Believe me, if it could revise the base system, the removal of rent is something I would try for.
Failing that I would change it so that power and computer systems cost upkeep, not storage bins.
I feel like the whole base system was mishandled and had a lot of untapped potential.
Speaking from a subscription MMO point of view, making bases have high costs and upkeep was exactly the wrong way to go.
Instead, what I would do is this:
- No rent or upkeep.
- No cost whatsoever for decorative items.
- Low cost for functional items, one that is easily doable casually.
- No item placement restrictions (this was mostly done already, but I'd remove room/base limits for specific item types too).
- No extra cost for upgrading plot size. Hell, give people a discount for using a bigger plot (you'll see why in a minute).
- Personal bases in addition to supergroup bases. I don't care how screwy you say the system was implemented on the back end, I firmly believe this would not have been that hard to do. Standard code rant can bite me.
- More items in the editor. Now that I know a lot more about how bases work, I know that importing items from zone / mission maps would have been trivial to do, it just would have taken somebody to sit down and do it.
Why? Think it about it for a second. People spent untold hours in the base editor perfecting their hideouts, banging their heads against a clunky editor, exploiting bugs to produce things that its designers did not think were possible. That's time that they did not spend gaining XP, influence, leveling, getting drops, acquiring and enhancing powers, or
advancing their character in any way. In a traditional progression-focused MMO environment where you want to keep people playing and subscribing, that kind of time sink is a freaking
gold mine. Especially one that players do voluntarily and enjoy without being forced into it.
Sure, they said that the base builder population was fairly small, so it didn't get much dev attention. I think the reason that population was small is obvious.
Because they put so many barriers in front of it. Tying it to a supergroup, only allowing one base per SG so really only the leader or designated builder can do it, requiring the entire group to farm enough prestige to make a sizable base...
All of this of course was because for a long time they were clinging to the original design intent of bases being a social large group PVP-focused thing. It took them so long to finally give up on making that work that they totally missed the boat on what a huge thing it could have been if they had instead reimagined it as a sandbox activity allowing players to express their creativity freely and show it off to their friends.
I take that back. What a huge thing it
will be.
Mua ha ha.