On Dropped Items [Suggestion]

[Kjaamor]

There's been some brief tangential discussion in the thread myah about dropped items, and the impact they have on slowdown.

 

It got me thinking about something I ended up doing in many of the IE games (and indeed many other RPGs) where after trash fights I would spent a few minutes picking up and at the very least tidying up the mundane items that were left on the floor. I never intended to roleplay an OCD hero, but the impact on both the slowdown and the general aesthetic used to get on my nerves somewhat.

 

It might be a bit late in the day for this suggestion, but one solution that seemed fairly elegant for me would be for items to have a "Decomposable" tag. That is to say that certain items, when dropped, have a limited lifespan whilst on the ground while others don't.

 

From a gameplay perspective, this means that dropped arrows, leather armour or beetle shells don't end up hogging unnecessary memory, and that players aren't encouraged to play clean-up after trash fights. At the same time, it prevents the loss of quest items or significant items from being lost.

 

From mahimmurshun perspective, decomposable doesn't literally mean the item rots away, but is instead thought to have found its way into the hands of the general populace, or scavenged by creatures, or whatever. Significant items stay because like the one ring, they have a certain choice as to who finds them (or whatever such drivel you prefer to avoid having to reload because you didn't spot that ring of wizardry first time around).

 

A hypothetical example of this in the IE games, would be if in the original Baldur's Gate, longswords and longswords+1 had a decomposable time of 24 in-game hours, whilst Longsword+2 effectively stays on the ground forever.

 

Opinions?