On Fri, 28 Jan 2000, Wayne Sheppard wrote:
>
> Potential solution: Magical items don't drop if the character doesn't get
> any experience.
>
> + reduces farming
> + reduces twinking
> + frees up spawns for appropriate level groups
> - forces you to get an item before you gain a certain level
> - forces you to trade for an item you can't get yourself
I'm a bit more draconian on this: Your character gets to kill
each named mob only once in his lifetime. After that, if you
kill it again, nothing drops. If you contribute to a kill, it
is considered "your kill" only if you look at the loot on
it. You would have to be a minimum level to loot named mobs.
- If you don't get the item you want, you can't just kill the
mob over and over until you do.
- Forces you to trade for an item if the named mob didn't drop
the item you were hoping to get.
+ If you don't get the item you want, you can't just kill the
mob over and over until you do.
+ Lets you (try to) get an item even if it's way below your level.
+ Stops farming cold.
+ Eliminates virtually all incentive to kill-steal for loot.
+ Limits the damage that one greedy twit can do, at least
until the twit powerlevels up another character.
+ Eliminates the waiting that is so prevalent in this game.
The last one is an important point. Say Verant wants to make
Dwarven Work Boots so rare that only 1 in 10 people have them.
Right now, they just make the mob, drop, and camp time so
frustratingly long that only 1 in 10 players has the patience
or ability to camp for them.
Under my system, the ghost could spawn every 30 minutes. If
you wanted to try for DWB, you'd get a group together. You
kill the ghost, loot, and if you're the lucky 1 in 10 you get
DWB. If not, too bad. You killed the ghost, congratulations,
now move on. If you really want the DWB, you'll have to trade
for them. But instead of spending 8 hours camping the site
(and thus blocking other people from getting their shot at
DWBs), you'd move on to do something else.
This would require Verant to work on generating enough quests
and other interesting things to do so that we wouldn't run out
of things to try to get. Something they may not be capable of
doing.
--
John H. Kim
kim@...