Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
General: The Tyranny of Items
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In this week's Player Perspectives column, MMORPG.com's Isabelle Parsley talks about the over-emphasis on the importance of items in MMOs these days. In Isabelle's opinion, items are emphasized at the expense of story. Read Player Perspectives to see if you agree or not. Let us know your thoughts on the forums.
In MMOs these days, the almighty “Item” is king. Fun, on the other hand, seems to be falling by the wayside in order to accommodate our apparently ever-more voracious appetite for newer, phatter and shinier items. Personally, I don’t remember signing up for this endless focus on getting gear so I can fight bigger monsters and get even better stuff.
Read more Player Perspectives: The Tyranny of Items.
Comments
the constant item upgrade is only a a cheap yet effective illusory progression sceme to marquerade the sadly bland repetitiveness of most mmos, especially at end game.
Yup, I agree completely. My MMORPG days didn't start with pen and paper, but I did enjoy spending countless hours a night on Everquest. I still try to look back and see what it was that made me enjoy that game so much more than every other MMO now, and it definitely has nothing to do with items. In fact, items were the reason I stopped playing. At a certain point I realized that my playing had become focused on searching for the next bit of digital shiney. No longer was it about playing with my friends or having adventures, it was only about getting the shiney. That is not why I play these games, but unfortunately, that is what these games have become about. I am not sure why, but somehow there is enough in these games to keep me coming back and playing. Those shineys sure are pretty, but I agree with the article, they only limit the potential of the game.
Our culture in general has been molded into a material = selfworth society. It's not just games.
Just open MSN once in awhile. The 15 things that every man or women should have in their closet. What your car says about you. What your lawn says about you. What your gadgets say about you.
People don't know how to have the sound off the tv off and to not own things doesn't make you worth less then somone else.
Heck the majoirty of the people in the world still live in villages and wouldn't even know what an
MMO was if you asked them.
The Stranger: It's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
I'm one of those odd birds that needs to have my character look good. In WoW, keeping a character decent looking is a mini-game in itself. The trend I'm seeing anymore is that neat-looking stuff is mainly squirreled away in dungeons and instances, thus only available to those who are into running treadmills and spinning the wheel to try to win a prize. Because of Real Life, I play solo and therefore will never see most of these things.
What I wouldn't give for a game with a real Diablo 2-style random loot system where everyone has the same chance to get decent items without the annoying Bind On Pickup which is becoming increasingly prevalent. MMOs should not cater just to the ones who have vast amounts of spare time. No one wants to feel like a second-class citizen.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
RPG's have always been about getting better gear to kill bigger, badder mobs.
+5 Vorpal Blade ring any bells
For those unlucky enough to ever have played D&D 1st edition. It's a magical sword with +5 to your to hit roll on a 20 sided die where a 20 always hit. and if you're to hit roll was high enough it loped off the mobs head.
Good article.
I am an old D&D player (not AD&D, as I am older than that). It was absolutely the adventure, not the items. It was the longevity of our characters and what we could do with them rather than having to "keep up with the Joneses".
Gaming since Avalon Hill was making board games.
Played SWG, EVE, Fallen Earth, LOTRO, Rift, Vanguard, WoW, SWTOR, TSW, Tera
Tried Aoc, Aion, EQII, RoM, Vindictus, Darkfail, DDO, GW, PotBS
Isabelle's issue seems to be more with stats and status than items themselves. Even in tabletop RPGs, players often had in their bio some signature item or their unique description of their character.
But, then again, who didn't want to have the aforementioned Vorpal Blade, the Wand of Orcus or some other epic item in their inventory?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
It's nice to have fancy looking items, and even nicer to have powerful items that have useful stats. But one problem I have noticed with most MMO's is that there is a very finite amount of storage. Between your character's inventory and the "bank" or warehouse, most games don't let you keep very many items in general. Is this because they want to reduce server space required per player? The only game I am aware of that does not scrimp of storage (at least not carried storage) is EVE Online. Are there any others?
Ah, yes. The OLD, old days. Greyhawk, anyone?
I recall my friend played a thief in the campaign I ran who's only magic item in his inventory was a vanilla +3 dagger, until he reached somewhere around lvl 20. Can't remember all the details, but fate and bad die rolls just kept anything more powerful from him. I guarentee he was the best damn hafling thief you'd ever see, having to compensate lack of equipment with pure, inventive, skill.
@dragonbrand - Oh, I played D&D too. I just don't always admit to it. I'll be *cough* 29 again this year.
I'd like to agree with this article. The never-ending gear treadmill is one of the reasons I gave up on many MMOs after playing a while.
Just an example: after over two years playing WoW, having done all the endgame raids during Burning Crusade, I got to level 80 in WotLK and started asking myself "Okay, so here I am, raiding again, all for shiny purples that will get old and useless after the next patch. This is getting rather old, wouldn't you agree, me? Yes, I do agree, me. Shall we quit? Sure!".
And that is why I have fond memories of my first MMOs, back when items didn't matter THAT much. Sure, my eyes would sparkle when a good item happened to drop, but they weren't the one reason I was killing stuff in the first place.
Also one of the reasons why I still play D&D with my friends. It's all about the journey and the interaction, not about getting that shiny Sword of Infinity +666 for my Fighter, unless the DM sends us off on a quest to get it, but then it's a whole different story.
personally do not have a problem with items, love to aquire rare items of various kinds, but for sure agreed with the OP that the way they throw items at you, and by that make it the focus of the game, just make them incredible boring games, and promote silly behavior.
imo the problem is not that the devs have too much focus on gear, rather the other way around, the way items carelessly is thrown around, makes them all feel very generic, and make the gaining them really boring, oh another vase....oh another trash drop to sell to the vendor. and well just ruins that part of a good RPG to me
As a power gamer, I personally find no issue with focus on items over story elements <_< (so a game like D2 & WoW had me enthralled for several years); though it has come to a point of excess and when the game becomes a grind in everything possible to extort your time...the fun element is definitely afffected.
I blame the tyranny of business side any day over the items
Bring back Shadowbane where gear (although important to a degree) took a serious back seat to character building and there was never a lack of things to do end game in a seemingly PvE less game
If you are just playing for gear, then you are doing it wrong. The primary reason you would want better gear is so that your character is capable of defeating harder bosses. If defeating harder bosses doesn't interest you, then obtaining better gear isn't really a motivating factor and your time should be spent doing something else you DO enjoy.
I din't play paper D&D, so I don't know if there is a level cap. If not, then you have endless possible progression. In MMOs, there is a level cap and a player needs some way to continue to progress his character. Obtaining better gear and defeating harder bosses is the way most people do this. But not everyone does and it certainly doesn't mean they are wrong for doing it.
Items are great... when they're rare. Like most progression systems in MMOs, the rewards come too often. DnD had 20 levels, not 60, and you acquired magical equipment once in a while. A carrot is only special if it is rare.
Important facts:
1. Free to Play games are poorly made.
2. Casuals are not all idiots, but idiots call themselves casuals.
3. Great solo and group content are not mutually exclusive, but they suffer when one is shoved into the mold of the other. The same is true of PvP and PvE.
4. Community is more important than you think.
I agree that most MMORPGs have become too item-centric. But if you think they all have, then maybe you're just playing the wrong games.
I find it particularly odd that two of the three pictures of gear are taken from Guild Wars, which notably isn't item-centric. Getting better items is perhaps a big deal in the first 10 hours or so that you spend on a character. But after that, you've got essentially max everything. Later items are functionally identical to earlier ones, and only look different. The only people who spend much time trying to get new items in Guild Wars after that are the ones who do so because they like to do so.
For example, you can get something functionally identical to the celestial compass at the top of the last picture for five soul stones from a collector. You'll get more than five soul stones just from playing through the Factions campaign once. You might get five from a single run of the Raisu Palace mission, which takes about 20 minutes. And that's not 20 minutes of going out of your way to farm them; that's getting them in the normal course of playing the game without really trying to, and then merely not vendoring them once you have them. I used to have a bunch of soul stones sitting in storage that I'd sell very cheaply to people who happened to want such items; I still have a bunch of other collector items that I save from getting them in the normal course of doing other content.
Now, it's possible that the person who added the pictures is not the same person who wrote the article. But the only people who spend much time trying to get loot for established characters in Guild Wars are the ones who like spending time trying to get loot, even though it offers no gameplay advantage whatsoever.
Agree 100%. I really don't like how much modern MMOs focus on items. The gear score obsession in WoW is really, really disappointing.
I haven't played every MMO out there but it seems to me that level-based games are often very item-based. I don't know if strong item focus is a "required" component of level games or if it's just coincidence or what. But it seems to me that skill-based games are generally much less focused on which special item to get next and more on a player's personal ability to perform well and create fun for themselves.
Crafting seems to play a much bigger role in skill-based sandbox games, as well, which helps more players have access to such items. Early UO and SWG were good examples of crafting playing a huge role in the armament of players (not to mention the economy). Look at WoW for the opposite - it wasn't until the Lich King expansion and subsequent content updates that weapon and armor crafting actually started to be helpful (not counting the level 70 endgame engineering goggles everyone wore in BC). Prior to that most of the junk you could craft was so easily outmatched by standard quest items that there wasn't much of a point in even working some professions (alchemy and enchanting excluded).
I just wish modern MMOs would focus less on epic gear and more on player ability and interaction.
DnD had no level cap, after a certain level you went up every x amount of xp, but you only gained 1 HP and minimal abilities so it wasn't a cap but a point of diminishing return.
Now for a test for the old old old timers. The first DnD game came in a small box with three (maybe four) pamphlets and inside one of them it said (paraphrased) These books hold no rules only guide lines. It's your world you make the rules.
Edit:
And maybe I was a sadistic DM but I loved giving away magic items and finding a way in game to destroy them. Never to the point where they could run my city state, but the roller coaster ride of emotions was great.
All MMOs have always paid attention to items. In Everquest people camped spawnspots on days on end while waiting for a mob to spawn so they could get that one piece of loot they wanted.
What I feel have changed is how people come about loot and the frequency. In DAoC, my characters replaced their gear every 2-3-4 levels while levelling up. There were few quests in that game, but they gave you nice loot.
In LotRO and AoC, there are tons of quests which all offer reward items. In fact, most of the time, my characters maintained the max. number of quests allowed to keep in their journals. Replacing the entire suit of armor and weapons happened often several times per level.
As for PnP, I have played those for 20+ years, and while the stories and fights were the reason we played, the excitement felt when the DM began rolling loot was always present. The joy of getting a new sword was always good, but not why we played.
Its not just mmo's. Look at Team Fortress 2 and hats. They served no purpose other then to change your appearance yet people set up idle servers just so they could get them. Now they have crafting and a shop with all sorts of items.
There is now a crate that can drop when you play that contains a whole bunch of goodies....the catch is you need to buy a key from the store to open it. Its like Valve are rubbing their cash shop in my face trying to tempt me to buy something.
Item centric games are here to stay especially with just about everyone shifting to a F2P model.
Great article. I agree with those who doubt this scheme as it's just masking a lack of content, world persistence, and, dare I say, sand-boxiness.
City of Heroes did very well without items.
Well all these items are king is what drove me from LOTRO, all that you have to have x-radiance to run in this group, oh you dont have that you stink.
Then your gone.
To bad most games nowdays are going the item way and not based off skills.