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.
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.
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you can’t loot the people that have their items “insured”, which every-time you die…a calculated amount of gold is withdrawn from the bank.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……
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@Lord Aposno
Modern MMOS are ridiculously stupid and, way way too Care Bear. Loosing only some of my gold when I die is lame when In fact I should loose every dime I have on me if someone takes it. I also should loose every item regardless of what it is if someone takes it. In an mmo if you die a corpse should drop to the ground with your name on it. If you died from a pk then they should be allowed to loot everything you had on you at the time. If instead you die from a monster then a monster should start rummaging through your belongings and taking things. This way if I go into a dungeon and kill this really hard mob I will get all the stuff he took from previous players that he killed.
The other thing that is gay is non pk zones. Anywhere in the game no matter where should be full pk, even in towns. What you do is make the PK turn grey where anyone can attack him and have guards that start running after him too so there is significant risk if someone tries to rob or kill other players in town. The other thing is make it so if you pk or rob people too much then you go prema grey or red and anyone can attack you on sight.
The other major thing that ruined mmos forever is the implementation of instances and auto porting to the instance. Every dungeon and or raid should be open world to anyone and not instanced. This mean I can run to a dungeon and then maybe group up with people that are already there killing stuff. Or if a pk wants to he can run in dungeon and pk everyone and then take everything and run out.
Bottom line is PVP/PK/Instances ruined MMOS forever and when the game companies started making their games like this I quit playing mmos for good! They ruined them by making them for the casual player and until they go back to their roots making mmos hardcore again like they were in UO pre 1999 then I will never touch another mmo again.
On the bright side of things there is a new mmo coming out that I have high hopes for. Anyone who wants hardcore should love this game…. WIZARDRY ONLINE = HARDCORE the way it was in UO.
In this game they are making it where you can kill anyone anywhere and take their stuff. Nothing is instanced and the game consists of 10 dungeons that each have 99 levels. These dungeons are like giant mazes and you get no map. If you go deep in the dungeon you could get lost and then die. If you die you have to get back to your body in x amount of time or it is lost forever and then your char is perma death. This game is fully 3d with modern graphics and they say you don’t leave town unless you have a solid group of players you can trust or you will get destroyed. A single group can have up to 100 players in it at a time and they say if your not careful your ally might decide to turn on you in the dungeon and take your stuff. Basically this game punishes death so much you are forced to do everything you possibly can to avoid death. It makes people play smart and actually builds skill instead of easy rewards to players who play like idiots. Even in town you can PK and rob players, but if you do this the guards will come and you could die. Basically this means if you PK or rob in town then the risk could be severe if you die from other players when you turn grey or if guards come and kill you. It’s not impossible to to rob or pk in town but with such a high risk it makes it quite difficult and only a really well played char could pull it off.
Anyone who wants the ultimate hardcore experiences should checkout Wizardry Online. It is going to open beta and soon you will be able to sign up for it. Also the game is planned for a 2012 release and is already out in Japan.