Where should 'loot' come from?

[Ralanost]

A plate chest peice dropping off of a wild rat doesn't work for me. Even a dragon somehow having peices of armor or weapons in it's corpse is a bit ooc. I reccommend that it all be purchased in a manner.

A lot should be made by players. That will make a good economy and will make some players happy being crafters.

High end stuff should either go for a LOT of currency or should require special ingredients to be made by specific npcs or rare recipes that players can acquire.

Monsters shouldn't drop [Torn Furry Ears], nor should a vendor actually wish to buy that. Humanoids drop cash or what not and random monsters might not actually have loot. You might need to kill them to take parts from them to make things. Needless to say, to get some of these parts you need to know what to look for, i.e. have the appropriate proffesion.

This might cut down on gold farmers? Just tossing this out to make it more RP friendly.

 

[WatchMaker]

I'm fine with chests dropping off a rat half it's size, or getting a helmet from killing a deer. Vendor trash is also perfectly fine in my book It's just normal MMO dynamics, and I'd rather have something thats worked fine in the past than the attempt to implement something that turns out bland or annoying.

 

[Gate]

I agree with Ral on the first part, I can't stand random felgercarb dropping off things that shouldn't be carrying them. It's lazy storytelling and breaks immersion horribly. Vendor trash is fine with me if its in context with the mob it dropped off of. Collecting teeth, scraps of hide, low quality meat, etc is all fine for vendor trash and makes sense in the context. I don't like wierd things that wouldn't be useful however, like the torn furry ear. However anything that could be used in decorations, eaten (either by humans or animals), ground into medicines (those that either work or are perceived to work), etc would be fine. That actually amounts to a lot of things, especially in a world with magic and all kinds of wierd arcane components.

However, weapons, armor, and such should only drop off of those who could use them and I don't know why a simple barbarian would have a +12 grand sword of humanoid slaying if he's not actually using it against me in combat. If someone was attacking you, would you choose to fight with your crappy dagger or the weapon of pure awesomness that you have hidden somewhere in your clothing.

This is actually one of the reasons I think there is room for an Elder Scrolls MMO. You kill a rat you get rat meat. You kill a bandit wearing leather armor, you can take the leather armor... and clothing and food and anything else on them. And if they have an enchanted weapon, they will damn well be using it against you and you can damn well pick it up and use it when they are dead. And if the leader of the bandits is the only one with such an enchanted weapon and you kill him, one of the other bandits will grab it up and use it against you if you don't get to it first.

 

[Valendros]

There are precedents for this in Gemstone. If a critter has a vultite warsword that you can loot from him, he'll use it while he's killing you.

Furthermore, in plat, you drop everything in your hands when you die. Critters can swap their weapon and/or shield for that and use it, the person who kills that critter loots it off their corpse.

Some critter's gear is crumbly (mainly so they can have more awesome gear without us being able to sell it for profit I think), but if you damage a critters arm, and it drops it's crumbly warmace, you can tap it and it crumbles... no matter what that critter is now without a warmace and will do significantly less damage if he attacks normally (typically they'll just start casting or doing special moves rather than attacking at that point).

No boxes drop off any lifeform that could not have carried it around. Undead carry loot which I always thought was somewhat strange. Never thought of a ghost carrying around a 50 pound box with it. Wolves have great ability to sniff out a hidden character. Whole nine yards.


But if a critter has a sword of uberness in a box, he won't use it.

 

[Wilwarin]

I personally like how in Dragonrealms "loot" comes mainly from players and events. If you want a high quality weapon, you don't need to kill a dragon to get it. You need to save up your plats and purchase the sword from a player who has spent a great deal of his time learning to craft the weapon. Or if you're more rich (and more patient for that matter) you could purchase rare weapons when events come around. The point is, in terms of weapons and armor, you don't need to be in an elite guild to get the best stuff. You just need to be patient and save up.

Another thing I'd like to add is that much of the stuff you see in Dragonrealms is fluff. That is, it doesn't actually add to the power of the character. It just makes the character look different or be able to use interesting new verbs. MMORPG's have this idea that the only thing worth dropping off of a creature is some new kind of helmet or sword, or perhaps a quest piece, which is essentially the same thing since it's probably meant for getting some uber chestplate of godliness. But this makes the game less fun for people who aren't into raiding because (and I speak mainly from my own experience) it makes people feel as if they need to "keep up" with the latest loot in order to avoid suddenly finding your character weaker than everyone else's.

So anyways back to the topic at hand. Given that it has already been rumored that crafting will be playing a minor role in HJ, I think that the best way to do things would be to make even the best wyr still accessible to players who are not in large guilds. I think that the kind of gear that comes from dragons and gods should be gear that has interesting effects, unique looks, and perhaps even gear which allows players to have new abilities (though not necessarily new combat abilities). I don't think that the best wyr in the game should come from dragons. It may sound crazy to some, but I honestly think that it would make things so much better for casual players, while not totally ruining things for the people who like to raid, if this were the case. And besides, uber raid guilds have a thousand other MMORPG's that all do it the same, so why not try something a little bit different this time around?

 

[ale_jrb]

I quite like that idea - and of course, the unique items and such obtained from high level combat would give monetary rewards, which could be used to save up for high level combat equipment.

I personally, though, don't mind so much when things drop stuff they probably wouldn't drop - it's just never bothered me that much; no idea why .

 

[Ralanost]

It was just blantantly obvious how wrong it was when I was watching a friend play Bard.

 

[Wilwarin]

I have a feeling that with the wyr system, you'll be able to have wyr drop off of creatures that are not necessarily humanoid, while still making sense in the process. From some of the sample wyr that were disclosed to the public, it seems that you could have a wyr be pretty much anything, from a pair of dice to a magical bone or tooth, or perhaps the scales of some magical creature. I'm not sure if fluffy rat ears would make for a good wyr, but I guess anything is possible.

 

[Zink]

Wouldn't a dragon have breastplates and what not, seeing as they keep hordes though? Otherwise I agree with the first part. I think certain mobs should drop shiny things and coins, because why would a rat have a piece of armor? But it mught collect a coin or swallow one cuz its shiny. Only humanoids and such should drop armor or weapons.

 

[Ralanost]

I would rather there be an actual pile of loot NEXT to the dragon and can't get to it until you kill him vs. it being in his belly. Also, it doesn't seem heroic to disect everything you kill in hopes of finding some peice of loot. Maybe a loose search of their belongings, but not a full cavity body search.

 

[Valendros]

Well... If you think about it... you may not dissect a rat or most sentient mobs, but a dragon... there's some very useful things in and on a dragon. Dragon scales, Dragon blood, Dragon meat, Dragon bones etc. If you got all those things in great amounts when killing a dragon. Those things being used for crafting and such. And it doesn't make much sense to NOT fillet the thing and use every part.

Most games, you kill a dragon you might 1 dragon scale. Where'd everything else go? I dunno, there's a difference between what makes sense and what can be done in the game environment.

 

[Chrisidon]

That reminds me of an intentional hack'n'slash monty haul D&D game I played in years ago. We had around 8 dragon corpses preserved and waiting for us to finish a dungeon at one point. Yeah, it was just pure insanity, and I was glad to have played in it for the couple months it lasted. Let me get over the system and focus on roleplay.

On the topic, though:
I always took looting a corpse to be symbolic of checking the creature's pockets. Big creatures had nice loot on them because if they didn't killing them would be optional - just get in an all-healer party and keep everyone alive while we take all the loot. Then run away!

 

[Makkah]

I have a feeling that with the wyr system, you'll be able to have wyr drop off of creatures that are not necessarily humanoid, while still making sense in the process. From some of the sample wyr that were disclosed to the public, it seems that you could have a wyr be pretty much anything, from a pair of dice to a magical bone or tooth, or perhaps the scales of some magical creature. I'm not sure if fluffy rat ears would make for a good wyr, but I guess anything is possible.

I thought Wyr were more of an intangible idea than trinkets, etc.

 

[Valendros]

naw, they're trinkets. There's slots for them, and different shapes. Only wyr of that shape can fit in the slot...

See the slots to the left of 'warpick' on the right... The butcher's axe on the left hasn't 'leveled up' enough to use it's two slots (total speculation, but it sounds right) and there isn't a way to tell what kind of slots it's going to open... Maybe it'll open it's slots based on what you do with it.

The warpick is level 9? and the butcher's axe is level 0? OR the warpick is level 4/4 and the butcher's axe is level 0/4... hmmm... One's level and one's damage probably. Sumthin like that.

She herself is level 11. With an either completely empty or completely full XP bar.

Lookie there, you can see they use a Plat, Gold, Silver, Copper system too. Very nice. Steph is RIIICH lookit that.

Still wish I knew what that number prominently displayed in the middle top of the screen is... It's so important, so majestic. Too important for XP, or Encumbrance, or weight, or money, or fame, or alignment, or direction, or time, or date...

Also, EWWWW... The minimap in the upper right swivels around so you're always facing up rather than you running along the map, the map runs under you. Not sure I like that... But I haven't seen it in action.

And I hope they change that aweful generic font everything is in. Looks cheap.

Whatever this dude is doing, his number is much higher.
So maybe danger level? That may be important enough... How much danger you are in? How outside of the control of your faction you are?
It has enough room to be probably in the hundreds of millions... maybe billions if you squeeze it a bit.

 

[HJ-Diviana]

Those are hero points. I believe it was mentioned that's what they are a long time ago, it's probably just been lost in the wait.

 

[Performer]

Where the Heck are those Screenshots from ?
I only remember seeing the Videos...

 

[Valendros]

I just remembered seeing them on MMORPG a while ago, couldn't find them on HJ's site, so I looked up on HH and surenuff they were there.

 

[Chrisidon]

I had never seen those screen shots before. Hmm, now I suddenly feel like the game's getting closer to release.

 

[Ralanost]

Keep in mind that those screen shots have been out for quite some time and that the video they released on the main site seems a bit different from that screen.

 

[Valendros]

upper right of that first shot: "E3 2006"