Blizzard announced recently that World of Warcraft items would be given "durability". Here's some info on what "durability" means within the context of the game: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patch...10-11-04.shtml

Now, the value of this system can be argued, but ultimately, it boils down to being a money sink. It's a way for Blizzard to get money out of circulation. The problem is the system works fine versus the high level characters that rake in gold hand over fist. But, for people like me, the money is not readily available to fix my weapons every time I return to town after a fight. That money is needed to cover the cost of learning my warrior specific skills, buying a horse, buying trade goods, etc.

I've been too busy to play WoW since the implementation of Durability, so I can't really talk about how trivial or bad it is. But, I can say that it doesn't make me, personally, happy. For a casual gamer that just wants to log on and play for an hour here and there, this is another drawback.

It won't stop me from playing the game... but it will probably become the subject of quite a few mean comics strips, if it sucks, I'm sure.

--- editted to add my 15 minute experience with the durability system ---



Here's my brief report on the durability system. NOTE: this is only a 15 minute trial (I have too much else to do).

15 minutes.
I killed 15 mobs between 40 and 43 (I'm level 50).

I lost 18 durability points on my armor from a total of 480. About 3.75%.
I lost 3 durability points on my sword from a total of 85. About 3.5%.

It cost me 3 silver 72 copper to repair the lost durability. I looted just over 20s.

All in all that's not bad. The only real problem was that there wasn't someone at Camp Mojache to fix my items, so I had to hearthstone back to Ogrimmar.

Heh, seems like most games are adding some kind of durability to their items. I think they learned from EQ1 where there was hardly any items that would cause money to go out of circulation.


Anyway, good stip big guy, keep it up.

So far repairing my items has been pretty cheap actually. I'm level 14 now and I've paid 1 silver when all my items were all below half their durability. Yesterday my warrior fought for about an hour and repairs cost 19 coppers. Timewise I can fit it in with selling any loot I have. It's a very minor moneysink.

btw I really don't see how this affects casual players more than fulltime players.

Liked the comic though :P

In EQ2 they have something similar. So far the cost has been minimal and the issue hasn't been to great.
I'll admit that it does add a little to the game in the way of realism, but does take away from the fantasy feel.
I mean, lets face it, if your weilding a weapon that is an artifact of legend, the idea you need to take it to the local tinker who will pound on it with cheap hammer for an hour and "make it all better", is kinda lame.

But hey, it's either play these games or actually listen to what my wife is saying. So I guess I'll play by thier rules.

It has always worked quite well in Dark Age of Camelot. Durability is excellent in crafting oriented games as well. I'm not in the World of WarCraft beta, so I can't comment on how well it works there, but previously I've always been happy about it because it creates a more dynamic economy.

Judging by people's responses, I could say my own response is justified. You can't really complain about a system that you haven't even tried yet! From my best guess, Durability doesn't go down fast enough, and doesn't cost that much money in order for it to be a real hassle to the casual player. Come on Woody, I don't mind if you make a bad strip when you're informed on an issue, and hey, the comic today is pretty funny, but you can't honestly have negative feelings for something like this without having actually played the game.

Since they've lifted the NDA now I can say that it's almost identical to EQ2. My poor little level 7 fighter has had just about all his armor go broke in something like 3 fights. Not only does he now have to find out how to get it repaired but when items reach zero condition they automatically unequip so his inventory is overflowing and I have nowhere to put it since bank is full too and I've only seen 4 slot bags for sale (and those I can't afford to often either)!

Now I don't mind durability when it's tuned appropriately. SWG had it at a very acceptable level I thought - loose 5% on equipped gear unless you've insured it in which case it was 1%. SWG account is closed currently so it may be they've changed it but I hope not since I'm planning to reactive since I down think EQ2 will be anything for me. I do expect that both EQ2 and WoW will get the durability issues adjusted to more reasonable levels but in EQ2 there is simply to much other stuff that rubs me the wrong way.

Great Comic Woody. As always you deliver high quality work

Funky-1, it's actually 10 percent per death that you loose in EQ2. Hehe, so I guess you forgot about a couple deaths.

<- Beta tester

Durability doesn't bother me too much. Items never break, the cost isn't a big deal, and you can get repairs done at any town. It's a lot more like Diablo durability. It probably needs fine tuning, for example, having more durability or having it last longer, but I don't see it as a problem. I play a 42 Druid, 41 Shaman, and 30 Priest. I don't know how much or if this hurts a tank more than other classes. Both my Druid and my Shaman are Tauren so I also don't have the perspective of someone who would buy a mount.

edit: Also, gear doesnt become partially effective at partial durability like in DAoC; it just goes to 0 effectiveness at 0 durability until it is repaired.

Item Decay/Durability is a thorn I truely detest. Its one of the reasons I was gravitating towards WoW rather than EQ2. I already canceled my WoW preorder for now, until everyone gets a chance to field test it and see how bad or tolerable it is. In all honesty tho, I do believe the system should be in the game, or at least any sort of money sink that the players cant opt out of in order to have some semblance of a control of the economy. But if all new games continue to include stuff like this it makes me realize more and more each release that maybe no new mmorpg will be truly friendly towards any sort of player that has real life to contend with and can only play an hour or 2 every couple of days. It would be nice if they could think of another system that wont hurt low level casual players as much as the current item damage system they have in place.

PS: I truly feel sorry for any of the classes that melee, cuz this truly does hurt them the most. I dont know if they intend for casters or people not on the frontlines to have some sort of item damage but they really should make it fair and have everyone incur some sort of item damage during combat rather than the tank and melee people taking the brunt of the item repair costs.

Undraxis Skye
67 Magician of Quellious