[MUD-Dev] Item Distribution in Areas

[Jim S]

<EdNote: Duplicate HTML copy removed.>

[Rayzam Wrote:]

> It becomes homogenation. You lose out on the variety of areas, you
> lose out on the variety of parties to kill the monster. Most of all,
> you lose out on the theme. Perhaps Deathknights kill each
> other. Then that's fine. But say another monster Bob is a
> Paladin. If that monster drops a sword of evil-slaying normally, but
> with this new paradigm won't when Bubba the Deathknight goes after
> Bob. So to get the Sword of evil-slaying, you have to be a good
> aligned character, killing another good-aligned character to gain
> his sword? You could modify your algorithm so a Deathknight going
> after Bob the Paladin will see Bob wielding the Sword of
> Evil-slayin, of course. But then, why would he kill him?[one
> alternative is to have Bob have the sword of good-slaying he just
> got from killing Boffo the Deathknight, and is bringing back to an
> altar to destroy it for the glory of his god].

Sure, for inherently evil or unscrupulous characters and NPCs it
really doesn't matter one way or another how this is restricted, but
for those with a cause or purpose you would want to avoid this sort of
thing as in the case of a paladin.  With the mini-quest scenario,
however, this can work quite well.

>  To cut the rambling which is afflicting me during a very busy day
>  today:
>
>      Economy:
>
>      1 monster with multiple drops:
>
>          a) players will determine how to get the various drops they want.
>
>              -a) if the drops are random, they'll just farm to get
>              everything anyways.

If the drops are random on the NPC or in the NPC's 'treasure chest'
and the NPC is placed in a situation or place in the area such that it
is challenging for the player to get to the drop in the first place
this can cause the farming of the rewards much more difficult.  In any
instance the power players will always find a way to streamline the
system to their wants and needs, but the casual player or the
role-player won't generally be as apt to worry about how the system
works but rather accept that the system is what it is and learn to
accept that system as a defined situation instead of just a set of
'rules' which can be bent.

>          b) the easiest monsters for the equivalent items will be
>          farmed.

This of course always needs to be kept in check with careful balancing
and testing such that no easier NPCs have equivalent items to harder
NPCs.

>          c) same items gotten from easiest monster available = more
>          of the items in game.

>          d) 'useless' items from a monster, that fit the theme of
>          the monster but not usable by the party members may find
>          their way out of the game [tossed, sold to npc shops, etc].

In my earlier days of playing instead of building my guild referred to
this as "duckponding" such that anything that we did not need from a
zone on any of our guild's characters was dropped in a body of water
so that nobody got the item.  This tended to keep many 'lesser' items
out of circulation from the economy but also managed to anger other
players who witnessed this happening heh.  What is useless to one
character may very well be a treasured item to another, whether it be
due to the difference in class of the two characters or simply because
one item looks 'cooler' than another similar item due to naming of the
item or color.  A lot of players will wear 'a kilt' on their lower
body even though it has no stats which are meaningful to their class.
Sure there may be other items they could use in that eq slot, but none
of them perhaps have the same 'style points'.

>          e) if a coveted item occurs less often due to choosing from
>          a larger pool of items or slanted percentages, then you'll
>          see even more of the extra less-coveted items flooding the
>          game, as the monster is farmed for the rarer drop.

>  I doubt this will solve any economy problems. The problem it does
>  solve is if a mud needs a larger variety of items, but does not
>  have enough areas [i.e. you can double the items/area ratio but
>  keep the time to gain items the same by having twice as many items,
>  and randomly choose half to show up on any clone of the
>  monster]. It's often easier and faster to code more items than more
>  areas.

I would have to agree here as it is only another method to an end.
Eventually no matter how you drop items they will come into abundance,
and any items which are placed as a secondary item to a coveted item
will become overly abundant.  Our MUD does not need a larger variety
of items as we already have in the game nearly 200 areas of varying
sizes and difficulties which the players can adventure in.  And we add
at least one new area a week for the most part.  I think a lot of what
this comes down to is that even though we wish to strive for
persistence in game world overall, what is to say Boffo the
dreadknight is always going to have his sword of good-slaying, perhaps
he was bested in a dual and lost the privilege to wield the weapon and
now is reduced to wielding a simple two-handed sword.  Some variety
can be good and can give players one more reason to visit an area
numerous times.  For me, as a player, the joy of knowing that you just
narrowly smited 2 fire giants warriors with your group members even
though you were ill- prepared is generally reward enough, not to
mention the stories which can be contrived through the years relating
back to your 'wondrous victory'.

In the end it seems as though the only way to really solve the problem
is to put a drain on the faucet.  Some of these do exist in our game
if the proper precautions are not taken such as dragon breath melting
an item or weapons being fumbled into a lake.  Item decay would at
first seem another logical choice for putting a drain on the influx of
items which come into the game.  But our MUD revolves around a
high-fantasy world where magic is relatively common, and most items we
would want to get drained from the system are more or less powerful
enough enchantment-wise that it would be illogical for them to decay
overly much.  Also in many ways myself and the others that work on the
game see item decay as just another 'annoyance' in many respects.
Realism in a game has its place I do believe, but when realism
overtakes playability then I definitely have a problem with that in
games I play or design.  Most who play the style of game which we
develop do not wish to spend their time repairing armor, they wish to
fight battles, solve problems, follow story lines through quests, and
generally be with friends.  I'll have to look back through the
archives once again and see if any other solutions for drains on
non-monetary subsets of an economy have been discussed.

Jim S
tempus at exilemud.com
exile.exilemud.com 6666
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