Blueprints, Storyline, and Optimal Game Design

Our Next Island game world was already live, although it was mostly empty, when I began developing missions and activities. So one unique challenge in designing for Next Island is to account for the current player base, as well as designing an optimal play experience for a new avatar.
Current players and new players have completely different needs and expectations. For example, the avatars playing today have already unlocked Greece, have already built stacks of time travel crystals, have already visited Greece, and are watching it slowly populate. But my plans for new players is to unlock Greece later in their Next Island experience and to come to a fully realized, populated and active time travel destination. Travel to Greece, in my opinion, should be an epic, exciting adventure! But not a punishing one.
To this end, the blueprints for the Hoplite Armor Set will require mostly praetonium and crystals from tropical Next Island, and also require a little mob loot from Greek monsters.
This works for current and incoming players. Right now, any player can get the Trojan Breastplate by completing a mission starting in Crystal Bay. With this first piece of Greek armor, he’s now better equipped to set off for Greece, and start hunting the minotaurs and cyclops found there! These mobs drop the items required by Arachne’s Dilemma, and items used in the blueprints for the Hoplite Armor Set. As players gain more Greek monster loot — or maybe use up some of the minotaur and cyclops byproducts from previous hunting trips — they’ll be able to make more pieces of the Hoplite Armor Set, which will provide more Greek protection, which will then make it easier to hunt in Greece… a happy situation for all players and a nice improvement to our economy.
Immediately following the content release, I’d expect to start seeing players wearing Hoplite Armor in both Greek and tropical Next Island, and then I’d expect long-term players will start making and selling these pieces to new arrivals. In the longer-term future, Hoplite Armor will likely become a early acquisition for newcomers, with new players able to purchase the materials, purchase the armor, or even receive this armor as a gift from a mentor who’s upgraded to even better armor. Hoplites are only foot soldiers, after all!

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