if you really, TRULY enjoy exploring, then exploring becomes its own reward.
if you put in-game rewards tied to exploring, then people that DON'T like to explore feel like they HAVE to explore.
As it stands right now, you can have fun exploring, IF you find exploring fun. There's nothing wrong with this.
I really hate how people seem to think that EVERY SINGLE THING they do, whether the game developers intended for them to do it or not, should be rewarded. If you want to do it, there's nothing stopping you from doing it...but expecting to get cookies for doing what you like is just the embodiment of self entitlement and/or being spoiled.
I will keep exploring regardless of rewards, because I enjoy it. I follow every path and peek behind every shed and I kill just about any mob that is a little different from the others. However, the MMO genre is based on rewarding players for spending time doing things in the game. BHS would do well to cater to the explorers, just like they do to the repeatable and dungeon grinders.
if you really, TRULY enjoy exploring, then exploring becomes its own reward.
if you put in-game rewards tied to exploring, then people that DON'T like to explore feel like they HAVE to explore.
As it stands right now, you can have fun exploring, IF you find exploring fun. There's nothing wrong with this.
I really hate how people seem to think that EVERY SINGLE THING they do, whether the game developers intended for them to do it or not, should be rewarded. If you want to do it, there's nothing stopping you from doing it...but expecting to get cookies for doing what you like is just the embodiment of self entitlement and/or being spoiled.
I think you're confusing real-life exploration with in-game exploration. In-game exploration needs to offer some kind of reward or it's meaningless. In a game, exploring for the sake of exploring is not a reward unto itself unless there is some sort of cheese waiting to be found.
That reward can come in many different forms: epic scenery, an otherwise pointless collectable item, an achievement, a map unlock, a hidden quest, a hidden encounter, an amusing NPC encounter, etc. The point is the player is rewarded in some way for being curious, and continues to be encouraged to do so.
Otherwise, they start to feel like they're wasting their time. If your map has a somewhat secluded off-the-road path that leads to say, an elite encounter, the player will be all the more likely to check the next secluded path. But if that same path just leads to a dead end valley of jumbled rock and grass texture riddled with texture seams, all you've shown the player is that if they snoop around too much they're going to find disappointing dead ends that lack polish because the developers never really intended for you to be wasting your time there. If you're really "lucky" you'll fall through a hole in the world geometry and die.
This is not real life where you'll always find *something* no matter where you go exploring. This is a game world with hand placed assets, and if the developers aren't specifically setting up a tucked away area to reward your exploration then your time spent exploring is going to yield some very disappointing and ultimately repetitive results. "Oh look, a sloppy looking dead end. Hey, another sloppy looking dead end. What's over here? Oh, yet another sloppy looking dead end." It gets old.
I'm also tired of arguments against putting in features because people are afraid they'll feel like they're missing out. That's how these games work. You participate in raids or you miss out on raid rewards. We can say the same about questing, or PvP, or the political system, or the market tools.. the whole game is filled with choices where you have to decide where and how you're going to spend your valuable time. If some people like exploring, then it's great when a game supports that. If you don't like exploring but don't want to miss out on potential rewards, that's just too bad. MMOs are not supposed to be designed around offering as few features as possible just so you can feel like you're participating in everything.
if you really, TRULY enjoy exploring, then exploring becomes its own reward.
if you put in-game rewards tied to exploring, then people that DON'T like to explore feel like they HAVE to explore.
As it stands right now, you can have fun exploring, IF you find exploring fun. There's nothing wrong with this.
I really hate how people seem to think that EVERY SINGLE THING they do, whether the game developers intended for them to do it or not, should be rewarded. If you want to do it, there's nothing stopping you from doing it...but expecting to get cookies for doing what you like is just the embodiment of self entitlement and/or being spoiled.
I think you're confusing real-life exploration with in-game exploration. In-game exploration needs to offer some kind of reward or it's meaningless. In a game, exploring for the sake of exploring is not a reward unto itself unless there is some sort of cheese waiting to be found.
That reward can come in many different forms: epic scenery, an otherwise pointless collectable item, an achievement, a map unlock, a hidden quest, a hidden encounter, an amusing NPC encounter, etc. The point is the player is rewarded in some way for being curious, and continues to be encouraged to do so.
Otherwise, they start to feel like they're wasting their time. If your map has a somewhat secluded off-the-road path that leads to say, an elite encounter, the player will be all the more likely to check the next secluded path. But if that same path just leads to a dead end valley of jumbled rock and grass texture riddled with texture seams, all you've shown the player is that if they snoop around too much they're going to find disappointing dead ends that lack polish because the developers never really intended for you to be wasting your time there. If you're really "lucky" you'll fall through a hole in the world geometry and die.
This is not real life where you'll always find *something* no matter where you go exploring. This is a game world with hand placed assets, and if the developers aren't specifically setting up a tucked away area to reward your exploration then your time spent exploring is going to yield some very disappointing and ultimately repetitive results. "Oh look, a sloppy looking dead end. Hey, another sloppy looking dead end. What's over here? Oh, yet another sloppy looking dead end." It gets old.
I'm also tired of arguments against putting in features because people are afraid they'll feel like they're missing out. That's how these games work. You participate in raids or you miss out on raid rewards. We can say the same about questing, or PvP, or the political system, or the market tools.. the whole game is filled with choices where you have to decide where and how you're going to spend your valuable time. If some people like exploring, then it's great when a game supports that. If you don't like exploring but don't want to miss out on potential rewards, that's just too bad. MMOs are not supposed to be designed around offering as few features as possible just so you can feel like you're participating in everything.
If you feel that exploring is a waste of your time, then A) you dont truly enjoy exploring, and B) you can always stop doing it. Whether it's the first nook you find that has nothing, or the 5th....if you enjoy exploring, you're going to continue looking, regardless of the rewards (or lack thereof). If you start to feel like your exploration is a waste of time, then you need to realize that this is NOT a game based on exploration. The game developers put things into the game for you to do, and you're going out of your way to ignore those things and trying to make up your own content. Enjoy what they put in the game for you to enjoy. If you dont enjoy what they put in the game...then dont play.
There doesnt need to be a reward for everything. I can sit my character in town and throw bombs at random players/npcs just because I want to. That doesnt mean I should get a reward for hitting wasting my time doing something silly.
The way gamers' minds work, If you put rewards on something, then people feel they HAVE to do it, whether they want to or not. Leaving it unrewarded means that the people that ENJOY doing it can still do it (since they ENJOY it, they're still having fun), and people that dont enjoy it never have to worry about it.
(note i'm not saying exploring is silly, as I enjoy it too) The fact of the matter is, exploration for the sake of exploration is NOT the main focus of this game, or of many MMORPGS. If exploring is your thing, there are many single player games that are built with exploration being a major factor in the gameplay.
Don't get me wrong, i'm not really against them adding some kind of rewards for this, but people feeling that there HAS to be rewards is just plain silly.
Rift had an exploration/buried treasure system in place, and you know what happened? (using the first zone as an example) Every single one of my friends leveled their character to 20, and then went to the so called 'hidden' treasure (which isnt hidden, because people just google it, thus removing the actual "exploration")to get the items, because the rewards scaled to your level (with a max of level 20).
Even if you didnt like exploring, you felt you had to go out there, because you had a chance of getting some blue items out of it. It turned out to have absolutely NOTHING to do with exploring, and more with people trying to get the best gear/most gold they could get.
I say the same thing about PvP rewards (gear, that is). If you like pvping, then pvp is it's own reward. If you have fun doing something...ANYTHING, then the reward IS the fun. You dont need anything added on.
As someone that wants to explore each area I think this is a great idea. In the same vein I think small hidden areas such as a cave system, underground tunnels or secret groves with some mobs or a BAM would be nice. Add them in slowly per weekly update.
As someone that wants to explore each area I think this is a great idea. In the same vein I think small hidden areas such as a cave system, underground tunnels or secret groves with some mobs or a BAM would be nice. Add them in slowly per weekly update.
And don't tell anyone >:D
@WALL O' TEXT DEBATE
The reward is crazy scenery or a souvenir (Pictures, an arrow head you found, a neat rock, etc), where TERA has awesome environments where you're supposed to be, exploring usually gets you unfinished terrain, broken textures, and a few featureless screenshots.
You see a big, BIIIG, mound of mulch in a field, are you going to climb it for "the experience?" Of course not, but if there was and (insert rare trinket of your desire here) at the top, or it was placed in a out-of-the-way part of some freaky woods, you might just be more inclined to conquer it.
Sorry, not reading all the replies. I agree it would be nice, but games dont do randomization too well, and finding the same treasure in the same place kinda isn't exploring.
I was thinking I may personally host Find the guild leader events, Within my guild, Give them a riddle and then have them find me based on that riddle. Give them a loot prize or something I found in an instance, or maybe just straight gold.
Depends on how Big my guild ever gets, but that is just me trying to create content for myself and comrades.
It's the things that Tera doesn't have that make me like it so much. Tera leaves a lot of things up to the player, while it isn't a real sandbox, it's kinda like a theme-park that is covered in sand. At the end of Beta, when I had run out of things to do really, I just ran around and explored and was relieved that I stopped feeling like logging out because exploring was fun, the world they have created is awesome.
