Why full loot? -- (Dev) Replied

@Mike11 I agree with that as well...but that is even more restrictive then I had....I just wanted the wielded items safe.

 

@Illesec:

I liked your idea about arenas featuring no loot. This would be interesting for some people who desire to show off their high end gear and to PvP with it without the risk of losing it. I remember times in UO where players consensual chose to duel and not loot each other. It was still fun as this was player driven and wasn't imposed on the players by some game mechanic. Usually a dual started with players casting a stone wall and when it fell the duel began. There were also sometimes restrictions on spells that could be used and skills. This was ALL player driven and many players agreed and followed these UNWRITTEN rules. However, it was never FORCED and I think that's important.

@Rune:

Obviously the game is not going to be completely realistic. If it were then when a dragon killed you you wouldn't respawn. You would be dead permanently. That said, full loot is one step down and is much more realistic then someone getting to keep all of their gear.

During the medieval era there were viking who raided towns and slaughtered thousands of innocent people and were never imprisoned. There were large clans who raided Rome before that who were not imprisoned. This game is not set in the modern era where those things are practically impossible. Not to mention, I think many of the members in the PvP community would be perfectly fine with consequences and being branded as outcasts and unable to enter many towns.

@ND3G:

Agreed, if this Ultima game is anything similar to all of its predecessors created by Richard Garriott (with the exception of U8 and U9) then the single player will be excellent. All of those games were phenomenal and Ultima Online was a great game as well. It was poorly reviewed by many "critics" because of the many exploits and server issues during the launch. But, I don't agree with most of what is said about Ultima Online anyway. I think they are often paid off by large companies ( ex. EA/Blizzard). It is not a metric to go by IMO.

 

Funny EA published Ultima online though??

Of course they were never imprisoned but if they were found they were permanently killed....I don't think anyone wants that for their character.

 

@Rune:

EA did not publish all of the Ultima games and they weren't involved in the development process until they realized they could squeeze money out of Ultima Online. At that point they decided it was a great idea to fire all of the counselors and create Age of Shadows.

There are people who do want that, just not you.

 

@Utima Aficionado People want characters to be permenantly killed? That's a bit over the top.


I know they didn't publish the u1-u7 but they did publish 8 9 and UO....so the bad reviews wouldn't have been generated by them. I don't remember UO having bad reiviews to be honest...but we are wayyy of topic. EA was involved after they found out how many wanted to alpha test it...they actually got the original game plan from richard and weren't sure about it.

 

@Rune:

Yes, some players do want permanent death. I think it is a bit over the top and a bit too controversial. Nevertheless, there are some players who want it.

Well, Ultima Online did get bad reviews depending on the site you visit. I still think it was the best MMORPG released, despite what the reviewers who probably played the game for 15 minutes said about it. For example, Gamespot reviewers gave Ultima Online a 4.9 and the players gave it a 7.7. You know something is wrong when there is that drastic of a difference in the scores.

The point is EA are greedy and could care less about the quality of a game and care much more about the potential for it to make money.

 

Someone earlier brought up EvE's partial loot, partial destruction system. This has really propelled their game to a very functional player driven economy. In that game, people do still go out in expensive things and take out their best equipment to fight in... but they never undock with something they aren't really willing to lose.

I think that's an important part of what this multiplayer experience should be about. EvE's heavy meta-gaming is what drove me away, not the loot situation.

Personally, specifically what I would like to see is: part of a player's belongings are permanently lost upon death (PvP or PvE regardless) then the remainder of your loot remains on your corpse. But regardless if a mob or a player kills a player, something is permanently lost. This drives the player economy, makes death meaningful, and rewards player versus player combat. It gives crafters a purpose in providing the world with meaningful contributions. Disclaimer: I plan to play almost exclusively as a crafter, therefore have a very heavily vested interest in making sure you NEED something I make and I will heavily lobby that approach in the multiplayer world.

I realize folks have different opinions and I respect that. The above is solely my opinion and what I plan to advocate in the developers forum. I think people should fear losing their most prized possessions in any situation, and always be on guard to prevent that from happening. I don't get attached to any sword/armor/belonging so maybe that is my bias. Stuff is stuff.

 

Thanks for the input. This does help me to understand the importance of pvp and looting. I agree some sort of risk and reward can greatly enhance the game and the excitement level if that is your slant. I hope that however they develop it, it is developed in a meaningful way. If all pvp is for is to harvest things (ie farming people instead of farming for wood and ore) that doesn't interest me from either side of the equation.

However, if there is an another reason like trophy rewards, access to certain areas that can only be done when certain "waypoints" are under guild control, or some other motivation this can go a long way to increase the excitement for the game and give options for team based pvp. Taking this an incorporating it into specific quests or zones like RG mentioned has some great potential.

Can't wait to see what they come up with!

 

@Vandigeth I agree, stuff is stuff. I don't know why some are so afraid of losing their stuff. The Ultima series was never overly focused on powerful and rare items in the past so I don't know why they would start now. Some one looted your generic leather armor and steel sword? Oh well, they can be replaced easily enough.

On a side note, if items cannot be looted how will that effect the thief classes? In UO thieves could pickpocket other characters. Is that profession going to destroyed as well in order to cater to those who cannot bear the thought of loosing their items?

 

@ND3G

I would be particularly sad to see the thief class completely obliterated. I believe if the developers tone down the power and value of "uber loot" then the hit of loss wouldn't be so severe to some folks. UO, if I may use that as an example, did very little in the way of rare magical weapons, and I think it was to their benefit. In this way, the thief running around the city pickpockets folks but very rarely hits a huge payday.

This also helps mitigate the "loss of stuff" loot situation when hardly anything is far too "epic" to be lost. Again, in UO, most player loot amounted to a hill of beans anyway. A GM sword and armor. Mostly because there were so few magical weapon that were better that it didn't matter (force, something, and vanquishing). This helped bind cohesive communities that would venture into dungeons together for protection both from the monsters and the murdurers. However, if a full suit of armor, weapon and materials were lost it amounted to like.. 5k gold? Chump change, but it kept the economy moving.

 

@Groo - The harvested loot is just a bonus to the joy of victory, although the idea of chopping up corpses and getting skin/bones for crafting items could be a little interesting considering LB's love of that sort of stuff. Anyways, since you missed UO it was much more time-efficient/economical to farm the actual resource, with the exception of reagents which I never really considered a resource since you could buy oodles from the vendors and could not really be 'mined.' BTW - love the idea of waypoints being owned by guilds, cool idea.

 

Oh, and for those looking for an example of a successful game with full loot options you can look no further than Minecraft. It has full loot PvP servers, creative non-PvP servers, obviously a ton of crafting options, etc. I think if RG and gang play their cards right they can steal a good chunk of the Minecraft community.

 

@Owain: well said

 

Full loot isn't about realism, it's about PvPers wanting their preferred play style to generate significantly higher rewards than any other play style, in a way to maximize their wealth acquisition. If it is about realism, than all NPCs should also drop full loot like Skyrim. Why does the orc have most of his gear destroyed upon death but the player somehow has all of his gear intact and ready to loot?

 

@marthos:

You demonstrate your lack of knowledge regarding any game with full loot. In Ultima Online it was extremely difficult for a person to get "wealth" by being red. Often times they were killed on sight and had to run on foot to the Chaos shrine to get resurrected. Life wasn't easier for a PK and it certainly wasn't the route to getting wealthy quickly. This created both a time sink and a money sink for red players. There were FAR easier ways to get gold, for example by crafting.

Full loot does add realism, the only thing more "real" is perma-death. The typical NPC doesn't really carry that much anyway.

 

the 'realism' argument only goes so far; if you want murderers incarcerated for large amounts of real time, or executed, then their victims would have to stay perma dead as well, clearly none of that is sensible. in games, we pick and choose elements of realism which are a net benefit to the game, and discard net losses. there is not a linear increasing relationshp between 'realism' and 'engaging gameplay'.

i think when people talk about looting in terms of realism, there is an element of realism in there, but what people are really getting at is a sense that player choices and actions have meaning. if death has no consequences, or trivial consequences, then the game loses its frisson of anticipation of really being out in another world, rather than a carefully controlled themepark.

 

@Helicon:

I agree completely, a game does not have to provide complete "realism." There are several things in a video game which do not necessarily have to be real, but they should be fun and engaging. That said, I think at least some realism adds to the immersion of a virtual world.

The idea of loot adds to the risk and thrill of adventuring. A player is forced to actually consider what they bring with them deep into the wilderness. Death should be something that does more than damage your armor 5%, in early video games like Pac-Man a player was forced to restart. This is not really feasible in an MMORPG where a player invests thousands of hours to creating and developing a character.

One of the fundamental aspects of a sandbox game is that realism. Developers should not have a huge impact on the way players choose to play the game. Players, ultimately, should be responsible for policing the world and creating fun and engaging adventures. This is the distinction between playing a single player, campaign mode where the developer creates all aspects of the game. In an online, multiplayer game communities should create the content.

 

@marthos

If SotA is anything like UO that PKing will most certainly not be the quickest way to acquire wealth.

As for NPCs that drop full loot, I am all for it so long as it doesn't destroy the economy or make crafting useless.

For me, full loot pvp is about creating a world where people have a vested interest in staying alive and act accordingly, nothing more, nothing less.

When I played WoW sometimes I would get chased down by PKers. Sometimes I would try to give them the slip but other times I would just stop, go make a sandwich while they killed me, wait until they left, rez and continue on my way. Getting killed really meant nothing to me in that game.

 

@ND3G:

Haha, "...go make a sandwhich while they killed me...". Good point, there wasn't even a point in attempting not to get killed in that game. It was futile and just a big waste of time. Also, those pointless quests where you had to go deliver a message to a guy on the top of the continent just to return it to the guy on the bottom of the continent. It was obviously a time sink and wasn't enjoyable for the players. Some people may have enjoyed it, but I really don't see how.

In Ultima Online getting PK'd was actually exciting. There was a point to death and much more severe consequence of getting killed.

 

In UO, if you were good at PvP, you could get A LOT of wealth from killing others. You needed to have a Blue alt though.
If you could make more money killing orcs in UO than killing other players, you were doing it wrong. At least in the pre-trammel days when i played it. No clue what its like now.

Also, there is a difference between PK and PvP. PvP doesn't mean you turn red. When you complain about reds being killed on sight, they also dropped full loot and the blue that killed you got all your stuff. It goes both ways remember. End result is that the good PvPers can amass great wealth in full loot games compared to the bad PvPers or the non-PvPers.

I would prefer death to have harsher consequences than full loot. I want loot destroyed. In full loot only games, death doesn't matter for the winning side. You get rezzed and get 100% of your stuff back. With item destruction, you care about dying. If your group of 4 jumps a group of 2, there is a risk that those 2 could take one of you out before they die. There is real risk that one of the larger group suffers consequences. With just full loot, who cares if they manage to kill one of you? That guy gets all his stuff back. It makes it meaningless for the outnumbered group to fight back since even if they kill one or two, that means nothing.

I'd be happy with partial loot partial destruction too...but death has to mean something to everyone, not just the losing side.