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Crafting turned out to be a joke, so I'm off to find a new game...
Shannia
Member Posts: 2,096
As many of you probably know by now, crafting in AoC has finally shown it's true colors. Unfortunately, from what we've been show by Avery and Funcom over the past few weeks, the great game of AoC is going to have one very glarying weakness and that is it's very weak crafting system.
After reading Avery's post http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/165712 and seeing the videos from the GDC '08, and reading what Lord Orion had to say from http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=54742&highlight=has+the+game&page=9 :
"It is correct that right now you can craft anywhere at any time, provided you have the resources and possibly the instruments required (like a sewing kit). We simply decided we didn't want the time sink of having to travel across the world to craft.
I can confirm, however, that we are looking into changing this a little bit based on all the feedback we've been reading on the forums about crafting (we always listen to constructive feedback from you ladies and gamermen!).
I am not at all promising that anything will change, but we're playing around with different ideas. One of the ideas is to have crafting of higher tier items restricted to certain areas, such as the guild cities. In the current system we have today some item recipes do require certain guild city buildings for the players to be able to use those recipes, but you can still craft it anywhere you want in the game world as long as your guild owns that building in their city. One thing we may or may not add is requiring the player to actually be near that building in the guild city in order to actually craft that item from that recipe.
This is one of the ideas we're playing around with, and we may or may not decide to change the system.
We'll see how we progress through beta."
What we are left with is three restricted zones where we can readily farm resources (one in each nation) and rare chances of crafting resources to drop while adventuring. I'm sorry, that sounds too weak to be believable and IMHO, the Funcom developer who designed this system should be completely ashamed. (Instances for resource farming where you compete with others for the same resources if you are even high enough level to gather said resources, please!!!!!) Sounds like a choke point for gankers to me!
What we have seen and read about crafting is what we get. They say they have no time left to do anything else with crafting. That is a shame. Maybe a year or two after release (hopefully sooner), someone at Funcom will realize a missed opportunity to capture the imagination of the crafter community. If it happens, my self and many others will rejoin the community. IMHO, this game deserves much more of a crafting system than it has at present. Until then, I wish Funcom the best with their release of AoC.
Avery, keep doing an amazing job covering AoC. It was nice knowing you as a guild mate and I'm glad to consider you a friend.
To all you crafters out there, the next "big thing" for us looks like Fallen Earth. Everything there evolves around crafting and reverse engineering.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
Comments
Hey Shan, you can gather rarer resources outside those 3 large tradeskill area's. Its just the common stuff is found there and its more like crafting villages - like a main market area for each country.
Anyway, wait till you see it at launch, you know you have a buddy key if you need one. Also remember with SWG a lot of stuff came later on after launch.
Bye, have fun wherever you go
"I don't give a sh*t what other people say. I play what I like and I'll pay to do it too!" - SerialMMOist
yeah they didnt spend alot of time on an intricate crafting sytem liek i had hoped. But i can live with it because im not much of a crafter, but i can understand why a crafting player wouldnt play though. See yah in the next game buddy!
actually thats not true at all...crafting was an integral part from the beginning. The only thing they really added later was schematics
actually thats not true at all...crafting was an integral part from the beginning. The only thing they really added later was schematics
I think Avery was referring to general things that have been added later in the game? I could be mistaken though?
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
actually thats not true at all...crafting was an integral part from the beginning. The only thing they really added later was schematics
I think Avery was referring to general things that have been added later in the game? I could be mistaken though?
well since we are on the topic of crafting i just figured he stayed on topic
actually thats not true at all...crafting was an integral part from the beginning. The only thing they really added later was schematics
Of course it had a good start / basis, what I was refering to was things like housing was in first with Player Cities - added in later.
Expac which introduced Shipwright ability (reverse engineering to better components)
Point being Im sure Funcom has got the message with overwhelming posts on the official forum, and with continued developement im positive support for crafting and all its intracies will materialise into something more than at launch,
actually thats not true at all...crafting was an integral part from the beginning. The only thing they really added later was schematics
Of course it had a good start / basis, what I was refering to was things like housing was in first with Player Cities - added in later.
Expac which introduced Shipwright ability (reverse engineering to better components)
Point being Im sure Funcom has got the message with overwhelming posts on the official forum, and with continued developement im positive support for crafting and all its intracies will materialise into something more than at launch,
But the key difference is that the integral parts of crafting were already established. To make crafting what the general crafting public wants would require a rework of the whole crafting code. Something that more than likely funcom will not be doing. And housing was in at launch...the only thing they added was a mechanic to allow city halls and cluster houses into a town. Thats just art and programming variables....not a rewrite of the whole system. What your talking about would basically be a overhaul of the crafting system in AoC.
Every bit of news that comes out about AoC makes me like it more and more. Over the past couple of weeks, I've been getting slightly more excited to give this one a try.
Every bit of news that comes out about AoC makes me like it more and more. Over the past couple of weeks, I've been getting slightly more excited to give this one a try.
thats great for you...but theres a very large untapped group of people (unlike yourself) which likes crafting. In game...other than loot drops (bleh) where do you think your potions/armor/weapons/enchantments/etc come from...oh thats right...crafters.and shannia if you find a game with SWG-like crafting please PM me. I miss crafting and interdependancy which makes a difference to all players.
actually thats not true at all...crafting was an integral part from the beginning. The only thing they really added later was schematics
Of course it had a good start / basis, what I was refering to was things like housing was in first with Player Cities - added in later.
Expac which introduced Shipwright ability (reverse engineering to better components)
Point being Im sure Funcom has got the message with overwhelming posts on the official forum, and with continued developement im positive support for crafting and all its intracies will materialise into something more than at launch,
But the key difference is that the integral parts of crafting were already established. To make crafting what the general crafting public wants would require a rework of the whole crafting code. Something that more than likely funcom will not be doing. And housing was in at launch...the only thing they added was a mechanic to allow city halls and cluster houses into a town. Thats just art and programming variables....not a rewrite of the whole system. What your talking about would basically be a overhaul of the crafting system in AoC.
Actually quite alot of people like the current crafting system as explained in AoC. Its definately as it stands right now not a die hard crafters game ~ it was never, ever billed like that. There is NO experience based crafting in AoC, you quest, and as reward you learn the next product/craft/tier.
Because of some demand for more to be added to beef it up as it stands, its been stated that housing quite possibly will come in an update after launch at some point. Shannia's main grief I feel comes from the fact that there are 3 main tradeskill area's (one in each main country)
The premise is you have your tradeskill area;
Each area has a Market / tradeskill town.
Each town offers NPC's where you can get all the quests pretty much you need to advance through the different area's.
The towns are just that ~ hubs where people can come and sell their wares.
The area around each of these hubs is massive and contains the mose common forms of crafting components.
You can still find components in the world elsewhere ~ just the rarer ones.
Monsters outside these area's will still drop crafting components, rarer area's, rarer component.
In order to progress to the very Very high end stuff its beneficial to be in a guild that owns a PvE city where as an example proper blacksmiths can help you progress further.
Every quest you do is related not only to character development but also in your crafting book and increases your product knowledge.
Items can be fortified with gems and better that original designs can be made.
There is plenty more I could go on and on. The point is the core is there, is the ease of use, the ability to make items anywhere, the fact resources add no weight to your character, and the many inventory slots that you can use troubles people. On the face of it it might seem very basic, however, there are underlying elements that bring it back up to par again.
Its not about re-writing the whole system, its about adding in more mechanics just like SWG did over the months and years after release.
Player Cities are in at launch for AoC, housin will come later most likely.
Thats 2 sets of player cities ~ PvP and PvE cities, each with many different types of building to build.
There aren't as many crafting professions as there were in SWG but it wasn't designed like that.
The whole point of crafting in AoC is that its accessible and because of this people think its dumbed down.
With 1500 armor/ cloth sets in the game - thats 4-8 pieces each set there are a lot of things there to be made / enhanced.
You also don't have to raid to get the best items, anything dropped is not able to be improved upon ~ socket / slot wise. Only with crafting can you detirmine how many slots you can add to gear.
To be honest Im glad they are going the accessible route, the more people introduced to the fun and intriguing / self supporting that is crafting the better, as at somepoint down the road there will be a call to enhance it further.
Everyone following the game for a time now knows it will never be SWG like for complexity, they have stated along the line that they hope for it to be better than a system like in WoW but also to be similar.
For FC the core of the game is the PvP / questing / combat
and i am glad you find the game perfect avery and yes funcom can do no wrong in your point of view. But this is not the point of the topic. The point is that accessibility, while fine and dandy for the mass pvp public, is still alienating a very large group. Noone is saying this is a bad thing, just not the thing a group of people (crafters) are looking for. Crafters, such as myself and shannia, are looking for a non loot centric, in depth crafting, customizable option which is not currently available, nor looking like will be available in the upcoming AAA mmorpgs.
Developers are overlooking the crafters and socializers. The thing that made SWG unique was this. You NEVER had to go combat. I had 2 combat toons and 2 crafting toons. I didn't feel like combat, i crafted. Others went the way of entertainers and musicians, others also had the option of being miners and foragers, without once having to kill anything. SWG was way ahead of its time, with no skill sets, and basically any option you wanted with a steep learning curve.
And despite the belief that all crafters were greedy money mongers, there are some of us (like myself) who loved just producing and creating something you knew someone else needed. I rarely charged for profit, I did it for the joy of crafting and the complexities which came from it. Finding the resources with the perfect stats that i was looking for, experimenting on different attributes, customizing the name of the item produced....etc.
No where, be it AoC, WoW, WAR (from the looks of things over there) are there said game mechanics in place which allow for such customizability, in depth crafting system, sociability, or interdependancy. Many of us are growing tired and frustrated waiting on a game which will once again incorporate these (which I feel are vital) constituents to a mmorpg.
Would it be a surprise that I agree with everything you said ~ apart from the first couple lines.
Honestly I've gave lots feedback on the "not so hot" elements imo on the official forums and snippets on these.
Im a crafter too and was quite well known in a few games under diff names.
Ps. I just went to the official forums, first post in the main area is: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=58211
Although that might not be crafting aimed. But the point is there.
Im all for more complexity for the game,but its not going to be there at launch. People looking at the game have to realise this from the get go.
i understand that...and appreciate your candor
I didnt mean ill will...just rarely, in fact never, really see much said against funcom on these forums. Granted I havent trolled AoC forums as much as most, but thats because my sights are broad right now and while AoC seems good mix of graphics and combat (not mentioning performance cause my concerns have been brought up a few times), there no ideal game in sight. So my apologies if i seemed brash. I am just frustrated and keep trying different trials and mmos trying to find one close to what i had. And its becoming futile. Everything currently, or on the horizon, is bleak (imho).
I am not discouraging people from playing (not one of those crazed anti soe fanatics :P), if this sounds like your game, then by all means...go right ahead and play. I will never judge anyone for playing a GAME they enjoy and pay for. If it makes someone happy and provides some fun....then more power to ya.
Theres just a large population of people still searching for a home, and gaming companies dont understand that in mmorpgs there are interdependancies and sociability...not all of it is about killing things.
Oh no, do not take it personal, and do not land blows on Avery. He is doing us a big favour by collecting information from various sources. Avery has all the right on earth to give his opinion. His information and opinion and well separated.
No game is delivered with all the final pieces set and polished. Never mind repeating the million reasons why. It is just not possible. If a game has to let go of something at the start, end game content and crafting are the natural choices. I will not find it too surprising when Funcom says more will come after launch. Until they go back on their words, we will have to trust them and play on, or wait and join later when the features we wanted are implemented. Anyway, jumping the gun now sounds a bit immature.
I fully support the need for a deeper more complex in places crafting system for AoC. There is still a lot we don't know yet.
I like the fact I can go out into the world kill some animals and collect their skins and then go sell them or make things from them. Im also hyped for building some features of the cities.
Thing is when you look deeper, there is a market there for "the crafter", at the same time FC I don't think want to alienate new people to the game by bombarding them with options.
Lord British once said something like "every 6-9 months people leave an mmo and the genre is replenished by an equal amount new to the genre". There is going to come a point when people will be playing mmorpg's and won't understand the diverse options that were available in older games. On the other hand with the crafting being really accessible, more people should get into it.
Im a proponent of design, by this I mean I think it would be cool if you could design weapons with a flavour / distinction of a certain area. Each country having its own design features. Kinda like in N.America people drive just like in the U.K but on the wrong side of the road - lol! same vechicle just rolled out differently.
One thing I can't wait to try out is the Non EXP based progression, I found it tiring after a while, a) running from bank to anvil and back and forth and b) having to spend a fortune to make the same thing over and over thousands of times to get to the next level to be able to make the next thing on the list.
It sure is going to be different when you say to yourself, 'ok I want to know the next thing' so you go speak to a guy about it, learn it, make it for him/her then away you go!
If your first to go, your last to know! i.e see how it plays out in game first!
which is exactly why i wont be preordering the game. I will wait and see what unveils after 2-3 months. No point in preordering or buying at launch if the only mechanic that is favorable is the combat atm for me. I will wait and see what happens after the NDA is lifted and the game is live for a bit.
i understand that...and appreciate your candor
I didnt mean ill will...just rarely, in fact never, really see much said against funcom on these forums. Granted I havent trolled AoC forums as much as most, but thats because my sights are broad right now and while AoC seems good mix of graphics and combat (not mentioning performance cause my concerns have been brought up a few times), there no ideal game in sight. So my apologies if i seemed brash. I am just frustrated and keep trying different trials and mmos trying to find one close to what i had. And its becoming futile. Everything currently, or on the horizon, is bleak (imho).
I am not discouraging people from playing (not one of those crazed anti soe fanatics :P), if this sounds like your game, then by all means...go right ahead and play. I will never judge anyone for playing a GAME they enjoy and pay for. If it makes someone happy and provides some fun....then more power to ya.
Theres just a large population of people still searching for a home, and gaming companies dont understand that in mmorpgs there are interdependancies and sociability...not all of it is about killing things.
I agree with Miagisan. No one is telling people not to play AoC. Far from it. AoC is going to be a great game and you can't ask for a better setting than Howard's Hyboria. Avery, you and I will have to disagree here. In the very first video about crafting where Gaude shows us what it takes to build a building, they talked about how important crafters were. It was mentioned that the ONLY place you could get socketed items was from a crafter. The only place you could get gems for the sockets was from a crafter. The only place people could get PvP gear was from crafters. The list went on. Fast forward 18 months and now crafting is on the back burner. Now the only thing you need a crafter for really is to build cities and such. Even drops can have sockets in them so there is no need to go see a weaponsmith or armorsmith for gear. You build buildings or cut gems is what the current model has for crafters. That is completely unrealistic ESPECIALLY from an RP perspective.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
To be honest, I'm not very passionate about crafting myself. It has always been more of a timesink for me, rather than a goal.
Having valuable resources in zones where a powerful guild can stake them out, does not sound very promising.
And that is exactly why the current system as designed is going to suck very badly for the pure crafter on a PvP server. You are forcing crafters out of their safe zones to get resources to do their job. You are forcing them to take on a combat role where they would normally just like to keep their guildmates geared and cities built.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
And that is exactly why the current system as designed is going to suck very badly for the pure crafter on a PvP server. You are forcing crafters out of their safe zones to get resources to do their job. You are forcing them to take on a combat role where they would normally just like to keep their guildmates geared and cities built.
The thing is we still don't know forsure how that will all play out though?!?
The PvP beta server has only just gone up, it could be a whole safe haven, who knows? 3 months for feedback to follow though.
i understand that...and appreciate your candor
I didnt mean ill will...just rarely, in fact never, really see much said against funcom on these forums. Granted I havent trolled AoC forums as much as most, but thats because my sights are broad right now and while AoC seems good mix of graphics and combat (not mentioning performance cause my concerns have been brought up a few times), there no ideal game in sight. So my apologies if i seemed brash. I am just frustrated and keep trying different trials and mmos trying to find one close to what i had. And its becoming futile. Everything currently, or on the horizon, is bleak (imho).
I am not discouraging people from playing (not one of those crazed anti soe fanatics :P), if this sounds like your game, then by all means...go right ahead and play. I will never judge anyone for playing a GAME they enjoy and pay for. If it makes someone happy and provides some fun....then more power to ya.
Theres just a large population of people still searching for a home, and gaming companies dont understand that in mmorpgs there are interdependancies and sociability...not all of it is about killing things.
This is what I refer to as the death of Online Worlds and its replacement with Online Games. Online Games give primary focus to combat (PvE and/or PvP) and have severely less developed other systems. They assume the player wants to be a hero who fights the good fight all the time, 24/7. Online Worlds, on the other hand, put relatively equal amounts of effort into other systems, such as crafting and other social systems.
The next AAA company that comes along and makes an Online World will make a killing. It's certainly where I will go too, dropping any subscriptions I have at that time.
"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
I'm curious as to what crafting systems are any good right now. What are you comparing AoC's system to?
I'd be plenty happy if I got all of my gear/consumables from killing or from quest rewards or from vendors.
In WoW, getting to be good at any individual trade skill often requires access to raid loot and several other trade skills (like making one cool items requires items that only someone with another skill can produce). It isn't fun; it's a chore and a huge time/money sink that only pays gold back if you spend days doing crap just for the Auction Houses. And in that game it seems like by the time you get good enough to make something decent with many of the skills you've already found/earned something much better anyways so you're just working for alts or the AH anyways. I won't play that nonsense again.
There are very few items that you need raid drops to craft with. Almost all of the top end crafted items in WoW require Primal Nethers and those can be gotten off the Sha'tar quartermaster. Right now, I'm following WAR and Fallen Earth in hopes of a good crafting system. Fallen Earth is all about crafting to include reverse engineering.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
I'm not a crafter, since I don't have the head or hanging around crafting, when I could be fighting, hanging in a bar or RP'ing instead
But any game that only has PvE/PvP as their core... Turns out a boring game. For a good game, crafting needs to be part of the core, and well planned... Just like whack-a-mole(PvE/PvP) has to be.. And there has to be more to it to the core game, like social mechanisms...
Tacking on crafting or other mechanisms later always flops... And the ingame economy never gets great.. Loot economies tend to never get great anyways..
So in my case.. AoC is now nothing more than a Koreangrinder.. Cuz thats the same setup they use.. Grind grind grind with yer sword/majic... Nothing else matters.
AoC definitively got bumped lower on my list.