Tobold wrote how trading kills MMO games. He is indeed right in that both the "item collection" and the crafting part of the game is only there for the bleeding edge players, everyone else is better off for buying their junk. Diablo III became infamous in being an item collection game with no one collecting items. Same for crafting: what you craft is only useful if you are on the first day of the expansion.
He also mentions mudflation as a necessity. This is the current inflation of item level. First as your character levels you gain better and better items for doing the same things (killing 10 boars), then on top level every patch gives new level of gear. This is a necessity as otherwise the "complete" character can't do anything.
He concluded that the best is having no trading between players, therefore making everyone grind out his gear, to prevent them just pick them all up from the AH.
In EVE everything is traded. And real money trading is sanctioned. On your first day in the game you can legally buy a titan pilot with a titan. How come that anyone still playing this game? Because there is item destruction. Even if the case you are a very focused player and want to play only one kind of spaceships like logistics, your item collection doesn't end with having all 4 logistics cruisers in your hangar, because you need replacements. A lot. In a nullsec war you can easily lose them by dozens. On the other hand in Diablo III only newbies on lvl 15 need lvl 15 weapons. Even if there is a constant influx of new characters forever (there is not), the amount of lvl 15 characters is constant and the amount of lvl 15 weapons increase day by day.
World of Warcraft deals with it two ways: one is bind on pickup which is indeed removal of trading, if you equipped it, you can't sell it. The other is mudflation where every item are made obsolete and everyone are motivated to grind new out and destroy the old. Tobold is right that banning trading works.
But banning trading essentially makes the game single-player. If I can't give my teammate items, we aren't a team at all. We just do the same single player game and chat while in it.
The real solution would be item destruction. Then the game could have trading and need no mudflation or even inflation of levels. New encounters could be on the same item level, just new dance and lore. Item destruction doesn't have to mean item loss. Many players don't play games where they can have losses (I resist the urge to comment on them). Item destruction can happen as an inevitable wear. Durability decrease over time and the item becomes junk, needing replacement. This way there will always be someone buying new daggers.
He also mentions mudflation as a necessity. This is the current inflation of item level. First as your character levels you gain better and better items for doing the same things (killing 10 boars), then on top level every patch gives new level of gear. This is a necessity as otherwise the "complete" character can't do anything.
He concluded that the best is having no trading between players, therefore making everyone grind out his gear, to prevent them just pick them all up from the AH.
In EVE everything is traded. And real money trading is sanctioned. On your first day in the game you can legally buy a titan pilot with a titan. How come that anyone still playing this game? Because there is item destruction. Even if the case you are a very focused player and want to play only one kind of spaceships like logistics, your item collection doesn't end with having all 4 logistics cruisers in your hangar, because you need replacements. A lot. In a nullsec war you can easily lose them by dozens. On the other hand in Diablo III only newbies on lvl 15 need lvl 15 weapons. Even if there is a constant influx of new characters forever (there is not), the amount of lvl 15 characters is constant and the amount of lvl 15 weapons increase day by day.
World of Warcraft deals with it two ways: one is bind on pickup which is indeed removal of trading, if you equipped it, you can't sell it. The other is mudflation where every item are made obsolete and everyone are motivated to grind new out and destroy the old. Tobold is right that banning trading works.
But banning trading essentially makes the game single-player. If I can't give my teammate items, we aren't a team at all. We just do the same single player game and chat while in it.
The real solution would be item destruction. Then the game could have trading and need no mudflation or even inflation of levels. New encounters could be on the same item level, just new dance and lore. Item destruction doesn't have to mean item loss. Many players don't play games where they can have losses (I resist the urge to comment on them). Item destruction can happen as an inevitable wear. Durability decrease over time and the item becomes junk, needing replacement. This way there will always be someone buying new daggers.
0 comments:
Post a Comment