10-19-2009, 01:15 PM
I would prefer to go back to UO (or EVE). Nothing "binds" because there is no permanent gear. Whenever you die, whatever you had goes with you. If we're talking about our heaven vs hell RPG then maybe the manner of your death reflects what happens to your gear.
Death by werewolf: if you took enough damage to die, odds are you took enough damage to turn most of your armor into scrap metal.
Death by fire breathing dragon: everything on your corpse got burnt to a crisp. There's probably not even much scrap value left.
Death by falling into a crevice: you lose everything because nobody can reach your corpse anyway.
Death by gunshot: most of your gear is probably intact.
Death by grenade: see "death by werewolf".
And some gear would be more durable than others. Like a sword is probably damn hard to destroy. Maybe getting caught in an explosion or particularly hot fire would warp/ruin it but fighting the werewolf probably wouldn't hurt the sword. On the other hand, it probably doesn't take a whole lot to damage a modern lightweight rifle. Maybe some "magical" items would be particularly difficult to destroy (e.g., Sauron's Ring) but standard gear would be something you'd probably purchase in bulk.
But anyway, I'm not sure what can or should be done about gold buyers/sellers.
Perhaps one interesting answer, though, would be "transparency". What if someone was killing you repeatedly with awesome gear and you could go to an NPC broker and basically "bribe" (pay) him to look up that character's bank transactions. You would see a list of his recent transactions and here's a delivery of 100,000 gold from YaoXinGan 2 weeks ago. You research YaoXinGan and see where he gets HIS money from and eventually you can trace the source of this player's money and then go kick the crap out of them because it's an open world PvP game.
Players would basically be able to do their own research to find out who the farmers are and then go dismantle them. It would be like finding out who is shipping weapons to the Taliban. Maybe you can't stop the Taliban from buying, maybe you can't hunt down the Taliban, but maybe if you could do something about the supply if you could trace it back to its source.
Roleplay wise, the game would be full of NPC "spies" and with the right money put in the right places you would be able to find out who is supplying who with what. Ostensibly this would be a tool of intrigue during wars (where is your opponent buying all his steel from?) but it would double as a counter to farmers, because "gifting" an enemy a bunch of resources (due to an out-of-game transaction) would basically turn that farmer into your enemy as well.
Farming would end up being a risky activity. Nobody likes it when their enemies start getting presents.
Death by werewolf: if you took enough damage to die, odds are you took enough damage to turn most of your armor into scrap metal.
Death by fire breathing dragon: everything on your corpse got burnt to a crisp. There's probably not even much scrap value left.
Death by falling into a crevice: you lose everything because nobody can reach your corpse anyway.
Death by gunshot: most of your gear is probably intact.
Death by grenade: see "death by werewolf".
And some gear would be more durable than others. Like a sword is probably damn hard to destroy. Maybe getting caught in an explosion or particularly hot fire would warp/ruin it but fighting the werewolf probably wouldn't hurt the sword. On the other hand, it probably doesn't take a whole lot to damage a modern lightweight rifle. Maybe some "magical" items would be particularly difficult to destroy (e.g., Sauron's Ring) but standard gear would be something you'd probably purchase in bulk.
But anyway, I'm not sure what can or should be done about gold buyers/sellers.
Perhaps one interesting answer, though, would be "transparency". What if someone was killing you repeatedly with awesome gear and you could go to an NPC broker and basically "bribe" (pay) him to look up that character's bank transactions. You would see a list of his recent transactions and here's a delivery of 100,000 gold from YaoXinGan 2 weeks ago. You research YaoXinGan and see where he gets HIS money from and eventually you can trace the source of this player's money and then go kick the crap out of them because it's an open world PvP game.
Players would basically be able to do their own research to find out who the farmers are and then go dismantle them. It would be like finding out who is shipping weapons to the Taliban. Maybe you can't stop the Taliban from buying, maybe you can't hunt down the Taliban, but maybe if you could do something about the supply if you could trace it back to its source.
Roleplay wise, the game would be full of NPC "spies" and with the right money put in the right places you would be able to find out who is supplying who with what. Ostensibly this would be a tool of intrigue during wars (where is your opponent buying all his steel from?) but it would double as a counter to farmers, because "gifting" an enemy a bunch of resources (due to an out-of-game transaction) would basically turn that farmer into your enemy as well.
Farming would end up being a risky activity. Nobody likes it when their enemies start getting presents.