Metagame

[Lendari]

A metagame is a game within a game. Here is an observation of some of the metagames I've personally observed to occur within Project Gorgon. I'm going to try and be really objective and just look at what I see. This isn't supposed to be a judgement about if these things are good or bad. Just an objective look at what activities are being highly incentivised by the game design, what the best players are doing to "win". I try to put a special emphasis on strategies that don't seem to have any competing idea. They are simply the best way to solve a meta problem within the larger problem that is the game.

1. Use "enter the light" as a primary binding point.

Right now it's almost impossible to get the alternate bind\recall skills because the bonus XP get's exhaused around teleport lvl 24 and working from 24-27 teleport with only +10xp gains from recall takes months (or years?). Since it takes about 15 minutes to run from Serbule to Amulna at base movement speed, and death has no real penalty, there's a huge incentive to put your primary bind in Amulna and use "enter the light" as an anchor back to Serbule.

It's basically "the meta" for teleport and if you aren't doing it like this, you're probably objectively doing it wrong.

2. Create "mule" characters to increase storage space.

Admit it. You have a mule. I've seen people act pretty brazenly about it too. To the point where they will start a trade from one character and ask to be paid on another character. Again, this is not a judgement, but an observation. The metagame is such that some players are finding it either more productive or more practical to change characters than to unlock additional storage or travel between storage sites. Perhaps they have already unlocked all storage.

3. Learning transmute to level 25 is mandatory.

With this skill at level 25 you are probably making 200% more money than a player without it when travelling into deep dungeons like yetis, labs or gk. After a multi-hour run last night we compared notes. People with transmute hauled back about 70-80K while people without hauled back about 30-35K. So even accounting for crystal costs, it's about twice as much. Technically the long the run goes, the more advantage the transmuter has. A lot of people don't know about transmute, and it's totally meta.

4. Learning a movement skill is mandatory.

Sometimes I feel like I am one of the only players near the level cap who still relies solely on agonizing speed potions for travel. I really wanted it to be a solution, and it's proving not to be one. I need to level up battle chem and shield or become a druid or something, even though none of those really interest me. Otherwise I'm always the last people to arrive, people are constantly waiting for me, and meeting people in difficult to reach locations like GK can be tedious.

When are we getting mounts.

5. Learning ressurrect is as close to mandatory as possible without actually being mandatory.

I've touched on this before so I'm not going to say much. It's meta. Without it the group gameplay experience is VERY different.

6. Being a druid.

Damn there is a lot of druids. Maybe it's just a really appealing concept. Maybe it's because it's got insane utility without any real drawback. I don't know. All I know is that there is a lot of druids out there.

What else are people noticing is super meta right now?

[Tchey]

Hm, metagame is the Grand Overview of a game. For example is a card games like Magic, Faeria etc, the analysis of the metagame is very helpfull for balance. What card is overplayed, what color is winning more than its part and so an. Metagame in Gorgon would be data like what class is prefered, how much time is played by players etc. Can't elaborate too much because of english not being my language, but i think it's enough.

So, to stay in you topic more or less, i would say,

7 / being an animal,, and really play one, not jump in and out of animal form or cheat with alts etc. as you are cut from many opportunities such as bank slots, quests, skills... You need to rethink the game as an animal, and deal with the consequences, with little advantages to balance that.

[Yertle]

A metagame is a game within a game.

While I see what you mean and I think you have fine examples, I also think you can think of nearly every Trade/Other skill as being "meta". For example, what's the best way to have access to arrows? Obviously level up Fletching. ... What's the best way to move fast? Have a fast skill.
Again, I think the list is good and there's valuable feedback in it, but it does seem a bit of "metagame" really just is the game.

[Lendari]

Eh. So if we are going to say crafting is meta... that's not true. Because most people are wearing at least a few items from dungeon drops? If it were true that dungeon drops were completely worthless vendor trash 100% of the time I might agree. Right now I think there's multiple viable approaches to gearing up. Which is good!

I haven't gotten much into the animal thing. One more reason to be a druid? Does that count as being an animal?