[2019] Development Letter - Honing the New Player Experience

Originally posted by GamerDJ

hopes that those new players are excited to come back, and stick around long enough

...to leave again once they get tired of the same things making the game less fun than it was the day before.

While it isn’t time to reveal all our long-term goals for [sanctuary]

Because the majority of them probably won't be met and the rest don't really matter anyway.

Like much of what we’re working toward now, [the mandate system] is a system that will support the long-term development of the game

So it's going to be monetized to shit? We know how that typically works out. Otherwise, this system could've been kind of interesting.

"It's not a monetization system." Now I'm more interested.

Tutorials are cool, too bad it's been so long.

Originally posted by GamerDJ

Okay, so then what does "support the long-term development of the game" mean? Legitimately curious.

It's good to hear it's not going to be primarily monetization focused like implants.

Originally posted by Ivan-Malik

Oh, but it does. If the mandates and vendors are time based then the time players spend logged in will go up. Therefore servers will in theory be in better shape population wise. While this type of tactic is often used by companies in really scummy ways to force players to feel like they have to play an excessive amount, PS2 is a game where exit points are really difficult to naturally find outside of alerts. Something like this could provide shorter term goals that can be completed in a single session that are personal to a player. The player will stay engaged with the game longer because they are striving to complete that goal. Think of it as a mini-directive.