Sooo, what if in your RPG...

[Kayin]

...creatures didn't drop gold?

I'm experimenting with a quasi-item-synthesis kinda something item system, and correlative to that I'm thinking of removing the logic-stretching "Random flying spider clown horse dropped 3200 gold! And a shiny +5 vorpal Lady Gaga-bane upholstery of knitting +3!" kinda stuff in favor of completely logical drops, with an item combination setup hopefully going to make an appearance.

Anyway, thoughts? I'm running this here and on Bit to get some ideas, then condensing the answer into a Video Game Design 1XX post. So fire away.

[x88x]

I would definitely support that. It has always kinda bugged me when a random animal drops, say, a bowl, wooden spoon, and 20 gold pieces. Having various animals only drop items that make sense for that animal (hide/teeth/claws/meat/etc) would be much better, imo.

[mDust]

I would definitely support that. It has always kinda bugged me when a random animal drops, say, a bowl, wooden spoon, and 20 gold pieces. Having various animals only drop items that make sense for that animal (hide/teeth/claws/meat/etc) would be much better, imo.

Exactly.

I always wondered if I had just killed a guy in an animal suit...:think:

[x88x]

Hmmm, depending on the scope that you want to take this to, maybe even have different classes get different stuff? Say, you kill the animal, and then search/skin/whatever it, and some classes get hides, some get teeth, some get bones, some get meat or organs, etc, depending on the different skills that the player has. Then, say, someone that's a different class comes along, and they can search/whatever the corpse again and get stuff that you couldn't. Maybe even make a 'skinning' (or whatever is relevant) skill, so when you start out you get small, crappy skins, but later, from the same animal you get big, good skins. Also, maybe even have the type of attack(s) that were used on the animal determine the usefulness of the items? Say, if it were killed with a fire attack, the hide might be useless but the skeleton might still be good. Or, if it were killed with a crushing attack the skeleton and organs might be useless but the hide and meat will still be fine..maybe the meat is even better (tenderized)? Or maybe, if it were killed with a lot of bladed weapon attacks, you would get less hide from the corpse.

[Drum Thumper]

You guys play too much Warcraft...

[x88x]

Hahaha, I've actually never really liked WoW. I did the trial, but idk, I just never really...idk, it didn't 'click'. EVE on the other hand...that's a different story. If I hadn't forced myself to stop after the first month, I hate to think how much time I would have spent on that... :D

[Kayin]

hah. Do remember, at least I have a real use for the info here-my game is rapidly taking shape (imported a completely new engine...)

[blueonblack]

While I completely agree with the bad-guy-drops-only-logical-items scheme, the problem I see is in how to make those items useful to the player without making the game overly complicated.

I'm pretty sure that was the origin of the dancing-vorpal-blade-of-sharpness-in-the-spider-bunny syndrome in the first place.

[mDust]

You guys play too much Warcraft...

Ha! No. Damn that game. I haven't played it in a year or two...but I will have to when Cataclysm releases later this year. Blizzard knows how to write a good, entangled storyline. I've been told I could just read the books and be done with it, but I prefer interactive stories to books or movies.

[Luke122]

Ha! No. Damn that game. I haven't played it in a year or two...but I will have to when Cataclysm releases later this year. Blizzard knows how to write a good, entangled storyline. I've been told I could just read the books and be done with it, but I prefer interactive stories to books or movies.

/me raises hand also. Cataclysm... damn you Blizzard!

[NightrainSrt4]

You could probably do it like a Monster Hunter type system.

[chaksq]

So I take it none of you have ever played Guild Wars. I have to hunt specific creatures if I want things specific to that creature, ie: if I want spider legs I have to kill the giant spiders.

Granted it's been long enough since i've played that I can't recall if creatures drop gold, some might but it's only small quantities. I credit that to animals like shiny things, and some real world creatures do collect said shiny things.

[Kayin]

Actually, I've played GW since betas, and have a preorder already in on GW2.