[likwidneo]

No, the mission system is there so that those casual players that they ARE catering to can jump in and still serve a tactical purpose by being given an incentive by the more hardcore players who are more concerned with the meta-game. I.E. if this were PS1 the mission system would be what allows the CR5's to "control the zerg" and keep the zerg going where they should be going. You see it all the time in PS1, CR5's(I'm not one of them)who have a solid tactical plan and they want the empire to zig instead of zag, but the zerg will go mindlessly in the wrong direction. The mission system will fix that, but that doesn't mean that casual players care about the deeper meta-game. Casual players just want quick kills and cheap thrills without having to think so hard about how their empire can best use their resources and players to gain the advantage.