Transferable Items
Game Items that can be equipped.
This pattern is a still a stub.
Contents
Examples
The Left 4 Dead series series allows players to hand over health pills, pipe bombs, and other secondary items to each other to ensure that the group as a whole is most adequately equipped.
Using the pattern
Implementing Transferable Items include picking which Game Items should be transferable, to whom one can transfer them, and what actions makes this possible. Since most solutions to this makes the transfer non-diegetically, the pattern can be applied to Resources as well as Game Items and all mentions of the latter below also imply the former.
For efficiency reasons, the system for Transferable Items is typically applied to all Game Items first and then limitations, if any, are imposed.
Examples of limitations include Enforced Ownership and only letting those that have the Privileged Ability to use or equip the Game Items to also be given them. The use of Enforced Ownership may at first seem to be fully incompatible with Transferable Items. This is however not the case since the enforcement may only hinder transferral to certain other Characters - World of Warcraft for example lets "soulbound" Game Items be sold to Non-Player Characters or Self-Service Kiosks. This still makes it impossible for other players to access the Game Items since they cannot be sold, and the design solution is effectively a case of Game Element Removal to create a Faucet/Sink system. Dragon Age II shows an example of how Privileged Abilities limit which
be
Companions Characters Non-Player Characters Player Characters Enemies
(Avatars are also possible but all but the most trivial cases of Transferable Items requires the participants to have the abstract structures of Inventories)
Enabling Transferable Items is most easily done through letting Agents drop Game Items, possibly as Pick-Ups. Other solutions are implementing support for Trading or Stealing as possible game actions.
Interface Aspects
Making Game Items transferable through Trading or Stealing typically requires Secondary Interface Screens.
Consequences
Relations
Can Instantiate
with ...
Can Modulate
Avatars, Game Items, Resources
Can Be Instantiated By
Can Be Modulated By
Possible Closure Effects
-
Potentially Conflicting With
History
New pattern created in this wiki.
References
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