Goblin Squad Member
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... I ain't gonna be part of your system!
Question to the Devs: Will we be able to drop inventory items, including consumables, weapons, armor, etc. on the ground, such that these could be picked up by other players?
Background: One aspect I liked about Ultima Online was the garbage all over the ground in certain populated areas (e.g. West Britain Bank). When one player decided he/she did not want something, it was easy enough to drop it on the ground. Another player (usually new players) could pick up the item and use it if they needed it. If it was something that was truly trash, many players would simply use the nearby trash cans, which would delete the items from the game after a timer expires. If I remember correctly, upon server restarts the garbage on the ground was deleted from the game.
... I'm an ADULT! ...
- Pros:
- "One man's trash is another's treasure."
- Somewhat immersive/realistic. Look at all the trash you see in the busy parts of a big city, for example. Generally speaking, where there are lots of people, there is lots of garbage. Maybe that's just an American thing, though. ;)
- Cons:
- If left unchecked, garbage can become overwhelming and obstructive.
- Some players might argue that this might take away from the aesthetics of the game.
- Depending wholly on game mechanics for transparency and collision, larger things dropped on the ground could cause functional problems for players (i.e. can't access something because there's trash piled in the way).
- Possible latency/lag/storage issues. This depends greatly on the programming of both the client and the server. With today's storage capabilities, I don't see storage an issue. However, if the server and the client both have to track a lot of items lying around, it could potentially cause some issues.
I'm curious to see what the PFO community has to say on this subject, but I'm also really curious to see what the Devs would prefer. Obviously it's too soon to know what the capabilities of the system & software are (and whether implementing this would have negative effects on these), but I really would like to know if the Devs have any interest in implementing this in PFO. As usual with my threads: if this has been answered elsewhere on the messageboards, please simply point me in the correct direction with a link (thanks).
... Man!
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ahem.
"Maybe that's just an American thing, though."
Americans used to have the pride to fund streetsweepers. Not anymore in most places. We don't want to employ anyone we don't have to if it means ten more cents out of a paycheck.
So we pay unemployment instead at 11 cents a paycheck and the garbage keeps piling up.
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I would love to see this in game. For those concerned with server load, just enable it in an area around banking buildings or in limited areas within settlements.
In Drakkar you could toss stuff on the ground. My new characters would make starting money by sifting through the junk looking for treasure that higher level players would toss from their vaults. The game would spawn a NPC jelly type creature that would devour items that remains on the ground for a set amount of time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Better to have 'donation boxes' at strategic places where spare equipment could be put for the young without evaporating like they would on the street.
I would rather see something like this than dropping things on the ground, especially if dropping were restricted to high traffic areas like banks.. Trash bins you can sift through if you really want to go dumpster diving. Make them like an add-on you can add to any/most buildings.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Better to have 'donation boxes' at strategic places where spare equipment could be put for the young without evaporating like they would on the street.I would rather see something like this than dropping things on the ground, especially if dropping were restricted to high traffic areas like banks.. Trash bins you can sift through if you really want to go dumpster diving. Make them like an add-on you can add to any/most buildings.
While the exclusive "trashcan" (or "donation box") idea would certainly solve the problems of having garbage lying around, it also takes away the immersion a bit, in my opinion. I find it interesting in some MMOs where the most populated cities are always pristine, and never-changing. It's a static world that can't be affected. Personally, I don't like this.
One more thing to add in regards to the idea of restricting this to certain areas: An example would be exploring an overworld area that a previous player had gone through, and finding some medium-grade axe lying on the ground. It probably came from an orc that was killed by a player who uses bows, but it might be an upgrade for you as a new player that uses axes. Awesome.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's true that an excess of items in a confined area would likely cause unnecessary performance issues.
I'm kinda liking the idea of NPC street cleaners. Would keep the trash from piling up in the more dense areas, but allow items to still fall to the ground in the rest of the world.
One more thing to add in regards to the idea of restricting this to certain areas: An example would be exploring an overworld area that a previous player had gone through, and finding some medium-grade axe lying on the ground. It probably came from an orc that was killed by a player who uses bows, but it might be an upgrade for you as a new player that uses axes. Awesome.
In Drakkar's dungeons, when you killed but didn't loot a mob, it's loot would drop onto the ground. As more and more higher level players passed through, often sizable piles of loot would accumulate on the ground. Lower level players could make a good bit of coin by collecting this loot. Uncommon, rare and very rare items could be found as well. It was pretty cool actually.
The game didn't render each thing on the ground. There was a generic graphic for say armor and another for coin, gems etc.. You would see the generic graphic and it would just show that there was at least 1 piece of armor there, the same with a weapon, it's sort of difficult to describe but t could be done without bogging down the server. Here's a screenshot where you can see stuff on the ground. Screenshot (it's worth remembering that this game was very popular before UO came out in the early 1990's)
I know the Devs won't implement droppable items. Maybe if enough people ask for it they might consider a recycle bin type, but the idea would have to have a lot of support.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I hate how in most mmos dropped items are just destroyed. If they disappeared to save on server load but could be found using some kind of search or scavenging ability it would be cool. Would be even cooler if monsters or pets could go searching with animations. Imagine stumbling upon a group of goblins scavenging for lost loot and the goblins using the stuff they found.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In general, I like the idea of droppable items. It gives a more "human" feel to certain areas. The feel that people are around doing things, even if you do not see them. I also like the idea that a kind of scavenger class would build up. Valandur describes the idea nicely above.
With that said, I know there are technical and aesthetic issues associated with this. I'll leave that up for the devs to decide. But, at the least, perhaps certain areas could have a longer server clean-up window.
I don't know if we want to go the way of donation bins, I would rather see - Want to donate your old equipment? Bring it to a merchant. Or personally give it to someone.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One thing is very imersion breaking for me is the fact that monster loots most of time don't match the equipment you see they wearing in most MMOs.
So if an orc wearing an old leather armor and an axe attacks me and I kill him I would like to see the old leather armor and an axe (even a broken axe) in the loot among other stuff such as coins etc when it fits.
The other thing is just the fact that stuff people and monsters drop just disapear in front of us or we just can't drop at all.
I like the idea of "Jelly monsters" (or maybe magic goblins? LOL) taking care of dropped stuff from time to time, to allow dropping itens in the game without causing much technical or aesthetical problems.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like the idea of "Jelly monsters" (or maybe magic goblins? LOL) taking care of dropped stuff from time to time, to allow dropping itens in the game without causing much technical or aesthetical problems.
Domesticated Rust Monsters.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/rustMonster.html
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Goblin Squad Member
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If items where on a timer of say 15 minutes before disappearing or a "room" was cleared every so often this would be neat. Especially after a large incursion from say an orc settlement and would provide scavengers some entertainment. Anything that stays around too long I don't think would be good for the bandwidth.
I would rather see PC or NPC pawn shops.
I would really like to see these. Gives players a place to get rid of old or found gear fast and other players to turn around and make a some profit. Of course, it is up to the pawn shop owner to know what will turn around and sell and what will sit on the shelves forever.
I've played MMOs in the past where loot would fall to the ground. The loot rights would go to the player/party who had credit for the kill. after a length of time, the loot rights would expire, and anyone would be able to loot the item. After another period of time, usually 2-5 minutes, the item would just despawn.
While I don't particularly like a system where loot from kills drops globally for all to see and take, I do like the idea of being able to drop items from your inventory to the ground for any to take.
The issue I have with it dropping to the ground on a kill, is that it can be a source of grief. You could essentially kill a player at the moment they kill a mob creature - denying them their loot. Before they can get back to that location, their loot rights might expire, allowing you to take their reward before they ever had a chance to. It's actually something I've done rather easily in Tera. I really would not like to see that happen here.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Among other things persistent loot allows players to exchange gear between different characters on the one account.
I would add this to the list, if I were able to edit the original post. Curse these messageboards and these limitations...
But I agree, this was a clever, albeit risky way to get items from one character to another, when the system did not otherwise allow it (or the player did not have a house or something to store it securely in).
Another thing to add to the list: Getting loot you can't carry. If adventuring far away from town in the middle of the wilderness where few players travel, it would be possible to drop a less-valuable item on the ground and run back to a settlement, unload, and come back to hopefully retrieve your extra load of loot.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Among other things persistent loot allows players to exchange gear between different characters on the one account.
I used to do that until another player robbed the stuff I throwed away to catch with another char and laughted at me. No more dropping and catching anymore ... I'd preffer to have some other way to exchange stuff among char such as a shared vault.
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Actually, I'm liking my search/scavenging idea more as I think about it.
Items dropped by players and lost when when a person loots a corpse that they don't own go into a Hex wide list of lost items. Every (unit of time,) and when an item first goes into the list, a damage is applied to the equipment due to age, rust, etc.
Players can learn a Search/Scavenge skill. When used the character performs a search animation for a period of time. After which an item on the list is found. What is found is weighted so that it is far more likely that cheap items will be found. More advanced levels of the skill can adjust the weighting system so that it easier to find more expensive items, but it will always be very hard to find the most valuable items and the common items will always be found most readily.
Monsters that are scavengers can be found scavenging and using or at least carrying some scavenged equipment. Food found before it goes bad will likely be eaten by monsters.
This means that areas that see a lot of battle could prove to be valuable to search. It also makes those scavengers easy targets too because everybody knows where the good scavenging sites are located.
To add greater specificity and detail each hex could be broken down further. Allowing things like bandits to continue searching the area where they took down a caravan in hope of finding some of the stuff they didn't get when looting, but the victims know where they were attacked. So the bandits run a greater risk of being caught and killed if they hang around to further loot the area.
I love how a game 15 years ago did something that people today are saying is to complicated to do, I guess UO was WAY ahead of it's time lol.
I can totally understand if it's understandably low position on the priority list means it won't happen, but I'd sure like to think not everyone here will still be playing on the same 386 computer with dial-up they had in 1997.
not only would I like to see discarded loot on the ground for X amount of time I also like to see permanent player made books in the game as well (remember those?)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Actually, I'm liking my search/scavenging idea more as I think about it.
Items dropped by players and lost when when a person loots a corpse that they don't own go into a Hex wide list of lost items. Every (unit of time,) and when an item first goes into the list, a damage is applied to the equipment due to age, rust, etc.
Players can learn a Search/Scavenge skill. When used the character performs a search animation for a period of time. After which an item on the list is found. What is found is weighted so that it is far more likely that cheap items will be found. More advanced levels of the skill can adjust the weighting system so that it easier to find more expensive items, but it will always be very hard to find the most valuable items and the common items will always be found most readily.
Monsters that are scavengers can be found scavenging and using or at least carrying some scavenged equipment. Food found before it goes bad will likely be eaten by monsters.
This means that areas that see a lot of battle could prove to be valuable to search. It also makes those scavengers easy targets too because everybody knows where the good scavenging sites are located.
To add greater specificity and detail each hex could be broken down further. Allowing things like bandits to continue searching the area where they took down a caravan in hope of finding some of the stuff they didn't get when looting, but the victims know where they were attacked. So the bandits run a greater risk of being caught and killed if they hang around to further loot the area.
briefly looking at this idea, I really like it.
Reminds me of those ppl with metal-detectors: If a hex just stores the item data and the "search skill acts like a metal detector over random range and random item identification/homing in or some such: That could be fun/interesting addition?
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Goblin Squad Member
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In LG towns the poor character gone dumpster diving could be given a special 'needy' flag unknown to them, and only visible to PCs with more than enough gold to help them out.
But if the diver isn't needy, then that flag turns to 'thief'.
I would like to use this system on the women that was in front of me at the Bodega. She used cash to buy a pack of cigarettes ($12.50) and then food stamps to buy about $15.00 in groceries, including a bag of dog food!!!
Stop smoking and get rid of the F'ing dog and maybe she could support herself!
End Editorial...
As to the OP, I would like to see what you suggest. What I'm hoping PFO delivers most is a world that feels like it is a "living and breathing" place.
That doesn't mean I want to have to take a pee every once in a while, or see two dogs humping in the street, but a creation level of city life realism would be a good thing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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briefly looking at this idea, I really like it.
Reminds me of those ppl with metal-detectors: If a hex just stores the item data and the "search skill acts like a metal detector over random range and random item identification/homing in or some such: That could be fun/interesting addition?
Yeah, it's also simple enough that it can be adapted for a lot of other stuff too.
Want good loot in a dungeon? Grab stuff of the random list from your ideal value range to fill out the loot list rather than randomly adding new stuff. This would allow the game to recycle player made gear rather than producing brand new stuff. The as a result it would decrease the inflationary effect of dungeons serving as a "faucet" adding wealth to the game.
The same goes for monster loot to some degree, if the monsters end up lost player gear the 'faucet' effect of monster loot would be lessened.
Monsters using lost gear could potentially result in better equipped monsters. This is interesting because either the monsters were already pretty dangerous having killed lots of players already, or are taking advantage of Players killing each other. Either way it is cool because it is players having a meaningful affect on the game environment. And if you are in to this kind of thing it also implicitly makes a statement that player killing only makes things worse and mechanically represents with tougher monsters. Or it just could mean that violence only produces stronger enemies.
The decay over time I added is also really cool in that it would gradually lower the value of expensive items, so you could eventually find something really cool but it would take a lot of money and effort to restore it.
You could also attack it somewhat to the environment too. Hexes with large lost loot lists could have trash piles or other stuff appear in the hex. Not only is it a graphical representation that it is a good place to find stuff, but it also gives characters that would care about the environment some incentive to go out and clean up the area.
You could also attack it somewhat to the environment too. Hexes with large lost loot lists could have trash piles or other stuff appear in the hex. Not only is it a graphical representation that it is a good place to find stuff, but it also gives characters that would care about the environment some incentive...
Instead of the game trying to show each item that's on the ground it could have a generic image with say 4 phases that represent the quantity of items that can be found in that spot. That way there wouldn't be any concern about bogging down the system by it trying to show XXX number of items in addition to what the area normally contains.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Instead of the game trying to show each item that's on the ground it could have a generic image with say 4 phases that represent the quantity of items that can be found in that spot. That way there wouldn't be any concern about bogging down the system by it trying to show XXX number of items in addition to what the area normally contains.
That not what I suggested though. I suggested all dropped/lost items disappear and go to a loot list for the hex. If that loot list gets to big, say 100 items, though more realistically 1000 items, the hex starts to have cosmetic garbage piles appearing in it. As the list gets bigger this effect can grow progressively worse. The area needs to be scavenged and searched to collect the 'garbage' reducing the size of the loot list to remove the garbage piles.
That not what I suggested though. I suggested all dropped/lost items disappear and go to a loot list for the hex. If that loot list gets to big, say 100 items, though more realistically 1000 items, the hex starts to have cosmetic garbage piles appearing in it. As the list gets bigger this effect can grow progressively worse. The area needs to be scavenged and searched to collect the 'garbage' reducing the size of the loot list to remove the garbage piles.
Ok, I see what your saying. It should work mechanically the same, to where the game isn't trying to render each item from the loot list on the ground. The reason I brought that up is it seems to be the most common complaint, that having all those items represented graphically would slow down (lagg) the system. So I was trying to counter that up front.
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I personally would be more irritated by the option to simply destroy anything in your inventory. Making it as simple as looting an item, right clicking and choosing destroy is NOT realistic, especially for any kind of magical items. To think that a brand new character could spend no time or effort in the action of utterly destroying a Masterwork Great Spear is asinine to me and destroys the viability of the sunder action. If it were only as easy as stealing an item and using a macro to destroy any given item the opponent has then nobody would ever train sunder over steal.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Instead of the game trying to show each item that's on the ground it could have a generic image with say 4 phases that represent the quantity of items that can be found in that spot. That way there wouldn't be any concern about bogging down the system by it trying to show XXX number of items in addition to what the area normally contains.That not what I suggested though. I suggested all dropped/lost items disappear and go to a loot list for the hex. If that loot list gets to big, say 100 items, though more realistically 1000 items, the hex starts to have cosmetic garbage piles appearing in it. As the list gets bigger this effect can grow progressively worse. The area needs to be scavenged and searched to collect the 'garbage' reducing the size of the loot list to remove the garbage piles.
In programming terms a pointer to an array of pointers instead of 100's of separate pointers.
Who knows, could work.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would rather see PC or NPC pawn shops.
I would love to see the addition of PC pawn shop being able to stock some specific type of item (weapons, armor, clothes, potions...) gained from adventuring or scavenging. Some type of annual leasehold fee and a tax on each of the transactions would add to the city economy, and the shops would add an interesting foil to crafting.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Would love to see items being able to be dropped within the boundaries of a city with some sort of timer on them (15 mins?) before being trash collected.
This would also open up an option for the city mayor/head honcho to hire newbie characters to collect the 'trash' and either destroy it (garbage collectors) or store it in some 'newbie stockroom' for characters just starting out. Pay them a few coppers a week, make them feel part of the game and add to the economy and help clean up the city while doing it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like the donation box idea. Though the OPs idea would help with immersion, it would really hinder the gameplay. Everything on screen has to be loaded. Just imagine how long hundreds of pieces of trash would take alone to load on screen. Now throw in all the surronding buildings, NPCs and PCs. But I do like the idea.
I like the donation box idea. Though the OPs idea would help with immersion, it would really hinder the gameplay. Everything on screen has to be loaded. Just imagine how long hundreds of pieces of trash would take alone to load on screen. Now throw in all the surronding buildings, NPCs and PCs. But I do like the idea.
We solved that problem further down in the thread. The game won't have to load all the other stuff, so that's no longer an issue.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If we just have a time delay before the item disappears consider the scenario where I and my thousand mindless minions invade your town. Each of my people loads up on trash items before assaulting you. As our opening salvo strikes, hopefully weakening your force, all thousand players dump all their trash on the ground. Suddenly the server has to take note of where each item of twenty thousand pieces of trash is. Performnce groans and shudders while you try and target one of us: but we are ot targetting we are moving a specific number of paces left, forward and turning to roll up your flank: by the time the server and your clients catch up we are behind you.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If we just have a time delay before the item disappears consider the scenario where I and my thousand mindless minions invade your town. Each of my people loads up on trash items before assaulting you. As our opening salvo strikes, hopefully weakening your force, all thousand players dump all their trash on the ground. Suddenly the server has to take note of where each item of twenty thousand pieces of trash is. Performnce groans and shudders while you try and target one of us: but we are ot targetting we are moving a specific number of paces left, forward and turning to roll up your flank: by the time the server and your clients catch up we are behind you.
You would have to be well coordinated, but that's a nasty little trick.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In ArcticMUD, they had streetsweepers who would occasionally come through and sweep the stuff into a "dump" area. You could "search" in the dump area to reveal 2 or 3 items at a time. Each new search would cause the prior items to get mixed back into the dump if they hadn't been picked up.
It might be feasible to have the garbage collection (programming, not literal) routine simply move the older items into an area where they can still be found by players actively searching.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If we just have a time delay before the item disappears consider the scenario where I and my thousand mindless minions invade your town. Each of my people loads up on trash items before assaulting you. As our opening salvo strikes, hopefully weakening your force, all thousand players dump all their trash on the ground. Suddenly the server has to take note of where each item of twenty thousand pieces of trash is. Performnce groans and shudders while you try and target one of us: but we are ot targetting we are moving a specific number of paces left, forward and turning to roll up your flank: by the time the server and your clients catch up we are behind you.You would have to be well coordinated, but that's a nasty little trick.
Yes, and sounds like griefing to me...
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Goblin Squad Member
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All in all I think the thrill of triumph a new player will feel when he 'discovers' a nice weapon or piece of armor would be worth the effort at least of recommending it. I have no idea whether it would be practical and it is certainly not a feature in a 'minimum viable' build but it might be a piece of cake they opted to include, just for the sake of the doing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Though I loved all the possible stuff one could find on the ground in UO (I had a character who made his fortune just picking up, reselling, and bartering with what he found around the Britain Bank), Ryan already mentioned in a mount thread that they would not want to implement anything that caused unnecessary server stress.
Personally, I think the ability to drop an item on the ground is huge. From a plot manager perspective, it allows a person to leave an item in a location for others to discover.