Some of the better crafting systems in MMO's (SWG,EVE,Ryzom, Wurm, Tale In The Desert,) all immersive and complex for those that want to harvest and actually put the time into it go on to the server's best craftsmen or women, SWG's resource system and crafting system stands out the most as other posters have stated in this thread or in the past, people that would scour the worlds in search of top notch resources for now is a website documenting new spawns each week, crafting top notch server capped items were always sought after and very lucrative if you know what you was doing and if you had a good guild backing you , you could corner the market and sell items at reasonable prices, the only drops mobs should ever drop are fluff items or components to crafting, vanity items, storage upgrades etc, there is no reason why anyone should have to run a raid 100-200 time to get a shiny then if it does drop you have to roll and compete with total d-bags and their incessant greed.
When everything can be crafted everyone can particpate in all content and not be excluded cause of e-peen game addons like gearscore or anyother lame addon that ostricazes and demeans other players. Raiding can be still viable and complex crafting can co-exist together along with rare world mobs and creatures dropping one time drops that truly set apart players and make them truly unique, but as older MMOs have shown rare mobs can be exploited or farmed thats when you make the spawns dyanmic and random. Raid drops could drop rare armor weapons clothing which can be deconstructed and reassembled by a crafter giving the crafter business or in a guild a free upgrade and a cool new shiny to use in battle.
Crafting should never be limited to combat related items, furniture, food, vanity items, equipment, ships, should all be included to keep budding crafters happy and the choice to specialize in what they want to do.
Lets just make this as clear as possable: The Turbine folks claim that there making big improvments to player crafting yet what there really doing is dressing up the same wild boar only there adding jewelry, but its still the same old system.
1. On all things that can be player crafted, the quest rewards are always better then what can be made.
2. Drops from most mobs (unless there named elites) is always junk. and even some of the elites.
3. There's a reputation system that lets you buy items from rep dealers but even there items suck.
4. Getting the top reputation won't reliece your allies to sell you the recipies they used to make the quest reward armor that they give to all who complete there reps line of quests. what also sucks.
5. They added crafting guilds with over priced recipies that have cool downs, some lasting a week or more. And still the items you make are lesser items then what you get from quests.
6. It's been this way since the beginning of lotro and I don't see it ever changing.
7. This fall Lotro is going into F2P, and only then could I see the crafters making gear even at low Levels that will help them make money and make it somewhat worth a profession. Probably for the first six months it'll be good and then Turbine will find a way to screw it up for those people that did come to play.......just for the crafting. Will be back at the farm looking for a new pig.
8. Again, its the same old crafting system. You can put a pair of heels and a mini skirt on a boar but in the end it's still a boar. and a dirty one at that.
It's true they have a huge list of things to do in crafting. You could get lost in the bordom of the grind while trying to get to the next Lv of the craft system but in the end you still have a huge letdown simply because not many people want what you've made and spent hours perfecting.
If I am going to spend as much time on crafting levels as I do on adventuring levels, then it should be just as fun and visceral as fighting a mob or running to cool places to quest. Maybe a "quest" system should be put in place for crafting, ones that send you to distant places for exotic materials and exotic forges/mills, etc that you can only make certain things at those places. (Not in the middle of a group dungeon though, *cough*WoW*cough*).
That's my take on it, anyway.
EQ did a great job this actually. Including sending you to remote/far off/dangerous locations for crafting materilas. As a matter of fact, Aquiring some of the materials even required the skills of other classes like a cleric to make holy water, or an enchanter to enchant bars or various metals, etc..
Some of the better crafting systems in MMO's (SWG,EVE,Ryzom, Wurm, Tale In The Desert,) all immersive and complex for those that want to harvest and actually put the time into it go on to the server's best craftsmen or women, SWG's resource system and crafting system stands out the most as other posters have stated in this thread or in the past, people that would scour the worlds in search of top notch resources for now is a website documenting new spawns each week, crafting top notch server capped items were always sought after and very lucrative if you know what you was doing and if you had a good guild backing you , you could corner the market and sell items at reasonable prices, the only drops mobs should ever drop are fluff items or components to crafting, vanity items, storage upgrades etc, there is no reason why anyone should have to run a raid 100-200 time to get a shiny then if it does drop you have to roll and compete with total d-bags and their incessant greed.
When everything can be crafted everyone can particpate in all content and not be excluded cause of e-peen game addons like gearscore or anyother lame addon that ostricazes and demeans other players. Raiding can be still viable and complex crafting can co-exist together along with rare world mobs and creatures dropping one time drops that truly set apart players and make them truly unique, but as older MMOs have shown rare mobs can be exploited or farmed thats when you make the spawns dyanmic and random. Raid drops could drop rare armor weapons clothing which can be deconstructed and reassembled by a crafter giving the crafter business or in a guild a free upgrade and a cool new shiny to use in battle.
Crafting should never be limited to combat related items, furniture, food, vanity items, equipment, ships, should all be included to keep budding crafters happy and the choice to specialize in what they want to do.
I agree with a lot of this but there's one other aspect that makes or breaks many crafting systems... The market. A game that has 'convenience' purchases allows for a variety of market operations that aren't available in the 'instant' market model. Competitors can sell their products at different areas for lower or higher prices. The more wealthy/long term a player, the more of *A* market they may hold but nobody controls *THE* market -- it becomes virtually impossible when someone else can sell items 'in this or that corner' that someone will find more convenient to buy from.
EVE has the best market system of any game I've played though actual crafting isn't that hot -- ME research becomes impossible without your own station which needs to be out in a 'safe' corner, etc... You have players that do nothing but trade in the market in EVE as well as those who manufacture and don't really market what they make.
SWG has the best crafting system but it's market system is quite a bit weaker. It often takes longer to travel to a sales spot on a current world vs flying to a different world to pick up what you are after so most of that convenience factor takes a hike.
In my book, the composite of an excellent crafting system WITH a good market would be the best way to go.
I used to like enchanting in DAOC. If you over enchanted you would blow up, which I did a lot for the amusement of others around me. They used to take bets on when I would explode.
Horizons - Now Istaria I think - was set up like this. you looted mats and recipes and built what you wanted. However, I honestly felt that special bosses and such should have dropped something or more value than a piece of iron. prolly why it didn't do as well.
I always wanted a game which allowed players to craft adventures for the items they make. Why can't we make a game where we learn how to forge an Exalibur? And I don't mean we hire a lvl 100 chanter, loot a dragon tooth from 30 raid attempts, and/ or buy it at auction. I mean you see a need to forge something of greatness. An item so valuable that it savs the village. Becomes Lore. Perhaps when the next dude seems my trinket protecting the village, they see Fansede's Crystal. They examine it and it see the lore that the item protects the village from mauraders. The next players wants something like this and a quest chain is initated. Someone breaks it and the need occurs again...
@EricDanie: I agree, it's a little far-fetched that we find full suits of armor on monsters that could never wear (or in many cases feasibly carry) such items. There has to be a bit of suspension of disbelief, though, as we ARE playing a game to escape reality, not fully emulate it. However, I do think it's a good idea to have crafted items eventually exceed those items that simply drop from mobs. If we're going to invest our time in sitting in just one spot, or bringing up our "crafting interface" if they let us do it on the go, we should see some tangible benefit from it over just running around killing things.
7. This fall Lotro is going into F2P, and only then could I see the crafters making gear even at low Levels that will help them make money and make it somewhat worth a profession.
I thought I heard that F2P player wouldn't have access to the auction house. I could be wrong, but if it is the case there won't really be anyone to sell to.
If I wanted to cut down a tree and make some furniture, I'd do it in my own backyard. Get rid of the crafting crap and focus on making a better game.
Yes! It's one reason I hesitate to go back to my mmo and would wait for Dargon Age DLC's. Gimme a free one with no crafting. If I need something I can buy one of those game cards.
I especially liked the pre-CU SWG bioengineering system. Harvesting DNA was like a game of Thief, you kill your mark, you lose, and they could definitely kill you (back when the death penalty was meaningful). The actual crafting was amazing--so many attributes to manipulate, so many variations of DNA, no real answers on how to do it, it was as close to real scientific experimentation as a game comes.
The pity was there was no real use in game for all the variable output of cloned creatures, except for the tanking CL 10 superfreaks, which were allegedly the result of a bug anyway.
Insight from the guys who made the SWG crafting system or Vanguard would have meant alot more. THese two persons interviewed are very clearly from backgrounds that don't put very much stock in crafting. It's a "side job" or "complimentary" system instead of a core part of the game.
Either way, if you are a person who believes crafting is just as important or more so than combat then you will never see anything good come from folks like these two and the games they make. Nothing personal but it is what it is. It takes people with the insight of those who, as I said before, have made a SWG or Vanguard crafting system to advance crafting in this genre of gaming for the people who place crafting as their main gaming style.
"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..."
For me....crafting is an absolutely essential element of my moog experience.Meaningful crafting...a true profession...one that produces products that rival the best dungeon drops. I won't consider playing a game that fails to have a good crafting system.Why am I so demanding ? A pve game alone simply cannot hold my attention.I get bored just pveing.
My ideal game is one that has multi elements.....great crafting....outstanding pve....faction conflict....and the icing on the cake is non instanced player housing. What am I playing that delivers all of this.......nothing.I try games that have some of these elements.But even finding ones that just have great pve and great crafting narrows the field down to a very few.I'm hopeful RIFT will come very close.In the meantine...I have a great history book I'm reading and maybe an attempt to get hooked on LOTRO for the unteenth time.
You fight bosses, make quests, only to receive/loot materials which you can use yourself to craft the gear or sell through the auction house for a profit, eventually having enough wealth to purchase that equipment. I never understood how you are killing a mighty dragon to have a polished shiny piece of gear handed out on its body.
Crafting being a very complex experience that would play a major role in the game.
Anyway, most games have it very simple, nowhere close to a full-fledged crafting system (which involves gathering and tiers of production).
Systems I've enjoyed out of the games I played are Aion (yes, I do enjoy it before someone might want to troll, there is profit for those smart enough to seek what is profitable and minimize crafting costs as much as possible), EVE (this is a beast of a crafting system coupled with local markets and actual traveling between systems rather than teleporting anywhere in less than 5 minutes as most MMOs are) and UO (this is the one that introduced me to crafting systems heh, before that games for me were just about killing things).
I am 100% with you Eric. We traveled similar paths. My smith in UO was one of my all time favorites. He got so popular on my shard that people were copying his name (UO did not have naming restrictions).
Unfortunately EQ introduced the uber item drops off bosses and it has been downhill since then.
Forcing people who don't want to craft to, isn't a solution easier, and leaves even more of a timesink. Sorry, I play to fight big baddies, I don't play so I can run around and gather mats to sew something together. This path of gameplay may be fun for you, but it isn't to me.
I have always stuck with the mmo's who actually put some effort and forethought into their crafting systems. If I wasn't in the mood for mindless slaughter or simply just didn't have the time it was a nice change of pace. However over the last several years the games coming out just don't seem to have that. They just seem to throw in a half hearted mess and call it a crafting system and expect people to like it. Or perhaps they hope people won't like it so no one will pursue it and they won't have to work on it.
I find that crafting where i simply hit a button and the crafting is done, boring, frankly. I prefer to interact at least a little bit, when im crafting. Vanguard's crafting was a ton of fun, as one example.
I also think that for raelism (which i know is not generally a huge issue in mmos lately) you SHOULD have to do tons of items to gain skill. Look at the Grandmaster Swordsmith from Japan : Shoji Yoshihara. He starred in the movie The Last Samurao as the sword master that makes the sword for Tom Cruise. He's been making swords for 50 years or so, as with any master swordsmith. To truly MASTER a craft should take a long time, even in a game. If it's too easy or fast, there's little reward in it. Much like cheating in a single player game.
I do however like the sound of the crafting rewards possible in TERA, being somewhere in between quest / zone drop stuff and raiding gear. That sounds more appealing than the typical stuff in most MMOs lalely, which is sub-par even to normal dungeon-crawl drops. I'd really like to see more MMOs where the possibility of something comparable to raid gear was craftable too. I mean it is in end game WoW, but you have to raid to get the mats and recipes. That seems to work fairly well. As did the epic sort of quests they did in original Everquest for things like the ring and i think there was a bow that was a pretty intensive undertaking to craft. For the crafters out there among us, those are fun, as well as rewarding.
You fight bosses, make quests, only to receive/loot materials which you can use yourself to craft the gear or sell through the auction house for a profit, eventually having enough wealth to purchase that equipment. I never understood how you are killing a mighty dragon to have a polished shiny piece of gear handed out on its body.
Crafting being a very complex experience that would play a major role in the game.
Anyway, most games have it very simple, nowhere close to a full-fledged crafting system (which involves gathering and tiers of production).
Systems I've enjoyed out of the games I played are Aion (yes, I do enjoy it before someone might want to troll, there is profit for those smart enough to seek what is profitable and minimize crafting costs as much as possible), EVE (this is a beast of a crafting system coupled with local markets and actual traveling between systems rather than teleporting anywhere in less than 5 minutes as most MMOs are) and UO (this is the one that introduced me to crafting systems heh, before that games for me were just about killing things).
you are so right.......crafting builds a comunity.....like it did in UO.....crafters where there just to do repairs and making you a nice golden armor if thats what you liked (for the right amount of gold)...these crafters had to go mining with their packhorses (or lama's hehe) into an open world where even them would get attacked bij elementals (who came free by your mining) and/or other players.
You know, I really seem to have forgotten how much I enjoy crafting.
Reading all of your comments is making me fiend for crafting in Ryzom or EQ again. On the bright side, TERA has my intrest so, it my well deliver good crafting
Its a crying shame that they make no mention of Vanguards crafting system. The only system that gets away from the traditional 'collect resources, click the 'craft' button and presto!' system.. theres no skill in it what so ever, its just gather and click, anyone can do it.
I love crafting, because it also allows you to interact with oher players. If you have high quality, low pricing or items the other party can't make, people are likely to come to you. Or you have to go to them, because they can make same components you need for your crafting.
Somehow I didn't enjoy crafting in games where one character could make everything. People are less likely to come to you, because they can make themselves or their friends can make it.
Wait, a discussion about MMO crafting without a single mention of EVE's system? Pretty much the only system that did it right? Oy...
Look, what they both alluded to is that having crafting be anything other than a grindfest means the market is flooded with items. EVE solved that problem through two systems. First, there is a limited number of production slots a player can employ at any given time. Second, crafting time in EVE is not trivial. Crafting of anything more than the most trivial thing (ammo) in EVE can take hours, days or even weeks. Other games? Everything takes seconds.
EVE bases its production limits around time and limited production thus ensuring the crafting stage has intristic value. Other MMOs limit their production based on tiers of mats (which is frustrating) and loads of useless items. So if we're discussing crafting, please, ask the people who did it right.
The only thing I wish was really different about EVE's crafting system is the inability to make anything different from anyone else. If "Research and Development" included ways to personalise and modify - even if only by a percentage or two - a few stats that would be awesome.
Oh and the interface could be a whole lot better, but then that goes for a lot of other things in EVE too.
Somehow I didn't enjoy crafting in games where one character could make everything. People are less likely to come to you, because they can make themselves or their friends can make it.
I completly agree, not only did it encourage trading but also guilds could organise to be 'cheif crafter of x'
Also it encourages people to make new characters to gather / craft different categorys of products, those characters inevitably get played and thus extends the content and enjoyment from the game.
You fight bosses, make quests, only to receive/loot materials which you can use yourself to craft the gear or sell through the auction house for a profit, eventually having enough wealth to purchase that equipment. I never understood how you are killing a mighty dragon to have a polished shiny piece of gear handed out on its body.
Crafting being a very complex experience that would play a major role in the game.
Anyway, most games have it very simple, nowhere close to a full-fledged crafting system (which involves gathering and tiers of production).
Systems I've enjoyed out of the games I played are Aion (yes, I do enjoy it before someone might want to troll, there is profit for those smart enough to seek what is profitable and minimize crafting costs as much as possible), EVE (this is a beast of a crafting system coupled with local markets and actual traveling between systems rather than teleporting anywhere in less than 5 minutes as most MMOs are) and UO (this is the one that introduced me to crafting systems heh, before that games for me were just about killing things).
actually EQ2 in the next update have rewamped the way you progress crafting about....added a quest line for it from start to finish...not to say they brought back any reason to use the crafted items with a few exceptions, but personally welcome the quest line since standing in an instance and do the EQ2 crafting is an absolutely bore, once you ve got your crafting skill up on par with your crafter level which happens around level 25 usually, after that you close your eyes and try fall asleep and hope the fingers will keep going. miss how crafting were at release of that game....tho for sure they would have needed to tweak the sub material system, but find it really sucky they just took the simple solution and completely removed it.
either way am a big fan of the idea that you kill the big baddies and then need a crafter to make you something useful....or if someoen can find a better way to make crafting a meaningful part of the game, without making it a go out pick up mats on the ground walk back done....one thing I d wonder how will work in Archeage, the proccess needed seems great to me, but one thing is to watch a movie, and then actually do yourself.
and for those who dont want to craft themself well that is what you have a community for, you know there is also ppl who dont like to fight the big baddies...but you dont see them saying there should absolutely no combat in their MMOs. granted there is far between at this time, and most likely the reason devs doesnt "waste time" on making crafting proper and meaningful at this time.....the market want to cater to the ppl who grew up playing games with raw action in 99% of them.
The actual crafting part of crafting is only part of the equation. Harvesting and trading are just as important and trading in particular is where many games fail. LOTRO actually does pretty well in that consumables are important and resources are limited. EVE is even better in that full looting and asset destruction creates a constant demand for crafted items (coupled with the fact that all ships have to be crafted).
In contrast, you have games like Conan, where your inventory is limited, and the crafted stuff is far inferior to drops. And most games have levels which means that gear you buy quickly becomes obsolete as you level, which discourages you from purchasing. Games which require you to fight stuff and level combat in order to craft, and limited auction systems and auction slots means you cant be a dedicated crafter. More like a combat hero who does crafting as a hobby.
Comments
Some of the better crafting systems in MMO's (SWG,EVE,Ryzom, Wurm, Tale In The Desert,) all immersive and complex for those that want to harvest and actually put the time into it go on to the server's best craftsmen or women, SWG's resource system and crafting system stands out the most as other posters have stated in this thread or in the past, people that would scour the worlds in search of top notch resources for now is a website documenting new spawns each week, crafting top notch server capped items were always sought after and very lucrative if you know what you was doing and if you had a good guild backing you , you could corner the market and sell items at reasonable prices, the only drops mobs should ever drop are fluff items or components to crafting, vanity items, storage upgrades etc, there is no reason why anyone should have to run a raid 100-200 time to get a shiny then if it does drop you have to roll and compete with total d-bags and their incessant greed.
When everything can be crafted everyone can particpate in all content and not be excluded cause of e-peen game addons like gearscore or anyother lame addon that ostricazes and demeans other players. Raiding can be still viable and complex crafting can co-exist together along with rare world mobs and creatures dropping one time drops that truly set apart players and make them truly unique, but as older MMOs have shown rare mobs can be exploited or farmed thats when you make the spawns dyanmic and random. Raid drops could drop rare armor weapons clothing which can be deconstructed and reassembled by a crafter giving the crafter business or in a guild a free upgrade and a cool new shiny to use in battle.
Crafting should never be limited to combat related items, furniture, food, vanity items, equipment, ships, should all be included to keep budding crafters happy and the choice to specialize in what they want to do.
Lets just make this as clear as possable: The Turbine folks claim that there making big improvments to player crafting yet what there really doing is dressing up the same wild boar only there adding jewelry, but its still the same old system.
1. On all things that can be player crafted, the quest rewards are always better then what can be made.
2. Drops from most mobs (unless there named elites) is always junk. and even some of the elites.
3. There's a reputation system that lets you buy items from rep dealers but even there items suck.
4. Getting the top reputation won't reliece your allies to sell you the recipies they used to make the quest reward armor that they give to all who complete there reps line of quests. what also sucks.
5. They added crafting guilds with over priced recipies that have cool downs, some lasting a week or more. And still the items you make are lesser items then what you get from quests.
6. It's been this way since the beginning of lotro and I don't see it ever changing.
7. This fall Lotro is going into F2P, and only then could I see the crafters making gear even at low Levels that will help them make money and make it somewhat worth a profession. Probably for the first six months it'll be good and then Turbine will find a way to screw it up for those people that did come to play.......just for the crafting. Will be back at the farm looking for a new pig.
8. Again, its the same old crafting system. You can put a pair of heels and a mini skirt on a boar but in the end it's still a boar. and a dirty one at that.
It's true they have a huge list of things to do in crafting. You could get lost in the bordom of the grind while trying to get to the next Lv of the craft system but in the end you still have a huge letdown simply because not many people want what you've made and spent hours perfecting.
EQ did a great job this actually. Including sending you to remote/far off/dangerous locations for crafting materilas. As a matter of fact, Aquiring some of the materials even required the skills of other classes like a cleric to make holy water, or an enchanter to enchant bars or various metals, etc..
A tiny mind is a tidy mind...
I agree with a lot of this but there's one other aspect that makes or breaks many crafting systems... The market. A game that has 'convenience' purchases allows for a variety of market operations that aren't available in the 'instant' market model. Competitors can sell their products at different areas for lower or higher prices. The more wealthy/long term a player, the more of *A* market they may hold but nobody controls *THE* market -- it becomes virtually impossible when someone else can sell items 'in this or that corner' that someone will find more convenient to buy from.
EVE has the best market system of any game I've played though actual crafting isn't that hot -- ME research becomes impossible without your own station which needs to be out in a 'safe' corner, etc... You have players that do nothing but trade in the market in EVE as well as those who manufacture and don't really market what they make.
SWG has the best crafting system but it's market system is quite a bit weaker. It often takes longer to travel to a sales spot on a current world vs flying to a different world to pick up what you are after so most of that convenience factor takes a hike.
In my book, the composite of an excellent crafting system WITH a good market would be the best way to go.
I used to like enchanting in DAOC. If you over enchanted you would blow up, which I did a lot for the amusement of others around me. They used to take bets on when I would explode.
Horizons - Now Istaria I think - was set up like this. you looted mats and recipes and built what you wanted. However, I honestly felt that special bosses and such should have dropped something or more value than a piece of iron. prolly why it didn't do as well.
I always wanted a game which allowed players to craft adventures for the items they make. Why can't we make a game where we learn how to forge an Exalibur? And I don't mean we hire a lvl 100 chanter, loot a dragon tooth from 30 raid attempts, and/ or buy it at auction. I mean you see a need to forge something of greatness. An item so valuable that it savs the village. Becomes Lore. Perhaps when the next dude seems my trinket protecting the village, they see Fansede's Crystal. They examine it and it see the lore that the item protects the village from mauraders. The next players wants something like this and a quest chain is initated. Someone breaks it and the need occurs again...
@EricDanie: I agree, it's a little far-fetched that we find full suits of armor on monsters that could never wear (or in many cases feasibly carry) such items. There has to be a bit of suspension of disbelief, though, as we ARE playing a game to escape reality, not fully emulate it. However, I do think it's a good idea to have crafted items eventually exceed those items that simply drop from mobs. If we're going to invest our time in sitting in just one spot, or bringing up our "crafting interface" if they let us do it on the go, we should see some tangible benefit from it over just running around killing things.
I thought I heard that F2P player wouldn't have access to the auction house. I could be wrong, but if it is the case there won't really be anyone to sell to.
Yes! It's one reason I hesitate to go back to my mmo and would wait for Dargon Age DLC's. Gimme a free one with no crafting. If I need something I can buy one of those game cards.
I especially liked the pre-CU SWG bioengineering system. Harvesting DNA was like a game of Thief, you kill your mark, you lose, and they could definitely kill you (back when the death penalty was meaningful). The actual crafting was amazing--so many attributes to manipulate, so many variations of DNA, no real answers on how to do it, it was as close to real scientific experimentation as a game comes.
The pity was there was no real use in game for all the variable output of cloned creatures, except for the tanking CL 10 superfreaks, which were allegedly the result of a bug anyway.
Insight from the guys who made the SWG crafting system or Vanguard would have meant alot more. THese two persons interviewed are very clearly from backgrounds that don't put very much stock in crafting. It's a "side job" or "complimentary" system instead of a core part of the game.
Either way, if you are a person who believes crafting is just as important or more so than combat then you will never see anything good come from folks like these two and the games they make. Nothing personal but it is what it is. It takes people with the insight of those who, as I said before, have made a SWG or Vanguard crafting system to advance crafting in this genre of gaming for the people who place crafting as their main gaming style.
"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
For me....crafting is an absolutely essential element of my moog experience.Meaningful crafting...a true profession...one that produces products that rival the best dungeon drops. I won't consider playing a game that fails to have a good crafting system.Why am I so demanding ? A pve game alone simply cannot hold my attention.I get bored just pveing.
My ideal game is one that has multi elements.....great crafting....outstanding pve....faction conflict....and the icing on the cake is non instanced player housing. What am I playing that delivers all of this.......nothing.I try games that have some of these elements.But even finding ones that just have great pve and great crafting narrows the field down to a very few.I'm hopeful RIFT will come very close.In the meantine...I have a great history book I'm reading and maybe an attempt to get hooked on LOTRO for the unteenth time.
Forcing people who don't want to craft to, isn't a solution easier, and leaves even more of a timesink. Sorry, I play to fight big baddies, I don't play so I can run around and gather mats to sew something together. This path of gameplay may be fun for you, but it isn't to me.
I have always stuck with the mmo's who actually put some effort and forethought into their crafting systems. If I wasn't in the mood for mindless slaughter or simply just didn't have the time it was a nice change of pace. However over the last several years the games coming out just don't seem to have that. They just seem to throw in a half hearted mess and call it a crafting system and expect people to like it. Or perhaps they hope people won't like it so no one will pursue it and they won't have to work on it.
Couple comments i would make.
I find that crafting where i simply hit a button and the crafting is done, boring, frankly. I prefer to interact at least a little bit, when im crafting. Vanguard's crafting was a ton of fun, as one example.
I also think that for raelism (which i know is not generally a huge issue in mmos lately) you SHOULD have to do tons of items to gain skill. Look at the Grandmaster Swordsmith from Japan : Shoji Yoshihara. He starred in the movie The Last Samurao as the sword master that makes the sword for Tom Cruise. He's been making swords for 50 years or so, as with any master swordsmith. To truly MASTER a craft should take a long time, even in a game. If it's too easy or fast, there's little reward in it. Much like cheating in a single player game.
I do however like the sound of the crafting rewards possible in TERA, being somewhere in between quest / zone drop stuff and raiding gear. That sounds more appealing than the typical stuff in most MMOs lalely, which is sub-par even to normal dungeon-crawl drops. I'd really like to see more MMOs where the possibility of something comparable to raid gear was craftable too. I mean it is in end game WoW, but you have to raid to get the mats and recipes. That seems to work fairly well. As did the epic sort of quests they did in original Everquest for things like the ring and i think there was a bow that was a pretty intensive undertaking to craft. For the crafters out there among us, those are fun, as well as rewarding.
you are so right.......crafting builds a comunity.....like it did in UO.....crafters where there just to do repairs and making you a nice golden armor if thats what you liked (for the right amount of gold)...these crafters had to go mining with their packhorses (or lama's hehe) into an open world where even them would get attacked bij elementals (who came free by your mining) and/or other players.
MAN do i miss the good old days of UO
You know, I really seem to have forgotten how much I enjoy crafting.
Reading all of your comments is making me fiend for crafting in Ryzom or EQ again. On the bright side, TERA has my intrest so, it my well deliver good crafting
Its a crying shame that they make no mention of Vanguards crafting system. The only system that gets away from the traditional 'collect resources, click the 'craft' button and presto!' system.. theres no skill in it what so ever, its just gather and click, anyone can do it.
I love crafting, because it also allows you to interact with oher players. If you have high quality, low pricing or items the other party can't make, people are likely to come to you. Or you have to go to them, because they can make same components you need for your crafting.
Somehow I didn't enjoy crafting in games where one character could make everything. People are less likely to come to you, because they can make themselves or their friends can make it.
The only thing I wish was really different about EVE's crafting system is the inability to make anything different from anyone else. If "Research and Development" included ways to personalise and modify - even if only by a percentage or two - a few stats that would be awesome.
Oh and the interface could be a whole lot better, but then that goes for a lot of other things in EVE too.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
I completly agree, not only did it encourage trading but also guilds could organise to be 'cheif crafter of x'
Also it encourages people to make new characters to gather / craft different categorys of products, those characters inevitably get played and thus extends the content and enjoyment from the game.
actually EQ2 in the next update have rewamped the way you progress crafting about....added a quest line for it from start to finish...not to say they brought back any reason to use the crafted items with a few exceptions, but personally welcome the quest line since standing in an instance and do the EQ2 crafting is an absolutely bore, once you ve got your crafting skill up on par with your crafter level which happens around level 25 usually, after that you close your eyes and try fall asleep and hope the fingers will keep going. miss how crafting were at release of that game....tho for sure they would have needed to tweak the sub material system, but find it really sucky they just took the simple solution and completely removed it.
either way am a big fan of the idea that you kill the big baddies and then need a crafter to make you something useful....or if someoen can find a better way to make crafting a meaningful part of the game, without making it a go out pick up mats on the ground walk back done....one thing I d wonder how will work in Archeage, the proccess needed seems great to me, but one thing is to watch a movie, and then actually do yourself.
and for those who dont want to craft themself well that is what you have a community for, you know there is also ppl who dont like to fight the big baddies...but you dont see them saying there should absolutely no combat in their MMOs. granted there is far between at this time, and most likely the reason devs doesnt "waste time" on making crafting proper and meaningful at this time.....the market want to cater to the ppl who grew up playing games with raw action in 99% of them.
Total fail article.. no one talks of SWG or vanguard?
The actual crafting part of crafting is only part of the equation. Harvesting and trading are just as important and trading in particular is where many games fail. LOTRO actually does pretty well in that consumables are important and resources are limited. EVE is even better in that full looting and asset destruction creates a constant demand for crafted items (coupled with the fact that all ships have to be crafted).
In contrast, you have games like Conan, where your inventory is limited, and the crafted stuff is far inferior to drops. And most games have levels which means that gear you buy quickly becomes obsolete as you level, which discourages you from purchasing. Games which require you to fight stuff and level combat in order to craft, and limited auction systems and auction slots means you cant be a dedicated crafter. More like a combat hero who does crafting as a hobby.