Digital Curation and Exhibition

Anthony Borell s3199196

3a
(a) TF2 Item/Crafting System

The idea behind items in TF2 was to give the player a reason to keep playing the game for prolonged periods of time. They did this by introducing achievements which unlocked certain items for each class as well as a random drop system to reward players for simply playing.

“Items = longevity”

The player completes x amount of achievements and by doing so has to reach 3 milestones. After all 3 milestones are complete the player receives the primary, secondary and melee weapons for that class. There are 9 classes in TF2, equating into numerous hours of gameplay to obtain each item.

Problems with the system include:
Idling – running the game but not actually playing.
Achievement servers – servers setup to gain achievements in a non conventional way often a lot quicker than normal.
Random item drop calculator – players can get an item in a few hours or wait weeks and get none.
Item Cap – max 7 items per week, so once all 7 items are obtained for that week the game then becomes pointless to play.
Upsets player balance – if not all players have the given weapon they may be at a disadvantage.
TF2 player base - Casual vs. Hardcore, the item system doesn’t allow the hardcore to gain anything from casual players even though they invest more time, therefore this design is counter intuitive.

TF2 is a FPS and does not contain the infrastructure to facilitate an item/crafting system.

Unlike traditional item based games, RPG’s for example where the sole goal was to get the best items to advance your avatar, TF2 only has the game mechanic of shooting, while a game like World of Warcraft has a storyline, lore, quests, socializing, economy, raiding, PvP, dungeons, etc to back up the reason to invest time into getting the best items.
Back when TF2 was released the players focus was on the classes/balance and gameplay, weapons were merely a tool used to kill an enemy player, Valve has now shifted the focus to the acquisition of items as the novelty of classes has worn off, by doing so the true spirit of the game has gone and players only care about getting that next hat or weapon and not the true intention of the game which was TEAM based gameplay.

(b)

If I was going to implement this game mechanic into my 3rd year project I would consider many of the following solutions:

Balance item drop rate.
Remove item cap to please hardcore players.
Remove item system altogether, CS:S survived with just gameplay alone.
Ban idling and achievement servers which forces players to actually play.
Remove the randomness and make all items/hats attainable through achievements. MW2 does that really well.

3c
Remove height/weight from the cards and add Age.