Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Where has crafting gone?
Kvothe
Member Posts: 41
Where has crafting gone in the MMO games? It seems to me that crafting is pretty much an after thought, and something that is thrown in the last month of development. I know that crafting is not as important as combat and other things, but to me a well polished MMO will have a good crafting system as well.
I did try Vanguards crafting system, but I was unimpressed. While it was complex.....it was not fun at all. Maybe it has changed since though.
There are alot of players that like crafting as a major profession. I just like it in my MMO as something to fall back on when I get tired of combat.
Comments
I've wondered the same thing for a long time now. Crafting in most MMO's is down right pathetic. Ultima Online has a great crafting system (just my opinion) and so did Wish (canceled). I'll keep my fingers crossed in hopes that one day a game will surface that does a great job at making it challenging and fun.
To me a good crafting system would implement the following aspects:
1.) The ability to develop unique items. Only makeable by the person who makes a discovery.
2.) The ability to experiment on items to make them better, by using different elements and procedures.
3.) The ability to create and sell an item that is desirable by many. In most MMOs the best in-game items are dropped.....which to me should not be the case.
Just my opinion though.
Hence my love for EVE. A real economy filled with player created items. PvP and item/ship destruction which causes there to be a demand for pretty much any item in the game.
SWG always had the best crafting system of any MMO I've ever played. Of course the NGE seemed to minimalize the role of crafters, but at least it kept the method of crafting in place.
But the one thing I always appreciated about SWG was that being a crafter was an entirely seperate entity from combat. You could be a dedicated crafter if you so chose to. It wasn't in parallel to a combat profession.
SOE has that template of crafting to use in other games, but because their new focus seems to be on RMT's I doubt SOE will use it again. They want us to buy our items from them rather then letting us craft them.
I see dark days ahead for crafters.
I agree.
Somewhere along the way, crafting became less important to developers. (maybe due to WOW, seems like all evil stems from it)
I never cared for crafting, especially when game mechanics forced me to craft to survive economically in a game.
But I have many friends who just thrill to it, so its a shame that most games today don't put more thought into like the old school games did.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Kyleran,
I hear ya, but I'll give some credit to Sigil and Vanguard.
Crafting in VG is ok, not great, but ok.
Crafting is stupid in games.
200 clicks and doing the same combines over and over isn't good gameplay ><. Idk why crafters craft, it's like a gambling machine.
Crafting in VG is really great, the first MMO were I craft just for fun.
i have never gotten the crafting menality, if i wanted to make money i would do it in real life. I play games for the adventure not to work in a sweat shop
personally i'm glad crafting has gone to the wayside I thought it was becoming to "core" to MMO developement. that pretty soon you would see raid mobs dropping "The Recipe for the Sword of a Thousand Truths", which then you would have to pay a crafter to make it, Instead of the sword itself.
I really think crafting was made to try to get more girls to play MMOs because every woman i know that plays MMOs goes straight for crafting.
sorry but the first thing that came into my head when looking at this was:
"Where has all the crafting gone?" sung to the tune of "Where have all the cowboys gone" by Paula Cole
(and yes, i had to look up the artist on Google)
I think a good point that this thread is making is that the devs need to work on balancing crafting like everything else. It would seem to me that crafting should be more along the lines of improving mundane items or selling in player own shops like in UO. I agree tho that if mobs should not drop recipes for uber loot but then again I think uber loot and gear whoring is ruining MMOs anyway. On the other hand crafting should not be click this gump, now repeat 1,743,563 times so that now you can go from making shoes to boots.
I guess you never did any crafting in SWG.
It was an extensive and comprehensive system where resource collection, and subsequently the resource stats, went into certain attributes that allowed you to experiment to achieve the desired goal. Essentially you chose what attributes you want to achieve (i.e. greater damage or less encumberance)
Being a good crafter meant something. You became famous, or infamous, for being proficient at it. Making credits was only confirmation of how good you were at crafting.
Of course crafting isn't for everyone. If it was then it would make for a boring game.
I've never really played a good crafting game I guess, but I always enjoy a bit of crafting to take the edge off of constant combat. I just wish I could wear the stuff I craft, always seems like in games like WOW that was never the case. (at least on my mains)
Who the hell are you, and why should I care?
Congrats! You are a victim of Trollstar!
For me, I the crafting in LoTRO has been my favorite so far :
* The acual process is not long or tedious.
* The Items made are superior too 99% of any quest reward or drop you will get, even at levels much higher than the crafted Item.
* Base recipes that can be used to level, but the really good recipes are drops. And the really best ones are one-time-use only.
* Mastercrafted items sell REALLY well on the AH. Food sells really well too! Even standard items produced when you miss your Mastercraft critical sell for 3x vendor price on AH.
* Materials you no longer need sell really well on AH.
In short, crafting actually means something in LotRO. If you examine any experienced LotRO player, they will be wearing a LOT of Mastercrafted gear.
Just my 2c
To add to the OP's discussion here, I answered a crafting question on one of the forums for an upcoming Euro MMO which seems to downplay crafting as too much of a "timesink" and thus it's not considered as important enough to be a serious part of that game. I of course added my complaint that this is not a good idea. It seems though that every forum of new and untested game has staunch defenders of initial developer concepts. My consideration was deemed as a triviality for that game.
Oh well, each to his own. But, in my opinion, I believe that long time MMO adventurers and roleplayers see crafting as almost equally as an important part of game development as any quest, dungeon, or instance. For now, I see EverQuest 2 as one of the best crafting games in the MMO market. Unfortunately, as PvP has become more of a mainstream fascination for new players of MMO's, we see developers all but leave crafting out altogether. I guess everyone wants it all right now. That way they can go and bash each other about for an hour or so. I do hope that with MMO's coming out these next four or five years, at least one brave MMO gaming company stays true-blue to us adventurers and roleplayers. Keep crafting as way to create economy and and personal wealth. I don't mean to see PvP eliminated, but put in it's proper perspective as a part of the lore and storyline of the game.
/bows
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
John Lennon
A good MMO should not solely be based upon 1 type of "pasttime"...
A MMO with shoddy crafting and no other options for playstyle than "combat"... Well, thats a shoddy mmo. It only offers gameplay to the combatcentric players, while other players who's not so combatcentric are left out.
Crafting should always be part of the core game, but unfortunately, gamers and developers seem to think that anything but combat is "the sims" wuzzy gameplay....
I guess by your logic if you wanted adventure you could go snow skiing in the HImalayas as well. Just because you thinking crafting is for girls implies that your either a pre-pubescent adolescent or just a male chauvinist.
Where do you think any sword or weapon originates from anyways? Do you just think that Mob bosses have a unlimited supply of that same great "sword of a thousand truths" laying around their keep for the next raiding group to come by? Boy now that makes alot of sense. I guess I have always thought it very ridiculous that the most powerful weapons in MMOs were dropped repeatedly by the same boss.
The best weapons/items in my ideal MMO would be made by crafters.....not looted off a giant crab.
Just my opinion though.
The best crafting system ever was Ryzom. Period, the end. The system was amazing - hellishly complicated, remarkably rewarding, ridiculously in depth. Heh, Ryzom also had the best skill system, as an aside, you could create custom skills using costs and penalties. I wish it only had more people - it was too 'smart' of an MMO.
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.
-Thomas Jefferson
That was one I really wish I tried.
Yeah you have a very valid point.....tapping away at a keyboard to forge a weapon is much more sissy than tapping away at a keyboard to kill a giant spider. Because you know that the more kills you have in an MMO....the more hair you will grow on your chest.
You have a very narrow view on what makes an MMO. It sounds like to me you should just stick to network based FPS type games.
Unfortunately we are a minority, and its also unfortunate that the MMO genre is being dumbdowned to cater to narrow minded players such as yourself.
Yeah you have a very valid point.....tapping away at a keyboard to forge a weapon is much more sissy than tapping away at a keyboard to kill a giant spider. Because you know that the more kills you have in an MMO....the more hair you will grow on your chest.
You have a very narrow view on what makes an MMO. It sounds like to me you should just stick to network based FPS type games.
Unfortunately we are a minority, and its also unfortunate that the MMO genre is being dumbdowned to cater to narrow minded players such as yourself.
nah you're just playing the wrong genre, MMOs have always been built on the adventure and "killing that spider". if you want the fircken sims or second life go play that and get a job and make money and get a house and decorate till your hearts content.
Yeah you have a very valid point.....tapping away at a keyboard to forge a weapon is much more sissy than tapping away at a keyboard to kill a giant spider. Because you know that the more kills you have in an MMO....the more hair you will grow on your chest.
You have a very narrow view on what makes an MMO. It sounds like to me you should just stick to network based FPS type games.
Unfortunately we are a minority, and its also unfortunate that the MMO genre is being dumbdowned to cater to narrow minded players such as yourself.
nah you're just playing the wrong genre, MMOs have always been built on the adventure and "killing that spider". if you want the fircken sims or second life go play that and get a job and make money and get a house and decorate till your hearts content.
I like the combat aspect as much as the next guy, more so than crafting. I said that earlier in my previous post. I just think a good crafting system makes for more of a well-polished MMO, if it can be done right.
Probably the reason I like crafting the most is because it creates professions that adds to a more diverse in-game player base. I personally do not find MMOs immersive if everyone walking around looks like the terminator.
I like the combat aspect as much as the next guy, more so than crafting. I said that earlier in my previous post. I just think a good crafting system makes for more of a well-polished MMO, if it can be done right.
Probably the reason I like crafting the most is because it creates professions that adds to a more diverse in-game player base. I personally do not find MMOs immersive if everyone walking around looks like the terminator.
This discussion here shows one very good reason to have nice crafting system, maybe even mandatory to economics (swords had to be made by dedicated smiths, they wouldn't just randomly spawn to some dungeon): It would attract players alike one of the people above, while repelling players alike the other one. Twofold victory.