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?
You said it yourself. The 15G per stack works because the majority of players have rich alts. That is why the price is what it is. Yes, it sucks for new players. Yes, it's unfair for new players. But that is the price the market dictates that buyers are willing to pay, so that is the price it is. I do not agree with you that the GMs need to step in and force price regulation, because it would create a black market. If people are willing to pay 15G for a stack of copper, no sane person is going to be content selling it at 25S. Stacks of copper will vanish off the AH, and people will start spamming they have copper to sell.
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.
Firstly, a proper auction house WILL have a posting fee, set as a percentage of whatever they're trying to sell the product for. This keeps people from spamming excessive prices, since they'll wind up losing money if the product doesn't move. If this isn't present, yes you WILL have problems. That's a design flaw, not an argument for price-regulation.
As for price-fixing, I've seen plenty of attempts at price-fixing, and they usually fail, because people just uncut it with their own wares, forcing the price-fixer to keep buying more items, even if his aren't selling. Eventually, the price fixer just goes broke, with a warehouse full of stock that he paid too much for. Price fixing isn't possible if the item has sufficient supply. And if the item doesn't have sufficient supply, but is important/essential, there's a problem on the supply side of the item. Still not an argument for price-regulation.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs: That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
I enjoy crafting for the most part... unless its a game where you can either spend your points in crafting or combat (same point pool)... then I usually avoid it like the plague.
As to the merchant comments on the article, I have to agree. I recall setting up merchants in EQ so I could buy junk back from them and then see everything players just sold to the npc and buy that for reselling. Made a killing at it until they patched that process out.
If a game came out with 1/2 of the posted ideas above, I would consider seriously joining for years...lol. Crafting does really add to the overall enjoyment and longevity of a game. Every game I have spent more then a few months has had a more emmersive world with some sort of half decent crafting in it.
[quote]The problem with SWG was that the other game systems were not nearly as well designed as the crafting systems, so SWG rapidly became a game where the only people playing were crafters trying to sell wares to each other. What happens when everyone is a merchant? Well, in SWG’s case, the game is radically redesigned and no one is left happy. Whoops.[/quote]
Sorry Jennings, but WTF?
Youre telling me that SWG's major changes were brought about because "everyone was a merchant"? Fuck me, Ive seen some far-left-field editorials on mmorpg.com in my time but this takes the biscuit.
At no point before the NGE hit did SWG ever turn into a game of crafters selling to crafters.
Ok, I've read most of the posts, and what I'm seeing is that people are afraid of high level players strong arming low levels and not allowing them fair competition. I enjoy crafting, I'm more of a hobbyist. I've played several games with crafting, SWG as a bio-engineer, bitch of a job to get. EvE, mainly crafted ammo for self use. EQ, got into crafting there so I could get the port potion, or whatever it was called, as a beastlord.
Now EvE has a robust trading system. People have been playing that game for years. Just using their profits, they are able to play for free. High level resources are primarirly found in 0.0 and below, medium 0.1 to 0.7 (I think), and low anything from 0.8 on, gross simplification. Certain locations in that game have a fast turn over, low prices, and availability of items, Jita for example (shudders). The further you go out from hubs, the more expensive items get. Now you could always go to Jita and get whatever you need for the cheapest possible price, but you would have to travel there, which can and does take hours. Or you can go to whatever is closer to you, pay a premium price, but get back to doing what you were doing before you went shopping. Time is money after all.
As a new player in EvE, you can start making money right away, just start mining, and before long, you'll feel like you have a lot of money. Admittedly, an experienced player in the same place can make significantly more profit than a newbie, especially due to having larger cargo holds. By not having the primary way of selling being an AH, there is a more controlled economy. Yes, some things get inflated every time new compenents/ships come out, but it is a good economy.
On the crafting side, it's boring. It is utterly down right boring. Get resources needed, go to a factory set queue, start, wait and done. Yes, you can research to make better items, but in the whole scheme of things, it's a boring process. I could have skills to make significantly harder items than Tier 1 ammo, but my tier 1 ammo will turn out the exact same t1 ammo, that a newbie with minimal training makes, though quicker and with fewer resources. Now ammo in EvE is something that shouldn't be meddled with, but ship components, I would love to train skills to make, say, an afterburner that increases speed by X, based on, maybe not a minigame, but heck, a roll of a die.
Here would be my semi perfect crafting economy scheme.
Resources should be easily available. Maybe instanced as one poster mention, or maybe just a big, eventually, expendable piles (ie Asteroid belts in EvE). If the resources are instanced, to help with botting, have randomly spawning mosters. Maybe it won't stop, altogether, botting, but it will hinder it.
Items crafted should be competitive with dropped items. I'm not saying they have to be better, or even equal, but if you want a Long Sword of Fury +6, you can either buy it, or camp a mob that may drop it and instead get the Long Sword of Fury +6 which decreases attack time by half a second. Also make it that an item has a slim chance of lasting indefinitely, unless never used. For a fantasy game that Sword of Fury is getting used alot, you need to repair and you do, it's not going to be as good as it was before, type, it might need repaired a little sooner next time. Eventually the sword won't be worthwile having and you'll have to replace it, and not just because you got to old for it.
Make items be different based on each crafter. Have skill trees that increase certain stats. Say one for fire. The crafter that is on the fire tree makes weapons that deal fire damage and armors that defend against fire. Have each skill level be significantly more expensive than the previous one. So, someone that focuses solely on fire buffs might make a high level sword have a +200 damage. And someone that dabbled in fire buffs might only be able to add +30 but since he has other skills, might be able to add +2 to str. And since each crafter can have their own, semi unique items, players should be willing to buy more items based on situations they are going into.
Don't just make armor and weapon making the best crafting class. Make all crafting neccessary. That apothecary class, make buffs that last and stack with player buffs, and make them last long enough that you aren't afraid to buy them and use them. If crafting is level based, a level 10 crafter should be making items that are needed/useable/an option for players of that level. Don't make it that if you are a level 10 crafter, that your items are for level 5 characters.
Copy EvE's marketplace. I personally love it, at least for a Science based game. For something more fantasyish, and this is going to be stretching it, but have a simple market report that players can look at the shows average prices for the region they are in by the previous day, week, month, and year. That's the only thing I can think about fantasy
There are probably a few more thins I could think of, but, hmmm, it's an idea
Oddly enough the over inflated cost of copper on the AH makes being a newbie easier in a lot of ways.
1. I wish I could have got 15G for all that stupid copper I had as a newbie! (Launch) I didn't see Gold for the longest time! Then again back then the AH was in only one place and the prices were all over the place as people figured it out.
2. Anyone who spends ANY time with WOW's crafting system, as mentioned in the original article and the following posts find that actually making most stuff is pretty pointless as a newbie. So low level players quickly learn that they can just make money on the AH by selling their basic mats while leveling up their collecting abilities. I've brought enough players into the game in these later years to know that they all learn that soon enough. Sure you keep enough for lvling up your own abilities but by and large it is those over inflated AH prices that give you a nice income at those low levels. And that income allows you to level up easier by either buying skills or gear in the AH. (Which can also be over priced but again gold is easy to come by even for lowbies.)
3. Yes, comparing real life econ to game econ is simplistic and misses many things. I never said they were equivalent just that the basic principles SHOULD be attempted, again as in EVE. True you can control a LOT of stuff about the economy in EVE but forcing price controls isn't what they do. Supply Side Econ seems to be the law of the land in Eve. As you mention NPC suppliers with set prices. NPC buyers with prices too. Though I did notice that I could often get better prices selling my minerals to players than the NPC's. The NPC's were a "Floor" as it were, which is fine and a control in it's own right. But not an outright, oversimplistic and utterly damaging hard price "control." (I.e. you can not sell that for more than "X")
4. Supply and Demand IS in effect, no matter how much you say it's not it is still there. Even in these simple AH's like in WoW being the "First" to price something has meaning. As does buying up all the lower price stock to "bid up" the prices. These are just cut throat business practices. There are plenty of ways to subtly affect the economy as Eve has shown that would be more effective than the heavy handed price controls you've asked for.
Gold supply is a HUGE issue in WoW. Always has been and they've only allowed it to get worse all these years. Though what do you expect from a game that's not craft based but loot drop based? It is the point of this article after all to think about.
Yes, a video game economy is MUCh smaller and easier to control than the real one. But just like the real one consumers react negativly to openly agressive and heavy handed controls. Much better to tweak from the shadows and build in the controls in subtle ways. Remember the uproar when they introduced item repair as a money sink? OMG the chaos that brought about!
In the end I think for a GREAT player economy you have to balance the equations as best you can while keeping it as unobtrusive and "under the hood" from most players as possible. You also have to think about these things from the word GO and not just tack it on at the end as most games seem to do. Patching it is like sticking your finger in the dam, it's really not doing much.
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
Old tale be told? Crafting according to mmo myth was introduced due to players duping items.
No, this is completely incorrect.
Crafting in UO was introduced because the entire game was designed around the resource system which my wife and I designed originally for a text mud. The text mud design was a combination of stuff we were inspired by in DartMUD, and things we had done on LegendMUD, her business and economics degree, and an epic crosscountry drive in which we did nothing but paper design for a new mud. We then sent in that paper design material as our design sample to Origin when trying for designer jobs on Ultima Online.
That right there is why UO was crafting-heavy. Crafting most certainly had existed in both text and graphical muds before that of course.
Ok, I've read most of the posts, and what I'm seeing is that people are afraid of high level players strong arming low levels and not allowing them fair competition. I enjoy crafting, I'm more of a hobbyist. I've played several games with crafting, SWG as a bio-engineer, bitch of a job to get. EvE, mainly crafted ammo for self use. EQ, got into crafting there so I could get the port potion, or whatever it was called, as a beastlord.
Now EvE has a robust trading system. People have been playing that game for years. Just using their profits, they are able to play for free. High level resources are primarirly found in 0.0 and below, medium 0.1 to 0.7 (I think), and low anything from 0.8 on, gross simplification. Certain locations in that game have a fast turn over, low prices, and availability of items, Jita for example (shudders). The further you go out from hubs, the more expensive items get. Now you could always go to Jita and get whatever you need for the cheapest possible price, but you would have to travel there, which can and does take hours. Or you can go to whatever is closer to you, pay a premium price, but get back to doing what you were doing before you went shopping. Time is money after all.
As a new player in EvE, you can start making money right away, just start mining, and before long, you'll feel like you have a lot of money. Admittedly, an experienced player in the same place can make significantly more profit than a newbie, especially due to having larger cargo holds. By not having the primary way of selling being an AH, there is a more controlled economy. Yes, some things get inflated every time new compenents/ships come out, but it is a good economy.
On the crafting side, it's boring. It is utterly down right boring. Get resources needed, go to a factory set queue, start, wait and done. Yes, you can research to make better items, but in the whole scheme of things, it's a boring process. I could have skills to make significantly harder items than Tier 1 ammo, but my tier 1 ammo will turn out the exact same t1 ammo, that a newbie with minimal training makes, though quicker and with fewer resources. Now ammo in EvE is something that shouldn't be meddled with, but ship components, I would love to train skills to make, say, an afterburner that increases speed by X, based on, maybe not a minigame, but heck, a roll of a die.
Here would be my semi perfect crafting economy scheme.
Resources should be easily available. Maybe instanced as one poster mention, or maybe just a big, eventually, expendable piles (ie Asteroid belts in EvE). If the resources are instanced, to help with botting, have randomly spawning mosters. Maybe it won't stop, altogether, botting, but it will hinder it.
Items crafted should be competitive with dropped items. I'm not saying they have to be better, or even equal, but if you want a Long Sword of Fury +6, you can either buy it, or camp a mob that may drop it and instead get the Long Sword of Fury +6 which decreases attack time by half a second. Also make it that an item has a slim chance of lasting indefinitely, unless never used. For a fantasy game that Sword of Fury is getting used alot, you need to repair and you do, it's not going to be as good as it was before, type, it might need repaired a little sooner next time. Eventually the sword won't be worthwile having and you'll have to replace it, and not just because you got to old for it.
Make items be different based on each crafter. Have skill trees that increase certain stats. Say one for fire. The crafter that is on the fire tree makes weapons that deal fire damage and armors that defend against fire. Have each skill level be significantly more expensive than the previous one. So, someone that focuses solely on fire buffs might make a high level sword have a +200 damage. And someone that dabbled in fire buffs might only be able to add +30 but since he has other skills, might be able to add +2 to str. And since each crafter can have their own, semi unique items, players should be willing to buy more items based on situations they are going into.
Don't just make armor and weapon making the best crafting class. Make all crafting neccessary. That apothecary class, make buffs that last and stack with player buffs, and make them last long enough that you aren't afraid to buy them and use them. If crafting is level based, a level 10 crafter should be making items that are needed/useable/an option for players of that level. Don't make it that if you are a level 10 crafter, that your items are for level 5 characters.
Copy EvE's marketplace. I personally love it, at least for a Science based game. For something more fantasyish, and this is going to be stretching it, but have a simple market report that players can look at the shows average prices for the region they are in by the previous day, week, month, and year. That's the only thing I can think about fantasy
There are probably a few more thins I could think of, but, hmmm, it's an idea
Yeah I agree crafting in Eve was BORING. That's why I never did it.
Also the Jita run? Yeah did it. One of the jobs I did was "Fed Ex" for my corp and others. Not a bad gig. Then again being a Blockade runner was way more exciting than I wanted!
So on to your points.
1. Heck yeah. Eve asteroid belts are a great "open" yet "instanced" way of making lots of materials available. It is instanced by being sector based. It is open because everyone can fly to the same sectors but there are so many of them you can run to other places. Plus they do have the random spawns to keep you on your toes. (Many a mining night without proper escort stuck watching my sensors to run away! )
2. I think you're going to get a resounding "hell yes" to this one. To add to it why not let us use your current items as materials for future versions of it? So as the player and the crafter improves you can get better and better equpiment from them. On top of your repair idea it also brings a "Crafter/Customer" relationship when you bring back broken or old items for repair or upgrade.
3. Hmm crafter talent trees that actually do stuff? That'd be nice.
4. Another "Hell yes" answer.
5. Well there are always NPC merchants who should be able to provide "market reports" as it were. Say what you will about older societies, but when it came to money they were just as "market focused" then as we were now. The paperwork from the 1630's shows just how deep they were into markets and money management so it's not a stretch to have a "daily/weekly/monthly" market report for each region. For "accuracy" sake you could have delayed reporting. I.e. the further from the source your report was created the more out of date the information is. Then again with magic and such you could just as easily just make it instant since it could be magically delivered.
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
I'm sorry but making an article about crafting in mmos.. then not mentioning A Tale in the Desert, which is THE ultimate crafting mmo (as in that's all it is, and its very sophisticated and detailed), pretty much makes you look silly.
Every other mmo's crafting looks like a preschooler's arcade pacman game compared to that
Old tale be told? Crafting according to mmo myth was introduced due to players duping items.
No, this is completely incorrect.
Crafting in UO was introduced because the entire game was designed around the resource system which my wife and I designed originally for a text mud. The text mud design was a combination of stuff we were inspired by in DartMUD, and things we had done on LegendMUD, her business and economics degree, and an epic crosscountry drive in which we did nothing but paper design for a new mud. We then sent in that paper design material as our design sample to Origin when trying for designer jobs on Ultima Online.
That right there is why UO was crafting-heavy. Crafting most certainly had existed in both text and graphical muds before that of course.
You missed out on a group of players who craft there Mr. Jennings: The players for whom crafting is the game itself. They enjoy gaining the rewards from crafting, such as crafting experience, the ability to learn new things to craft. They take pride in being able to take raw resources and make bigger and better candy than most other players who craft. I call these players "Crafters."
I play with a few of these people in Fallen Earth, and I used to be one back when I played Everquest II. I don't know how crafting is in that game now, but it sure was fun to gather as many resources you could carry and then just craft stuff. Judging by the number of characters who did nothing but stand at a crafting table next to me, I'd say there were quite a few Crafters in EQII.
So there you have it, FOUR type of players who craft: Merchants, Hobbyists, Quartermasters, and Crafters.
Edit: I also agree 100% with this quote:
"The answer, of course, is that a rich player crafting system is part of what makes a game a virtual world as opposed to a monster murder simulation. Crafting allows players, at its most basic level, to interact with the world and create one something from various shards of nothing; this helps reinforce that the world has various sensible rules that can be followed for their benefit. At its more advanced level, crafting introduces a level of mercantile gameplay that helps enrich the world and its players beyond their pocketbook - it gives new motives for actions, gives new value to in-game objects and allows players to fill new roles."
Originally posted by Sovrath Originally posted by SlineerAs in PvE oriented games, you need to get something for killing the monster and if you just got better stuff from a crafter, whats the point??
In that other player made thread called "what is your utopian crafting system" one of the posters mentions that boss drops should things that master crafters could use. I really think that is the way to go. So you kill a boss and get some sort of old legendary sword. The sword is not usable but a master crafter coud salvage its metal, gems, what have you and make something else. If it was a sci-fi game you could get a piece of advanced alien technology that the crafter could turn into something. Otherwise, boss drops tend to marginalize crafters. Of course, if crafters were allowed to make items that were "almost" as powerful then that couuld work as well. But when crafted gear is superseded, and by a large margin, by drops then why would anyone want something crafted?
That is an amazing way to mix the ideas of running dungeons at an endgame and making high-end gear crafted. This would also diminish problems that many endgame raiding games have with itemization. Of course, that could be diminished by making gear less ridiculously important.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I believe that Slineer pointed this out on page 1 of the comments, but I would like to confirm that Mortal Online, although it is still in beta, has an extremely deep crafting system. There are numerous possibilities as far as material combinations and component combinations and the stats of a weapon are not viewable, so crafters who want to make the best goods will either need to commit to long hours of experimentation or learn from someone who has. Additionally, 99% of equipable items in the game are not only craftable, but in fact cannot be attained through any other means. Currently, the only equipable items that need not be crafted are arrows, torches, and the gear that you start off with at character creation. Lastly, there is dynamic player housing that exists in real space which provides for the possibility of player-owned shops, each in their own unique location. Shop modules currently exist for player-owned houses, but player-owned vendors have not yet been implimented.
A good quality & involving crafting system is a foundation part of creating a more "believable" or "worldly" game, though I think that no one system will ever appeal to every player.
If I had any real game development talent I'd try to build a crafting system that had 3 levels of complexity to it, where you would start off with a very basic system & if you wished it could remain that simple & you'd not need to go into anything more complicated, or if you wanted you could open up a more complex ui/set of interactions & gain access to a wider range of variations & customisations of the same items & ultimately a really deep & involving high-level crafting system that allowed you to tweak & influence an even larger set of variables.
Of all the games I played I thought EQ 2's system was the most enjoyable, though I also felt it was too slow-paced, once you know the recipe you should be able to create at least small "batches" in one sitting, depending on the item, VG's system was great too & worth a mention, however I don't think WoW's simple system is without merit at all, WAR's was ...well, just far too limited, though I still found it to be enjoyable to some degree, particularly the growing of seeds for the alchemy
So my ideal crafting for a game would have a three tier backbone system, & the player would have a choice over which level of complexity, or simplicity that they preferred to have.
The thing that "made" eq2 's crafting so good to me was that as a base-level for gear it allowed you to craft gear that you could use at the level you were, even allowing you to build slightly ahead of your levelling curve, & create gear you would use 1 or 2 levels later on, that system really felt more natural to me, WoW's crafting is a little behind the levelling curve most of the time & it hampers that feeling of natural progression, crafting complimenting the wider game was very appealing.
Crafting is, at it's most basic level, another form of grind based gameplay, but having a variety of stuff to do adds a lot of flavour to a game, and gets away from the monster-murderer-simulator of totally combat-based gameplay, I'd love to see more problem-solving, diplomacy, cultural, political even so far as espionage being a part of a "worldly" game, the go here kill stuff or deliver stuff gameplay needs to evolve further to provide a greater variety of interactions & stimulate a more diverse audience, crafting/mercantile is a valid "playstyle" that should be encouraged & supported.
Lineage II gets a bad rep for being a grinder but the bosses could not drop the best weapons / armors in the game. Only rare materials that only Master crafters could use to make an A grade or S grade item. This was even further specialized by only one class the dwarfs being able to craft. Also the fact that you had to level a dwarf in such a grind fest game ment that large servers would only have a handfull of Crafters who could make A grade and S grade stuff.
The 15g Copper-Stack example from WoW is just a result of poor economics on the part of Blizzard. Price-fixing, much like in the real world, would just serve to REALLY mess things up.
The number-one biggest problem with WoW's economy (and many other games) is that you can just kill a mob, and it basically prints money for you. That is the very definition of inlation, an increase in the money supply. And that increase happens every time a mob dies in WoW. And since that's all you do in the game, it's massive. To make things worse, you now have daily repeatable quests that give gold, as well as gold-farmers. You're seeing a massive amount of inflation there.
The nail in that particular coffin comes in the form of their expansions. When a new expansion comes out, they dramatically increase the amount of gold and xp monsters and quests give. The reason is that they don't want you to easily make progress using now-trivial content. They want you to play the new content. So they render the old stuff obsolete by making the new stuff more rewarding.
The other big factor is that if a high-level character wants to pick up a new profession, it has to go through the motions as if he's starting from scratch. So then this means that you have high-level players with higher-level resources competing with fresh characters. So to a new character 20silver for a stack of copper seems decent, but for a high-level, 15g seems fair too. It means they don't have to spend hours grinding that mining skill up.
Combine all of these things, and what you get is 15g a stack of copper!!
If WoW allowed veteran players to bypass the lower levels of the crafting system, and skip all the useless stuff, then they wouldn't need to pay for a stack of copper. If WoW managed its money-supply properly, and didn't allow players to farm gold and essentially print money and create inflation, those high-level people won't need to pay 15g for a stack of silver.
It's just that Blizzard got the basic economics of it very wrong. That's why you're seeing these weird bubbles in their economy. Much like in real-life, the government can't handle economics.
For the "Merchant" class of crafter EVE would be hard to beat. But I've never been much of a merchant so I barely did any crafting in EVE. DAoC may have been great for the "Quartermaster" class of crafter but any system which is designed to be intentionally tedious is a failure from the start. I suppose I am the "Hobbyist" class of crafter.
My favorite parts of crafting are :
(1) exploring and harvesting from the environment to find materials
(2) the intellectual challenge of finding the right combination of materials to make the desired product.
The original SWG certainly fit the bill. Bioengineering was a true science and the most enjoyable thing I've ever done in seven years of mmorpg gaming. Fallen Earth can satisfy my desire for exploration and harvesting but uses recipies that eliminate any ability to modify the end-product. Ryzom currently satisfies all of my crafting needs. As in the original SWG, the resources are hidden and only active prospecting reveals them. Every crafted item has a unique set of properties that depend on the type and quality of the materials used. Although it does not cater to the "Merchant" class of crafters Ryzom is great for the "Hobbyist" and "Quartermaster" crafters.
The 15g Copper-Stack example from WoW is just a result of poor economics on the part of Blizzard. Price-fixing, much like in the real world, would just serve to REALLY mess things up.
The number-one biggest problem with WoW's economy (and many other games) is that you can just kill a mob, and it basically prints money for you. That is the very definition of inlation, an increase in the money supply. And that increase happens every time a mob dies in WoW. And since that's all you do in the game, it's massive. To make things worse, you now have daily repeatable quests that give gold, as well as gold-farmers. You're seeing a massive amount of inflation there.
The nail in that particular coffin comes in the form of their expansions. When a new expansion comes out, they dramatically increase the amount of gold and xp monsters and quests give. The reason is that they don't want you to easily make progress using now-trivial content. They want you to play the new content. So they render the old stuff obsolete by making the new stuff more rewarding.
The other big factor is that if a high-level character wants to pick up a new profession, it has to go through the motions as if he's starting from scratch. So then this means that you have high-level players with higher-level resources competing with fresh characters. So to a new character 20silver for a stack of copper seems decent, but for a high-level, 15g seems fair too. It means they don't have to spend hours grinding that mining skill up.
Combine all of these things, and what you get is 15g a stack of copper!!
If WoW allowed veteran players to bypass the lower levels of the crafting system, and skip all the useless stuff, then they wouldn't need to pay for a stack of copper. If WoW managed its money-supply properly, and didn't allow players to farm gold and essentially print money and create inflation, those high-level people won't need to pay 15g for a stack of silver.
It's just that Blizzard got the basic economics of it very wrong. That's why you're seeing these weird bubbles in their economy. Much like in real-life, the government can't handle economics.
Shortly after starting play in WoW (May '05) I started a thread in the warcraft NG about a fixed money supply (to mitigate the effects you have metioned). Heresy is not well-received by the typical MMO player, apparently.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Need more games with crafting systems modeled after UO and early SWG. Good writeup.
Wrong.
Need games to be in mold of EQ1 where crafting is concerned. Something to supplement the true focus of MMO gaming which is PVE. PVP coming in second, THEN you worry about crafting.
SWG utilized a crafter economy....which pretty much invalidates the PVE game. Perhaps someone can make it work...I sure dont see it happening. PVE folks adventure to get the gear...not money to re-buy items that anyone can get with enough farming and/or gold selling sites. To ensure a crafter economy, item decay needs to be added for repeat business.
Despite what the vocal minority on these boards would have ya beieve, the world doesnt revolve around them. Crafting isa niche of a niche...and thus should be given minimal support. You dont revolve a MMO world around it.
Not if you wanna appeal to the masses anyways.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Vanguard: Saga of heroes has the best crafting. You never mentioned it.
While I agree it was a good crafting system I still feel it fell short of the one in SWG.
I would definately place Vangaurd crafting in Second place.
Vanguard had an interesting process but boring resource. SWG had excellent resource effects with the differing qualities of the resources making the difference to the end product. Vanguard had a unique process that made the effect on the end product over the types of resources used.
If you combined those 2 pieces into one system. You would get a process where gear and tools used as well as the resource stats made the difference on the end result. What a boon to the crafting community THAT would be!
Say hello, To the things you've left behind. They are more a part of your life now that you can't touch them.
Fantastic artical, and I wholey agree wit hthe sentiment.
I've always tried my hand at crafting in the various MMOs I've played over the years. The most enjoyable of which were both UO and SWG as mentioned. You are very correct in mentioning that it's more than just crafting, it's the selling of the product. Actually playing out the game as a merchant to market your wares and compete against other merchants to win business on several different levels, rather than it simply being about who can undercut the most.
Most MMOs these days have very shallow crafting mechanics. Those that do have some depth in crafting, lack depth of market, mostly due to global Auctionhouse mechanics that dissolve the market into the single attribute of price mattering.
I sincerely hope that developers take note of this, and realize that there are many players who enjoy this type of system.
The process of crafting in Vanguard beats any I have seen, but the buying and selling set up of UO and SWG seems to have made crafting a more worthwhile occupation and one that engendered social interaction. That alone makes it the better system.
Old tale be told? Crafting according to mmo myth was introduced due to players duping items.
No, this is completely incorrect.
Crafting in UO was introduced because the entire game was designed around the resource system which my wife and I designed originally for a text mud. The text mud design was a combination of stuff we were inspired by in DartMUD, and things we had done on LegendMUD, her business and economics degree, and an epic crosscountry drive in which we did nothing but paper design for a new mud. We then sent in that paper design material as our design sample to Origin when trying for designer jobs on Ultima Online.
That right there is why UO was crafting-heavy. Crafting most certainly had existed in both text and graphical muds before that of course.
Raph please come back and make another game. UO and SWG crafting was just a part of why your needed. The games you made knew how to bring players together if it was by crafting or some other element that created a social enviroment that is missed in todays MMO games.
Comments
You said it yourself. The 15G per stack works because the majority of players have rich alts. That is why the price is what it is. Yes, it sucks for new players. Yes, it's unfair for new players. But that is the price the market dictates that buyers are willing to pay, so that is the price it is. I do not agree with you that the GMs need to step in and force price regulation, because it would create a black market. If people are willing to pay 15G for a stack of copper, no sane person is going to be content selling it at 25S. Stacks of copper will vanish off the AH, and people will start spamming they have copper to sell.
Firstly, a proper auction house WILL have a posting fee, set as a percentage of whatever they're trying to sell the product for. This keeps people from spamming excessive prices, since they'll wind up losing money if the product doesn't move. If this isn't present, yes you WILL have problems. That's a design flaw, not an argument for price-regulation.
As for price-fixing, I've seen plenty of attempts at price-fixing, and they usually fail, because people just uncut it with their own wares, forcing the price-fixer to keep buying more items, even if his aren't selling. Eventually, the price fixer just goes broke, with a warehouse full of stock that he paid too much for. Price fixing isn't possible if the item has sufficient supply. And if the item doesn't have sufficient supply, but is important/essential, there's a problem on the supply side of the item. Still not an argument for price-regulation.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs:
That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
I enjoy crafting for the most part... unless its a game where you can either spend your points in crafting or combat (same point pool)... then I usually avoid it like the plague.
As to the merchant comments on the article, I have to agree. I recall setting up merchants in EQ so I could buy junk back from them and then see everything players just sold to the npc and buy that for reselling. Made a killing at it until they patched that process out.
If a game came out with 1/2 of the posted ideas above, I would consider seriously joining for years...lol. Crafting does really add to the overall enjoyment and longevity of a game. Every game I have spent more then a few months has had a more emmersive world with some sort of half decent crafting in it.
[quote]The problem with SWG was that the other game systems were not nearly as well designed as the crafting systems, so SWG rapidly became a game where the only people playing were crafters trying to sell wares to each other. What happens when everyone is a merchant? Well, in SWG’s case, the game is radically redesigned and no one is left happy. Whoops.[/quote]
Sorry Jennings, but WTF?
Youre telling me that SWG's major changes were brought about because "everyone was a merchant"? Fuck me, Ive seen some far-left-field editorials on mmorpg.com in my time but this takes the biscuit.
At no point before the NGE hit did SWG ever turn into a game of crafters selling to crafters.
Fact checking, its for everyone.
PAST: UO-SWG-DAOC-WOW-DDO-VG-AOC-WAR-FE-DFO-LOTRO-RIFT-GW2
PRESENT: Nothing
FUTURE: ESO
I'll take back everything I said only if this is an April Fools joke.
PAST: UO-SWG-DAOC-WOW-DDO-VG-AOC-WAR-FE-DFO-LOTRO-RIFT-GW2
PRESENT: Nothing
FUTURE: ESO
Ok, I've read most of the posts, and what I'm seeing is that people are afraid of high level players strong arming low levels and not allowing them fair competition. I enjoy crafting, I'm more of a hobbyist. I've played several games with crafting, SWG as a bio-engineer, bitch of a job to get. EvE, mainly crafted ammo for self use. EQ, got into crafting there so I could get the port potion, or whatever it was called, as a beastlord.
Now EvE has a robust trading system. People have been playing that game for years. Just using their profits, they are able to play for free. High level resources are primarirly found in 0.0 and below, medium 0.1 to 0.7 (I think), and low anything from 0.8 on, gross simplification. Certain locations in that game have a fast turn over, low prices, and availability of items, Jita for example (shudders). The further you go out from hubs, the more expensive items get. Now you could always go to Jita and get whatever you need for the cheapest possible price, but you would have to travel there, which can and does take hours. Or you can go to whatever is closer to you, pay a premium price, but get back to doing what you were doing before you went shopping. Time is money after all.
As a new player in EvE, you can start making money right away, just start mining, and before long, you'll feel like you have a lot of money. Admittedly, an experienced player in the same place can make significantly more profit than a newbie, especially due to having larger cargo holds. By not having the primary way of selling being an AH, there is a more controlled economy. Yes, some things get inflated every time new compenents/ships come out, but it is a good economy.
On the crafting side, it's boring. It is utterly down right boring. Get resources needed, go to a factory set queue, start, wait and done. Yes, you can research to make better items, but in the whole scheme of things, it's a boring process. I could have skills to make significantly harder items than Tier 1 ammo, but my tier 1 ammo will turn out the exact same t1 ammo, that a newbie with minimal training makes, though quicker and with fewer resources. Now ammo in EvE is something that shouldn't be meddled with, but ship components, I would love to train skills to make, say, an afterburner that increases speed by X, based on, maybe not a minigame, but heck, a roll of a die.
Here would be my semi perfect crafting economy scheme.
Resources should be easily available. Maybe instanced as one poster mention, or maybe just a big, eventually, expendable piles (ie Asteroid belts in EvE). If the resources are instanced, to help with botting, have randomly spawning mosters. Maybe it won't stop, altogether, botting, but it will hinder it.
Items crafted should be competitive with dropped items. I'm not saying they have to be better, or even equal, but if you want a Long Sword of Fury +6, you can either buy it, or camp a mob that may drop it and instead get the Long Sword of Fury +6 which decreases attack time by half a second. Also make it that an item has a slim chance of lasting indefinitely, unless never used. For a fantasy game that Sword of Fury is getting used alot, you need to repair and you do, it's not going to be as good as it was before, type, it might need repaired a little sooner next time. Eventually the sword won't be worthwile having and you'll have to replace it, and not just because you got to old for it.
Make items be different based on each crafter. Have skill trees that increase certain stats. Say one for fire. The crafter that is on the fire tree makes weapons that deal fire damage and armors that defend against fire. Have each skill level be significantly more expensive than the previous one. So, someone that focuses solely on fire buffs might make a high level sword have a +200 damage. And someone that dabbled in fire buffs might only be able to add +30 but since he has other skills, might be able to add +2 to str. And since each crafter can have their own, semi unique items, players should be willing to buy more items based on situations they are going into.
Don't just make armor and weapon making the best crafting class. Make all crafting neccessary. That apothecary class, make buffs that last and stack with player buffs, and make them last long enough that you aren't afraid to buy them and use them. If crafting is level based, a level 10 crafter should be making items that are needed/useable/an option for players of that level. Don't make it that if you are a level 10 crafter, that your items are for level 5 characters.
Copy EvE's marketplace. I personally love it, at least for a Science based game. For something more fantasyish, and this is going to be stretching it, but have a simple market report that players can look at the shows average prices for the region they are in by the previous day, week, month, and year. That's the only thing I can think about fantasy
There are probably a few more thins I could think of, but, hmmm, it's an idea
Oddly enough the over inflated cost of copper on the AH makes being a newbie easier in a lot of ways.
1. I wish I could have got 15G for all that stupid copper I had as a newbie! (Launch) I didn't see Gold for the longest time! Then again back then the AH was in only one place and the prices were all over the place as people figured it out.
2. Anyone who spends ANY time with WOW's crafting system, as mentioned in the original article and the following posts find that actually making most stuff is pretty pointless as a newbie. So low level players quickly learn that they can just make money on the AH by selling their basic mats while leveling up their collecting abilities. I've brought enough players into the game in these later years to know that they all learn that soon enough. Sure you keep enough for lvling up your own abilities but by and large it is those over inflated AH prices that give you a nice income at those low levels. And that income allows you to level up easier by either buying skills or gear in the AH. (Which can also be over priced but again gold is easy to come by even for lowbies.)
3. Yes, comparing real life econ to game econ is simplistic and misses many things. I never said they were equivalent just that the basic principles SHOULD be attempted, again as in EVE. True you can control a LOT of stuff about the economy in EVE but forcing price controls isn't what they do. Supply Side Econ seems to be the law of the land in Eve. As you mention NPC suppliers with set prices. NPC buyers with prices too. Though I did notice that I could often get better prices selling my minerals to players than the NPC's. The NPC's were a "Floor" as it were, which is fine and a control in it's own right. But not an outright, oversimplistic and utterly damaging hard price "control." (I.e. you can not sell that for more than "X")
4. Supply and Demand IS in effect, no matter how much you say it's not it is still there. Even in these simple AH's like in WoW being the "First" to price something has meaning. As does buying up all the lower price stock to "bid up" the prices. These are just cut throat business practices. There are plenty of ways to subtly affect the economy as Eve has shown that would be more effective than the heavy handed price controls you've asked for.
Gold supply is a HUGE issue in WoW. Always has been and they've only allowed it to get worse all these years. Though what do you expect from a game that's not craft based but loot drop based? It is the point of this article after all to think about.
Yes, a video game economy is MUCh smaller and easier to control than the real one. But just like the real one consumers react negativly to openly agressive and heavy handed controls. Much better to tweak from the shadows and build in the controls in subtle ways. Remember the uproar when they introduced item repair as a money sink? OMG the chaos that brought about!
In the end I think for a GREAT player economy you have to balance the equations as best you can while keeping it as unobtrusive and "under the hood" from most players as possible. You also have to think about these things from the word GO and not just tack it on at the end as most games seem to do. Patching it is like sticking your finger in the dam, it's really not doing much.
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
No, this is completely incorrect.
Crafting in UO was introduced because the entire game was designed around the resource system which my wife and I designed originally for a text mud. The text mud design was a combination of stuff we were inspired by in DartMUD, and things we had done on LegendMUD, her business and economics degree, and an epic crosscountry drive in which we did nothing but paper design for a new mud. We then sent in that paper design material as our design sample to Origin when trying for designer jobs on Ultima Online.
That right there is why UO was crafting-heavy. Crafting most certainly had existed in both text and graphical muds before that of course.
Yeah I agree crafting in Eve was BORING. That's why I never did it.
Also the Jita run? Yeah did it. One of the jobs I did was "Fed Ex" for my corp and others. Not a bad gig. Then again being a Blockade runner was way more exciting than I wanted!
So on to your points.
1. Heck yeah. Eve asteroid belts are a great "open" yet "instanced" way of making lots of materials available. It is instanced by being sector based. It is open because everyone can fly to the same sectors but there are so many of them you can run to other places. Plus they do have the random spawns to keep you on your toes. (Many a mining night without proper escort stuck watching my sensors to run away!
)
2. I think you're going to get a resounding "hell yes" to this one. To add to it why not let us use your current items as materials for future versions of it? So as the player and the crafter improves you can get better and better equpiment from them. On top of your repair idea it also brings a "Crafter/Customer" relationship when you bring back broken or old items for repair or upgrade.
3. Hmm crafter talent trees that actually do stuff? That'd be nice.
4. Another "Hell yes" answer.
5. Well there are always NPC merchants who should be able to provide "market reports" as it were. Say what you will about older societies, but when it came to money they were just as "market focused" then as we were now. The paperwork from the 1630's shows just how deep they were into markets and money management so it's not a stretch to have a "daily/weekly/monthly" market report for each region. For "accuracy" sake you could have delayed reporting. I.e. the further from the source your report was created the more out of date the information is. Then again with magic and such you could just as easily just make it instant since it could be magically delivered.
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
I'm sorry but making an article about crafting in mmos.. then not mentioning A Tale in the Desert, which is THE ultimate crafting mmo (as in that's all it is, and its very sophisticated and detailed), pretty much makes you look silly.
Every other mmo's crafting looks like a preschooler's arcade pacman game compared to that
Raph has spoken!
PAST: UO-SWG-DAOC-WOW-DDO-VG-AOC-WAR-FE-DFO-LOTRO-RIFT-GW2
PRESENT: Nothing
FUTURE: ESO
You missed out on a group of players who craft there Mr. Jennings: The players for whom crafting is the game itself. They enjoy gaining the rewards from crafting, such as crafting experience, the ability to learn new things to craft. They take pride in being able to take raw resources and make bigger and better candy than most other players who craft. I call these players "Crafters."
I play with a few of these people in Fallen Earth, and I used to be one back when I played Everquest II. I don't know how crafting is in that game now, but it sure was fun to gather as many resources you could carry and then just craft stuff. Judging by the number of characters who did nothing but stand at a crafting table next to me, I'd say there were quite a few Crafters in EQII.
So there you have it, FOUR type of players who craft: Merchants, Hobbyists, Quartermasters, and Crafters.
Edit: I also agree 100% with this quote:
"The answer, of course, is that a rich player crafting system is part of what makes a game a virtual world as opposed to a monster murder simulation. Crafting allows players, at its most basic level, to interact with the world and create one something from various shards of nothing; this helps reinforce that the world has various sensible rules that can be followed for their benefit. At its more advanced level, crafting introduces a level of mercantile gameplay that helps enrich the world and its players beyond their pocketbook - it gives new motives for actions, gives new value to in-game objects and allows players to fill new roles."
I really think that is the way to go. So you kill a boss and get some sort of old legendary sword. The sword is not usable but a master crafter coud salvage its metal, gems, what have you and make something else.
If it was a sci-fi game you could get a piece of advanced alien technology that the crafter could turn into something.
Otherwise, boss drops tend to marginalize crafters. Of course, if crafters were allowed to make items that were "almost" as powerful then that couuld work as well.
But when crafted gear is superseded, and by a large margin, by drops then why would anyone want something crafted?
That is an amazing way to mix the ideas of running dungeons at an endgame and making high-end gear crafted. This would also diminish problems that many endgame raiding games have with itemization. Of course, that could be diminished by making gear less ridiculously important.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
Another gem from my favorite MMORPG columnist.
I believe that Slineer pointed this out on page 1 of the comments, but I would like to confirm that Mortal Online, although it is still in beta, has an extremely deep crafting system. There are numerous possibilities as far as material combinations and component combinations and the stats of a weapon are not viewable, so crafters who want to make the best goods will either need to commit to long hours of experimentation or learn from someone who has. Additionally, 99% of equipable items in the game are not only craftable, but in fact cannot be attained through any other means. Currently, the only equipable items that need not be crafted are arrows, torches, and the gear that you start off with at character creation. Lastly, there is dynamic player housing that exists in real space which provides for the possibility of player-owned shops, each in their own unique location. Shop modules currently exist for player-owned houses, but player-owned vendors have not yet been implimented.
A good quality & involving crafting system is a foundation part of creating a more "believable" or "worldly" game, though I think that no one system will ever appeal to every player.
If I had any real game development talent I'd try to build a crafting system that had 3 levels of complexity to it, where you would start off with a very basic system & if you wished it could remain that simple & you'd not need to go into anything more complicated, or if you wanted you could open up a more complex ui/set of interactions & gain access to a wider range of variations & customisations of the same items & ultimately a really deep & involving high-level crafting system that allowed you to tweak & influence an even larger set of variables.
Of all the games I played I thought EQ 2's system was the most enjoyable, though I also felt it was too slow-paced, once you know the recipe you should be able to create at least small "batches" in one sitting, depending on the item, VG's system was great too & worth a mention, however I don't think WoW's simple system is without merit at all, WAR's was ...well, just far too limited, though I still found it to be enjoyable to some degree, particularly the growing of seeds for the alchemy
So my ideal crafting for a game would have a three tier backbone system, & the player would have a choice over which level of complexity, or simplicity that they preferred to have.
The thing that "made" eq2 's crafting so good to me was that as a base-level for gear it allowed you to craft gear that you could use at the level you were, even allowing you to build slightly ahead of your levelling curve, & create gear you would use 1 or 2 levels later on, that system really felt more natural to me, WoW's crafting is a little behind the levelling curve most of the time & it hampers that feeling of natural progression, crafting complimenting the wider game was very appealing.
Crafting is, at it's most basic level, another form of grind based gameplay, but having a variety of stuff to do adds a lot of flavour to a game, and gets away from the monster-murderer-simulator of totally combat-based gameplay, I'd love to see more problem-solving, diplomacy, cultural, political even so far as espionage being a part of a "worldly" game, the go here kill stuff or deliver stuff gameplay needs to evolve further to provide a greater variety of interactions & stimulate a more diverse audience, crafting/mercantile is a valid "playstyle" that should be encouraged & supported.
Lineage II gets a bad rep for being a grinder but the bosses could not drop the best weapons / armors in the game. Only rare materials that only Master crafters could use to make an A grade or S grade item. This was even further specialized by only one class the dwarfs being able to craft. Also the fact that you had to level a dwarf in such a grind fest game ment that large servers would only have a handfull of Crafters who could make A grade and S grade stuff.
The 15g Copper-Stack example from WoW is just a result of poor economics on the part of Blizzard. Price-fixing, much like in the real world, would just serve to REALLY mess things up.
The number-one biggest problem with WoW's economy (and many other games) is that you can just kill a mob, and it basically prints money for you. That is the very definition of inlation, an increase in the money supply. And that increase happens every time a mob dies in WoW. And since that's all you do in the game, it's massive. To make things worse, you now have daily repeatable quests that give gold, as well as gold-farmers. You're seeing a massive amount of inflation there.
The nail in that particular coffin comes in the form of their expansions. When a new expansion comes out, they dramatically increase the amount of gold and xp monsters and quests give. The reason is that they don't want you to easily make progress using now-trivial content. They want you to play the new content. So they render the old stuff obsolete by making the new stuff more rewarding.
The other big factor is that if a high-level character wants to pick up a new profession, it has to go through the motions as if he's starting from scratch. So then this means that you have high-level players with higher-level resources competing with fresh characters. So to a new character 20silver for a stack of copper seems decent, but for a high-level, 15g seems fair too. It means they don't have to spend hours grinding that mining skill up.
Combine all of these things, and what you get is 15g a stack of copper!!
If WoW allowed veteran players to bypass the lower levels of the crafting system, and skip all the useless stuff, then they wouldn't need to pay for a stack of copper. If WoW managed its money-supply properly, and didn't allow players to farm gold and essentially print money and create inflation, those high-level people won't need to pay 15g for a stack of silver.
It's just that Blizzard got the basic economics of it very wrong. That's why you're seeing these weird bubbles in their economy. Much like in real-life, the government can't handle economics.
For the "Merchant" class of crafter EVE would be hard to beat. But I've never been much of a merchant so I barely did any crafting in EVE. DAoC may have been great for the "Quartermaster" class of crafter but any system which is designed to be intentionally tedious is a failure from the start. I suppose I am the "Hobbyist" class of crafter.
My favorite parts of crafting are :
(1) exploring and harvesting from the environment to find materials
(2) the intellectual challenge of finding the right combination of materials to make the desired product.
The original SWG certainly fit the bill. Bioengineering was a true science and the most enjoyable thing I've ever done in seven years of mmorpg gaming. Fallen Earth can satisfy my desire for exploration and harvesting but uses recipies that eliminate any ability to modify the end-product. Ryzom currently satisfies all of my crafting needs. As in the original SWG, the resources are hidden and only active prospecting reveals them. Every crafted item has a unique set of properties that depend on the type and quality of the materials used. Although it does not cater to the "Merchant" class of crafters Ryzom is great for the "Hobbyist" and "Quartermaster" crafters.
Shortly after starting play in WoW (May '05) I started a thread in the warcraft NG about a fixed money supply (to mitigate the effects you have metioned). Heresy is not well-received by the typical MMO player, apparently.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Vanguard: Saga of heroes has the best crafting. You never mentioned it.
Wrong.
Need games to be in mold of EQ1 where crafting is concerned. Something to supplement the true focus of MMO gaming which is PVE. PVP coming in second, THEN you worry about crafting.
SWG utilized a crafter economy....which pretty much invalidates the PVE game. Perhaps someone can make it work...I sure dont see it happening. PVE folks adventure to get the gear...not money to re-buy items that anyone can get with enough farming and/or gold selling sites. To ensure a crafter economy, item decay needs to be added for repeat business.
Despite what the vocal minority on these boards would have ya beieve, the world doesnt revolve around them. Crafting isa niche of a niche...and thus should be given minimal support. You dont revolve a MMO world around it.
Not if you wanna appeal to the masses anyways.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
While I agree it was a good crafting system I still feel it fell short of the one in SWG.
I would definately place Vangaurd crafting in Second place.
Vanguard had an interesting process but boring resource. SWG had excellent resource effects with the differing qualities of the resources making the difference to the end product. Vanguard had a unique process that made the effect on the end product over the types of resources used.
If you combined those 2 pieces into one system. You would get a process where gear and tools used as well as the resource stats made the difference on the end result. What a boon to the crafting community THAT would be!
Say hello, To the things you've left behind. They are more a part of your life now that you can't touch them.
Fantastic artical, and I wholey agree wit hthe sentiment.
I've always tried my hand at crafting in the various MMOs I've played over the years. The most enjoyable of which were both UO and SWG as mentioned. You are very correct in mentioning that it's more than just crafting, it's the selling of the product. Actually playing out the game as a merchant to market your wares and compete against other merchants to win business on several different levels, rather than it simply being about who can undercut the most.
Most MMOs these days have very shallow crafting mechanics. Those that do have some depth in crafting, lack depth of market, mostly due to global Auctionhouse mechanics that dissolve the market into the single attribute of price mattering.
I sincerely hope that developers take note of this, and realize that there are many players who enjoy this type of system.
The process of crafting in Vanguard beats any I have seen, but the buying and selling set up of UO and SWG seems to have made crafting a more worthwhile occupation and one that engendered social interaction. That alone makes it the better system.
Raph please come back and make another game. UO and SWG crafting was just a part of why your needed. The games you made knew how to bring players together if it was by crafting or some other element that created a social enviroment that is missed in todays MMO games.
If you not Raph nevermind :P