If you look to the left of this thread you will see a list of mmoRPGs. I suppose I was referring to a General Discussion of www.mmoRPG.com. If we are talking all MMOGs, I would have to consider a much broader span of gaming.
When we refer to MMORPGs, we are speaking of a very small nice of the online gaming world. What you may think of as "uninspired" is a lot of fun to others. If you don't enjoy them you can always play This Old House Online, or any other game that features online play.
When I read your comment I assumed (incorrectly) that it was a comment concerning the MMORPG genre, not the MMOG genre. MMOG is much broader, and therefore we must consider a lot more.
Also, I like killing monsters that spawn in certain areas. I loved it when I picked up Ultima Online, I continued to love it when I raided in EverQuest, and I still love it as I anticipate Warhammer Online. I refuse to be sidetracked by people who didn't enjoy the genre.
I hate racing games, but I don't go to a racing game website and tell them about it.
What is the difference between MMOG and MMORPG? I didn't know there was much of a difference? I also don't play RPGs that just involve killing monsters and advancing my level while collecting items, but I do like to play RPGs. That doesn't mean I can't play any RPGs. I like playing against and/or with other people in a game with some kind of advancement where I can make an impact in the game world. I don't know any other type of games that allow that. Not all the games on the left are what you describe anyways. Like I said before, if players keep on buying the same boring crappy games, then developers will continue to make similar games. I have no idea why there is a market, I don't know why players like you just don't stick to one game and grind away.
One way of looking at it is that the wolf killed someone before who had that item on him. Now, if a DM was running the game, you might find said item not on the wolf but nearby, perhaps in a small area under cover of rock and foilage where the wolf had kill (or dragged the body) of the former living person. Where is the rest of the loot? Found by others, rusted away, taken by rabbits or whatever. It's just a matter of how you do the presentation. Now, as to the wolf lair, you might find it but inside might be a few more wolves to fight before the big payout. In general, I don't mind the random loot considering how it will still be random if you make tables specifc to each mob. See, when you do that, then people will fight the same mob over and over again because it has that special drop and where is the realism in that? Oh wait, we only want realism when it suits us. never mind....
yes yes yes, we've covered that one already.
It A.) Does not explain why the loot is there on the body of the wolf and not in said lair and B.) Does not explain why there are thousands of wolves, all with a stash of gold and random items nearby, not only that but why each stash has about the same amount of cash in it.
the simple explaination is that we are in a simple game not a simulation. Why should mobs respawn? You might say they shouldn't but that would leave an empty world in most games. It is all part of the cause effect of the current game design philosophy.
Could the design be different? Sure, and we could ponder that all day and it might be interesting to chat about. But to ask why it is not in current games is not very interesting to talk about to me.
Now if you have a math model for a design that would work for mass appeal (not a special little group of people) you should post the specs on it. You might change the world with it assuming mass appeal.
I was fighting a level 5 seabird in WoW the other day and it dropped chain leggings, an axe, and a steel helmet as well as an egg, feathers and a claw.
Originally posted by sempiternal
Is that an exaggeration or 100% true?
It's 100% true. Just happened to me on Sunday. The only thing I'm not sure about is if it was a level 5 or a level 6 mob.
I agree with the OP. Random loot in MMOs usually means low percent chance to get a drop. next thing you know, you farming a dungeon 24/7 hoping for that new baubble to drop. you know what- I have no problem with people getting MMOs like that. But cant we have just 1- I mean, please at least just 1 logical MMO that will give the drops I expect. Well then again I guess there is an MMO or two that does this (saga of ryzom, Eve). guess i can just go play those for the past few months I havent been playing any MMOs
Have to agree with the OP to some degree. Kinda odd to whack a bear and get a two handed sword. What the hell does the bear need with a two handed sword?
But also the reverse is non-immersive as well. I see an NPC with cool armor and an awesome weapon. I kill him and get..... ta da...... 4 silver... Huh? Wait what about the armor and sword he is wearing? Ok fine maybe I smashed it up. Then let me kill another looks just like him. And again a few silver. Maybe an apple. In fact I will kill 100 NPCs looks identical and will find everything under the sun except the armor and sword they are using.
Kai
No, no, no. If you kill the guy wearing the stuff you want you get all his loot. You know, like in oblivion (If memory serves correctly I get all the loot the bandits, guards, soldiers I killed had on them). Another word for this is full loot. And last time I checked elder scrolls oblivion was a hit. Its an RPG tho- not an MMO
"Anyways, we aim to have a logical loot system. If you slay an clubwielding pict, he shouldn't drop a halbard. He should drop the club he was wielding or if you are lucky, a slightly better blunt weapon. If you kill a wolf, he shouldn't drop a kite shield"
Davedread
Hmm, Age of Conan is starting to sound better and better everyday. That is so awesome
I am in the concept stage of a M.M.O. and I decided to make my own partially for the same reason because there si no sort of realism involved with the games....
I feel if u kill a dog then u have a dead carcuss nwo the carcuss is usfull for many a thing
A) feeding ur lion pet or carnavor mount
furr to make coats blankets etc..
C) meat for charter cunsumption
now lets look at item drops in general I feel along with fellow partners that lets say if u have a huminoid "monster" then there will b certian things u can find once u defete him/her ( OR IT !!). how about money ?? people or huminoids carry currency right
what about weapons armor ?? same a huminoid will have those things
now lets look at the wolf a wolf can sawollow a ring or small item and have it stuck in the belly unable to digest from taking one of the huminoid prey weather ti be you ro the npc ................
so I do agree with you to a extent yes I am getting tired of killing frogs and finding a p[air of +1 boots of speed or a +3 doom sword of the neither region... I feel if game developers made realistic drops then the community weill b more loyal exspeccialy if the normal animails drops are used in game and have a purpose and every once in a while through a magic ring or some thing small that the normal animal could have swallowed or have stuck on thier furr/scalls etc
Hopefully I can build around all the commets I have read and make the item drops in my video game more realistic and have a purpus
well ty for asking the question every one laughs at with thier freinds yet feel weired telling
it si time to put on my freshly droped wizard hat +1 of concept and get to work
Personally I like to grind monsters nonstop to advance my character. It takes a lot of time and skill to increase my level, and if I am not rewarded with magical items from killing she-bears and turtles I wouldn't bother playing. How boring would a game be if monsters didn't drop magical loot? Why would anyone want it to be realistic MMORPG? That just doesn't make any sense. Obviously there is nothing else to do in a MMORPG but kill monsters and collect loot, so why dumb it down?
A little offtopic, but anyone else looking forward to the new MMORPGs? I can' t wait to play them, and post on their forums about how they got it all wrong and need to decrease exp, take out quests, take out PvP, add more dungeons, increase spawns, make grouping mandatory, and increase the level cap. I don't know about you, but having nearly all MMORPGs revolve around killing monsters and collecting loot isn't enough for me, I want them all to be equally one dimensional and boring.
Your humble MMORPG player,
Bobvila
Your post was full of sarcasm right?
You're just joking right?
RIGHT?!
Anyway, on-topic: Personally I agree that some of these drops are very unrealistic, and although you may argue that these are games and shouldn't be realistic, I still think that a game so stupidly designed will get boring faster than something like Oblivion, where you loot what you see, you can even loot your arrows back from corpses sometimes if they didn't break. I also dream of the day when I shoot an arrow at a guy, I would have to aim for his vulnerable parts and not just any old part, and when I hit armor the arrow should bounce off, or when I hit shield it should go through...
But all of this is for the far and distant future. As far as MMO companies are concerned, with the inflow of many casual gamers into the gaming scene, the demand for good quality gameplay has hit an all time low, and not only do people not want better gameplay, they CANNOT want better gameplay. I came to the MMO genre after playing hundreds of top FPS, RTS, RPG, and Simulation genre games available, so I can compare. Most of the people playing MMOs don't have this knowledge or experience, so when they see the bad quality of games today they take it for granted that there is no better.
Perhaps a company such as Bioware or Bethesda will take it upon themselves to make an MMO. But until then, these companies who have no experience with games outside the MMO genre cannot feasibly progress at any decent rate. Concluding, I think that these incorrect loot drops are a serious immersion killer, but that there are far bigger immersion problems with MMOs today, and it's a real shame that I really cannot find a good MMO to stick by at the moment.
It sounds like your experience was with EQ1. Let me give you a clue. That snake was probably not spawned with that loot. High level players will put higher level items on low level mobs just to give a gift to a low level player. I used to do it all the time when I played EQ1. Sometimes I would even follow the mob around until someone killed it just to see if they had any reaction.
Some high level players liked to put lots of coin on low level mobs, like 3000 copper and then follow the mob around until a newbie killed it and watch them try to move after killing the mob.
====================== It's just me, so open the door.
If you've been playing mmos for any amount of time, then you've almost certainly came across a point in an mmo where you have slayed a normal earth-like creature such as a wolf or a grass snake and received something insanely odd like a magical sword or a heavy piece of plate armor as loot. Obviously, this is something that makes little sense in our real world. If you kill a rabbit, you might find some rabbit fur, rabbit paws, and a little meat. I still long for the day when I go hunting up in the hills in our real world and shoot a buck, walk to its remains to find that it has dropped some golden sword of magical slaying powers that I can take back to town and pawn in any shop for $7,000. For me, this style of loot is ridiculous and unrealistic and it ruins my immersion factor to quite an extent. Look, I understand that the virtual worlds in which we play are totally unrealistic anyhow just in the sense that we can fight dragons and shoot devastating fireballs and all that. However the thing is.. is that IF we can play in some magical world and be a great sorcerer, most of these games do seem to keep some sense of realism. Water still flows down hill in streams. Falling off of high cliffs can likely still damage our health big time if not kill us. A wolf is surely going to be strong enough in the game to easily slay a chicken. Even though we play in a fantasy realm in these worlds, we sort of expect some common links of realism to the real world that we know and live in here. And when we slay a grass snake in the game, and find that it is carrying items like plate armor and wooden shields that are like 50 times bigger and heavier then the damn snake itself, it means the a lot of the immersion in that fantasy world is damaged. All I ask is that common earth-like creatures don't carry stupid loot that doesn't make an ounce of sense. I want those swords and armor loots to come off of humanoids, dragons, goblins and at least if it is an earth-like creature, be one that has magical powers or a very high IQ where it makes some kind of logical sense that it might want something pretty and shiny for itself. At least that's the way I see it. Anyone else agree? Disagree?
- Zaxx
This subject has come up before. I do agree with you that the majority of mmorpg game DEVs are too lazy, too inattentive to detail, to do something about this immersion breaker. To date only one mmorpg has ever officially noticed this, and officially did something about it. The one and only cSWG. On the old, old, ancient cSWG forums (They were up from end of 1999 to right before cSWG first released) I and others brought up this subject.
Here is the screenshot from years ago that I had the cSWG game DEVs look at to drive home the point:
The cSWG game DEVs posted theirselves in their official forums their replies, and ideas, about this, and that cSWG would definatly do something about this. The result? cSWG released with every idea you mentioned above in your post, and more. Animals only dropped what one would expect an animal to drop. No armor, no guns, knives, clothing. Only bones, meat, and animal body parts. (cSWG even had it where one could learn additional hunting skills and skin more animal parts.) Want to get money? Clothing? Knives? One has to go slay a humanoid NPC.
I read through more of this thread, others brought up what is the use of huning animals if they do not drop random magic loot, or loot that is unrealistic? Again, cSWG solved this by the fact that hunting animals gave: animal parts that could be used to make medicines. Which were used to fight varous poisons. Also animal hides to make campsites and tents, which helped players healed faster if they were too far from a city, or cantina. Doctors could also do some surgery on players in a player made campsite. Weapons could be crafted from animal bones. And much much more. These are some examples of near necessities that made players still want to hunt various animals that had realistic drops.
I agree with the OP and I would even say that loot should not only make sense but be consistent. If you kill a rabbit, then you will always be able to skin it for meat and fur, if you kill a NPC, then it drops the armor and weapons you saw it carrying, ect...
I think Raph Koster though said, it would be a bitch to run a system such as this (My paraphrase, not his exact words). I believe he said the economy would be negatively impacted and there would be database issues, not sure but that is what I remember. Check his blog, the discussion on looting was there, a few months ago.
Either way, I still would love to see this type of loot system. Maybe items could have extremely high decay rates and be targetable for damage and destruction.
--When you resubscribe to SWG, an 18 yearold Stripper finds Jesus, gives up stripping, and moves with a rolex reverend to Hawaii. --In MMORPG's l007 is the opiate of the masses. --The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence! --CCP could cut off an Eve player's fun bits, and that player would say that it was good CCP did that.
While this always did bother me because I also started playing P&P then MUDs on up, it’s not as big a bother on magic based games as on sci fi based ones.
See my P&P avatar had not only several bags of holding (though I did loose a days loot to a bag of devourer once) but I even had a bracelet of dimensional portal. So I had not only several coin sized bags that I could shove enough loot to fill a garage but I had a bracelet that I could take off and stretch to make a doorway into my own little dimensional plane (though once in a while a cross dimensional monster would take something and leave something different).
And especially after seeingthis I dont have that much prob with getting a sword from a wolf, but from a rabbit,,, I would have seen one part or the otehr sticking out from one end of the rabbit or the other.
Thus a random drop is not that bad, yes it should be a more suitable drop such as meat, teeth, small furry paw, etc…
What bother me are the games that are non-magic that have all of the great items where they should not be. Take EVE, if you want the latest greatest high tech item do you look it the technology centers (high sec)? No you go out to the waist lands (0.0) to get the latest greatest items… WTH? To put this in perspective, say you want a laser scoped PPC rifle so you run to gun shop in mega city right? Nope you go out to BFE and kill a waste land wander that even though he has never stuck a foot onto civilized land just happens to have better weapons than the empires elite forces.
Or, that all the resources that the empire needs to actually be an empire is out in the waist land, what do the empires in the future not just take the resources they need to survive? Oh I know,, taking over a country, planet, system for it's resources is just so 21st century.
These are much bigger game immersion breakers than me fishing and pulling out a chest that has demonic armor, a +20 sword of space gerbil slaying and 5 glasses of fresh (not curdled) milk.
Had UO's pacing been closer to either of those games, it would have been much more popular.
Incorrect. UO's subscription numbers are the proof. 100k accounts is the benchmark for a mmorpg to be deemed a bona fid success. In the time from UO's release, throughout EQ and AC's releases, all the way up to when DAoC released...... (back when the mmorpg market was no where near saturated.).... UO peaked at roughly 200k accounts, then hovered around 100k accounts after the market started getting saturated. (After AO, and DAoC released, and all others after them). UO then re-peaked at roughly 300k accounts.
At current time UO is back to hovering at roughly 100k accounts. UO is doing better than many brand new, "state of the art", mmorpgs. The main thing UO shows is that there is a market for every thing. There is a market for UO's gamestyle. And there is a market for the gamestyle you describe - pacing closer. Like in EQ. And really extreem pacing like in WoW.
Your comments about pacing are valid. But that is offset by what unique game features a mmorpg may have. Just as many players enjoyed making those thousands of arrows first before being able to adventure - as many as those players who did not enjoy it and wanted to adventure immediatly. UO had tons of other game features to explore other than making arrows, and immediatly adventuring. Look at "closer paced" games like EQ, and WoW, what other game features are there to explore other than adventuring? Crafting? Farming? Building a house? Building a masion?
Comments
It A.) Does not explain why the loot is there on the body of the wolf and not in said lair and B.) Does not explain why there are thousands of wolves, all with a stash of gold and random items nearby, not only that but why each stash has about the same amount of cash in it.
the simple explaination is that we are in a simple game not a simulation. Why should mobs respawn? You might say they shouldn't but that would leave an empty world in most games. It is all part of the cause effect of the current game design philosophy.
Could the design be different? Sure, and we could ponder that all day and it might be interesting to chat about. But to ask why it is not in current games is not very interesting to talk about to me.
Now if you have a math model for a design that would work for mass appeal (not a special little group of people) you should post the specs on it. You might change the world with it assuming mass appeal.
It's 100% true. Just happened to me on Sunday. The only thing I'm not sure about is if it was a level 5 or a level 6 mob.
WoW!
I agree with the OP. Random loot in MMOs usually means low percent chance to get a drop. next thing you know, you farming a dungeon 24/7 hoping for that new baubble to drop. you know what- I have no problem with people getting MMOs like that. But cant we have just 1- I mean, please at least just 1 logical MMO that will give the drops I expect. Well then again I guess there is an MMO or two that does this (saga of ryzom, Eve). guess i can just go play those for the past few months I havent been playing any MMOs
No, no, no. If you kill the guy wearing the stuff you want you get all his loot. You know, like in oblivion (If memory serves correctly I get all the loot the bandits, guards, soldiers I killed had on them). Another word for this is full loot. And last time I checked elder scrolls oblivion was a hit. Its an RPG tho- not an MMO
Hmm, Age of Conan is starting to sound better and better everyday. That is so awesome
I am in the concept stage of a M.M.O. and I decided to make my own partially for the same reason because there si no sort of realism involved with the games....
I feel if u kill a dog then u have a dead carcuss nwo the carcuss is usfull for many a thing
A) feeding ur lion pet or carnavor mount
C) meat for charter cunsumption
now lets look at item drops in general I feel along with fellow partners that lets say if u have a huminoid "monster" then there will b certian things u can find once u defete him/her ( OR IT !!). how about money ?? people or huminoids carry currency right
what about weapons armor ?? same a huminoid will have those things
now lets look at the wolf a wolf can sawollow a ring or small item and have it stuck in the belly unable to digest from taking one of the huminoid prey weather ti be you ro the npc ................
so I do agree with you to a extent yes I am getting tired of killing frogs and finding a p[air of +1 boots of speed or a +3 doom sword of the neither region... I feel if game developers made realistic drops then the community weill b more loyal exspeccialy if the normal animails drops are used in game and have a purpose and every once in a while through a magic ring or some thing small that the normal animal could have swallowed or have stuck on thier furr/scalls etc
Hopefully I can build around all the commets I have read and make the item drops in my video game more realistic and have a purpus
well ty for asking the question every one laughs at with thier freinds yet feel weired telling
it si time to put on my freshly droped wizard hat +1 of concept and get to work
Your post was full of sarcasm right?
You're just joking right?
RIGHT?!
Anyway, on-topic: Personally I agree that some of these drops are very unrealistic, and although you may argue that these are games and shouldn't be realistic, I still think that a game so stupidly designed will get boring faster than something like Oblivion, where you loot what you see, you can even loot your arrows back from corpses sometimes if they didn't break. I also dream of the day when I shoot an arrow at a guy, I would have to aim for his vulnerable parts and not just any old part, and when I hit armor the arrow should bounce off, or when I hit shield it should go through...
But all of this is for the far and distant future. As far as MMO companies are concerned, with the inflow of many casual gamers into the gaming scene, the demand for good quality gameplay has hit an all time low, and not only do people not want better gameplay, they CANNOT want better gameplay. I came to the MMO genre after playing hundreds of top FPS, RTS, RPG, and Simulation genre games available, so I can compare. Most of the people playing MMOs don't have this knowledge or experience, so when they see the bad quality of games today they take it for granted that there is no better.
Perhaps a company such as Bioware or Bethesda will take it upon themselves to make an MMO. But until then, these companies who have no experience with games outside the MMO genre cannot feasibly progress at any decent rate. Concluding, I think that these incorrect loot drops are a serious immersion killer, but that there are far bigger immersion problems with MMOs today, and it's a real shame that I really cannot find a good MMO to stick by at the moment.
It sounds like your experience was with EQ1. Let me give you a clue. That snake was probably not spawned with that loot. High level players will put higher level items on low level mobs just to give a gift to a low level player. I used to do it all the time when I played EQ1. Sometimes I would even follow the mob around until someone killed it just to see if they had any reaction.
Some high level players liked to put lots of coin on low level mobs, like 3000 copper and then follow the mob around until a newbie killed it and watch them try to move after killing the mob.
======================
It's just me, so open the door.
This subject has come up before. I do agree with you that the majority of mmorpg game DEVs are too lazy, too inattentive to detail, to do something about this immersion breaker. To date only one mmorpg has ever officially noticed this, and officially did something about it. The one and only cSWG. On the old, old, ancient cSWG forums (They were up from end of 1999 to right before cSWG first released) I and others brought up this subject.
Here is the screenshot from years ago that I had the cSWG game DEVs look at to drive home the point:
http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/1063673508041442449yXKLVA
The cSWG game DEVs posted theirselves in their official forums their replies, and ideas, about this, and that cSWG would definatly do something about this. The result? cSWG released with every idea you mentioned above in your post, and more. Animals only dropped what one would expect an animal to drop. No armor, no guns, knives, clothing. Only bones, meat, and animal body parts. (cSWG even had it where one could learn additional hunting skills and skin more animal parts.) Want to get money? Clothing? Knives? One has to go slay a humanoid NPC.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I read through more of this thread, others brought up what is the use of huning animals if they do not drop random magic loot, or loot that is unrealistic? Again, cSWG solved this by the fact that hunting animals gave: animal parts that could be used to make medicines. Which were used to fight varous poisons. Also animal hides to make campsites and tents, which helped players healed faster if they were too far from a city, or cantina. Doctors could also do some surgery on players in a player made campsite. Weapons could be crafted from animal bones. And much much more. These are some examples of near necessities that made players still want to hunt various animals that had realistic drops.
I think Raph Koster though said, it would be a bitch to run a system such as this (My paraphrase, not his exact words). I believe he said the economy would be negatively impacted and there would be database issues, not sure but that is what I remember. Check his blog, the discussion on looting was there, a few months ago.
Either way, I still would love to see this type of loot system. Maybe items could have extremely high decay rates and be targetable for damage and destruction.
--When you resubscribe to SWG, an 18 yearold Stripper finds Jesus, gives up stripping, and moves with a rolex reverend to Hawaii.
--In MMORPG's l007 is the opiate of the masses.
--The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence!
--CCP could cut off an Eve player's fun bits, and that player would say that it was good CCP did that.
While this always did bother me because I also started playing P&P then MUDs on up, it’s not as big a bother on magic based games as on sci fi based ones.
See my P&P avatar had not only several bags of holding (though I did loose a days loot to a bag of devourer once) but I even had a bracelet of dimensional portal. So I had not only several coin sized bags that I could shove enough loot to fill a garage but I had a bracelet that I could take off and stretch to make a doorway into my own little dimensional plane (though once in a while a cross dimensional monster would take something and leave something different).
And especially after seeing this I dont have that much prob with getting a sword from a wolf, but from a rabbit,,, I would have seen one part or the otehr sticking out from one end of the rabbit or the other.
Thus a random drop is not that bad, yes it should be a more suitable drop such as meat, teeth, small furry paw, etc…
What bother me are the games that are non-magic that have all of the great items where they should not be. Take EVE, if you want the latest greatest high tech item do you look it the technology centers (high sec)? No you go out to the waist lands (0.0) to get the latest greatest items… WTH? To put this in perspective, say you want a laser scoped PPC rifle so you run to gun shop in mega city right? Nope you go out to BFE and kill a waste land wander that even though he has never stuck a foot onto civilized land just happens to have better weapons than the empires elite forces.
Or, that all the resources that the empire needs to actually be an empire is out in the waist land, what do the empires in the future not just take the resources they need to survive?
Oh I know,, taking over a country, planet, system for it's resources is just so 21st century.
These are much bigger game immersion breakers than me fishing and pulling out a chest that has demonic armor, a +20 sword of space gerbil slaying and 5 glasses of fresh (not curdled) milk.
An so it begins
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.[/CENTER]
Incorrect. UO's subscription numbers are the proof. 100k accounts is the benchmark for a mmorpg to be deemed a bona fid success. In the time from UO's release, throughout EQ and AC's releases, all the way up to when DAoC released...... (back when the mmorpg market was no where near saturated.).... UO peaked at roughly 200k accounts, then hovered around 100k accounts after the market started getting saturated. (After AO, and DAoC released, and all others after them). UO then re-peaked at roughly 300k accounts.
At current time UO is back to hovering at roughly 100k accounts. UO is doing better than many brand new, "state of the art", mmorpgs. The main thing UO shows is that there is a market for every thing. There is a market for UO's gamestyle. And there is a market for the gamestyle you describe - pacing closer. Like in EQ. And really extreem pacing like in WoW.
Your comments about pacing are valid. But that is offset by what unique game features a mmorpg may have. Just as many players enjoyed making those thousands of arrows first before being able to adventure - as many as those players who did not enjoy it and wanted to adventure immediatly. UO had tons of other game features to explore other than making arrows, and immediatly adventuring. Look at "closer paced" games like EQ, and WoW, what other game features are there to explore other than adventuring? Crafting? Farming? Building a house? Building a masion?