A production system for a First Person MMORPG

MikeJT

I was thinking how could you make professions interesting in an MMORPG that is first person.

The way I thought about is making a little mini-game out of it.

Just say you were a blacksmith.

To make a sword you would need raw materials (an iron ingot), a pair of tongs to hold it with, a hammer, an anvil, a hot forge, and a sharpening stone, and maybe a file, depending on the item you would making.

You would equip the hammer in your dominant hand and the tongs in your off hand, then chuck the ignot into the forge to start it heating up. When it got to the right temperature, you would click the 'left hand' (alternate action) button to pick it up with the tongs, take it over to the anvil and click on the anvil to put it in position to start work.

Then the game would come up with a 'sword making' minigame overlay. You would select the item you want to make from the list, and then on the screen, dots would appear on the hot ingot. Your centre screen cross hair would turn into a circle, and you would click on the dots, and the hammer would fall on the dot, so long as the dot is within the circle. When you click on the dot, your circle would get smaller breifly and then return to normal size. As the peice of worked material gets longer, the dots are further apart and you have to aim for each dot independantly.

The further you get into the production of the item, the smaller the circles would get too, to reflect that the early shape of the blade is alot simpler.

As your blacksmithing skill increases, the size of your circle increases, the speed at which it recovers to normal size increases, and the amount it shrinks by with each strike reduces.

The more complex the items you're making, the smaller your circles will be.

So at lower levels, although you know 'how to make a sword', it is harder to rush through it. You can make a really hard to make sword, but your circle will be so small that it will take hours for the player to make it manually.

At higher levels, the circle would be so big that for simpler items, you could basically just sit there and click with only minor aiming.

With each progressive click, you would see the item start to shape, and could even interrupt production of an item and return to it later. Occasionally, you would have to return it to your forge to reheat it.

At certain stages of production, you could even change what you are making, if you're not too far into production. This means a player could prepare 50 'sword ingots', ready to be shaped into the sword type of someone elses choosing. They could even employ an apprentice (PC or NPC) to get the ingots to this stage, ready to be worked into swords.

Stats would also determine the size of the circles, and the amount of work done with each blow.

For example, in the early stages of forming the shape of the sword, strength will allow you to get the work done quicker. Bigger items with less fine details, like longswords, claymores, axes, warhammers would require more strength. But dexterity determines the size of your circles, so more complex weapons would be better left to a person with higher dexterity, because strength wouldn't matter so much.

Forges would have to be kept hot too. So the person producing would have to stop occasionally to refuel the forge and pump the bellows. Or they could have their apprentice pump their bellows instead, to keep the forge hot for multiple smiths.

If you lived next to a river, you could have a water wheel set up, hooked up to a drive shaft, gears, and a level system to automatically pump your bellows for you.

All trades in the game would be done like this, little minigames within the game, that other players can actually watch you do. They can watch as a lump of metal gets formed over time into a sword, or as a peice of stone gets cut from a quarry wall, or as a raw gem gets grinded, cut and polished into a beautiful gem, or even as someone mixes a potion.

Professions would be designed to be an interesting part in the game. If players are smart they can focus their skills on the highest level tasks and delegate the lower level tasks to lower level players or even NPCs. They could 'train' NPC's to do things.

This way, a player isn't spending all their time hammering out swords from an ingot. They get an apprentice to hammer the ingots to a certain point and then finish the product off themselves when it starts to get more complex, meaning it never gets to easy and it's still a challenge.

Czzarre

I wouldnt mind making crafting a little more interactive and skill based.

However, I know there are a lot of players who prefer to load up their inventory with stacks and stacks of reagents, hit the 'Craft All' button, and walk away for 30 minutes

Grunty

A Tale in the Desert has crafts that require such, like blacksmithing. Where you hit, how hard you hit, and which hammer you use all have effects on where the material goes and how close you get to the ideal template of the item you are making.

nariusseldon

Originally posted by Czzarre


I wouldnt mind making crafting a little more interactive and skill based.
However, I know there are a lot of players who prefer to load up their inventory with stacks and stacks of reagents, hit the 'Craft All' button, and walk away for 30 minutes

 

Lots of people play MMORPG for some MP hack-n-slash. Making the crafting part of the game too complicated is not always a good thing.

MikeJT

Well the idea is based on a couple of simple principles.

Those include:

1. From even a lower level, a player should be able to make fairly complex items.

2. The more complex the item, the longer it takes to make.

3. Different things require different attribute strengths to make easily (eg. a fine sword requires more dexterity but a large, heavy sword requires more strength.

4. Time spent on an item will determine it's final production quality and attributes.

5. Some stages of production should be able to have multiple people working on the same item.

6. The production tools required to make a simple item should vary from those required to make a complex one.

7. The system should allow players to create 'production lines' with different people with different strengths working on the item at its different stages.

8. Player action is required for production, or, production is made quicker by player involvement (ie. you can click 'create all' and walk away, but it will be slower than the work of players that actually take the time to get involved.

9. The product a player starts isn't necessarily what they have to finish on.

Reklaw

Originally posted by MikeJT


I was thinking how could you make professions interesting in an MMORPG that is first person.
The way I thought about is making a little mini-game out of it.
Just say you were a blacksmith.
To make a sword you would need raw materials (an iron ingot), a pair of tongs to hold it with, a hammer, an anvil, a hot forge, and a sharpening stone, and maybe a file, depending on the item you would making.
You would equip the hammer in your dominant hand and the tongs in your off hand, then chuck the ignot into the forge to start it heating up. When it got to the right temperature, you would click the 'left hand' (alternate action) button to pick it up with the tongs, take it over to the anvil and click on the anvil to put it in position to start work.
Then the game would come up with a 'sword making' minigame overlay. You would select the item you want to make from the list, and then on the screen, dots would appear on the hot ingot. Your centre screen cross hair would turn into a circle, and you would click on the dots, and the hammer would fall on the dot, so long as the dot is within the circle. When you click on the dot, your circle would get smaller breifly and then return to normal size. As the peice of worked material gets longer, the dots are further apart and you have to aim for each dot independantly.
The further you get into the production of the item, the smaller the circles would get too, to reflect that the early shape of the blade is alot simpler.
As your blacksmithing skill increases, the size of your circle increases, the speed at which it recovers to normal size increases, and the amount it shrinks by with each strike reduces.
The more complex the items you're making, the smaller your circles will be.
So at lower levels, although you know 'how to make a sword', it is harder to rush through it. You can make a really hard to make sword, but your circle will be so small that it will take hours for the player to make it manually.
At higher levels, the circle would be so big that for simpler items, you could basically just sit there and click with only minor aiming.
With each progressive click, you would see the item start to shape, and could even interrupt production of an item and return to it later. Occasionally, you would have to return it to your forge to reheat it.
At certain stages of production, you could even change what you are making, if you're not too far into production. This means a player could prepare 50 'sword ingots', ready to be shaped into the sword type of someone elses choosing. They could even employ an apprentice (PC or NPC) to get the ingots to this stage, ready to be worked into swords.
Stats would also determine the size of the circles, and the amount of work done with each blow.
For example, in the early stages of forming the shape of the sword, strength will allow you to get the work done quicker. Bigger items with less fine details, like longswords, claymores, axes, warhammers would require more strength. But dexterity determines the size of your circles, so more complex weapons would be better left to a person with higher dexterity, because strength wouldn't matter so much.
Forges would have to be kept hot too. So the person producing would have to stop occasionally to refuel the forge and pump the bellows. Or they could have their apprentice pump their bellows instead, to keep the forge hot for multiple smiths.
If you lived next to a river, you could have a water wheel set up, hooked up to a drive shaft, gears, and a level system to automatically pump your bellows for you.
All trades in the game would be done like this, little minigames within the game, that other players can actually watch you do. They can watch as a lump of metal gets formed over time into a sword, or as a peice of stone gets cut from a quarry wall, or as a raw gem gets grinded, cut and polished into a beautiful gem, or even as someone mixes a potion.
Professions would be designed to be an interesting part in the game. If players are smart they can focus their skills on the highest level tasks and delegate the lower level tasks to lower level players or even NPCs. They could 'train' NPC's to do things.
This way, a player isn't spending all their time hammering out swords from an ingot. They get an apprentice to hammer the ingots to a certain point and then finish the product off themselves when it starts to get more complex, meaning it never gets to easy and it's still a challenge.

Did you play Vanguard? as this sounds almost just like it, apart from the visual presentation of your idea. And think  the biggest issue you would encounter would be the visual/animated presentation to make it work in a MMORPG.

MikeJT

No I haven't played Vanguard. I'll have to check it out.

And yes I can understand how the visual representation would be difficult. The game would need literally thousands of intermediate models between raw material and finished product.

I don't think it would creat performance issues though, unless there was hundreds of people all working on swords in the same area (so the game would have to load multiple intermediate models).

Scot

Vanguard tried to make crafitng like a mini game, it had some nice ideas.



Bringing twitcher skills into crafting would be a laugh, 'I one shoted my first iron ingot today.' I think it has merit and certainly beats the A+B=C style the rest have.

Bigdavo

I really like the idea OP, it actually makes crafting sound fun. Also you mentioned how stats are altered depending on your dexterity or strength, I also think the quality of an item should should differ depending on how well you hit the dots. For example if you take extra care you can potentially create a 'masterpiece' which could sell for a lot, or alternatively punch out heaps of easier-made items for a quick buck.

Teala

Originally posted by MikeJT


I was thinking how could you make professions interesting in an MMORPG that is first person.
The way I thought about is making a little mini-game out of it.
Just say you were a blacksmith.
To make a sword you would need raw materials (an iron ingot), a pair of tongs to hold it with, a hammer, an anvil, a hot forge, and a sharpening stone, and maybe a file, depending on the item you would making.
You would equip the hammer in your dominant hand and the tongs in your off hand, then chuck the ignot into the forge to start it heating up. When it got to the right temperature, you would click the 'left hand' (alternate action) button to pick it up with the tongs, take it over to the anvil and click on the anvil to put it in position to start work.
Then the game would come up with a 'sword making' minigame overlay. You would select the item you want to make from the list, and then on the screen, dots would appear on the hot ingot. Your centre screen cross hair would turn into a circle, and you would click on the dots, and the hammer would fall on the dot, so long as the dot is within the circle. When you click on the dot, your circle would get smaller breifly and then return to normal size. As the peice of worked material gets longer, the dots are further apart and you have to aim for each dot independantly.
The further you get into the production of the item, the smaller the circles would get too, to reflect that the early shape of the blade is alot simpler.
As your blacksmithing skill increases, the size of your circle increases, the speed at which it recovers to normal size increases, and the amount it shrinks by with each strike reduces.
The more complex the items you're making, the smaller your circles will be.
So at lower levels, although you know 'how to make a sword', it is harder to rush through it. You can make a really hard to make sword, but your circle will be so small that it will take hours for the player to make it manually.
At higher levels, the circle would be so big that for simpler items, you could basically just sit there and click with only minor aiming.
With each progressive click, you would see the item start to shape, and could even interrupt production of an item and return to it later. Occasionally, you would have to return it to your forge to reheat it.
At certain stages of production, you could even change what you are making, if you're not too far into production. This means a player could prepare 50 'sword ingots', ready to be shaped into the sword type of someone elses choosing. They could even employ an apprentice (PC or NPC) to get the ingots to this stage, ready to be worked into swords.
Stats would also determine the size of the circles, and the amount of work done with each blow.
For example, in the early stages of forming the shape of the sword, strength will allow you to get the work done quicker. Bigger items with less fine details, like longswords, claymores, axes, warhammers would require more strength. But dexterity determines the size of your circles, so more complex weapons would be better left to a person with higher dexterity, because strength wouldn't matter so much.
Forges would have to be kept hot too. So the person producing would have to stop occasionally to refuel the forge and pump the bellows. Or they could have their apprentice pump their bellows instead, to keep the forge hot for multiple smiths.
If you lived next to a river, you could have a water wheel set up, hooked up to a drive shaft, gears, and a level system to automatically pump your bellows for you.
All trades in the game would be done like this, little minigames within the game, that other players can actually watch you do. They can watch as a lump of metal gets formed over time into a sword, or as a peice of stone gets cut from a quarry wall, or as a raw gem gets grinded, cut and polished into a beautiful gem, or even as someone mixes a potion.
Professions would be designed to be an interesting part in the game. If players are smart they can focus their skills on the highest level tasks and delegate the lower level tasks to lower level players or even NPCs. They could 'train' NPC's to do things.
This way, a player isn't spending all their time hammering out swords from an ingot. They get an apprentice to hammer the ingots to a certain point and then finish the product off themselves when it starts to get more complex, meaning it never gets to easy and it's still a challenge.

 

I love this ideal, but the time of making a piece would get old quick.   It is one thing to whack virtual moles, bu this is a little extreme.   Plus do you know how many different crafting versions you'd need to come up with?   How about a loom for weaving cloth?   What about a spinning wheel to make the thread?  Do we get to sheer the sheep to gather the wool that will be spun on the wheel that will be used in the loom?   What about leather working?   

If you could make a batch of items in one sitting.   Instead of making just one sword, you could make 5 or 10 without the need to make each one.  

This is really cool ideal though and I hope we see more of this kind of thing in future sandbox games, but it would definitely need refined so that it didn't become to tedious and repetitive.

MikeJT

Originally posted by Bigdavo


I really like the idea OP, it actually makes crafting sound fun. Also you mentioned how stats are altered depending on your dexterity or strength, I also think the quality of an item should should differ depending on how well you hit the dots. For example if you take extra care you can potentially create a 'masterpiece' which could sell for a lot, or alternatively punch out heaps of easier-made items for a quick buck.

 

So maybe the longer you hold the circle over the dot, the smaller the circle gets, so you can 'focus' each blow of the hammer?

Yeah I like that idea.

One of the main reasons I don't like the craft systems in most MMORPGs is because it's completely automated. You become a spectator when your character starts making items.

That also means that people who are playing alts can use their mains wealth to purchase materials and then just click one button and walk away whilst their alt levels their blacksmithing skill to the cap. I think that's a little ridiculous.

I think the importance of letting lower level players make highly complex items if they take the time to do it is important. It means that lower level players can participate in the market for high-end goods, even if they can't make those items as fast as experienced professionals.

MikeJT

Originally posted by Teala

Originally posted by MikeJT


I was thinking how could you make professions interesting in an MMORPG that is first person.
The way I thought about is making a little mini-game out of it.
Just say you were a blacksmith.
To make a sword you would need raw materials (an iron ingot), a pair of tongs to hold it with, a hammer, an anvil, a hot forge, and a sharpening stone, and maybe a file, depending on the item you would making.
You would equip the hammer in your dominant hand and the tongs in your off hand, then chuck the ignot into the forge to start it heating up. When it got to the right temperature, you would click the 'left hand' (alternate action) button to pick it up with the tongs, take it over to the anvil and click on the anvil to put it in position to start work.
Then the game would come up with a 'sword making' minigame overlay. You would select the item you want to make from the list, and then on the screen, dots would appear on the hot ingot. Your centre screen cross hair would turn into a circle, and you would click on the dots, and the hammer would fall on the dot, so long as the dot is within the circle. When you click on the dot, your circle would get smaller breifly and then return to normal size. As the peice of worked material gets longer, the dots are further apart and you have to aim for each dot independantly.
The further you get into the production of the item, the smaller the circles would get too, to reflect that the early shape of the blade is alot simpler.
As your blacksmithing skill increases, the size of your circle increases, the speed at which it recovers to normal size increases, and the amount it shrinks by with each strike reduces.
The more complex the items you're making, the smaller your circles will be.
So at lower levels, although you know 'how to make a sword', it is harder to rush through it. You can make a really hard to make sword, but your circle will be so small that it will take hours for the player to make it manually.
At higher levels, the circle would be so big that for simpler items, you could basically just sit there and click with only minor aiming.
With each progressive click, you would see the item start to shape, and could even interrupt production of an item and return to it later. Occasionally, you would have to return it to your forge to reheat it.
At certain stages of production, you could even change what you are making, if you're not too far into production. This means a player could prepare 50 'sword ingots', ready to be shaped into the sword type of someone elses choosing. They could even employ an apprentice (PC or NPC) to get the ingots to this stage, ready to be worked into swords.
Stats would also determine the size of the circles, and the amount of work done with each blow.
For example, in the early stages of forming the shape of the sword, strength will allow you to get the work done quicker. Bigger items with less fine details, like longswords, claymores, axes, warhammers would require more strength. But dexterity determines the size of your circles, so more complex weapons would be better left to a person with higher dexterity, because strength wouldn't matter so much.
Forges would have to be kept hot too. So the person producing would have to stop occasionally to refuel the forge and pump the bellows. Or they could have their apprentice pump their bellows instead, to keep the forge hot for multiple smiths.
If you lived next to a river, you could have a water wheel set up, hooked up to a drive shaft, gears, and a level system to automatically pump your bellows for you.
All trades in the game would be done like this, little minigames within the game, that other players can actually watch you do. They can watch as a lump of metal gets formed over time into a sword, or as a peice of stone gets cut from a quarry wall, or as a raw gem gets grinded, cut and polished into a beautiful gem, or even as someone mixes a potion.
Professions would be designed to be an interesting part in the game. If players are smart they can focus their skills on the highest level tasks and delegate the lower level tasks to lower level players or even NPCs. They could 'train' NPC's to do things.
This way, a player isn't spending all their time hammering out swords from an ingot. They get an apprentice to hammer the ingots to a certain point and then finish the product off themselves when it starts to get more complex, meaning it never gets to easy and it's still a challenge.

 

I love this ideal, but the time of making a piece would get old quick.   It is one thing to whack virtual moles, bu this is a little extreme.   Plus do you know how many different crafting versions you'd need to come up with?   How about a loom for weaving cloth?   What about a spinning wheel to make the thread?  Do we get to sheer the sheep to gather the wool that will be spun on the wheel that will be used in the loom?   What about leather working?   

If you could make a batch of items in one sitting.   Instead of making just one sword, you could make 5 or 10 without the need to make each one.  

This is really cool ideal though and I hope we see more of this kind of thing in future sandbox games, but it would definitely need refined so that it didn't become to tedious and repetitive.

 

Well like I said, the higher your skill in the profession the quicker you can make an item. If you want to punch out simple iron daggers it might take you 1 minute for a single dagger the first time you make one, but when your skill is high enough, you might be able to punch one out in 15 seconds.

The amount of time spent on each item would be up to the player. If they want to spend 15 seconds to punch out a single dagger, they're more than welcome to. But when they're at a higher level, it would probably be better for them to spend a whole minute and punch out a quality steel dagger. At the same time, someone at a lower level could spend a minute punching out a simple iron dagger, but if they want, they can spend 5 minutes making a quality steel dagger.

It's a way of balancing the economy too. You don't end up with thousands upon thousands of "+5 Steel Daggers", because it takes time for players to make them. If you want a +5 steel dagger, then you're going to have to pay a blacksmith a decent amount of money to get it. Chances are, you're not going to be able to buy a +5 steel dagger off a person who can punch one out in 15 seconds, because they'd rather spend their time punching out more complex items for people willing to pay even more than you are.

MikeJT

Just as a little addition, I was thinking that whilst you're producing something like a sword, it could have a 'flexibility' and a 'durability' meter, with different coloured dots depending on what you want out of the weapon.

So if you want a sword that has an extremely sharp edge and keeps its edge longer, but is prone to cracking, fracturing and snapping, you click the 'durability' dots. If you want a sword that doesn't keep its edge as long, and that will need sharpening more often, but isn't likely to snap in the middle of a battle, then you click the 'flexibility' dots.

Of course, if you take the time with the weapon, you can achieve both.

The type of blade you want will depend on the type of combat you plan on getting into. For example, if you know you're going to be fighting heavily armoured opponents, you will probably want a blade that is more flexible than durable. Loosing the sharp edge doesn't matter so much against armoured opponents. However if you're fighting light armoured opponents (or plan on killing someone in their sleep) then a sharper, more durable edge will be your choice.

Josher

 

A minigame that people are willing to do 1000s of times can work fine, as long as people actually think its fun and can't be macroed or hacked.  BUT, allow an auto-option that makes average versions of these craftables that bypass the minigame.  That way anyone can craft.  But if you want to craft the best versions of items, make them play the minigame.  Gives incentives without punishments, since this is a videogame afterall.

MikeJT

Originally posted by Josher


 
A minigame that people are willing to do 1000s of times can work fine, as long as people actually think its fun and can't be macroed or hacked.  BUT, allow an auto-option that makes average versions of these craftables that bypass the minigame.  That way anyone can craft.  But if you want to craft the best versions of items, make them play the minigame.  Gives incentives without punishments, since this is a videogame afterall.

 

Well the way I was thinking is that if you had the option to hire NPC's to do certain work, you could always tell them to 'produce 100 sword blanks'. They would work the metal from it's raw state, into the basic form of a sword. This would take a while to do, but its only a basic skill, so your apprentice can do it for you. Once you have 100 sword blanks, you can then grab them and put the finishing detail on the swords to bring them up to the quality you want.

To support this idea, I was thinking that players should actually have to do progressively more complex things to level their blacksmithing skill.

That is, they couldn't just pump out 1000 "basic steel longswords". The "basic steel longsword" only requires a certain blacksmithing level to perfect. So once the player gets to that level, there is no benefit to making another 'basic steel longsword'. At that point, they can hand that work off to their NPC apprentice, and then take those 'basic steel longswords' and keep working on them to form 'quality steel longswords', then 'superior steel longswords', then 'master work steel longswords', then 'ultimate steel longswords'.

So whilst there is no 'auto-create' option, the player employing an NPC to pump out 50 'basic steel longswords' is basically equivalent to 'auto-create', because the player isn't forgoing any experience to create those 50 swords (because they've already mastered that skill level) and it even allows the player to go do something else whilst they're apprentice is producing swords for them.

The only thing forgone, is some profit on the swords made by the apprentice, because the player would then need to pay the apprentice for producing them instead of making the sword themselves and taking all the income from it's production. However, the peice-rate paid to the apprentice for each sword would be insignificant compared to the extra money received for a 'quality' steel longsword, meaning that the player would still be minimising opportunity cost and maximising revenues by focusing their time on higher quality items.