Conventions of Gameplay

Tabula Rasa just released information on their Veterans rewards. Veteran rewards .. what a concept.

I remember (yes it's a "back in my day" story) when people continued to play a game just for the fun! Sony Online Entertainment was the first company that I was aware of to offer Veterans rewards, but now everyone does. It's just the thing to do!

I remember when Star Wars Galaxies came out with their veterans rewards … at the time I had stopped playing SWG and logged back in to see what I got. They had a bug with the timing so that it counted from when your account was created and didn't discount any time when your account was inactive. *grin* I got lots of goodies, and continued to play on the Test server for a while after that.

But why offer the rewards? They give you neet and useful things like a port back to your bindspot, a cool house item, a minor bonus to a skill, your own shuttlecraft, in game titles … all fun and useful things, but nothing gamebreaking. Nothing that you say "I have to have this or I can't play". Nothing that you can't get similar rewards from quests, or tradeskills .. but usually not the exact same thing. So why offer them?

There's the cool factor .. you have something that not everyone else has, something to separate you from the newbies, something to show how long you've stayed with a game. They add conviencies, and fun, but not a whole lot of game advantage.

But over all .. they're pretty much just cool.