Personally, I think the more options you have the better. They don't even need to be different from eachother statistics-wise. It's just like clothing. In any graphical game, people like to have the option to choose what color they want to be. Some people want to wear black robes, other people want to wear a full suit of golden plate armor. Some people might want to wear a white sparkling dress and others might want to wear a shabby tunic an some fancy boots. It's all up to how you want people to view your characters. There doesn't have to be any statistical difference between ratty tunics and sparkling dresses...

I remember one game where I spent two weeks earning money just to buy a nice blue cloak, which was actually worse than the lousy armor I'd had before, but it looked nice, and I could run around and brag to other players about it.

Same goes for weapons, armor, and whatever else...

Spuzzum wrote:

I've noticed lots of people are planning on making hundreds of objects in their games -- flame swords, fire swords, inferno swords, blazing swords, etc. in the same game -- but I'm wondering something; does having a lot of unique items make a game more special?

I'm faced with a design dilemma, myself. In Haven, I want to have lots of different items to increase interactivity with the environment a lot. You can use shovels to dig holes, picks to break apart cave walls, hammers to break apart rocks, and so on. The problem is, I love having dozens of accurate representations of objects within a game, when in reality, the differences offered by the objects have little actual effect on the game itself.

In any case, have you put much thought into the number and type of items that players can manipulate in your game? If so, what were your findings?

Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but here it goes. I do have to mention a project here, for the sake of understanding, bare with me.

In Eternal World, I had a lot of unique items. Players always seemed very excited to find that special sword, or that armor that has magic abilities. I think it keeps them going and motivated to keep playing. When someone finds that special sword or item or whatever, they think, "Hey I'm special! I've got the only Special item x in the whole town of town x !!"

Having a lot of interaction with the environment is most important. If players feel they cannot interact with the environment, they soon get bored and they think, "Hey, I really dont have a big impact on this world, I haven't even made a difference!".

All of these things are what keep the game going and keep it interesting, Environment and Unique items. But note, those aren't the ONLY things.

FIREking

The thing to avoid is just expanding everything.

I've seen people steal code from other people, and they make it "better" by make 10000 more enemies, 10000 more maps, 10000 more items, and it's all the same. That is exactly what not to do.

What you want to do is to make things new and different. Don't make a thousand of the same type of item, instead make a thousand different types of items. That will keep the players interested.

As for unique items, don't make too many. They're unique. If you get a "Flaming Axe Of Feohr," and you feel all special and such, what if you see someone who has a "King's Cloak of Magic Resistance?" And someone else has a "Zantuu's Rod of Disembodiment" and another guy has an "Ultimate Ring of Gooderness." Suddenly they're not to special anymore. It would be better to have just the Axe or the Ring or whatever, since when that person gets it, he feels good about himself that he's gotten an item that no one else has.

The players who don't have specialerific items, however, should still have a motive to get one of these items. Make the unique items ridiculously hard to find, so that when the bartender says that "no one's ever lived to tell the tale," no one really has lived to tell the tale.

This is what I do: I'll make all the standard items that are actually usuable and some extra that are usuable, but the effects arn't really awesome (cologne, pocketwatch, ect.). But I will also add "artifacts" where there are only one of, example, Derothorn's Mystic Gem will be able to turn any corpse to zombies ready to do your bidding, however there will only be one, and some players may want to kill others or trade with to get it. It adds allot of actual realism and more fun, I mean, what's the point in killing/convincing them to get Derothorn's Mystic Gem when you could find/buy your own, or when about half the players already have Derothorn's Mystic Gem.

I'm in favor of systems where everyone sticks with the same basic items. There are no "artifacts" to find in the beginning.

Items can be made by players, however. That means a very skilled craftsman could create a masterpiece with very high stats. On the other hand, a poor craftsman with good metal can create a powerful, but poorly made weapon. Perhaps someone would have the ability to "enhance" items somehow. I remember one game that some of you probably know about, called "Betrayal at Krondor" where you could buy stuff called Naptha (I think that's how it's spelled) that would set any weapon on fire. Things like this make life in the department of weapons more interesting, rather than just collecting artifact weapons, find ways to effectively enhance your current one.

Perhaps on a rare occasion, a meteor would fall within the boundries of the game. This meteor, as with most meteors, contains rare and extremely valuable metals. This metal, in the hands of a master craftsman, would be used to forge -by the players, mind you- what you refer to as "artifact" or "legendary" items of significant power.

This takes the responsibility away from the designer, and puts it with the players to do their best with what they have. Assuming you don't have rare metals and master craftsmen everywhere (imbalance problem of some sort). This gives more options to the players and in turn will (usually) help you to end up with a more popular game.

Remember though.
Eventually someone will become really rich. And then other people will come and follow. So it is always a good idea to add more after a while. Make sure you add a story to it too. For example don't just create a mountain. Say a volcanoe erupted. Adds a little spice to the game.

One of my favorite philosophies is that "a weapon is a weapon is a weapon."

If you hit someone it the head with a hammer, they're going to die. If you hit them in the head with an axe, they're going to die. If you run them through with a spear, they're going to die. If you run them through with a sword, they're going to die. Slitting someone's neck with a dagger is not half as lethal as doing it with a sword. If you have a Plasma Ion Phazer Supreme pistol pointed at my head, and I have a 20th century handgun pointed at yours, when we pull the triggers, we're both going to die.

Therefore, I think having a wide range of very similar weapons is not a bad thing. I much prefer it over ones were a dagger costs 5 gold and does 3 damage while a battleaxe costs 275 gold and does 78 damage... in those games, the variety of weapons merely provides an "arm race" atmosphere. No one, presented with a dagger and a battleaxe, is going to pick the dagger. The only people with daggers will be the newbies who haven't killed enough metalslimes to get the battleaxe.

If the differences between weapons are subtler, smaller, less tangible, less quantifiable... then you begin to see people picking weapons because it's the weapon their character would prefer, not because of some statistical edge. Some of the best "quick-and-dirty" RPGs even do away with weapon stats altogether... you simply do less damage, or otherwise fight at a penalty, if you're unarmed.

I like to keep in mind some other differences that effect the price of a weapon other than damage capabilities, which are overused.

Things I've mentioned before, metal and quality.

Both can have similar effects. Compare a copper longsword with a stainless steel longsword, and which would you rather have on the field? The copper MIGHT be a bit lighter, but there's also a good chance it will break if you tried to defend yourself with it or went banging it against something hard like armor. The steel sword is very unlikely to break, would hold it's edge longer, and wouldn't even rust.

Quality also effects things similarly. A quality weapon would have a better blade and would be better against unarmored things, it would be made of more refined materials, generally, so that it wouldn't break as often. It might be designed better, so it may be slightly faster and easier to wield, and the best part of all is that they can be exquisitally decorated to impress all your friends!

But the cheap, copper sword that breaks on contact will still kill just like the exquisitally decorated well-made stainless steal sword will.

I have to side with GateGuardian... weapon quality affects a lot of things, damage should be one of the areas it affects the least.

To use your example of a well-made dagger... well, with a weapon like a dagger, damage is mostly a function of what exactly gets hit. Are you saying well-made daggers should always strike vital organs? Where you see the advantages of craftsmanship is not in damage, but in balance (which wouldn't necessarily give high hit bonuses... a good weapon doesn't make you a good fighter! Just a lack of penalties.), the ability to keep its edge, and overall strength and durability.