Don’t Loot Me Bro!
Filed under: Opinion
Seriously, don’t! It seems as MMORPGs become more mainstream, more casual, certain game aspects that once made MMORPGs what they are are slowly being removed. Looting is one of these features. Back in the day of Ultima Online, Asherons Call and a few other MMORPGs, when you killed someone not only would you receive XP, but you could also loot their bodies. As they lay lifeless infront of your mighty Mage, or whatever, you could rummage through their body removing whatever gold and items you choose. Not anymore, not only can you not loot items from players, you can’t even get a percentage of their money. As for the player that was defeated, most likely they won’t even receive any serious penalty.
Why have developers given up on looting systems? Is it because the penalty for death is too great? Perhaps, I mean no one wants to lose any of their epic items because they lost a fight. Today most games have abandoned all looting, even losing money has become too great of a penalty. In order to capture the greater gaming market, casual gamers, MMORPGs have become easy. With little to no penalty for death and no looting penalty, MMORPGs are becoming stale. There’s an excitement when you know you could lose something important, whether it be some money or perhaps an item. It gives the game an added depth that you can’t get when you don’t need to worry about anything, except maybe losing a few mins traveling back to where you died.
So what’s a hardcore gamer to do. There is some hope out there, Eve Online currently allows PvP and looting and the upcoming Darkfall does as well. Perhaps others will follow.
November 7th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
In EQ2 PvP, you get experience, faction, and half the coin your opponent carried when you defeat them.
A friend of mine was jumped by a guy on the EQ2 PvP server, but he managed to win despite being jumped. He looted 20p from the guy. The other person logged in an alt and begged for the money back… he didn’t get it, though.
Stupid to attack people when you’re carrying that kind of cash.
EQ1 still does coin + 1 item on their PvP servers, as far as I know.
November 7th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
What is said here is very true..sadly you can’t loot the people that have their items “insured”, which every-time you die…a calculated amount of gold is withdrawn from the bank. If you die a lot and run out of gold in the bank……you could loose your precious rare items to the next devious PK’er (Player Killer). Beware……
November 8th, 2007 at 9:45 am
Actually, to add to the EQ2 PVP, you can loot non-attuned items as well. The chance of getting such a drop is MUCH smaller, but it can happen, so if you are going PVP - you shouldn’t carry money OR loose items.
That being said, I think the reason a lot of people stepped away from the “rob the dead” approach was because of player frustration. While you and I can see the merit in it, every other jerk out there was camping n00bies, robbing them blind, and keeping them from advancing in any fashion.
Diablo II is a perfect example of this. Corpse camping and character griefing can ruin the experience for a LOT of players.
November 8th, 2007 at 10:38 am
I for one am glad that player looting is going away. The only thing player looting accomplishes is greifing plain and simple. Its not for the challenge, its not to make the game more exciting..its for losers living in their momma’s basement to take revenge on the outside world by griefing someone that is paying to have fun.
That is why most games that have pvp only serves have an extremly low population on those servers. If the majority of people enjoyed ffa pvp then the market would reflect that. obviously the trend is in the other direction.
If a game has a big enough call for pvp then the devs should create a ffa pvp server for that game, but again every mmo I have played has had the least population on those pvp servers.
Just my observations.
November 8th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
I hear you man… it would be awesome if each game had at least ONE server with these kinds of loot rules. To impose it on everyone is bound to kill your game, because the majority of players wouldn’t buy in to this system, however, I think a fair amount of people would, making it worthwhile.
Call me crazy, but I used to play a PK MUD called MUME (http://www.elvenrunes.com) where if you died, you were pretty much guaranteed to get looted, unless you had crappy gear. They implemented a system, where by a certain level, you had a chance to “load” a shadow that would prevent people from looting your corpse until it was killed. This gave you a bit of time to run back and salvage what you could.
Warhammer Online recently said that they plan to allow players to loot other player corpses, but not in the way you described. Instead, there is a chance that they load random gear and coins, just like if you were to kill an NPC. You’re not stealing his gear but it gives an added incentive to kill players that you come across.
December 18th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Heh, found this article a bit late but wanted to chime in…
Yes, the MMORPG scene has gone carebear. As far as I am aware EVE Online is the only ffa pvp, player looting MMO left (which I play).
As to the “living in mamma’s basement” lines, well, I have a wife, kids and a job. In EVE Online I am pure PK. Deal with it.
Seems the kiddy’s just want “gotta catch em all” style games rather than something truly challenging where only the skilled progress.
January 29th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
I agree, it is sad. I think pirates of the burning see (PotBS) has some looting aswell as eve. both are ship fighting games, shame there isn’t any usual style mmo’s with player looting.
theres a slim chance AoC might have looting, the devs have disccussed it. as for darkfall mention in the OP, sorry if I LOL.