Game Mechanics: Giving items and equipment to NPCs and mobs

[Haynar]

Originally Posted by jettoki [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Right now, when you give an NPC an item, he will immediately give it back unless it pertains to one of his quests.

Expected: In classic, you could give any item or piece of equipment to an NPC and they would take it from you.

If you gave them a piece of equipment that they could use, they would immediately equip it. As a result, you'd see the Priest of Discord and various NPCs wearing bronze armor, wielding unwanted weapons, etc.

Any item that you gave an NPC was gone forever. Handing the wrong NPC a quest item meant you'd never see it again.

This often resulted in a /petition, and a customer service request. Which used time and resources. Often items were not given back, but sometimes they were. Especially if they were rare epic related items.

You can pretend you did this, by randomly destroying an item in your inventory once a week. If you really need to get that part of the "classic" feel again.

Haynar

[Malrubius]

I actually agree with the OP in this case. I understand that it caused a lot of heartbreak, but it was very memorable and gave the game a lot more realism too, imo...

-Wow, that guard is holding a Stein - lol.

-Damn, I just gave the #$@^@!# my Dark Reaver - better get some friends together to kill him and try to get it back.

-etc.

In fact, dropping something on the GROUND would often cause a wandering mob to pick it up and say "ooh, that's nice" or something similar. Halflings in RV come to mind...the little theives. Not sure if that still happens here, but I think it should.

Not a showstopper though, that's for damn sure.

[jettoki]

Originally Posted by Haynar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This often resulted in a /petition, and a customer service request. Which used time and resources. Often items were not given back, but sometimes they were. Especially if they were rare epic related items.

You can pretend you did this, by randomly destroying an item in your inventory once a week. If you really need to get that part of the "classic" feel again.

Haynar

I'm aware that this behavior has a significant customer service cost. I'm only filing it as a potential issue, because it's not classic.

Equipping NPCs with weapons and cosmetic armor used to be very common, so as a feature, it has some value. Whether it warrants attention is not my call to make.