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What happened to crafting?
Gallaid
Member Posts: 118
I have been looking and looking for a game that satisfies an itch. I grow up on games that were challenging and hard. I have been looking for a good crafting system. I started crafting in UO and continued in SWG before the patch. SWG was the best crafting system ever. My first job for a guild was to go empty certain extractors on various planets. It was amazing. It provided exploration and economic PVP.
Ever since wow came out there has been no real dedicated crafters. I had a great time knowing that my droids were out there helping dancers with the buffs or my meds out there healing people in PvP. Now everyone can craft anything in most games that I see. In SWG I was a decent fighter but a great crafter. It was great when a crafter was known for there products. i.e. I have a "insert crafters name here" rifle.
I have been looking at some games that are coming out soon. Some of them look promising.
The question is why don't games use the random attributes that SWG did. Also do you guys/girls think that WoW was the one game that changed how crafting is looked at? Do you think that there is a shift since WoW is slowly dying out?
Comments
No, I don't believe that "WoW killed crafting".
Meaningful crafting was removed from mainstream MMO's because the majority of modern MMO players couldn't be bothered with it. Loot drops superceded crafted products and took center stage in most MMO's.
FFXIV:ARR is the first AAA game in a long time that has a decent crafting system. With some effort, crafted gear (pre level-cap) can actually be made marginally better than quest or loot rewards, but endgame dungeon drops still trump all, of course.
having crafted since SWG as well i can say that this assessment of FFXIV's crafting system is accurate as well as their opinion on why crafting has died out. its really too bad, but true.
however, the game with a superior crafting system is still Vanguard. other than that there's just not much out there.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
To have crafting you need economy. To have economy you need constant demand. To have demand you need items to be removed from players' hands, being it by damage decay, death decay, time decay or any other way. In any case, players have to regularly lose their items.
Players don't like it. So the games were developed whete the player can buy a sword and have that sword until end of time. Thus, no economy for sword-manufacturers. Extrapolate to all other non-decaying items...
Mostly current games have economies based on expiring products, like food and potions. EvE, with full item decay, has a huge economy and is pretty much heaven for crafters.
Crafting died because players didn't want to be bothered with economy and/or possibility that their "hard-earned" raid item will decay. So they've killed it.
This pretty much sums it up. There are some possibilities still in early development so time will tell.
OP you should try FFXIV. Its where a few of us vet SWG crafters have gone.
Just wait on CU! with the rest of us tired, beaten, and fed up MMO players.
MJ has promised there will be NO PVE loot drops, at all, ever. EVERYTHING will need to be crafted.
Thats just it...It became much easier just to run a dungeon than to put in several weeks/months maxxing a crafter......I still think the way it should work is get the best drops from raids, but have the ability for a crafter to improve the gear even more....That way you get the best of both worlds.
Well said, and absolutely true. It's been years since I gave up crafting vendor trash just to be able to make higher-level vendor trash, all the while losing money on the process. Crafting in Everquest was just a money-wasting timesink long before WoW came out... The few times I stuck with crafting in other MMOs and maxxed my armour/weapon-crafting skills and (at long last!) crafted some gear worth wearing, the next game expansion inevitably made my crafted purple items vendor trash... again. All MMO's seem to be like this, and I can't really pick on one particular MMO and blame it.
Decay is not necessarily the only thing. In SWG there was also resource shift(and large variety of stats at that in the resources) This meant that rare items could be crafted, one of a kind, and those types of things garner attention and sales. Say I, the combatant, go out and farm a rare module for a gun, one of a kind stats, I then go and find(or use a crafter I'm familiar with) to dig through his rare supplies and find the absolute best stats that the gun the module will be used in, needs. Or one step further, go ping around the maps for a specially catered set of resources. Then have him use experimentation clothes to get a design, then finally use a crafting set to make it. That weapon is now one of a kind, and potentially better than anything ever made. Who wouldn't want to replace their weapons with that, now take that same process, and do it with a less rare material, still could be better than most weapons, but not super rare, therefore making some people still want it.
And after that super duper item? Make another one more super duper imba item? And then? One even better? No item spirals don't work for crafting.
As Grahor said, for a working economy, for a worthwhile crafter experience constant demand, and withit item sinks like item decay is necessary.
Marvel Heroes has the best casual crafting.
Very little work. None of that creating 1000 useless items leveling.
And crafting is useful from day 1, because it does not make items, it upgrades items you already have.
You know, I was right about to post and agree with you, but then I just realized something.
Decay is NOT the only way to create a functioning crafter's economy.
As I see it, there are two ways.
First, you can keep the traditional crafting mechanics, where the crafter makes a pre-programmed game item and then sells that item. You would need item decay for this to work, because the constant loss of said items is the only thing that would generate demand, since the items are essentially all the same.
Second, you can change the crafting system so that the crafter can actually MAKE something creatively with the game's toolkit and then sell that item in game. For example, couldn't you envision a game like Minecraft where a crafter creates something like a fountain out of voxels with their own unique artistic touches and then sells that? It would sell because it would be unique, it would be that crafter's own creation and would not be the same as any other fountain...no item decay necessary. Constant differentiation would drive the game economy just like it drives our real one.
I think that EQ Next Landmark actually has the potential to make this happen since it will let "crafters" actually make things out of the game's voxels. How they decide to implement this stuff in the actual EQ Next game has yet to be seen though.
Still, with new voxel-based MMORPGs on the horizon, I think that crafting may be in for a huge change.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
And after that super duper item? Make another one more super duper imba item? And then? One even better? No item spirals don't work for crafting. As Grahor said, for a working economy, for a worthwhile crafter experience constant demand, and withit item sinks like item decay is necessary.
You know, I was right about to post and agree with you, but then I just realized something.
Decay is NOT the only way to create a functioning crafter's economy.
As I see it, there are two ways.
First, you can keep the traditional crafting mechanics, where the crafter makes a pre-programmed game item and then sells that item. You would need item decay for this to work, because the constant loss of said items is the only thing that would generate demand, since the items are essentially all the same.
Second, you can change the crafting system so that the crafter can actually MAKE something creatively with the game's toolkit and then sell that item in game. For example, couldn't you envision a game like Minecraft where a crafter creates something like a fountain out of voxels with their own unique artistic touches and then sells that? It would sell because it would be unique, it would be that crafter's own creation and would not be the same as any other fountain...no item decay necessary. Constant differentiation would drive the game economy just like it drives our real one.
I think that EQ Next Landmark actually has the potential to make this happen since it will let "crafters" actually make things out of the game's voxels. How they decide to implement this stuff in the actual EQ Next game has yet to be seen though.
Still, with new voxel-based MMORPGs on the horizon, I think that crafting may be in for a huge change.
Second Life lets you do the whole "create something unique" crafting thing. I dont like it. The game has no continuity or common theme. Its just a bunch of junk for sale. Wade through thousands of overpriced shovelware items to find one halfway interesting thing. Not my idea of a blast or a great crafting game.
You can do what FFXIV does which is create a voluntary decay system. It worked great in 1.0 and is setup the same way now.
Nothing is wrong with a great variety of different items or stats or everything in between. And i do agree that the option to create your own design would add to longevity to crafting, although i think that design will be added in EQN through EQN Landmark and withit most probably the cash shop.. and they do it to verify design to meet Lore/Theme standards.
And without boundaries, a lot of people will complain, like people complained about the player created starbucks coffee shops in ArcheAge. And there you could only add your own textures.. And i could think of a lot of shapes, which could either be offensive or not fitting in the world.
But nevertheless, even with the ability to create new designs your "good options" are somewhat limited, and withit you will come to an end in regards to demand. So i really think you need some form of item sink nevertheless on top of that.
<------Raises hand
Currently playing SWTOR and it's MUCH better than it was at launch.
Yeah but all those problems you mention are specific to Second Life. I'm sure it's more than possible to implement a creative crafting system that has continuity of theme and weeds out a lot of the shovelware crap.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
I love deep meaningful crafting.
Final Fantasy XIV
Vanguard
come to mind
You know, I was right about to post and agree with you, but then I just realized something. Decay is NOT the only way to create a functioning crafter's economy. As I see it, there are two ways. First, you can keep the traditional crafting mechanics, where the crafter makes a pre-programmed game item and then sells that item. You would need item decay for this to work, because the constant loss of said items is the only thing that would generate demand, since the items are essentially all the same. Second, you can change the crafting system so that the crafter can actually MAKE something creatively with the game's toolkit and then sell that item in game. For example, couldn't you envision a game like Minecraft where a crafter creates something like a fountain out of voxels with their own unique artistic touches and then sells that? It would sell because it would be unique, it would be that crafter's own creation and would not be the same as any other fountain...no item decay necessary. Constant differentiation would drive the game economy just like it drives our real one. I think that EQ Next Landmark actually has the potential to make this happen since it will let "crafters" actually make things out of the game's voxels. How they decide to implement this stuff in the actual EQ Next game has yet to be seen though. Still, with new voxel-based MMORPGs on the horizon, I think that crafting may be in for a huge change.
Second Life lets you do the whole "create something unique" crafting thing. I dont like it. The game has no continuity or common theme. Its just a bunch of junk for sale. Wade through thousands of overpriced shovelware items to find one halfway interesting thing. Not my idea of a blast or a great crafting game. You can do what FFXIV does which is create a voluntary decay system. It worked great in 1.0 and is setup the same way now.
Yeah but all those problems you mention are specific to Second Life. I'm sure it's more than possible to implement a creative crafting system that has continuity of theme and weeds out a lot of the shovelware crap.
I agree. I just think it tough to balance. Of course Landmark has the potential to do it right. Of course SoE has had plenty of potentials over their long and illustrious mmo career so to speak haha.
Yep, that and the fact you can get better items via drops. Earth & Beyond had good ideas for crafting (better components = better result, death decay) and some bad ideas (no one class could go from raw materials to finished product).
I wouldn't mind seeing a system where items decay provided you could spend resources to maintain them. No time decay though because I'd like to encourage players to build powerful items and use them, even if they only use it on final bosses where they really need the improved abilities. That way players would have multiple weapons, the "every-baddie" ones then weapons for a special occasion. In any case when decay happens it can be completely undone by allocating resources to maintenance. The rarer the item put into the maintenance bin the longer it will last and players would have the choice of dumping common items in there often or a few uncommon ones occasionally. In any case, it would help with the game economy by removing items from it. This way having dozens of cheap items is good for something.
You answered your own question.
Just like everything else good or complex in MMOs, WoW got rid of it.