Seriously, don’t! It seems as MMORPGs become more mainstream, more casual, certain game aspects that once made MMORPGs what they are are slowly being removed. Looting is one of these features. Back in the day of Ultima Online, Asherons Call and a few other MMORPGs, when you killed someone not only would you receive XP, but you could also loot their bodies. As they lay lifeless infront of your mighty Mage, or whatever, you could rummage through their body removing whatever gold and items you choose. Not anymore, not only can you not loot items from players, you can’t even get a percentage of their money. As for the player that was defeated, most likely they won’t even receive any serious penalty.

Why have developers given up on looting systems? Is it because the penalty for death is too great? Perhaps, I mean no one wants to lose any of their epic items because they lost a fight. Today most games have abandoned all looting, even losing money has become too great of a penalty. In order to capture the greater gaming market, casual gamers, MMORPGs have become easy. With little to no penalty for death and no looting penalty, MMORPGs are becoming stale. There’s an excitement when you know you could lose something important, whether it be some money or perhaps an item. It gives the game an added depth that you can’t get when you don’t need to worry about anything, except maybe losing a few mins traveling back to where you died.

So what’s a hardcore gamer to do. There is some hope out there, Eve Online currently allows PvP and looting and the upcoming Darkfall does as well. Perhaps others will follow.