A Positive Review of Wyvern's Magic Item Usage

[igorith]

I have played alot of computer games in my time, and alot that were not so good. Games like Lord of the Rings Online, Demigod, and the Fallout series were among my least favorite, whereas Sryth, World of Warcraft, and Runescape are among some of my most favorite. However, there is one seriously bad re-occuring problem in role-playing games: overpowering and spoiling players. Much in contrast to some of the big-name titles like World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings online, Wyvern does a VERY good job of NOT spoiling the small amount of players they have.

That is among one of my most favorite things about Wyvern. The wizards are extremely stingy on magic items. If you look at some of the big-name titles in comparision to Wyvern, like WOW (World of Warcraft) or LOTRO (Lord of the Rings Online), Wyvern does a great job of maintaining a balanced game, especially considering the small player population (both in overall players and in people online). I know from experience that the bigger games (especially WOW) have a terrible problem with spoiling players. In World of Warcraft, at level 85 (current level cap), you get the same amount of money for walking across a field and saying something to an NPC that you used to have to spend days or even weeks working for. Whats worse is that while mounts used to be a very rare and hard-to-get thing on WOW, now they hand them out like candy. Most WOW players (myself sometimes included) don't know the value of working hard for a good item.

Now, this is all given the fact that bigger games tend to have much more publicity than Wyvern does, but even so the Wizards of Wyvern do a good job in keeping ther players interest and keeping the economy stable. You may think its almost backwards thinking, but I would much rather have very little magic items and savor what I have than have too many magic items and throw away whatever I don't need. Honestly, I would compare Wyvern's overall stability to that of World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings Online; for such a basic design and small player pool, Wyvern does a great job of player managment on both a small-scale and large-scale basis.