Well, honestly, I've been playing EQ about 2 weeks now, and it's kinda
funny to see the outrage of many people at the old MUD tactics
surfacing on the revitalized online playing.
It simply comes down to this, those who twink are completely blind
(voluntarily) to the fact that it does affect other gamers, however
slight the effect may be in certain cases. Level reqs for equipment
have existed for YEARS in the MUD/MERC world and have had no serious
gameplay flaws leveled at them yet. Although, general DIKU mud types
without level reqs had all sorts of people complaining about not having
a higher level sugar daddy to twink them.
Yes, there are a couple of folks who worked and labored to get their
power character together begin the sugar daddy process and they have
the rights to it. But they appreciate the difficulty of making it
there alone, and would usually be at least a little moderated in the
doling out of great stuffs.
The problem almost always occurs with the first generation of lev 50
twinks. (or whatever the lev max was for the particular MUD) These are
people who have little to no sense of time investment and patience.
They bolt for the levs, spells and abilities, hell bent on obtaining
bragging rights on being the fastest to kill a certain mob from lev 1,
or being the lowest lev char to kill a certain mob.
They have very little sense of teamwork with other players, and
generally do not group well with non-twinks, because they tend to rely
on the strength of the equipment to win the day over their character
abilities. This doesn't work with non-twinks, since their lack of
super stuff is little to non-existant, so when the group dies, the
twink blames his teammates, when in reality, equipped with what he
himself could appropriate, he would normally fare worse.
Level req'd items have worked fine for years, and not only has it
removed the "majority" of twinking (not all. no one is stupid enough to
say all lev 15 eq is the same) Goals are now for groups to work to
obtain that borderline equipment. But, if it happens to be a couple
levs over the group in strength, you can bet a character out there 2
levs up will pay top dollar for it. This opens up the trade market a
bit more for lower lev characters.
To sum up, the only people who have really complained of equipment
level requirements are the twinks themselves. Other gamers take it in
stride, and it even provides that unofficial quest syndrome the "Level
13 Shiny Brass Shield quest" would be followed by quite a few.
As for implementation, it's simple. The standing rule was always level
of the mob = level of the loot. Providing a level flag to the basic
object types in code is neither time consuming nor difficult, proper
testing would be done and it could be implemented without a great deal
of hassle, except the twinks screaming in horror now that their lev 14
character can't sweep crushbone alone anymore.
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