There are a few key ingredients that make crafting compelling:
a) A demand for your services. This doesn't necessarily equate to "Makes lots of money", but there needs to be some purpose for the items your crafting in the game in some manner. This is the top one for me if I can get into the crafting in the game or not.
b) Discovery. Sure, there are recipes, but what happens if you randomly mix a bunch of ingredients together? Is there a chance you could discover something new? Can you attempt a recipe any time you have the proper ingredients (maybe destined for failure, but still attempt), or must you wait until you learn it or become the proper level to be allowed to attempt it?
c) Interdependance. Create a virtuous cycle where crafters of all kinds help to support each other. A blacksmiths make the buckle, a tanner creates the leather, and a tailor puts it all together into a belt.
d) Variations. When you have ingredients of variable qualities, does that factor into the outcome of your final product? If your crafting a sword, it's going to be a lot different if you make it out of soft steel vice hard steel, and not necessarily all in bad ways - soft steel is easier to sharpen and less likely to break, hard steel will hold it's edge longer.
e) Gathering. Lots of different ways games have done this. Static nodes, variable gradient fields, farming it from NPCs, reward from some sort of metagame, etc. Is the gathering an interesting game of it's own, or is it just a chore to be done with. Combine this with Variations, and it gets very interesting quickly.
f) Noteriety. Is your name stamped on the item for everyone to see thereafter, or is it just a_sword_069 like every other sword. Can you customize your items (different colors, unique textures, different visuals, etc)?
For me, SWG was still the epitome of all things crafting, and in that game, that was pretty much all I did (although I didn't get very far in it). Eve comes a distant second, although it's very good in and of it's own right, it's just you have to have some protection of some sort to get very far into it. I thought EQ1 did a lot of things right with the crafting end too, the gathering end of it was just a bit basic.
I'm sure many of you have seen the anime Sword Art Online. After watching it about a dozen times I came to the realization that one of my favorite episodes is the one with Lisbeth. Why? For some reason I felt it was so astronomically improbable for an MMO player to have a FAVORITE/DEDICATED crafter it blew my mind and sent my world into a tailspin (also, only being able to get rare crafting materials if you have a master level crafter in your party is genius!).
After playing a dozen or so MMOs (even FFXIV) crafting seems to be useless. Its not engaging, its not fun, it barely has a purpose, and it just seems to be there.
So, crafters, what would the perfect crafting system be? How would it work? How would it allow you to separate yourself from others?
The idea of having an in-game friend/crafter who I solely come to is so foreign and strange its exciting. Out of every crafter on a server what could possibly differentiate another crafter and make me want them and them only to forge my blade? If a system was implemented that made this possible I would probably enjoy crafting more than PvP.
Star Wars Galaxies
Before SOE decided to shove it into a WOW formula (talk about square peg round hole) it had, easily, the best crafting ever to grace mmo-dom.
First were the natural resources. They randomly spawned every couple of weeks (different qualities, locations, etc) which forced crafters to enlist the aid of adventurers in hunting down the resources.
Second was the simple fact that the best items in the game required items from hardest to reach places be brought to the crafter so they could make it.
Everything worn by players, everything wielded by players. Crafting stations too were made by crafters and the quality of the station could impact the quality of the good crafted.
NO mmo since has come even close to the crafting in SWG unless they have disposed of everything apart from crafting (tale in the desert etc).
But, too bad for every gamer and every game since because John Smedley stated that no one wanted to be Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru as they weren't star warsy enough.
I want crafting to be really hard work,just like it would be in real life.I want to see extremely rare items hidden throughout the land that only re-spawn in a new place after many days.I want to see ALL crafting done by trial and error,no books or hand holding of any kind.This opens up a ton of unique crafting.
Every single item in a game should be crafted,including the very first buildings and houses.I would like to see the local NPC's building their shops and players need to protect those npc's from enemies or the buildings and shops never get built.
I like to see crafting take on an incredible role in our games,we need to actually start seeing ROLE PLAYING games and not automated features with instance gaming,most games do not even belong in this genre.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
-crafter's should be able to make item that are only matched by the BEST dungeon drops
-crafters should be able to reverse engineer and discover new recipes by trying different combinations
-crafters should not just me challenged to be gathers and combine items automatically
-crafting should require judgment and risk and failure
-crafters should not be forced to have to grind endlessly for random drop mats like GW2 makes you do
-crafters should have their name on what they make
-crafters should be able to repair items..or reduce durability by failing a repair
-top crafters should be known and have a reputation and be sought out for what they can do
-crafters should achieve by paying the price(with work and application to acquire knowledge) and having great knowledge of the ingredients and process of their craft
Originally posted by Dajag I want crafting to be game within a game, hard and fun.
Really?
Since it was mentioned several times now and i can so not imagine it to be true i thought i'd ask: Do you REALLY want to play, say, Teris in order to play a house in your MMO? (a game in a game)
Or wouldn't you rather build a house by first chopping down the trees, cutting them up in a saw mill (or use your axe to build a log house) and use the planks to build the walls that make up the house, to be topped with a roof you build from, say, reed or shingles?
Teris is an Icelandic software company focusing on servicing the financial sector. Tetris is a game. I am not sure what your mean by play a house?
I would rather chop up a Dragon using a sword, protecting myself from it's fiery breath using a shield, then grab its gold and put it in a leather packpack... oh wait that's not a game, or is it?
I did not realize the only game was Tetris. Wow, thanks for clearing that up; you must have a masters degree in logic.
1. Either no eq at all drop from mobs, only crafting materials, or only items for let say 1/2 of the slots.
2. Recipes dont have exact materials, only material types. Most materials gives item different stats. All material can be found anywhere in the world, there are no "newbe" and "high level" areas - but you have to find it - e.g. ores you have to prospect for as in wurm, but veins are more common and have much less ore in each of them.
3. Crafting is done by the minigame similar to Vanguard or FFXIV. You can craft anything, but if your skill is not high enough, your progress starts less then 0. Amount of crafting rounds depends on your skill, you have also pretty expensive option to advance the recipe itself, not only the item. Higher quality mats and experience with give recipe (how many time you successfully used it before) give you bonus into quality of crafted item.
4. Crafting skill is not limited, only amount of xp you need is raising.
The only reason crafting is a redheaded stepchild in most MMOs is due to the fact that most MMOs cater to the durp level players that require a shiny to actually do a dungeon or kill a boss.
Remove the moronic idea that boss A must drop uber sword of burn your face off to get people to kill him and instead make boss A FUN to kill and suddenly developers would be freed to make crafting what it is supposed to be, the source of ALL weapons and armor.
Hell...how did boss A get that uber sword anyway? Someone crafted it.
Originally posted by eimaiego I dont really know what crafters want, every game they cry and cry and cry, they complain and complain and complain its disgusting
lets make almost every game so that mobs dont drop any eq and you kill them with click of 1 button and we will see who will "cry and cry and cry", because thats what crafting in most of mmorpgs looks like
Crafters want a game like Horizons where you can change the world and use crafting to reach other areas.
In crafters crafeers were able to tunnel out a mountain over months to reach a new leveling area. They were able to build bridges to unreachable islands. They could fix up harvesting and crafting stations around the world. Unfortunately the adventuring portion oft he game was terrible.
Crafters want many other things. Such as non 1 click challenging mechanics similar to Vanguard. Long and difficult leveling so not everyone can be a master in their craft. Limited recipes so not everyone can make the same items. Ability to participate in endgame. Housing and building. Something similar to Rift's building would be amazing. Ability to build towns and cities. special group crafting recipes similar to what vanguard had planned and never finished.
Crafters want many things but being able to build, create and change the world would make them very happy. Most of all Crafters want to be useful and needed.
I agree. I think some of it may have to do with an entire generation of WoW style crafters. Self serving, best in slot chasing, drag n drop crafters, who have no idea what customer service or friendly trade means.
You wanna know how to make crafters viable and highly sought after? Here are some easy steps:
Let crafters make all useable items in the game.
Place durability on all items that are used.
Give crafters the ability to create maintenance items (whetstones, grind stones, oils, papers, powders)
Introduce levels of maintenance: cleaning (player or crafter), conditioning (player or crafter), repairs (need a crafter), reforge (need a crafter)
Not cleaning your items can result in it becoming cursed (curses can be removed by the original creator or their prodigy only)
Item cleanliness has 4 levels (clean, used, dirty and filthy) Clean items earn more rep and filthy items are more effective
Item condition has 4 levels (best, good, fair and poor). Poor weapons/armor lose durability fast.
Introduce trade skill service windows. (player places item and payment in window, then crafter places maintenance items in windows, both acknowledge trade, repairs are made.)
Introduce reputation system. (items used by players which bear the crafter's mark earn reputation points, reputation points are used to create named masterpieces.
Named masterpiece items are very powerful and crafters can only make a limited number of them based on their rep level.
Named masterpieces, when repaired by the original creator or their prodigy will never drop in max durability.
Named masterpieces can be reforged by the original creators (only) to boost the stats permanently. (uses rep pts)
Master crafters can use reputation points to hire npc apprentices (to do repairs and sale good), discover a npc prodigy to carry on their trade even when they're offline or no longer play (for NM item maintenance mostly) or improve NM items
Damn I'm kinda getting carried away with this but generally like another fella said, if you want crafters to be relevant to the game you have to give them more room at the table.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Originally posted by Vermillion_Raventhal While I'm not the crafting type. I would like a store front and a helper NPC that can do the actually crafting or resource gathering for me.
You want a bot so you can PvE/PvP without worrying about it, lol?
Originally posted by Vermillion_Raventhal While I'm not the crafting type. I would like a store front and a helper NPC that can do the actually crafting or resource gathering for me.
You want a bot so you can PvE/PvP without worrying about it, lol?
Why not? It allows for tedium that you don't have to deal with directly. You path the helper and NPC that's actually doing something other then standing around or (!)(?)ing.
Originally posted by nariusseldon Originally posted by FoomerangI agree. I think some of it may have to do with an entire generation of WoW style crafters. Self serving, best in slot chasing, drag n drop crafters, who have no idea what customer service or friendly trade means.
I don't play games to provide customer service. We know.
Originally posted by Vermillion_Raventhal While I'm not the crafting type. I would like a store front and a helper NPC that can do the actually crafting or resource gathering for me.
You want a bot so you can PvE/PvP without worrying about it, lol?
Why not? It allows for tedium that you don't have to deal with directly. You path the helper and NPC that's actually doing something other then standing around or (!)(?)ing.
Well you said you're not the crafter type.
SWG had what you and pretty much everyone is asking for. No crafting system that's inferior to what swg had is going to satisfy crafters. As long as loot is the only motivator, crafting and crafters are screwed.
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
Original SWG did it all right. Everything. You could, with skill and patience, make crafted stuff that was lightyears better than anyone else, it was a whole game in itself to create superb equipment, vehicles and houses. Then you had NPC sellers in your own built store. Your store would get fame by the quality of your merchandice, and people would travel between worlds just to to check out your supplies.
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force"
Puzzle Pirates had the best concept with each crafting job having its' own unique mini-game. Star Wars Galaxies has probably the deepest crafting system. Both those games came out in 2003. MMOs have been going backwards since then.
Basically crafting should be the main way gear is introduced to the game. Boss and raids should only drop crafting materials and not whole pieces of gear. How does killing a dragon and finding a mage robe inside it make any sense at all? The way it should be done is kill the dragon and it drops dragon hide and other dragon parts. You then take these materials to a crafter and the crafter makes the dragon hide mage robe or some other dragon item. Having a materials based system leads to an organic player driven economy.
When people think of sandbox games people always jump on the open world bandwagon. It is NOT the open world it is the type of economy that makes a game a sandbox. Remember WoW has an open world too but what separates WoW from old sandboxes like SWG is the economy. Having a player run economy is an absolute requirement for designing non-linear progression.
I think what everyone has been saying is great. But, if a crafting system was implemented that gave you a deep level of customizability wouldnt cooking be unaffected? Because it seems like the only thing an in-game chef could do is make meals with progressively better stats to offer. Not much creativity in that. Is there any room for deep crafting/experimentation in cooking? It seems rather limited, or is it just me?
I would expect anyone who's really into crafting will seriously look into Everquest Next. If the Devs deliver on half of what it is promised it should make for a very good MMO. I hear Elder Scrolls Online recently redid their entire crafting system as well by placing it in the Skill tree style that the rest of the abilities use. Sounds interesting to check IMO.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
I think what everyone has been saying is great. But, if a crafting system was implemented that gave you a deep level of customizability wouldnt cooking be unaffected? Because it seems like the only thing an in-game chef could do is make meals with progressively better stats to offer. Not much creativity in that. Is there any room for deep crafting/experimentation in cooking? It seems rather limited, or is it just me?
Sure you can.
But everything must be balanced with pve content, so predetermined values on all items are set.
If all values in the game are already set, crafting becomes a secondary system. Collection and trading may become core game systems, but crafting is just click to assemble.
If you want deep crafting, you must rethink balance. Better yet, just rethink the mmorpg design.
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
Puzzle Pirates had the best concept with each crafting job having its' own unique mini-game. Star Wars Galaxies has probably the deepest crafting system. Both those games came out in 2003. MMOs have been going backwards since then.
Basically crafting should be the main way gear is introduced to the game. Boss and raids should only drop crafting materials and not whole pieces of gear. How does killing a dragon and finding a mage robe inside it make any sense at all? The way it should be done is kill the dragon and it drops dragon hide and other dragon parts. You then take these materials to a crafter and the crafter makes the dragon hide mage robe or some other dragon item. Having a materials based system leads to an organic player driven economy.
When people think of sandbox games people always jump on the open world bandwagon. It is NOT the open world it is the type of economy that makes a game a sandbox. Remember WoW has an open world too but what separates WoW from old sandboxes like SWG is the economy. Having a player run economy is an absolute requirement for designing non-linear progression.
No, crafting should never replace something but augment it. You can have deep meaningful crafting without removing the "possibly" #1 thing that RPG's have going for them. You can't remove things like Loot Drops, Progression or Dungeon Crawling without alienating a huge segment of the RPG/MMO playerbase. I know I'd never touch a game that didn't include all 3 of those pillars which has been a staple of the genre since the introduction of Dungeons & Dragons in the late 1970's.
Plus I'd argue that Asheron's Call was a huge success in following those 3 pillars of MMO/RPG and it included the most robust loot/treasure system to date! Not only that but it had in its hey day the most robust economy in any game I've played since I got into the genre. So it's folly to think that a Crafting centric game is the only way to have a great economy. It was the proliferation of Bind on Equip or Bind on Pick-Up that ruined MMO economies, nothing else. Removing loot drops de-incentivizes players from hunting and questing and killing mobs. There's no joy in knowing that if I kill 400 Rats I can have a crafter make me a Rat Pelt Cloak. There's no hidden mystery, no sense of excitement and no thrill in knowing exactly what I wil lget once I finish something. Or at least there isn't for me.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Puzzle Pirates had the best concept with each crafting job having its' own unique mini-game. Star Wars Galaxies has probably the deepest crafting system. Both those games came out in 2003. MMOs have been going backwards since then.
Basically crafting should be the main way gear is introduced to the game. Boss and raids should only drop crafting materials and not whole pieces of gear. How does killing a dragon and finding a mage robe inside it make any sense at all? The way it should be done is kill the dragon and it drops dragon hide and other dragon parts. You then take these materials to a crafter and the crafter makes the dragon hide mage robe or some other dragon item. Having a materials based system leads to an organic player driven economy.
When people think of sandbox games people always jump on the open world bandwagon. It is NOT the open world it is the type of economy that makes a game a sandbox. Remember WoW has an open world too but what separates WoW from old sandboxes like SWG is the economy. Having a player run economy is an absolute requirement for designing non-linear progression.
No, crafting should never replace something but augment it. You can have deep meaningful crafting without removing the "possibly" #1 thing that RPG's have going for them. You can't remove things like Loot Drops, Progression or Dungeon Crawling without alienating a huge segment of the RPG/MMO playerbase. I know I'd never touch a game that didn't include all 3 of those pillars which has been a staple of the genre since the introduction of Dungeons & Dragons in the late 1970's.
You can have loot drops, progression, dungeon crawling and 100% crafted gear.
Edit: To address your edit, how did AC's crafting stack up to swg's?
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
Comments
There are a few key ingredients that make crafting compelling:
a) A demand for your services. This doesn't necessarily equate to "Makes lots of money", but there needs to be some purpose for the items your crafting in the game in some manner. This is the top one for me if I can get into the crafting in the game or not.
b) Discovery. Sure, there are recipes, but what happens if you randomly mix a bunch of ingredients together? Is there a chance you could discover something new? Can you attempt a recipe any time you have the proper ingredients (maybe destined for failure, but still attempt), or must you wait until you learn it or become the proper level to be allowed to attempt it?
c) Interdependance. Create a virtuous cycle where crafters of all kinds help to support each other. A blacksmiths make the buckle, a tanner creates the leather, and a tailor puts it all together into a belt.
d) Variations. When you have ingredients of variable qualities, does that factor into the outcome of your final product? If your crafting a sword, it's going to be a lot different if you make it out of soft steel vice hard steel, and not necessarily all in bad ways - soft steel is easier to sharpen and less likely to break, hard steel will hold it's edge longer.
e) Gathering. Lots of different ways games have done this. Static nodes, variable gradient fields, farming it from NPCs, reward from some sort of metagame, etc. Is the gathering an interesting game of it's own, or is it just a chore to be done with. Combine this with Variations, and it gets very interesting quickly.
f) Noteriety. Is your name stamped on the item for everyone to see thereafter, or is it just a_sword_069 like every other sword. Can you customize your items (different colors, unique textures, different visuals, etc)?
For me, SWG was still the epitome of all things crafting, and in that game, that was pretty much all I did (although I didn't get very far in it). Eve comes a distant second, although it's very good in and of it's own right, it's just you have to have some protection of some sort to get very far into it. I thought EQ1 did a lot of things right with the crafting end too, the gathering end of it was just a bit basic.
Star Wars Galaxies
Before SOE decided to shove it into a WOW formula (talk about square peg round hole) it had, easily, the best crafting ever to grace mmo-dom.
First were the natural resources. They randomly spawned every couple of weeks (different qualities, locations, etc) which forced crafters to enlist the aid of adventurers in hunting down the resources.
Second was the simple fact that the best items in the game required items from hardest to reach places be brought to the crafter so they could make it.
Everything worn by players, everything wielded by players. Crafting stations too were made by crafters and the quality of the station could impact the quality of the good crafted.
NO mmo since has come even close to the crafting in SWG unless they have disposed of everything apart from crafting (tale in the desert etc).
But, too bad for every gamer and every game since because John Smedley stated that no one wanted to be Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru as they weren't star warsy enough.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
I want crafting to be really hard work,just like it would be in real life.I want to see extremely rare items hidden throughout the land that only re-spawn in a new place after many days.I want to see ALL crafting done by trial and error,no books or hand holding of any kind.This opens up a ton of unique crafting.
Every single item in a game should be crafted,including the very first buildings and houses.I would like to see the local NPC's building their shops and players need to protect those npc's from enemies or the buildings and shops never get built.
I like to see crafting take on an incredible role in our games,we need to actually start seeing ROLE PLAYING games and not automated features with instance gaming,most games do not even belong in this genre.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
-crafter's should be able to make item that are only matched by the BEST dungeon drops
-crafters should be able to reverse engineer and discover new recipes by trying different combinations
-crafters should not just me challenged to be gathers and combine items automatically
-crafting should require judgment and risk and failure
-crafters should not be forced to have to grind endlessly for random drop mats like GW2 makes you do
-crafters should have their name on what they make
-crafters should be able to repair items..or reduce durability by failing a repair
-top crafters should be known and have a reputation and be sought out for what they can do
-crafters should achieve by paying the price(with work and application to acquire knowledge) and having great knowledge of the ingredients and process of their craft
Teris is an Icelandic software company focusing on servicing the financial sector. Tetris is a game. I am not sure what your mean by play a house?
I would rather chop up a Dragon using a sword, protecting myself from it's fiery breath using a shield, then grab its gold and put it in a leather packpack... oh wait that's not a game, or is it?
I did not realize the only game was Tetris. Wow, thanks for clearing that up; you must have a masters degree in logic.
I want following system:
1. Either no eq at all drop from mobs, only crafting materials, or only items for let say 1/2 of the slots.
2. Recipes dont have exact materials, only material types. Most materials gives item different stats. All material can be found anywhere in the world, there are no "newbe" and "high level" areas - but you have to find it - e.g. ores you have to prospect for as in wurm, but veins are more common and have much less ore in each of them.
3. Crafting is done by the minigame similar to Vanguard or FFXIV. You can craft anything, but if your skill is not high enough, your progress starts less then 0. Amount of crafting rounds depends on your skill, you have also pretty expensive option to advance the recipe itself, not only the item. Higher quality mats and experience with give recipe (how many time you successfully used it before) give you bonus into quality of crafted item.
4. Crafting skill is not limited, only amount of xp you need is raising.
The only reason crafting is a redheaded stepchild in most MMOs is due to the fact that most MMOs cater to the durp level players that require a shiny to actually do a dungeon or kill a boss.
Remove the moronic idea that boss A must drop uber sword of burn your face off to get people to kill him and instead make boss A FUN to kill and suddenly developers would be freed to make crafting what it is supposed to be, the source of ALL weapons and armor.
Hell...how did boss A get that uber sword anyway? Someone crafted it.
lets make almost every game so that mobs dont drop any eq and you kill them with click of 1 button and we will see who will "cry and cry and cry", because thats what crafting in most of mmorpgs looks like
eq:next looks promising
I don't play games to provide customer service.
I don't play games to do really hard work. I play games for fun. And if i want real life, i can turn off my computer.
You wanna know how to make crafters viable and highly sought after? Here are some easy steps:
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
You want a bot so you can PvE/PvP without worrying about it, lol?
Why not? It allows for tedium that you don't have to deal with directly. You path the helper and NPC that's actually doing something other then standing around or (!)(?)ing.
We know.
Well you said you're not the crafter type.
SWG had what you and pretty much everyone is asking for. No crafting system that's inferior to what swg had is going to satisfy crafters. As long as loot is the only motivator, crafting and crafters are screwed.
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"
Puzzle Pirates had the best concept with each crafting job having its' own unique mini-game. Star Wars Galaxies has probably the deepest crafting system. Both those games came out in 2003. MMOs have been going backwards since then.
Basically crafting should be the main way gear is introduced to the game. Boss and raids should only drop crafting materials and not whole pieces of gear. How does killing a dragon and finding a mage robe inside it make any sense at all? The way it should be done is kill the dragon and it drops dragon hide and other dragon parts. You then take these materials to a crafter and the crafter makes the dragon hide mage robe or some other dragon item. Having a materials based system leads to an organic player driven economy.
When people think of sandbox games people always jump on the open world bandwagon. It is NOT the open world it is the type of economy that makes a game a sandbox. Remember WoW has an open world too but what separates WoW from old sandboxes like SWG is the economy. Having a player run economy is an absolute requirement for designing non-linear progression.
Hi, OP here.
I think what everyone has been saying is great. But, if a crafting system was implemented that gave you a deep level of customizability wouldnt cooking be unaffected? Because it seems like the only thing an in-game chef could do is make meals with progressively better stats to offer. Not much creativity in that. Is there any room for deep crafting/experimentation in cooking? It seems rather limited, or is it just me?
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Sure you can.
But everything must be balanced with pve content, so predetermined values on all items are set.
If all values in the game are already set, crafting becomes a secondary system. Collection and trading may become core game systems, but crafting is just click to assemble.
If you want deep crafting, you must rethink balance. Better yet, just rethink the mmorpg design.
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
No, crafting should never replace something but augment it. You can have deep meaningful crafting without removing the "possibly" #1 thing that RPG's have going for them. You can't remove things like Loot Drops, Progression or Dungeon Crawling without alienating a huge segment of the RPG/MMO playerbase. I know I'd never touch a game that didn't include all 3 of those pillars which has been a staple of the genre since the introduction of Dungeons & Dragons in the late 1970's.
Plus I'd argue that Asheron's Call was a huge success in following those 3 pillars of MMO/RPG and it included the most robust loot/treasure system to date! Not only that but it had in its hey day the most robust economy in any game I've played since I got into the genre. So it's folly to think that a Crafting centric game is the only way to have a great economy. It was the proliferation of Bind on Equip or Bind on Pick-Up that ruined MMO economies, nothing else. Removing loot drops de-incentivizes players from hunting and questing and killing mobs. There's no joy in knowing that if I kill 400 Rats I can have a crafter make me a Rat Pelt Cloak. There's no hidden mystery, no sense of excitement and no thrill in knowing exactly what I wil lget once I finish something. Or at least there isn't for me.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
You can have loot drops, progression, dungeon crawling and 100% crafted gear.
Edit: To address your edit, how did AC's crafting stack up to swg's?
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"