This is kind of the whole point of twinking though. Especially if you've already been through the content it was nice to feel a bit more powerful than the previous run through. In EQ1 you could still sell the drops you didn't want also. I also wouldn't want it to be as easy as EQ2 was. Twinking in EQ1 typically required you to be able to camp the items on your main, not just gather resources from trivial low level zones. Hence me bringing up that it would be totally ok with me if you needed max level crafting skill and materials to create the twink items. Typically when I would twink out a friend it wasn't to rob them of content, but so they could join me and experience the true greatness of eq, grouping with friends. No NPC based quest or dungeon is ever going to be exciting if you're not doing it with other people. Besides, 90% of the time twinks are people who have already played through and want to have a little more fun on their alts.
I am not against people who want to twink, I have some personal dislikes from certain experiences of it, but in the end, if you earned the reward, you should be able to do with it as you please and I would much rather see a level 1 running around in some nice level 30 dropped item than have them put tons of restrictions on gear.
That said, remember how you couldn't "overpower" content in EQ like you could in other games? That is, you could put higher level items on a low level character and it didn't make them gods. It made them strong, but the system of how EQ characters progressed was closely tied to the characters attributes and skills. A gear piece, regardless of its power would not allow the player to run in and destroy mobs as if they were the level of the gear they were wearing. There were some types of gear effects and abilities that did allow some content to be made easy, but most of it was constrained by that relationship between the character attributes and skills.
Compare that to EQ 2 where gear power directly translated to that characters performance. By putting on the rare and powerful gear, players could wade through content that would normally require a group. Granted this problem had a lot to do with the way the game slowly degraded over the years, but the point is that gear aided in being a detriment to the social nature of the game.
So it really comes down to the systems in place. Twinking in EQ wasn't that big of an issue as it took an enormous amount of time to level anyway and as I said, gear didn't make you superman, it was a tool, not a savior. Also, items took a long while to obtain, so it isn't like some new player is going to be able to step in and deck themselves out.
My worst experience with twinking though was playing a monk, who pre-Kunark was massively skill dependent. That is, gear wasn't very powerful for the class, monks used their hands, so no damage increases based on items. Monks had a weight limit that would reduce a monks ability to take damage very well. In most cases, monks had no need for money, nor for most gear. They were a completely self sufficient class that required play time to improve. They were the worst choice for twinking because you really couldn't twink them. It made being a monk "special" in that it was a sign of the effort you put into the class.
That was until Kunark where numerous demands during beta was to have monk weapons and more gear. This imbalanced the class and opened the doors to twinking. Soon after release, you could see iksar twinks all over the place. Fungi tunic, Tranquil staffs, etc... which necromancers would perm farm solo for their twinks. Their gear didn't make them good players though, in fact it became a running joke.
The other negative thing about twinking is the looting quarrels that erupt from it. You get the arguments of "well, I could use that on my alt!". Considering how difficult it was to obtain items in EQ, it was a bit infuriating to hear some solo caster go on about how they deserved to roll for an item that was on a toon they were too lazy to play because it couldn't solo well and was difficult to level up.
Anyway, those are my little pet peeves. I can live with them though, providing that alting is as long and painful as it was in EQ. This keeps the desire to twink limited. If it is easy to alt, easy to level up, gear drives success, etc... the twinking will become a massive problem which creates perma camping, massive economy spikes, and trivial content.
The thing that annoys me about crafting in games is that most do not have an appreciation for how difficult the apprentice system actually was. Knowledge wasn't freely available, and the apprentice had to spend their life to become a master at a single craft. One person knowing multiple crafts was simply out of the question, as masters were not eager to take apprentices that failed at another craft. So, the concept of every player being able to engage in every crafting skill isn't based on real world aspects. It loses some aspects of trying to be realistic, or to have realistic limits.
The counter to that is a system similar to LotRO, where each character gets a specific profession, with some supporting harvesting skills. Better, it keeps a player from being a universal craftsman, master of all crafts. But that only works as long as there are no alternate characters available, either on the same account or additional accounts. Using an alt to bypass restrictions of the game is simply a way of meta-gaming around the restrictions, not adapting to them.
Ultimately, allowing people to engage in each type of crafting discourages person-to-person interactions. Trading slows to a stop. Imagine making brass hinges using the metalworking skill for the carpenter to build a cabinet. Normally, the carpenter would contact a metalworker and contract the goods needed. Byt since most games allow everyone can do everything for themselves, even if it involves a dozen alts to cover all the crafting skills, the carpenter switches to his metalworker, makes the items and passes them back. Zero player-to-player interaction. A game striving to focus on player-to-player interactions should also try to prevent everyone from doing everything for themselves, shouldn't it?
The other big fallacy with allowing every player to be everything is that a realistic economy would not function properly. A village of 150 people simply has no need for 80 blacksmiths operating in the area.
Learning a craft was a privilege, controlled by the masters and later the guilds. Allowing anyone to learn anything pushes my Suspension of Disbelief rather severely.
Any while we're venting on crafting, can we please move away from the 'build-complete-item-for-skill-incrase-chance' model? Items were built on commission, not speculation, until pretty much the Renaissance. It floods the NPC vendor with hundreds-to-thousands of Plate Mail Spatulas from people trying to skill-up a specific skill. And, can I play one of the vendors with limitless money and storage? I certainly won't buy up more useless inventory that I can possibly sell in a dozen lifetimes, just because Joe wants to bang on an anvil.
(Yes, it's a game. But I can hope for a simulation, something that at least gives a nod to real world situations.)
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Comments
That said, remember how you couldn't "overpower" content in EQ like you could in other games? That is, you could put higher level items on a low level character and it didn't make them gods. It made them strong, but the system of how EQ characters progressed was closely tied to the characters attributes and skills. A gear piece, regardless of its power would not allow the player to run in and destroy mobs as if they were the level of the gear they were wearing. There were some types of gear effects and abilities that did allow some content to be made easy, but most of it was constrained by that relationship between the character attributes and skills.
Compare that to EQ 2 where gear power directly translated to that characters performance. By putting on the rare and powerful gear, players could wade through content that would normally require a group. Granted this problem had a lot to do with the way the game slowly degraded over the years, but the point is that gear aided in being a detriment to the social nature of the game.
So it really comes down to the systems in place. Twinking in EQ wasn't that big of an issue as it took an enormous amount of time to level anyway and as I said, gear didn't make you superman, it was a tool, not a savior. Also, items took a long while to obtain, so it isn't like some new player is going to be able to step in and deck themselves out.
My worst experience with twinking though was playing a monk, who pre-Kunark was massively skill dependent. That is, gear wasn't very powerful for the class, monks used their hands, so no damage increases based on items. Monks had a weight limit that would reduce a monks ability to take damage very well. In most cases, monks had no need for money, nor for most gear. They were a completely self sufficient class that required play time to improve. They were the worst choice for twinking because you really couldn't twink them. It made being a monk "special" in that it was a sign of the effort you put into the class.
That was until Kunark where numerous demands during beta was to have monk weapons and more gear. This imbalanced the class and opened the doors to twinking. Soon after release, you could see iksar twinks all over the place. Fungi tunic, Tranquil staffs, etc... which necromancers would perm farm solo for their twinks. Their gear didn't make them good players though, in fact it became a running joke.
The other negative thing about twinking is the looting quarrels that erupt from it. You get the arguments of "well, I could use that on my alt!". Considering how difficult it was to obtain items in EQ, it was a bit infuriating to hear some solo caster go on about how they deserved to roll for an item that was on a toon they were too lazy to play because it couldn't solo well and was difficult to level up.
Anyway, those are my little pet peeves. I can live with them though, providing that alting is as long and painful as it was in EQ. This keeps the desire to twink limited. If it is easy to alt, easy to level up, gear drives success, etc... the twinking will become a massive problem which creates perma camping, massive economy spikes, and trivial content.
Yes. Yes. and Yes. Star Wars Galaxies was the very best. So hoping we can get some of that in Pantheon.
The counter to that is a system similar to LotRO, where each character gets a specific profession, with some supporting harvesting skills. Better, it keeps a player from being a universal craftsman, master of all crafts. But that only works as long as there are no alternate characters available, either on the same account or additional accounts. Using an alt to bypass restrictions of the game is simply a way of meta-gaming around the restrictions, not adapting to them.
Ultimately, allowing people to engage in each type of crafting discourages person-to-person interactions. Trading slows to a stop. Imagine making brass hinges using the metalworking skill for the carpenter to build a cabinet. Normally, the carpenter would contact a metalworker and contract the goods needed. Byt since most games allow everyone can do everything for themselves, even if it involves a dozen alts to cover all the crafting skills, the carpenter switches to his metalworker, makes the items and passes them back. Zero player-to-player interaction. A game striving to focus on player-to-player interactions should also try to prevent everyone from doing everything for themselves, shouldn't it?
The other big fallacy with allowing every player to be everything is that a realistic economy would not function properly. A village of 150 people simply has no need for 80 blacksmiths operating in the area.
Learning a craft was a privilege, controlled by the masters and later the guilds. Allowing anyone to learn anything pushes my Suspension of Disbelief rather severely.
Any while we're venting on crafting, can we please move away from the 'build-complete-item-for-skill-incrase-chance' model? Items were built on commission, not speculation, until pretty much the Renaissance. It floods the NPC vendor with hundreds-to-thousands of Plate Mail Spatulas from people trying to skill-up a specific skill. And, can I play one of the vendors with limitless money and storage? I certainly won't buy up more useless inventory that I can possibly sell in a dozen lifetimes, just because Joe wants to bang on an anvil.
(Yes, it's a game. But I can hope for a simulation, something that at least gives a nod to real world situations.)
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.