Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

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Grave_foh

shitlord
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Well, no, I don"t think they should drop coin. I think they shouldn"t be what we"re killing (see previous rants). Although, it is humorous that dropping coin is too unrealistic for Blizzard but they"re fine with them dropping random greens/blues/epics if ya get lucky.

Maybe the bear swallowed a polearm from his last kill though, who knows.

Edit-For what it"s worth though, I agree that grey items are kind of stupid. If it"s very clearly vendor loot, make it some kind of treasure at least instead of junk. Feels a little more exciting to haul a bag of gemstones back to town rather than Bear Flank.
 
Genjiro

Genjiro

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
5,218
5,066
Or just get rid of slaughtering animals unless you are doing skinning or something. Having new mob types and introducing more than 1 model type per expansion should be a priority over making us slaughter 80 levels of the same looking animals.
 
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Ninjarr_foh

shitlord
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I think that"s what Grave was referring to with his "rant" about animals.

I don"t think you need to get rid of animal slaying completely, it can be an enjoyable environment (Oasis in EQ with the crocs, for example), but there is a huge over abundance in WoW.
 
Caliane

Caliane

Avatar of War Slayer
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Grey items are flavor.

A very good one as well. Its a cool thing to have spiders drop spiderlegs, instead of gold, like was stated.
One of those little things that sell a game"s environment.

Yellow text, etc..
 
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Grave_foh

shitlord
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I think normal animals should be no more than gathering nodes. Hunting as a gathering skill that produces hides/meat. Done.

That being said, as long as it was used sparingly, I don"t mind animals being involved in a few quests. The plagued animals in Darkshore that you kill for example, is okay. Not particularly exciting still, but at least it made sense in the context of the story. The others are just "I"m really in the mood for some Deer Jerky! Go get me some meat! What do you mean you"re a renowned hero who saved Azeroth from the threat of the insane Aspect of Magic? Tell me that story later while we"re eating jerky."

That aside, if you do want an animal type creature in the game, at least use one that has a fantasy spin on it.

Winter Wolves from D&D, for example, are pretty badass. 9 feet long, frost breath, I"ll fight that and be a lot happier with it than your regular run of the mill wolf whos only real threat to me is dazing me off my mount as I go by.

Go google image search "Displacer Beast". Take that shit over a Panther? I would.

I"ll give spiders a pass, but only if they"re huge.
 
tad10

tad10

Elisha Dushku
5,518
583
Zehn - Vhex said:
Not sure what you"re exactly getting at there Tad. 1/3/4 are pretty much de facto in WoW right now and 2 is well...go read this thread I suppose:
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Eh something about being able to progress your char after level-cap.

Does it really matter? These days I hold out no hope for the current and coming crop of MMOS right now.

We"re entering the Generation X of MMOS - shiftless, feckless and tired.

All the developers are going to try to make something new and different and end up fucking something up. It"ll be EQ2 but for a generation of MMOS. Or they"ll just try to make a direct copy of WoW and they"ll fuck that up too. Out of sheer boredom, players will shift from one screwed up MMO to another.
 
Caliane

Caliane

Avatar of War Slayer
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Grave said:
I think normal animals should be no more than gathering nodes. Hunting as a gathering skill that produces hides/meat. Done.

That being said, as long as it was used sparingly, I don"t mind animals being involved in a few quests. The plagued animals in Darkshore that you kill for example, is okay. Not particularly exciting still, but at least it made sense in the context of the story. The others are just "I"m really in the mood for some Deer Jerky! Go get me some meat! What do you mean you"re a renowned hero who saved Azeroth from the threat of the insane Aspect of Magic? Tell me that story later while we"re eating jerky."

That aside, if you do want an animal type creature in the game, at least use one that has a fantasy spin on it.

Winter Wolves from D&D, for example, are pretty badass. 9 feet long, frost breath, I"ll fight that and be a lot happier with it than your regular run of the mill wolf whos only real threat to me is dazing me off my mount as I go by.

Go google image search "Displacer Beast". Take that shit over a Panther? I would.

I"ll give spiders a pass, but only if they"re huge.
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One of the things in wow beta that sold me on the game, and I thought was cool as hell, was the level 9 mountain lions killing rabbits, etc.

The idea of making a fake ecosystem I think is cool. It doesn"t even need to be complex.
But I think it would sell the games world if animals behaved like animals, etc.
Giants spiders should attack everything. including other npcs.
Setting up a natural world of creaters, which are mostly neutral, with predators being predators. Then the real enemies being trolls, etc, whatever, and also being the prime source of what you the player are attacking.
 
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Ninjarr_foh

shitlord
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Caliane said:
Grey items are flavor.

A very good one as well. Its a cool thing to have spiders drop spiderlegs, instead of gold, like was stated.
One of those little things that sell a game"s environment.

Yellow text, etc..
Click to expand...
Sorry, I just don"t see it. Sure, if you are killing Shelob she can drop some super-sticky web rope or something, but the fact that spiders drop junk loot does not make the game more immersive for me. I mean, if anything it makes less sense. Why did it drop one crispy spider leg? Why not 8? Then again,obviouslyit dropped a spider leg, its a fucking spider. I just don"t see the point nor what it adds to the flavor of the game. It should drop rare shit from time to time, but not a spider leg every time to make up for the gold that a humanoid would drop.

As someone else said, killing animals as a part of a quest is silly as they are more jobs than anything--there is rarely anything epic about it. But when the need to kill an animal occurs, I don"t really want to deal with a bunch of crap it has.
 
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Northerner_foh

shitlord
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Grey flavor loot isn"t such a bad thing but needs a little interest factor perhaps. Instead of every single animal dropping Arctic Fur worth X, have every tenth (statistically) drop a Perfect Arctic Fur worth ten times X and you are moving in the right direction at least. Play with it some and eventually you get a system where someone is again happy over what something dropped instead of just collecting a set amount of gold per hour for killing a certain type of shit that they are killing for a quest anyhow. Besides, they are still getting the same gold per hour.

Variable reinforcement is a powerful tool.
 
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Ninjarr_foh

shitlord
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Yes, but why not have those Perfect Arctic Furs be valuable because of their value to the tradeskill community, rather than some off-hand vendor trash?

The same goes for non-animal grey drops, like Rusty Swords and shit.
 
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Ninjarr_foh

shitlord
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FoghornDeadhorn said:
Vendor trash"s currency value is set by the developers. Tradeskill items vary according to the community.
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True, but currency value varies according to the community as well so the first is arguably community-dependent too (though this was pretty well controlled in early WoW).

That said, you make a fair point, but I don"t see why that is necessarily a bad thing. You give the item a base vendor cost relative to its rarity/level range, and then give it value within a trade cycle so it can be sold for more if the economy allows for it.
 
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Northerner_foh

shitlord
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The problem with tying trash flavor loot to tradeskills is that it is a no-win. Either the stuff as mats is worth more than to a vendor (in which case all you added was an annoyance in selling the shit) or it is vendored anyhow. Even in the case where it can be converted into something that vendors for more or can be converted/disenchanted into something of value, you are just adding hurdles.

White loot has a place too but lets not confuse the vendor trash flavor loot with that.
 
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Ninjarr_foh

shitlord
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The point was more that that source of income isn"t necessary/worth the annoyance of having to sell the shit. Better alternatives exist (increasing humanoid coin, making animals drop tradeskill parts which are more rare/higher value) that avoid the bullshit of collecting grey loot and vendoring it.
 
Zehnpai

Zehnpai

Molten Core Raider
399
1,245
Well, gray vendor trash is really no different then back when you"d get 30 short swords after taking out a group of orc or kobolds in the old gold box games.

The big problem is having to loot it. Once it"s in your bags who cares. All you really need is a "Pristine Spider Fang +1" to pop up over the corpse and in your chat log when you kill the mob then move on.

With a reasonable bag size and getting rid of the pointless shit taking up bag space, should really be no reason your inventory fills up before you get back to a suitable vendor location. Off-loading the spoils of war is something I would miss.
 
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Grave_foh

shitlord
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Another random design idea popped into my head today.

Random positive effects are fun. Procs on weapons, proc trinkets and talents in WoW. It triggers something positive in the brain when we see it happen. In fact, it"s probably one of the things that makes MMOs so addictive when you consider that getting a random world drop or something triggers the same sort of feeling.

The idea I was thinking about was to create a few different buffs that are tied to nothing except the player"s class, right from level one, that have a random chance of going off at certain times. The point of these would simply be to add something little that makes a new player think "hey, that was cool" and from then on it"s just something satisfying that you get every now and then as you play.

Just a few examples off the top of my head, but they could be anything:

Ranger: Heightened Focus - 100% hit/crit chance on next ranged attack.
Cleric: Answered Prayer - Doubles the effect of your next damage or healing spell and reduces its mana cost by 100%.
Warrior: Defiant Stand - Increases haste by 30% and heals the Warrior for 25% total HP over 10 seconds.

Shrug. Nothing special, basically take what would be fun talents/item procs and just give them to the class as extra flavor. The proc chance could be super low so that it isn"t class defining and just something fun people get every now and then. Each class could have one defensive one that has a chance to trigger on low HP, and one offensive one that has a chance to trigger on a successful hit or something. Ranger/Cleric is an example of offensive, while the Warrior one is obviously more defensive and would probably only proc at low HP.

Imagine a little level 2 guy who maybe overestimated himself and pulled a few extra mobs, then he just happens to proc Defiant Stand and ends up winning the battle. Even little things like that can be the thing that makes people stick with your game.
 
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Lonin_foh

shitlord
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Grave said:
Another random design idea popped into my head today.

Random positive effects are fun. Procs on weapons, proc trinkets and talents in WoW. It triggers something positive in the brain when we see it happen. In fact, it"s probably one of the things that makes MMOs so addictive when you consider that getting a random world drop or something triggers the same sort of feeling.

The idea I was thinking about was to create a few different buffs that are tied to nothing except the player"s class, right from level one, that have a random chance of going off at certain times. The point of these would simply be to add something little that makes a new player think "hey, that was cool" and from then on it"s just something satisfying that you get every now and then as you play.

Just a few examples off the top of my head, but they could be anything:

Ranger: Heightened Focus - 100% hit/crit chance on next ranged attack.
Cleric: Answered Prayer - Doubles the effect of your next damage or healing spell and reduces its mana cost by 100%.
Warrior: Defiant Stand - Increases haste by 30% and heals the Warrior for 25% total HP over 10 seconds.

Shrug. Nothing special, basically take what would be fun talents/item procs and just give them to the class as extra flavor. The proc chance could be super low so that it isn"t class defining and just something fun people get every now and then. Each class could have one defensive one that has a chance to trigger on low HP, and one offensive one that has a chance to trigger on a successful hit or something. Ranger/Cleric is an example of offensive, while the Warrior one is obviously more defensive and would probably only proc at low HP.

Imagine a little level 2 guy who maybe overestimated himself and pulled a few extra mobs, then he just happens to proc Defiant Stand and ends up winning the battle. Even little things like that can be the thing that makes people stick with your game.
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It would have to be restricted from PvP; I don"t think it"s worth the whining that would result from something like that otherwise.

Zehn - Vehx said:
Well, gray vendor trash is really no different then back when you"d get 30 short swords after taking out a group of orc or kobolds in the old gold box games.

The big problem is having to loot it. Once it"s in your bags who cares. All you really need is a "Pristine Spider Fang +1" to pop up over the corpse and in your chat log when you kill the mob then move on.

With a reasonable bag size and getting rid of the pointless shit taking up bag space, should really be no reason your inventory fills up before you get back to a suitable vendor location. Off-loading the spoils of war is something I would miss.
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The streamlining of looting so it went straight to your bag would be great, but you"d really need to drastically cut down on the amount of gray crap and boost the average amount of bag space at the same time. Maybe I"m strange, but I don"t find anything enjoyable about having to vendor a bunch of otherwise useless stuff. Sure, it"s nice seeing the monetary results of your killing, but I"d trade that feeling any day for the lack of tedium and micro-management that comes from the overabundance of gray loot.
 
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