Sure, and really WOW set that ideal by taking the middle ground between the extremes of (a) crafted gear never being useful and (b) crafted gear being all you ever need.
Neither extreme is desirable for a game, and by walking the middle ground you actually allow players the freedom to engage with as few or as many game systems as they wish -- the more they engage with, the greater their rewards.
I disagree. EVE Online demonstrates how a game can function such that player-crafted gear dominates. Fantasy gamers are addicted to the gear drop lottery, and that's why player crafting can't find any traction in fantasy MMOs. Until the gear drop stuff is replaced by some other reward, fantasy MMOs will be stuck with weak crafting.
In my opinion, Dark Age of Camelot came much closer to an ideal than World of Warcraft. It still fell short because player-crafted gear was good, but certainly not a mainstream part of the typical player's experience. In other words, players could just do without the player crafted gear.
There's no overly abundant love for the "lottery", nor is it any more relevant to fantasy MMOs than any other theme. A mix of lottery and consistent progression are required for any good progression system.
EVE falls short on crafting mostly due to being skull-crushingly boring and AFK-intensive. On top of that, the complete disconnect between game actions and skill progression hurts things.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I think DAoC had the balance between crafted and quest/raid gear down the best. Quest/raid gear was the absolute best gear, but because of the way stats worked, you couldn't really make a well balanced outfit from just quest/raid gear. And if you wanted to PvP, balance was important. So you went after those quest/raid items you wanted and built a custom suit of crafted armor around them to give you the best combo of stats and effects. That said, the crafting itself was tedious as hell.
This is where SWG did well. Crafted items were useful, and crafting was interesting. Not all crafted items were the same because there were some random factors and all materials weren't the same. Materials had their own stats, and different items used different stats. On top of that, materials were different depending on the planet, and they changed from time to time.
And the best crafting in SWG was bioengineer. You had to get samples from live creatures. It was a balancing act between stats, effects, and creature levels. And just to make it real fun, there were no factories for creatures, so no two were exactly alike. I haven't played every game, but of those I have played, nothing compares to being a bioengineer/creature handler. The thrill of crawling up to a wild creature that could kick your butt and poking them with a needle, to the fun of taming and training your own creations. I do miss SWG.
I've always been one to love crafting in MMO's the more in-depth and complex the better off that game has retaining me as a subscriber, couple that with a player run economy where the players that make that effort become the best crafters on their servers, vs the loot based economies like WOW, Rift, and the thousand other MMOs that treat crafting like a joke (I'm looking at you RIFT especially which really turned me off).
Some of the best crafting systems out there as some have listed like SWG, and UO, EVE, Ryzom, Wurm Online, all of which I have played kept me playing for years on end with just crafting alone, hate it or love it , it is one of the components of any serious MMO that will keep loyal players happy if you do it right.
I'm hoping down the road newer MMO's developers with actualy intregrity and actually want to improve on some of the more praised crafting systems and improve upon that base and extend what you can create in the worlds we inhabit. I don't think crafting or tradeskilling as you call it is dying out it's simply waiting for the right studio and the right team of devs that want to give a real effort and give us the best they can possibly offer and not take the easy way out and sell out like so many others have done so far, have hope also just look at Arche Age and you can see what is in store for us down the road..
No, prior to TOA they couldnt, in fact around the release of SI there were players running around in 100% crafted gear. SI brought a blending of the two which I felt was DAOC at its prime. Then came TOA and they started the gear grind treadmill and you're right, soon no one needed crafted gear. Pity.
I played Dark Age of Camelot through the Shrouded Isles expansion, and I was the #2 weaponsmith on my server. Business was hardly what I'd call brisk. Business existed, so it was fun, but players on that server were primarily relying on drops, not on finding a player who could craft something for them.
I think DAoC had the balance between crafted and quest/raid gear down the best. Quest/raid gear was the absolute best gear, but because of the way stats worked, you couldn't really make a well balanced outfit from just quest/raid gear. And if you wanted to PvP, balance was important. So you went after those quest/raid items you wanted and built a custom suit of crafted armor around them to give you the best combo of stats and effects. That said, the crafting itself was tedious as hell.
This is where SWG did well. Crafted items were useful, and crafting was interesting. Not all crafted items were the same because there were some random factors and all materials weren't the same. Materials had their own stats, and different items used different stats. On top of that, materials were different depending on the planet, and they changed from time to time.
And the best crafting in SWG was bioengineer. You had to get samples from live creatures. It was a balancing act between stats, effects, and creature levels. And just to make it real fun, there were no factories for creatures, so no two were exactly alike. I haven't played every game, but of those I have played, nothing compares to being a bioengineer/creature handler. The thrill of crawling up to a wild creature that could kick your butt and poking them with a needle, to the fun of taming and training your own creations. I do miss SWG.
And don't forget some of the crazy names people called their pets
I hate crafting with a pasion because I always feel urged to pursue it... because crafters demand insane prices ... because SOMEBODY is doing a lot of goldbuying to make the economy go whacko, and giving lazy excuses for it. If they give any excuse at all.
I had 5 tier 5 (max) crafters in Vanguard, and one tier 4, i.e. I was almost complete, in the end. That was a LOT of work. My guildies complained I "craft too much".
This also was because whenever my guild missed another crafter type, I started a crafter of that type... but when it was done, we usually missed some OTHER kind of crafter ... and so on. Oh well.
What I prefer from crafting over adventuring/questing/raids/PvP is that the items can be configured to your own ideas. I think that should be the point of having crafting in your game.
Crafted gear shouldnt be the best gear, but it should compete with the best gear.
IMHO crafted gear that competes with raid gear (or pvp gear etc) should need some ingredients from this raiding (or PvP). Otherwise either raiding (or PvP) or crafting is made superflous in your game.
I hate crafting with a pasion because I always feel urged to pursue it... because crafters demand insane prices ... because SOMEBODY is doing a lot of goldbuying to make the economy go whacko, and giving lazy excuses for it. If they give any excuse at all.
I had 5 tier 5 (max) crafters in Vanguard, and one tier 4, i.e. I was almost complete, in the end. That was a LOT of work. My guildies complained I "craft too much".
This also was because whenever my guild missed another crafter type, I started a crafter of that type... but when it was done, we usually missed some OTHER kind of crafter ... and so on. Oh well.
What I prefer from crafting over adventuring/questing/raids/PvP is that the items can be configured to your own ideas. I think that should be the point of having crafting in your game.
Crafted gear shouldnt be the best gear, but it should compete with the best gear.
IMHO crafted gear that competes with raid gear (or pvp gear etc) should need some ingredients from this raiding (or PvP). Otherwise either raiding (or PvP) or crafting is made superflous in your game.
I have to totally disagree. I have never bought gold in my career. However I do feel that if someone that does not want to do the work that a tradeskillier does to make those items available deserves some of the prices. yes I have seen some high prices, however tradeskilling in some MMOs can be costly. Now does not the crafter have the right to make the money and time back that they put into leveling that craft? This is what I have seen is a lot of crafter haters always hate on the prices but they themselves do not invest the time or the gold/platinum that is costs that crafter to be able to make those items available for the buyer.
Yeah, one of my most memorable moments in MMO's came from crafting, in a way. It was DAOC, I was still low level...guild needed me to run out to the mile keep at 3am because I was the only one on with the woodworking skill to fix the door. I had to run, hide and sneak my way across the frontier, avoiding the purple aggro and enemy players so I could go fix the keep door.
The point isn't my personal adventure, it is simply the fact that I was NEEDED for my crafting skills. Crafting now is more like a mini game money sink that isn't necesary, which makes me not want to waste time doing it.
Which sums up why I dislike crafting. I personally found crafting quite repetitive so I hated doing it, yet I also hated how some games put you at the whim of serious crafters who only received enjoyment from crafting because it gave them a sense of self worth and power over people who chose not to partake in it.
If you didn't like the aspect, you never had to do it.
If you let yourself get forced and led around into doing stuff you don't want to all the time, then you're in the wrong kind of group and game. Time to change or let go.
As far as crafting goes, the best overall compromise of crafting depth, player economy, and player interdependence was SWG before SOE started screwing things up (at least to me).
The crafting system is quite deep with many varieties in the finished products. You can make a blaster built for high damage, speed, high accuracy, or some compromise. It all depended on what the crafter knew, quality of crafting tools / equipment, and resource quality (yes, you could have variables within a specific resource).
Gear? Everything used to decay to a point where it broke for good. You needed replacements all the time. Also, powerful equipment drops *did* exist but were very, very rare. And even then, they too could decay. What all this did was that item costs were kept in check and fair. Crafters knew repeat business was there because, hey, my beloved blaster and armor set will wear out after so much adventuring and PvP. If they wanted your business again, there'd be a compromise in quality offered and cost. The game used to have many Crafters, so competition was good between them and pricing for the population was fair. Sure, there was that occasional a**hole that had ridiculous prices, but you ignored them real quick because you found better, fairer business readily elsewhere.
Player interdependence. I understand you may not like crafting. No problem with that. The game didn't force it but yet crafters and the fighting / hunting population needed each other for goods or services. Easy example is that though the crafters can make better gear, they of course needed higher end mats, some of which combat is required (or very tough fights). Combat oriented types can fetch these mats and in return can bargain for a fairer price / services. There were also players who, believe it or not, played to be hunters (Scout & Ranger professions in the old skillpoint/template system that SWG used to have). They went out to track, hunt, and harvest organic materials from critters out there on the various planets and landscapes, depending on demand. Again, they in turn could bargain and make some money off the crafters who need them to make their goods. On and on.
It's just an example of how a game did do Crafting right for players in general. It was deep enough for those that are into it (why do you think old school SWG's crafting system still gets brought up today?). Yet if you chose not to be one, there were ways to make money off of it, as well as shop around for good, fairly priced gear.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
I've never understood the appeal of crafting. It takes the worst parts of themepark and has you repeat them forever. Go over there and collect 10 of them. Now go over there and collect 10 of those. And over there to collect 10 of those. Now, go over there and combine them in that thing. Now go do it again.
I've never understood the appeal of crafting. It takes the worst parts of themepark and has you repeat them forever. Go over there and collect 10 of them. Now go over there and collect 10 of those. And over there to collect 10 of those. Now, go over there and combine them in that thing. Now go do it again.
Argh!
Enlighten me on the appeal here.
The appeal was it was another way to enjoy MMO's that got you a ton of player/community interaction and didnt force you to go out and level via combat if you didnt want to. It might have been a bit repetative, but when a crafter got known for making the best of x then it really didn't matter.
Crafted gear shouldnt be the best gear, but it should compete with the best gear.
IMHO crafted gear that competes with raid gear (or pvp gear etc) should need some ingredients from this raiding (or PvP). Otherwise either raiding (or PvP) or crafting is made superflous in your game.
Let the crafters stock the armory with the best gear they can make from the available resources. Let the combat guys take their gear from the armory at no cost. Let the combat guys then use that gear to fight bad guys to gain control of new resources, including NPCs, raw materials, recipes, etc. Let the harvesters collect the raw materials so that they can be used by the crafters. Everything is public to a faction on a first-come-first-served basis.
From there, have the gear wear down, break or be destroyed, giving it a limited lifetime. Allow recycling. Further, vary the resources such that the quality and characteristics possible for the crafted gear changes over time. For example, find a mine with sapphires in it and new gear is created with greater magical resistance.
This works with PvP or PvE. In PvP, the factions battle each other for control of the game world a la EVE Online.. In PvE, the players battle the monsters for control. In PvP, control would jump back and forth between factions. In PvE, the players would tend to gain control and then keep it, eventually winning the game once the entire game world was under player control. That could take years.
In PvP, there would be corpse looting. In PvE, if you loot a monster corpse you'll just get junk gear - but a junk shield or sword is better than no shield or sword when your last one was destroyed in combat.
An interdependence between the crafters and the users is the goal. Players use gear to access new resources and the crafters turn those resources into gear. There would be no gear drops other than those from your fallen enemies.
Games like WOW have made progression about getting better gear... there is simply no way that a viable crafting system can fit into that model (which other games have copied). Because gear ends up being so valuable to the basic gameplay, it means you never lose those items untl you replace them with something better.
Before AOS, UO had the best crafting system because the power of your character was only marginally determined by your gear and that gear actually permanently broke which means you had to keep buying it.
But all of the games being made nowadays rely on gear as the indictor of progressions, which makes crafting all about énchancing´ that gear. In WOW, an armor craftsmen can make a few items that are really good. but players only have to buy one of them or just wait til they get better items from loot.
IMHO crafted gear that competes with raid gear (or pvp gear etc) should need some ingredients from this raiding (or PvP). Otherwise either raiding (or PvP) or crafting is made superflous in your game.
pvp should never be about pvp'ing for gear. as a matter of fact the idea of "raid gear' and "pvp gear" and "pve gear" is the silliest thing I've ever seen in these games.
gear should be gear. It should make a character marginally better. One should pvp for resources, hunting areas, to take over keeps and charge taxes or to drive your enemies into submission.
Raiding "could" be about gear but only if that gear is not bind on equip (don't believe in bind on equip) so it can be sold into the economy. Raiding could be the same gear that great crafters make.
In lineage 2 if one took down one of the larger bosses there would be a huge drop of top grade gear pieces. But this was the same stuff that the top crafters made. The only difference was that on a very small chance one might get a specific piece of jewelery that was usually coveted. could be used in pvp, or raids or pve etc.
I would even prefer that raids gave up caches of gear that needed a crafter to bring out its potential. However I do agree that crafters sometimes (oftentimes?) charge far too much for their wares. This might be their version of pvp.
Should this be the case there couuld be an npc crafter that charges a certain amount so the choice is that the player could either pay a lot of money which of course is capped at that npc price or pay a player a bit less for their services.
I just don't believe in separate gear. it's ridiculous. It then separates people who might want to go on a raid but who hasn't spent time getting raid gear.
Again, in L2 anyone could go on a raid. You didn't need separate gear though you did need good gear. same with pvp.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Games like WOW have made progression about getting better gear... there is simply no way that a viable crafting system can fit into that model (which other games have copied). Because gear ends up being so valuable to the basic gameplay, it means you never lose those items untl you replace them with something better.
Before AOS, UO had the best crafting system because the power of your character was only marginally determined by your gear and that gear actually permanently broke which means you had to keep buying it.
But all of the games being made nowadays rely on gear as the indictor of progressions, which makes crafting all about énchancing´ that gear. In WOW, an armor craftsmen can make a few items that are really good. but players only have to buy one of them or just wait til they get better items from loot.
Oh I hate to even see WoW's name come up as a viable crafting system in this thread. It is sad and pathetic. WoW has made it to where crafting is no longer viable and that is one of the issues within WoW at this very moment and why I quit. All that they give the crafters to make other than very few epics right at first is PvP gear. it isn't even viable to start out in the heroics with. And very little benefit comes from crafting in WoW anymore. After one month of an expansion crafters can not even make anything to sell. Unless they are an alchemist. Pretty soon that will be done away with by the new guild cauldrons even the alchemist won't be able to make money unless thy have the recipe for the new mount otherwise crafting is done away with and the insane nombers that they expect out of people on WoW crafting for the achievements is insane and rediculous. That is what is burning everyone out is the demand on them to make so much stuff to reach the guild achievements that, that is all some people spend their time on is farming and making stuff that they can not even do anything with after so long and no longer have time to enjoy the game itself not that their is much to enjoy RPG wise in Cata anyway unless you are leveling an alt. Burn out for a lot of people is inevitable at this point for some people who take pride in knowing that they are actually going somewhere with their guild.
Not trying to get off topic here but this is kind of why I did this poll is because I wanted to see how many people in depth crafting was important to and if you look at the poll it is importanat to the majority of MMO players and therefore WoW should not even be included in this poll.
Games like WOW have made progression about getting better gear... there is simply no way that a viable crafting system can fit into that model (which other games have copied). Because gear ends up being so valuable to the basic gameplay, it means you never lose those items untl you replace them with something better.
Before AOS, UO had the best crafting system because the power of your character was only marginally determined by your gear and that gear actually permanently broke which means you had to keep buying it.
But all of the games being made nowadays rely on gear as the indictor of progressions, which makes crafting all about énchancing´ that gear. In WOW, an armor craftsmen can make a few items that are really good. but players only have to buy one of them or just wait til they get better items from loot.
Oh I hate to even see WoW's name come up as a viable crafting system in this thread. It is sad and pathetic. WoW has made it to where crafting is no longer viable and that is one of the issues within WoW at this very moment and why I quit. All that they give the crafters to make other than very few epics right at first is PvP gear. it isn't even viable to start out in the heroics with. And very little benefit comes from crafting in WoW anymore. After one month of an expansion crafters can not even make anything to sell. Unless they are an alchemist. Pretty soon that will be done away with by the new guild cauldrons even the alchemist won't be able to make money unless thy have the recipe for the new mount otherwise crafting is done away with and the insane nombers that they expect out of people on WoW crafting for the achievements is insane and rediculous. That is what is burning everyone out is the demand on them to make so much stuff to reach the guild achievements that, that is all some people spend their time on is farming and making stuff that they can not even do anything with after so long and no longer have time to enjoy the game itself not that their is much to enjoy RPG wise in Cata anyway unless you are leveling an alt. Burn out for a lot of people is inevitable at this point for some people who take pride in knowing that they are actually going somewhere with their guild.
Not trying to get off topic here but this is kind of why I did this poll is because I wanted to see how many people in depth crafting was important to and if you look at the poll it is importanat to the majority of MMO players and therefore WoW should not even be included in this poll.
For the longest time WOW's crafting has fit perfectly fine within the gear progression model.
If both of you are upset over achievements being grindy (when you're not required to do them) or crafting not providing Best-in-Slot items for every single slot (when it'd be nonsense if you could), then neither of you really understands how crafting must fit into a gear-centric endgame progression model.
The valid criticisms of WOW's crafting over the years is when a given class/spec has zero endgame-viable crafting items, or when endgame dungeons fail to litter additional recipes to you the deeper you proceed into endgame progression (so that crafted items may keep pace and continue to be just a step above the best boss gear.) There are other ways WOW-style crafting could be improved too, but those are the core two in terms of how crafting integrates cleanly (without replacing) the typical pursuits of better gear.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Games like WOW have made progression about getting better gear... there is simply no way that a viable crafting system can fit into that model (which other games have copied). Because gear ends up being so valuable to the basic gameplay, it means you never lose those items untl you replace them with something better.
Before AOS, UO had the best crafting system because the power of your character was only marginally determined by your gear and that gear actually permanently broke which means you had to keep buying it.
But all of the games being made nowadays rely on gear as the indictor of progressions, which makes crafting all about énchancing´ that gear. In WOW, an armor craftsmen can make a few items that are really good. but players only have to buy one of them or just wait til they get better items from loot.
Oh I hate to even see WoW's name come up as a viable crafting system in this thread. It is sad and pathetic. WoW has made it to where crafting is no longer viable and that is one of the issues within WoW at this very moment and why I quit. All that they give the crafters to make other than very few epics right at first is PvP gear. it isn't even viable to start out in the heroics with. And very little benefit comes from crafting in WoW anymore. After one month of an expansion crafters can not even make anything to sell. Unless they are an alchemist. Pretty soon that will be done away with by the new guild cauldrons even the alchemist won't be able to make money unless thy have the recipe for the new mount otherwise crafting is done away with and the insane nombers that they expect out of people on WoW crafting for the achievements is insane and rediculous. That is what is burning everyone out is the demand on them to make so much stuff to reach the guild achievements that, that is all some people spend their time on is farming and making stuff that they can not even do anything with after so long and no longer have time to enjoy the game itself not that their is much to enjoy RPG wise in Cata anyway unless you are leveling an alt. Burn out for a lot of people is inevitable at this point for some people who take pride in knowing that they are actually going somewhere with their guild.
Not trying to get off topic here but this is kind of why I did this poll is because I wanted to see how many people in depth crafting was important to and if you look at the poll it is importanat to the majority of MMO players and therefore WoW should not even be included in this poll.
For the longest time WOW's crafting has fit perfectly fine within the gear progression model.
If both of you are upset over achievements being grindy (when you're not required to do them) or crafting not providing Best-in-Slot items for every single slot (when it'd be nonsense if you could), then neither of you really understands how crafting must fit into a gear-centric endgame progression model.
The valid criticisms of WOW's crafting over the years is when a given class/spec has zero endgame-viable crafting items, or when endgame dungeons fail to litter additional recipes to you the deeper you proceed into endgame progression (so that crafted items may keep pace and continue to be just a step above the best boss gear.) There are other ways WOW-style crafting could be improved too, but those are the core two in terms of how crafting integrates cleanly (without replacing) the typical pursuits of better gear.
What about those of us who couldn't raid after we grinded the faction for our recipes? As soon as I was in heroics every single piece of that gear was replaced and I had nothing else to make myself, but I also couldn't get the recipes from the raids because our guild had some issues. After that my tailoring was useless, there was nothing I could make for myself that was better than raid and or heroic gear, which in my opinion is stupid.
We tradeskillers on that game worked our butts off to get to max level and got nothing out of it except some nice shiny pants, belt, and helmet. So what is the point?
Can we see on the other side? No, but can the other side see us? Maybe, maybe not, guess we won't find out until we're supposed to.
Games like WOW have made progression about getting better gear... there is simply no way that a viable crafting system can fit into that model (which other games have copied). Because gear ends up being so valuable to the basic gameplay, it means you never lose those items untl you replace them with something better.
Before AOS, UO had the best crafting system because the power of your character was only marginally determined by your gear and that gear actually permanently broke which means you had to keep buying it.
But all of the games being made nowadays rely on gear as the indictor of progressions, which makes crafting all about énchancing´ that gear. In WOW, an armor craftsmen can make a few items that are really good. but players only have to buy one of them or just wait til they get better items from loot.
Oh I hate to even see WoW's name come up as a viable crafting system in this thread. It is sad and pathetic. WoW has made it to where crafting is no longer viable and that is one of the issues within WoW at this very moment and why I quit. All that they give the crafters to make other than very few epics right at first is PvP gear. it isn't even viable to start out in the heroics with. And very little benefit comes from crafting in WoW anymore. After one month of an expansion crafters can not even make anything to sell. Unless they are an alchemist. Pretty soon that will be done away with by the new guild cauldrons even the alchemist won't be able to make money unless thy have the recipe for the new mount otherwise crafting is done away with and the insane nombers that they expect out of people on WoW crafting for the achievements is insane and rediculous. That is what is burning everyone out is the demand on them to make so much stuff to reach the guild achievements that, that is all some people spend their time on is farming and making stuff that they can not even do anything with after so long and no longer have time to enjoy the game itself not that their is much to enjoy RPG wise in Cata anyway unless you are leveling an alt. Burn out for a lot of people is inevitable at this point for some people who take pride in knowing that they are actually going somewhere with their guild.
Not trying to get off topic here but this is kind of why I did this poll is because I wanted to see how many people in depth crafting was important to and if you look at the poll it is importanat to the majority of MMO players and therefore WoW should not even be included in this poll.
For the longest time WOW's crafting has fit perfectly fine within the gear progression model.
If both of you are upset over achievements being grindy (when you're not required to do them) or crafting not providing Best-in-Slot items for every single slot (when it'd be nonsense if you could), then neither of you really understands how crafting must fit into a gear-centric endgame progression model.
The valid criticisms of WOW's crafting over the years is when a given class/spec has zero endgame-viable crafting items, or when endgame dungeons fail to litter additional recipes to you the deeper you proceed into endgame progression (so that crafted items may keep pace and continue to be just a step above the best boss gear.) There are other ways WOW-style crafting could be improved too, but those are the core two in terms of how crafting integrates cleanly (without replacing) the typical pursuits of better gear.
No the grind does not bother me, grind does not bother me in the least. I have loremaster of all of WoW before Cata so if it is a grind I have no issue with it. What my issue is, is that they have left anyone who does not raid constantly out of gear progression period. If you are a crafter you still have to raid even if you want the new recipes that are implemented later. They have made it impossible for a crafter who does not raid or run dungeons to get any gear, or make gear that is worth anything at all. The orbs are soulbound can not be sold and therefore if someone who loves to craft does not run heroics they can not make themselves any gear.
Definately not a grind issue, however yes the small guilds did get the short end of the stick on leveling and progressing on the crafting achievements. Even you have to admit that. There is no denying that the small guilds are hurting.
I've never understood the appeal of crafting. It takes the worst parts of themepark and has you repeat them forever. Go over there and collect 10 of them. Now go over there and collect 10 of those. And over there to collect 10 of those. Now, go over there and combine them in that thing. Now go do it again.
Argh!
Enlighten me on the appeal here.
Appeal in crafting = I always have something to do with my downtime and not get burnt of doing the same quests or even quests period or dungeons and raid. When I first started MMO's I thought I would NEVER get tired of heroics and dungeons. It happened. So then on the game I was playing at the time I went and got loremaster when I got burnt out, After loremaster there is nothing left but dungeons and raids and if you are already burnt what are you going to do with yourself other than leave that game if there are no other aspects?
Crafting if there is housing and guild halls makes for realtime fun other than redundancy
What my issue is, is that they have left anyone who does not raid constantly out of gear progression period. If you are a crafter you still have to raid even if you want the new recipes that are implemented later.
That's only a realistic expectation if you're also asking for a completely different type of crafting, where player skill is involved.
WOW's tiered gear progression system works because as you progress things are also becoming gradually more difficult. Click-to-assemble crafting is inherently a non-skilled activity, and therefore it gets integrated with skill-requiring systems in order to fit properly in the grand scheme of things ("integrated" meaning you have to clear areas of mobs to gather there, and you need to beat dungeons/raids to get the best recipes.)
I agree with your fundamental point that raiding shouldn't be end-all progression, but for that to happen we'd need genuinely skill-intensive dungeons and solo content (and crafting too if that was turned into a skill-intensive activity somehow.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
What my issue is, is that they have left anyone who does not raid constantly out of gear progression period. If you are a crafter you still have to raid even if you want the new recipes that are implemented later.
That's only a realistic expectation if you're also asking for a completely different type of crafting, where player skill is involved.
WOW's tiered gear progression system works because as you progress things are also becoming gradually more difficult. Click-to-assemble crafting is inherently a non-skilled activity, and therefore it gets integrated with skill-requiring systems in order to fit properly in the grand scheme of things ("integrated" meaning you have to clear areas of mobs to gather there, and you need to beat dungeons/raids to get the best recipes.)
I agree with your fundamental point that raiding shouldn't be end-all progression, but for that to happen we'd need genuinely skill-intensive dungeons and solo content (and crafting too if that was turned into a skill-intensive activity somehow.)
Very true statement and that is why I left lol. Not enough community involvement in guilds to help each other no loyalty to anyone but themselves and expecting everyone else to carry them. This is what comes of an MMO with no other options than raiding and dungeons and everyone looks at raids as gear not a challenge. Most guilds did not even finish Ulduar in Wotlk and that was where a ton of recipes were. As well as heroic ToC where a huge amount of recipes dropped most did not finish that either. So again the crafter was left out of achieving getting their recipes even if they were a good raider and preferred to raid with the well I don't know how to say it other than nicer people. So basically if you are not in a hardcore raiding guild you are screwed out of everything and most of the people in those guilds are not very nice especially if they see someone as mediocre. So in the end if you are a hardcore crafter WoW is probably not for you. That was the point I Was trying to get across. The tradeskilling is no fun to someone who really enjoys tradeskilling.
The bottomline is whether people ENJOY tradeskilling as a feature. The fact that it is dying is pretty good evidence that it is not. There is not enough people screaming to make it a central part of the MMO experience.
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There's no overly abundant love for the "lottery", nor is it any more relevant to fantasy MMOs than any other theme. A mix of lottery and consistent progression are required for any good progression system.
EVE falls short on crafting mostly due to being skull-crushingly boring and AFK-intensive. On top of that, the complete disconnect between game actions and skill progression hurts things.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I think DAoC had the balance between crafted and quest/raid gear down the best. Quest/raid gear was the absolute best gear, but because of the way stats worked, you couldn't really make a well balanced outfit from just quest/raid gear. And if you wanted to PvP, balance was important. So you went after those quest/raid items you wanted and built a custom suit of crafted armor around them to give you the best combo of stats and effects. That said, the crafting itself was tedious as hell.
This is where SWG did well. Crafted items were useful, and crafting was interesting. Not all crafted items were the same because there were some random factors and all materials weren't the same. Materials had their own stats, and different items used different stats. On top of that, materials were different depending on the planet, and they changed from time to time.
And the best crafting in SWG was bioengineer. You had to get samples from live creatures. It was a balancing act between stats, effects, and creature levels. And just to make it real fun, there were no factories for creatures, so no two were exactly alike. I haven't played every game, but of those I have played, nothing compares to being a bioengineer/creature handler. The thrill of crawling up to a wild creature that could kick your butt and poking them with a needle, to the fun of taming and training your own creations. I do miss SWG.
I've always been one to love crafting in MMO's the more in-depth and complex the better off that game has retaining me as a subscriber, couple that with a player run economy where the players that make that effort become the best crafters on their servers, vs the loot based economies like WOW, Rift, and the thousand other MMOs that treat crafting like a joke (I'm looking at you RIFT especially which really turned me off).
Some of the best crafting systems out there as some have listed like SWG, and UO, EVE, Ryzom, Wurm Online, all of which I have played kept me playing for years on end with just crafting alone, hate it or love it , it is one of the components of any serious MMO that will keep loyal players happy if you do it right.
I'm hoping down the road newer MMO's developers with actualy intregrity and actually want to improve on some of the more praised crafting systems and improve upon that base and extend what you can create in the worlds we inhabit. I don't think crafting or tradeskilling as you call it is dying out it's simply waiting for the right studio and the right team of devs that want to give a real effort and give us the best they can possibly offer and not take the easy way out and sell out like so many others have done so far, have hope also just look at Arche Age and you can see what is in store for us down the road..
I played Dark Age of Camelot through the Shrouded Isles expansion, and I was the #2 weaponsmith on my server. Business was hardly what I'd call brisk. Business existed, so it was fun, but players on that server were primarily relying on drops, not on finding a player who could craft something for them.
And don't forget some of the crazy names people called their pets
Err.
What the §!%&§!%&&!!! is "tradeskilling" now ???
Oh. Its crafting ? That one I know.
I hate crafting with a pasion because I always feel urged to pursue it... because crafters demand insane prices ... because SOMEBODY is doing a lot of goldbuying to make the economy go whacko, and giving lazy excuses for it. If they give any excuse at all.
I had 5 tier 5 (max) crafters in Vanguard, and one tier 4, i.e. I was almost complete, in the end. That was a LOT of work. My guildies complained I "craft too much".
This also was because whenever my guild missed another crafter type, I started a crafter of that type... but when it was done, we usually missed some OTHER kind of crafter ... and so on. Oh well.
What I prefer from crafting over adventuring/questing/raids/PvP is that the items can be configured to your own ideas. I think that should be the point of having crafting in your game.
Crafted gear shouldnt be the best gear, but it should compete with the best gear.
IMHO crafted gear that competes with raid gear (or pvp gear etc) should need some ingredients from this raiding (or PvP). Otherwise either raiding (or PvP) or crafting is made superflous in your game.
I have to totally disagree. I have never bought gold in my career. However I do feel that if someone that does not want to do the work that a tradeskillier does to make those items available deserves some of the prices. yes I have seen some high prices, however tradeskilling in some MMOs can be costly. Now does not the crafter have the right to make the money and time back that they put into leveling that craft? This is what I have seen is a lot of crafter haters always hate on the prices but they themselves do not invest the time or the gold/platinum that is costs that crafter to be able to make those items available for the buyer.
If you didn't like the aspect, you never had to do it.
If you let yourself get forced and led around into doing stuff you don't want to all the time, then you're in the wrong kind of group and game. Time to change or let go.
As far as crafting goes, the best overall compromise of crafting depth, player economy, and player interdependence was SWG before SOE started screwing things up (at least to me).
The crafting system is quite deep with many varieties in the finished products. You can make a blaster built for high damage, speed, high accuracy, or some compromise. It all depended on what the crafter knew, quality of crafting tools / equipment, and resource quality (yes, you could have variables within a specific resource).
Gear? Everything used to decay to a point where it broke for good. You needed replacements all the time. Also, powerful equipment drops *did* exist but were very, very rare. And even then, they too could decay. What all this did was that item costs were kept in check and fair. Crafters knew repeat business was there because, hey, my beloved blaster and armor set will wear out after so much adventuring and PvP. If they wanted your business again, there'd be a compromise in quality offered and cost. The game used to have many Crafters, so competition was good between them and pricing for the population was fair. Sure, there was that occasional a**hole that had ridiculous prices, but you ignored them real quick because you found better, fairer business readily elsewhere.
Player interdependence. I understand you may not like crafting. No problem with that. The game didn't force it but yet crafters and the fighting / hunting population needed each other for goods or services. Easy example is that though the crafters can make better gear, they of course needed higher end mats, some of which combat is required (or very tough fights). Combat oriented types can fetch these mats and in return can bargain for a fairer price / services. There were also players who, believe it or not, played to be hunters (Scout & Ranger professions in the old skillpoint/template system that SWG used to have). They went out to track, hunt, and harvest organic materials from critters out there on the various planets and landscapes, depending on demand. Again, they in turn could bargain and make some money off the crafters who need them to make their goods. On and on.
It's just an example of how a game did do Crafting right for players in general. It was deep enough for those that are into it (why do you think old school SWG's crafting system still gets brought up today?). Yet if you chose not to be one, there were ways to make money off of it, as well as shop around for good, fairly priced gear.
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I think DAOC had the best crafting. Overall, I think crafting and the ability to make money in MMO's has been taken away by the gold sellers.
I've never understood the appeal of crafting. It takes the worst parts of themepark and has you repeat them forever. Go over there and collect 10 of them. Now go over there and collect 10 of those. And over there to collect 10 of those. Now, go over there and combine them in that thing. Now go do it again.
Argh!
Enlighten me on the appeal here.
Sadly my answer to the original poster is yes, I think crafting is a dying game mechanic. At least complex and meaningful crafting that is.
Retired: EVE, SWG, STO, EQ2, Ryzom, AO, LotRO, FFXI
Currently Awaiting: SWTOR, TSW, ArcheAge
The appeal was it was another way to enjoy MMO's that got you a ton of player/community interaction and didnt force you to go out and level via combat if you didnt want to. It might have been a bit repetative, but when a crafter got known for making the best of x then it really didn't matter.
Retired: EVE, SWG, STO, EQ2, Ryzom, AO, LotRO, FFXI
Currently Awaiting: SWTOR, TSW, ArcheAge
Let the crafters stock the armory with the best gear they can make from the available resources. Let the combat guys take their gear from the armory at no cost. Let the combat guys then use that gear to fight bad guys to gain control of new resources, including NPCs, raw materials, recipes, etc. Let the harvesters collect the raw materials so that they can be used by the crafters. Everything is public to a faction on a first-come-first-served basis.
From there, have the gear wear down, break or be destroyed, giving it a limited lifetime. Allow recycling. Further, vary the resources such that the quality and characteristics possible for the crafted gear changes over time. For example, find a mine with sapphires in it and new gear is created with greater magical resistance.
This works with PvP or PvE. In PvP, the factions battle each other for control of the game world a la EVE Online.. In PvE, the players battle the monsters for control. In PvP, control would jump back and forth between factions. In PvE, the players would tend to gain control and then keep it, eventually winning the game once the entire game world was under player control. That could take years.
In PvP, there would be corpse looting. In PvE, if you loot a monster corpse you'll just get junk gear - but a junk shield or sword is better than no shield or sword when your last one was destroyed in combat.
An interdependence between the crafters and the users is the goal. Players use gear to access new resources and the crafters turn those resources into gear. There would be no gear drops other than those from your fallen enemies.
Games like WOW have made progression about getting better gear... there is simply no way that a viable crafting system can fit into that model (which other games have copied). Because gear ends up being so valuable to the basic gameplay, it means you never lose those items untl you replace them with something better.
Before AOS, UO had the best crafting system because the power of your character was only marginally determined by your gear and that gear actually permanently broke which means you had to keep buying it.
But all of the games being made nowadays rely on gear as the indictor of progressions, which makes crafting all about énchancing´ that gear. In WOW, an armor craftsmen can make a few items that are really good. but players only have to buy one of them or just wait til they get better items from loot.
pvp should never be about pvp'ing for gear. as a matter of fact the idea of "raid gear' and "pvp gear" and "pve gear" is the silliest thing I've ever seen in these games.
gear should be gear. It should make a character marginally better. One should pvp for resources, hunting areas, to take over keeps and charge taxes or to drive your enemies into submission.
Raiding "could" be about gear but only if that gear is not bind on equip (don't believe in bind on equip) so it can be sold into the economy. Raiding could be the same gear that great crafters make.
In lineage 2 if one took down one of the larger bosses there would be a huge drop of top grade gear pieces. But this was the same stuff that the top crafters made. The only difference was that on a very small chance one might get a specific piece of jewelery that was usually coveted. could be used in pvp, or raids or pve etc.
I would even prefer that raids gave up caches of gear that needed a crafter to bring out its potential. However I do agree that crafters sometimes (oftentimes?) charge far too much for their wares. This might be their version of pvp.
Should this be the case there couuld be an npc crafter that charges a certain amount so the choice is that the player could either pay a lot of money which of course is capped at that npc price or pay a player a bit less for their services.
I just don't believe in separate gear. it's ridiculous. It then separates people who might want to go on a raid but who hasn't spent time getting raid gear.
Again, in L2 anyone could go on a raid. You didn't need separate gear though you did need good gear. same with pvp.
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Oh I hate to even see WoW's name come up as a viable crafting system in this thread. It is sad and pathetic. WoW has made it to where crafting is no longer viable and that is one of the issues within WoW at this very moment and why I quit. All that they give the crafters to make other than very few epics right at first is PvP gear. it isn't even viable to start out in the heroics with. And very little benefit comes from crafting in WoW anymore. After one month of an expansion crafters can not even make anything to sell. Unless they are an alchemist. Pretty soon that will be done away with by the new guild cauldrons even the alchemist won't be able to make money unless thy have the recipe for the new mount otherwise crafting is done away with and the insane nombers that they expect out of people on WoW crafting for the achievements is insane and rediculous. That is what is burning everyone out is the demand on them to make so much stuff to reach the guild achievements that, that is all some people spend their time on is farming and making stuff that they can not even do anything with after so long and no longer have time to enjoy the game itself not that their is much to enjoy RPG wise in Cata anyway unless you are leveling an alt. Burn out for a lot of people is inevitable at this point for some people who take pride in knowing that they are actually going somewhere with their guild.
Not trying to get off topic here but this is kind of why I did this poll is because I wanted to see how many people in depth crafting was important to and if you look at the poll it is importanat to the majority of MMO players and therefore WoW should not even be included in this poll.
For the longest time WOW's crafting has fit perfectly fine within the gear progression model.
If both of you are upset over achievements being grindy (when you're not required to do them) or crafting not providing Best-in-Slot items for every single slot (when it'd be nonsense if you could), then neither of you really understands how crafting must fit into a gear-centric endgame progression model.
The valid criticisms of WOW's crafting over the years is when a given class/spec has zero endgame-viable crafting items, or when endgame dungeons fail to litter additional recipes to you the deeper you proceed into endgame progression (so that crafted items may keep pace and continue to be just a step above the best boss gear.) There are other ways WOW-style crafting could be improved too, but those are the core two in terms of how crafting integrates cleanly (without replacing) the typical pursuits of better gear.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
What about those of us who couldn't raid after we grinded the faction for our recipes? As soon as I was in heroics every single piece of that gear was replaced and I had nothing else to make myself, but I also couldn't get the recipes from the raids because our guild had some issues. After that my tailoring was useless, there was nothing I could make for myself that was better than raid and or heroic gear, which in my opinion is stupid.
We tradeskillers on that game worked our butts off to get to max level and got nothing out of it except some nice shiny pants, belt, and helmet. So what is the point?
Can we see on the other side? No, but can the other side see us? Maybe, maybe not, guess we won't find out until we're supposed to.
@ OP.
No, it hasnt. Play Fallen Earth or Xsyon and you can craft untill you drop.
Disclaimer: Im not claiming they are good or bad games.
No the grind does not bother me, grind does not bother me in the least. I have loremaster of all of WoW before Cata so if it is a grind I have no issue with it. What my issue is, is that they have left anyone who does not raid constantly out of gear progression period. If you are a crafter you still have to raid even if you want the new recipes that are implemented later. They have made it impossible for a crafter who does not raid or run dungeons to get any gear, or make gear that is worth anything at all. The orbs are soulbound can not be sold and therefore if someone who loves to craft does not run heroics they can not make themselves any gear.
Definately not a grind issue, however yes the small guilds did get the short end of the stick on leveling and progressing on the crafting achievements. Even you have to admit that. There is no denying that the small guilds are hurting.
Appeal in crafting = I always have something to do with my downtime and not get burnt of doing the same quests or even quests period or dungeons and raid. When I first started MMO's I thought I would NEVER get tired of heroics and dungeons. It happened. So then on the game I was playing at the time I went and got loremaster when I got burnt out, After loremaster there is nothing left but dungeons and raids and if you are already burnt what are you going to do with yourself other than leave that game if there are no other aspects?
Crafting if there is housing and guild halls makes for realtime fun other than redundancy
That's only a realistic expectation if you're also asking for a completely different type of crafting, where player skill is involved.
WOW's tiered gear progression system works because as you progress things are also becoming gradually more difficult. Click-to-assemble crafting is inherently a non-skilled activity, and therefore it gets integrated with skill-requiring systems in order to fit properly in the grand scheme of things ("integrated" meaning you have to clear areas of mobs to gather there, and you need to beat dungeons/raids to get the best recipes.)
I agree with your fundamental point that raiding shouldn't be end-all progression, but for that to happen we'd need genuinely skill-intensive dungeons and solo content (and crafting too if that was turned into a skill-intensive activity somehow.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Very true statement and that is why I left lol. Not enough community involvement in guilds to help each other no loyalty to anyone but themselves and expecting everyone else to carry them. This is what comes of an MMO with no other options than raiding and dungeons and everyone looks at raids as gear not a challenge. Most guilds did not even finish Ulduar in Wotlk and that was where a ton of recipes were. As well as heroic ToC where a huge amount of recipes dropped most did not finish that either. So again the crafter was left out of achieving getting their recipes even if they were a good raider and preferred to raid with the well I don't know how to say it other than nicer people.
So basically if you are not in a hardcore raiding guild you are screwed out of everything and most of the people in those guilds are not very nice especially if they see someone as mediocre. So in the end if you are a hardcore crafter WoW is probably not for you. That was the point I Was trying to get across. The tradeskilling is no fun to someone who really enjoys tradeskilling.
The bottomline is whether people ENJOY tradeskilling as a feature. The fact that it is dying is pretty good evidence that it is not. There is not enough people screaming to make it a central part of the MMO experience.
It's dying, not dieing.