handmedown items

[Strife40k]

i was wondering if anyone knows if we are allowed to give old items from strong chars to our lower lvl chars like in diablo2. i thought it was a great feature because you dont feel like you wasted time if you wanna switch classes.

btw this is one main reason why i hate wow.

[Wobbley]

As far as we know there is no "Soulbinding" in Hellgate :)

[Kittenbitten]

As far as we know there is no "Soulbinding" in Hellgate :)

well, they have said there will potentially be some soulbounding, and I think it is particularly for SOME quest items, as opposed to randomized loot, rewards or monster drops.

[Shayera]

Giving stuff to your 'lower' characters is possible if you pay the monthly fee. If you don't want to pay you'll have to mule.

[Aiox]

"It's not known if all items will be holdable and tradeable yet. Lots of RPGs, especially MMOs have introduced features to make items only usable by the character who finds them. Or once an item is equipped it can never be equipped by any other character. Given how many types of items in Hellgate: London are class or faction-specific, Soulbound stuff could be difficult to manage. The items would likely have to be set to bind upon equipping, rather than picking up, since otherwise they'd be unusable to 2/3 of the factions who found them.

Will Hellgate: London have soulbound items at all? It's been under debate during development, and in 2006 the answr was no.

"I don't believe we have soul bound items at all then. It's my understanding that our system of item management will be much more similar to Diablo than WoW."
--Ivan Sulic, March 2006

More recently, an early 2007 MMMO Games magazine preview (http://hellgate.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2225) quoted Bill Roper saying that there would probably be some soulbound items, but very few, and that they would probably be very high level items. How the binding will be handled remains to be seen.

More recent info, from July 2007.

"We have some items that are no-trade. We don't do that much. We initially made that technology explicitly for quests, because you don't want to trade your quest items. We have in some cases made other items no-trade, but we don't swing that around very often. I'd be surprised if there are more than five or six items today that are marked as no-trade. You know, we'll see. If [item sales] look like a problem, we have measures we can take. We can mark a bunch of items no-trade. We can come up with more money trades for players. We can change how much gold you find at high levels. It's only a problem if players perceive it as a problem, and are running into it in a way that affects their gameplay. If it affects the economy in a natural way, that's not the end of the world. At least that's my opinion."

--Tyler Thompson, Shacknews Interview, E3, July 16, 2007. (http://hellgate.incgamers.com/wiki/index.php/Interview:_July_16%2C_2007) "


And with the Elite subscription you will be able to share your stash will all your characters on an account. Pretty cool.

[Legendhero]

Giving stuff to your 'lower' characters is possible if you pay the monthly fee. If you don't want to pay you'll have to mule.

or just have a friend to help you transfer it. :confused:

[d24e]

We have in some cases made other items no-trade, but we don't swing that around very often. I'd be surprised if there are more than five or six items today that are marked as no-trade.

wtf, it's like they know that these no-trade items are annoying but put some in anyway. Probably some godly items that are really rare to make people play longer to get them instead of just trading for something they did find.

Keep it for the quest items.

[Aiox]

Keep it for the quest items.

I couldn't agree more. I really, really hate no-trade crap.

[Mendax]

well, they have said there will potentially be some soulbounding, and I think it is particularly for SOME quest items, as opposed to randomized loot, rewards or monster drops.

I don't think that really matters though. Quest reward items tend to be not that great anyway. In GW, such items are just called 'customized' which sounds a hell of a lot better than stupid 'soulbound' to me....

[Bagels]

They want you to be able to twink, they said so a few times. I'm not sure about soulbinding, I heard something about a while back but it was a while ago and can't remember to much about it. Personally I hope no world drop items will be soulbinding, unless they add like crazy super hard to spawn Bosses that take a crazy geared character or a group of characters to kill always. Then I wouldn't have much of a problem with it, but I would rather see "Unique" items(per account or character) rather then soulbinding. Some quest items like they have planned being no-trade is a good idea, since people just farming / trading quest items is stupid, randomness > all.

[Wobbley]

Yeah i was tired last night and forgot to say that some items will be soulbound. That is mosty like the "best" stuff and quest items.

[d24e]

By quest items I don't mean armor/weapon rewards, I mean some object you need for a quest objective (eg: horadric staff in act 2). All items should be tradeable, all of them, no exception because some item is just so elite. Fuck that.

[ceqre]

Giving stuff to your 'lower' characters is possible if you pay the monthly fee. If you don't want to pay you'll have to mule.
or just have a friend to help you transfer it. :confused:
Yeah, that's called muling (to mule).

I never heard of soulbinding stuff except for the quest items.
Don't worry, chill out :)

[Warden]

Here is my issue with soulbinding. The first time i saw that kind of thing was in WoW. It makes sense there to have soulbound items for a simple reason. If you somehow screw your talents you can pay a fee and change them.

Since FSS made perfectly clear that there will be NO respecing, soulbinding items is a VERY BAD IDEA. Can you imagine creating a character and investing skill points to get a specific skill that looks awesome on paper (game description) but does not play to your liking and, at the same time, finding that UBER soulbound sword that everyone would die for?

Now you are stuck with the item of your dreams, but with a character that you don't really enjoy. In Diablo2 you could just make a new character and pass on the item. In WoW you can respec, changing anything you dislike on your character. In HGL there is no solution to it =(.

[ceqre]

In HGL there is no solution to it =(.
Did you get something wrong?

As far as I got it it's this way:
I think they just thought about making other good stuff soulbound, too.
Only quest-items are "soulbound". Everything else should be tradeable, right?

[Acaulescent]

I don't like the idea of hand-me-downs. I hope all items are BoE at least.

[Sp3tSnAz]

As far as I know they have said that they aren't and they were happy with the idea of twinks and stuff...

Not a fan of BoE, I prefer items to be able to be used any way you want and constricting their use doesn't really make any logical sense to me either... I like the game world to at least be semi realistic to its setting...

[Acaulescent]

As far as I know they have said that they aren't and they were happy with the idea of twinks and stuff...

Not a fan of BoE, I prefer items to be able to be used any way you want and constricting their use doesn't really make any logical sense to me either... I like the game world to at least be semi realistic to its setting...


You see, i feel you should earn your loot. Unless it hasn't been used then yeah, pass it down. But to me, getting some uberpwning hand me down.... it just doesn't sit right with me. I don't know. If they were to allow hand-me-downs, maybe make it so it can only be passed on two-three times max? I really didn't like how the loot was in diablo, this issue (binding) is one of the things i didn't like about the diablo's.

[slayer_warrior]

By quest items I don't mean armor/weapon rewards, I mean some object you need for a quest objective (eg: horadric staff in act 2). All items should be tradeable, all of them, no exception because some item is just so elite. Fuck that.

I agree :wink:

[slayer_warrior]

You see, i feel you should earn your loot. Unless it hasn't been used then yeah, pass it down. But to me, getting some uberpwning hand me down.... it just doesn't sit right with me. I don't know. If they were to allow hand-me-downs, maybe make it so it can only be passed on two-three times max? I really didn't like how the loot was in diablo, this issue (binding) is one of the things i didn't like about the diablo's.

what ruined diablo was cheat and dopes, some items where very rare but add some cheats they became common or worthless.

[r47m666]

My main problem with not having soul binding is it's effect on economy. In a game without soul binding, and an active economy, items found in game will almost never leave the market. They'll be handed down, circulated, traded, with no means of taking it out of the market. As more and more and more items gets found, the economy gets to be very very inflated. I remember trading a screen full of stuff for something like 1 soj, then in turn there was trading of a screen full of soj for like 1 super rare item in d2. I hope in hellgate, there will be some level of binding on equip. I would much prefer that some items don't get recirculated, and once your character is done with it, you can salvage it into currency or parts to obtain new gear. An economy based more on currency and less on bartering with whatever random items you have at hand seems to be a lot more functional and practical to me.

edit: with regards to duping, it doesn't matter how good the programming is or how secure the servers are, it is pretty likely that some form of duping would eventually occur. WoW would have been plagued with huge economy problems resulting from duping if it wasn't for the soulbinding mechanism. It could be said that a developer can deal with duping problems as they arise, but that means they have to spend large amounts of effort and resources in keeping the duping in check. These resources could be better spent on developing more content. Having some level of binding, especially for the upper end items, is a natural form of deterrent against duping and cheating, and that in itself is a great benefit to the economy.

[Sp3tSnAz]

Only thing I culd say in reponse to that, at least in my opinion, WoW is more catered for certain items that most people search for, ie. Tier Items and epics and stuff that are always the same...

In Hellgate there will be enough randomisation that it will make the market not really get overtaken with particular items that everyone searches for, as there will most likely always be things better than what you have, therefore most things will still attain value...

Im also thinking that as we know you can turn materials into Scrap which you then use for various crafting recipes, the scraps will turn into a fairly profitable economy system too...

[r47m666]

Yea, I agree that Hellgate will be a lot more like D2 than WoW in terms of best items being randomized. However, I remember in D2 that some of the best leech rings were actually duped rares (Death loop, Skull loop? I think those were the names?) and that essentially made them into upper end items with set stats that everyone wanted. I am hoping however that with ongoing content, Hellgate will be able to solve this problem.

I also definitely agree that the scraping system will benefit the game with or without binding. I just hope that the scrap will become a viable currency in the player economy.

[XaosII]

D2's problem with its economy wasnt about soulbound items, it was that gold was worthless. It ended up being a bartering system where only items had any kind of value. And as items kept piling up and could be exchanged items lost value.

If Hellgate can continue to make its gold worthwhile, players will continue trading with gold. And with good money sinks (like ressurecting and the random item attribute giving thingy) then money goes out of circulation and maintains relatively stable, allowing ites to keep their value so long as its being traded with gold.

[kallenai]

Agree with XaosII that the currency of HGL needs to retain its worth, real bug I have with LOTR at cap the gold becomes pretty worthless. I'm hoping that there is an even balance where possible of Bind-on-equip for say quest item's purely so that the market does not get flooded, but then say random drops might not be BoE. Guess the developers are considering such issues during the Alpha to see how the economy and markets pan out as testers start to get enough quests and drops under their belts. Guess its an issue that has a pretty even balance of views on both sides, hopefully Flagship will come to a even balance that keeps most people happy. :)

[Frog3]

You could always disable trading items except through the Auction House...



No, wait, dumb idea.

[Ding]

Never really played Softcore D2 but I can imagine that the maket got flooded with items pretty fast, I'm generally against BoE / BoP but when items just keep piling up it creates a problem.

My thought is to have some kind of BoE / BoP for the softcore players but not for the hardcore community since items will disappear with people dying.

[Phobian]

i hope they can make it more like Diablo 2 where ther wasn't any special BoE on items.
and twinks could be fun too.

on quest items i think it would be best with BoP or something.

[Strife40k]

yes, cheats are what ruined diablo and diablo 2.

i like hand me downs, as long as there are more rarer items to go for, hand me downs are just a way to boost your current char because you have played before.