Tomorrow’s dawn (or tonight’s midnight, for those of you who are truly desperate) brings a newness into our hearts, a Diablo-shaped hole which shall be filled. The third entry in the Diablo series reaches us with much pomp, circumstance, and tetchy gnashing of teeth, but one way or another, it is certainly anticipated. With the advent of its coming, it is time to celebrate one of the greatest gaming features that Diablo made famous:
Random loot.
Some of the greatest games of all time have implemented a random loot system of some kind, and some games have treated the concept of random loot like a new kind of Red Words, its very existence a motivating, discriminating, and zealous appeasement to the jealous gods of random gratification. Borderlands, Phantasy Star Online, Mass Effect, Monster Hunter, Elder Scrolls, World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy… Each of these games has implemented a random loot system in some way or another. But what we are here to celebrate, my friends, is the wildest forms thereof: the systems that are just that much more random than others. Some, like Final Fantasy, have a system where certain items only drop from certain enemies. To these systems, I say nay nay.
It is the systems that have unique rare drops, multiple randomly generated effects on a single item, that truly excel and shine. Diablo and Torchlight, of course, give us these in spades. Borderlands was so freakin’ random, it would drop shotguns that fired rockets. PSO mixed both worlds, having some of the truly random effects, some incredible unique items, and another random rare drop called Photon Drops which could be exchanged en masse for equally incredible uniques.
So here’s a toast, ye creators and imaginators! Your efforts have spawned one of the greatest features in all of gamedom, this fix that combines action gaming with the same basic mental rush as gambling. I call upon all game designers: is there ever a reason NOT to have random loot? Obviously some games have little to benefit from such a thing (there’s only so much you can do with random drops and sudoku), but action games can only benefit. Sure, it involves a little more risk for the developer, and a little more time invested in the process. But the key here, o developers, is letting go. So much of our gamespace is occupied by experiences so closely and carefully choreographed. The whole experience is metered, slowly oozed to the player as a mad scientist carefully tries to add that one drop of the glowing green fluid from the vial in his hand into the massive vat below. There are no chances being taken, no randomness and chaos to be found. What chaos you get, in a single-player Call of Duty game, is controlled, scripted chaos, a blasphemy against the very nature of chaos’ existence.
So take the time, yon developers. Take the risk. Swallow the red pill, and inject a little chaos into all of our lives.
(Image courtesy of Nerf Now)
