Are w3e ready for voting guys?
No wonder this thread is 34 pages long! Zgreedus has asked : "Are we ready for voting guys?" about 30 times.
(ok ok I sometimes exaggerate)
Firstly I must say, I wanted to see craftable items. This will add depth to the gameplay.
But how we justify all that extra programming and time and effort that some of you are worried about?
Well, I have played a lot of different free online games, and get quickly bored. Generally there is a "formula".
Kill things, level, spend exp points on skills, repeat.
Some games have areas that you need a certain level to be able to enter.
These will have harder things to kill, but of course you get more experience.
The things to do in each area is the same, there are occasionally "quests" but these collect stuff left behind by monsters, get enough and you can complete the quest.
My point? After a while players get bored and move on.
I spent over 2 years (paying subscription) to UO.
Reason? Depth.
Surely a simple justification for the extra work and effort for the Devs, is player retention. And possibly player conversion from playing for free to paying (!)
hmy:
(Of course I know a lot of games get their revenue from simply signing up as many players as possible, (and using player numbers as leverage), Often there is practically no information about the game on their homepage, apart from lots of enticing pretty pictures which will get people to sign up. These games tend to be quite limited (it doesnt need to have too much depth as they are simply "collecting" players - players can leave but it doesnt matter - they are still 1 of 14 million 'registered players' -- which looks great to advertisers!))
Now, I like the way Sigmastorm2 has craftable items.
You buy the blueprint from the shop. (each level had different fixed shop items)
You collect the parts needed for the item from killed enemies and also sometimes you need to buy a part from the shop)
Then you took the parts to a building to construct it, and pay an associated cost.
If you are lucky the item gets made. (percentage chance of success)
The items are different to things you can buy from shops, but not overpoweringly so. This game had a "class" system (mutant, cyborg etc) The only way to gain "class" items and armour is by making it.
So in theory we can have certain items that can maybe only be used by a certain class (we have the product slot in our character screens -- perhaps that could be for a item?..)
Or perhaps any class can use them.
Compass (increases speed by 25%)
Lucky charm (+5% chance of finding stuff)
Iron Hammer (bonus for builders plus also bonus for jobs involving building (repair fences, installing barbed wire fences etc)
Other items could give bonuses in some small but useful way : eg an item could give you 10% off items bought from stores, A quality shovel that makes digging easier (so monetary bonus or % increase in finding an item while digging)
Simple things, which wont unbalance things too much but give a small advantage, and also give something for crafters to do, and use up the items you can find when working.
Of course, if players make a lot of items, and become experienced they can gain "master" status and have a chance of creating that is of "exceptional" quality which has a small extra bonus... hmm yes, just like UO!
yours humbly.
Wilcx
Detective.