Entirety

[Grayzzur]

..simplification would subtract significantly from the player experience.....

I think this is the key issue of the debate. It would subtract from the player experience, yes. Significantly? In your opinion, yes. In other's opinions, maybe not so much. Sounds like this is what Virgil is trying to determine.

I'll be happy as long as it's not difficult to track my progress and run the missions in order. If I have to remember what I just played and go figure out what's next, that would detract from my experience. I don't care if the next 5 missions are already unlocked or not.

[ShadowDragon7015]

I think having everything locked at the start increases the player's happiness as they go along and unlock things and see the game open up from just a basic tutorial into a full game with many things to do. To have everything open at the start in my opinion looks unprofessional like you didnt know what order you wanted things and just rushed into it leaving everything wide open. It look sloppy and detracts from the gameplay value. Having things in order means that people don't get upset over the plot line and getting confused on where they were. So my opinion is keep things locked until they complete the previous map.

[thejoe66]

I think it would be fine to have everything unlocked as long as all the levels have some hardcore challenges to them, and i'm talking Farbor style hardcore. I say this because it would help balance the fact that theirs no excitement from unlocking levels. The reason i personally enjoyed the entire campaign in the CW games was because the whole story was a challenge. Having to unlock a plant or complete a mission in a certain way to get further made the entire campaign part of that quest to get further, but if everything was unlocked I would just go for the Horror/Farbor styled maps since there the challenge and its what i enjoyed the most.

[miquelfire]

If CW3 is anything to go by, the story, that can be left alone. The outer sectors however, unlock them from the start (well, maybe require the first level to be beaten at most)

[Drone_swarm]

How about we have all levels by default, but skipping disables achievements and submitting scores?

[Qwerty Quazo]

How about we have all levels by default, but skipping disables achievements and submitting scores?

I agree. Why not? It suits all of us.

[warren]

How about... achievements... scores...

I agree. Why not?...

Hmmmm... There is something off about that suggestion... Can't place it.

Also, I forgot to mention something important the last two times I posted. Difficulty levels? No...
Star ratings? No... I'm sure it will come to me long after this conversation loses all relevance.
Think think think... Time to unlock. Oh yeah! Wait, that's not actually that important to mention.
NVM

But now that It's been brought up, I would like to point out that there are two issues here: Time to unlock for the hardcore crowd and anyone else who ever lost all their save files, and barrier to entry *cough* farbor *cough* for the casual crowd.

[Asbestos]

Let's have everything unlocked, but the map is a big web with multiple starting points and different ways to get to each system. If you come across a Farbor in one system, you can simply complete the other systems that lead to the system after the Farbor.

[J]

Let's have everything unlocked, but the map is a big web with multiple starting points and different ways to get to each system. If you come across a Farbor in one system, you can simply complete the other systems that lead to the system after the Farbor.

Good idea (if the levels of each individual path are unlocked one by one), but can be very hard to keep the story going accross those paths.

How about we have all levels by default, but skipping disables achievements and submitting scores?

I agree. Why not? It suits all of us.

Look at the second reply in this thread for a reason why not. If you do want to get the achievement later, you must play the missed levels again, if you have to replay levels people will complain, if not the achievement would just be 'complete all missions'.

To keep people from complaining about hard levels, the story line maps could have a few more maps that are meant to teach the player some good tactics. I've missed those in CW3. The Bowl from CW:TS does a good job at teaching players to get some chokepoints before the creeper does. With an increased time limit it would fit as 6th or 7th story mission. Another mission with just collectors and cannons after the third would also help a bit, even if it's just to let them know that that are the basic units you should use in every mission (at least for the start), and not just relays and reactors.

[F0R]

For me, story in creeper world wasn't a big deal and didn't care for it much. If story doesn't seem to be a crucial aspect of the game then i think all levels can be unlocked at the start. Creeper world originally got its popularity mostly from the flash version with no or minimal story. I don't see how this would be different.

However slow almost linear progression with increasingly harder levels allows the player to learn skill in the game. I think it's whatever you think is in the best interest of the player.