Hmm... Redshrike's journey/several-vendor-outposts suggestion does seem to eliminate a lot of the problems. With proper balance, the player should fill up their inventory just about the same time they reach the next town. No trekking back to vendors, only continuing forward with the journey. Some players will seek loot and grind more than others, resulting in overfull inventories before the next outpost on the journey, but that is the player's preference I guess.
I agree re. addicting features that are not also fun and enriching are unethical.
I dislike lootris, moreso in the diablo franchise than in the might and magic franchise. I think it wasn't so bad in M&M because the inventory was nearly 4 times larger than diablo games.
I don't usually go for achievements myself, but they sometimes encourage the player to seek out the very enriching features they might have otherwise missed.
New Game+ I can't see a problem with. If the player liked the game so much that they want to try it from a new perspective, newgame+ gives them that opportunity. The alternative is nothing. no additional playing. I agree than newgame+ is not as good as more real content, but I don't agree that newgame+ is worse than nothing. :)
wasting player's time is wrong. At least wasting it unneccessarily. A faraway place that is exotic and a challenge to reach is utterly ruined if you the designer decide that all that intervening distance, with monsters and challenges, is just wasting player time so you cut it from the game or add instant-teleport-to-wherever-you-want-to-go features. Once they reach it, sure, offer some quicker travel options.
By all means, trim the fat... just be sure you aren't trimming all the challenge along with it.
"If a gamer has to stop and consider whether to instantly sell or hold onto an unusable item, I'd feel like I failed as a game designer."
Really? ...I... Do you feel like you failed in any of the other places that the player has to stop and consider some decision? I don't mean that snarkily. I'm truly curous how producing a situation where the player has to make a gameplay decision could be seen as a design failure.
Is it because holding on to an unusable item is clearly a bad decision? It will only take one mistake for the player to never hesitate on that decision again. Same as any other obvious bad game decision.
I wasn't arguing for hoarding and dragging. I was arguing for a player's ability to weight the benifits and drawbacks of two options. If you can insta-sell at a reduced rate like MoikMellah was suggesting(convenience fee) that is a choice. Stingy players have the choice of trekking, lazy players have the choice of selling at penalty rates.
If you can insta-sell at the same great rates as the vendor, why have a vendor at all? I guess to buy stuff from them... but no one is ever going to sell stuff to them, so that feature is then unneccessary.
Edit: "that feature" = the feature of being able to sell to a vendor, not the sell-anywhere feature.
Why is the other Lost Garden stuff CC-BY, but this one is CC-BY-SA? Is it because it's derivative work?
http://opengameart.org/content/2d-lost-garden-zelda-style-tiles-resized-to-32x32-with-additions
I just copied the attribution instructions from the source. I will make it more clear that it is a courtesy.
Hahahah. The merchants are probably selling all your old crusty weapons back to the goblins.
"Email Subject headers are not HTML code"
"subject line and content for each post are likely stored that way"
Hmm... Redshrike's journey/several-vendor-outposts suggestion does seem to eliminate a lot of the problems. With proper balance, the player should fill up their inventory just about the same time they reach the next town. No trekking back to vendors, only continuing forward with the journey. Some players will seek loot and grind more than others, resulting in overfull inventories before the next outpost on the journey, but that is the player's preference I guess.
I agree re. addicting features that are not also fun and enriching are unethical.
I dislike lootris, moreso in the diablo franchise than in the might and magic franchise. I think it wasn't so bad in M&M because the inventory was nearly 4 times larger than diablo games.
I don't usually go for achievements myself, but they sometimes encourage the player to seek out the very enriching features they might have otherwise missed.
New Game+ I can't see a problem with. If the player liked the game so much that they want to try it from a new perspective, newgame+ gives them that opportunity. The alternative is nothing. no additional playing. I agree than newgame+ is not as good as more real content, but I don't agree that newgame+ is worse than nothing. :)
wasting player's time is wrong. At least wasting it unneccessarily. A faraway place that is exotic and a challenge to reach is utterly ruined if you the designer decide that all that intervening distance, with monsters and challenges, is just wasting player time so you cut it from the game or add instant-teleport-to-wherever-you-want-to-go features. Once they reach it, sure, offer some quicker travel options.
By all means, trim the fat... just be sure you aren't trimming all the challenge along with it.
Gotcha. That makes sense... I think my confusion stemmed from the fact that I consider inventory management a component of core gameplay.
Also, great example. death penalty could be 50% gold + 50% items not equpped? Ooh... harsh. I see your point.
"If a gamer has to stop and consider whether to instantly sell or hold onto an unusable item, I'd feel like I failed as a game designer."
Really? ...I... Do you feel like you failed in any of the other places that the player has to stop and consider some decision? I don't mean that snarkily. I'm truly curous how producing a situation where the player has to make a gameplay decision could be seen as a design failure.
Is it because holding on to an unusable item is clearly a bad decision? It will only take one mistake for the player to never hesitate on that decision again. Same as any other obvious bad game decision.
@MoikMellah: Off-topic, but are you implying Link was a vocal protagonist before Ocarina? :D
I wasn't arguing for hoarding and dragging. I was arguing for a player's ability to weight the benifits and drawbacks of two options. If you can insta-sell at a reduced rate like MoikMellah was suggesting(convenience fee) that is a choice. Stingy players have the choice of trekking, lazy players have the choice of selling at penalty rates.
If you can insta-sell at the same great rates as the vendor, why have a vendor at all? I guess to buy stuff from them... but no one is ever going to sell stuff to them, so that feature is then unneccessary.
Edit: "that feature" = the feature of being able to sell to a vendor, not the sell-anywhere feature.
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