Posted by Joanis in Blue Milk & Cereal, Columns | 11 Comments
Blue Milk & Cereal: Should You Be Able To Keep Your Trusty Blaster Or Lightsaber Forever?
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In both of our interviews with him, BioWare’s Principle Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert hinted that players would be able to tinker with their items to either improve them or change them in some way. He even hinted that you might be able to change vibroblades into lightsabers. The main idea I’ve gotten from it is that players will somehow be able to upgrade their weapons via crew skills.
Many fans have mentioned that almost every famous Star Wars character has his or her weapon of choice. Both Han Solo and Darth Vader used the same weapon for all three movies of the original trilogy. If we are able to upgrade our weapons in a way that allows us to convert our favorite lightsaber from a level-24 to a level-47 item, then players could theoretically use their favorite weapon forever.
However, if players were able to upgrade items indefinitely, then raid and dungeon drops would be used much less frequently. MMO gameplay, at its root, is based of players leveling up and upgrading their gear. If the drive for loot is partially or totally removed from the game, there will have to be other reasons for raiding.
Do you think people should be able to keep the same weapon or armor forever? Do you think such a system can hold up in a loot-based game?
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I don’t think you should… But, we know nothing of the method of loot yet. perhaps the upgrades will BE the sought after drops as opposed to the weapon itself.
The loot drops could be just for stats wise (upgrade) while the weapon itself is cosmetic. Similar to DCUO and other games where you have a style tab that’s different from your stats. Instead with this there isn’t a separate style tab the new stats just automatically upgrade your weapon. It can be done and you have the best of both worlds. They could even put it where the new item has a look and you can could choose to pick to display that model or the old model you’ve been using.
I think you have the right idea here. I for one love the way DCUO did their loot system.
one of the things i love the most about MMO’s is getting the “phat lootz” so taking that out will only hart this game. even tho id still play it for the rest of my life. or til they take the realms down =]
Even discussing the concept is anti-business and anti-crafter !! Well, unless you have to hand over your fancy sword and we can charge you for swaping out a crystal, heck even if we change the hand grips to better match you new cloak. Take Han Solo for a second, his Wookie was the skilled mechanic of the pair but I never once heard of him being a blaster tech. Sure hyperdrive this, droid assembly that but I would clearly state that when it comes to his life saving blaster he would rely upon a ‘specialist’.
You can see from armor progression that the weapons changed with the armor.
Just like your trusty PC, you can upgrade the compoments for awhile…but at some point even the case has to change to accomodate the upgrades
While I think being able to upgrade a weapon/armor piece you like the look of indefinitely would be cool and sentimental, they have already mentioned that while you will be able to hold onto items and upgrade them for a few levels, the base stats will start to be surpassed, plus higher level weapons have more modification slots.
Forgot to mention – Runes of Magic, a f2p MMO, had an interesting way to keep people happy. In their cash store, there was an item you could purchase, that would transmute 2 items of the same type. You would get the looks of one and the stats of the other. So you could upgrade your gear, but keep a specific look. It
dud, shall i meet some high level guy wielding a fancy, weird shaped, Im-so-superior lightsaber, Ill just quit the game & automatically throw it to the bin. Man whats with this guys? CRYSTALS! my godness, do you even know what that word means? It’s NOT necessary to make such obvious gear-scoring items, when you can just make customization to be crystal based!! dud fancy lightsabers would be such a game killer feature.
Lightsaber hilts are as different as people are different. While I doubt we will see any crazy ones in game, you can’t make a statement like that and expect to be taken seriously. Especially when the Sith believe they are superior, and as such, have wicked and extravagant saber hilts, with blades, spikes, etc. That would be like someone saying “Oh man if this game has crazy magic powers like lightning, or jumping from 30 meters away to attack someone, I am going to be so angry and not buy it!
im talking about really omg what the heck is that guy wielding kind of lightsaber. Like obviously overpowered and making the difference over skill one. im completely ok with spikes and such, as long as they dont hit the WoW standard for gear fanciness.
just because we keep the same weapons does not mean the items needed to upgrade them would not drop in raid. Thus leaving us with our cherished gear but still requiring raiding.