Others have more or less said it - but the "completeness" of the encounter is the issue.
If the loot is in the Dragons lair (and not dropped out of the dragons behind) then if I am a skillful thief or clever bard, I should be able to rob, steal, cheat, swindle or scam the dragon out of that same loot with sufficient skill and luck without having to fight it.
If the armored leggings are from some poor guy that the wolf ate, I should be able to get them by scaring off the wolf with a flaming torch or an illusion of a pack of hunting dogs and not have to kill it to get them.
If the jewels are hidden under all the old spider webs in a dessicated corpse/coccoon then I should have to be clever/lucky enough to search and *find* them after I kill the spider.
You get the idea....the root problem is that MMORPGs have seriously "dumbed down" the types of interactions possible with routine encounters in the name of expediencey, simplicity and lower programming and system needs. There is no reason a more "complicated" world couldn't be created, but no one has done it because of the development time and programming/writing resources it would take.
The dragon is a sentient being that activly seeks out and hoards valuables. You random wolf in the woods does not. Yes, there may be the occasional pre-set encounter involving wolves attacking a caravan, but that is not your standard random enounter.
The wolf killed a warrior before and after you killed the wolf, you find an item that belonged to that warrior. For example, you see the hilt of a sword under some leaves. How did the leaves get there? They fell from trees.............
Some people just have trouble using their imagination for such things. Adding a line of text like that is easy to do and helps people like that, and honestly even people that do use your imagination. That little extra effort goes a long way for immersion.
Originally posted by Abrahmm How about this? A wolf only drops skin, teeth, bone, and whatever else a wolf would normally have. A dragon does the same thing. Then, a CRAFTER makes an item from these drops? Then you don't have to make up some stupid story about how every god damn wolf in this pack of 500 that are all sitting in the middle of nowhere doing nothing happened to individually raid a caravan just before you got there. For weapon and armor drops, well they should only drop from NPC's that are actually wearing armor and using weapons. Is that such a hard concept?
This is also a good way to do it, in fact I prefer this method.
If you want to make loot make sense, try, you kill a dragon, you skin it and take its scales back to town, you hire an NPC crafter to make armor out of the scales, and there's your epic loot.
Personally I think that Ryzom's loot system is as real/logical as a loot system will ever get an mmo.
Depending on the mob, it'll drap claws, hides, scales, teeth, shells, etc. Which are all then used to craft weapons and armor and such. Mob's never drop weapons and armor in that game, except maybe a rare bandit.
I myself love it this way, as it makes crafters very valuable friends to have, and also if I am a crafter/hunter, I need to think about what kind of materials I want to gather to sell or use.
I think the former is goofy, too. If you want to make loot make sense, try, you kill a dragon, you skin it and take its scales back to town, you hire an NPC crafter to make armor out of the scales, and there's your epic loot.
I have long thought that this was the best way to go for mob drops. Yet I havnt seen this done in any game. Some have been close but not exact.
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore) Now Playing: N/A Worst MMO: FFXIV Favorite MMO: FFXI
How about this? A wolf only drops skin, teeth, bone, and whatever else a wolf would normally have. A dragon does the same thing. Then, a CRAFTER makes an item from these drops? Then you don't have to make up some stupid story about how every god damn wolf in this pack of 500 that are all sitting in the middle of nowhere doing nothing happened to individually raid a caravan just before you got there. For weapon and armor drops, well they should only drop from NPC's that are actually wearing armor and using weapons. Is that such a hard concept?
Dependent on the type of beast/NPC, there could also be half eaten corpses and/or hidden bags of phat lewt. Realistically, these would be reachable even if the beast/NPC was taking a dump behind a tree.
Where does loot come from? I think people that have a hard time with this never played paper and pencil RPG's. There's another thread, and this was the example:
You kill a dragon, and there's a loot chest. You loot the chest, and there's some armor, like leggings, that fit you. That's supposedly "immersive". But, you kill a Wolf, and you find the same pants. That's supposedly "immersion breaking" because wolves don't drop pants, and you should only get wolf hide from a wolf. But really, there's absolutely no difference in these two scenarios. You killed the wolf, and nearby is a deserted caravan that the wolves attacked and ate, and in the caravan you find the armor. The wolf didn't actually drop armor out of it's butt. It's JUST like the Dragon. The Dragon didn't drop armor out of it's butt either, the stuff was found NEAR the Dragon after you defeated it. Is this really so complicated? Do you need a line of text to tell you this? You killled the wolf. nearby you see something shiny in hte grass. It is a fallen adventurer the wolves probably ate, and when you investigate you find some armor. Ta Da. You kill the spider, and when you look under the web, you find some jewels. Probably an unlucky soul was wearing them and got stuck in the web, etc. Now are you immersed? Or do you still need wolves to drop only wolf pelts, and dragons to drop only dragon scales?
Well, this phenomenon shows one thing. People are not as keen on immersion as you. Otherwise, developers will make extra work to change the set up.
Where does loot come from? I think people that have a hard time with this never played paper and pencil RPG's. There's another thread, and this was the example:
You kill a dragon, and there's a loot chest. You loot the chest, and there's some armor, like leggings, that fit you. That's supposedly "immersive". But, you kill a Wolf, and you find the same pants. That's supposedly "immersion breaking" because wolves don't drop pants, and you should only get wolf hide from a wolf. But really, there's absolutely no difference in these two scenarios. You killed the wolf, and nearby is a deserted caravan that the wolves attacked and ate, and in the caravan you find the armor. The wolf didn't actually drop armor out of it's butt. It's JUST like the Dragon. The Dragon didn't drop armor out of it's butt either, the stuff was found NEAR the Dragon after you defeated it. Is this really so complicated? Do you need a line of text to tell you this? You killled the wolf. nearby you see something shiny in hte grass. It is a fallen adventurer the wolves probably ate, and when you investigate you find some armor. Ta Da. You kill the spider, and when you look under the web, you find some jewels. Probably an unlucky soul was wearing them and got stuck in the web, etc. Now are you immersed? Or do you still need wolves to drop only wolf pelts, and dragons to drop only dragon scales?
I think you need more than a line of text to understand your nonsense. One thing is finding items in a skeleton in a web and another a piece of armor and coins inside the stomach of every wolf and rat you kill. A wolf might swallow accidentally a coin from one corpse but that should be a 1 in one hundred wolves.
And comparing that to a dragon keeping a chest is completely absurd.
If you read more carefully, I never suggested you would find anything in a wolf's stomach. I would expect to find nothing more than half digested rabbits in a wolf's stomach, or something of that nature.
I am glad that in 2009, we are debating lines of text for silly trivial matters when the whole idea can easily be coded, modelled, and animated....
Well, I have no problem if you want to code it and animate it, although I suspect some of the people whining about swords dropping from wolves not being immersive, because they want to only collect mouldy hides and wolf teeth, would complain about having to search around for treasure aftert defeating a mob.
Comments
Others have more or less said it - but the "completeness" of the encounter is the issue.
If the loot is in the Dragons lair (and not dropped out of the dragons behind) then if I am a skillful thief or clever bard, I should be able to rob, steal, cheat, swindle or scam the dragon out of that same loot with sufficient skill and luck without having to fight it.
If the armored leggings are from some poor guy that the wolf ate, I should be able to get them by scaring off the wolf with a flaming torch or an illusion of a pack of hunting dogs and not have to kill it to get them.
If the jewels are hidden under all the old spider webs in a dessicated corpse/coccoon then I should have to be clever/lucky enough to search and *find* them after I kill the spider.
You get the idea....the root problem is that MMORPGs have seriously "dumbed down" the types of interactions possible with routine encounters in the name of expediencey, simplicity and lower programming and system needs. There is no reason a more "complicated" world couldn't be created, but no one has done it because of the development time and programming/writing resources it would take.
The wolf killed a warrior before and after you killed the wolf, you find an item that belonged to that warrior. For example, you see the hilt of a sword under some leaves. How did the leaves get there? They fell from trees.............
Some people just have trouble using their imagination for such things. Adding a line of text like that is easy to do and helps people like that, and honestly even people that do use your imagination. That little extra effort goes a long way for immersion.
I think the former is goofy, too.
If you want to make loot make sense, try, you kill a dragon, you skin it and take its scales back to town, you hire an NPC crafter to make armor out of the scales, and there's your epic loot.
Personally I think that Ryzom's loot system is as real/logical as a loot system will ever get an mmo.
Depending on the mob, it'll drap claws, hides, scales, teeth, shells, etc. Which are all then used to craft weapons and armor and such. Mob's never drop weapons and armor in that game, except maybe a rare bandit.
I myself love it this way, as it makes crafters very valuable friends to have, and also if I am a crafter/hunter, I need to think about what kind of materials I want to gather to sell or use.
I have long thought that this was the best way to go for mob drops. Yet I havnt seen this done in any game. Some have been close but not exact.
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore)
Now Playing: N/A
Worst MMO: FFXIV
Favorite MMO: FFXI
Dependent on the type of beast/NPC, there could also be half eaten corpses and/or hidden bags of phat lewt. Realistically, these would be reachable even if the beast/NPC was taking a dump behind a tree.
Well, this phenomenon shows one thing. People are not as keen on immersion as you. Otherwise, developers will make extra work to change the set up.
I think you need more than a line of text to understand your nonsense. One thing is finding items in a skeleton in a web and another a piece of armor and coins inside the stomach of every wolf and rat you kill. A wolf might swallow accidentally a coin from one corpse but that should be a 1 in one hundred wolves.
And comparing that to a dragon keeping a chest is completely absurd.
If you read more carefully, I never suggested you would find anything in a wolf's stomach. I would expect to find nothing more than half digested rabbits in a wolf's stomach, or something of that nature.
I am glad that in 2009, we are debating lines of text for silly trivial matters when the whole idea can easily be coded, modelled, and animated....
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
Well, I have no problem if you want to code it and animate it, although I suspect some of the people whining about swords dropping from wolves not being immersive, because they want to only collect mouldy hides and wolf teeth, would complain about having to search around for treasure aftert defeating a mob.
The last time I checked I looted a CORPSE, not the nearby surroundings.
The last time I checked I looted a CORPSE, not the nearby surroundings.