Well the reasoning behind my post is that when you get to the higher end content of WoW there are very specific pieces of gear that you need to obtain to reach your potential. At some point in your progression your need for a single item gets really really specific based on the stats. Allowing crafted gear to fill those holes with a piece of gear that is maybe not quite as good but better than what is available and being able to adjust the stats to fit your specific "set" of armor or weapons would imo add to the overall expierence of the game and add crafting into the mix.
Nice article I also think that SWG, EVE and FE have nice crafting systems. Especially resource harvesting in SWG is an awesome system in the way it handles resources with different qualities. It rewards dedicated crafters who stay on top of the resource spawns.
I used to think that Vanguard's and EQ2's crafting system was very good too. Because in the way the crafting (minigame) process is handled (especially in VG). The learning curve was enjoyable. But the problem I experienced with that was because of the slow progress in crafting, it soon made that minigame very tedious for me after I learned all the tricks of crafting.
VG did some other things very well though. The way you could lvl crafting really independantly (workorders so no need to harvest resources for yourself) from combat and diplomacy. And how the other spheres also could enforce your crafting if you decided to. And the modifying of gear stats of course is very nice.
Even while I'm all in(to) New Eden nowadays (enjoying and prospering on its economy and "crafting" a lot) , and knowing that I might be necro'ing an almost buried & forgotten game, I'll throw another one into the room:
I think an article about crafting (and necessarily resource-gathering, aka harvesting) should at least mention Ryzom.
IMHO, Ryzom also gives a nice example of the crafting (and harvesting) part keeping a game alive almost all by itself ;-)
...activating morph from silent reader to active poster... ...pending... ...pending... ...pending...
However I could imagine a system where I think it would be fun. I had made a similar post elsewhere:
I'll tell you that I hate crafting. Despise it. Loath it. If it was removed from every game that I play from now until death I would rejoice. Probably pay more money per month on my own just to thank the game maker.
That's how much I hate it. And I'm being nice. I rarely if NEVER craft in games.
However, I noticed something a few years ago while messing with a neverwinter nights trainer for characters.
Among many of the things it had was the ability to change all sorts of things on the weapons and armor.
You could change 3 parts of the looks of a sword (pommel, Hilt and Blade Shape ... maybe even different parts of the blade) or change several parts on the armor along with simple dying of the item. This was using the in game art that the toolset had.
I would redesign the weapons and armor for hours. I suddenly realized I don't hate crafting in the sense of "making something new". I hate gathering bits upon bits that make more bits so that I can reproduce some in game item that will be replaced by some boss drop.
so....
My utopian crafting system has more to do with a crafting mini-game, maybe something along the same lines of the game "Enigmo" as far as manipulating crafting elements, and a way to create "designs" so that there is control over the look of the item. Or in the case of a potion "what" that potion actually does.
It shows you rarely craft, because what you mention is done in several MMO's. SWG weapon's system lets the crafter chose the elemental dmg, which in turn also affects the colour of the bolt thats shot. This is also for PVP sake of course, so other players can recognise fast what ele type you use (different ele types cause different procs).
Stat modding is done in several MMO's. First that come up in my mind are again SWG (weaponsystem/spacecomponent system) and Vanguard.
The minigame is there in Vanguard,SWG and EQ2.
Where SWG has a combination of used resource modding and something called experimentation in which you get to chose what stat to try to improve.
Then there is also modding afterwards in SWG with RE system.
SWG (especially weapon and spaceship component crafting) offers great variety in crafting. Resource quality, crafting gear (specifically mod for crafting bonusses), tools/crafting stations, location (research city), food, ent buffs, there are loads of things that can affect how efficient you are as crafter. Downside is that TCG (non crafted) items and lack of resell makes it tough for new crafters.
Hmm, I have to agree with Jennings on some of that article.
Getting a good crafting system into a game hasnt happened for much of anyone lately.
I found the nudges at UO correct as it was my first mmo and partially agreed with the points at swg, it was a pretty deep system, needed some improvement but yea overall I enjoyed it. I wouldnt make a guy craft thousands of items to grind for cap but i would however encourage a system where a player would enjoy crafting thousands of items to sell and be a part of the world he is in, in his own way. HIs own class or a skill points allocated just for crafting and mining.
In my opinion, if developers put as much effort into crafting systems and virtual economies as they do the combat systems that they put crafting in to compliment, this article would never have seen the light of day. The problem and general consensus amongst players has been as you can see by the ops article and from the posts in this forum are time syncs.
Old tale be told? Crafting according to mmo myth was introduced due to players duping items. Im guessing a little later on down the line developers saw time syncs as a way to keep people playing and resubbing *cough* CCP excuse me sorry, must be catching a cold. Somewhere around there, we had some sort of ugly collision of boredom grind and wasted money.
Eitherway a good example is actually CCP's eve online. Here you have this game where if you dont want to shoot someone every hour of the day you literally dont have to. If you dont want to craft any items you again literally dont have to. If youd rather do neither of those yo ucan just trade. The sheer variety of the game gives you options in replayability. The combat and the economy work together and it works out for everyone. They have a good model set up, a very large virtual economy and combat system altogether, I didnt so much enjoy the lack of wasd? But thats another post.. The skill training however, is the time sync. Rather than grind thousands of items, your grinding time.
In uo, I recall standing at the forge in Britain, crafting mail, shields and doing repairs. Sometimes when no tips were given and no armor was sold it was enough for me to know that a player somewhere was wearing something I made and either got his first pvp kill, or was just buying his first armor and weapon set from my vendor. It was fun meeting all those people as well. Filling orders came later and that actually added to the experience however... uos crafting also became a time sync. I enjoyed being on both sides of that forge, not only as the smith but as the warrior coming through for new armor and weapon repairs. I didnt enjoy the time sync.
Now when players jump in forums these days hollarin :Screw crafting! Im not crafting! id pay for you not to put it in! and on the other hand you have these folks who are asking you for a "fun" indepth crafting system that works in a robust economy. Nether is asking you as a developer for a time sync Theyre telling you literally they dont want to waste thier time.
Its odd the whole crafting issue thats come up over the years and how people have come to hate it while others seem to look for it first in an mmo. All I know is, when i look at an mmo to see if im going to play it or not, I want the full 15 bucks per month for my game, dont give me hack and slash everytime I log in but dont throw time syncs at me either.
First off, you split the gathering/harvesting into two basic types - combat and non-combat.
1. Combat harvesting -
First you'd have Scavenging. Berries, roots, moss, flowers,seeds.. things you would only find out in the "open world" of the game, in the wilds so to speak, and as such to get them you risk combat since the wilds are full of mobs/npcs per typical MMO. These things used in lots of things from potions to food/drink consumables and poisons, salves, etc. So this is exploration + gathering with a chance of combat.
Secondly you have Salvaging. Getting skins/furs/meats/bones and such from animals and monsters/beasts for crafting, and/or sraps of metal, ingrediants for potions, cloth/rags/furs and such from NPC humanoids. This would obviously require you to kill said target before Salvaging. This is combat + gathering.
Third you have let's call it Mysticism. Loot from this gathering profession would be magical essence, refined into shards/crystals/whatever to be used for things like enchanting, crafting magical equipment, whatever. Main tool would be a "divining rod" of sorts, would pretty much point you in the general direction of a strong source of magical current. Like "go east" and you pretty much have to track the source down. So it's a mix of exploration, and then when you get to the source of the magical current, then it'd "summon" a guardian of that magical form you have to defeat in combat and then loot from it the shard/crystal/whatever of that magical type. So combat + exploration + gathering.
2. Non-combat harvesting -
First you go with Horticulture. In a players house, apartment, whatever, you could set up a table/basin and using various seeds you would grow flowers, small budding/fruit plants, fungi, etc. A very time dependant profession. Like you plant something and have to check on it every 24 hours, and do another step, or it'll wilt and die. Then eventual harvesting. You could tie some kind of mini-games into this, like trimming the branches off a bonsai tree. Watering it. Re-planting, etc. FFXI had something like this I believe.
The products from that could be used for Alchemy and as such you could set up an alchemists work bench in your house/room or use NPC shops in a town/city. Also you could sell/use some products for Farming profession. Alchemy would give potions, poisons, etc. and use materials from Horticulture or Scavenging, or both!
Now the next harvesting professions require a bit of pre-explaination.
I think it's stupid that you have to wander around looking for mining nodes. So instead, for the 3 "main" non-combat harvesting professions, you have resource sites. Farming, Mining, Lumberjacking.
Outside of towns/cities there are NPC run mines, lumber mills, and farms. As a player, if you want to harvest these resources you go and "work the mine" or "work the fields." Because these professions do not involve combat, the idea here is that time + effort = reward. The resource sites themselves work on a semi-instanced basis. For example, you go to a mine of say Copper Ore outside one of the newbie towns, due to the size and drop rate of the mine players are seperated out into 5-6 person instances. You don't have to group with these people, but for every 6 people who enter the mine a new instance is made. That way everyone has access to the nodes for resource gathering, but it is still not a completely solo experience or you CAN go in and work with friends/guildies. I could see mini-games made where you have to strike at the rock around a chunk of valuable metal to knock it loose or something.
Because it is guaranteed access to resources, the NPC owners of the mines/fields/lumber yards take a cut of what is gathered like the taxes in EvE Online for selling/refining. You can sell the raw ore/wood/produce to the NPC owners and they take a money tax, or you can keep the resources you harvested and the NPC owners take a small cut. As your skill in mining/farming/lumberjacking goes up, or you gain reputation or something with that site or mining/farming/LJ guild, the cut they take gets smaller and smaller.
Also as your skill increases, you can harvest more faster improving efficiency, and have access to more complex and "higher level" resources - like moving from the Copper mines to the Silver mines etc.
Farming would include things like plowing, planting, tilling, and harvesting - from things likes corn, beans, fruits, other vegetables, whatever. It's like Farmville but inside a MMO - it's obviously popular. You'd have different farms for different crops you could go and work. Again, taking a cut of the profit being paid for your work and gaining skill or taking the raw resource for use in food / potion / whatever production. Again I could see some fairly interesting mini-games to keep things interesting.
As part of Farming you could have things like Herding, which makes me think of the herding mini-game for horse-back riding they had in the Legend of Zelda game for the Wii. You couldn't obviously have things like slaughtering animals for meat - definitely wouldn't go over too well lol. But you could have sheep for wool, cows for milk, chickens for eggs, etc. and leave the meat for the Salvaging folks.
Obviously a bit more explanation is needed but you get the point... Mining would probably be the most popular and used in the production of weapons, gadgets, armors, etc. Lumberjacking would be used from some weapons/shields and that kind of stuff, arrows, but PRIMARILY for the creating of furtinure, decorations, upgrades, and equipment for player housing. Then farming would be for out-of-combat recovery of HP/MP or whatever and out-of-combat buffing. (On the flip side, alchemy and potions used for in-combat HP/MP recovery and buffing.
3. One of the BIGGEST things about this crafting system is that everything is component based.
What that means, is that say you are a Blacksmith and you make Armor. To make low level armor, maybe you just need some Copper bars and some basic leather. But then to make mid-level armor, you need Copper bars, basic leather, Silver Bars, and some fine wool. And then for high-level armor, you'd need Copper bars, basic leather, Silver bars, fine wool, Mithril bars, and some magical essence.
The point is, you do NOT have a crafting system where the first 200 recipes you learn are just vendor trash to get your skill up towards max level when you actually make useful stuff.
What these does is allow those who choose to specialize in a specific crafting profession or two have access to make all the high end stuff. But it also lets those who wish to be more broadly skilled and dabble a bit to still provide materials and components that other higher end crafters will always have a demand for. It helps early noob crafters as the stuff they make/use is never obsolete, it helps the mid-level for the same reasons. It also creates a great system of inter-dependances between players.
You could even specialize in low and mid level crafting resources and become highly efficient at their extraction and refinement, you could include a purity rating or quality values like SWG had so that people who choose to focus on the bottom end of the resource spectrum can really specialize in materials rather then production of goods like the high-level crafting specialists.
Again, more detail needed but I think the point is clear.
4. Finally, economy is a large portion of any crafting system.
One thing I hate is un-regulated auction houses. If players are allowed to charge whatever they want for items and resources they put on the auction house, it always lead to rapid inflation and devaluation of a good. Anyone who plays World of Warcraft and sees a stack of Copper Ore, the most basic mining resource, on the Auction house for 15g certainly understands. This inflation makes prices that low-level and leveling crafters can never afford, and creates a system where money just changes hands between high-level crafters who can afford it and as such drives prices up even more. Controlling and "fixing" the prices is essential for my component-based crafting to work.
Price control could be based on a variety of factors - First off every sellable object would be given a base value dependant upon static variables like the quality of the item (common, rare, etc.) , the rarity of its drop (crafted, boss loot, mob trash, etc.) and finally the NPC price NPC vendors will pay for it.
Then, using simple tools (like WoW's 3rd party addons) you can easily determine how much of a specific item is currently for sale on the system, how quickly these items sell, and average price over given periods of time. Using this data, you take that Base Value of an item you are given a range of prices you can list the item for on the Auction House.
For example, a stack of Copper Ore has a base value of 15 silver, but due to an over-abundance of copper ore on the market at the time, and multi-week/month trends in the market the available selling prices for a stack can go from 9 silver to 16 silver. Then it's up to the player if they wish to try and sell at the bottom of 9s a stack or risk on scarcity and product flow to catch a higher price like 14 or 15 silver.
To really add a layer of depth, you can do what EvE does where a specific good is searchable anywhere, but the location it is placed on auction matters. A certain area may have an abundance of the ore, like a town next to a copper mine, but another village which is far away has little to no copper ore so the price is higher. Players can make a purchase where the price is lowest but then have to travel and pick it up from the mailbox in that village or town, or they can pay a fee and have the item delivered to their current location in say an hour, or to their home city or whatever, or they can buy a higher priced good on the local market and have it immediately.
This allows you to buy low, travel, and sell high. For the market to be dynamic and moving like in EvE.
This combination of systems allows for players to choose their own crafting experience, from a more combat out-in-the-world approach where if you are killing stuff, you might as well gather resources and craft - to a more dedicated and market oriented approach of time+effort invested = reward and if you play the system smart you can make lots of cash without ever stepping foot in combat.
This also should eliminate much of the risk of inflation and greedy overpricing that ruins most MMO economies, while still leaving room for adventurous entrepreneurs to really attack the market and make a buck for their wit and patience.
It ALSO prevents crafting from becoming a real grind to the top as all of the steps and layers are important and useful, letting those who wish to specialize really get the most out of it and the more casual crafters to still have fun and be a valued part of the economy. It keeps new players to the game and alts fresh and active in the economy and crafting game.
This ALSO prevents low level areas from becoming ghost towns as the low level resources outside these towns and villages are always imporant.
For the high level crafter, you will always have the option of buying the low level good and components off the market or doing it yourself. For the dabbler, you can put a hand in everything and still be an important part of the economy without having to specialize.
Again sorry for the long post - any thoughts to anyone who read the whole thing?
i love crafting. today i am even trying mmorpgs i know i dont want to play just to try their crafting system, to see if there is some interesting idea. i love minigame like crafting (eq2, vg), which makes crafting process itself more interesting and also like in depth robust crafting systems like the one wurm has, where you have to create different subcomponents to create final item.
what i lack the most with the more or less all crafting systems i met is the fact, that no matter how much time you spend with crafting, after some times you get to the cap, where everyone is able to make same items, no matter if he spends most of his time crafting or he if he has crafting only as a complementary system to raiding/going to dungeons/pvping etc.
i did try to put together system i would like to have - check this:
Again sorry for the long post - any thoughts to anyone who read the whole thing?
Well, a few thoughts:
-The continued viability of early resources for later recipes is something that I'm generally in favour of, but not always. I'm reminded of PotBS, where all ships needed basic things like oak and sails, but the better boats required more of the base components, plus precious mats on top of that. Not perfect, but still pretty nice, and made even the newcomers economic factors in the end-game. The one drawback is that it encourages alt-harvesting, where you get a heard of low-level alts grinding a basic resource, which can ruins things for the genuine lower-levelers, making it harder for them to achieve anything economicially. This is obviously more of a problem with F2P games, since at least you have to buy a second account to do it with P2P.
-Instance-based harvesting is an open ticket for rampant botting, since it's so difficult for others to see and report them. And that way lies a borked economy. If the harvesting can't be done open-world, or there's too much competition for a resource there, that's often a sign of bad design.
-For what it's worth, I HATE regulated AH's. The majority of problems that people ascribe to them are simply symptoms of underlying problems. The inflation problem you mentioned (Copper=15G) is usually a symptom of base resource scarcity. If a basic good is genuinely so rare that supply-and-demand market forces have jacked it up, then clearly no one is producing it for some reason. Or, if the price is high because someone is trying to artificially force prices excesively high, that's just an opportunity for a good businessman to put up his own goods for almost that high, thus either selling it normally to people who grab the cheaper price, or forcing the price-fixer to buy it himself. Either way, it's a situation that will remedy itself as long as the resource is available and some people in the market have half a brain in their skulls.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs: That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
-The continued viability of early resources for later recipes is something that I'm generally in favour of, but not always. I'm reminded of PotBS, where all ships needed basic things like oak and sails, but the better boats required more of the base components, plus precious mats on top of that. Not perfect, but still pretty nice, and made even the newcomers economic factors in the end-game. The one drawback is that it encourages alt-harvesting, where you get a heard of low-level alts grinding a basic resource, which can ruins things for the genuine lower-levelers, making it harder for them to achieve anything economicially. This is obviously more of a problem with F2P games, since at least you have to buy a second account to do it with P2P.
-Instance-based harvesting is an open ticket for rampant botting, since it's so difficult for others to see and report them. And that way lies a borked economy. If the harvesting can't be done open-world, or there's too much competition for a resource there, that's often a sign of bad design.
-For what it's worth, I HATE regulated AH's. The majority of problems that people ascribe to them are simply symptoms of underlying problems. The inflation problem you mentioned (Copper=15G) is usually a symptom of base resource scarcity. If a basic good is genuinely so rare that supply-and-demand market forces have jacked it up, then clearly no one is producing it for some reason. Or, if the price is high because someone is trying to artificially force prices excesively high, that's just an opportunity for a good businessman to put up his own goods for almost that high, thus either selling it normally to people who grab the cheaper price, or forcing the price-fixer to buy it himself. Either way, it's a situation that will remedy itself as long as the resource is available and some people in the market have half a brain in their skulls.
Crafting alts were a reality in more crafting focused MMOs like UO and SWG. How to counter that? Well, do you have to? Having players who keep a second toon "locked" at the lower tier of harvesting will create more competition and increase the availability of goods and resources and as such due to the control on the Auction house - reduce prices so the ACTUAL newbie crafters won't be hurt, they'll be able to afford to participate.
It's the alts of high-level toons who jack up the prices on low-level crafting resources, but by regulating the AH in a similar situation as I described, you literally can't do that.
And as for scarcity, if the low level resources are so very needed by high level crafters, both low level crafters and crafting alts who cap themselves have motivation to farm these resources and thus reduce scarcity.
Crafting alts were a reality in more crafting focused MMOs like UO and SWG. How to counter that? Well, do you have to? Having players who keep a second toon "locked" at the lower tier of harvesting will create more competition and increase the availability of goods and resources and as such due to the control on the Auction house - reduce prices so the ACTUAL newbie crafters won't be hurt, they'll be able to afford to participate.
It's the alts of high-level toons who jack up the prices on low-level crafting resources, but by regulating the AH in a similar situation as I described, you literally can't do that.
And as for scarcity, if the low level resources are so very needed by high level crafters, both low level crafters and crafting alts who cap themselves have motivation to farm these resources and thus reduce scarcity.
Not quite sure how the alts jack up prices. If anything, they act to lower overall prices. If they alt-harvest to just sell stuff, they work to increase the market supply, which lowers prices (although this can affect the ability of lower levels to make money sometimes). Or, they alt-harvest in order to bypass the normal economic process (i.e. they don't want to pay any markups), which works to lower the demand for the product in the main economy, which also works to lower prices.
But regulation? How do you decide on fair prices? At best, all you can do is look at the cost to produce, and assign an abitrary maximum markup. And that's assuming the game's production system doesn't involve factors such as geography (i.e. distance, danger zones) and inconsistant returns (i.e. random odds of success). But as I said before, unless some aspect of the game prevents it, a proper economy WILL counteract price-gouging in the long run. Regulation is a bandaid solution, it doesn't fix an underlying problem.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs: That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
Just a quick jump in on the "price controls" idea I'm totally against that. One, because I'm against them in real life. Two, and more importantly all it does artificially reduces the supply. Currently in WoW we are charge 15G for a stack of copper right, but what if we limited it to say 25S for the same stack. What reason do I have as a miner to put my stuff on the AH if I can't make anything off the time I wasted getting the rocks?
Price Controls only ruin supplies because it puts a break on the supply and demand mechanics that are neccissary for any good economy. Far better to make "zones" of supply like you mention in EVE. Being able to only sell in an area allows for commodity trading and finding areas with better supplies and lower demands.
Current Game: Asssasins Creed 2(PS3, Gamer Tag: Happy_Hubby) Current MMO: World of Warcraft and World of Tanks Former Subscribed MMO: Star Trek Online, Aion, WoW, Guild Wars, Eve Online, DAoC, City of Heroes, Shattered Galaxy, 10six. Tried: Too many to list
Just a quick jump in on the "price controls" idea I'm totally against that. One, because I'm against them in real life. Two, and more importantly all it does artificially reduces the supply. Currently in WoW we are charge 15G for a stack of copper right, but what if we limited it to say 25S for the same stack. What reason do I have as a miner to put my stuff on the AH if I can't make anything off the time I wasted getting the rocks?
Price Controls only ruin supplies because it puts a break on the supply and demand mechanics that are neccissary for any good economy. Far better to make "zones" of supply like you mention in EVE. Being able to only sell in an area allows for commodity trading and finding areas with better supplies and lower demands.
Not regulating an economy does NOT work in real life, as anyone can see in the United States with all the problems we are experiencing.
However in real life, you have some natural factors that can help weigh out the risk of greedy, selfish, immoral business practices - things like jail, loss of your job, bankruptcy, etc. unless you bail them out for failing that is...
These things do not exist in a MMORPG market, even one as significant as EvE's. In fact EvE does do some price regulation by having a system of NPC suppliers and buyers to offset demand and supply for the player run economy.
I think recently they announced plans to change that and I think it is a terrible idea.
You really can't compare a real world economy to one in a MMORPG, even EvE. There are simply too many variables in a real life economy to calculate, and obvious no one can calculate a real world economy or being a stock broker would be far too easy of a job.
So in a virtual, fake economy you HAVE to have some control to it. And because it is less complex then a real world one you can control it easier. You can calculate everything out because you can see EVERY transaction and every penny.
Just a quick jump in on the "price controls" idea I'm totally against that. One, because I'm against them in real life. Two, and more importantly all it does artificially reduces the supply. Currently in WoW we are charge 15G for a stack of copper right, but what if we limited it to say 25S for the same stack. What reason do I have as a miner to put my stuff on the AH if I can't make anything off the time I wasted getting the rocks?
Price Controls only ruin supplies because it puts a break on the supply and demand mechanics that are neccissary for any good economy. Far better to make "zones" of supply like you mention in EVE. Being able to only sell in an area allows for commodity trading and finding areas with better supplies and lower demands.
Putting price controls in a game would NOT work. Why? Because if copper, selling for curring 15G per stack was forcibly maxed at 25S, players would simply stop putting it on the AH and then a black market would start up. No one but the occasional noob would put copper on the AH for 25S, and those would be instantly bought up only to be resold on the black market.
Markets like this regulate themselves. Ultimately, the price is determined by the buyers, not the sellers, because the market will only bear what people are willing to pay. If someone put copper up at 100G a stack, no one would buy it. Competitive sellers would undercut that price until an equilibrium is reached, and currently that price is around 15G a stack.
Just a quick jump in on the "price controls" idea I'm totally against that. One, because I'm against them in real life. Two, and more importantly all it does artificially reduces the supply. Currently in WoW we are charge 15G for a stack of copper right, but what if we limited it to say 25S for the same stack. What reason do I have as a miner to put my stuff on the AH if I can't make anything off the time I wasted getting the rocks?
Price Controls only ruin supplies because it puts a break on the supply and demand mechanics that are neccissary for any good economy. Far better to make "zones" of supply like you mention in EVE. Being able to only sell in an area allows for commodity trading and finding areas with better supplies and lower demands.
Putting price controls in a game would NOT work. Why? Because if copper, selling for curring 15G per stack was forcibly maxed at 25S, players would simply stop putting it on the AH and then a black market would start up. No one but the occasional noob would put copper on the AH for 25S, and those would be instantly bought up only to be resold on the black market.
Markets like this regulate themselves. Ultimately, the price is determined by the buyers, not the sellers, because the market will only bear what people are willing to pay. If someone put copper up at 100G a stack, no one would buy it. Competitive sellers would undercut that price until an equilibrium is reached, and currently that price is around 15G a stack.
Tell that to the real true new character that just need half a stack off the AH to finish crafting themselves a new item. 7g? What the hell I've never made even close to 7g!
Obviously it can't be a "simple" way to regulate price, but you HAVE to do something.
Look at the EvE economy versus that of a games like WoW.
You don't think EvE regulates their economy?
The tightly control currency in game by tweaking mission rewards, having NPC buyers/sellers to supliment the market, and even using Plex.
But also due to the way my component based crafting would work as discussed earlier, the low level crafting resources will always be in such demand that it won't be just the alts of veterans and those wishing to power-level a new crafting profession that are farming and selling the goods.
This would generally make the inflationary problem rampant in most MMOs a moot point, and thus negate much need for strict regulation, maybe only a "helping hand" every once in a while with something like AI/NPC injected merchandise into the market to keep prices at fair levels.
Just a quick jump in on the "price controls" idea I'm totally against that. One, because I'm against them in real life. Two, and more importantly all it does artificially reduces the supply. Currently in WoW we are charge 15G for a stack of copper right, but what if we limited it to say 25S for the same stack. What reason do I have as a miner to put my stuff on the AH if I can't make anything off the time I wasted getting the rocks?
Price Controls only ruin supplies because it puts a break on the supply and demand mechanics that are neccissary for any good economy. Far better to make "zones" of supply like you mention in EVE. Being able to only sell in an area allows for commodity trading and finding areas with better supplies and lower demands.
Putting price controls in a game would NOT work. Why? Because if copper, selling for curring 15G per stack was forcibly maxed at 25S, players would simply stop putting it on the AH and then a black market would start up. No one but the occasional noob would put copper on the AH for 25S, and those would be instantly bought up only to be resold on the black market.
Markets like this regulate themselves. Ultimately, the price is determined by the buyers, not the sellers, because the market will only bear what people are willing to pay. If someone put copper up at 100G a stack, no one would buy it. Competitive sellers would undercut that price until an equilibrium is reached, and currently that price is around 15G a stack.
Tell that to the real true new character that just need half a stack off the AH to finish crafting themselves a new item. 7g? What the hell I've never made even close to 7g!
Obviously it can't be a "simple" way to regulate price, but you HAVE to do something.
Look at the EvE economy versus that of a games like WoW.
You don't think EvE regulates their economy?
The tightly control currency in game by tweaking mission rewards, having NPC buyers/sellers to supliment the market, and even using Plex.
No, you don't HAVE to do anything. Any true market will regulate itself, and the prices will ALWAYS eventually settle at what the market will bear. This is basic economics. Obviously, you have a problem with paying 15G for a stack of copper, but obviously many buyers do not, otherwise copper would not sell at 15G. Simple.
Crafting should be one of the none combat things you can do in any MMO. Combat is fun but it shouldn't be the only thing you do when you play.
Broker/auction house is something that is a lot less fun than stores. EQ2 have both but few people actually go to someone store instead of shopping at the broker even if it is cheaper. Preferably should players either be able to have a store in the guildhall/guild city or in a un-instanced place in the game. If cities have a market district with larger store and some stands with npcs selling the players stuff it would make shopping a lot more fun.
The big problem with crafting in most games is that you make exactly the same junk as everyone else. There is no design or even color part of crafting. There is no enchanters that can enchant a already made item with some abilities (adding gems or similar things is not the same). I want a full ritual where the enchanter spend a little while doing some nice animations to add to the feel.
There should not be any need for a crafter to adventure, you should be able to just craft if you want to, even if you might have to trade for some of the rarer components then.
There should of course be other non combat activities for players also. Like gambling, advanced running of the guild (design the guild castle or city, renting in and designing npc for the same, even minting coins), burglary ala "Thief" and many more things.
But also due to the way my component based crafting would work as discussed earlier, the low level crafting resources will always be in such demand that it won't be just the alts of veterans and those wishing to power-level a new crafting profession that are farming and selling the goods.
This would generally make the inflationary problem rampant in most MMOs a moot point, and thus negate much need for strict regulation, maybe only a "helping hand" every once in a while with something like AI/NPC injected merchandise into the market to keep prices at fair levels.
Actually, no, that component-based crafting setup actually contributes to inflation, by making the base materials desirable to the group of people who have the largest amounts of money - namely the higher level characters. If the only people who want an item are poor, an item won't - can't - sell for high prices.
And while I personally have no experience with WoW myself, it sounds like 15G for a stack of Copper represents a huge markup over what it costs to produce. So why aren't people making easy money by selling stacks for 14G? In any proper economy, that's exactly what should be happening, unless something is preventing it from happening.
As for your EVE example - of course they regulate their economy. All MMO's have to. If they don't, things collapse. But it's properly done by controlling how the wealth enters (i.e. quest rewards) and exits (gold-sinks) the system, NOT by assigning limits to what things can sell for.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs: That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
No, you don't HAVE to do anything. Any true market will regulate itself, and the prices will ALWAYS eventually settle at what the market will bear. This is basic economics. Obviously, you have a problem with paying 15G for a stack of copper, but obviously many buyers do not, otherwise copper would not sell at 15G. Simple.
You just don't see that 15g for a stack of copper which should sell at 15s and sells to vendors for 11s is a GROSSLY inflated price that is grossly inflated due to 5 years of horrible in-game economy and two expansions that did nothing but add to the inflation of the economy by upping quest rewards, and also a 5 year old game with way too much RMT gold selling.
I am all about capitalism, but MMOs do not feature real life economics. They just don't.
It is NOT basic economics of supply and demand it does not apply in a fake, virtual economy because they basic factors of economics in real life are not present in a MMO because it is NOT real life.
Every MMO puts some control on their money supply.
They adjust flight costs, training costs, quest rewards, vendor prices, even drop rates and material costs for crafted items ALL in response to market factors within their game.
And the 15g per stack only works in WoW because the VAST majority of players are at end game or alts with main toons at max level and they can justify spending way too much on the AH because gold is easy to come by at level 80.
It completely and totally f's new players who are actually low levels and don't have bank toons.
Supply and demand mean nothing in the world of warcraft auction house.
Whoever places the first of an item on the AH sets the price.
After that, it's all just undercutting and bull "economics" there is no true supply/demand in MMOs.
EvE may be the exception, but that is simply because it is an economy focused game with NPC supplemented supply and a tightly controlled money supply.
Trust me, I 4.0'd macro and micro economics in college... rofl
But seriously, the vast majority of people do NOT understand real life economics at all, why should I expect MMO gamers to understand fake economies any better?
Here's a game to toss into the discussion that probably no one else has played: Rohan. It's been a few years since I played and I didn't play it for very long, but I was hooked on the forging system.
In Rohan, you couldn't craft gear from raw materials but you could craft it from other pieces of gear. Take the level 8 leather boots and the level 12 leather boots and a little money, and you can combine them into the level 16 leather boots. All dropped items have random stat bonuses and can also have random stat requirements. This winds up giving you a lot of things that aren't useful (like wands with a large str bonus or str requirement), but also makes the crafting hugely important. Why's that? Because combining two items brings along the worse of the requirements and the total of all the bonuses. A dropped level 44 dagger might randomly have some dex or some agi, but you could custom-make a level 44 dagger with enormous bonuses in whatever stat you want — much higher than you would ever see on a dropped version — by scouring the game for basic items with that stat bonus (so long as none of them have requisites that you don't meet) and then mashing them together in succession until you make your way up to the level 44 dagger. That is... assuming that you don't FAIL.
Yeah, you could fail and lose the item. I'm surprised that the issue of random chance didn't make its way into the article, as people have some strong opinions one way or the other about that. I feel that random chance in crafting is pretty important. It adds a little excitement to what is otherwise just a progress bar moving across the screen. Without any chance of failure or critical success, the price of an item really ought to be about the same as the price of the materials, plus perhaps a tiny bit extra to offset the time and expense that the crafter spent levelling up his skill. If there is a chance that the outcome of the craft could be good or bad (or nothing) depending on luck, then that simple formula doesn't apply. For that HQ Steel Axe, you're paying not just for the materials and their time, but also acknowledging the gamble that they took and happened to win. There's no simple formula for determining how much that risk is worth, which makes the market for that item even less predictable.
Actually, no, that component-based crafting setup actually contributes to inflation, by making the base materials desirable to the group of people who have the largest amounts of money - namely the higher level characters. If the only people who want an item are poor, an item won't - can't - sell for high prices.
The high level players can afford to get their goods at whatever location they happen to be in for the price of convenience, instead of having to make the trip to the low level village right next to said copper mine for the cheapest price.
Or they'll pay to have the item(s) shipped from the auction house in that village.
And even if they do throw a lot of money at the system, it only helps the low level crafters.
The low level crafters can mine the resources because it doesn't require very much skill. And sell at a primium because they high level players are too lazy to make the trip or to harvest the low level stuff themselves.
And because everyone wants the copper, but not everyone is willing to do the work, and newer players can only get the copper, it all balances out.
As with EvE it's all about market availability and location. Dividing into regions and different prices based on location.
They simply do not have this in WoW, and also in WoW the copper is used for nothing but low level recipes, and as such it sells high on the auction house because of twinks and power-levelers with alts and bank toons.
And by assigning absolute value and then adjusting selling prices based upon true supply and demand curves, everyone wins.
MMO auction houses are like if each McDonalds in the country was allowed to set their own prices with no repercussions. The employees won't get fired and lose their homes and their kids will strarve if no one comes to their store - they just collect the goods off the shelf after they expire and try again. No real life consequences for bad business practices.
Sure, some will be competitive and try and haggle for a good price with their fellow store owners, but there will always be those that just want to undercut everyone.
But since whenever you go to McDonalds you see the prices of every store and instantly get the food delivered to you no matter where the seller is, you always scoop up the cheapest stuff first.
But what prevents a owner from buying up all the low priced goods and then raising the price to change the bottom line and reselling it all because they can afford it?
I think all games should have crafting. Only some games I've played have useful/enjoyable crafting. SWG crafting is still good..if you could get the materials. Vanguard had a great crafting system..but I never used much of the products I created. AoC...well.. I've gathered many materials but haven't crafted anything yet. (Anyone tell me if it's any good?). I have maxed crafting skills on my one WOW character..(.My very first and only toon). I do not particulary think WOW's crafting system is very good tho. Only a few things are useful prior to max level items. Pretty sad really.
Darkfall...MO...AO...COX..I've tried many systems...I'd say the one I enjoy most is Fallen Earth. It can take some effort to gather the materials...and though it is a basic click and wait system...you can still carry on with the questing. Good thing cause some things take hours before they are complete. I also like the intricacy ...e.g. making all the parts for a pistol from various materials you've gathered and/or created...then the pistol itself...not to mention you can make the ammo. ..but not before you make the gunpowder. It's really a very detailed and diverse system. I think 99% of my items...clothes, armor, weapons...everything I made myself. I am level 14 and although I am geared from self-made items..I do not feel gimped. Not in the least.
. Of all the games I highly recommend FE if you like crafting. Also give SWG a try if you haven't yet (yeah..i know people will say don't bother..but only you know what you like) as well as Vanguard ( which also has a fun Diplomacy system that works like a trading card game)...though I know little of what the population is currently for the latter 2 games.
The high level players can afford to get their goods at whatever location they happen to be in for the price of convenience, instead of having to make the trip to the low level village right next to said copper mine for the cheapest price.
Or they'll pay to have the item(s) shipped from the auction house in that village.
And even if they do throw a lot of money at the system, it only helps the low level crafters.
The low level crafters can mine the resources because it doesn't require very much skill. And sell at a primium because they high level players are too lazy to make the trip or to harvest the low level stuff themselves.
And because everyone wants the copper, but not everyone is willing to do the work, and newer players can only get the copper, it all balances out.
As with EvE it's all about market availability and location. Dividing into regions and different prices based on location.
They simply do not have this in WoW, and also in WoW the copper is used for nothing but low level recipes, and as such it sells high on the auction house because of twinks and power-levelers with alts and bank toons.
Okay, I'm starting to lose you here. First you talk about a case of gross inflation hurting low-levels, but then you state that the low-levels can easily mine the stuff that's selling for the grossly inflated prices? Sounds fine to me.
If people are willing to pay the inflated prices, let them. You can't cure bad money-management, so you may as let the low-levels get the money. And if the low-levels don't want to mine copper (or whatever else is selling at excessive prices), that's their choice. But from what you say, it looks like Blizzard isn't doing a good job of managing how wealth enters their system. Price regulation isn't going to fix that - the excessive money will just go ruin another aspect of the economy.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs: That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
Comments
This is my 1st reply to any discussion so here gos.
I'm a "candy" crafter. I really do'nt like the term "candy" i prefer "nessesity" (sic?).
I only get up to "blue" items that i craft not being into dungeon raids and the nice purple gear.
This is from the game World of Warcraft.
With the blue gear i can come close to the better armor and weapons. I also add enchants , potions, ect.
Since i do'nt PVP, it makes sense. So "candy" is a poor choice of wording in my case.
Not much of a reply i know , however i felt i needed to say it.
Crackshot of WOW.
P.S. I agree with DirtyJoe above. In WOW it would be more useful to be able to adjust the stats of weapons and other items.
Also i was speaking from the viewpoint of a Solo player.
Well the reasoning behind my post is that when you get to the higher end content of WoW there are very specific pieces of gear that you need to obtain to reach your potential. At some point in your progression your need for a single item gets really really specific based on the stats. Allowing crafted gear to fill those holes with a piece of gear that is maybe not quite as good but better than what is available and being able to adjust the stats to fit your specific "set" of armor or weapons would imo add to the overall expierence of the game and add crafting into the mix.
Nice article
I also think that SWG, EVE and FE have nice crafting systems. Especially resource harvesting in SWG is an awesome system in the way it handles resources with different qualities. It rewards dedicated crafters who stay on top of the resource spawns.
I used to think that Vanguard's and EQ2's crafting system was very good too. Because in the way the crafting (minigame) process is handled (especially in VG). The learning curve was enjoyable. But the problem I experienced with that was because of the slow progress in crafting, it soon made that minigame very tedious for me after I learned all the tricks of crafting.
VG did some other things very well though. The way you could lvl crafting really independantly (workorders so no need to harvest resources for yourself) from combat and diplomacy. And how the other spheres also could enforce your crafting if you decided to. And the modifying of gear stats of course is very nice.
Even while I'm all in(to) New Eden nowadays (enjoying and prospering on its economy and "crafting" a lot) , and knowing that I might be necro'ing an almost buried & forgotten game, I'll throw another one into the room:
I think an article about crafting (and necessarily resource-gathering, aka harvesting) should at least mention Ryzom.
IMHO, Ryzom also gives a nice example of the crafting (and harvesting) part keeping a game alive almost all by itself ;-)
...activating morph from silent reader to active poster...
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It shows you rarely craft, because what you mention is done in several MMO's. SWG weapon's system lets the crafter chose the elemental dmg, which in turn also affects the colour of the bolt thats shot. This is also for PVP sake of course, so other players can recognise fast what ele type you use (different ele types cause different procs).
Stat modding is done in several MMO's. First that come up in my mind are again SWG (weaponsystem/spacecomponent system) and Vanguard.
The minigame is there in Vanguard,SWG and EQ2.
Where SWG has a combination of used resource modding and something called experimentation in which you get to chose what stat to try to improve.
Then there is also modding afterwards in SWG with RE system.
SWG (especially weapon and spaceship component crafting) offers great variety in crafting. Resource quality, crafting gear (specifically mod for crafting bonusses), tools/crafting stations, location (research city), food, ent buffs, there are loads of things that can affect how efficient you are as crafter. Downside is that TCG (non crafted) items and lack of resell makes it tough for new crafters.
Hmm, I have to agree with Jennings on some of that article.
Getting a good crafting system into a game hasnt happened for much of anyone lately.
I found the nudges at UO correct as it was my first mmo and partially agreed with the points at swg, it was a pretty deep system, needed some improvement but yea overall I enjoyed it. I wouldnt make a guy craft thousands of items to grind for cap but i would however encourage a system where a player would enjoy crafting thousands of items to sell and be a part of the world he is in, in his own way. HIs own class or a skill points allocated just for crafting and mining.
In my opinion, if developers put as much effort into crafting systems and virtual economies as they do the combat systems that they put crafting in to compliment, this article would never have seen the light of day. The problem and general consensus amongst players has been as you can see by the ops article and from the posts in this forum are time syncs.
Old tale be told? Crafting according to mmo myth was introduced due to players duping items. Im guessing a little later on down the line developers saw time syncs as a way to keep people playing and resubbing *cough* CCP excuse me sorry, must be catching a cold. Somewhere around there, we had some sort of ugly collision of boredom grind and wasted money.
Eitherway a good example is actually CCP's eve online. Here you have this game where if you dont want to shoot someone every hour of the day you literally dont have to. If you dont want to craft any items you again literally dont have to. If youd rather do neither of those yo ucan just trade. The sheer variety of the game gives you options in replayability. The combat and the economy work together and it works out for everyone. They have a good model set up, a very large virtual economy and combat system altogether, I didnt so much enjoy the lack of wasd? But thats another post.. The skill training however, is the time sync. Rather than grind thousands of items, your grinding time.
In uo, I recall standing at the forge in Britain, crafting mail, shields and doing repairs. Sometimes when no tips were given and no armor was sold it was enough for me to know that a player somewhere was wearing something I made and either got his first pvp kill, or was just buying his first armor and weapon set from my vendor. It was fun meeting all those people as well. Filling orders came later and that actually added to the experience however... uos crafting also became a time sync. I enjoyed being on both sides of that forge, not only as the smith but as the warrior coming through for new armor and weapon repairs. I didnt enjoy the time sync.
Now when players jump in forums these days hollarin :Screw crafting! Im not crafting! id pay for you not to put it in! and on the other hand you have these folks who are asking you for a "fun" indepth crafting system that works in a robust economy. Nether is asking you as a developer for a time sync Theyre telling you literally they dont want to waste thier time.
Its odd the whole crafting issue thats come up over the years and how people have come to hate it while others seem to look for it first in an mmo. All I know is, when i look at an mmo to see if im going to play it or not, I want the full 15 bucks per month for my game, dont give me hack and slash everytime I log in but dont throw time syncs at me either.
*Warning - Long Post*
My ideal crafting system -
First off, you split the gathering/harvesting into two basic types - combat and non-combat.
1. Combat harvesting -
First you'd have Scavenging. Berries, roots, moss, flowers,seeds.. things you would only find out in the "open world" of the game, in the wilds so to speak, and as such to get them you risk combat since the wilds are full of mobs/npcs per typical MMO. These things used in lots of things from potions to food/drink consumables and poisons, salves, etc. So this is exploration + gathering with a chance of combat.
Secondly you have Salvaging. Getting skins/furs/meats/bones and such from animals and monsters/beasts for crafting, and/or sraps of metal, ingrediants for potions, cloth/rags/furs and such from NPC humanoids. This would obviously require you to kill said target before Salvaging. This is combat + gathering.
Third you have let's call it Mysticism. Loot from this gathering profession would be magical essence, refined into shards/crystals/whatever to be used for things like enchanting, crafting magical equipment, whatever. Main tool would be a "divining rod" of sorts, would pretty much point you in the general direction of a strong source of magical current. Like "go east" and you pretty much have to track the source down. So it's a mix of exploration, and then when you get to the source of the magical current, then it'd "summon" a guardian of that magical form you have to defeat in combat and then loot from it the shard/crystal/whatever of that magical type. So combat + exploration + gathering.
2. Non-combat harvesting -
First you go with Horticulture. In a players house, apartment, whatever, you could set up a table/basin and using various seeds you would grow flowers, small budding/fruit plants, fungi, etc. A very time dependant profession. Like you plant something and have to check on it every 24 hours, and do another step, or it'll wilt and die. Then eventual harvesting. You could tie some kind of mini-games into this, like trimming the branches off a bonsai tree. Watering it. Re-planting, etc. FFXI had something like this I believe.
The products from that could be used for Alchemy and as such you could set up an alchemists work bench in your house/room or use NPC shops in a town/city. Also you could sell/use some products for Farming profession. Alchemy would give potions, poisons, etc. and use materials from Horticulture or Scavenging, or both!
Now the next harvesting professions require a bit of pre-explaination.
I think it's stupid that you have to wander around looking for mining nodes. So instead, for the 3 "main" non-combat harvesting professions, you have resource sites. Farming, Mining, Lumberjacking.
Outside of towns/cities there are NPC run mines, lumber mills, and farms. As a player, if you want to harvest these resources you go and "work the mine" or "work the fields." Because these professions do not involve combat, the idea here is that time + effort = reward. The resource sites themselves work on a semi-instanced basis. For example, you go to a mine of say Copper Ore outside one of the newbie towns, due to the size and drop rate of the mine players are seperated out into 5-6 person instances. You don't have to group with these people, but for every 6 people who enter the mine a new instance is made. That way everyone has access to the nodes for resource gathering, but it is still not a completely solo experience or you CAN go in and work with friends/guildies. I could see mini-games made where you have to strike at the rock around a chunk of valuable metal to knock it loose or something.
Because it is guaranteed access to resources, the NPC owners of the mines/fields/lumber yards take a cut of what is gathered like the taxes in EvE Online for selling/refining. You can sell the raw ore/wood/produce to the NPC owners and they take a money tax, or you can keep the resources you harvested and the NPC owners take a small cut. As your skill in mining/farming/lumberjacking goes up, or you gain reputation or something with that site or mining/farming/LJ guild, the cut they take gets smaller and smaller.
Also as your skill increases, you can harvest more faster improving efficiency, and have access to more complex and "higher level" resources - like moving from the Copper mines to the Silver mines etc.
Farming would include things like plowing, planting, tilling, and harvesting - from things likes corn, beans, fruits, other vegetables, whatever. It's like Farmville but inside a MMO - it's obviously popular. You'd have different farms for different crops you could go and work. Again, taking a cut of the profit being paid for your work and gaining skill or taking the raw resource for use in food / potion / whatever production. Again I could see some fairly interesting mini-games to keep things interesting.
As part of Farming you could have things like Herding, which makes me think of the herding mini-game for horse-back riding they had in the Legend of Zelda game for the Wii. You couldn't obviously have things like slaughtering animals for meat - definitely wouldn't go over too well lol. But you could have sheep for wool, cows for milk, chickens for eggs, etc. and leave the meat for the Salvaging folks.
Obviously a bit more explanation is needed but you get the point... Mining would probably be the most popular and used in the production of weapons, gadgets, armors, etc. Lumberjacking would be used from some weapons/shields and that kind of stuff, arrows, but PRIMARILY for the creating of furtinure, decorations, upgrades, and equipment for player housing. Then farming would be for out-of-combat recovery of HP/MP or whatever and out-of-combat buffing. (On the flip side, alchemy and potions used for in-combat HP/MP recovery and buffing.
3. One of the BIGGEST things about this crafting system is that everything is component based.
What that means, is that say you are a Blacksmith and you make Armor. To make low level armor, maybe you just need some Copper bars and some basic leather. But then to make mid-level armor, you need Copper bars, basic leather, Silver Bars, and some fine wool. And then for high-level armor, you'd need Copper bars, basic leather, Silver bars, fine wool, Mithril bars, and some magical essence.
The point is, you do NOT have a crafting system where the first 200 recipes you learn are just vendor trash to get your skill up towards max level when you actually make useful stuff.
What these does is allow those who choose to specialize in a specific crafting profession or two have access to make all the high end stuff. But it also lets those who wish to be more broadly skilled and dabble a bit to still provide materials and components that other higher end crafters will always have a demand for. It helps early noob crafters as the stuff they make/use is never obsolete, it helps the mid-level for the same reasons. It also creates a great system of inter-dependances between players.
You could even specialize in low and mid level crafting resources and become highly efficient at their extraction and refinement, you could include a purity rating or quality values like SWG had so that people who choose to focus on the bottom end of the resource spectrum can really specialize in materials rather then production of goods like the high-level crafting specialists.
Again, more detail needed but I think the point is clear.
4. Finally, economy is a large portion of any crafting system.
One thing I hate is un-regulated auction houses. If players are allowed to charge whatever they want for items and resources they put on the auction house, it always lead to rapid inflation and devaluation of a good. Anyone who plays World of Warcraft and sees a stack of Copper Ore, the most basic mining resource, on the Auction house for 15g certainly understands. This inflation makes prices that low-level and leveling crafters can never afford, and creates a system where money just changes hands between high-level crafters who can afford it and as such drives prices up even more. Controlling and "fixing" the prices is essential for my component-based crafting to work.
Price control could be based on a variety of factors - First off every sellable object would be given a base value dependant upon static variables like the quality of the item (common, rare, etc.) , the rarity of its drop (crafted, boss loot, mob trash, etc.) and finally the NPC price NPC vendors will pay for it.
Then, using simple tools (like WoW's 3rd party addons) you can easily determine how much of a specific item is currently for sale on the system, how quickly these items sell, and average price over given periods of time. Using this data, you take that Base Value of an item you are given a range of prices you can list the item for on the Auction House.
For example, a stack of Copper Ore has a base value of 15 silver, but due to an over-abundance of copper ore on the market at the time, and multi-week/month trends in the market the available selling prices for a stack can go from 9 silver to 16 silver. Then it's up to the player if they wish to try and sell at the bottom of 9s a stack or risk on scarcity and product flow to catch a higher price like 14 or 15 silver.
To really add a layer of depth, you can do what EvE does where a specific good is searchable anywhere, but the location it is placed on auction matters. A certain area may have an abundance of the ore, like a town next to a copper mine, but another village which is far away has little to no copper ore so the price is higher. Players can make a purchase where the price is lowest but then have to travel and pick it up from the mailbox in that village or town, or they can pay a fee and have the item delivered to their current location in say an hour, or to their home city or whatever, or they can buy a higher priced good on the local market and have it immediately.
This allows you to buy low, travel, and sell high. For the market to be dynamic and moving like in EvE.
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This combination of systems allows for players to choose their own crafting experience, from a more combat out-in-the-world approach where if you are killing stuff, you might as well gather resources and craft - to a more dedicated and market oriented approach of time+effort invested = reward and if you play the system smart you can make lots of cash without ever stepping foot in combat.
This also should eliminate much of the risk of inflation and greedy overpricing that ruins most MMO economies, while still leaving room for adventurous entrepreneurs to really attack the market and make a buck for their wit and patience.
It ALSO prevents crafting from becoming a real grind to the top as all of the steps and layers are important and useful, letting those who wish to specialize really get the most out of it and the more casual crafters to still have fun and be a valued part of the economy. It keeps new players to the game and alts fresh and active in the economy and crafting game.
This ALSO prevents low level areas from becoming ghost towns as the low level resources outside these towns and villages are always imporant.
For the high level crafter, you will always have the option of buying the low level good and components off the market or doing it yourself. For the dabbler, you can put a hand in everything and still be an important part of the economy without having to specialize.
Again sorry for the long post - any thoughts to anyone who read the whole thing?
i love crafting. today i am even trying mmorpgs i know i dont want to play just to try their crafting system, to see if there is some interesting idea. i love minigame like crafting (eq2, vg), which makes crafting process itself more interesting and also like in depth robust crafting systems like the one wurm has, where you have to create different subcomponents to create final item.
what i lack the most with the more or less all crafting systems i met is the fact, that no matter how much time you spend with crafting, after some times you get to the cap, where everyone is able to make same items, no matter if he spends most of his time crafting or he if he has crafting only as a complementary system to raiding/going to dungeons/pvping etc.
i did try to put together system i would like to have - check this:
http://rapidshare.com/files/364608683/craftingv2Askill1.xls
it is written in excel VBA (sorry
)
only LW is working BS is there only as a part of the future update and to test "Recipe List" macro
if it seems to you that there is only too little options, try to increase LW skilllevel on Skill Tab
Well, a few thoughts:
-The continued viability of early resources for later recipes is something that I'm generally in favour of, but not always. I'm reminded of PotBS, where all ships needed basic things like oak and sails, but the better boats required more of the base components, plus precious mats on top of that. Not perfect, but still pretty nice, and made even the newcomers economic factors in the end-game. The one drawback is that it encourages alt-harvesting, where you get a heard of low-level alts grinding a basic resource, which can ruins things for the genuine lower-levelers, making it harder for them to achieve anything economicially. This is obviously more of a problem with F2P games, since at least you have to buy a second account to do it with P2P.
-Instance-based harvesting is an open ticket for rampant botting, since it's so difficult for others to see and report them. And that way lies a borked economy. If the harvesting can't be done open-world, or there's too much competition for a resource there, that's often a sign of bad design.
-For what it's worth, I HATE regulated AH's. The majority of problems that people ascribe to them are simply symptoms of underlying problems. The inflation problem you mentioned (Copper=15G) is usually a symptom of base resource scarcity. If a basic good is genuinely so rare that supply-and-demand market forces have jacked it up, then clearly no one is producing it for some reason. Or, if the price is high because someone is trying to artificially force prices excesively high, that's just an opportunity for a good businessman to put up his own goods for almost that high, thus either selling it normally to people who grab the cheaper price, or forcing the price-fixer to buy it himself. Either way, it's a situation that will remedy itself as long as the resource is available and some people in the market have half a brain in their skulls.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs:
That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
Crafting alts were a reality in more crafting focused MMOs like UO and SWG. How to counter that? Well, do you have to? Having players who keep a second toon "locked" at the lower tier of harvesting will create more competition and increase the availability of goods and resources and as such due to the control on the Auction house - reduce prices so the ACTUAL newbie crafters won't be hurt, they'll be able to afford to participate.
It's the alts of high-level toons who jack up the prices on low-level crafting resources, but by regulating the AH in a similar situation as I described, you literally can't do that.
And as for scarcity, if the low level resources are so very needed by high level crafters, both low level crafters and crafting alts who cap themselves have motivation to farm these resources and thus reduce scarcity.
Not quite sure how the alts jack up prices. If anything, they act to lower overall prices. If they alt-harvest to just sell stuff, they work to increase the market supply, which lowers prices (although this can affect the ability of lower levels to make money sometimes). Or, they alt-harvest in order to bypass the normal economic process (i.e. they don't want to pay any markups), which works to lower the demand for the product in the main economy, which also works to lower prices.
But regulation? How do you decide on fair prices? At best, all you can do is look at the cost to produce, and assign an abitrary maximum markup. And that's assuming the game's production system doesn't involve factors such as geography (i.e. distance, danger zones) and inconsistant returns (i.e. random odds of success). But as I said before, unless some aspect of the game prevents it, a proper economy WILL counteract price-gouging in the long run. Regulation is a bandaid solution, it doesn't fix an underlying problem.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs:
That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
Just a quick jump in on the "price controls" idea I'm totally against that. One, because I'm against them in real life. Two, and more importantly all it does artificially reduces the supply. Currently in WoW we are charge 15G for a stack of copper right, but what if we limited it to say 25S for the same stack. What reason do I have as a miner to put my stuff on the AH if I can't make anything off the time I wasted getting the rocks?
Price Controls only ruin supplies because it puts a break on the supply and demand mechanics that are neccissary for any good economy. Far better to make "zones" of supply like you mention in EVE. Being able to only sell in an area allows for commodity trading and finding areas with better supplies and lower demands.
Current Game: Asssasins Creed 2(PS3, Gamer Tag: Happy_Hubby)
Current MMO: World of Warcraft and World of Tanks
Former Subscribed MMO: Star Trek Online, Aion, WoW, Guild Wars, Eve Online, DAoC, City of Heroes, Shattered Galaxy, 10six.
Tried: Too many to list
Not regulating an economy does NOT work in real life, as anyone can see in the United States with all the problems we are experiencing.
However in real life, you have some natural factors that can help weigh out the risk of greedy, selfish, immoral business practices - things like jail, loss of your job, bankruptcy, etc. unless you bail them out for failing that is...
These things do not exist in a MMORPG market, even one as significant as EvE's. In fact EvE does do some price regulation by having a system of NPC suppliers and buyers to offset demand and supply for the player run economy.
I think recently they announced plans to change that and I think it is a terrible idea.
You really can't compare a real world economy to one in a MMORPG, even EvE. There are simply too many variables in a real life economy to calculate, and obvious no one can calculate a real world economy or being a stock broker would be far too easy of a job.
So in a virtual, fake economy you HAVE to have some control to it. And because it is less complex then a real world one you can control it easier. You can calculate everything out because you can see EVERY transaction and every penny.
Putting price controls in a game would NOT work. Why? Because if copper, selling for curring 15G per stack was forcibly maxed at 25S, players would simply stop putting it on the AH and then a black market would start up. No one but the occasional noob would put copper on the AH for 25S, and those would be instantly bought up only to be resold on the black market.
Markets like this regulate themselves. Ultimately, the price is determined by the buyers, not the sellers, because the market will only bear what people are willing to pay. If someone put copper up at 100G a stack, no one would buy it. Competitive sellers would undercut that price until an equilibrium is reached, and currently that price is around 15G a stack.
Tell that to the real true new character that just need half a stack off the AH to finish crafting themselves a new item. 7g? What the hell I've never made even close to 7g!
Obviously it can't be a "simple" way to regulate price, but you HAVE to do something.
Look at the EvE economy versus that of a games like WoW.
You don't think EvE regulates their economy?
The tightly control currency in game by tweaking mission rewards, having NPC buyers/sellers to supliment the market, and even using Plex.
But also due to the way my component based crafting would work as discussed earlier, the low level crafting resources will always be in such demand that it won't be just the alts of veterans and those wishing to power-level a new crafting profession that are farming and selling the goods.
This would generally make the inflationary problem rampant in most MMOs a moot point, and thus negate much need for strict regulation, maybe only a "helping hand" every once in a while with something like AI/NPC injected merchandise into the market to keep prices at fair levels.
No, you don't HAVE to do anything. Any true market will regulate itself, and the prices will ALWAYS eventually settle at what the market will bear. This is basic economics. Obviously, you have a problem with paying 15G for a stack of copper, but obviously many buyers do not, otherwise copper would not sell at 15G. Simple.
Good article.
Crafting should be one of the none combat things you can do in any MMO. Combat is fun but it shouldn't be the only thing you do when you play.
Broker/auction house is something that is a lot less fun than stores. EQ2 have both but few people actually go to someone store instead of shopping at the broker even if it is cheaper. Preferably should players either be able to have a store in the guildhall/guild city or in a un-instanced place in the game. If cities have a market district with larger store and some stands with npcs selling the players stuff it would make shopping a lot more fun.
The big problem with crafting in most games is that you make exactly the same junk as everyone else. There is no design or even color part of crafting. There is no enchanters that can enchant a already made item with some abilities (adding gems or similar things is not the same). I want a full ritual where the enchanter spend a little while doing some nice animations to add to the feel.
There should not be any need for a crafter to adventure, you should be able to just craft if you want to, even if you might have to trade for some of the rarer components then.
There should of course be other non combat activities for players also. Like gambling, advanced running of the guild (design the guild castle or city, renting in and designing npc for the same, even minting coins), burglary ala "Thief" and many more things.
Actually, no, that component-based crafting setup actually contributes to inflation, by making the base materials desirable to the group of people who have the largest amounts of money - namely the higher level characters. If the only people who want an item are poor, an item won't - can't - sell for high prices.
And while I personally have no experience with WoW myself, it sounds like 15G for a stack of Copper represents a huge markup over what it costs to produce. So why aren't people making easy money by selling stacks for 14G? In any proper economy, that's exactly what should be happening, unless something is preventing it from happening.
As for your EVE example - of course they regulate their economy. All MMO's have to. If they don't, things collapse. But it's properly done by controlling how the wealth enters (i.e. quest rewards) and exits (gold-sinks) the system, NOT by assigning limits to what things can sell for.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs:
That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
You just don't see that 15g for a stack of copper which should sell at 15s and sells to vendors for 11s is a GROSSLY inflated price that is grossly inflated due to 5 years of horrible in-game economy and two expansions that did nothing but add to the inflation of the economy by upping quest rewards, and also a 5 year old game with way too much RMT gold selling.
I am all about capitalism, but MMOs do not feature real life economics. They just don't.
It is NOT basic economics of supply and demand it does not apply in a fake, virtual economy because they basic factors of economics in real life are not present in a MMO because it is NOT real life.
Every MMO puts some control on their money supply.
They adjust flight costs, training costs, quest rewards, vendor prices, even drop rates and material costs for crafted items ALL in response to market factors within their game.
And the 15g per stack only works in WoW because the VAST majority of players are at end game or alts with main toons at max level and they can justify spending way too much on the AH because gold is easy to come by at level 80.
It completely and totally f's new players who are actually low levels and don't have bank toons.
Supply and demand mean nothing in the world of warcraft auction house.
Whoever places the first of an item on the AH sets the price.
After that, it's all just undercutting and bull "economics" there is no true supply/demand in MMOs.
EvE may be the exception, but that is simply because it is an economy focused game with NPC supplemented supply and a tightly controlled money supply.
Trust me, I 4.0'd macro and micro economics in college... rofl
But seriously, the vast majority of people do NOT understand real life economics at all, why should I expect MMO gamers to understand fake economies any better?
Here's a game to toss into the discussion that probably no one else has played: Rohan. It's been a few years since I played and I didn't play it for very long, but I was hooked on the forging system.
In Rohan, you couldn't craft gear from raw materials but you could craft it from other pieces of gear. Take the level 8 leather boots and the level 12 leather boots and a little money, and you can combine them into the level 16 leather boots. All dropped items have random stat bonuses and can also have random stat requirements. This winds up giving you a lot of things that aren't useful (like wands with a large str bonus or str requirement), but also makes the crafting hugely important. Why's that? Because combining two items brings along the worse of the requirements and the total of all the bonuses. A dropped level 44 dagger might randomly have some dex or some agi, but you could custom-make a level 44 dagger with enormous bonuses in whatever stat you want — much higher than you would ever see on a dropped version — by scouring the game for basic items with that stat bonus (so long as none of them have requisites that you don't meet) and then mashing them together in succession until you make your way up to the level 44 dagger. That is... assuming that you don't FAIL.
Yeah, you could fail and lose the item. I'm surprised that the issue of random chance didn't make its way into the article, as people have some strong opinions one way or the other about that. I feel that random chance in crafting is pretty important. It adds a little excitement to what is otherwise just a progress bar moving across the screen. Without any chance of failure or critical success, the price of an item really ought to be about the same as the price of the materials, plus perhaps a tiny bit extra to offset the time and expense that the crafter spent levelling up his skill. If there is a chance that the outcome of the craft could be good or bad (or nothing) depending on luck, then that simple formula doesn't apply. For that HQ Steel Axe, you're paying not just for the materials and their time, but also acknowledging the gamble that they took and happened to win. There's no simple formula for determining how much that risk is worth, which makes the market for that item even less predictable.
The high level players can afford to get their goods at whatever location they happen to be in for the price of convenience, instead of having to make the trip to the low level village right next to said copper mine for the cheapest price.
Or they'll pay to have the item(s) shipped from the auction house in that village.
And even if they do throw a lot of money at the system, it only helps the low level crafters.
The low level crafters can mine the resources because it doesn't require very much skill. And sell at a primium because they high level players are too lazy to make the trip or to harvest the low level stuff themselves.
And because everyone wants the copper, but not everyone is willing to do the work, and newer players can only get the copper, it all balances out.
As with EvE it's all about market availability and location. Dividing into regions and different prices based on location.
They simply do not have this in WoW, and also in WoW the copper is used for nothing but low level recipes, and as such it sells high on the auction house because of twinks and power-levelers with alts and bank toons.
And by assigning absolute value and then adjusting selling prices based upon true supply and demand curves, everyone wins.
MMO auction houses are like if each McDonalds in the country was allowed to set their own prices with no repercussions. The employees won't get fired and lose their homes and their kids will strarve if no one comes to their store - they just collect the goods off the shelf after they expire and try again. No real life consequences for bad business practices.
Sure, some will be competitive and try and haggle for a good price with their fellow store owners, but there will always be those that just want to undercut everyone.
But since whenever you go to McDonalds you see the prices of every store and instantly get the food delivered to you no matter where the seller is, you always scoop up the cheapest stuff first.
But what prevents a owner from buying up all the low priced goods and then raising the price to change the bottom line and reselling it all because they can afford it?
Nothing.
I think all games should have crafting. Only some games I've played have useful/enjoyable crafting. SWG crafting is still good..if you could get the materials. Vanguard had a great crafting system..but I never used much of the products I created. AoC...well.. I've gathered many materials but haven't crafted anything yet. (Anyone tell me if it's any good?). I have maxed crafting skills on my one WOW character..(.My very first and only toon). I do not particulary think WOW's crafting system is very good tho. Only a few things are useful prior to max level items. Pretty sad really.
Darkfall...MO...AO...COX..I've tried many systems...I'd say the one I enjoy most is Fallen Earth. It can take some effort to gather the materials...and though it is a basic click and wait system...you can still carry on with the questing. Good thing cause some things take hours before they are complete. I also like the intricacy ...e.g. making all the parts for a pistol from various materials you've gathered and/or created...then the pistol itself...not to mention you can make the ammo. ..but not before you make the gunpowder. It's really a very detailed and diverse system. I think 99% of my items...clothes, armor, weapons...everything I made myself. I am level 14 and although I am geared from self-made items..I do not feel gimped. Not in the least.
. Of all the games I highly recommend FE if you like crafting. Also give SWG a try if you haven't yet (yeah..i know people will say don't bother..but only you know what you like) as well as Vanguard ( which also has a fun Diplomacy system that works like a trading card game)...though I know little of what the population is currently for the latter 2 games.
Okay, I'm starting to lose you here. First you talk about a case of gross inflation hurting low-levels, but then you state that the low-levels can easily mine the stuff that's selling for the grossly inflated prices? Sounds fine to me.
If people are willing to pay the inflated prices, let them. You can't cure bad money-management, so you may as let the low-levels get the money. And if the low-levels don't want to mine copper (or whatever else is selling at excessive prices), that's their choice. But from what you say, it looks like Blizzard isn't doing a good job of managing how wealth enters their system. Price regulation isn't going to fix that - the excessive money will just go ruin another aspect of the economy.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs:
That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.