I don't think I've fully understood how this item decay works. Is it from time? Or when you die? All items you have? equipped items?
In SWG it worked like this, my numbers could be a little off it has been a long long time since pre-cu.
You were able to clone yourself in SWG and when you died, your items would decay. If you had yourself cloned it only took 1% of your gears durability if you did not have yourself cloned it was 10 - 20%, it was not cumbersome to clone so I only experienced this once or twice so can't remember this number exactly. This only applied in pve your items would not decay from pvp deaths.
The durability on each piece of gear was a little different but to sum it up it was like 30k durability on a chestpiece and like 15k on bracers.
You would also take durability loss from damage taken, in both pve and pvp. In general a set of amror would last you about 15 hours of non-stop nightsister hunting, and around 1-2 months for someone who pvp'd often, if you didn't pvp often could last you a year easily.
So basically, you have pve armor and pvp armor, Good pve armor would run you for example like 200k credits while a good pvp set would run you 2 or 3 million credits.
You could also repair this armor but there was a chance it would not repair, but when repaired the durability would go down from say 30 to like 27k.
"Bind on Pick up, and Bind on Equip. That's the standard way to do it"
Works fine, and there is no valid reason " In My Opinion "to change it.
Fixed your comment. At least be accurate when making definitive statements.
Nope, there has not been one valid reason pointed out in any post here, *you're* the one makng an opinion, not I.
Bind on pick up..75% of the items you can't use. That is sooo much fun, thanks devs!! I could sell em on the AH and use the gold to buy some fun, but instead i get to sell em to vendors for a couple copper. There really is nothing more enjoyable huh? I guess i could give to an alt..oh wait. Selling to vendors for nothing is it. Thank god interacting with NPC's is the best thing ever!! Especially vendors!! It serves its purpose but its totally lame.
Two mechanics used to control behavior, and have negative entertainment value. both are immersion breaking. Friends are made through any interaction. limiting interaction limits the bind the community has with each other. They serve only the developers wants. And thats more important than anything. I realize other means could be made available for that stuff. But freedom allows for the most enjoyment. Preventing gold farmers via game mechanics never actually helps a game. A strong community does.
Was a try at least lol.
See you in the dream.. The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
"Bind on Pick up, and Bind on Equip. That's the standard way to do it" Works fine, and there is no valid reason " In My Opinion "to change it.
Fixed your comment. At least be accurate when making definitive statements.
Nope, there has not been one valid reason pointed out in any post here, *you're* the one makng an opinion, not I.
So is it that there is no valid reason or no valid reason pointed out in any post here? Seems that from several posters in this thread they do not like bind on pickup of BOE. - The customer dislikes a service or part of a service, that's a valid reason. You are the one stating that no reason is valid, and maybe not for you, but for other people here there are valid reasons why BoP and BoE are bad and should be changed. Instead of accepting that you have your opinion , I have mine, and other's have their's yet you make a blanket statement to try to sound cute or intelligent. <Mod edit>
as i see it, item decay and bind on pick up, are defenses against gold farmers and rmt for items, nothing more really.
i get the having to repair a weapon, thats just more or less realism i guess.
bind on pickup, well, thats just lame, and every game does it. especially when its stuff you cant use and the npc resale price is worthless. so now the only good equipment cant be traded, which was fun before the gold farmers came into every game, resulting in items that could only be purchased by using a gold farmer.
as i see it, item decay and bind on pick up, are defenses against gold farmers and rmt for items, nothing more really. i get the having to repair a weapon, thats just more or less realism i guess. bind on pickup, well, thats just lame, and every game does it. especially when its stuff you cant use and the npc resale price is worthless. so now the only good equipment cant be traded, which was fun before the gold farmers came into every game, resulting in items that could only be purchased by using a gold farmer.
I hate that companies design content around making a gold farmer's job. It doesn't stop gold farming it just makes the player base suffer. Worst part is mmo companies are partially responsible for this downward spiral when they instituted respawn timers on camps and instances which locked out players. This game gold/item farmer the opportunity to horde the encounters and drops in games.
Once again playercrafted gear is the solution to this problem. New ultra rare items will drop from mobs that are on timers and item farming crews will have less incentive to camp these epic monsters. Companies will never stop gold farming and their just wasting resources designing clever ways like BoE and BoP to combat them. Player get screwed in the end anyways.
lighten up guys. We're all wrong anyway. There are people who skip games that have these features. There are NO people who play the game for these features. They merely accept them. One makes it easier for devs. One makes it easier for farmers. I guess it comes down to which is for the greater good or hurts the game more.
I believe it comes down to what is best for the playerbase and keeps the customer happy since it's my $50 + 15/ month coming out of my wallet.
as i see it, item decay and bind on pick up, are defenses against gold farmers and rmt for items, nothing more really. i get the having to repair a weapon, thats just more or less realism i guess. bind on pickup, well, thats just lame, and every game does it. especially when its stuff you cant use and the npc resale price is worthless. so now the only good equipment cant be traded, which was fun before the gold farmers came into every game, resulting in items that could only be purchased by using a gold farmer.
I hate that companies design content around making a gold farmer's job. It doesn't stop gold farming it just makes the player base suffer. Worst part is mmo companies are partially responsible for this downward spiral when they instituted respawn timers on camps and instances which locked out players. This game gold/item farmer the opportunity to horde the encounters and drops in games.
Once again playercrafted gear is the solution to this problem. New ultra rare items will drop from mobs that are on timers and item farming crews will have less incentive to camp these epic monsters. Companies will never stop gold farming and their just wasting resources designing clever ways like BoE and BoP to combat them. Player get screwed in the end anyways.
while gold farming is a detriment to the industry as a whole, i enjoy games so much that are not run by farmers, that ill deal with whatever they do to stop price inflation/global spam/ and fields of bots.
they may be in every game, but a lot of games they are useless and dont run the game.
Gold farming isn't the primary reason these devs keep shoveling BOE/BOP.
Using SWG as an example, a completely player-driven economy will eventually come to be dominated by the top-tier crafters, just as real world economies are dominated by capitalists with resources. Inflation will be even higher than normal, and only people who have been playing a while (or who buy gold) will be able to afford top gear.
This discourages newbs and ultimately makes it harder for a game's population to grow and be competitive (or at least, this is the conventional dev wisdom).
Former SWG dev Dan Rubenfeld said as much on his blog after the NGE fallout, you can google for the exact quote.
I happen to disagree, and prefer the player driven system instead of the artificiality of BOE/BOP, but most people don't. They don't want player crafters to dominate the market, they want a sort of online socialist utopia where everyone is basically equal, and so decay (and its equivalent player driven economy and crafting) is largely shunned.
a completely player-driven economy will eventually come to be dominated by the top-tier crafters, just as real world economies are dominated by capitalists with resources.
Actually a better way to phrase that is "the longer a truely independent, player run economy operates, the more wealth distribution mirrors that in the real world." Basically, if it runs long enough without undo dev interferance, exploits and dupes you end up with a few very very rich, a fairly large "rich" class, a whole lot of "average joes" and a lot of those just getting by.
Old-SWG was one of the best examples (contrary to what some have said here, only in a very few cases was any kind of monopoly by the ebil top tier crafters). EVE as it functions now is close, but it's arguable that some exploits/incidents with devs and the ability to buy money through GTCs have made it skewed a bit.
a completely player-driven economy will eventually come to be dominated by the top-tier crafters, just as real world economies are dominated by capitalists with resources. Actually a better way to phrase that is "the longer a truely independent, player run economy operates, the more wealth distribution mirrors that in the real world." Basically, if it runs long enough without undo dev interferance, exploits and dupes you end up with a few very very rich, a fairly large "rich" class, a whole lot of "average joes" and a lot of those just getting by. Old-SWG was one of the best examples (contrary to what some have said here, only in a very few cases was any kind of monopoly by the ebil top tier crafters). EVE as it functions now is close, but it's arguable that some exploits/incidents with devs and the ability to buy money through GTCs have made it skewed a bit.
If you remove the ability to be an induvidual and excel..then what is the point? Equilibrium, is that what you want?
"I'd just like to see more games that focus on the world, and giving the people in it more of a role, im tired of these constant single player games that you can walk around with millions of people."
One of the reasons every MMO has massive in game inflation is because of ignoring factors like this.
The truth is weapons wear out, so why don't they in the game world? That also allows money to leave the economy. I hate that MMOs are subject to huge inflation because of holes in the design. All mobs create loot that came from no where, which in turn creates money that came from no where. So when there aren't aspects of the game that suck this money back out, huge inflation occurs.
You don't want to make a game like the real world. Otherwise, travelling will be a pain. There will be lots of waiting at airports, and there is no fun. Real world is the least justification of a game design elements.
We throw fireballs in fantasy game. Where is the real world equivalent to that?
The thing is, the real life mechanic of items eventually breaking to a point when they're not fixable or worth fixing does save a market-using mmo from dying by overpowered people because of their gear. I hate this in Silkroad Online. When you had that powerful lvl 80 +8 sword, that person would be difficult to kill for a long time. And weapons never lost permanent durability, so the weapon would last forever. I like it much better when items can lose permanent durability, so an item can eventually get to a point where it's so fragile it's not worth using in combat anymore. So, in my craft-based economy example, you could then break the weapon down back to it's basic elements, but it loses its enhancements, so if you crafted the sword together again, it wouldn't the spectacular sword you remembered. These can prevent people from becoming all-might powerful and no one can stop them, because now that spectacular gear won't last forever, so they have no choice but to replace it.
a completely player-driven economy will eventually come to be dominated by the top-tier crafters, just as real world economies are dominated by capitalists with resources. Actually a better way to phrase that is "the longer a truely independent, player run economy operates, the more wealth distribution mirrors that in the real world." Basically, if it runs long enough without undo dev interferance, exploits and dupes you end up with a few very very rich, a fairly large "rich" class, a whole lot of "average joes" and a lot of those just getting by. Old-SWG was one of the best examples (contrary to what some have said here, only in a very few cases was any kind of monopoly by the ebil top tier crafters). EVE as it functions now is close, but it's arguable that some exploits/incidents with devs and the ability to buy money through GTCs have made it skewed a bit.
If you remove the ability to be an induvidual and excel..then what is the point? Equilibrium, is that what you want?
No, what ericbelser is saying is that in a player-dominated economy, having a "government" (the gms) making sure monopolies don't appear and ruin the game can very well save a game from monopolies ruining it. First off, the gms have to be fair, so someone that is doing well but isn't a monopoly ruining the game shouldn't be a target, this is simply someone who is succeeding very well. Think of this as real life, and lets look at America for a moment. The government outlaws any monopolies, but you do still get powerful companies (i.e. Microsoft). However, they do not dominate the economy, for Apple has proven to really f*** over Microsoft at times. So, rivalry stimulated the economy, and the government makes sure no monopolies ever come to happen. So apply this reasoning to the SWG system. If gms watched the game carefully, they could use common sense to prevent monopolies from happening. Flaws can occur here. So called monopoly leaders could make deals with the gms in real life, which is a terrifying thought. And, the gms must be fair and use extreme common sense to make sure monopolies do not occur but at the same time allow some people to become powerful but have themselves compete against each other with rivalry so that prices stay fair with the economy. A "government" (gm) watched player-based economy based heavily on crafting and selling (with no BOP or BOE attached, so anyone can use any gear if they meet special requirements) would be a game I would love to play (also considering the death penalties are not light, they have to at least be middle-core or rogue-like). And so far, Earthrise looks promising (as well as EVE Online)...
Heh, actually what I would say is that GMs/DEVs should be hands off aside from dealing with Hacks, exploits and dupes; and that there should *not* be a way to "get ahead" through the expenditure of RL cash.
Let players excel!, let them do whatever they want...just as in life there will be those who excell, a vast majority that just get along and vocal minority that will whine.
The job of the DEVs is to create a balanced system which is consistent to some internal logic and which functions without excessive bugs. The GMs after that have to police any bugs/exploits that slip through and any macros/hacks that exploit the system. Then the player run economy can be free to run itself. EVE is really the best current example of this (I'm just a little unhappy with their GTC sales and some details of their GM interactions with the market)
Old-SWG was another great "almost" example; sadly the GMs and Devs really failed badly in the number of dupes/exploits that they took far too long to fix/stop. (and eventually executed with the NGE) Otherwise SWG had it all, a massively integrated economy of harvesters, producers, sellers, buyers, middlemen, even brokers....
"I'd just like to see more games that focus on the world, and giving the people in it more of a role, im tired of these constant single player games that you can walk around with millions of people."
I think instead of going for realism (items do wear and tear from constant use). I think item decay is good as a control for games with a robust player crafting system. Irrevocable item decay (you can't repair the item) might be good on games which has crafting as a major game system as the constant flow of goods keeps the game economy humming without going into stagnancy (that plagues many games with items/crafting subsystems). Another thing that many games hasn't explore yet is player services, a prime example of is the usage of materials + skill to repair items (another means of control of the flow of goods/materials in a game). Another example of non-material trade skill could be something like a surveyor (gives buff to party to traverse rough terrain at a faster rate), until game where landscape can affect player characters (such as travelling thru swamp area would reduce character movement speed or travelling thru snow blizzard can cause periodical frost damage as well as slowing travel movement) there won't be any use those services.
I played on Shadowfire, which was admittedly a fairly low pop server, so the Microsofts of the server never got too huge as they probably did on Bria and the larger servers. Weaponsmiths always kept eachother in check; I remember 4 or 5 really high end ones always keeping themselves in order. Armorsmiths were another story.
One armorsmith pretty much ruled the server for a while, so a few of my guildies decided to work together and help get one of us to master armorsmith. We each pretty much dominated different sectors, like it was my job to track down steels needed. With 5 or 6 of us working together for a couple weeks, we were able to match the armorsmith, show others on the server that it could be done, and effectively pushed the price of a suit of armor down by about 75%.
It was an involved system. People that didn't want to engage in "political combat" didn't last long. For me, crushing that armorsmith's monopoly was more satisfying than anything I've ever done in PvP combat, or any boss I've ever killed in PvE.
PvP without the combat part is what made that game great for me, but for people who want to kill and loot and not think so hard, I'll admit the game didn't offer much.
On the point of weapons, with the exception of Commando and Bounty Hunter, all the purposeful weapons were either in the novice elite box (vibro knuckles for TKA, ALR for rifleman, etc) or lower down in marksman or brawler. The 16 boxes of the actual combat profession didn't offer alot in the area of upgrades, other than the occasional candy piece like the DX2 pistol at master pistoller, which was incidently worse than the FWG5.
To reiterate my original point, a decay system for items in a crafter based economy rather than a loot based economy is my choice for the "best" method. I also like investing substantial amounts of time in non-combat endevours, which I understand may not be for everyone.
Item decay is a better system... and it should mirror the real world, kinda like cars or computers.
You can always repair an item. Always. If you're willing to pay enough money to do so.
However, the longer you continue to repair the item the progressively more expensive it should get and the less durable and able to sustain damage the item should become, let there be magical enchantments that slow item decay, let there be repair for it from players and npcs, but make it all decay.
It helps out in several other systems like keeping inflation in check, keeping item values sane, keeping crafters busy and the economy stimulated, increasing player interactions, etc.
Comments
In SWG it worked like this, my numbers could be a little off it has been a long long time since pre-cu.
You were able to clone yourself in SWG and when you died, your items would decay. If you had yourself cloned it only took 1% of your gears durability if you did not have yourself cloned it was 10 - 20%, it was not cumbersome to clone so I only experienced this once or twice so can't remember this number exactly. This only applied in pve your items would not decay from pvp deaths.
The durability on each piece of gear was a little different but to sum it up it was like 30k durability on a chestpiece and like 15k on bracers.
You would also take durability loss from damage taken, in both pve and pvp. In general a set of amror would last you about 15 hours of non-stop nightsister hunting, and around 1-2 months for someone who pvp'd often, if you didn't pvp often could last you a year easily.
So basically, you have pve armor and pvp armor, Good pve armor would run you for example like 200k credits while a good pvp set would run you 2 or 3 million credits.
You could also repair this armor but there was a chance it would not repair, but when repaired the durability would go down from say 30 to like 27k.
That was it in a nutshell.
Fixed your comment. At least be accurate when making definitive statements.
Nope, there has not been one valid reason pointed out in any post here, *you're* the one makng an opinion, not I.
Bind on pick up..75% of the items you can't use. That is sooo much fun, thanks devs!! I could sell em on the AH and use the gold to buy some fun, but instead i get to sell em to vendors for a couple copper. There really is nothing more enjoyable huh? I guess i could give to an alt..oh wait. Selling to vendors for nothing is it. Thank god interacting with NPC's is the best thing ever!! Especially vendors!! It serves its purpose but its totally lame.
Two mechanics used to control behavior, and have negative entertainment value. both are immersion breaking. Friends are made through any interaction. limiting interaction limits the bind the community has with each other. They serve only the developers wants. And thats more important than anything. I realize other means could be made available for that stuff. But freedom allows for the most enjoyment. Preventing gold farmers via game mechanics never actually helps a game. A strong community does.
Was a try at least lol.
See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
So is it that there is no valid reason or no valid reason pointed out in any post here?
Seems that from several posters in this thread they do not like bind on pickup of BOE. - The customer dislikes a service or part of a service, that's a valid reason.
You are the one stating that no reason is valid, and maybe not for you, but for other people here there are valid reasons why BoP and BoE are bad and should be changed.
Instead of accepting that you have your opinion , I have mine, and other's have their's yet you make a blanket statement to try to sound cute or intelligent.
<Mod edit>
as i see it, item decay and bind on pick up, are defenses against gold farmers and rmt for items, nothing more really.
i get the having to repair a weapon, thats just more or less realism i guess.
bind on pickup, well, thats just lame, and every game does it. especially when its stuff you cant use and the npc resale price is worthless. so now the only good equipment cant be traded, which was fun before the gold farmers came into every game, resulting in items that could only be purchased by using a gold farmer.
lighten up guys. We're all wrong anyway.
There are people who skip games that have these features.
There are NO people who play the game for these features. They merely accept them.
One makes it easier for devs.
One makes it easier for farmers.
I guess it comes down to which is for the greater good or hurts the game more.
See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
I hate that companies design content around making a gold farmer's job. It doesn't stop gold farming it just makes the player base suffer. Worst part is mmo companies are partially responsible for this downward spiral when they instituted respawn timers on camps and instances which locked out players. This game gold/item farmer the opportunity to horde the encounters and drops in games.
Once again playercrafted gear is the solution to this problem. New ultra rare items will drop from mobs that are on timers and item farming crews will have less incentive to camp these epic monsters. Companies will never stop gold farming and their just wasting resources designing clever ways like BoE and BoP to combat them. Player get screwed in the end anyways.
I believe it comes down to what is best for the playerbase and keeps the customer happy since it's my $50 + 15/ month coming out of my wallet.
I hate that companies design content around making a gold farmer's job. It doesn't stop gold farming it just makes the player base suffer. Worst part is mmo companies are partially responsible for this downward spiral when they instituted respawn timers on camps and instances which locked out players. This game gold/item farmer the opportunity to horde the encounters and drops in games.
Once again playercrafted gear is the solution to this problem. New ultra rare items will drop from mobs that are on timers and item farming crews will have less incentive to camp these epic monsters. Companies will never stop gold farming and their just wasting resources designing clever ways like BoE and BoP to combat them. Player get screwed in the end anyways.
while gold farming is a detriment to the industry as a whole, i enjoy games so much that are not run by farmers, that ill deal with whatever they do to stop price inflation/global spam/ and fields of bots.
they may be in every game, but a lot of games they are useless and dont run the game.
Gold farming isn't the primary reason these devs keep shoveling BOE/BOP.
Using SWG as an example, a completely player-driven economy will eventually come to be dominated by the top-tier crafters, just as real world economies are dominated by capitalists with resources. Inflation will be even higher than normal, and only people who have been playing a while (or who buy gold) will be able to afford top gear.
This discourages newbs and ultimately makes it harder for a game's population to grow and be competitive (or at least, this is the conventional dev wisdom).
Former SWG dev Dan Rubenfeld said as much on his blog after the NGE fallout, you can google for the exact quote.
I happen to disagree, and prefer the player driven system instead of the artificiality of BOE/BOP, but most people don't. They don't want player crafters to dominate the market, they want a sort of online socialist utopia where everyone is basically equal, and so decay (and its equivalent player driven economy and crafting) is largely shunned.
a completely player-driven economy will eventually come to be dominated by the top-tier crafters, just as real world economies are dominated by capitalists with resources.
Actually a better way to phrase that is "the longer a truely independent, player run economy operates, the more wealth distribution mirrors that in the real world." Basically, if it runs long enough without undo dev interferance, exploits and dupes you end up with a few very very rich, a fairly large "rich" class, a whole lot of "average joes" and a lot of those just getting by.
Old-SWG was one of the best examples (contrary to what some have said here, only in a very few cases was any kind of monopoly by the ebil top tier crafters). EVE as it functions now is close, but it's arguable that some exploits/incidents with devs and the ability to buy money through GTCs have made it skewed a bit.
If you remove the ability to be an induvidual and excel..then what is the point? Equilibrium, is that what you want?
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/261448/page/5
"I'd just like to see more games that focus on the world, and giving the people in it more of a role, im tired of these constant single player games that you can walk around with millions of people."
- Parsalin
Same here boyo, same here...
You don't want to make a game like the real world. Otherwise, travelling will be a pain. There will be lots of waiting at airports, and there is no fun. Real world is the least justification of a game design elements.
We throw fireballs in fantasy game. Where is the real world equivalent to that?
The thing is, the real life mechanic of items eventually breaking to a point when they're not fixable or worth fixing does save a market-using mmo from dying by overpowered people because of their gear. I hate this in Silkroad Online. When you had that powerful lvl 80 +8 sword, that person would be difficult to kill for a long time. And weapons never lost permanent durability, so the weapon would last forever. I like it much better when items can lose permanent durability, so an item can eventually get to a point where it's so fragile it's not worth using in combat anymore. So, in my craft-based economy example, you could then break the weapon down back to it's basic elements, but it loses its enhancements, so if you crafted the sword together again, it wouldn't the spectacular sword you remembered. These can prevent people from becoming all-might powerful and no one can stop them, because now that spectacular gear won't last forever, so they have no choice but to replace it.
If you remove the ability to be an induvidual and excel..then what is the point? Equilibrium, is that what you want?
No, what ericbelser is saying is that in a player-dominated economy, having a "government" (the gms) making sure monopolies don't appear and ruin the game can very well save a game from monopolies ruining it. First off, the gms have to be fair, so someone that is doing well but isn't a monopoly ruining the game shouldn't be a target, this is simply someone who is succeeding very well. Think of this as real life, and lets look at America for a moment. The government outlaws any monopolies, but you do still get powerful companies (i.e. Microsoft). However, they do not dominate the economy, for Apple has proven to really f*** over Microsoft at times. So, rivalry stimulated the economy, and the government makes sure no monopolies ever come to happen. So apply this reasoning to the SWG system. If gms watched the game carefully, they could use common sense to prevent monopolies from happening. Flaws can occur here. So called monopoly leaders could make deals with the gms in real life, which is a terrifying thought. And, the gms must be fair and use extreme common sense to make sure monopolies do not occur but at the same time allow some people to become powerful but have themselves compete against each other with rivalry so that prices stay fair with the economy. A "government" (gm) watched player-based economy based heavily on crafting and selling (with no BOP or BOE attached, so anyone can use any gear if they meet special requirements) would be a game I would love to play (also considering the death penalties are not light, they have to at least be middle-core or rogue-like). And so far, Earthrise looks promising (as well as EVE Online)...
Heh, actually what I would say is that GMs/DEVs should be hands off aside from dealing with Hacks, exploits and dupes; and that there should *not* be a way to "get ahead" through the expenditure of RL cash.
Let players excel!, let them do whatever they want...just as in life there will be those who excell, a vast majority that just get along and vocal minority that will whine.
The job of the DEVs is to create a balanced system which is consistent to some internal logic and which functions without excessive bugs. The GMs after that have to police any bugs/exploits that slip through and any macros/hacks that exploit the system. Then the player run economy can be free to run itself. EVE is really the best current example of this (I'm just a little unhappy with their GTC sales and some details of their GM interactions with the market)
Old-SWG was another great "almost" example; sadly the GMs and Devs really failed badly in the number of dupes/exploits that they took far too long to fix/stop. (and eventually executed with the NGE) Otherwise SWG had it all, a massively integrated economy of harvesters, producers, sellers, buyers, middlemen, even brokers....
With the brains on this forum, maybe what we should do is make a community group. Then pool ideas, refine it. And make a game :P
Maybe just one of my daydreams, but i like it..
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/261448/page/5
"I'd just like to see more games that focus on the world, and giving the people in it more of a role, im tired of these constant single player games that you can walk around with millions of people."
- Parsalin
I go for item decay/wear - it's needed for my immersion.
I think instead of going for realism (items do wear and tear from constant use). I think item decay is good as a control for games with a robust player crafting system. Irrevocable item decay (you can't repair the item) might be good on games which has crafting as a major game system as the constant flow of goods keeps the game economy humming without going into stagnancy (that plagues many games with items/crafting subsystems). Another thing that many games hasn't explore yet is player services, a prime example of is the usage of materials + skill to repair items (another means of control of the flow of goods/materials in a game). Another example of non-material trade skill could be something like a surveyor (gives buff to party to traverse rough terrain at a faster rate), until game where landscape can affect player characters (such as travelling thru swamp area would reduce character movement speed or travelling thru snow blizzard can cause periodical frost damage as well as slowing travel movement) there won't be any use those services.
I played on Shadowfire, which was admittedly a fairly low pop server, so the Microsofts of the server never got too huge as they probably did on Bria and the larger servers. Weaponsmiths always kept eachother in check; I remember 4 or 5 really high end ones always keeping themselves in order. Armorsmiths were another story.
One armorsmith pretty much ruled the server for a while, so a few of my guildies decided to work together and help get one of us to master armorsmith. We each pretty much dominated different sectors, like it was my job to track down steels needed. With 5 or 6 of us working together for a couple weeks, we were able to match the armorsmith, show others on the server that it could be done, and effectively pushed the price of a suit of armor down by about 75%.
It was an involved system. People that didn't want to engage in "political combat" didn't last long. For me, crushing that armorsmith's monopoly was more satisfying than anything I've ever done in PvP combat, or any boss I've ever killed in PvE.
PvP without the combat part is what made that game great for me, but for people who want to kill and loot and not think so hard, I'll admit the game didn't offer much.
On the point of weapons, with the exception of Commando and Bounty Hunter, all the purposeful weapons were either in the novice elite box (vibro knuckles for TKA, ALR for rifleman, etc) or lower down in marksman or brawler. The 16 boxes of the actual combat profession didn't offer alot in the area of upgrades, other than the occasional candy piece like the DX2 pistol at master pistoller, which was incidently worse than the FWG5.
To reiterate my original point, a decay system for items in a crafter based economy rather than a loot based economy is my choice for the "best" method. I also like investing substantial amounts of time in non-combat endevours, which I understand may not be for everyone.
Item decay is a better system... and it should mirror the real world, kinda like cars or computers.
You can always repair an item. Always. If you're willing to pay enough money to do so.
However, the longer you continue to repair the item the progressively more expensive it should get and the less durable and able to sustain damage the item should become, let there be magical enchantments that slow item decay, let there be repair for it from players and npcs, but make it all decay.
It helps out in several other systems like keeping inflation in check, keeping item values sane, keeping crafters busy and the economy stimulated, increasing player interactions, etc.
Shadus