Trade skills is what some people want in an MMORPG. That is why I like EQ,
I don't have to deal with trade skills to make money - I work enough in RL,
I don't want to play a game and work there too. In all of my years of
roleplaying (AD&D, Amber, etc) I don't ever remembering anyone saying 'I
don't want to go out and explore and kill stuff, I would rather make armor
or jewelry!' That is what NPC's did for you.
> ----------
> From: John Kim[SMTP:kim@...]
> Reply To: eqbards@onelist.com
> Sent: Friday, July 16, 1999 11:46 AM
> To: eqbards@onelist.com
> Subject: Re: [eqbards] Re: Item Values (meta)
>
> From: John Kim <kim@...>
>
> On Fri, 16 Jul 1999 David.Lynam@... wrote:
> >
> > john writes:
> > >Most people don't realize it, but a lot of the enjoyment of
> > >the game is the anticipation just before you loot something -
> > >will it or won't it have a nice item? I once modified the
> > >source of an RPG so I could start off with the best stuff.
> > >It made the game really boring - the item drops didn't matter
> > >because I already had the best stuff, so all that was left was
> > >endlessly killing monsters for experience.
> >
> > I think though that if less emphasis were placed on gathering items and
> > accumulating wealth in EQ, more emphasis would be put on the social
> aspect
> > of it. I hate to use UO as an example but in this case it serves as a
> > beautiful example. It just had something EQ missed. When you died you
>
> I don't think EQ has enough infrastructure to survive on a
> purely social aspect. There are no player-owned structures,
> there are no player-owned merchants, there are no item sinks,
> and there are very few money sinks (trade skills, steel armor)
> most of which (trade skills) were an afterthought coded in
> just before the game went Final. In short, there really isn't
> much you can *do* in EQ which doesn't revolve around killing
> monsters to gain items and experience. You can't really make
> your mark on the world.
>
> The PvP and Racewar servers definitely have more
> possibilities, but on the normal servers, socializing is not
> much different from an IRC chat room.
>
> In that respect, UO is ahead of EQ. I think EQ only strived
> to make massively multiplayer online hack and slash FRPG. UO
> strived to make an online virtual world. In the discussions
> Brad McQuaid and Raph Koster have had, it's pretty obvious EQ
> didn't have as high a goal as UO. Brad still refuses to admit
> that long-term money and item sinks are necessary in a
> persistent online game, to keep player ability inflation (and
> thus monster difficulty deflation) in check.
>
> --
> John H. Kim
> kim@...
>
>
>
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