I expect this will be one of the more anticipated posts in this forum, so I'll try to be as clear and concise as I can.
Until we refine things a little more, here is our official position on what's happening with your current Armor Points, and some information on AG3:
With AG3, we are going to introduce TWO new systems of points (names are not final):
1) New Armor Points (Points earned based on gameplay)
2) "Karma" Points (Points earned based on quality site participation)
The goal is to separate gameplay ability from site interaction and contribution.
What's Happening to old Armor Points?
Every active AG2 user will receive special "legacy" achievements for being part of AG2. There will be individual achievements for each of the level/rank on AG2, which will be given once we launch AG3 into production, and then retire the old AG2 points system. Depending on the level/rank you are at when AG3 launches, the corresponding achievement and New AP points will be given. Users who did not have an account on AG2 will not be able to recieve these achievements. The breakdown would be something like the following: (subject to change)
- AG2 Serf Achievement, 5 New AP pts
- AG2 Squire Achievement, 10 New AP pts
- AG2 Knight Achievement, 20 New AP pts
- AG2 Lord Achievement, 40 New AP pts
- AG2 Duke Achievement, 60 New AP pts
- AG2 Prince Achievement, 80 New AP pts
- AG2 King Achievement, 100 New AP pts
At the very least, everyone will receive an achievement for being part of AG2.
But once we launch AG3 for all users, you will have achievements that new users can never get because you helped build the Armor Games community through AG2. We may also give out some sort of extra achievements to leader board users for game submissions, forum posts, etc. and give out extra achievements just for the sheer number of AP you had like an achievement called "10,000+ Legacy Armor Points" or "1,000+ Forum posts", that sort of thing.
New Armor Points System
For the new Armor Points system, we're working on ways for game developers to reward you with achievements that you attain via game play. We may actually roll out some of this during AG3's beta, before AG3 is launched. When AG3 is ready (or for beta users) you'll get to see all of your achievements and points you get awarded for playing and interacting with the games.
Karma Chameleon
The new "karma" system (which needs a new name, and I'm happy to take suggestions on what to call it, like an old school RPG "alignment" system to some degree) will be similar to how the existing AG2 Armor Points work, where you'll get points for posting comments, feedback, game reviews, forum posts, and so on, but this score can go DOWN if a message you post gets marked as spam/etc or is deleted by a moderator.
Not everything you submit on the site will give you points (ie, private messages will not give you points) and we may limit the maximum number of points you can get per day for posting on user profiles, etc., just to help cut down on spam. Some things will award more points than others. Some actions on the site will require a minimum number of karma points. ie, if your karma drops below 0, we may restrict your ability to post in the forums.
We're looking at several ways to award these karma points throughout the site. Some ideas we're currently considering include awarding extra karma points for having a forum post or game review flagged up (liked) by a certain quantity of users, or awarding extra points for submitting photos of you and your AG store purchases, as mentioned in another forum thread. We're considering several ideas that users have posted in the forums. Maybe if you get a number of posts "liked" enough, we'll award extra achievements, and so on.
So are we migrating old Points, or not?!
Strictly speaking, we are not migrating the exact value of your old Armor Points to the AG3 system since some of the points will turn into achievements, and some will turn into karma.
If we migrate the forums, we'll probably be able to award you some karma points for your old forum posts. This is still being investigated and will depend solely on whether we migrate the old forums or not. We'll probably also migrate the game reviews which were given merits on AG2, so we have reviews to show new users who come to the site. These posts will award some amount of karma.
We implemented some new high score and shared game content systems over the summer (July/August) which help us to track information about which users submitted that data. We may be able to start your account with some initial AG3 Points based on what we've been collecting since July/August, however any older high scores or shared game content cannot be awarded.
Questions and Feedback
We're interested in hearing what you think. We would like to aggregate feedback on our Get Satisfaction account. A thread has been created which you can access here: http://getsatisfaction.com/armorgames/topics/update_on_armor_points_and_armor_games_v3_ag3
