Originally posted by Adamantine
 

 However, if you introduce stuff like item decay into your game, it doesnt mean that crafting is important in your game. It means crafting is a hassle. It means crafting just HAS to be done, all the time, again and again, and is thus a timewaster.

Games are time wasters.  Entertaining time wasting is called gameplay.

One person's work is another person's fun.   Seriously.

Originally posted by Quirhid

Just think your proposition through for once! Item decay brings along with it...

• maintaining gear - if not self then relying on someone else
• keeping spares - if not in inventory then somewhere relatively close by -> moving becomes a hassle
• re-acquiring gear or acquiring wealth to re-acquire gear - a whole new treadmill
• breaks the pace whenever you have to do any of the above

Those are things that you don't have to do when you don't have item decay. Everything in that list is uninteresting. You'd be introducing a whole bag of new inconveniences and a whole lot of grind to a lot of players. Sounds like a bad deal to them. Why should they support item decay in a game?

Have you played UO?

To address your points:

• It cost next to nothing to maintain gear in UO. Often it made sense to just refine it, toss the scraps in the crafter bin and grab another piece.
• In UO, you've got plenty of storage space and getting to your gear is fast an easy, often a click of a button takes you right to it.
• In UO, you have more gear than you know what to do with. You'd be hard pressed to find a UOer (and there's over 15 years of them) that will tell you gathering gear was a 'treadmill"
• Breaks the pace any more than any other penalty?

If you think in terms of WoW, yes, your points are very valid. Not every game is designed like WoW, though.

Originally posted by nilden
UO and SWG had awesome player economies and it was all because of item decay. I would much rather have item decay than mudflation and soulbound items.

Lineage had an awesome player economy too and it didn't have item decay.  Item decay is a punishment system.  I would rather see an incentive system rather than a punishment system to remove game resources.  It's not very fun.

Originally posted by Torvaldr

Originally posted by nilden
UO and SWG had awesome player economies and it was all because of item decay. I would much rather have item decay than mudflation and soulbound items.

Lineage had an awesome player economy too and it didn't have item decay.  Item decay is a punishment system.  I would rather see an incentive system rather than a punishment system to remove game resources.  It's not very fun.

I can't agree with the OP.

Crafting by template makes it manfacturing but crafting with variable results and decay make for variety and priority. If you have 4 "identical" swords but one has a slightly better blade and does more damage, you use that for epic fights and grind with the others in hopes of getting a better one.

Any game I can say I truly had fun with, I was crafting or doing something tied to it and leveled by accident. Any game I was forced to level to open the next version of the same thing I did yesterday ended up failing me. It's all about objectives but crafting I find is a good way to split them and allow people to make their own. You want to make Armor, he wants to make health packs another guy wants to make weapons. It's repeatable content.

Twinks are going to do what they have always done: grouse about variables that add complexity to their path to combat uberness.  But it doesn't mean they have a point.

Yes, combat players say they don't "like" decay.  But what they say and what they do are two totally different things.  Because I've never seen anyone quit over decay, nor have I ever seen a combat player hesitate to pick up a game with decay.

I have, however, seen combat players quit when decay systems are taken out.  It isn't because they especially like crafting or even want a player economy.  But they just get bored with the static nature of their games.  The ability to have what you want, on your terms, predictable and not subject to decay or decline, is very comforting to combat players.  It allows them to easily complete their goals and amass all that they want, very quickly, without any limiting constraint outside of their ability to keep logged on and fight in static instance after static instance.

And, predictably, they accomplish their goals in record time, and find no more reason to log on or maintain any interest.  Or (more likely), they wake up one day three weeks into their play experience and say "you know, this is boring."  And they churn out.

Indeed, the data coming out of the industry seems to support my claims.  Some of the most popular games out there have decay: the Fallout series and the Diablo series.  So while you see the combat types crawl out of the woodwork in threads like this, and say they hate decay, they aren't being totally honest.  If they hate decay so much, why do they play so many games with decay in it?

Because decay is a dynamic system.  It gives what would be an otherwise static thing, like a piece of gear, a wrinkle of variability across time.  And that--despite what the grousers say--is a good thing.  It holds their attention longer.  It makes them into more than content consumers; it integrates them into systems.  And that's a good thing.  Because if you are just there to consume content, you'll have no reason to stay once you power your way through the content.  But if you are integrated into a system of supply and exchange, you'll feel like a part of something more.

The industry has been bending over backwards to give combat players what they say they want.  And this is why decay has been a tough mechanic to find in the post-WoW era.  But you have to wonder how the combat players have "rewarded" this loyalty, because all the data I see seems to indicate they log on at launch, play for three months top, and leave.

Why are they so bored, when the developers are giving them everything they say they want?  Because what combat folks say they want, and what they actually do, are totally different things.

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by Torgrim

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by Torgrim

This might come as a surpirse for you OP but some people love to craft and build their own houses in a game, not everyone likes killing mobs 24/7.

Item decay is a must to have good ground for a good  player driven economy.

And yet it is a major inconvenience to those who are uninterested in crafting and economy - and they are a majority among gamers. The net sum is negative. Find another way to drive economy.

They are not forced in anyway to craft anything they can hack mobs left and right how much they like so i fail to see your point.

Just think your proposition through for once! Item decay brings along with it...

• maintaining gear - if not self then relying on someone else
• keeping spares - if not in inventory then somewhere relatively close by -> moving becomes a hassle
• re-acquiring gear or acquiring wealth to re-acquire gear - a whole new treadmill
• breaks the pace whenever you have to do any of the above

Those are things that you don't have to do when you don't have item decay. Everything in that list is uninteresting. You'd be introducing a whole bag of new inconveniences and a whole lot of grind to a lot of players. Sounds like a bad deal to them. Why should they support item decay in a game?

In red the things I really miss in MMORPG these day's. It's what made MMORPG become more virtual worlds instead of these online combat games we have today. And I rather have  realistic "grind"

Keep in mind you already have plenty of games to choose from and those who like what you seem to be against has it's place aswell. But for some reason when I see a reply like yours it seems as if you asume that all MMO' should be that way. No they shouldn't but like today's very limited type of MMORPG there is room enough to have a game with your highligted red feature's, which you simply do not have to play.

Shadowbane.

That is all.

Originally posted by Reklaw

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by Torgrim

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by Torgrim

This might come as a surpirse for you OP but some people love to craft and build their own houses in a game, not everyone likes killing mobs 24/7.

Item decay is a must to have good ground for a good  player driven economy.

And yet it is a major inconvenience to those who are uninterested in crafting and economy - and they are a majority among gamers. The net sum is negative. Find another way to drive economy.

They are not forced in anyway to craft anything they can hack mobs left and right how much they like so i fail to see your point.

Just think your proposition through for once! Item decay brings along with it...

• maintaining gear - if not self then relying on someone else
• keeping spares - if not in inventory then somewhere relatively close by -> moving becomes a hassle
• re-acquiring gear or acquiring wealth to re-acquire gear - a whole new treadmill
• breaks the pace whenever you have to do any of the above

Those are things that you don't have to do when you don't have item decay. Everything in that list is uninteresting. You'd be introducing a whole bag of new inconveniences and a whole lot of grind to a lot of players. Sounds like a bad deal to them. Why should they support item decay in a game?

In red the things I really miss in MMORPG these day's. It's what made MMORPG become more virtual worlds instead of these online combat games we have today. And I rather have  realistic "grind"

Keep in mind you already have plenty of games to choose from and those who like what you seem to be against has it's place aswell. But for some reason when I see a reply like yours it seems as if you asume that all MMO' should be that way. No they shouldn't but like today's very limited type of MMORPG there is room enough to have a game with your highligted red feature's, which you simply do not have to play.

+1 to last 2 quotes

Originally posted by SpottyGekko

The OP makes the usual snap conclusions based on the premise that "most people think like me and like what I like".

As does nearly everyone else in the thread, or on this site for that matter.

Upthread someone deigned to proclamate about what player economies Must Have (emphasis mine). Yet we've seen dozens of different ideas about very different player economies, not all of them having what he insisted were Must Haves...blink, blink.

Logic suggests these aren't Must Haves, after all.

Player economies don't even Must Have items(!!), for heaven's sakes.

It would behoove everyone to stop declaring MMO Design Rules that aren't, and for the love of Groo stop speaking in Absolutes, in general.

Originally posted by Reklaw

 

In red the things I really miss in MMORPG these day's. It's what made MMORPG become more virtual worlds instead of these online combat games we have today. And I rather have  realistic "grind"

Keep in mind you already have plenty of games to choose from and those who like what you seem to be against has it's place aswell. But for some reason when I see a reply like yours it seems as if you asume that all MMO' should be that way. No they shouldn't but like today's very limited type of MMORPG there is room enough to have a game with your highligted red feature's, which you simply do not have to play.

No I don't think every MMORPG should be the same. But these ideas are almost always presented like they're remedies - silver bullets to "fix" MMOs. Item decay is an old idea and an unpopular one. It is a bad deal for the adventuring type because it brings many inconveniences without any gameplay value.

How about coming up with something that is fun for both instead? Something new for a change?

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by Reklaw

 

In red the things I really miss in MMORPG these day's. It's what made MMORPG become more virtual worlds instead of these online combat games we have today. And I rather have  realistic "grind"

Keep in mind you already have plenty of games to choose from and those who like what you seem to be against has it's place aswell. But for some reason when I see a reply like yours it seems as if you asume that all MMO' should be that way. No they shouldn't but like today's very limited type of MMORPG there is room enough to have a game with your highligted red feature's, which you simply do not have to play.

No I don't think every MMORPG should be the same. But these ideas are almost always presented like they're remedies - silver bullets to "fix" MMOs. Item decay is an old idea and an unpopular one. It is a bad deal for the adventuring type because it brings many inconveniences without any gameplay value.

How about coming up with something that is fun for both instead? Something new for a change?

Perhaps because it's not possible to please everyone with a single game mechanic.  Many of the things you eschew are my gameplay, how are developers to keep both of us happy?

I agree, if there really is some single, optimal way to accomodate a thriving economy then sure, let's go for it but it seems over the years there's been a number of successful (but different) mechanics employed and enjoyed by some subset of the community while disliked by others.

Item decay has worked well in a number of titles over the years, I thought they did a good job with it in DAOC (more of a theme park style title than others have mentioned) and sure, I can see where having it in WOW might be bad, but truthfully, who keeps gear in that game for any length of time?

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by Reklaw

 

In red the things I really miss in MMORPG these day's. It's what made MMORPG become more virtual worlds instead of these online combat games we have today. And I rather have  realistic "grind"

Keep in mind you already have plenty of games to choose from and those who like what you seem to be against has it's place aswell. But for some reason when I see a reply like yours it seems as if you asume that all MMO' should be that way. No they shouldn't but like today's very limited type of MMORPG there is room enough to have a game with your highligted red feature's, which you simply do not have to play.

No I don't think every MMORPG should be the same. But these ideas are almost always presented like they're remedies - silver bullets to "fix" MMOs. Item decay is an old idea and an unpopular one. It is a bad deal for the adventuring type because it brings many inconveniences without any gameplay value.

How about coming up with something that is fun for both instead? Something new for a change?

Perhaps because it's not possible to please everyone with a single game mechanic.  Many of the things you eschew are my gameplay, how are developers to keep both of us happy?

I agree, if there really is some single, optimal way to accomodate a thriving economy then sure, let's go for it but it seems over the years there's been a number of successful (but different) mechanics employed and enjoyed by some subset of the community while disliked by others.

Item decay has worked well in a number of titles over the years, I thought they did a good job with it in DAOC (more of a theme park style title than others have mentioned) and sure, I can see where having it in WOW might be bad, but truthfully, who keeps gear in that game for any length of time?

I'm not a fan of digging up old features from the dark ages before MMORPGs became popular because, in part, those features were the reason why MMORPGs were unpopular back then. The people who played them then are a minority now. It doesn't make sense for a big developer to make a game like that, but there are plenty of indie developers aiming for just that segment, I'm sure.

Anyway, with all the talk about "innovation" there sure is a lot of talk about rehashing old ideas. Not blaming you Kyleran, but there sure are a lot of hypocrites around.

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by Reklaw

 

In red the things I really miss in MMORPG these day's. It's what made MMORPG become more virtual worlds instead of these online combat games we have today. And I rather have  realistic "grind"

Keep in mind you already have plenty of games to choose from and those who like what you seem to be against has it's place aswell. But for some reason when I see a reply like yours it seems as if you asume that all MMO' should be that way. No they shouldn't but like today's very limited type of MMORPG there is room enough to have a game with your highligted red feature's, which you simply do not have to play.

No I don't think every MMORPG should be the same. But these ideas are almost always presented like they're remedies - silver bullets to "fix" MMOs. Item decay is an old idea and an unpopular one. It is a bad deal for the adventuring type because it brings many inconveniences without any gameplay value.

How about coming up with something that is fun for both instead? Something new for a change?

Perhaps because it's not possible to please everyone with a single game mechanic.  Many of the things you eschew are my gameplay, how are developers to keep both of us happy?

I agree, if there really is some single, optimal way to accomodate a thriving economy then sure, let's go for it but it seems over the years there's been a number of successful (but different) mechanics employed and enjoyed by some subset of the community while disliked by others.

Item decay has worked well in a number of titles over the years, I thought they did a good job with it in DAOC (more of a theme park style title than others have mentioned) and sure, I can see where having it in WOW might be bad, but truthfully, who keeps gear in that game for any length of time?

I'm not a fan of digging up old features from the dark ages before MMORPGs became popular because, in part, those features were the reason why MMORPGs were unpopular back then. The people who played them then are a minority now. It doesn't make sense for a big developer to make a game like that, but there are plenty of indie developers aiming for just that segment, I'm sure.

Anyway, with all the talk about "innovation" there sure is a lot of talk about rehashing old ideas. Not blaming you Kyleran, but there sure are a lot of hypocrites around.

I'm not convinced there is a lot of room for innovation (or it is invention really) in MMORPG's anymore, seems like its really just a case of further fine tuning than anything else.  So yes, I am looking for some of the older mechanics to be revisted, improved upon perhaps, as I think today's gamers might actually enjoy them if they had a chance to experience them in the right game.

If we take WOW and a few F2P behemoths out of the equation, almost all MMORPG's are really catering to a niche market of less than 500K sustanined players, so there's really no reason not to experiment with alternate or even  old school mechanics even if you are a large, AAA developer.

Permadeath is honestly a gigantic waste of time. I can't even begine to tell you how many times I've died in-game via latency issues, being disconnected, stuck in the world, etc. It's just a bad idea within the MMO realm.

Originally posted by Sijjistoryus

Permadeath is honestly a gigantic waste of time. I can't even begine to tell you how many times I've died in-game via latency issues, being disconnected, stuck in the world, etc. It's just a bad idea within the MMO realm.

People like perma death because it provides a challenge on seeing how far you can get before dieing and then they try and beat it next time round, its a system that isnt for everyone but there a bunch of people who likes it.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by Reklaw

 

In red the things I really miss in MMORPG these day's. It's what made MMORPG become more virtual worlds instead of these online combat games we have today. And I rather have  realistic "grind"

Keep in mind you already have plenty of games to choose from and those who like what you seem to be against has it's place aswell. But for some reason when I see a reply like yours it seems as if you asume that all MMO' should be that way. No they shouldn't but like today's very limited type of MMORPG there is room enough to have a game with your highligted red feature's, which you simply do not have to play.

No I don't think every MMORPG should be the same. But these ideas are almost always presented like they're remedies - silver bullets to "fix" MMOs. Item decay is an old idea and an unpopular one. It is a bad deal for the adventuring type because it brings many inconveniences without any gameplay value.

How about coming up with something that is fun for both instead? Something new for a change?

Perhaps because it's not possible to please everyone with a single game mechanic.  Many of the things you eschew are my gameplay, how are developers to keep both of us happy?

I agree, if there really is some single, optimal way to accomodate a thriving economy then sure, let's go for it but it seems over the years there's been a number of successful (but different) mechanics employed and enjoyed by some subset of the community while disliked by others.

Item decay has worked well in a number of titles over the years, I thought they did a good job with it in DAOC (more of a theme park style title than others have mentioned) and sure, I can see where having it in WOW might be bad, but truthfully, who keeps gear in that game for any length of time?

I'm not a fan of digging up old features from the dark ages before MMORPGs became popular because, in part, those features were the reason why MMORPGs were unpopular back then. The people who played them then are a minority now. It doesn't make sense for a big developer to make a game like that, but there are plenty of indie developers aiming for just that segment, I'm sure.

Anyway, with all the talk about "innovation" there sure is a lot of talk about rehashing old ideas. Not blaming you Kyleran, but there sure are a lot of hypocrites around.

I'm not convinced there is a lot of room for innovation (or it is invention really) in MMORPG's anymore, seems like its really just a case of further fine tuning than anything else.  So yes, I am looking for some of the older mechanics to be revisted, improved upon perhaps, as I think today's gamers might actually enjoy them if they had a chance to experience them in the right game.

If we take WOW and a few F2P behemoths out of the equation, almost all MMORPG's are really catering to a niche market of less than 500K sustanined players, so there's really no reason not to experiment with alternate or even  old school mechanics even if you are a large, AAA developer.

 

This is probably true. There isn't much more room for innovation and so, why not explore a mixture of old and new?

Game Need: to remove items from the game to suppress the fact that there is a multitude of items being created. Items can't be recirculated forever and continue to amass. There must be a constant need for crafters to make them.

Item Decay- eventualy items wear out and break down after use

Binding Items- items that have been in used are untradeable, economically made worthless

What other options are there aside from removing the economy and crafters?