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Reader Comments (31)

Posted: Dec 24th 2011 8:13AM Nepentheia said

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Consistency matters.

For instance, in a game touting a heavy focus on its lore, then the rewards should be consistent and in line with all that lore goodness, too.

Posted: Dec 24th 2011 8:16AM (Unverified) said

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Doesn't bother me any, personally. I get frustrated at low drop rates and laugh at a small creature having random epic gear, but it doesn't really matter.

Posted: Dec 24th 2011 8:22AM Royalkin said

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I think they should be realistic, but that is my opinion. Nothing breaks immersion more by receiving silly quest rewards that for instance, are impossible for you to carry in your backpack.

Also one other thing. If I kill a particular enemy and he is wearing for instance, brown socks, I should be able to loot those brown socks or whatever else he has on his person after I've killed him.

Posted: Dec 24th 2011 8:40AM DarkWalker said

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If the intent is to immerse the player in the scenario, then yes, it matters. Any time the game is inconsistent with it's own lore (or against common sense), immersion is broken.

Games that are not meant to be taken seriously, set in outlandish or nonsensical worlds, are mostly exempt from the common sense bit - but, even then, internal consistency matters. Take the DiscWorld book series, for example; it's set in a completely nonsensical world where our common sense does not work, but still maintains good internal consistency.

Posted: Dec 24th 2011 8:50AM JanChel said

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Game mechanics logic is something I definitely gloss over. If I paid attention to every inconsistencies in every game I played I'd simply go mad, if I haven't already. And MMOs in particular are huge culprits on the matter.

MMOs tend to be "game-y" rather than realistic. As long as the delivery is consistent I don't get too bothered by it. But gimmicks are annoying as all-get-out.

Posted: Dec 24th 2011 8:53AM Tekton said

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I agree with Royalkin. It's important as long as your care about immersion. I understand this has to be balanced against technical convenience, but it often goes overboard and just seems like laziness on the part of the game designers.

Speaking of technical convenience, there are similar problems with other aspects of MMO games, like instances. While they enable you to take some load off servers, you lose the immersive fun of being able to meet other groups in dungeons. It makes running them less repetitive than with the instanced ones.

Posted: Dec 24th 2011 9:42AM Dumac said

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Yes I've wondered about those things since I first started playing WoW, but can I do about that ? Nothing ... it's par for the course. Of course, a game claiming to be "one of the greatest achievements" or something should have taken care of that.

Posted: Dec 24th 2011 9:45AM smartstep said

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Quests and game itself should be CONSISTENT and BELIVEABLE (unless game is made unbeliveable on purpose as a selling point maybe).

So yeah important.

Posted: Dec 24th 2011 10:15AM syberghost said

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Did you check those Jedi robes for bloodstains?

Posted: Dec 24th 2011 11:27AM BarGamer said

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@syberghost "Um, yeah, a Jedi said he didn't need it anymore..." ;)

Seriously though, I think it is important, especially in a lore-heavy game like Star Wars.

That's why I'm waiting for GW2. They have stated that they are aware of that issue, and have essentially solved it for in-game/lore reasonings.
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Posted: Dec 24th 2011 10:17AM Seffrid said

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The nature of a quest reward concerns me less than its level. I hate doing a quest stated to be 2 levels above me in order to receive an item of gear I outgrew several levels ago.

So far as loot generally is concerned, that does need to be realistic and consistent in that I don't like killing a baby rat and looting a two-handed sword, for example! On the other hand, if I defeat a giant wielding a two-handed sword how comes he only drops a piece of rat fur? Where did the sword go?

Posted: Dec 24th 2011 10:20AM Saker said

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Reminds me of old low-level (newb area) EQ snakes that kicked you then died and dropped a sword or some pants say....

Posted: Dec 24th 2011 6:10PM Nepentheia said

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@Saker

And coins. Snakepants are awesome Snakepants have pockets! :-D


"Teaching Snakes to Kick..."
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Posted: Dec 24th 2011 11:08AM Skyydragonn said

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It bugs me when I'm tasked with retrieving 10 zvehra hooves and I ahve to kill 49 of them to get 10 hooves, what did the other 39 have some form of muation preventing them from developing hooves normally?

That and where the hell does a rat hide a longsword that s 5 ft long?

Loot drops should at least be partially reasonable. if the monster/badguy i just killed was fighting me with his unique looking axe, why does he drop a crappy vendor quality sword everytime he's killed?
The devil is in the details, and its details like these that ruin immersion for most MMO's

Posted: Dec 24th 2011 11:20AM Valerik Greymark said

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Ill laugh at it, be like why did HE have THAT, and go about my business personally lol

Posted: Dec 24th 2011 11:37AM Suplyndmnd said

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The thing that bothers me the most is when you have to kill something, lets say bats, for bat fangs. You have to kill 10 to get 1. Well, excuse me but i'm pretty sure the other 9 had bat fangs too since they were, you know, bats. Why not make it where ic an try to get it from the animal and some breakage occurs making it useless. Easy way to stop flooding of markets but be more in line with realism.

Posted: Dec 24th 2011 11:41AM (Unverified) said

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Thinking about it, it's one of these things that I manage to suspend my disbelief about, since doing it any other way would probably lead to either some very contrived justifications for why such and such an enemy has such and such loot, or be wildly overbalancing if you could loot everything.

Mind you, that didn't stop me feeling a little bitter the first few times I killed revolver wielding enemies in Fallen Earth and was only able to loot a few zip gun rounds...

Posted: Dec 24th 2011 11:47AM rockman0 said

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I hate it when you have a quest like, "collect 20 wolf tails," but you have to kill like 50 wolves just to get 20 tails. What happened? Did 30 wolf tails suddenly shrivel up into some indistinguishable form as soon as you killed the wolf?

Posted: Dec 24th 2011 12:58PM Hikoro said

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Sometimes you have to play games as if you were reading a book, add some imagination.
You find armor that fits you perfect? Maybe it did not and you brought it to a tailor, but the game does not show you that.
Games can't show you everything, you never have to sleep, eat or use the bathroom.
So if something breaks your immersion , use your imagination to fix it. :)

Happy holidays!

Posted: Dec 24th 2011 2:26PM Suplyndmnd said

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@Hikoro

Actually I think it would be cool to have random armor drop and if it's not for your race/class you have to take it to a tailor to use it. My characters sleep, eat, and pee when I log off. =)

Yeah, some of the realism you have to take out. Guild Wars for example has some SKIMPY ass armor and I stand around in Droks for hours on end. Real life i'd have hypothermia and frostbite on everything.
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