The Division: No Item Trading At Launch
By Jasmine Henry 26 January 2016
The Division was originally slated to have a ‘trading’ feature, but the game’s associate creative director now says that this will not be available at launch.
As an open-world MMO, a big part of The Division is its looting system. The game’s Dark Zones are a good example of this as the specialized PvP zones see players navigate a difficult area to bring back some serious goodies.
With players only able to remove the loot from the Dark Zone via extraction (the loot is contaminated and must be ‘cleaned’ before players can take it out into wider game world), one possible workaround is the game’s trading system, which would let players sell items to one another. However, it has now been revealed that this feature will not be available at launch.
Speaking to GamesRadar, The Division‘s associate creative director Julian Gerightly explained that the game’s trading feature won’t be in the game at launch due to the “priority of different features.” “It’s the reality of production. Some features make it, some features don’t,” says Gerightly.
Fans of Ubisoft’s upcoming MMO shouldn’t lose all hope, though, as the director went on to say that “[the feature is] something that obviously some people are very passionate about,” and that “it’ll maybe make an appearance in the future.”
While it’s good news that the feature may eventually return, fans will no doubt be disappointed, especially as this isn’t the first announced feature of The Division to be axed. Despite footage (released after the game’s announcement) clearly showing Brooklyn, it was recently revealed that The Division would only feature Midtown Manhattan at launch (a decision that was apparently ‘story-based’). The game’s companion app (which allowed players to support their pals with a drone) was also nixed as Ubisoft Massive found that the mechanic “created an imbalance.”
In addition to disappointment, some fans are frustrated and concerned. The frustration comes from the fact that The Division was delayed multiple times in order to get it in working order. And while insiders claimed that the game’s development has been less than smooth, fans now find themselves asking why features are missing at launch, even with that extra time in the oven. The concern, on the other hand, is that the developer will add these features to The Division as paid-for DLC later down the line. There is currently no indication that Ubisoft plans to do this but with so much having been gutted from the game, it’s easy to see why fans may think that.
Tom Clancy’s The Division will release on March 8, 2016 for PS4, Xbox One and PC.
Source: GamesRadar
