As I look at my stack of "failed" MMO game boxes (WAR, AoC, Aion), I feel lucky to have gotten into A Tale in the Desert (http://www.atitd.com). ATITD is the best MMO crafting game because it is about crafting. Its also about puzzles and politics, but those aspects of the game are a whole other subject. ATITD's crafting is so crafting-centered that making some tools, the best tools in the game, means you actually have to craft them. I mean, just look at this guide to making carpentry blades: http://www.atitd.org/wiki/tale3/Guilds/The_Lollipop_Guild/CarpGuide. The best blacksmith in the game is so respected, that he is a legend even to this day, although he doesn't currently play (ask about Zomboe).
ATITD also has the most advanced economy of any MMO I've played. There are no merchants that create an immaginary, static baseline for what things are worth. That's right, the economy is purely supply and demand. Also, there is no currency in the game, only bartering. This makes pricing itself challenging, a "mini-game" in and of itself. Bartering also creates different types of wealth, not just the single focal point of collecting as much gold as possible. This game has capaitalists, and it has people that give away things for free out of the goodness of their heart. Additionally, there is no magical auction house or even a trade market, so trade can be different in each region. Do you pay 1:1.5 charcoal to wood to a guy that lives two regions away, or your neighbor that charges a little more?
Of course, ATITD isn't for everyone, just like hardcore crafting isn't for everyone. ATITD doesn't have flashy graphics, and there isn't any monotonous monster-slaying. It requires a lot of time and patience to get good at, but once you are hooked you can really start to appreciate a game that does crafting and economics in an actually interesting and deep way. It is too bad that more traditional MMO's can't include this type of crafting somehow.
Need more games with crafting systems modeled after UO and early SWG. Good writeup.
Wrong.
Need games to be in mold of EQ1 where crafting is concerned. Something to supplement the true focus of MMO gaming which is PVE. PVP coming in second, THEN you worry about crafting.
SWG utilized a crafter economy....which pretty much invalidates the PVE game. Perhaps someone can make it work...I sure dont see it happening. PVE folks adventure to get the gear...not money to re-buy items that anyone can get with enough farming and/or gold selling sites. To ensure a crafter economy, item decay needs to be added for repeat business.
Despite what the vocal minority on these boards would have ya beieve, the world doesnt revolve around them. Crafting isa niche of a niche...and thus should be given minimal support. You dont revolve a MMO world around it.
Not if you wanna appeal to the masses anyways.
Dear god...I thought you went to the offical TOR forums and weren't coming back? That's what you said, anyway.
Anyway, the success of crafting in MMOs, plus the overwhelming accolades of the SWG crafting system not only on this site but the overwhelming majority of MMO gaming sites speaks for itself. It's absolutly fine if you don't like it but your opinion in this case is far from the absolute fact.
But, every action has it's own silver lining. If TOR loses you because it's getting too "Uncle Owen" with the latest dev blog it'll pick up me. And honestly, those are the only two people that you and I can 100% speak for with 100% accuracy. And I get to return to a SW universe in MMO form. I'm certainly happy.
And on that note, factoring in our last conversations before your hiatus, I really think we've exhausted everything there is to say to each other.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Scott makes a big deal about auction houses, but honestly he's only looking at them from the side of the crafters, they are great for the consumer (I've played games where you had to fly / run to a player store in the middle of freaking nowhere) since they can get what they want when they want.
They are also great for the big clearing house crafters, myself during my last months in WoW totally dominated my faction / servers market on vellum to the point where no-one bothered competing with me as I had my profit and loss planned out to such a degree (based on weekly sales) that I could afford to drop 2k worth of gold buying out the competition.
So yea, they suck for the little guy, but are awesome for the big guy and the customers, like so much else in life. Everywhere in the news you hear about how big chain stores are horrible for the little mum and pop stores, but what they fail to mention is that customers buy there because they're budgets can suffer it better, it's a harsh truth, but a truth.
I can't play a MMO seriously if it doesn't have a strong crafting system, I enjoy it more than PvE and PvP.
Wish a crafting system would be made where crafted was equally good and would complement drops (DAoC), with a manufacturing system that's fun and forces you to be active in your craft so you don't afk macro (EQ2/Vanguard), and that you had an option for resource gathering, you could either buy it all from NPC's (money sink way DAoC) or harvesting in the field but with an in-game radar and fast respawn (Lotro).
I was surprised that Vanguard wasn't mentioned as well. Vanguard had a great crafting system. When there was a really good population back in the early days, you could make a good profit crafting. And then they changed all or most items to be Bind on equip.
I can't really blame them for doing this because it was most of the crafter's fault anyway. They complained about how they sold their crafted items for a certain price, and people who used it and out leveled it, sold the crafted stuff for a much higher price to other people and made a good profit. Also the change of how everyone can deconstruct items they gotten from monsters was a big blow to crafters. Because crafters were the only ones that was supposed to be able to deconstruct stuff. It totally destroyed the economy.
But Vanguard's crafting IMO was very well implemented. It made me feel like I had some worth in the game. Being able to go around inspecting people's stuff and seeing their stuff with my name inscribed on it made me feel proud to supply it to the world.
As I look at my stack of "failed" MMO game boxes (WAR, AoC, Aion), I feel lucky to have gotten into A Tale in the Desert (http://www.atitd.com). ATITD is the best MMO crafting game because it is about crafting. Its also about puzzles and politics, but those aspects of the game are a whole other subject. ATITD's crafting is so crafting-centered that making some tools, the best tools in the game, means you actually have to craft them. I mean, just look at this guide to making carpentry blades: http://www.atitd.org/wiki/tale3/Guilds/The_Lollipop_Guild/CarpGuide. The best blacksmith in the game is so respected, that he is a legend even to this day, although he doesn't currently play (ask about Zomboe).
I agree to that for the biggest part. It is awesome to actually have to spent brain, time and tools to actually shape something. Blacksmithing I enjoyed a lot, gem cutting is great - even if it can be frustrating if you grind too much from one side or wrong angle or suddenly reach an impurity of the structure and there is a hole in the crystal or such. Onion growing, all the stuff about flax growing, seed mutants and pollution caused by it - I loved the complexity.
But ... here comes my major gripe with atitd into account: if you spent as much time to make something, put in such effort to understand the subtleties of the mechanics to become good and then the whole thing is regularly wiped again and again ... That basically makes the whole "economy" system a failure. If a game is only considered "fun" or viable by the devs once they wipe the world after people rebuilt everything and with insane effort and dedication often for 2 years or more that means the whole system is flawed. Something that sustains itself and keeps people playing wouldn't need to be erased. It would allow people to make it their own instead in a special new way run the grind hamster wheel as in every other game. Just more complicated and once you might have made it to the top your "main char" and all its achievements are deleted and you have to start a "twink". Or not even say "ok, you are allowed to do it at your own pace, but once you hit the final level your main char is wiped" and instead say "ok, we watch the majority, sorry if you started too late or are too slow but if those have reached xyz we wipe your stuff as well". I can't say how patronized I feel by that plus the loss of all my work ...
For me the most attractive crafting system is one that
a) allows me to have fun while I do it - so it is not repetetive or I can pick many different things to do that all help me gain reward (not just different named things but the same mechanic)
b) reward for me means I built something me or especially others can and WILL use (buildings, items, food whatever), thus are interested to buy and I can see them use it or have at least direct contact with them (not just an auction house or npc-tasks-that-destroy-a-useless-item)
c) makes me independent enough from other players time wise that I can as casual player do my piece or get my ressource or whatever without needing to WAIT for someone to come online or built me something. Or as in SWG where I would have died to be a breeder but needed a huge guilt that buys/builts me one or I just can't do that type of "crafting". It was tedious enough to collect all the enzymes and whatever to do breeding but noooo, the entry treshhold needed to be even higher.
d) I won't need to have to wait days and weeks to reach the next step of crafting while sitting around and wondering what to do if I won't pay a fee or such (travian/evony or any of thos anyone?)
e) items are customizable if i put a certain skill (not time or money!) in but that by a intuitive (!) GUI and not some kind of programming language or such and then maybe even figuring out it is buggy (Second Life or Metaplace)
f) I can interact with things IN the world and not a dull GUI window. That is stone age and only a bit above MUDs, having my char do an appropriate animation while I have my concentration on the GUI window is STIL not immersive and nobody in PvE or PvP would ever accept it - yet in crafting it is pretty much standard, unbelievable
g) does not need tremendous ressources to collect by watching my char swipe/swing/hit/grind/whatever and waiting you can start the next swipe/grind/swing/hit/whatever ... Horizons anyone? If I need to spend hours upon hours collecting ressources, just a little bit makes me totally overload, drag to some workbench, get it refined, drag back, spend hours ... just hitting a button, watching the bar go, sitting and waiting ... ?!? Are you kidding me?!? And no, having the ressources that are so annoying to collect surrounded by mobs so one runs around scared is not making RESSOURCE COLLECTION more entertaining, just more tedious and if you truly believe ANY adventurer would have fun standing guard for hours for a ressource collector "acting" mercenary then you are NUTS.)
Played: Pretty much any fantasy MMO, some did not even make it to release ... Favorites: UO, EQ2, Vanguard, Wurm Online, Salem, ESO, Creativerse Playing: ESO, Creativerse, Guild Wars 2 Anticipating: (sigh) ... maybe Ashes of Creation
Vanguard's diplomacy system was a step in the right direction.
There are so many fun puzzle games that people will play again and again (tetris, puyo puyo, puzzle fighter, etc) that I am just amazed none of them has been modified to get a crafting mini-game. It would be so easy, and relieve much of the tedium traditionally associated with crafting.
Vanguard's diplomacy system was a step in the right direction.
There are so many fun puzzle games that people will play again and again (tetris, puyo puyo, puzzle fighter, etc) that I am just amazed none of them has been modified to get a crafting mini-game. It would be so easy, and relieve much of the tedium traditionally associated with crafting.
try puzzle pirates
i have to agree that vanguard diplomacy is a work of genius - not only diplomacy game itself is fun, but all is incredibly working together - getting "pieces of information" as a rewards, completting preprepared dialogues by winning the game, different types of actions allowed in different types of dialogues (like no demand in entertainment diplomacy) etc etc
btw, anyone pls know any other mmorpg which has crafting similar to the VG or EQ2?
I don't know anything about VGs crafting but I do know about EQII's. When I stopped playing EQII about 3 months ago I went to LotRO and TBH, I enjoyed LotRO crafting a bit more.
It's not just a grind to highest level and then the quests come. There are quests all thoughout your crafting "career". To advance to the next tier you have to do a quest. You have to master the previous tier before you can master the following tier. And there are no levels, it's all skill. And no button mashing throughout the crafting. You can also craft enmass but that does take time to do and that's where you get the "set it and go" crafting. You have to refine your materials but it's not overly involved like what I heard EQII's early day crafting was.
The article did forget that facet of crafter, like myself, who actually enjoys crafting an do it not to make money but to be self sufficient and capable of making stuff for their own characters and their friends. I'm also a recipe completist. I HAVE to have every recipe that is possible to obtain for a crafting class just because I need the full set. :P Easy to do in EQII, a challenge in LotRO which makes my mentality of crafting more rewarding when I do manage to get all of the recipes. hehe
btw, anyone pls know any other mmorpg which has crafting similar to the VG or EQ2?
I don't know anything about VGs crafting but I do know about EQII's. When I stopped playing EQII about 3 months ago I went to LotRO and TBH, I enjoyed LotRO crafting a bit more.
It's not just a grind to highest level and then the quests come. There are quests all thoughout your crafting "career". To advance to the next tier you have to do a quest. You have to master the previous tier before you can master the following tier. And there are no levels, it's all skill. And no button mashing throughout the crafting. You can also craft enmass but that does take time to do and that's where you get the "set it and go" crafting. You have to refine your materials but it's not overly involved like what I heard EQII's early day crafting was.
I do have maxed crafts in lotro and consider vg and eq2 crafting far better.
when i was talking about crafting similar to vg or eq2, i ment crafting process itself - in both these games is crafting done by minigames (well i didnt play eq2 for a long time, but it was so when i played it (closed beta till cca 2 months after launch)), with main difference between vg and eq2 being fact, ze eq2 crafting is (was) real time, while vg is turn based.
I don't think button mashing to make sure your blue bar stays in the "pristine" line while increasing your green line can be considered a "minigame" tbh.
When I think of "minigame" crafting, I think of Free Realms. Now THAT is truly minigame crafting. If VG does it that way then that's where you'd wanna go. It's aimed at kids but all ages play it (from very young ages to old fogeys on a pension :P) and you don't make any profit from it (in fact, you will most definitely LOSE money and prolly loads of it) but all of the Blacksmith and Chef recipes as well as the node harvesting are all minigame. Heck, the entire game is nothing but minigames inside a game. You can also win "prizes" if certain goals are met throughout the minigames; or at least, you use to before they revamped the minigame reward system.
I have to admit, I DO like that kind of crafting as well but unlike FR, I would like for it to be more than jjust a means to an end with a chance at a sparkly toy when I finish. I'd want it to be worth my time and people would actually use what I can make. FR crafting had little in the way of returns with the exception that some of the food you could make as a Chef had nice effects but the rest were pretty crappy.
If you haven't played EQII since release, from what I have heard, crafting now is NOTHING like it use to be. There are no more subcombines for one. And as I said before, it's all about mashing 3 buttons throughout the crafting process to increase one bar while keeping the other bar from dropping too low. No craft class depends on any other any longer. An Armorer doesn't need a Jeweler or Alchemist or anything in order to make armor for example (no idea what classes were dependent on what other classes back before the crafting revamp).
Putting "mini-games" into a crafting system is not something I'd be interested in. If a game is going to do that, then put them into the combat system as well and make a theme of it. But just as many enjoy the tedium of pressing hotkeys to destroy pixels there are many who prefer the standard way of pressing keys to create them. No tetris, mahzong, or crossword puzzels needed.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
VG crafting "minigame" is based on this: you do have certain number of points you can spend on actions and your goal is to get progress to 100% with as high quality as possible (from D (worst) to A (best)). Those points you can spend on actions which increase progress and quality by different amount (some e.g. increase one by big amount while decrease other by small one), to counter bad events or e.g. to change tools when you need some nonstandart tool for counter action.
The catch is, that bad events often costs you a lot of unexpected points (e.g. actions which decrease progress or increase overall action cost), so your planned advancement of progress and quality is suddenly destroyed
in a time in which 90% of the new released mmorpgs aren't very creative and only duplicates of an older game a good new crafting concept can be the diffrence. at least i wish to have a mmorpg in which i will not find a fully 75 lb plate armor in the loot window of a fluffy small 5 lb rabbit.
Comments
As I look at my stack of "failed" MMO game boxes (WAR, AoC, Aion), I feel lucky to have gotten into A Tale in the Desert (http://www.atitd.com). ATITD is the best MMO crafting game because it is about crafting. Its also about puzzles and politics, but those aspects of the game are a whole other subject. ATITD's crafting is so crafting-centered that making some tools, the best tools in the game, means you actually have to craft them. I mean, just look at this guide to making carpentry blades: http://www.atitd.org/wiki/tale3/Guilds/The_Lollipop_Guild/CarpGuide. The best blacksmith in the game is so respected, that he is a legend even to this day, although he doesn't currently play (ask about Zomboe).
ATITD also has the most advanced economy of any MMO I've played. There are no merchants that create an immaginary, static baseline for what things are worth. That's right, the economy is purely supply and demand. Also, there is no currency in the game, only bartering. This makes pricing itself challenging, a "mini-game" in and of itself. Bartering also creates different types of wealth, not just the single focal point of collecting as much gold as possible. This game has capaitalists, and it has people that give away things for free out of the goodness of their heart. Additionally, there is no magical auction house or even a trade market, so trade can be different in each region. Do you pay 1:1.5 charcoal to wood to a guy that lives two regions away, or your neighbor that charges a little more?
Of course, ATITD isn't for everyone, just like hardcore crafting isn't for everyone. ATITD doesn't have flashy graphics, and there isn't any monotonous monster-slaying. It requires a lot of time and patience to get good at, but once you are hooked you can really start to appreciate a game that does crafting and economics in an actually interesting and deep way. It is too bad that more traditional MMO's can't include this type of crafting somehow.
http://teamriot.org
I really like the idea of finding maps that lead to resources, you could use that in any MMO.
Dear god...I thought you went to the offical TOR forums and weren't coming back? That's what you said, anyway.
Anyway, the success of crafting in MMOs, plus the overwhelming accolades of the SWG crafting system not only on this site but the overwhelming majority of MMO gaming sites speaks for itself. It's absolutly fine if you don't like it but your opinion in this case is far from the absolute fact.
But, every action has it's own silver lining. If TOR loses you because it's getting too "Uncle Owen" with the latest dev blog it'll pick up me. And honestly, those are the only two people that you and I can 100% speak for with 100% accuracy. And I get to return to a SW universe in MMO form. I'm certainly happy.
And on that note, factoring in our last conversations before your hiatus, I really think we've exhausted everything there is to say to each other.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
Scott makes a big deal about auction houses, but honestly he's only looking at them from the side of the crafters, they are great for the consumer (I've played games where you had to fly / run to a player store in the middle of freaking nowhere) since they can get what they want when they want.
They are also great for the big clearing house crafters, myself during my last months in WoW totally dominated my faction / servers market on vellum to the point where no-one bothered competing with me as I had my profit and loss planned out to such a degree (based on weekly sales) that I could afford to drop 2k worth of gold buying out the competition.
So yea, they suck for the little guy, but are awesome for the big guy and the customers, like so much else in life. Everywhere in the news you hear about how big chain stores are horrible for the little mum and pop stores, but what they fail to mention is that customers buy there because they're budgets can suffer it better, it's a harsh truth, but a truth.
Jennings is talking losely about one of the topics that players are most interested in.
Having a fun crafting system is good, but the key is the following and it's so simple you could cry:
Crafter is a class of it's own. You can't be BOTH a awesome ninja warrior AND a crafter, you gotta choose.
Do this, and a heaven of blessings rain down on not just the crafters, but everyone and everything in the game.
You get this piece of insight for free. Now go make a great game.
I can't play a MMO seriously if it doesn't have a strong crafting system, I enjoy it more than PvE and PvP.
Wish a crafting system would be made where crafted was equally good and would complement drops (DAoC), with a manufacturing system that's fun and forces you to be active in your craft so you don't afk macro (EQ2/Vanguard), and that you had an option for resource gathering, you could either buy it all from NPC's (money sink way DAoC) or harvesting in the field but with an in-game radar and fast respawn (Lotro).
oh I miss the SWG crafting, so many variables on each item.
thats one of the big things i miss most of swg's crafting system
the way the work you put into it actualy made a difference in how good the stuff you made comes out
that if you were willing to put in the time and go to the middle of no ware in search of that rare matt on spawn it actuly paid off
I was surprised that Vanguard wasn't mentioned as well. Vanguard had a great crafting system. When there was a really good population back in the early days, you could make a good profit crafting. And then they changed all or most items to be Bind on equip.
I can't really blame them for doing this because it was most of the crafter's fault anyway. They complained about how they sold their crafted items for a certain price, and people who used it and out leveled it, sold the crafted stuff for a much higher price to other people and made a good profit. Also the change of how everyone can deconstruct items they gotten from monsters was a big blow to crafters. Because crafters were the only ones that was supposed to be able to deconstruct stuff. It totally destroyed the economy.
But Vanguard's crafting IMO was very well implemented. It made me feel like I had some worth in the game. Being able to go around inspecting people's stuff and seeing their stuff with my name inscribed on it made me feel proud to supply it to the world.
I agree to that for the biggest part. It is awesome to actually have to spent brain, time and tools to actually shape something. Blacksmithing I enjoyed a lot, gem cutting is great - even if it can be frustrating if you grind too much from one side or wrong angle or suddenly reach an impurity of the structure and there is a hole in the crystal or such. Onion growing, all the stuff about flax growing, seed mutants and pollution caused by it - I loved the complexity.
But ... here comes my major gripe with atitd into account: if you spent as much time to make something, put in such effort to understand the subtleties of the mechanics to become good and then the whole thing is regularly wiped again and again ... That basically makes the whole "economy" system a failure. If a game is only considered "fun" or viable by the devs once they wipe the world after people rebuilt everything and with insane effort and dedication often for 2 years or more that means the whole system is flawed. Something that sustains itself and keeps people playing wouldn't need to be erased. It would allow people to make it their own instead in a special new way run the grind hamster wheel as in every other game. Just more complicated and once you might have made it to the top your "main char" and all its achievements are deleted and you have to start a "twink". Or not even say "ok, you are allowed to do it at your own pace, but once you hit the final level your main char is wiped" and instead say "ok, we watch the majority, sorry if you started too late or are too slow but if those have reached xyz we wipe your stuff as well". I can't say how patronized I feel by that plus the loss of all my work ...
For me the most attractive crafting system is one that
a) allows me to have fun while I do it - so it is not repetetive or I can pick many different things to do that all help me gain reward (not just different named things but the same mechanic)
b) reward for me means I built something me or especially others can and WILL use (buildings, items, food whatever), thus are interested to buy and I can see them use it or have at least direct contact with them (not just an auction house or npc-tasks-that-destroy-a-useless-item)
c) makes me independent enough from other players time wise that I can as casual player do my piece or get my ressource or whatever without needing to WAIT for someone to come online or built me something. Or as in SWG where I would have died to be a breeder but needed a huge guilt that buys/builts me one or I just can't do that type of "crafting". It was tedious enough to collect all the enzymes and whatever to do breeding but noooo, the entry treshhold needed to be even higher.
d) I won't need to have to wait days and weeks to reach the next step of crafting while sitting around and wondering what to do if I won't pay a fee or such (travian/evony or any of thos anyone?)
e) items are customizable if i put a certain skill (not time or money!) in but that by a intuitive (!) GUI and not some kind of programming language or such and then maybe even figuring out it is buggy (Second Life or Metaplace)
f) I can interact with things IN the world and not a dull GUI window. That is stone age and only a bit above MUDs, having my char do an appropriate animation while I have my concentration on the GUI window is STIL not immersive and nobody in PvE or PvP would ever accept it - yet in crafting it is pretty much standard, unbelievable
g) does not need tremendous ressources to collect by watching my char swipe/swing/hit/grind/whatever and waiting you can start the next swipe/grind/swing/hit/whatever ... Horizons anyone? If I need to spend hours upon hours collecting ressources, just a little bit makes me totally overload, drag to some workbench, get it refined, drag back, spend hours ... just hitting a button, watching the bar go, sitting and waiting ... ?!? Are you kidding me?!? And no, having the ressources that are so annoying to collect surrounded by mobs so one runs around scared is not making RESSOURCE COLLECTION more entertaining, just more tedious and if you truly believe ANY adventurer would have fun standing guard for hours for a ressource collector "acting" mercenary then you are NUTS.)
Played: Pretty much any fantasy MMO, some did not even make it to release ...
Favorites: UO, EQ2, Vanguard, Wurm Online, Salem, ESO, Creativerse
Playing: ESO, Creativerse, Guild Wars 2
Anticipating: (sigh) ... maybe Ashes of Creation
Vanguard's diplomacy system was a step in the right direction.
There are so many fun puzzle games that people will play again and again (tetris, puyo puyo, puzzle fighter, etc) that I am just amazed none of them has been modified to get a crafting mini-game. It would be so easy, and relieve much of the tedium traditionally associated with crafting.
try puzzle pirates
i have to agree that vanguard diplomacy is a work of genius - not only diplomacy game itself is fun, but all is incredibly working together - getting "pieces of information" as a rewards, completting preprepared dialogues by winning the game, different types of actions allowed in different types of dialogues (like no demand in entertainment diplomacy) etc etc
I don't know anything about VGs crafting but I do know about EQII's. When I stopped playing EQII about 3 months ago I went to LotRO and TBH, I enjoyed LotRO crafting a bit more.
It's not just a grind to highest level and then the quests come. There are quests all thoughout your crafting "career". To advance to the next tier you have to do a quest. You have to master the previous tier before you can master the following tier. And there are no levels, it's all skill. And no button mashing throughout the crafting. You can also craft enmass but that does take time to do and that's where you get the "set it and go" crafting. You have to refine your materials but it's not overly involved like what I heard EQII's early day crafting was.
The article did forget that facet of crafter, like myself, who actually enjoys crafting an do it not to make money but to be self sufficient and capable of making stuff for their own characters and their friends. I'm also a recipe completist. I HAVE to have every recipe that is possible to obtain for a crafting class just because I need the full set. :P Easy to do in EQII, a challenge in LotRO which makes my mentality of crafting more rewarding when I do manage to get all of the recipes. hehe
I do have maxed crafts in lotro and consider vg and eq2 crafting far better.
when i was talking about crafting similar to vg or eq2, i ment crafting process itself - in both these games is crafting done by minigames (well i didnt play eq2 for a long time, but it was so when i played it (closed beta till cca 2 months after launch)), with main difference between vg and eq2 being fact, ze eq2 crafting is (was) real time, while vg is turn based.
I don't think button mashing to make sure your blue bar stays in the "pristine" line while increasing your green line can be considered a "minigame" tbh.
When I think of "minigame" crafting, I think of Free Realms. Now THAT is truly minigame crafting. If VG does it that way then that's where you'd wanna go. It's aimed at kids but all ages play it (from very young ages to old fogeys on a pension :P) and you don't make any profit from it (in fact, you will most definitely LOSE money and prolly loads of it) but all of the Blacksmith and Chef recipes as well as the node harvesting are all minigame. Heck, the entire game is nothing but minigames inside a game. You can also win "prizes" if certain goals are met throughout the minigames; or at least, you use to before they revamped the minigame reward system.
I have to admit, I DO like that kind of crafting as well but unlike FR, I would like for it to be more than jjust a means to an end with a chance at a sparkly toy when I finish. I'd want it to be worth my time and people would actually use what I can make. FR crafting had little in the way of returns with the exception that some of the food you could make as a Chef had nice effects but the rest were pretty crappy.
If you haven't played EQII since release, from what I have heard, crafting now is NOTHING like it use to be. There are no more subcombines for one. And as I said before, it's all about mashing 3 buttons throughout the crafting process to increase one bar while keeping the other bar from dropping too low. No craft class depends on any other any longer. An Armorer doesn't need a Jeweler or Alchemist or anything in order to make armor for example (no idea what classes were dependent on what other classes back before the crafting revamp).
Me too bro. Me too....
Putting "mini-games" into a crafting system is not something I'd be interested in. If a game is going to do that, then put them into the combat system as well and make a theme of it. But just as many enjoy the tedium of pressing hotkeys to destroy pixels there are many who prefer the standard way of pressing keys to create them. No tetris, mahzong, or crossword puzzels needed.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
shadowdonia:
VG crafting "minigame" is based on this: you do have certain number of points you can spend on actions and your goal is to get progress to 100% with as high quality as possible (from D (worst) to A (best)). Those points you can spend on actions which increase progress and quality by different amount (some e.g. increase one by big amount while decrease other by small one), to counter bad events or e.g. to change tools when you need some nonstandart tool for counter action.
The catch is, that bad events often costs you a lot of unexpected points (e.g. actions which decrease progress or increase overall action cost), so your planned advancement of progress and quality is suddenly destroyed
in a time in which 90% of the new released mmorpgs aren't very creative and only duplicates of an older game a good new crafting concept can be the diffrence. at least i wish to have a mmorpg in which i will not find a fully 75 lb plate armor in the loot window of a fluffy small 5 lb rabbit.