I luv getting some folks together for a Dungeon romp. Guk and Unrest being probably my 2 favorite of all time.

Fighting off the tough pulls, and giving congratz to members of the grp as they upgrade their items/get that important drop.

TO me that is what MMOs are about...working together for big rewards, while enjoying some laughs.

Whoever thinks loot isnt important can keep thinking so...the majority of folks will tell ya they like getting nice upgrades.

I suppose that is why a tradeskill based economy isnt wanted in PVE games. It is viable in PVP where folks dont hold onto things for long.

In PVE games the folks like to adventure/quest for their gear....dungeon delves being a big part of it.

Loot has always been important in a mmorpg. Im waiting for an old fashion mmorpg that is actually fun, and stuff. A mmorpg that doesn't require hours of grinding, and work to reach level 80, and then hours of work to grind gear or months to fully cap/Enhance everything to 100% of its possible.

MMOFPS games generally are fun because it doesn't require a bunch of skill up's and crap

MMORPG like wow, are all based on gear.

Darkfall failed.

Now its just to see what comes in the future or the next 4-8 months from now.

I dont know if I would say Darkfall failed, as it was launched as a niche title.

There is a segment of folks that are luving the game play(FFA PVP). If they can get the trader game going as well as fixing things up with main gamestyle, it may yet rise from the failure of this limited launch.

As a fellow gamer, I hope it works out for these folks.

 i personally do.. its a role playing game, come on!

Originally posted by Sneakers05

I feel like it adds to a goal that even though people think the guy with the biggest weapon or the biggest shiney armor is just a guy that shows off his E-Peen, i feel like ever since diablo 2, that when I item grind or going for loot wether its by myself or with a small group of 5-6  players i feel like theres more fun there, more anticipation, more replayablity etc.

 

I think a mmorpg with out a rare equipment off mobs system just feels like another FPS. Its wierd. thats what really killed LOTOR for me or any game where crafting gives you the best gear because i feel like its taking away from the replayability or something that has always been common in an mmorpg.

What's the point in crafting if everything you craft is crap compared to what you get by bashing something over the head? To me epic loot is a bad idea no matter where it comes from but trophy loot is a good thing .As far as dungeon crawls go, yeah but not every MMO needs to have the same things either.

Originally posted by zymurgeist

Originally posted by Sneakers05

I feel like it adds to a goal that even though people think the guy with the biggest weapon or the biggest shiney armor is just a guy that shows off his E-Peen, i feel like ever since diablo 2, that when I item grind or going for loot wether its by myself or with a small group of 5-6  players i feel like theres more fun there, more anticipation, more replayablity etc.

 

I think a mmorpg with out a rare equipment off mobs system just feels like another FPS. Its wierd. thats what really killed LOTOR for me or any game where crafting gives you the best gear because i feel like its taking away from the replayability or something that has always been common in an mmorpg.

 

What's the point in crafting if everything you craft is crap compared to what you get by bashing something over the head? To me epic loot is a bad idea no matter where it comes from but trophy loot is a good thing .As far as dungeon crawls go, yeah but not every MMO needs to have the same things either.

That is exactly the point....
 

A tradeskill driven economy doesnt belong in an adventure/loot(PvE) based game. They belong with the PvP/sandbox crowd.

Whomever made that decision on traders in LoTRO had an epic brain fart IMO. Although with as casual as they were gunning for, perhaps they felt it was best?

Originally posted by Quizzical

Grinding mobs on the off chance that one of them will drop some really good gear for you is a nuisance.  If the dungeon itself is interesting, there's no need to put great loot there to get people to do it.  If the dungeon is boring, essential loot doesn't make it less boring.  It only makes it simultaneously boring and mandatory.  That's a toxic recipe for an awful grinding game.

Agree completely. There is no reason why the crafted items cannot be as good as looted items. Just make the rest of the game fun. People will still go threw the dungeons as long as they are fun to do as a group. For the adventure n exploration.

Loot n loot grinding is just the simple way to keep people in a game. Rather than making  the game interesting n fun and new areas to play...just throw in some uber loot in the same areas to keep em goin.

I never made it to endgame in WoW, but there were 2 dungeons that always had me coming back for more...

Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep.

They were both very low level, but they were some extremely well made dungeons imo. I loved the feeling it gave you.

I must have run Deadmines like 50 times and SFK like 20. Deadmines STILL doesn't get old for me. I no longer play WoW, but those are some of my best memories from my time there.

I do not really like having to chase down gear at all.

When a game makes it so that gear affects my character's performance then it basically forces me to get the good gear for my level to not suck and to advance.  That is annoying because it is both repetitive and restrictive to how I want to look.

If you make loot aquired from dungeons then it just forces me to do the dungeon over and over when I otherwise wouldn't want to.  This is just a gameplay lengthing tactic that tries to make use of dungeons after the point where people get tired of them.

If you make it crafted then it just forces me to keep buying it off players to replace my old/broken armor.  This is just a system to cater to the crafter demographic and make them feel important but to the adventurer it does not add any fun and is just a burden.

I prefer the CoX method where I look how I want, you could add dropped or crafted clothing pieces for me to collect but it should be an option.

If you were to make dungeons instead of using the allure of loot make them interesting, if you put them in an instance then you can add all kinds of interactivity with the dungeon and even change up the creature spawns, dungeons could be closer to a senario from Left for Dead rather than a series of rooms with badies in them.

Also the core game, like fighting, should be fun because if the thing you do 90% of the time is boring then you game is a bust not matter what.

Originally posted by Drachasor

Originally posted by panzerclaw

Originally posted by Drachasor

Originally posted by Sneakers05

Originally posted by Quizzical

Grinding mobs on the off chance that one of them will drop some really good gear for you is a nuisance.  If the dungeon itself is interesting, there's no need to put great loot there to get people to do it.  If the dungeon is boring, essential loot doesn't make it less boring.  It only makes it simultaneously boring and mandatory.  That's a toxic recipe for an awful grinding game.

 

but tons of people play diablo for this exact reason

 

Pretty sure that 95%+ of the Diablo players during its prime (and perhaps even today) do NOT play for that reason.  A relatively small percent of the population really wants to grind mindlessly for loot.  Diablo also benefits from pretty nice gameplay, which helps it a lot and goes back to Quizzical's point.

Now, I do think there is a point to loot, but that point doesn't have to be done with loot.  People like to have proof of their accomplishments.  Some sense that things are different.  That can be done by giving them loot, unique abilities, changing the game world, opening up more content, or many othe things.  Loot is far from essential for this.

The entire point of Diablo was loot.
 

 

I don't know anyone who played Diablo to get loot.  I know people who enjoyed getting loot in Diablo, but that is NOT why they played.  People played it because it had very good gameplay.  It also had a pretty good storyline.  Thinking that people played it only to get loot is not at all accurate.

Funny, you don't know anyone who played for loot, and nearly everyone I knew were people who played for loot.  Loot was basically the entire point of the game.  Sure, the basic gameplay was great, and for that reason it was worthy of being a dungeon crawler.  But itemization made it clear what the point of the game was.  Magic find, varying stats, the possibility of finding a sub-par "uber" item, all in all the point was to make you kill bosses over and over in the hopes of finding uber lootz.

That being said, there are simply some people who do not play for loot, period.  Nothing wrong with this, it's just their preferred method of gameplay.  I knew some people who claimed that D2 was the most boring game ever made after initially completing the base game.  I didn't agree, but I don't knock their opinion.  After all, they're simply voting with their feet and moving to a game more interesting to them.  As always, a game will have a population of people interested in it.  There is no point going after those customers who don't find a particular style of gameplay fun.  You just will never be able to please them.  That's the beauty of choice and competition.

So back to the original question.  Yes, I feel that hunting for loot is important to a mmo.  In fact, it's the primary reason I play mmos and why I won't play a game like wow where I can't treasure hunt for myself and others (bop = shitty mechanic to me).  However, I do enjoy deep crafting as well so I'm all for either treasure hunting for complete loot or crafting components.

Originally posted by CactusmanX

If you make loot aquired from dungeons then it just forces me to do the dungeon over and over when I otherwise wouldn't want to.  This is just a gameplay lengthing tactic that tries to make use of dungeons after the point where people get tired of them.

No, it is the result of trying to satisfy the many customers who enjoy treasure hunting.  Most of these customers know full well that content is not endless, and thus have no problem crawling the same dungeons over and over.  You're just a different type of customer, and a treasure hunting based game is obviously not your preference.  Nothing wrong with this, just not what the designers were aiming for with the game.  Thus, you need to find a game more suitable to your tastes.

Originally posted by Sneakers05

I feel like it adds to a goal that even though people think the guy with the biggest weapon or the biggest shiney armor is just a guy that shows off his E-Peen, i feel like ever since diablo 2, that when I item grind or going for loot wether its by myself or with a small group of 5-6  players i feel like theres more fun there, more anticipation, more replayablity etc.

 

I think a mmorpg with out a rare equipment off mobs system just feels like another FPS. Its wierd. thats what really killed LOTOR for me or any game where crafting gives you the best gear because i feel like its taking away from the replayability or something that has always been common in an mmorpg.

Like I said in a previous post, I am cool with grinding for full gear or for crafting components, preferably both.  You talked about enhancing replayability, and to me crafting and enhancements in addition to uber lootz adds a ton of replayability.  I like my dungeon hunting, and indeed that's all I did when I played D2.  But after playing SWG after D2, I realize there's a whole other world out there I was missing.  Now, I still like to primarily treasure hunt, but I really like doing the other "mmo" aspects like crafting, playing the market, building player cities, hunting for SWG-style resources, etc.  When you add these other aspects to the game, you will spend more time in the game doing varying activities for a much longer period of time than if you just dungeon crawl.

Originally posted by Amanautor

I just realized people always make a connection between dungeon crawling and "omg hardcore farming for that purple that won't F drop!" situations. That's the diablo model for loot, but games can have sweet pve without being chores (i.e. not just a gear treadmill). PvE games deserve one more chance.

But that is the topic of the thread -  "dungeon crawling for loot" not "dungeon crawling". Or to quote him directly:

"I think a mmorpg with out a rare equipment off mobs system just feels like another FPS."

I think most people find adventuring with friends, be it dungeon or otherwise, to be fun. It's the "purple that won't F drop" that the OP is looking which several here are turned off by. The OP is talking about epics, not dungeon crawling. :)

I feel the importance of loot has had a very detrimental effect on MMORPG communities. Take WoW's arena for example. If they took out the item rewards from the arenas, guess how many players would particpate. I agree that it is nice to have a goal or something to focus on in a game, but item rewards just seem like such a generic form of gratification, one that masks serious deficiencies, or perhaps even causes serious deficiencies in player interaction. Take away the loot from any treadmill game like WoW, and what are you left with?

            IT doesnt necessarily have to be dungeon crawling but yes loot is an important part......It probably started in the old days when heroes used to slay dragons for the treasures they were guarding........I have played a couple games where loot/gear was not a factor....To me those games were very boring and got old very fast (TCoS is the most recent)....... Like most people I like to upgrade my gear and it is a nice carrot to keep many of us going in a game.

Well, loot is loot. It doesn't have to be just the best items. I like it when the overall drops of a dungeon are better than out in the world, as long as the dungeons are more challenging. Even in tabletop D&D there is a loot aspect. I wouldn't go just for loot as I explained in my first post: it's also about teamwork if I am teamed up with other people, it's about exploration, it's about character advancement through xp and money, not just loot. I like having things that I can sell for more than I normally would at my level.

I think DAoC had great dungeons. One had a choice between instanced task dungeons or aurelite dungeons if they wanted to primarily solo (though grouping was still possible), or you had the choice of the dungeons open to everyone. There were tons of niches to explore, mob spawns were pretty fast, the mobs were more challenging than world mobs, there was an overall higher xp bonus in dungeons though untouched mob spawns in the world could net more xp for short times, and quite simply there was a massive variety of loot and mobs to kill. Spindelhalla and Vendo Caverns are great examples. They were simply huge, difficult if you went in at the right level, and had mob trains in them (at least Vendo did with those bloody goblin guards). People needed to cooperate together to get through them even if not grouped up.

The problem with the more recent fantasy MMOs is that they don't have that in them. WoW is a bit tragic. I like the old, classic dungeons but so far I haven't come across a TBC or WotLK dungeon that has been as interesting and cool as Wailing Caverns or BRD.

Originally posted by Kilmar

I disaggree, going into a dungeon only for loot is the most boring part in EQ2 for me. And I prefer wide open dungeons over instanced crap. Instanced crap is always always always exactly the same when you go in

That would also elimante the need for these crappy BOP items.

By making boss mobs a timed spawn and tradeable evenchully everyone will get the item in one way or another.

By having the boss fight not only be challeneging but having the players them selfs fight over killing said boss adds to the excitement 10 fold.

To end this short and not go into crafting as well, its a good idea.

Dungeon crawling is awsome fun when the gameplay is awsomely fun.  Diablo 2 was amazingly fun w/out uber godly gear, and it just got even more fun when you wtf pwnd everything.

Originally posted by Sneakers05

I feel like it adds to a goal that even though people think the guy with the biggest weapon or the biggest shiney armor is just a guy that shows off his E-Peen, i feel like ever since diablo 2, that when I item grind or going for loot wether its by myself or with a small group of 5-6  players i feel like theres more fun there, more anticipation, more replayablity etc.

 

I think a mmorpg with out a rare equipment off mobs system just feels like another FPS. Its wierd. thats what really killed LOTOR for me or any game where crafting gives you the best gear because i feel like its taking away from the replayability or something that has always been common in an mmorpg.

One of the things I LOVE about LotRO is I don't have to dungeon crawl for equipment.  I do it for the story and the exploration of it.  I enjoy crafting, and the fact I can make great stuff that I don't have to grind a dungeon for...is GREAT.  But that's just me.  In this genre, there is a lot of different types of players.

diablo 2 wasnt about items?!?! did you even play the game? haha


"mooo mooo"  ring any bells?..... hahaha.. bells...

Originally posted by panzerclaw

Originally posted by Drachasor

Originally posted by Sneakers05

Originally posted by Quizzical

Grinding mobs on the off chance that one of them will drop some really good gear for you is a nuisance.  If the dungeon itself is interesting, there's no need to put great loot there to get people to do it.  If the dungeon is boring, essential loot doesn't make it less boring.  It only makes it simultaneously boring and mandatory.  That's a toxic recipe for an awful grinding game.

 

but tons of people play diablo for this exact reason

 

Pretty sure that 95%+ of the Diablo players during its prime (and perhaps even today) do NOT play for that reason.  A relatively small percent of the population really wants to grind mindlessly for loot.  Diablo also benefits from pretty nice gameplay, which helps it a lot and goes back to Quizzical's point.

Now, I do think there is a point to loot, but that point doesn't have to be done with loot.  People like to have proof of their accomplishments.  Some sense that things are different.  That can be done by giving them loot, unique abilities, changing the game world, opening up more content, or many othe things.  Loot is far from essential for this.

The entire point of Diablo was loot.
 

Loot and the epic storyline with those epic cinematics kept many players playing for many years. MMOs should take a page out of Diablo for some success ;)