I Hate Equipment Bonuses (My Dream MMO, Part 1)

The One Ring. Luke Skywalker’s inherited lightsaber. The Aegis. Indiana Jones’s bull whip. The skin of the Nemean Lion.

Of such stuff are legends made. The so-called legendary objects that litter the lairs of MMO monsters and the vaults of MMO PCs, on the other hand, are for the most part nothing more than incremental improvements over lower-tiered weapons, armor, and other equipment we can cram into our character’s slots. There’s very little magic about these magical items.

The way almost all MMOs (and most CRPGs) work, there’s really very little choice. Equipment is a big (and ideally fun) part of roleplaying games. But, as realized in design built around timesinks, graduated progression, and balance, most equipment is, plain and simple, completely uninteresting.

To me, fantasy magic items and exciting science-fiction gizmos should let my character do things she’s never been able to do. Oh, I know we’ll never get away from good old-fashioned +1 longswords (which may be better simply by virtue of superior craftsmanship), but shouldn’t the really exciting, storied items give us completely new powers? Where are the rocket boots that let me fly and the gemstone that, when I clutch it in my hand, lets me dissolve into a shadow and slip under a door?

On occasion, when playing MMOs, I’ve been sucked into the pursuit of equipment that improves a certain statistic my character might have. For many, pursuing improved bonuses to a certain set of statistics represents a significant portion of the game.

How insanely boring! But it reveals what is, to me, the great truth and great failure of MMOs. They are not about stories, not about character, not even about the worlds they portray. They are about (very) gradually increasing your character’s power for the sake of increasing your character’s power.

Though that may be what draws some players to tabletop RPGs as well, such games manage to avoid the tedium of mind-numbingly dull equipment, largely thanks to the fact that a given game has fewer players, a world that can be permitted to change, and at least a pretense of narrative.

This shortcoming in MMOs helps explain why I’ve never bothered to have an item enchanted in WoW. While I value equipment statistics insofar as they let me know if a new sword is better than the one I have, I take no pleasure in squeezing out another small bonus to some statistic that is used to calculate yet another statistic that will help me end fights in 97.5% of the time I’d otherwise be able to finish them.

The real downside for me is that, once I’ve taken a character to the maximum level and played with all the abilities that come with a given class, I have very little reason to continue playing that character. There’s no carrot dangling in front of me. I can’t be bothered to invest dozens or hundreds of hours in the pursuit of improved shoulder armor, however cool it may look.

What can be done? As far as I can tell, almost nothing outside of radically different game design would help. Oh, I know there are a few exceptions. The Scepter of the Shifting Sands, for instance, is damn cool even though it doesn’t give a character any game advantages. But such things are so very few and far between (of necessity) that most players will never experience them.

To truly address the problem, a completely new approach to MMOs is necessary. In coming posts, I’ll not only gripe about things I don’t like but also propose things that I would like to see and also happen to believe are practical (hence the post’s subtitle). I welcome any thoughts, shared experience, or complete disagreement.

5 comments November 19th, 2007