Two of my favorite things about Everquest are:
1) Dropped items (or containers) on the ground: "One Person's junk is another Person's treasure."
Nothing like seeing that little (or big) bag on the ground. You just feel compelled to pick it up. More often than not, it ends up being Druid/Ranger droppings (foraged things), but every now and then it is something you can use.
In November 2001 they removed the ability to drop coin on the ground. I really miss that too. The Necros would farm the Commons Druid Ring, and drop tons of silver and copper (as well as other items) because they would get encumbered. Was a blast picking up their unwanted stuff and (slowly) making the arduous trek to the bank in Freeport lol.
2) Vendor Farming (ie: Dumpster Diving): Again... "One Person's junk is another Person's treasure."
When players sell their unwanted things to a vendor, someone else can come along later and buy those same items.
So many MMO's today do not offer ether of the above. To me, it makes the game much more immersive being able to pick up things on the ground others have dropped, or go vendor to vendor buying things other players have sold.
I hope Pantheon has them both.
I vaguely recall them saying at some point that you will be able to drop items on the ground, but aside from that here is the confirmation of dumpster diving:
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5737/brad-dumpster-diving/view/page/1
What the OP is calling Vendor Farming/Dumpster Diving is often referred to as Merchant Mining. I know Brad has commented positively on it in the past. I'm guessing it is likely to be in game.
Maybe Baz knows how to dig up the reference to Brads comments on merchant mining? I couldn't come up with it from a quick search...
Kilsin said: So far, we have it set up so that anyone who interacts with the vendor will see everything sold to the vendor by the previous player(s), I am not sure if that it what the devs intend to move forward with but it is in-game now and should be around for testing.
Well, in Everquest specifically, 'dumpster diving' referred to looking at many merchants and seeing what was at the top of their lists, but 'merchant mining' involved buying up the cheap stuff and seeing what was sold, but not at the top of the merchant's sell list. Similar concepts, but different techniques.
philo said:What the OP is calling Vendor Farming/Dumpster Diving is often referred to as Merchant Mining. I know Brad has commented positively on it in the past. I'm guessing it is likely to be in game.
Maybe Baz knows how to dig up the reference to Brads comments on merchant mining? I couldn't come up with it from a quick search...
Kilsin said: So far, we have it set up so that anyone who interacts with the vendor will see everything sold to the vendor by the previous player(s), I am not sure if that it what the devs intend to move forward with but it is in-game now and should be around for testing.
See Iksar's comment above yours - he already posted the link :)
bigdogchris said:
Should player sold items to vendors be reset peridoically or when servers are rebooted? Basically, do you want player sold items to persist or not?
I vote for no persistance because it's nice to get a clean slate every once in a while.
How about items sold to vendors just disappear from their lists after 10 or 20 days (instead of being wiped on server resets)?
There will be dumpster diving accordng to the dev's. It was a question asked and answered in this video :D Live Stream with CohhCarnage
Its around 21:00 minutes in
HAHA I remember this. When I first started out in everquest, I was playing different classes and the only way I could transfer coin and gear was to go out in a safe place and park both my characters and drop items log back in with other character and pick it up. it was a scary thing to do especially when running on dialup. I remember why they stop allowing it. When everyone used the commons tunnal as the market place, there was a bug that when you sit on a fire pit, people would drop their coin when trying to trade with you and the person would wait to pick it up without them noticing. Also I would make runs for people. I would trade them silver for copper so they didnt have to make a run to the city.
I loved merchant mining. I actually got quite a few of my Velious armor gems this way. I think a weekly cleanout should be implemented, like Wednesday at Midnight PST or some such random time. I am hoping the game is stable enough to not need patching that often /fingerscrossed
Not to get off of the OP main comments. but I always loved checking the merchant for that one guy that accidently sold his cloak of flames for 2p and I bought it for 15p.
Never figured out why FS weapons were the best to sell, and the dragon/god loot you had sold for change. haha
Merchant mining and persistant dropped items are very distinct ideas - I like the idea of going back to player sold items being available for purchase but a ground covered with litter ...maybe less so. Especially since it would impose strain on the servers and maybe produce more lag.
Project Gorgon is far too limited to be competition for Pantheon but it is on my list of ways to waste time while waiting. I am getting closer to trying it. I read it has two developers not one - a husband and wife team - but that still is too small to do a lot of things well. It uses Unity as Pantheon does and has major lag problems because of a Unity issue which hopefully will be fixed.
dorotea said:Merchant mining and persistant dropped items are very distinct ideas - I like the idea of going back to player sold items being available for purchase but a ground covered with litter ...maybe less so. Especially since it would impose strain on the servers and maybe produce more lag.
Yea, I don't really see the point of dropped items. Just make everything able to ne sold, and allow persistent merchants.
dorotea said:Project Gorgon is far too limited to be competition for Pantheon but it is on my list of ways to waste time while waiting. I am getting closer to trying it. I read it has two developers not one - a husband and wife team - but that still is too small to do a lot of things well. It uses Unity as Pantheon does and has major lag problems because of a Unity issue which hopefully will be fixed.
Having strong Unity skills on any game of this nature is a must. Unity is somewhat easy to get up to speed with and has great flexibility, but is also very complex. I have seen a number of games struggling in the last few years due to not having strong Unity skills in their team. And a game they built a few years ago needs help and updating, but nobody understands the nuances of Unitys power. This is why many lesser teams go with Unreal Engine, which is also easy to use, but just makes pretty pictures. Unreal engine is clunky if you want it to be functional and player interactive.
My last studio had an expert Unity person, but they actually left to take a job with ... wait for it... Unity.
I have zero lag in Project Gorgon. 60fps solid everywhere, no client-server latency, and I am not in the same country where the server is hosted.
Yes, it can use some optimization, but changing the client settings makes the game sing. And yes, it does have merchant mining, and yes, it's awesome. It's even better than EQ1 in that respect because it shows -all- the items, not just a limited subset.
Thanks vjek. I read in multiple places that a Unity problem created lag in any area where a significant number of players congregated - I am glad to hear that this is wrong, or if not wrong greatly overstated. When my current subscription to LOTRO runs out it is number one on my list of "never will be Pantheon but better than most of the other crap" games.
