[MUD-Dev] Unique items vs. item references

[Bruce Mitchener]

Brandon,

Brandon J. Van Every wrote:

> And having just finished Diablo II a month ago, I will comment
> that they're really, really, really, really boring.  The first
> time you get something "rare," that's much better than the other
> stuff you've got, ok fine.  The second time, well, hmm.  After
> that, it's just a random pile of gobbledygook statistics, it's
> never really all that much better than what you've got anyways.
> Let's face it, you were getting the job done drinking lotsa
> healing potions and hacking everything to bits with your quintiple
> melee attack.  What do you need all these minor variances in + and
> - for?
 
> Varying quantities isn't interesting.  "Rare" weapons should do
> qualitatively different things.  Like leap out of your hand and
> make perfect "X" incisions in your enemy's skull, causing their 3D
> geometry to fall apart in a highly specific way.  Oh, you can't do
> this in Diablo II?  Well, Diablo II isn't all that interesting of
> a game, so there.

How would you handle a the analogous problem in your game?  The
possible answers would seem to depend on the goals that you have for
it.

What is your vision for your game?  What sorts of considerations
would you have when designing your items and the overall item
system?  Do you have a system in mind to allow you to readily (and
easily) create special effects such as you described?

Would the goals for your game include or exclude things like:

    * Be commercially successful.
    * Have overall high production values.
    * Be critically successful.
    * Entertain the masses.
    * Entertain a small group of loyal players.
    * Produce the game on a team that isn't something
      approaching 10-30% of the overall playerbase.

On another note, it'd be interesting to hear your strategy for doing
play testing and balancing in a system where the effects of rare
items are fairly unique and customized for each item.

Cheers,

  - Bruce


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