In every game there are Epic or Legendary Items.

In WoW, every lvl 80 newb has one...or four...or twenty four. WoW suffers from what I call "Dragon Ball...Z...GT... Syndrome" in that the characters never die (or come back to life) and eventually the story becomes ridiculous in how powerful the characters become. At first they were drained from any form of energy attack. In the end, they apparently fight multiple gods, and then level up 100,000,000,000,000x past that. It's what is inevitable when a series refuses to end or change characters.

In Ultima Online, things were different. Items were looted or broke. I remember trying to find Silver Weapons. These did double damage to Undead. WOW! That was awesome! Orc-Bane items. Sweet! Elemental Killers! Pain Katanas.

What do you guys think about Epic Items? Should only a few players have them? Should they be rare, or just breakable? Should every player be allowed several, so that everyone gets to feel awesome- or is that childish and should be reserved for Toon Disney 3: Ariel's Slumber?

Okay... wait a minute! What makes an item Epic? Isn't there a big difference between double damage bane items and the Sword of 10,000 Souls?

Should weapons raise stats? Should weapons increase Skill or Level? What do you think of DPS? Speed? Enchantments? Charges?

For me personally, my favorite was Dark Age of Camelot.

Somehow- that game had it right. I always felt that when I found a weapon, it was a huge deal. Magical bonuses were rare, and DPS barely went up with good items.

The majority of my equipment I bought from NPC merchants. So you can understand the amazing feeling of grinding through Camelot Hill's undead dungeon to find a full suit of chainmail armor!!

Red weapons were drool for me, while purple made me laugh to the bank. Orange was pleasant, but yellow annoyed me. And when my weapon turned blue, I cried and began begging in Camelot.

Crafting was fun, up until it became a money sink and I couldn't afford it anymore. Crafting tasks helped... but eventually became a grind. However, I remember crafting tasks were really really fun for me. I loved it when the idea was first released.

In EQ2 however, I was already tired of crafting tasks. They weren't boring, but eventually became so. This is a good start, but there needed to be more.

And in EQ2, it was a grind to XP crafting gear. In DAoC, it was simply to get my money back. I much preferred DAoC's method. It made me feel like a merchant, not a MMORPG gamer. DAoC was immersive, beyond many games I had ever played.

But for me? There were never any epic weapons in DAoC. There was just normal, plain weapons...and uncommon magical weapons. That's it. I never once felt anything more than "OMG, a MAGIC version that gives a tiny stat boost!" and "Oh cool, a full suit of armor!"

Originally posted by Emergence

In every game there are Epic or Legendary Items.

 

In WoW, every lvl 80 newb has one...or four...or twenty four. WoW suffers from what I call "Dragon Ball...Z...GT... Syndrome" in that the characters never die (or come back to life) and eventually the story becomes ridiculous in how powerful the characters become. At first they were drained from any form of energy attack. In the end, they apparently fight multiple gods, and then level up 100,000,000,000,000x past that. It's what is inevitable when a series refuses to end or change characters.

 

In Ultima Online, things were different. Items were looted or broke. I remember trying to find Silver Weapons. These did double damage to Undead. WOW! That was awesome! Orc-Bane items. Sweet! Elemental Killers! Pain Katanas.

What do you guys think about Epic Items? Should only a few players have them? Should they be rare, or just breakable? Should every player be allowed several, so that everyone gets to feel awesome- or is that childish and should be reserved for Toon Disney 3: Ariel's Slumber?

 

Okay... wait a minute! What makes an item Epic? Isn't there a big difference between double damage bane items and the Sword of 10,000 Souls?

 

Should weapons raise stats? Should weapons increase Skill or Level? What do you think of DPS? Speed? Enchantments? Charges?

NO not every game has legendary or epic items - you have just played EQ clones like WOW too much. With terms like DPS etc you show this to be the case. MMOs are a lot bigger than the EQ clones you have played and you perspective is very limited. This thread = utter fail.

I agree with OP. Epic items that are actually not that epic because everyone has them is a bit odd...

Epic in my book is something pretty rare in the game, even when the game has years on it's track and you still have to take action to find players with that item...

Today I had one dropped by sheer luck in Lord of the Rings online: the Painted Skeleton Steed. On my server (Withyindle) there are now only 3 or 4 players having it.

Items in certain games, the increased abilities from items are easier to justify than others.  For example, in EVE if you get a more powerful auto-cannon, it makes sense that you are going to do significantly more damage to your enemy.  In fantasy games, its a more difficult.  How is one 2-handed blade doing 15 damage while another can do 1000?  So the justification is typically that the piece of gear you are wearing is endued with magical abilities that give you strength...the "Excalibur" effect, the "One-Ring" effect, etc.  But how special is "Excalibur" when everybody and their uncle has one?

Items are a form of advancement.  Without stat increases or increased abilities, all you have left is the fashion. This would cause less demand for items, and thus limit their value.

It would be interesting to see a game where items don't really matter.  I suppose that would take a game that has a lot more depth than many games that are out there today.  Perhaps if we had more ways to develop our characters, we wouldn't just spend all our game-time in raids trying to get gear that will soon be obsolete anyways.

lol @ the idea of 'EPIC'  items.  at least when it comes to the now easy-mode-here's-your-purple-gear-Warcraft MMO.   it's rather dumb to say "hey these here items are epic"  when every other tom, bob, and joey have the SAME stuff.   instead of actually hunting down and getting some random awesome drop, total newbs can just hit a crappy dungeon a couple times, and then go hand in some tokens for gear at an NPC. 

wow, that was awesome--now you look like everyone else.  what's so fantastic and special about looking like, and sharing the same stats--as everybody else?  you don't stand out, you don't have any advantage over anyone.  but hey! all your gear is 'epic.'

Epic/legendary  should mean those bits and parts are rare.  Hard to find.  Special.   Not so common that any newb can wander off to an NPC and BUY the dumb things.   And when you do find one, it should not look like everything else in the game.   What would be the point in that?   "oh hey my hat is legendary and orange!"   ya, and it looks like rest of the "epics" everyone else has that they got off the NPC.  Lucky you!

I posted something on this site years ago I believe i think it might have been another site. But it was something along the lines of Epics not being so Epic.

I explained that I felt that with everyone having an "EPIC WEAPON", was it truly epic anymore? Each and every expansion also made the epic less powerful in comparison to newer items that were coming out. Even though I have not played LoTRO the system in place there at least allows your weapon to grow with you, which is nice truly allowing your weapon to remain with you and remain powerful in comparison to other weapons.

I also thought of a system I would love to see put in place in games that put in Artifacts of power that were truly unique. Meaning that only one person could carry it. Something that was also very powerful but usually brought with it a price.

Some examples I listed were things like this

Bloodthirster (greatsword) A massive 2 handed sword that did absolutely amazing damage, however upon dropping a foe there is a chance that your character/sword becomes overwhelmed with bloodlust. Making you lose control of your character and start attacking a random target in melee range untill the target is dead. If no target is in melee you attack the closest random target within LOS (friend or Foe). Each time you kill another target there is a chance (smaller per kill) that you continue on with your bloodlust.

Also many artifacts would only stay with you for certain durations or have key events that would cause them to despawn. in the above example I used the following.

Bloodthirster.  If everything within your LOS  dies and you remain bloodlusted your character takes his own life at that point bloodthirster despawns.

There would only ever be one Bloodthirster in a game. It was risky to use. However its damage rating would be ungodly it would make you think twice to playing it. Also with each kill the swords damage would go up making it even more powerful as a temporary buff to your character.

Another thing I remember posting was in response to a few peoples concerns with a system like this. If a character remained unactive for say 1 week. Then Artifacts  would despawn. Allowing for other people to  have a chance to find them.

A lone warrior walks away from the corpse of a Monstrous dragon and the dragons guardians, also in the pile of corpses lie the the corpses of the warriors entire guild.  Who he himself had cut to pieces in the rage of bloodlust that had overcome him due to his cursed blade. Now that would be epic.

@ OP:

I respect your opinion as you got some good points,

But in an mmo, if only a few players can have epic items, than ULTIMATELY (/eventually) those players will be the hardcore ones, whereas casual players will be forced to walk the eternity in ''grey or white quality items''....

So it would be great for epic players, they would have epic armor

But for the rest of us it wouldnt be so extremly great,.

I beleive thats why games like world of warcraft and etc ''play out'' the way they do...

Its like INSTANT GRATIFICATION TO ANYBODY, so no matter how much you play a day, no matter who or where you are, ur always in the end guaranteed to find some ''uber items'' that can satisfy your needs.

BUT THE DOWNSIDE OF IT ALL (just kinda the way OP explained i guess) if everybody and their mother has access to those epics, than they are epics no more. (and they serve no special purpose, either)

But personally, in the end; I still prefer the WOW system, as I am only a casual player (working&studying+social life= VERY LITTLE TIME FOR GAMING) and if it wasn't for wow, I prolly would never have seen or possessed a rare or epic item in any game in my life :D

FFXI relics are rare, way to expensive for anyone but the most hardcore players to get.

Originally posted by Emergence

In every game there are Epic or Legendary Items.

 

In WoW, every lvl 80 newb has one...or four...or twenty four. WoW suffers from what I call "Dragon Ball...Z...GT... Syndrome" in that the characters never die (or come back to life) and eventually the story becomes ridiculous in how powerful the characters become. At first they were drained from any form of energy attack. In the end, they apparently fight multiple gods, and then level up 100,000,000,000,000x past that. It's what is inevitable when a series refuses to end or change characters.

 

In Ultima Online, things were different. Items were looted or broke. I remember trying to find Silver Weapons. These did double damage to Undead. WOW! That was awesome! Orc-Bane items. Sweet! Elemental Killers! Pain Katanas.

What do you guys think about Epic Items? Should only a few players have them? Should they be rare, or just breakable? Should every player be allowed several, so that everyone gets to feel awesome- or is that childish and should be reserved for Toon Disney 3: Ariel's Slumber?

 

Okay... wait a minute! What makes an item Epic? Isn't there a big difference between double damage bane items and the Sword of 10,000 Souls?

 

Should weapons raise stats? Should weapons increase Skill or Level? What do you think of DPS? Speed? Enchantments? Charges?

 I don't really consider an items rarity when it comes to mmorpgs myself.  My feeling is that, while I know what my character is swinging around there is no way I'm knowing the history of anyone elses trinket's and I'm fine with that.

I expect to collect better equipment as I progress and while lot's of games could probably use some tweaking it's not an issue I'll lose sleep over.

Emer, epic means great, not rare. Games with rare items usually call them such. Examples would be UO's rarirty value to unique and hard to obtain items, and AC's Rare Items.

I think magical items are way too common in MMOs. Conan have no magical sword in the novels and do fine without, I just don't see that happening in MMOs.

Epic items should be rare and hard to get, So should any magical item be, I played many P&P RPGs for years without getting a single item or just one, and that works fine in most games. D&D is the problem here.

RPGs should be more about character development and less about gear. Sure many players love looting gear but getting a new cool skill is as exciting. 

Another thing is that my barbarian in AoC had rings and earrings, do you guys see Conan with rings in his ears? 

MMOs should go back to focus more on character development, skills and similar things and make any legendary gear actually legendary and not something every goblin carry around. That is what RPGs are about, FPS games have no character development but gear instead ("cool, a flamethrower")

Our games goes more and more to FPS games instead of RPGs.

Originally posted by Saorlan

Originally posted by Emergence

In every game there are Epic or Legendary Items.

 

In WoW, every lvl 80 newb has one...or four...or twenty four. WoW suffers from what I call "Dragon Ball...Z...GT... Syndrome" in that the characters never die (or come back to life) and eventually the story becomes ridiculous in how powerful the characters become. At first they were drained from any form of energy attack. In the end, they apparently fight multiple gods, and then level up 100,000,000,000,000x past that. It's what is inevitable when a series refuses to end or change characters.

 

In Ultima Online, things were different. Items were looted or broke. I remember trying to find Silver Weapons. These did double damage to Undead. WOW! That was awesome! Orc-Bane items. Sweet! Elemental Killers! Pain Katanas.

What do you guys think about Epic Items? Should only a few players have them? Should they be rare, or just breakable? Should every player be allowed several, so that everyone gets to feel awesome- or is that childish and should be reserved for Toon Disney 3: Ariel's Slumber?

 

Okay... wait a minute! What makes an item Epic? Isn't there a big difference between double damage bane items and the Sword of 10,000 Souls?

 

Should weapons raise stats? Should weapons increase Skill or Level? What do you think of DPS? Speed? Enchantments? Charges?

NO not every game has legendary or epic items - you have just played EQ clones like WOW too much. With terms like DPS etc you show this to be the case. MMOs are a lot bigger than the EQ clones you have played and you perspective is very limited. This thread = utter fail.

I have played almost every MMORPG there is, except Eve &...um...except Eve.

UO had epic items, especially towards the end (present day UO). If you don't think Valorite Platemail or Silver Halberds were not epic- you obviously didn't play it either.

And sorry, but every game has dps. In UO, we just had to calculate it ourselves using Stratic's website.

My perspective is far from limited, since I've been playing MMORPG's for over a decade, and Eve is the only one I have NOT played or at least beta tested.

Your Troll = utter fail. NEXT!

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Emer, epic means great, not rare. Games with rare items usually call them such. Examples would be UO's rarirty value to unique and hard to obtain items, and AC's Rare Items.

Yes, but a item is not great if everyone else have the same thing, is it?

They should be called Average+ then instead. Epic is rare because it is great and any item more than a few people have is not great at all.

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Emer, epic means great, not rare. Games with rare items usually call them such. Examples would be UO's rarirty value to unique and hard to obtain items, and AC's Rare Items.

Yes, but a item is not great if everyone else have the same thing, is it?

They should be called Average+ then instead. Epic is rare because it is great and any item more than a few people have is not great at all.

How is the best weapon  one can obtain not the best weapon one can obtain if everyone has it? Rarity and personal attachment have nothing to do with the attributes of the item.

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Emer, epic means great, not rare. Games with rare items usually call them such. Examples would be UO's rarirty value to unique and hard to obtain items, and AC's Rare Items.

Yes, but a item is not great if everyone else have the same thing, is it?

They should be called Average+ then instead. Epic is rare because it is great and any item more than a few people have is not great at all.

 The problem is given enough time and effort supposed rare items are no longer rare because everyone has one, or the requirements to get one are made invalid as the number of players who can meet those requirements rises.

Thus a game, when it has been open long enough, suffers from gear creep. What was the big deal sword a year ago has been replaced by something else today because either the level cap has gone up, or a new expansion has come out.

Once a MMO gets into gear creep then what was once the "uber gear" will one day become brika brack.

But what are the devs to do? New content must be made otherwise the game becomes stale.

New players want a chance to go thru the historical dungeons and what not, but older players are there to make them easier. The community cries out that the new gear is not worth grinding for because the old gear is better, so the devs always have to "up the ante" when new content comes out.

Gear is a vicious cycle.

Hmm.  Another complaint that someone can't be a rare and special snowflake because everyone else is a rare and special snowflake?  No sympathy here.  Stop worrying about everyone else's business and mind your own.  When you stop comparing the size of your package with those around you, your shortcomings will no longer be an issue.

Originally posted by Unlight

Hmm.  Another complaint that someone can't be a rare and special snowflake because everyone else is a rare and special snowflake?  No sympathy here.  Stop worrying about everyone else's business and mind your own.  When you stop comparing the size of your package with those around you, your shortcomings will no longer be an issue.

I'd rather be more realistic and accept the fact it is no fun when everyone is a hero. There is nothing special about being the same as everyone else.

Instead, I decided to make a game where players CAN become heroes, and CAN be special- and that EVERYONE can be. Whether they choose to be or not is up to them. How is this possible?

Basically, players work their way up to becoming Epic, and eventually get shot back down to start over the process again. While 90% of players are working their way up, 10% are Epic. When those 10% go back to the start, 10% new ones are epic. By the time those original 10% are Epic again, everyone has had a chance to be Epic and Special. How special? One % at a time.

"The average gamer has a 6" joystick. TODAY, I HAVE a 20" ONE!!!!!!!!!!!! EPEEN WINS RAWR!!!!!!!!!! Oh crap, that guy just chopped off my joystick!!!"

The reward of reaching the top is what makes the journey fun. And as long as the journey is almost as fun as being at the top-- the game won't get repetitive. And if the fun scales with the journey- you will have more and more fun as you advance. The only problem is keeping the low parts to stay (most likely the MOST fun) because ppl will get the least fun of those.

Originally posted by Loktofeit

How is the best weapon  one can obtain not the best weapon one can obtain if everyone has it? Rarity and personal attachment have nothing to do with the attributes of the item.

While it might be the best it still is average when everyone else have it. What is even the point of having gear when everyone get the best easily? In that case you could just as well let everyone play with the starter sword the entire game.

I repeat: An item everyone have is not Epic, it is average.

Originally posted by Dedthom

 The problem is given enough time and effort supposed rare items are no longer rare because everyone has one, or the requirements to get one are made invalid as the number of players who can meet those requirements rises.

Thus a game, when it has been open long enough, suffers from gear creep. What was the big deal sword a year ago has been replaced by something else today because either the level cap has gone up, or a new expansion has come out.

Once a MMO gets into gear creep then what was once the "uber gear" will one day become brika brack.

But what are the devs to do? New content must be made otherwise the game becomes stale.

New players want a chance to go thru the historical dungeons and what not, but older players are there to make them easier. The community cries out that the new gear is not worth grinding for because the old gear is better, so the devs always have to "up the ante" when new content comes out.

Gear is a vicious cycle.

Exactly, that is the reason I think MMOs needs to go back to the RPG basics and focus more on character development and less on gear.

If you do that old dungeons work as fine as new since you are working for XP, skillpoints or whatever you have to get better.

Of course a game like that would have to be more flexible than the regular D&D copy, but pen and paper games like Runequest, BRP, Vampire, Amber, R.I.F.T.S, Shadowrun, Cyberpunk and many more proves that it works well. 

More skills (and more varied skills, not just more attacks) and less focus on items would make MMOs more interesting. I and I think many more gets as happy for a new skill or attack as the new cool gear. Make it possible to use the starter gear the entire game like you can in most pen and paper games and let the player evolve instead.

Guildwars did partly this but they halted character development far too early.