Sort of. The curve maxed out way faster than modern MMOs. Getting all GM (grandmaster) levels in your main skills took way shorter than, say, what ever absurd level you can get to on WOW after the 10th expansion.
The game even had an inbuilt macro system that wasn't super sophisticated but it wasn't considered "hacking" an you could max out the easier skills that way.
So in some sense, the devs actually tried to get rid of the grind element. In any case, it definitely was not institutionalized. You could gain skill in fencing by killing monsters OR by dueling friends. There definitely was not a "kill 6 monsters and return the belts for a cool prize" style stuff. So in some sense, it was a bit like you would have liked, just not as all-out.
The thing is that the better players were people who understood how game mechanics worked, and they were older and more mentally capable than I was at 14. So they understood how to make "builds" and how to strategize, while my efforts were based on trial and error, and thus getting to a good build took the better part of a year than a month.
> The curve maxed out way faster than modern MMOs. Getting all GM (grandmaster) levels in your main skills took way shorter than, say, what ever absurd level you can get to on WOW after the 10th expansion.
I would have player character "skills" be a significant but not a dominating factor. Basically, PC "skills" would be automatically learned over time and would be a way to reward players for sticking around. Instead, I would base things more on economic power and kill record. A player can gain more power economically by exploiting a large sector of space, establishing bases, designing/licensing mining/security drones, and building products for players. However, this means they would be mainly playing in the RTS/4X part of the game. The action oriented part would be based on kill record, which would be the ratio of total PC ship value you help destroy over the value of the ships you are destroyed in. Having a high kill record gains "fame" which results in direct monetary rewards and access to (expensive) special items. Something along the lines of players 1 standard deviation above the average kill ratio would randomly receive money for "sponsorships" or be given prototype items to test whenever they are in a winning battle. I would also have another metric of "reputation" which is more based on participation, but which results in lesser rewards.
Another thing I would try out would be to simply grant NPC "followers" to players with a certain level of fame who have stuck around long enough.
The game even had an inbuilt macro system that wasn't super sophisticated but it wasn't considered "hacking" an you could max out the easier skills that way.
So in some sense, the devs actually tried to get rid of the grind element. In any case, it definitely was not institutionalized. You could gain skill in fencing by killing monsters OR by dueling friends. There definitely was not a "kill 6 monsters and return the belts for a cool prize" style stuff. So in some sense, it was a bit like you would have liked, just not as all-out.
The thing is that the better players were people who understood how game mechanics worked, and they were older and more mentally capable than I was at 14. So they understood how to make "builds" and how to strategize, while my efforts were based on trial and error, and thus getting to a good build took the better part of a year than a month.