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Hi Folks,
I've been playing MMO's since Gemstone (text-based MUD by Simutronics) on GEnie. I was in the EQ beta, and have tried most of the major games that have come out since. I think my favorite game was Dragonrealms, also a MUD by Simutronics. The reason I enjoyed it was that fact that my character, a Trader, rarely had to fight to advance in his profession. There was some rudimentary self-defense type combat minimum required, but the main way to be a better trader, was to trade. I can't seem to find a decent game like this anymore.
SWG galaxies had some potential, with the entertainer class for example...but they ruined that game with a major overhaul to simplify it. Most of the others I've tried since then (EQ2, Vanguard,Conan, Eve) still require fighting thousands of rats, pirate ships, boars,etc., to be able to advance.
I finally gave in last fall and decided to try WoW. I had always avoided it because it's a little too laid back for my tastes. I started a few characters hoping to specialize in Trade skills. I soon found out that I had to fight a few thousand more Mobs before I was able to advance my Tradesmen to Grand Master level. I really don't know why it's necessary for my Alchemist for example, to be a killing machine before he can finish leaning his craft...but I stuck with it. I'm in my 70's now, but I'm basically maxxed out in my trade skills, and once more I can only advance in the game by fighting thousands of mobs again. Granted, they are now a lot bigger than boars, but the mechanics are pretty much the same as when I was at level one. It just gets boring after 15 years of doing this.
Any games around, or upcoming, where I can specialize in a trade...open up a tavern...travel the lands singing songs as a bard..without having to strap on a sword and spend countless hours killing things?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
Sandsifter
Comments
Ragnarok online. Hopefully #2 will be just as good.
There aren't any games currently or in development that I'm aware of that would meet your needs, sorry. One problem that you alluded to is the simplification of games. Unfortunately what you want (if I understand you correctly) would involve some a seperate, parallel advancement mechanic as opposed to the add on that tradeskills are in most games.
The Moving Finger writes, and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
~Omar Khayyam
vanguard have 3 sorts of lvl.. adventurer ( what you call normal lvl.. kill stuff ) crafter ( by crafting or doing crafting quests) and diplomat..
i dunno how it works out after trial island..
mortal online might be of that sort too, but i doubt you gona find much peace in it.. and whole stuff
you could probably try some single player games
guild 2 . comes to my mind as first thought, its rpg game with some rts in it , its already bit old game. 2years? dunno.. latest addon seems to be dated to last year.. so not that bad, its decent game,
you pick your char. .blabla.. profesion.. would it be some carpenter, fisherman,thief and such
http://www.theguild2.com/index.php?lang=en&rid=1462
grab the demo and give it a try,
i doubt much of mmos will be the way you want, there is just too few who want just crafting ,
if you make it hard, most ppl wont look into that aspect, ants its a loss , if you make crafting produce best items, in game, everyone with enough money or time on theirs hand will get it.. breaks whole advancement again.. and so on
who knows
I agree with you entirely, I'd love to be able to play a game where I never had to fight anyone. Ever. Unfortunately, all MMOs are based around rampant killing of anything that moves as their sole means of advancement, tradeskillers don't get better at it by doing it, they get better at it by killing stuff and that makes no sense.
Unfortunately, you're out of luck, I doubt anyone will ever make a game that makes logical sense and offers multiple paths to improvement. I, for one, would like to see it, but I'm not holding my breath.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
theres those sports mmos
I can relate to the OP in some ways.....I often like to level tradeskillers also and dont want to have to do combat to do so........ I did not like in games like WoW how we had to level for our tradeskillers to advance.......I never understood why my tailor had to be level 35 to raise his tailoring skills to a certain level.......The two should be totally seperate entities......
The Secret World will be skill-based.
Sims Online?
Free Realms has several jobs or classes if you will, where you never have to fight to advance.
You could try Lord of the Rings Online. The quests give a signficant amount of experience. It is not all killing mobs. If you like questing, it may be the game for you. LoTRO also has crafting that makes some of the best armor and weapons in the game until you reach level 50. While a level 1 toon can make any item in their crafting specialty, you really need to level your toon to get the best out of crafting. Crafting tools with the best crafting bonuses have minimum level restrictions to equip. You will also need to level at least 1 toon to gather the higher tier resources in higher level areas.
You might try out Ryzom, EVE or Vanguard again. Ryzom's got a bit of a learning curve, and the character models take a bit of getting used to, but overall it's crafting is WAY better than most other MMOs.
EVE has a learning curve from hell, but allows you to be whatever you want to be. Don't want to "kill" anything? Try mining or probing or exploring wormholes. EVE's crafting is very deep and you'll have no problem earning a living with it.
As someone else mentioned, in Vanguard you can level diplomacy. Crafting doesn't require you to kill anything if you're an artificer. I don't think blacksmithing requires you to kill anything either.
Those are my suggestions. Good luck finding an MMO that fits your style of play!
Current: None
Played: WoW, CoX, SWG, LotRO, EVE, AoC, VG, CO, Ryzom, DF, WAR
Tried: Lineage2, Dofus, EQ2, CoS, FE, UO, Wurm, Wakfu
Future: The Repopulation, ArcheAge, Black Desert, EQN
I thought darkfall was game for crafters as well, where you dont need to kill, just craft if you want. Have they failed on it?
Anyway, interesting thread. I will never understand people like you, i need action not job. I "craft" in real life. Craft is unbearable grind to me, but to be honest in most mmo killing becomes as boring very fast. I really wait for mmo that will be more RPG, not based on fighting as much.
Anyway, back to you, Ii am glad that people like you exist, because thanks to you I dont need to craft myself.
Good luck
Playing: Rohan
Played (from best to worst): Shadowbane, Guild Wars, Shayia, Age of Conan, Warhammer, Runes of Magic, Rappelz, Archlord, Knight online, King of Kings, Kal online, Last chaos
I'd suggest giving EVE a more serious look.
The real-time training system is really quite good, in my opinion. And really, after you finish the tutorial, you don't have to rat much, if at all. Join EVE-U or another corp- they'll hook you up. You can literally be a trader or producer with absolutely no need for combat. You might need to rat a few times just to get a foundation started, money-wise, but that's it.
The only thing with EVE is this: you get out of that game exactly what you put in. If you're not willing to learn the ropes then don't expect to have any fun. I'll be the first to admit that it's not always fun, listening to MP3 classes/courses, reading guides, all that crap...but it's more or less required.
the official MMORPG.com deadhead
Hey there,
I might have a game for you, Horizons, Istaria
http://www.istaria.com/
I have not played this game for a long time, but it is mainly a crafting game, well it is your regular mmorpg, but I'd say more than 50% of the game is crafting, actually if I remember right, you do not need to ever level, you can just level your crafting, but I might be wrong. Well you need to make money when you start to get your crafting tools, but other than that you can just craft away...
The graphics aren't really pleasing, but you don't seem to be really after graphics, the sound either is not very good, but it has a great community and a really good story.
And one of the best things, you can be a dragon, yeah a real dragon, not a half dragon breed, but a full fledged dragon and you can fly and instead of levels, you age, you start as a young dragon, thengo to adulthood, etc.
You can also play the other races, there are like 7-8 races if I remember right.
Anyways, I hope this helps and I hope you find your game
Peace
Just thought of something. You seem to be the creator type. I play mmo to lvlup and pwn other people, proving i am smarter and more cunning and have best build in the world. But you like to make things happen.... maybe drop mmo for a while and try settlers or civilisation. i am pretty sure building and managing your empire is far more interesting than crafting stuff. Just try it for some time instead of mmo or in the meantime.
MMO is abusing drug but there are other games too, dont forget it or you can miss great adventure in your life.
Playing: Rohan
Played (from best to worst): Shadowbane, Guild Wars, Shayia, Age of Conan, Warhammer, Runes of Magic, Rappelz, Archlord, Knight online, King of Kings, Kal online, Last chaos
Okay, I concede that I am impossibly high right now, but...
HUH!?
the official MMORPG.com deadhead
EvE wasn't a bad suggestion. The grand irony of things is that the cutthroat PvP games seem to be the last haven for dedicated crafters. EvE, very simply put, is the bastard child of a wealth sim and FFA PvP game. A pretty good one at that. If you so choose, you can almost entirely avoid the combat aspect of it. There are a few corps out there, as I understand, who choose to focus entirely on the mercantile aspects of the game.
A few other people threw out some other fantasy MMORPG's. As far as I can tell, they all unfortunately suffer from the same intrinsic flaw that WoW does: you're forced to level to advance in a profession past a point. Beyond that, if you really want to be a crafter, WoW will disappoint you even more. WoW always has, and already has done in WotLK, tied high-end crafting to raiding. Most of the craftable epics that can be learned from a trainer are merely introductory gear to the lowest level of raids and are quickly replaced. If you want to create the best-available crafted items out there at the moment for many professions, you need BoP recipes from Ulduar.
Horizons might be an exception to the above rules, but it's so much past its prime that I can't really recommend it to you. As far as I can tell, it has a very small playerbase, and you'd likely be surrounded by hardcore veterans.
Okay, I concede that I am impossibly high right now, but...
HUH!?
Don't hafta be high to totally miss out on what he is saying....I am stone sober and all I gotta say is WTF?
I might be wrong, but in EVE can't you level up by mining etc?
You can play Fallen Earth as a 100% crafting character. Of course everything you craft will be made to help you fight better so its kind of pointless, but it can be done!
That is to prevent exploitation. You could just create lvl 1 character and just stand in city and craft. On the other hand, what would be wrong with that?
http://www.teraonline.info.pl Polski Poradnik Gry Tera Online
I am sorry that your taste is 180 degree of what most players want. It is NOT a coincide that almost all MMOs are combat base. If you want to trade, i think Second Life may be one of the only few games that have little violence. Of course, 2nd Life is not a fantasy game.
Okay, I concede that I am impossibly high right now, but...
HUH!?
Don't hafta be high to totally miss out on what he is saying....I am stone sober and all I gotta say is WTF?
Makes perfect sense to me.
Sadly besides Eve, which while a decent game I just couldn't get into space ships, there is very little for those that enjoy crafting, without being forced to constantly adventure. You can still do this in UO but since gear isn't destroyed or lost anymore plus all the artifacts you won't make a living at all.
http://www.alganon.com/
Alganon is supposed to not have level requirements for gaining skill in crafting but there is still the issue of getting resources without dying. To fix this issue there is supposed to be a consignment shop that would allows crafters post resource request but I am not sure how well this will work since raw materials usually end up being more expensive then the items they create.
LOTRO has a decent crafting system but you must complete quest which takes killing higher level mobs to advance.
Thanks for the feedback everyone...I truly appreciate it.
I have a lifetime subscription to LOTRO Thorwood, but lost interest in it after level 40 or so....probably because some of the items I needed to continue my crafting quests required grouping, and I basically solo in most games. Yes, I know that soloing in multi-player games is a subject of debate, but that's just my preferance. I actually was a guild leader of a group of soloists in EQ2...we are a strange sort, but there are a good number of us out there <chuckles>
I spent a lot of time in Second Life Nariusseldon; I actually wound up owning half a simulator (at a hefty $125 a month). Had a lot of fun for while, but as you said...it's not a game. More of a fun social sandbox.
Guess I'll try EVE again, though I agree with you Vengor, I'm not much for being stuck inside a ship all the time. Hopefully, I can see past that and learn to enjoy the complexities of the game.
Thanks again to you all, and good travels.
Sandsifter