[Malorn]

Originally Posted by EASyEightyEight

And with this post, you've pretty much just admitted the only people your argument really concerns is... you.

Is that not true for every person who posts here? Are you claiming to represent the silent majority?

Your way of play isn't good enough for a lot of other people.

Oh so you are trying to invoke the silent majority.

SOE seems set on putting in that character progression and achievements you don't care for.

Are they set on it? They talked about it. I don't see how any of us can claim to know their level of commitment to any one thing.

They haven't exactly been forthcoming in their reasons behind why they chose to do that. The only thing I saw on the subject was the idea of rewarding players for investing in one thing. Power progression need not be a reward, especially for a specialist who is by-definition is already good and experienced at what they're doing.

There are other ways to 'reward' players for devotion to specific things that don't involve power advancement.

Also power advancement purely or playing the game is dumb. We didn't earn it. Its a meaningless reward and it is rewarding us for clicking a button, not for actually achieving something. The resource system and territory control is a far better 'reward' - reward us with resources to go get cooler stuff. There's a great reward for actually accomplishing something.

I advise not partaking in that progression and those achievements if you're not interested. Problem solved.

Doesn't seem like it's an optional system. And if it were, not partaking gimps oneself. Sort of forced to partake, which is one reason why progression systems are poor ideas. The only games that need them are the ones that don't have good gameplay to keep players interested. It's what we call a "crutch."

Planetside was not one of those games, as evidenced by longterm play in spite of not having progression. Why should PS2 have it?

Yeah I'm going to say that again. Planetside is the counter-example to your claims that progression is necessary. It isn't. I don't need to invoke a silent majority to say that. The example is right there. You have no evidence to claim otherwise.