Dropping Items on the Ground

I understand it isn't very ultima but if it's hard for the tech reasons this might be a solutions. That and for the fact it isn't seen in 3d mmos is another reason. And correct me if I got my game wrong but wasn't there a trash box in UO that would stay for like 10 mins? Sometimes you'd get stuff in there. (Think it was uo)

 

Don't know abot the trash box.
But what about dropping items in the wilderness, the forsts or a desert? Would there be a trash box there, too? This wouldn't be very atmospheric...

Let's not ignore the single player offline mode
At least in this mode it should be possible to move obects around and drop them everywhere.

 

I was more thinking trash box in town. But I get what your saying. Either way the tech would have to support it. I'm not saying throw trash cans everywhere or community boxes. But if it came down to having these or nothing at all. I'd prefer to have something.

 

That sounds like a Grand idea, but what about letting the "beggars" pick it up instead? Why have any timer at all? A Beggar can run over from anywhere or even several beggars can fight over the find... Maybe they could run after you saying "Oh Sire, you dropped this fine item, is there a reward, sire", and until you told them they could have it, with your blessings, then they wouldn't stop... Running after you, heckling... Fun, Fun, Fun... Or you could just use the Beggars as a trash can, donating your junk and getting virtue points for doing so...

I don't mind ppl dropping stuff on their own property, but in public places, it seems to be abused when one could very well give the items to any number of NPCs just by taking a little effort... Or even just destroying the items, you can destroy groups of items too... So it's not a huge effort, why do ppl want "Littering".... A lesson learned from UO...

 

"Street sweeper" NPC was a concept I came up with in a previous thread about this topic. The idea is that you have a few NPCs in a town that are on a schedule to roam around town and will pick up stuff that people leave laying around or that the timer hasn't decayed yet. An optional feature would be that the stuff remains in their inventory for a certain time, where you can interact with the NPC as you would a shopkeeper and purchase the junk for a small price if you want but after a certain amount of time it will then also decay from their list.

For high population areas like cities and towns you would have street sweepers, trash bins and item decay. For wilderness scenes and such you would just have the item decay, though perhaps on a shorter timer. Obviously having random trash bins and street sweepers wouldn't make sense int he middle of the woods or desert.

 

atmospheric would be no trash cans in the wilderness, last I walked around in the wilderness I always saw immersive garbage here and there

 

Its not really modern civilization in the game, and actually, I hope we only rarely run into other players in the middle of a forest. I hope the average wilderness scene feels very lonely. If there was trash though, and it was limited to an instance in which a particular player was in, and disappeared when the player left the instance, it wouldn't be that bad, though.

As for the screen from U7, players setting up camp or other scenes in the middle of the wilderness for role-playing purposes would be cool. That's why I suggested camp scenes, which would be so much more useful IMO than just dropping stuff in random places, although there are some other ideas later in that (linked) thread which I think would be cool too.

 

This is what I was thinking. It would provide a temporary workaround and a placeholder for dropping items on the ground. It should not introduce too many technical challenges. Although if several people are waiting around for things to be dropped, they might all try to access the chest at the same time. Maybe there would be a scavenging skill that decides who gets an item when multiple people try to grab it at the same time. Maybe you have to fight NPC beggars for it. That might affect your standing with the Oracle. If people are fighting over an item, there is a certain probability that the item would be destroyed or damaged.

 

That's a great idea for wilderness dropping! The camp scene could have tents and containers just like current scenes in the game now. The dropped items would be in crates or barrels.. or distributed among them.

 

Yea, all of that and some other reasons is why I think setting up a scene especially form a camp a superior solution to drop anywhere. People please read the thread to those who haven't! There are also some other ideas in the thread too that would be cool, like putting out a blanket for a picnic anywhere.

 

Instead of tracking thousands of items all over the ground just have public chests, or unlocked chests on properties in town. This way anyone that wants to help the community can have public boxes on their front steps and the best boxes will have frequent visitors. This way you can also show off your houses

We all know there will be the one major city hub that will hold the most players always trading and the like. Just need to utilize it to the best we can.

 

I have never seen or heard of a UO player getting peeved from items being placed on the ground, until now. Being able to place items on the ground added so much to the lore of the game.

• A bunch of items piled up at the bank? Someone is organizing their bank box and perhaps inadvertently helping a new player, who could use those backpacks, armor, weapons, etc.
  
• A bunch of ore scattered in a mine? Someone was mining recently. Are they coming back to claim their ore? Did they leave it for anyone to claim? Is it a trap? Were they just getting their skill up to increase their strength?
• A bunch of armor, weapons, potions, etc. scattered outside the entrance of a dungeon. Are there pks around? How long ago did this happen? Were they over-encumbered and had to drop items?
• Someone left a trail of gold (6 pieces, of course) off of the beaten path. It's headed toward the swamp. Who did this? Should I follow the path? Why would they do this?

It's essentially a form of "Forensic Evaluation" in that the dropped items communicate that there was recently activity at a given location.

 

LB said he wanted it in game. I would rather not have it if it means I will need an Alienware system to visit big cities due to performance. The way the team has been talking, it doesn't sound like there will be any garbage items in the game. All of those rusty swords and such are just place holders for player crafted items as loot.

The end game for this is having as many items as possible be used as deco on lots.

 

I would be ok with some item decay over time. You drop something on the ground or move movable items around and they vanish after a time. Items return to a pool from which NPCs get their stock and monster loot is created from this pool. Moved items return to the place they were originally placed.

In offline mode this decay could be turned off as there should not be so much items lying around as there are no other players dropping and moving things.

 

I can... Head and my Bow

 

Maybe dropping items in villages/cities should be "forbidden" (impossible). I am no game developer but I think there will be no problem with performance when dropping items in adventure scenes. Less players, less objects in the scene. But if it is, maybe make a slider for visual quality of dropped things.

Keep our cities clean! I also like the idea of garbage cans, but for some reason don't like the idea of garbagemen collecting things from the ground and put it into those. This should be every players duty

 

On one hand, people don't want trash and such on the street. But there are legitimate reasons to place items down in a scene, such as roleplay and decoration.

 

Highly entertaining... thanks!

 

I could always find use of some of the junk players would throw out at brit bank. I would even gather up any amour or weapons and put them on my vendor for free to newbs. I love the idea of it being in SoTA, something I havent seen in to many 3D games. Too bad the games being made in unity though