It seems to be a hallmark of good game design that the things you see in the game world communicate their functionality. A weak sword might be shown as rusty. A strong spaceship might take the form of multi-turreted battle wagon. But what if this isn't the case? What if the form of the sword or the ship or whatever object would be in question doesn't outwardly communicate its function? You find a sword and you have no idea if it can curse you, if it's intelligent, if it can summon demons, etc. because it looks just like every sword. Or you encounter a ship in the dead of space and you have no idea just by looking at it if it's dangerous, fast, weak, etc. let alone whether it's a merchant, pirate or pirate killer. Assume, of course, that there are ways to get information about what a thing is or does. Swords can be identified by scrolls, ships can be scanned, lore or rumor tells you that a cursed sword might lie at the heart of the ruined citadel or that pirates might be prowling a specific area. So the question is purely a matter of physical representation. How would you behave in the game? Would you be forced to play the game paranoid, or would it push you into getting information and become forewarned and forearmed? And furthermore, what would the game have to offer in terms of conceptual variation to make up for the lack of physical variety? Since it so often seems that variety is a stand in for depth, would it be better to offer limited but distinct conceptual variations (i.e., summoning sword, cursed sword) or simply better to offer the widest conceptual variety possible (i.e., hasted demon summoning, rusty cursed demon summoning, etc.)

This reminds me of the game "The Summoning". It's an old RPG, and you'll have to get lucky on Amazon or Ebay to find it (or abandonware it, but that removes all the fun of looking). It's an obscure title, even some RPG fans I know have never played it.

At any rate, the best weapon in the game was just that; a Rusty Sword. You had to use it to discover what it was, and open up it's full power. And there was no way to tell what it was either. No spells of identify, nothing. You only found out what it was by using it.

Older RPGs also had cursed weapons that, until identified, you couldn't tell. There was little to no artistic representation, and even when there was it was often a single icon used for multiple weapons, or even entire types using the same icon.

It does make one more careful in just throwing on new equipment. It's an issue that is IMO lacking from new RPGs. There might be a question of a item's power, but generally you can tell if it's better than what you have. And you never find cursed/bad stuff anymore.

I basically use a prefix/postfix setup. I.E. items are Whatever Item of Whichever +x. But I'm also working on a old school game like those, so it fits. IMO, you should use whatever works best for your setup. For mine, with random loot tables and so forth, it's a good choice. I just set up artifacts separately, and manually fill chests/monster loot when I have to. It has the effect I want on my overall design, so it works for me.

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How would you behave in the game? Would you be forced to play the game paranoid, or would it push you into getting information and become forewarned and forearmed?

I'd play the game exactly like Diablo 2.
- Everything is usless till i've scanned it, scrolled it, or figured out what it does. If i can't afford to do so, i stash it.
- So-and-so gives the best drops of type X, I'm going there for a while to see if i can get a rare drop.
- If the outword form does indicate something (sword vs mace vs bow), trash ones I know i can't use. Maybe not even identify them cause it wastes precious scrolls.

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And furthermore, what would the game have to offer in terms of conceptual variation to make up for the lack of physical variety? Since it so often seems that variety is a stand in for depth, would it be better to offer limited but distinct conceptual variations (i.e., summoning sword, cursed sword) or simply better to offer the widest conceptual variety possible (i.e., hasted demon summoning, rusty cursed demon summoning, etc.)

I feel there is a strange balancing act here.
Games like Oblivion, to some extent feel rich and full because there are a lot of standard items around (brooms, bowls, cloth) that aren't usable for anything. But that also starts to just get annoying later in the game when you are hunting through every container looking for something of value.
On the other hand, Diablo 2 felt deep because so many items had random magic stats. Felt cool when you came across something with a neat combination of abilities. Again, late game this just became troublesome, because you'd be hunting for something specific in the mass of random rolls.

You don't want to frustrate someone looking at a mass of generic swords, looking for one that is "vorpal". And you don't want every identified item to come up with a cool stat. For some reason, I'd say go with something very lore based, focusing on locations. Just about every place has generic stuff with occasional interesting rolls. But many locations have a theme like "cursed", and so they have more interesting stats focusing around that type of item.


Kinda as a side thought but still related to how you'd portray outwordly function.
I also kinda dislike games where the drops aren't very related to the things dropping them. If you find a cool space ship that keeps shooting you with a "tachyon blaster" and you actually manage to kill it, It'd be cool if it dropped that really powerful gun. It would still be cool even if it was just a "gun" and you still had to identify it to prove it was your all powerful "tachyon blaster". Same for people attacking with swords or bows or whatever. It's nice when they drop the weapon they use, instead of some other random weapon.

I guess it depends on how many ships and pieces of gear I’m going to be bombarded with. Is it going to be like space rangers 2 rise of the dominators (fun game by the way) where I warp into a sector and find a couple dozen ships flying around? Since in that case without some kind of UI feedback as to what I’m going on I’m not going to be able to make an informed decision. Say I only want to attack Kilrathy pirates I'd hope that I could spot one from the design or radar signature otherwise I’d quickly loose interest. Space Rangers 2 only had about 20 ship models in the game you could mouse over a ship to find out basic info on the ship and pilot, ships were also colour coded by race, and each model was related to a particular design so you could spot a Kilrathy pirate ship by colour and design. Also the model size gave told you how big it was a larger ship would be harder to kill, and probably have better gear, or more plunder in its hold.

So I’d encourage you to give as much visual aid to the player as possible even if you limited on art assets. Colour coding, naming conventions, all can go a big way.

I would prefer that looks rather than never communicating information would communicate information that might on occasion be false (e.g. space Q Ships).

I think it would be cool if the item just completely mislead you. For instance, in Bleach you have weapons of outrageous power. And they look like a walking stick.

If the item had a symbol, a particular carving, rune, or cryptic language on/in it and it had to be found and as well as deciphered to provoke its true nature and power, then I think it would make for an experience in which the player strategies not only on the boss (or puzzles) but his weapons and the process of discovery for those weapons.

Speaking of ships, there can pe pre-encounter gameplay relying on long range sensors that would offer only incomplete information of enemy ship - in turn enemy ship would only react to incomplete information of player ship. This could work like poker in that a ship that would represent weakness by having a small energy signature and changing course to avoid the player's ship might in fact be a military cruiser with engines on dead slow trying to induce a piracy happy player to move in.

Diablo and the scroll paradigm was based on a finite loot table that virtually guaranteed value or worthiness that would balance out the cost of the process. A sword that my necromancer had no use for was worth IDing just because its sell value would almost inevitably go up after I did it, and I could use the proceeds to buy another scroll and some potions.

In a more interesting and open-ended world, where stuff you find is likely to be junk or inferior tech, it would seem less viable to just gather everything I could carry and scrye its purpose.

Odds are, I'd have an eye out for specific types of stuff, and I'd equip myself to recognize it. For instance, if I'm in the market for a new propulsion upgrade for my spaceship, I'd hire or train a propulsion engineer and have him accompany my excursions, be they trips to the trade hub, surveys of ancient ruins or raids on enemy installations. I'd expect that to increase my chances of stumbling across something useful. If that same party walks past an energy shield emitter, they'd fail to recognize it as such and I'd miss out on it, but what do I care? It's just junk, the same as everything else.

As long as you don't present every researchable object as a potential minigame that the player has to consciously choose to skip, you won't engender the kind of OCD "catch-'em-all" metagaming that plagues so many games.

So you should reward players who fund directed research or scavenging by increasing their chances of obtaining a resource that will benefit them, but punish fine-toothed-combing of every asteroid and junkyard by guaranteeing that even when you do all the work and get all the loot, you're in the red on the operation due to time spent, resources spent, risk to the team and a cargo bay full of largely useless scrap.

I like best games where you self can upgrade / construct items.
About all items can be generic, but every item can be used as base for building.
And stuff whitch can be found are actualy special parts for items.

And please give poor player some chance
to know is shrimp-fish sword best weapon of game. (Monte Python)

/Tyrian.