In a game with no safe inventory storage, how do you fight mules?

#1 We faced the same question for ZDay being survival based too, spent a while trying to think around issues like this and came to the conclusion there really isn't a way around it unless you stop players being able to trade with each other.

If you can trade then whether they are mules, other clan members there is always a way to have someone help you out with items.

#2 Yeah but other clan members is fine, as long as they are online and exposed to the dangers.

The issue for me is peoples creating accounts/characters to store stuffs, never ever logging it on excepted to perform transactions.

#3 I'm interested in *why* you would even want this, while you dont state so I assume this is PvP. While you dont state any other part of the game type, I'm not sure why one would go out of the way to make a players life so miserable.

#4 I'm trying to build a simulation that perform self cleanup, so i'm trying to tie up loose ends in the system. Mainly mechanics that enable infinite accumulation of assets over a period of time.

Yeah i'm also trying to make a game that bring back the thrill of danger that seems to have been entirely scrubbed off from mainstream game.

I'm not saying that it's going to be widely popular.

#5 From a PvP point of view, this will do nothing but render the world into chaos, ive seen it, people will hunt in packs picking of solo players, its not very pretty at all, it even becomes disruptive to those who arent involved much of the time.

From a non PvE point of view all it will do is force players into 'safe' playing if the risk outweighs the potential benefits.

I think theres a point at which you(we) as games designers have to stop trying to swim upstream and at worst try an maintain some kind of status quo between making gamers do what we want and watching gamers create innovative ways to bypass doing what we want them to do.

From the design perspective i think meeting some of these goals halfway especially depending on the game type, players dont mind rebuilding after a fall, they do object to rebuilding everything. Consider creating storage and banking to be *not quite enough* meaning they could have a small amount of cash in reserve and have to spend time deciding what few items they'd like to keep save.

Alternatively you need to 'devalue' cash and items to some degree, either make them so prolific that they are relatively easy to replace or just not that valuable in the first place.

There are many possible ways of approaching it, but in essence, denying a player something is likely to be bad for the game as a whole, whilst making storage unnecessary, by either making players use their resources as they 'progress' or making them semi simple to re-aquire over time offers players more gameplay options.

#6 Most games now days tend to put a limit on storage as say you have 20 blocks of storage that you can put things into. Some small items may take up 1 block like rings, hp pots so forth while others like helms, armor take up 4 and some like swords, long staff take up 5. It makes you think on what you need to keep or sell at the market for cash. When it comes to games of type like thieff class most of them fix it so you can steal off characters but only what they carrying while others like morewind make you keep everything in like trunks and others can come alone and pick the lock.

Just depinds on your game type and how real you are trying to make it.

#7 Add weight as a factor, add locks and traps, and allow sale and purchase of items that the player would commonly want. This way they'll be able to accumulate wealth without having to actually find a place to store piles of health potions or whatever - which allows them to purchase and carry what they need.

Yup, you really have to pick your battles. This one looks like a black eye for one side or the other. You might think about not allowing player trading of items, which causes issues if you have containers, but allowing them to "use" items on one another - so I could "use" a potion on you to give you the effect (to heal you, for instance, if you were out of healing potions).

#8 @Richard This was more or less what i had planned, allow you to stockpile "inside" the game and various tools to allow you to defend it, for example a group of players could move pieces of rock that are too heavy for a single player and use it to block the entrance to their secret stash.

Another idea as you pointed was locks, traps and the like, or the ability to hide their stash containers, like partially bury it in the ground.

I liked this idea because it ment that players not connecting for an extended periods of time wouldn't sit on a lot of unused assets.

The second thing I liked is that it automatically created treasures to be found all over the game world for other players.


Now sadly all those elements encourage muling... i'm starting to think maybe i should just accept it and move on to the next part of the design.

#9 Suggestion:

If you want to keep a Low lvl char from becoming a "mule / bankalt" you could make it so there is a punishment of sorts for not logging on the toon to play it for periods of time. Similar to what DAOC and other games have done but in reverse. Those games would give you XP or some other reward for not logging on the toon for a period of time and yet still have an active subscription for it.

So for the " Mule / bank alt" if they are not actively played or moved around the world they could take a stat penalty or an NPC / in game thief may come around from time to time and take things from them whether they login or not.


I like the idea of limiting "mules / bank alts". Keeps the hoarding of goods at a minimum to dump on a market and keeps players actively going out in the world for resources. So GL with you game / idea.

#10 Oh, hey - start a low level character off with very little storage and gradually increase their storage capacity as they gain levels, making it less appealing to start lowbie bank alts. Better yet, if you give them "bank" storage space you could only unlock chunks of space for purchase (thus relieving them of game gold) based on their level as well.

#11 If you still think this is key to your design, you can still let the player log out but their inventory stays on the server as a chest (or other container).