Player Consequences: Item Decay, No Way

With the recent announcement of Diablo 3 I felt it might be a good idea to actually look into the series. I don't know how I missed one of the most popular LAN games of all time, but it somehow happened. Since I like starting at the beginning, I tried out the first Diablo last week and imagine my surprise when I started to get flashes of déjà vu. I had heard about how much Blizzard borrowed from the Diablo series to make World of Warcraft, but I didn't know the extent of it. The item durability system in the two games is almost exactly the same. Just like in World of Warcraft I quickly figured out that only the blacksmith in town could repair my broken items. Thinking I had the basics figured out I headed off into the dungeon and start my personal re-enactment of Army of Darkness sans chainsaw. As I took damage, it was nice to see the familiar yellow armor icon pop up on my main screen telling me I still had durability left.

I continued to hack and slash the isometric sprites until I noticed they were starting hit a lot harder. Thinking it was time to repair I checked my inventory and was greeted with the sight of a naked me! Unlike its MMO cousin, the first Diablo actually destroyed armor when its durability reached zero. I felt somewhat sheepish about it, but then I had a funny thought. Could you imagine if World of Warcraft followed the same design? Raiding would take a lot longer as people constantly left to repair after every two or three deaths. Tanks would be even rarer since they would have a much higher chance of losing items. The problems with that scenario quickly mount up and it's easy to see why Blizzard changed the durability system slightly when putting it into MMO form. That's not to say you will never find item decay in a MMO, especially if you explore some of the less mainstream games.

There have been very few games in the MMO genre that straight out destroyed items due to decay or durability loss. Since there is such a large time investment in obtaining most end game items, it's a very unpopular game mechanic. Sometimes a player may be required to retrieve their body back after death, but their items are generally safe. Even early games like EverQuest, which followed a strict risk vs. reward system, had back doors for protecting against permanent item loss. If a raid wiped and couldn't clear back to their bodies, they used rogues or invisibility spells to reclaim their items. There were even options in worst-case scenarios where a powerful mob was corpse camping the entire raid. Guilds simply spent a large amount of money on spell ingredients so that a necromancer could summon the lost bodies. The developers for EverQuest may have been hardcore, but they weren't stupid.

After all, Ultima Online had released only about a year earlier and it had run into a ton of problems by allowing players to lose their items. Items were much less important in Ultima Online's combat system, but players still put effort into obtaining them. There was a lot of bad feelings over the decision to let player killers loot their victims since they were known for using exploits to win. Ultima Online started losing customers very rapidly because of this design flaw and the developers were forced to introduce a non-PvP realm. A large portion of the playerbase then simply migrated to the new realm and left the hardcore killers behind. Despite losing many of its subscribers to EverQuest and Asheron's Call it's important to note that Ultima Online has had a huge influence on PvP based MMO design.

This influence can even be seen in the modern EVE Online, which is probably the most hardcore PvP MMO on the market at the moment. EVE Online allows you to loot cargo and scrap metal from any ships you manage to destroy. Since these ships can be worth quite a large sum of money it has become standard practice to fly only what you can afford to lose. You would think such a harsh ruleset would have the same problems Ultima Online ran into, but CCP has modified the design a bit. Large stretches of the universe in EVE Online is actually guarded by NPCs that prevent player killing. If players want a chance to mine better resources then they have to venture into zero security space. The game allows the individual to make the decision to risk item loss for a chance at better rewards.

It's a very good design philosophy since it allows a large portion of the playerbase to enjoy the game without having to get directly involved in player combat. What's better is that the zero security space acts like a natural money sink and takes items out of the game. Since ships are mainly built by other players it also stimulates crafting and the economy. EVE Online has one of the most advanced MMO economies and was the first game to use a real economist as an advisor. It's been a smart decision for CCP since they've seen other MMOs try to copy their game design without understanding the theories behind it. Pirates of the Burning Sea was a similar PvP game which didn't properly reward players for participating in PvP combat. As a result, there was no real reason to risk item loss and the player economy started to flounder.

PvE based MMOs have a similar problem with their economies since they have nothing that takes items out of the game. It's because of this that they often seem to have weak crafting systems compared to PvP games. Developers simply cannot allow crafted items to match instance drops in quality or else they risk discouraging players. As a result crafting is either limited to making sub-par items or requiring rare materials from instances. There are a few exceptions though as developers have managed to sneak item loss into a couple crafting professions. Both alchemy and enchanting have a natural mechanic built directly into the profession that mimics item loss. These two professions are often the most popular to learn because there is always a demand for what they produce. I even believe the upcoming Warhammer will only have these two professions though EA Mythic might have different names for them.

As you can tell item decay or item loss isn't as bad a game mechanic as one might think. It would be hard to use it in a strictly PvE based MMO, but that is becoming a rarity nowadays. Most new games are including at least some form of PvP combat and that seems to be right place to use the item decay mechanic. Could you imagine if World of Warcraft had high quality, craftable armor that could only be used in PvP? Even better if the armor follow the original Diablo rules and was destroyed after its durability decayed. It would be a much better money sink for the game then 5,000 gold mounts and would probably encourage players to actually level up crafting skills. So before you automatically dismiss item decay just remember that it can serve an important purpose by attaching value to player made items. After all, it seems we only really treasure something when it can be lost.

	Gabriel Runfeldt has been following MMOs ever since he stumbled onto an EverQuest addiction by accident. He eventually managed to fight it off but caught a case of armchair designer syndrome in the process. Now once a week you can catch his mad ravings here at Player Consequences. You can even contact him with any questions at gabriel.runfeldt AT weblogsinc.com