Player run economy/Items/Tinkers/Weaponsmiths

[PANZERBUNNY]

Two words: Weapon. Degradation.

All items. Weapons. Armour. Items of power and use.

Most games let people keep these items until they grind up to better gear.

Most of the more interesting games create a ticking clock on the gear you are using.

What does this mean?

-You aren't using your best items to grind on mobs or chase newbs for punishment.

-It saves those items for events of importance. Makes them cool when you actually see them being used in game.

-Create and stimulates a player economy. Make it so that anything but the basic of weapons is only available through gunsmith,tinkers, forgers etc.

Not sure what they plan on doing with crafting, but making it a vital component of the game would help it stand out amongst the crowd.

-It opens up MANY factions a crafter would need access, to create better ammo and more illegal weapons.

If we can run up to a vendor in an ally and buy an assault rifle, I'll be let down.


So, are people willing to accept item degradation and an alternative form of game play, instead of the status quo?

The old days of Dark Fall come to mind, gearing up with your better, saved gear, for a raid against an enemy city.

I'd like to see full loot and as we already have word of perma death in some form, shouldn't be that much of a stretch.

Perhaps only full loot in certain combat zones or when cities are at war?(if they can war)

[mouser9169]

1) Please don't write each sentence as a separate paragraph. It makes your posts very hard to read.

2) I've played games with item degradation. It could very well if done right and 'sold' right to the players. Repairs made by player crafters should be better (reduce total durability less) than repairs made by an NPC. Ultimately, you've got to keep selling them that an item should last until you either outlevel it or find a replacement. So 'epic' items should last a very long time, while a broken bottle may only last a few battles.

3) As far as the economy goes: I hate both bind on equip and (especially) bind on pickup items. FFXI had very, very few items that bound to the character. You could usually sell them for close to the price you paid for them, so your gear was sort of like 'investing equity' into your character. It worked out very well. I think they also have the absolute best auction house system of any MMO ever (unless they've changed it), and I'm really, really surprised no one has copied that.

4) Crafters - the devs may not picture 'Vampires sewing shirts', but a lot of players love crafting and playing the auction house/broker. Can you really afford to just shut out that many potential players from the game? And I know this may run against 'conventional wisdom' on this board, but you can bet your last dollar that if the game is not turning a profit in 'sandbox mode' after six months, major changes will come to the game: that's not 'selling out', it's called making smart business decisions.

[Rick Gentle]

I could stand to see this done, so long as item degradation made sense. Items should not just flat-out degrade over a period of time, but they should degrade a little when you use them. However, the rate would depend on the quality of the item. As mouse9169 says, a broken bottle may only last for 2-3 uses/hits, whereas a steel sword would last for a couple hundred uses before it had to be repaired*. They would also need to make it so more common items are repaired more easily, but less-common items less so. (I hope that doesn't need to be said, but I did it anyway for security's sake.) So, for example, guns are pretty dang common nowadays; steel swords less so. A gun-cleaning kit and gun shop should be much more common than a whetstone and a sword-smith. (At the same time, however, the sword is probably going to be much more useful against other vampires, so you have to balance the risks and rewards a little.) I don't think I would care to see an economy with the same complexity as EVE Online's grow up around this aspect of the game, but it does make a lot of sense.
I would LOVE to see this done for clothing and armor, though, as long as it was visually represented. I want to see clothes shredded and torn if their wearer gets involved in battle, or dirty and mucky if they wade through unclean water.

*they could also make it so that Disciplines and vampire strengths and weaknesses affected how quickly an item wears down. You may normally be able to use a steel sword 200 times against normal human flesh, but maybe only a few dozen times against an elder Gangrel with Fortitude 5 before the blade gets dull and chipped.

[Radical21]

This Idea is only interesting if it relates to other game-play elements where this affect the way players interact with each-other.
Doing Crafting for its own sake is not interesting because there are only so many combinations you can come up with and since most of these games are very lite on the PvP it means that access to doing better crafting is simply restricted by time spent grinding which is very meta and boring (sorry WoW fans).
Furthermore if the spoils cannot be looted and  are too easy to make they are useless.

Examples of Player run economy you can look at : Mortal Online and EVE Online, but in both games the system has its limits and could've been made more interesting IMO.
For me its really all about how players interact with each-other and the environment rather than economy for its own sake.
The Best games are the ones where resources are scarce enough to make even basic crafing and economy useful and important.

Unfortunately most MMORPGs now are FTP and are all about some disappointing Endgame that you can cheat your way to using cash shop that eliminates the effect of economy almost entirely.. Survival MMORPGs did not survive.

[Nigama]

Personally, I'd like to focus on playing the game (roleplaying and affecting/changing the world) and not repairing broken items, but maybe that's just me.

Nigama

[Nanaloma]

Personally, I'd like to focus on playing the game (roleplaying and affecting/changing the world) and not repairing broken items, but maybe that's just me.

Nigama

Repairing broken items IS part of the game; requires planning, pre-thougtht, etc.  Besides, it could be handled abstractly with the push of o button. 

[Nigama]

Personally, I'd like to focus on playing the game (roleplaying and affecting/changing the world) and not repairing broken items, but maybe that's just me.

Nigama

Repairing broken items IS part of the game; requires planning, pre-thougtht, etc.  Besides, it could be handled abstractly with the push of o button.

Alright..  I guess as long as I can automate it or have my minions do it, I'm fine with that.  But it's not really what I'd like to spend my time in game doing.  If I'm doing any kind of crafting, I'd like to be crafting my ghouls or crafting my herd or crafting my place in Kindred society.


Nigama

[Valamyr]

Personally, I'd like to focus on playing the game (roleplaying and affecting/changing the world) and not repairing broken items, but maybe that's just me.

Nigama

I'm leaning towards this, myself.

Doesnt mean there shouldnt be some important resources that need to be considered carefully before use (Like the way Bloodlines handled the Flamer fuel for instance, which forced you to use it strategically) but the main thing I want to worry about not running out of is... blood. 

I'm not into full loot either, but it really depends on how they choose to approach items in the game. I hope they can manage to come up with a system better than BoE Longswords of Blood +6 sold in the cash shop and have us run elite instances to upgrade our shoulderpads. I mean I do it in plenty of MMOs and have fun with it, but it's not WODish at all.

My most prized possession shouldn't be my "legendary" gun, it should be something more like a lost relic rumored to have been found at the site where Tremere mages cast their immortality spell. I'd definitely err on the side of making mundane gear mundane (rather than something you keep upgrading with 'extra magic' versions), which then allows them to make these lootable if they wish. That doesn't mean they can't have gear escalation, it needs to be there, but it could be about something else than finding 'even more elite full riot gear that I mysteriously wear under my cash shop designer jeans'.

Of course, whatever form they take, the items were the true power of a characters gear are shouldn't be lootable.

[Rick Gentle]

I have a proposition that I'm only 50/50 on myself, but...

"Soulbinding". We've seen it in other games, and it's that thing where an item becomes "bound to character" or "bound to account" and can't be stolen, traded, or destroyed without the player's firm assent. I think we could afford to put a system like this in the WODMMO WITH SOME IMPORTANT CHANGES.
These changes being:
1) Only one item at a time can be "soul-bound" [per character slot].
2.1) In order to soul-bind an item, you must have a thaumaturgic ritual cast upon you and the item (by a player-Tremere/blood sorcerer). You must have this ritual cast again in order to change which item is soul-bound.
2.2) OR you can just pay to have this item become effectively soul-bound. Maybe an insurance company in-game can do the same thing as "soul-binding" - i.e., they give the item back if it gets looted or destroyed without the player's firm assent. You would have to pay to have this item re-insured every time this happens (like updating your clone in EVE Online).
3) No item you freshly loot is automatically soul-bound. This must be a conscious act on the part of the player.
4) Items can be un-soul-bound/uninsured by another conscious act on the part of the player, so that they may be traded or destroyed.

This set-up is sort of like having the "free starter haven" idea, where there's one place in the world where you are safe from griefing and being attacked, but it still forces you to take a risk on other items. In this case, you get one "safe" item. If you go around equipped with Tailored Armor and Dragonsbreath Shotguns and Flamethrowers and Dai-Katanas, then you only get to keep one piece of that awesome gear if you get defeated - so you better pick which one you like the best. It's more fair to the loser if they get defeated, but it's also more realistic and beneficial for the attacker if they succeed, since they can loot all the other awesome gear. This would allow the defeated party to get back into the game a little sooner - you have to replace one less item of gear than you would if you lost EVERYTHING, but it would still slow them down a bit as they would have to replace a lot of other gear in order to be as effective as they were.
The problems with this set-up are that 1) it would mean gear has a lot more importance in combat and player-versus-player competition than I'd like to see, and 2) that it would make Valamyr's and other peoples' idea of having "items of power" floating around the world a little pointless, because somebody could just make the item of power their "safe" item, and thus immune to being stolen or otherwise acquired.

[mouser9169]

I don't doubt that gear will have some importance in the game. More than you like? Maybe - but CCP needs to go with what most players will like and players want to be able to improve their character. Once the stat sheet is maxed out, gear is the only way to keep doing this. You've got to keep the timesinks going or people simply stop playing (and stop paying).

Personally, I hate 'soulbinding' but I do understand why it exists. The main reason for 'bind on pickup' items is to prevent 'farmers' from monopolizing content and preventing others from playing the game. I've seen this happen in FF XI where a few major questlines involved opening chests that could contain very good items. The farmers had these things locked down 24/7. The only way to complete the quest was to pay them enough to let you loot the chest when it spawned.

Bind on equip is sort of the answer to 'gear degradation'. Players hate the idea of 'losing' their gear, but you need a way to take the items out of the economy. BoE is the solution that devs have come up with that players will put up with. Personally, I think gear degradation can work, but it would take a lot of 'selling' by the design and marketing team to get players on board. Without that, you need 'soulbinding'. Otherwise you simply get too many items floating around - where everybody has everything, so nothing is worth anything.

[Nigama]

I don't doubt that gear will have some importance in the game. More than you like? Maybe - but CCP needs to go with what most players will like and players want to be able to improve their character. Once the stat sheet is maxed out, gear is the only way to keep doing this.

So then let's make it so you can't max out your "stat sheet."  Just have increasingly small gains for exponentially larger costs.

You've got to keep the timesinks going or people simply stop playing (and stop paying).

But I want to play the game, not waste time.


Nigama

[mouser9169]

But I want to play the game, not waste time.


Nigama

Well, you'll probably be able to buy XP boosts from the cash shop...

But seriously, MMO's probably aren't your thing. Games have an ending - a point where you 'win'. MMO's go on forever, and you've got to give people something to do to occupy them at least ten hours a week month after month. Gear grinds, XP grinds, faction grinds, questing grinds - obviously you don't want to call them that and you want to dress them up as pretty as you can, but that's the heart and soul of an MMO. That and interacting with other real players.

Story, lore, 'plots', even PvP to an extent are all the icing on the cake. It's the timesinks that make up the cake itself.

[Radical21]

You've got to keep the timesinks going or people simply stop playing (and stop paying).

I'm more likely to quit a game that eats too much of my time without getting anywhere.
Also I don't consider doing repairs or economy related chores to be something that interesting so being forced into spending more time of these elements that do not generate any story and do not generate any interaction with other players is very likely to drive me off from the game faster than even I-Win XP boosts.

What keeps players loyal to the game and want to stick with it? Their involvement with other players and an ongoing emergent story in the game world... In that respect Economy either drive players into conflict like in EVE or it becomes this annoying hassle players can't wait to get out of (only to find after a while that they will never get into that comfortable spot where it isn't annoying)
 

[Nanaloma]

In a game like this, isn't winning surviving and thriving?  Couldn't permadeath work if, upon death, a new vampire moves into town at the same level (perhaps with some player tweaking) with a new name and contacts gone?  Perhaps some sort of severe penalty for revealing that you are the same player as before?  Maybe not, but I'd play a game like that. 

[Radical21]

In a game like this, isn't winning surviving and thriving?  Couldn't permadeath work if, upon death, a new vampire moves into town at the same level (perhaps with some player tweaking) with a new name and contacts gone?  Perhaps some sort of severe penalty for revealing that you are the same player as before?  Maybe not, but I'd play a game like that.

Everyone should be able to define their own character's "winning" conditions, much like in RL.

For Example Beckett and Lacroix have entirely different winning conditions from one another, if you can even say that it is about winning or losing..(you can't have winners without losers)