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Hyrrix
Fourty-two
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Posts: 282
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| MMORPGDot Feature: Ekim's Gamer View - Blade of a Thousand F |
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There's a new weekly Ekim's Gamer View up at <A href="http://www.mmorpgdot.com/">MMORPGDot</A> today, this time covering the concept of loot in mmorpg's. Here's a snip:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE><I>What if instead of eliminating it altogether there could be a special loot system in place which could serve to reward the adventuring players without infringing so much on the crafter’s capacity to provide the best general gear that anyone can get? What if instead of getting rid of special loot we made it even more special, and most especially rare? Rarity is essential in what I’m proposing, because by now I feel that the common nature of special loot is what killed the loot system altogether, not the crafters themselves. </I></BLOCKQUOTE>The article can be found <A href="http://www.mmorpgdot.com/index.php?hsaction=10053&ID=814">here</A>. In the meantime, I'd like to remind you of the fact that all mmorpg-related will no longer be displayed on RPGDot, but only in MMORPGDot! |
Fri Dec 05, 2003 9:20 pm |
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vaticide
Put food in here
Joined: 21 Feb 2002
Posts: 1122
Location: One step behind a toddler bent on destruction. |
I think part of the problem with special loot becoming common is the predictability in many of the games out there now. Taking the worst case scenario, Everquest, once a very special item is identified that everyone wants suddenly everyone knows how and where to get it. Special care is taken to avoid killing anything that is known will not yield something special. Why bother when there is neither reward nor (uh-oh, here comes that C word again) consequence if you kill it or don't.
Part of the problem of having items as rare as what you have said (one copy per 'shard') is that the vast majority of people will not even know it exists, and a lot of people will desire such an item with no chance of ever getting it. They will feel like they are paying the same price for the game, and thus should have access to the same things as everyone else. If you can lose it as you suggested, people will stow it away in the safest place they can and never use it, or worse: sell it on Ebay. Or sell it, and then jump the person they sold it to and steal it back and start the cycle over again.
I agree that games need to have some aspect of loot on a creature when you kill it, I have found that otherwise you get bored very fast with the whole aspect. This is part of the reason these games are so addictive-- you know that if you keep pushing that red button, eventually you will get a banana.
One solution I have considered is having creature encounters being more sparse but more exciting. Instead of killing 152 wasps with your eyes closed to gain that next level you could kill one (or a small group of) dire nudibranch in an epic battle that takes 30 minutes and gets you acess to the nudibranch's undersea horde. Rather than the world being wall-to-wall creatures bent on your destruction, they could be harder to find and track down (but not impossible). This would make special items less common because fights and actual kills are less frequent, but you will still get that reward system for actually going out and killing things.
-vaticide |
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Fri Dec 05, 2003 9:41 pm |
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Guest
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I think that if they switched to a more Diablo 2 loot table where the monster has a chance for rare or unique items it would solve most of the problem.
Also, something that Mythica is doing is allowing you to change the looks of an item without affecting it's magic. So you'll be able to find a cool item and then change it to match the look of your character through crafting. So people will not be forced to keep some low level weapon just because it fits well with the character their trying to build. |
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Mon Dec 08, 2003 5:44 pm |
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Ekim
Eagle's Shadow
Joined: 27 May 2002
Posts: 2365
Location: Montreal, Canada |
quote:
Originally posted by vaticide
Part of the problem of having items as rare as what you have said (one copy per 'shard') is that the vast majority of people will not even know it exists, and a lot of people will desire such an item with no chance of ever getting it. They will feel like they are paying the same price for the game, and thus should have access to the same things as everyone else. If you can lose it as you suggested, people will stow it away in the safest place they can and never use it, or worse: sell it on Ebay. Or sell it, and then jump the person they sold it to and steal it back and start the cycle over again.
The Ebay problem is a real one, and would need some consideration, I agree. But if you take abstraction from that issue (which exists for any solution anyway...) there are still ways to alleviate some of the problems that you mention in a "rare loot scenario" such as the one I'm proposing. For instance, you could make a rule that says that a rare item cannot be stowed away, as you said. In essence, if you go after such an item, it's because you either want to use it, or profit from it. You could easily set things up so that a player has to keep it on himself at all times, or get rid of it after he found it. They've been doing it in single-player rpgs for years with important plot items that can't even be thrown away, why couldn't they do it in an mmorpg?
As for people feeling that they couldn't all have the same items, I guess that's why I'm pushing for the importance of rarity, and diversity of such items. You could also make these items cool to have, and very useful, without making them "uber". In essence, someone who would obtain one of these items would certainly have a tool that brings him a notch over everyone else, but he wouldn't be overpowering either. You could also diversify the variety of items so that they cater to different classes, and so wouldn't be of use to a single person unless they would want to sell them, or trade them.
Also, the rarity of this special loot would tie in perfectly with your notion of making combat more sparse and meaningful. I did mention having special mobs that would only spawn once, kind of epic monsters. But let's also think of them in terms of quests that could be gotten by certain levels of players. I think the "private realms" that is such a trend these days could make this very successful in that you could undertake the quest if you were of a certain level, but not beyond it. Of course once you come out with the item you're a target for anyone, but then again rules can be made to minimize the slaughtering of lower level players by veterans of the game.
It's not a perfect idea, but it's a start. I think we all agree that doing away with it is simply not a solution anymore...
quote:
I think that if they switched to a more Diablo 2 loot table where the monster has a chance for rare or unique items it would solve most of the problem.
I'm sorry to say that I completely disagree with that because it doesn't fix the current problem of mmorpgs so much as shift it to a different place. Making loot tables completely random would just make mmorpgs even more about killing monsters to get the best loot. Even worse, a player could just stand in the same place and wait for spawns of... whatever beast to have a chance of getting special loot for hours and hours. I think we're trying to steer mmorpgs away from this model as much as possible, and rightly so. I think that more quest-driven adventures are a better way to go about it.
That being said, Diablo-type loot systems work very well in diablo-type games (action-rpg), but beyond that it completely destroys the notion of the crafting professions. Diablo's loot system is based on the fact that the only way to acquire loot is through killing monsters or trading. Players can't make anything (unless things have drastically changed since the last time I looked into the game?), while mmorpgs generally have very complexe crafting professions which, surprisingly enough, many players undertake. You have to invent a loot system that won't overlap on the crafting system, and Diablo's system would do that.
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Mon Dec 08, 2003 8:47 pm |
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