Harvesting, crafting, not concerned with endgame or raids.

BlueProteus

I've been away from MMO's for a while, and with Winter approaching, want to get back into something for a bit.

Since it helps to describe what one is after when looking for recommendations, here's what I prefer:

Good crafting and market: I list this first, since I easily spend as much time crafting as I do punching mobs in the face.
Decent population: if the place is a ghost town, nobody is there to buy the stuff I make.
I like games with housing and crazy mounts (ie: more than just horses, etc.)
I'm more than happy to pay a sub for a game I like, but if I'm paying a sub, please don't nickel and dime me to death to expand inventory, etc.
I especially like pet and turret/engineer classes.
Prefer more of an open world, but can deal with instances if there's other stuff I like going on.


In addition: I don't care about endgame, I'll probably never see it. I usually have a ton of alts that don't make it past ~40.
So I'm not worried about raids and such, I'm more of an explorer.

I'm primarily a soloer, but could get into RvR or pugs if it's a decent community.

I've been hopping around between the usual suspects lately, here's where I stand with various games:

Rift: Overall, I like it. Crafting and market was good. But after returning lately, seems a lot of people have left, so it's kind of ghosty compared to how it used to be.

BDO: Trying now after a hiatus. I find its systems confusing as hell, but there are some things I like. Stuff I make is almost always bought, so pop is healthy. Not fond of the energy system that has to recharge before you can do more harvesting, etc. Also, the no fast travel is bugging me.

ArchAge: Like BDO, has a points system that has to recharge, which can get annoying. But I liked the farming and crafting for the most part.

EvE: I know it has a really great, deep crafting system, but I can't get into it. I don't want to be a spaceship.

SWtOR: Some things I liked, but the way you send your sidekicks off to do all the harvesting and crafting bugged me. I want to do it myself.

EQ2: Some of my favorite crafting and marketplace mechanics, and an inventory so huge it makes me miss it. But the environment is looking so old and dated it's hard to move beyond it, and most remaining people are high level, so there's nobody to buy my low or medium level goods. I did love the fact that auctions never expired though.

LotRO: Again, some elements I liked, especially the lore, but the limited inventory made me crazy. Just horses too for mounts, as far as I remember.

Wildstar: I'm not sure if this is even still going...I liked the solo instanced missions and the robo minion class. The cartoon thing was a little hard to deal with sometimes.

ESO: I'm downloading this again now...haven't played since the launch. It was so crazy-over populated at launch, that everyone was tripping over each other, so I want to give it another try. I have heard that there is no "real" marketplace, but there are guild markets (or something.) I've also read that if you sub, you can carry almost unlimited crafting resources. That's a plus if it's true.

FFXIV: Liked this pretty much...especially the way harvesting worked. Kind of bugged me about the invisible walls, but not a deal-breaker. It did seem like I was always using the same limited rotation in battles though. I also liked that you don't need alts as much, since your character can do so many different things.

GW2: Playing this currently, I like some aspects, but this is the hardest time I've ever had making a profit from crafting. Also, the way the map is laid out with all the quest points, vistas, and all, it feels more theme-parky than most MMO's.

WoW: Honestly, it has been years since I tried it. I know there have been a lot of expansions, but it seems like those are usually geared towards high level players. My memories are that the cartoon style graphics were a little annoying but not the end of the world, and that the crafting was kind of generic. But I could have a look again.

I despise open PvP and getting ganked, so have avoided Darkfall to date, may check it out at some point. Also worried about the higher levels of AA for the same reason.
I am not a graphics whore, but I do like a game world that feels more realistic, and has nicer graphics.


Note that although crafting is really important to me, I'm not after a crafting-only game like ATITD or Wurm. I like "standard" MMO's, with a balance of crafting and fighting.

Are you still here? Amazing! If you have any suggestions for other games that might fit some of the things I'm after (or if you think I'm way off on any of my descriptions) feel free to comment away!

Albatroes

"FFXIV: Liked this pretty much...especially the way harvesting worked. Kind of bugged me about the invisible walls, but not a deal-breaker. It did seem like I was always using the same limited rotation in battles though. I also liked that you don't need alts as much, since your character can do so many different things."

You didn't list a deal breaker about it so go with that...?

lahnmir

Ryzom.

it has great crafting and gathering. It is a fair bit older but the graphics hold up reasonably well and the starting zone is pretty busy. It is free to play so go check it out, it is quite a unique experience and very rewarding. Also, it is NOT about endgame and not all players are top level.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

Maurgrim

Everquest 2.

Phry

I would have to say that if i was mostly interested in Crafting side of things, then FFXIV:ARR, would be the game i chose, for the moment at least it is one of the few games where you can concentrate on doing those things, i think eventually shroud of the avatar will bring more of that kind of gameplay, though for the moment i would hold off until its finished.
The other thing about FFXIV:ARR is that it is a well populated game, so the social aspects of the game are significant, if you are of a mind to socialise.

Kyleran

Though we know little about it yet, might want to wait for Dark and Light which is supposed to beta this year still.

Reportedly will be long on crafting and have a PVE only server, possibly a "survival" type of game in a much larger world setting without all of the messy ganking.

Kyleran

DMKano said:

Kyleran said:

Though we know little about it yet, might want to wait for Dark and Light which is supposed to beta this year still.

Reportedly will be long on crafting and have a PVE only server, possibly a "survival" type of game in a much larger world setting without all of the messy ganking.

There is no possibly - it is a survival game first and foremost with some lighter MMO elements. This is how they've described it in every interview.

Unless the devs are jerking everyone's chain and straight up lying about their own game.


Or - you know - they could release some actual gameplay footage - or even better let some 3rd parties just review the game.

Good point devs never mislead players about their games before launch (cough cough NMS) whew got something stuck there.

I said possibly because we really haven't seen much of anything yet and most interviews are translated which I never quite trust.

BlueProteus

Albatroes said:

FFXIV
You didn't list a deal breaker about it so go with that...?

Will be checking it out again for sure. I liked the crafting, but if I recall correctly there was a level you had to reach before you could use the marketplace to sell. (?)

So I'm not sure how the market works yet. Need to find out though.

BlueProteus

Phry said:

The other thing about FFXIV:ARR is that it is a well populated game, so the social aspects of the game are significant, if you are of a mind to socialise.

Good to hear. I would think that would make it easier to sell crafted items as well.

Albatroes

BlueProteus said:

Albatroes said:

FFXIV
You didn't list a deal breaker about it so go with that...?

Will be checking it out again for sure. I liked the crafting, but if I recall correctly there was a level you had to reach before you could use the marketplace to sell. (?)

So I'm not sure how the market works yet. Need to find out though.

Yeah, you have to progress through the games main story in order to unlock npcs called retainers that work as both storage and your way to sell stuff. Leveling isn't really that bad since they added an instance called the palace of the dead which pretty much grants insta-queues to all classes. Its a good way to make money as well.

TheScavenger

None of these games are what the OP is looking for.

Everyone is recommending crappy raid games, that makes crafting not matter. In FFXIV (and any other crappy MMO listed), can you make better crafted items than you can dungeons/raids?

A. No
A1. Not a crafting game

or

B. Yes
B2. Then what the hell is the point of raids

Now look at SWG and Ultima Online. The best items are crafted. UO maybe not so much anymore. But still...at least in SWG it was pure crafting/harvesting. You couldn't find better items except from crafters.

Everyone here is advertising crappy raid games, that makes crafting/harvesting nearly irrelevant. 

I recommend actually looking at SWG Emu. Far better crafting than any of these themepark MMOs that makes crafting crappy as hell.

With one exception. I heard in ESO you can craft as good items as you can find in raids. If true, that is a TRUE crafting MMO. Not sure what the point of raiding would be then. Maybe its more a pvp focused MMO.

TheScavenger

Anyway. Sorry for the above post if it sounded angry. But guild wars 2 pissed me off so much, that I'm in a bad mood. maybe I need to get off the internet for a while and take a walk lol

(see last post I made on there) http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/453670/is-it-me-or-is-fps-extremely-low/p2

Wizardry

I don't think such a game exists because great games like the FF series are older and already have established economies,so you will be late to the party.EQ series was another but again old games and already late to the party.

Since those 4 games i mentioned,Wow came along with a "decent" system but lacks from all 4 of those games for various reasons and again is older.

My biggest peeve for all of gaming is CHEATING and pretty much every single game has had cheating ruin those economies and yes even the crafting part.Cheating as a main reason i quit Vanguard back in the day as a few players were using rmt to fund massive rares and be the first to dominate the upper market of crafts with little effort or less effort than the legit players.I have even watched crafting bots in action.

So long winded point is that when a game comes along that does it well,you can bet cheating will prevail.Devs are LAZY and cheap at policing their games.Do i even see a mmrpg game on the horizon with notable crafting....nope,if i do i will likely jump in myself.

IceAge

TheScavenger said:

I recommend actually looking at SWG Emu. Far better crafting than any of these themepark MMOs that makes crafting crappy as hell.

IceAge enters the room and say " ..but isn't SWG also a themepark MMO?" 

...and runs!

Phoebes

If you're looking to do crafting and not interested in dungeons/raiding, then stay away from WoW for this expansion.

They made a LARGE portion of crafting require dungeons and raids just to get the type of recipes you were used to getting in previous expansions without that kind of requirement.

Also, when you craft gear now, the stats you get for the piece of gear is all rng based. So you may get stats that you really don't want several times in a row making the same item. Then you run out of mats and have to start farming again just to have a chance at making a piece of gear you may or may not want.

.. and as for liking pet classes.. stay far far away from hunter right now. They did a ton of ability pruning on them, especially for BM hunter. But don't take my word on that .. just go look at the hunter message boards.

If you choose WoW, plan to do dungeons/raids. A LOT of the content requires it: gear, flying, crafting, advancing your class hall and artifact weapon and several other quest chains.

They also took pvp gear vendors out for this expansion. If you win a battleground now, you have a chance of getting a piece of gear (that isn't very high level). You usually don't get gear though .. it's usually some gold, a potion or honor token to buy old gear for transmog ... and you can get repeats of the same piece of gear.

As for alts ... this expansion has made it extremely difficult on players who play alts. The way the artifact weapons work especially makes catching up just daunting.

d_20

BlueProteus said:

Are you still here? Amazing! If you have any suggestions for other games that might fit some of the things I'm after (or if you think I'm way off on any of my descriptions) feel free to comment away!

Yes, because this sounds almost exactly like me. 

Presently, I'm in ESO and am pretty content with it. I think it's the best game for crafters that's not pvp oriented, though you can pvp. 

I also keep GW2 updated, but honestly haven't played much since HoTs. Have BDO, but haven't made it past level 8. Been meaning to give it a go but haven't found the time now that Civ 6 has just come out and ESO has had the holiday event going. Keep WoW on as well and log in once or twice a week. 

I also enjoyed my time in FFXIV and wouldn't mind trying that out again if I ever run out of other games, which I don't think i will. I like the combat and jumping around in Wildstar and have an engineer there, too, like you OP. But not at a high level. Basically seems like we like the same games and have a similar play style. 

I loved Darkfall back in the original days and played for two years. Probably won't play again though as you need to spend a lot of time and you would hate getting ganked and looted after gathering a bunch of rare ores.

Also enjoyed Rift a lot back in its prime. Still still have a char parked in the middle the of the NT content. Leveled it for a while, but ran out of steam. Prefer the livelier population in WoW for that sort of game. But still like Rift and can see myself going back again once in a while.

Scorchien

WaaaaAAAaGGgggHhHhHhHh           https://www.returnofreckoning.com/about.php

  go roll an Engi

Vrika

Considering how many MMOs you've tested and don't really want to play right now, I'd recommend trying something different:

-Wakfu has unique turn-based combat and you can spend a lot of time gathering and crafting
-Crowfall is promising a lot about its crafting and gathering, if you're okay doing it in PvP environment. The game is not released yet, but you might want to check it when it comes 
-You might also want to check out Haven and Hearth, though that's likely too old game for your tastes

Kyleran

TheScavenger said:

None of these games are what the OP is looking for.

Everyone is recommending crappy raid games, that makes crafting not matter. In FFXIV (and any other crappy MMO listed), can you make better crafted items than you can dungeons/raids?

A. No
A1. Not a crafting game

or

B. Yes
B2. Then what the hell is the point of raids

Now look at SWG and Ultima Online. The best items are crafted. UO maybe not so much anymore. But still...at least in SWG it was pure crafting/harvesting. You couldn't find better items except from crafters.

Everyone here is advertising crappy raid games, that makes crafting/harvesting nearly irrelevant. 

I recommend actually looking at SWG Emu. Far better crafting than any of these themepark MMOs that makes crafting crappy as hell.

With one exception. I heard in ESO you can craft as good items as you can find in raids. If true, that is a TRUE crafting MMO. Not sure what the point of raiding would be then. Maybe its more a pvp focused MMO.

EVEs "best" modules are drops yet crafting is integral to it's overall design.

They accomplish this by making these modules rare, ergo expensive thereby limiting their use to safer or sure win situations 

As its embarrassing to stupidly lose a "bling" fit ship it tends to limit most builds to using them sparingly along with many player built hulls and modules.

DAOC used the same design back in the day though it was stat caps that drove players to use a blend of dropped and crafted gear.

BlueProteus

TheScavenger said:

None of these games are what the OP is looking for.

I've kind of come to the point that what I'm looking for doesn't actually exist, but I'm still looking for the lesser of evils, since I like to spend a little time in MMO land.

It's not really that important to me that I can make equipment that's better than what can be had from raids, just that I can make things that people will actually buy, at all levels, not just high-end raid players. But there has to be somewhat of a profit, and there has to enough of a population throughout the levels that buy on the market. That's what makes me crazy about GW2. People buy my stuff all day, but I can't make a profit. (Actually, I can, but it's painfully slow.)

In EQ2 and Rift, I could make crazy money, but the populations have shrunk and the remaining players are top level and wouldn't be interested in what I have to sell.

I'm currently checking out ESO and FFXIV, as they seem to be the closest to what I'm after.

BlueProteus

Phoebes said:

If you're looking to do crafting and not interested in dungeons/raiding, then stay away from WoW for this expansion.

Thanks for the input.

I've read in a couple places that WoW is probably not a good bet for someone that primarily solos and crafts.

I suppose the only thing it has going for it is that there's still a relatively healthy population (I'm assuming) so there would be people to buy my stuff, but others have said they never buy from the market anyway because you find so much new stuff so fast while playing.

BlueProteus

d_20 said:

BlueProteus said:

Are you still here? Amazing! If you have any suggestions for other games that might fit some of the things I'm after (or if you think I'm way off on any of my descriptions) feel free to comment away!

Yes, because this sounds almost exactly like me. 

I also keep GW2 updated, but honestly haven't played much since HoTs. Have BDO, but haven't made it past level 8. Been meaning to give it a go but haven't found the time now that Civ 6 has just come out and ESO has had the holiday event going. Keep WoW on as well and log in once or twice a week. 

I also enjoyed my time in FFXIV and wouldn't mind trying that out again if I ever run out of other games, which I don't think i will. I like the combat and jumping around in Wildstar and have an engineer there, too, like you OP. But not at a high level. Basically seems like we like the same games and have a similar play style. 

I loved Darkfall back in the original days and played for two years. Probably won't play again though as you need to spend a lot of time and you would hate getting ganked and looted after gathering a bunch of rare ores.

I'm liking what I see so far in ESO. I especially like the rune system and how much stuff there is to gather from all around the world. If I keep playing, I'm going to have to sub, so I can get that giant crafting inventory bag.

I haven't completely given up on GW2...it is free after all. I do like the Engineer and Necromancer classes, and there are plenty of people playing. I will probably keep checking it out from time to time.

Started back in with FFXIV this morning, will see how it goes.

Yeah, my idea of a good time is not getting ganked after I spent an hour collecting mats, so will probably avoid Darkfall for now.

BlueProteus

Scorchien said:

WaaaaAAAaGGgggHhHhHhHh           https://www.returnofreckoning.com/about.php

  go roll an Engi

Haha, I liked the Engineer in Warhammer. Will have to keep an eye on that project.

Warhammer was also one of the few games where I came out of my solo shell and spent a lot of time on the capture-the-flag battles, they seemed well balanced and were pretty fun.

BlueProteus

Vrika said:

Considering how many MMOs you've tested and don't really want to play right now, I'd recommend trying something different:

-Wakfu has unique turn-based combat and you can spend a lot of time gathering and crafting
-Crowfall is promising a lot about its crafting and gathering, if you're okay doing it in PvP environment. The game is not released yet, but you might want to check it when it comes 
-You might also want to check out Haven and Hearth, though that's likely too old game for your tastes

I've tried Wakfu a couple times, and can appreciate its depth, but I think I prefer a full world for the immersion rather than the isometric field.

Am keeping an eye on Crowfall for sure.

Azaron_Nightblade

BDO's energy thing isn't as bad as you think.

1) The higher your gathering skill, the less energy you consume with gathering. Basically there is always a chance that your "gather" doesn't take energy. This chance goes up with your skill level. As a Master rank gatherer, I can keep going for a long time before running out of energy.

2) You can easily recharge your energy by knocking out some quests, especially the gathering and crafting dailies you can unlock at Olvia. There's a bunch of other easy dailies scattered across the cities too, which often just require turning in an item that you've gathered and restore 3 energy or something (not to mention contribution points)

3) Resting on a bed recharges energy faster.


They also changed it over time that many things that used to take energy, no longer do. Cooking, Alchemy and processing materials have all had their costs removed. So basically now it's just for gathering and the more PvE oriented activities. :pleased:

BlueProteus

Azaron_Nightblade said:

BDO's energy thing isn't as bad as you think.

1) The higher your gathering skill, the less energy you consume with gathering. Basically there is always a chance that your "gather" doesn't take energy. This chance goes up with your skill level. As a Master rank gatherer, I can keep going for a long time before running out of energy.

2) You can easily recharge your energy by knocking out some quests, especially the gathering and crafting dailies you can unlock at Olvia. There's a bunch of other easy dailies scattered across the cities too, which often just require turning in an item that you've gathered and restore 3 energy or something (not to mention contribution points)

3) Resting on a bed recharges energy faster.


They also changed it over time that many things that used to take energy, no longer do. Cooking, Alchemy and processing materials have all had their costs removed. So basically now it's just for gathering and the more PvE oriented activities. :pleased:

Thanks for the heads up. I had assumed the cost for gathering stayed the same, so that's good to know.
"Master rank gatherer" sounds like something I'd like 8)

I need to spend more time in the game and figure some more things out. I was kind of bummed that the inventory starts out so small, but at least it can be expanded quite a bit over time.