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Forums » Misadventures (Bug Reports) » Slow to level

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Author	Thread
phae Level 6 Pathmaker Posts: 26	Is it just me or is levelling up going to be insanely slow? I spend more time that I ought to on the internet, and I'm still only 3/4s into level 1. Isn't it tradition to make levelling up the first few levels in a new RPG pretty quick to get you hooked? Or am I just playing it wrong? :) wah wah wah, Frances by phae 11 months ago \| Permalink
ybika Level 7 Seer Posts: 18	Heh, I feel your pain Phae. I think there is some tuning to be done on the xp gain ;) Also, is it just me or is there a kind of big gulch between the initial badges you can earn and the rest? I imagine it will be ages until I get more... and believe me I am trying! ;) [edit: oh boy, heh sorry, I just realized how incredibly unpassive that is!] by ybika 11 months ago \| Permalink
suttree Trustee Level 13 Pathmaker Posts: 188	You can probably earn quite a bit of money just through surfing, although we reward breadth of surfing, rather than just surfing in general. Making a mission is a good way to earn a reward, or maybe some kind soul will leave you both a crate full of DP! And whilst you wait, here's our guide to the levels, so that you can plot how good or evil you'll be once you start making inroads :) http://pmog.com/codex/appendices... by suttree 11 months ago \| Permalink
phae Level 6 Pathmaker Posts: 26	Yeah but, those levels are crazy. Taking missions doesn't count for anything for ages, and you only get what - 2 points for every new URL? - I take every mission I can and it doesn't even dent my points total, which doesn't seem especially fair. Taking missions should reward sooner, imho. Making a mission seems to have no particular reward either. Perhaps making missions could be made more rewarding by the mission maker gaining extra points for every person who takes their mission? It'd mean you'd have to try harder to make a mission more people would like to take. by phae 11 months ago \| Permalink
suttree Trustee Level 13 Pathmaker Posts: 188	Yes, good point. Creating a mission currently rewards you with 10 DP for every user who subsequently takes it. Taking a mission will also affect your class, depending on the type of mission you take. I think we'll have a lot of game balancing to do in the near future, let's see if we can make levelling up a less hurdle-some affair :) by suttree 11 months ago \| Permalink
ybika Level 7 Seer Posts: 18	On this note, I just realized I don't quite understand the DP thing. My level up bar says I need X to level (5132DP to be specific), but then I also have DP I can spend (as noted on the far right of the plugin bar). Is there some way of transferring over the spendable ones to my level up bar? I suspect my even asking that shows I am misunderstanding something fundamental ;) by ybika 11 months ago \| Permalink
phae Level 6 Pathmaker Posts: 26	Okay. I don't mean to be entirely complainy, it just feels like the goal posts are especially far away when you're only just starting out. And since it's all new, it's also hard to know if it's a system error, caching etc. that's stopping the progress. by phae 11 months ago \| Permalink
suttree Trustee Level 13 Pathmaker Posts: 188	ybika - you level up based on your total datapoints earned, so that you're always getting closer to the next level and not having to decide whether to spend or level up. I guess 5,000 DP must look like a long way away right now :( phae - you're not being too complainy, don't worry! There are plenty of issues we've got left to figure out and having someone new and enthusiastic helping us figure them out is invaluable :D by suttree 11 months ago \| Permalink
ybika Level 7 Seer Posts: 18	Yupyup, knew I was continuing to gather lvlup DP (albeit slowly) but just wasn't clear on the relationship between the ones locked in the lvlup bar and the ones I can spend/give away. And heh yeah, at this rate 5k+ looks pretty painful ;) by ybika 11 months ago \| Permalink
mamamusings Level 6 Pathmaker Posts: 7	Yeah, I agree that it would help to make early levels easier to reach. 5000 points is going to take most poeple a long time to reach if you only get 2pts for each new top-level domain. by mamamusings 11 months ago \| Permalink
merci Trustee Level 16 Benefactor Posts: 269	Huh interesting. I wanted to make levels ramp up steeply (based on paper-game RPG metrics not MMO metrics, btw) b/c you are constantly playing PMOG if you're online. I can see how if you're accustomed to a lot of rewards that's not as fun. by merci 11 months ago \| Permalink
phae Level 6 Pathmaker Posts: 26	That kind of style isn't as good for new players, imho. Even table-top RPGs are more instantly rewarding than the current levels on PMOG. I guess it depends on the audience you want to play it though. I think table-topers are more into it in the first place so are willing to wait for rewards plus the style of gaming is more community orientated than rewards orientated, but the digital nation needs quick wins before something more shiny comes along (I realise I'm generalising, but I've been both) and we're starting out as individuals rather than a collaborative questing group. You need to get the kids hooked with the easy hits before you move on to the harder stuff. It works for drug dealers. ;) by phae 11 months ago \| Permalink
2hard2bblack Level 6 Pathmaker Posts: 6	is it just me, or did anyone else think that pmog was just supposed to be something you left alone mostly while browsing so you could have a little extra fun... not something you play to the point of 'grinding'. by 2hard2bblack 11 months ago \| Permalink
suttree Trustee Level 13 Pathmaker Posts: 188	I'd like to think we replaced the grinding with passive web browsing, but I would say that we've balanced the passive elements with some active ones too. by suttree 11 months ago \| Permalink
phae Level 6 Pathmaker Posts: 26	2hard2bblack - true and it can be that. And it is. But it IS a game, and a game should reward - that's why there's levels and classes and all that fun stuff. Play just passively if you like (I intend to, probably). If you do play it that way, you've gotta visit like 3000 unique sites to level though (I need to visit 2668 at the moment). How may sites do you visit? I don't visit that many in a year, probably. I'm really not talking about grinding or gaming the system. I just think the levelling should be re-calibrated a little to make it easier for newer players so that PMOG ultimately gets more long-term players. /end moan. promise. :) by phae 11 months ago \| Permalink
neveras Level 7 Seer Posts: 12	Well do keep in mind this is alot different from your standard MMO in which the ultimate goal is hitting your level cap and then doing end game content. Here all the content is in between the level cap and the end. After you hit "Max Level" and stop rising then the point just becomes a little more moot. In this sense, the levels really mean something and not just a meter of how close to the end you are. If you happen to see a level 10 destroyer let's say It should be more of an accomplishment. Besides this seems more of a social interconnected game, and once we get more players the leveling should, well level out and things should go more smoothly. by neveras 11 months ago \| Permalink
merci Trustee Level 16 Benefactor Posts: 269	@ 2hard2bblack: right, exactly. :) by merci 11 months ago \| Permalink
merci Trustee Level 16 Benefactor Posts: 269	I slashed the levels some. It's still hard, and it's still a different way of playing than you may be used to. But it's less daunting now. :) by merci 11 months ago \| Permalink
2hard2bblack Level 6 Pathmaker Posts: 6	well, i did find this off Digg.com and I do browse digg daily. I also have a daily deskjob. If you know what digg is and you know how people spend time at a desk job its not really that hard to come across unique sites in your web browsing adventures. by 2hard2bblack 11 months ago \| Permalink
phae Level 6 Pathmaker Posts: 26	Cool merci - we'll see how it goes! Cheers for listening! 2hard2bblack - true - but 3000 odd unique sites to get started is an awful lot. by phae 11 months ago \| Permalink
allyson Level 13 Pathmaker Posts: 73	@ merci: yes, I was wondering how I suddenly had hit level 2! what a delightful surprise! by allyson 11 months ago \| Permalink
suttree Trustee Level 13 Pathmaker Posts: 188	phae - we may not have explained this clearly, sorry. It's not 3000 unique sites all told, rather it's unique sites per day. So you can hit flickr.com today and earn from it, but only the once. Tomorrow you can hit flickr.com and earn from it again, but only the once, and so on. So in the course of your normal daily browsing, you'll earn data points from visiting the same sites you normally visit, but just a limited amount each day. Hopefully that sounds like a more sane approach :) by suttree 11 months ago \| Permalink
phae Level 6 Pathmaker Posts: 26	Yes. Sane. Well, as sane as something like this can be. :) by phae 11 months ago \| Permalink
kidfiction Level 20 Pathmaker Posts: 107	I think the best option here is to leave firefox open with 3000 unique tabs, everynight at midnight run a macro that reloads all the tabs and see how long it takes for your computer to explode. It is a bit daunting to see people like that Merci ;) who has 28000 datapoints accumulated, but then again how much is coming from surfing and how much is coming from revenue of Merci's tutorial mission? It seems that Pathmakers may have an advantage here. I think you do bring up a good point though, although in light of purchasing items rather than leveling as currently level doesn't affect gameplay (seems like an oxymoron floating around with that word). For example, for every 50 unique sites I visit I can only purchase one mine to lay on a site, thats quite the ratio. Something to think upon then, for it is the beta! by kidfiction 11 months ago \| Permalink
enkerli Level 10 Benefactor Posts: 60	This is actually a very interesting thread to read, now that the game has changed quite a bit (apparently). One comment I would make about the game is that the early rewards make the game much more enticing. Though it's related to the MMO model, PMOG more or less avoids the problems which scare n00bs away (like newbie smack and a difficult learning experience). So I'm really glad that the levels have been changed. OTOH, maybe I'm thick but I've been pmogging for a couple of days and some of the things explained here were still unclear. Didn't find them in the FAQ, the tutorial missions, discussed in other threads... More specifically, the point about "earnt DPs" took a while to be clear for me, the timeframe for "unique sites," and the fact that I can apparently spend my earnt DPs without affecting my ability to level up. This last one is made particularly obscure by the fact that levelling up doesn't seem to happen right away. Ah, well... It's still very nice to see what discussions were happening six months ago and what effects they had on the game's enjoyability... by enkerli 4 months ago \| Permalink