of the enemies anyway, so you pretty much take just as long with others as you do by yourself), equality is a moot point. It's like comparing my high score in tetris to yours...who cares. If/When they ever do PvP, then the older players will most definitely triumph with this type of system.

Even if PvP never happens, hard capping the game won't make the game better...it's really not a strategic game (it really is just another nethack).

> "Maybe the MMO you work on is different? I'd like to know which one it is."

I've worked on many (technically not with the companies themselves, but more reverse-engineering and/or playing with -- WoW, Eve, Runescape, Tycoononline, StarKingdoms, MapleStory, and several others). The current one I want to program involves an extensive market system, but I know not every gamer is in to JUST economics....so I'm looking for a basic game idea that I can build it onto (space sim is played out even though I personally would love it).

> "Also, Sab, this would not cause playtime to correlate with skill."

Yes it would....again, our definitions of the word "skill" are different. Two people who play the game for 10 hours (whether it was 10 hours in 1 sitting day, or 10 hours over a 2 year period) will have the same skill for playing the game. Their individual reflexes may differ slightly, an expert gamer has a greater nack for games over a nonexpert, but those aren't skills to me, it's simply an ability. The same 2 people will know how the tiers work, how the equipment works, how energy works, and how to fight....an expert may survive longer, but it doesn't make his "skill" of the game any better (just means he has the ability to survive). In a small way, I coalesced skill and knowledge, but everything in life is knowledge...so not really that big of a deal to manage.