From Issue 9's preview article:
Using the highly anticipated Invention system, players acquire and collect “loot” in the form of Salvage and Invention Recipes.*sobs* Why? WHY?!
Why use THAT word?
Don't we already have enough morons in the server population already?
So it's in quotation marks. It's not really -really- loot. Just like influence and infamy really isn't gold or money. Bite me.
Tell me, what is wrong with this instead?
Using the highly anticipated Invention system, players can collect Salvage and Invention Recipes to construct cool new upgrades for their characters - uber-enhancements, costume pieces and more!It's still advertising. It's still the same system. Why do you want to use a term that reveals the age-old rat race "phat lewt" mindset you still have? Whence came the origins of the word loot, anyhow? Pirates or criminals used it, maybe. Then greedy fantasy MMORPGists took it for themselves.
Nitpicking, but acquire and collect mean pretty much the same thing, as far as I know.
What fucked up PR person wrote this copy anyhow? I await the future bitching and whining and moaning that the uber-enhancements aren't really uber at all, they're maybe a couple percent better than SOs, and that it takes FOREVER to collect a set.
Do you really think you'd attract the loot-hungry crowd with this? They're in WoW and incarnations of Everquest, raiding day and night for the really rare equipment. They're in Guild Wars, farming for the best equipment and skills so they can kick uber PVP ass in a community that embraces pkill as a good thing and incorporates it from the start into the design.
You know what they'll say? Wow, it took them NINE patches before someone thought to put in loot? See, it's all about the loot, after all, in the end.
*sigh*
Words have power. Words have meaning.
When people were heroes, and had extra influence, guess what they did - they gave it away. Now people are part-time villains, and they hoard: influence, prestige, the works.
When you label and categories things into 'loot,' you attach meanings and attitudes. It's to be collected, acquired, stored, coveted, perhaps even stolen. It's a means to an end. That never arrives. That's the real problem with loot.
XP is a system that has similar properties, but it has the one redeeming quality of a hard capped limit.
Fer instance, the moment you see playing the game or running a mission as just "grinding" xp, or a "chore" or that you want to "farm" something - you're setting yourself up for boredom. Putting up with pain and misery for the sake of the final score. In this case, the xp bar and how fast it rises. As I said earlier, at least there's an end to xp. You hit lvl 50. Yay, that's it, yer done with this "toon," you get a little accomplishment boost that may or may not make up for all the agony you endured, and you go on to the next alt.
That never happens with loot. You can always get more.
So what happens? You never really get the accomplishment boost, you never reach a designated end point. You just go climbing up the ladder higher and higher, hoping to see heaven, but curiously enough, the clouds never seem to get very much closer, but they are tantalizing near...
The quantity and quality of the 'loot' becomes a score that forever increases.
The 'loot' itself? Who uses it? Well, maybe you can manage a set for yourself, a set for your alts, a spare set for them, some for your friends, and look, I've got 200 more to sell and trade with. What is it, you ask? Gee, I don't know, I haven't used it for so long I'm not sure what it's for anymore. It's just a hot commodity, you know? It's loot.
Loot implies meta-meaning and metagame. That's all very well, but once you start metagaming, you lose the fun. Perhaps not yet, but it'll happen steadily, creeping up like an insidious little bug. Because once you know all the ins-and-outs, the system becomes boring, and you're ready to move on to the next.
And sometimes, heck, you don't even see the trees for the forest. If you call it loot from the start, people jump straight into the metagame.
What then?
1 comment:
You can't loot your way to pvp-eliteness in Guild Wars. All "loot" has a pretty low cap that you can get to just by playing the game and salvaging. At least to the point 1 hp more of less doesn't count.
The things that are being trafficed are the "skins", which are nice-looking equipment, or armour. The regular old 1.5k armour does the same thing. Guild Wars economy is vanity-driven.
World of Warcraft, however, is completely loot-based.
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