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Please create a world with lots to do, but not so difficult that you lose players in droves.
swing848
Member UncommonPosts: 292
The following is a modified post I made regarding Timothy Eisenzimmer's "review" or CSE update.
It is important enough to post here in order to gain more readership.
I played DAOC for over 11 years. This time around I want to see a few things changed. For 1, those that craft, do not make it so difficult to get materials that you need to group, allow purchasing of items as in DAOC, 2, crafting was a tremendous time sink in DAOC and that kept me from getting high level RVR [realm points] because I crafted so much. That was a tremendous disappointment. A person has X amount of time to play - if most of it is invested in crafting they miss out on other important aspects of the game. Please do not throw crafters under the bus in this game.
Today and for several years now, many players are often hard pressed to find a crafter in DAOC because to a great many players became a waste of time - [especially when noobs or jerks do not want to pay you for your work], except for themselves, friends or guild members - if you can find a guild with more than 25 people still around.
In summation, please do not make crafting brain dead stupid or difficult to get materials. Also, include in the game all information needed to find crafting materials, questing and all other aspects of the game. I am not one for having to look for clues to anything - it is frustrating. I just want to play the game and be part of the community - not a "hunting and searching whore".
Help information will surface somewhere on the internet, however, with scams and virus running wild in the past few years, please put everything needed on your servers, including any player made programs that will help others, like the old Charplan or Gearbunny, The Olde Apothecary [used in the old DAOC], and many more examples such as in-game helps for quests that the developers forgot or did not have time to write code for. Those are short lists, I want more to help for players that hate certain aspects of gaming. There is nothing much worse than spending as much time looking for help to play a game as actually playing the game!!
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Comments
What you're doing is claiming you're a crafter, but then complaining that you have to invest effort into crafting. That's like a person who claims to be a chef, complaining that making a pot of Ragu Bolognese takes 4 hours.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
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The no-lif... err I mean 'hardcore' players are going to flame you to a crisp for expecting to play the game and not end up fat, friendless, and divorced.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Master crafters can't be special if everyone can become one.
In DAOC back in the day I was a casual player, yet I found a way to have one high level Spell Crafter, (4th highest on server) 5 alts at RR 5, one at 8.
The secret was multiple accounts, I would craft on one while fighting on another.
I get where the OP is coming from, but fact is one of the greatest flaws of MMORPGS post WOW has been the attempt to make all parts of the game available to everyone.
Its the reason Devs dont include more time consuming activities and it runs counter to the designs that I favor.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Godz of War I call Thee
If they built them big again instead of expecting you to repeat content 3 or 4 times you would have immersive worlds where you stick around to see it all.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
This genre is in the state that it is because of developers trying to be everything to everyone. Just like in real life you have to decide what you spend your free time on. If you want to be good at anything you have to invest time into it. You may have multiple hobbies, but you have to prioritize on what you feel is the most important to you.
You can't have a deep, meaningful, etc, crafting system, that also happens to be easy and take very little time. Its incompatible.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Pick one, you can't have both. Well, you can have both on separate characters, but both would be mediocre at best because you're splitting time between each instead of mastering one.
It never ceases to amaze me how people cannot allocate their time properly and flame people that do.
Just because you are not capable of holding a job and having a family while playing an mmo in hardcore mode doesn't mean everyone else isn't.
Give me crafting ala SWG = depth
Give me a reward if I complete a difficult dungeon, less reward on normal, and better if on insane.
Give me a world where I can explore a zone and not get through it in a night
GW2 did that, and no subscription, and people left in droves.
How about a game world full of mechanics so unique that for the next 15 years game developers use your model as the norm? A tall order for sure...but someone needs to do something fresh or this mmorpg genre is going to keep fading into obsolescence.
I'm still not convinced that some "spiritual successor" to anything is going to be more than a three month distraction. Weve all done it before. Lets have some things that no one has done before, and have the game built around it.
I'm sure ill play it, but I'm not convinced that reliving DAOC in a modern game world and game engine is going to turn out any differently than every single other game made since DAOC that incorporated what that game did well. Since weve all seen what that game has to offer in multiple reiterations over the last 17 years.
I do believe the hardcore vs casual argument is a moot argument given I feel the reason mmorpgs start a downward spiral after two or three months isn't because of a lack of focus on one group vs another.
Its because weve all been doing the same exact stuff over and over and over again for the last <insert how many years you've been playing mmorpgs> and getting a new skin on the looks and a new twist on the mechanic isn't going to hold your interest like back when it was a totally new experience.
Dig deep, think hard, take drugs if you must, find God, whatever it takes. But please lets give the genre something totally new, and I don't mean innovating whats been done a bit. Reinvent the wheel, keep the concept the same RPG thing with a pvp focus.
I feel if it hasn't been done yet though, it wont be done soon...but realistically speaking....this is what needs to be done, and it will give the industry a shot in the arm.
How do you get the materials you use?
If you have to go fight for them, then what you are saying is that the crafter has to be spending all his time working on his crafting, AND still be as good a combatant as the non-crafters just so he can ply his trade. Unless of course they join a party to babysit them, and we all know how likely that is to work out.
That doesn't seem right does it?
Well maybe he could just buy the materials from the auction house.
Maybe, but at what price? Is it something that only someone that has built up the right skills can even obtain? In many games I've noticed that let's say (hypothetical example, not any actual game) as a level 20 crafter able to make level 20 gear, you need to go to a level 35 area to harvest those materials. When trying to buy from another player directly or the auction house, everyone one wants 200 gold per unit, but it takes 5 to make an item that the players will only pay up to 170 gold for max. Maybe it's just because they can buy something about as good from an NPC for 150 gold, or go fight in a level 20 area for a couple of minutes to loot something like that or sometimes even better.
If you guys have played enough games, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It seems to me the OP was wanting a reasonable medium of various things, he wasn't contradicting himself at all. His statements were mostly boolean. Not so easy that ---, and not so hard that ----.
So if the game has reasonable parameters for crafters, and they are economically able to thrive, then they probably will. On the other hand, if anything is out of wack, good luck finding one when you need them. (And if the devs have no intention of making if properly playable, they shouldn't even try to include crafting in the first place.)
Lost my mind, now trying to lose yours...
The problem will always exist,how to make crafting viable and good enough that players actually want to do the content the developer spent time creating.Well i learned some ideas in my years playing FFXI,one is through food accuracy and dmg buffs.Also craft potions instead of what we see in games where you just buy them or get a thousand potion drops to spam with.
We still have the problem of gear crafting,players will ALWAYS go to the best possible item and that is always in form of some Boss drop.Well allow players to grind for it without needing a Boss raid.Example you might need 100 wood,200 metal,then you need to get a crafting recipe for a handle,then a recipe for a blade,then a recipe to learn adhesive or attachments such as binding,then you have to craft to put it all together.
So what is the real difference,a player spends 2 hours killing some Boss or a player spends possibly 2 days farming the items and crafting them.Crafting just needs a lot of depth,a lot of items to craft to warrant an entire system.Example you can't make an entire system just to craft the elite items,you might craft farming tools,craft transportation lieke a cart,maybe have to spend a lot of time farming to get a horse to pul lthat cart,then you have to feed that horse.You see there si a whole role playing world out there if developers will only put in the effort and depth into their systems,all these shallow speed leveling games are just not good enough.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
But until they make the actually CRAFTED item more valuable than the resources to make that item it will be just another failed economy/crafting system. Even EVE couldnt figure out how to do that. Other than back when ship insurance paid more than what the cost of the ships were, but that didnt last long.
That being said and as other posters have mentioned, you CHOOSE to be a crafter, there is no need to make one if you prefer to do RvR instead.
I was one of the first legendary spellcrafters as well on my server and I still cherish the profession because of the unique nature of it. Both you and your client HAVE to be there at the same time and it's just a very nice social experience compared to most other mmos where you just chaincraft something and put it into the auction house.
I did resub last year and I can tell you that you are only partially correct. There was a ton of demand (and competition) for the more "active" professions like spellcrafting and alchemy (applying procs and refilling charges). It was by far the best way to make money to get geared while also having a great time chatting in town. They also greatly reduced the time/money investment in skilling up so I was able to level up a legendary alchemist in about 8 hours. When it came to crafted armor there was not a huge supply but enough to keep everyone satisfied, though it seemed to be more often than not to be the bottleneck. This is mostly because there was not a lot fmoney in crafting armor but also because it's not something you can craft on demand very well.
It comes down to game design, but also the community in CU. I fully expect there to be some rare materials but I think it's going to be more of a "If you want this weapon you'll have to get the mats / help me get the mats" thing. And I hope players are smart enough to pay their crafters well. Unfortunately CU still has a very long way to go until we see any form of crafting implementation to get a feel for how it will all shake down and if it will be viable to craft on a second account etc.