Color-Coded Loot

Overview

Many games with RPG elements focus heavily on random loot drops, which can lead to large volumes of items available to players that can take up valuable inventory space. Knowing which items are valuable can be a laborious task if the player is forced to compare stats & abilities for each individual piece of loot. Color-coding these items gives the player a quick visual representation of their worth and/or rarity, allowing them to quickly decide which ones they might want to keep, and which ones can be discarded.

While general loot gathering in games has been around for a long time, it was Diablo II and World of Warcraft that popularized the concept of color-coding their loot. Soon after, many other MMOs and RPGs also adopted this concept. With its popularity spreading, it has begun showing up in more genres, with action games like Borderlands, Darksiders II and Dead Island all incorporating colored loot as well.

Color Scale

The color scale used between games has stayed remarkably consistent. Generally speaking, Grey & White items are of the lowest value, Green & Blue items are of middling worth, and Purple, Yellow, & Orange items are the most rare & of the highest quality. Although it should be noted that an item's color is not it's sole basis for worth; loot is often also associated with a level, meaning a higher level Green item might have better stats than a lower level Purple.

Examples

MMOs

World of Warcraft

• "Poor" (Grey) < "Common" (White) < "Uncommon" (Green) < "Epic" (Purple) < "Legendary" (Orange) < "Heirloom" (Yellow).

DC Universe Online

• White < Green < Blue < Purple < Orange

Star Trek Online

• White < Green < Blue < Purple < Yellow

Star Wars: The Old Republic

• Grey < White < Green < Blue < Purple < Yellow < Orange

RPGs

Guild Wars

• White < Blue < Purple < Gold

Torchlight

• White < Green < Blue < Gold < Orange/Red

Darkspore

• White < Green < Blue < Purple < Yellow < Orange < Brown

Shooters

Borderlands

• White < Green < Blue < Purple < Yellow < Orange < Dark Orange < Pearlescent

Borderlands 2

• White < Green < Blue < Purple < Yellow < Orange < Seraph (Pink)

Dead Island

• White < Green < Blue < Purple < Orange

Action Adventure

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

• White < Green < Blue < Purple < Gold

Darksiders II

• White < Green < Blue < Purple < Gold