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General: Have Character, Will Craft?
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Nearly every MMO has a crafting component included. In today's Player Perspectives column, Isabelle Parsley reveals her crafting background and the joy that it has brought her over the years. So why is she swearing off crafting? You'll have to read Player Perspectives to find out. Let us know what you think in the comments below.
I crafted in WoW, Horizons, Vanguard, EVE, Fallen Earth, EQ2, LOTRO, and probably a bunch of other games I can’t remember now. When I’m asked to define my play style, that’s how I define it now: I’m a hardcore crafter. I may not max out adventuring levels, but when it comes to crafting I’m ambitious, dedicated, and I’ll put in the time needed to get to the top. Back when I quit playing EQ2 the last time I was working on my sixth level 90 crafter. I moved on to Fallen Earth for a while and, you guessed it, the first thing I did was look at the crafting. As soon as I came back to LOTRO this summer, I started picking up crafting professions and making alts so I could spread out across all the possible specialties.
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Comments
What is this "Face-Time" thing you speak of? I know only my flat screen monitor, keyboard, mouse, and tons of old coke cans. Lol
J/K everyone. Happy holidays!
Another great read. I do have a question for you, how are you going to restrain yourself when you pass the next resource node?
@Ozmodan -- I caaaaan't heeear you. I see nothing. I hear nothing. Lalalalala
*claps hands over ears*
That's how.
(In other words... I've already made a miner and strip-mined Elwynn.)
Good write up. Anyone who has taken on carfting in EVE knows what job it becomes.
You might want to look into FFXIV. Despite all the issues with the game, the crafting system is quite fun. Also, although the game has the same sort of craft "grind" that other games have, because of the need to make sub-components the grind can be somewhat fun in a good crafting Linkshell, where higher level crafters ask lower level crafters to make them sub-components; the higher level crafters save time and the lower level crafters get easy skill points. Likewise, there are cross-craft dependancies, so players within these linkshells are continually interacting in the process of getting stuff made. It is possible to be a wholly independant crafter (no alts needed to master every craft) but it's a sufficiently lengthy process that most people focus on one or two and work with others to get their stuff made.
Yikes!!! It costs that much for the riding skill? I suppose that gives people a long-term goal since leveling is clearly not it, but ouch.
This was a good read, actually. I've never been much for crafting myself except in games where crafting truly gave me freedom. I never tried SWG but I think I would have liked it. In most MMO's though, crafting is so pathetically shallow it doesn't warrant the effort. Either it can't compete with mob-dropped loot, or it's a badly disguised grind that favors RNG (Aion). There were a few things in WoW that looked worthwhile when I tried it out a while back, but it was mainly in jewelry and enchantment. At that time nothing you could craft could compete with raid gear, though that may have changed since then, I wouldn't know.
Unless crafting akin to Second Life ever makes it into a game - where I could not only create my item, but shape it and decide everything from form to the texture (the skin, not the physical texture, though that too) - I'll continue ignoring it. That said, I appreciate people like you that have a love for it. Without you guys, I'd probably be forced to participate. Instead I'll just throw gold at people who enjoy it and continue on my merry way.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
I have to say that your playstyle and mine are about as identical as could be.
I had multiple SWG accounts just like you did so I could have several crafters. I really do miss my 12 point R.I.S certified Armorsmith
I play EQ2 and I have one chracter of each profession, albeit not level 90 yet.
The one thing that I miss the most from old SWG is the dynamic stas on resources and customization possibilties. I had customers that would order a set of armor with a certain percentage of resists for stun, electric, kinetic, etc. as well as specifying custom colors for certain pieces. I also had a Master Smuggler so I could slice each piece, so, by the time I was done with the armor set, I could say that it was truly a one of a kind set.
All games now are cookie cutter, all weapons have the same stats, all armor has the same colors....blah.
You went through an entire article on crafting without mentioning A Tale in the Desert? If you haven't played ATITD, then you're not much of a crafter. Yes, it really is about that simple. ATITD might well have a deeper crafting system than all of the other games you mentioned added together.
I think Horizons and SWG have had the two best crafting systems out there. Horizons was amazing with server wide crafting. Multiple guilds needed to get to gether to craft and protect, etc for weeks at a time to unlock areas on capabilities on a server. Quite excellent and not seen any other MMO do such server wide crafting yet.
@Quizzical -- I've played several Tales of ATITD, I just keep forgetting it. My problem with ATITD crafting (as I recall it from 2006, so it was a while back) is that I don't want to have to know CAD in order to make a shovel blade. In other words, I sucked at it.
That said, ATITD had enormous possibilities and great depth as far as making stuff goes. It also -- back in the day, anyway -- has some truly insane grinds for bricks and all the other stuff. Course, it's our own fault for wanting a MegaGigantic compound when there were only 5 or 6 of us playing regularly in our primary association. Fun, but it did eventually turn into a bit of a job too.
A propos nothing, I sort of turned off ATITD in that 2006 telling, which I think was the first one that linked character levels to tests and other available stuff. I thought that was utterly unnecessary and a real shame.
Just don't me break out my Tshirt. Yes, I have one.
I love crafting. All I do in WoW these days is make food and bags..
interesting read. i can't stand crafting. i did it a bit in EQ, EQ2, extensively in WOW, and i think it just burnt me out. i got tired of having just made something only to have it made useless by a drop in 30min. The only skill i can even think of bringing myself to do anymore is anything with potions. they never get outdated like gear and dont take a slot to use and usually always sell fairly well
Compound cost increases exponentially with size. You're supposed to split your buildings among multiple compounds.
Also, you make brick machines. That lets you start a machine once and let it run, and then you come back hours later and have 900 bricks. Multiply that by several machines if you need bricks faster and you're set on bricks. Mud and sand are dirt cheap, of course, and straw is doable from greenhouses and drying hammocks. (flax hammocks? I forget what they're called.)
I wasn't good at shovels, either. But that's kind of the point. If there are too many things for anyone to be good at everything, that forces trade for the same reasons that it happens in real life. That's a far superior system to having several basically identical professions with game mechanics that artificially lock a player out of most of them.
But if you're going to call yourself a crafter, it's good that you're at least familiar with ATITD. I spent weeks picking apart the cooking system in both the first and third tellings. If you cooked in either, you probably used my research heavily whether you realized it or not. No other crafting system in any game that I've seen has mechanics that take long to figure out ilke that.
Crafting is the reason I love my own existence. My skills in the real world are all about creating something be it material or immaterial. In games, I love crafting and having the power to change things in such fashion.
Its true it may not matter to the max level character unless you work hard at it, but it sure comes in handy and adds depth to a game. I play Runes of Magic and one thing I enjoyed there was crafting for lower level characters.
Crafting also allows you to save inventory space. If you can craft items, you dont need to have to always carry everything with you. ^_^
Great read! I like you have spent a great majority of my MMO life crafting. It has been, and i guess always will be my favorite part of online gaming.
Oh, and another Shadowfire shout out!
I have done both adventuring and crafting. Both are fun. Both can turn into a second job if you don't limit your ambitions and forget to stop and have some fun in the process. At the end of the day though, crafting always leave me with this warm fuzzy feeling inside. That suit of armor the guy over there is wearing? I made it. The spaceship that just passed by? I made it. The nice bookshelf in my guildmates house? I made it.
To me, that feeling of long term success is much more long-lived than the quick rush from opening some loot-box and winning the lottery. Furthermore, crafting tends to suit my playstyle in a much better way. While grouping is fun at times, I'm not much for holding hands in general. Crafting allows me to interact with people on my terms without being joined at the hip for whatever time it takes to complete an instance or group quest. Unfortunately, crafting is often a second thought in MMOs these days and those that do well in terms of crafting, often suffer from a serious lack in other areas, such as adventuring. Ultimately, I'd love to do both since doing just one thing usually leaves me burned out rather quickly, but I always find that I have to compromise, either by MMO hopping or playing multiple MMOs at the same time.
I'm a big ol' fluffy carewolf. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I have not played every game out there. Best crafting game I ever played personally.
Horizons
Was enough other things that drove me away from the game though. Perfomance and Gameplay where the top 2.
There is only one opinion that matters.
IMO to many games concentrate only on the gear you are wearing for crafting and advancement. I would like to see a push toward player and community housing more. Kind of like the first itteration of Horizons except it would be alot more than half finished and very detailed. That would leave a lot of room for future expansion.
Game companies do what is easy. Make a map and let the players endlessly kill on each other. PVP is ok but most of them can't even come close to doing that right. 2 months in AION and I was done.
Shadowfire? That was the server I played on! If it's not a secret, who were you in game? I only remember a few of the crafters' names, primarily weapon and armorsmiths (Bliss, Iaka, Gruelokk), but I might've run into you. (Gruelokk is playing EVE these days, btw, and was running a good-sized alliance last I talked to him.)
-Wrayeth
"Look, pa! I just contributed absolutely nothing to this thread!"
Wait, wait, wait.
According to your very last article the old games like AC and SWG and UO had absolutely nothing good going for them and that any of us old timers that cited them as having good qualities that rightly should be copied and upgraded and used in the making of modern MMOs, well, we just had our "rose tinted glasses" on..
Now you write and article citing those same games for gameplay that you enjoyed? Fairweather journalism much?
Aside from that:
"At some point I realised that I was doing almost too well in SWG: I had a loyal and plentiful customer base (and made a lot of friends along the way - shout out to my Shadowfire buddies!), but I was spending all my time in game just keeping up with the commercial empire I'd built. It was turning into a job."
No, that's not a job. That's called a crafting "end game". Keeping up with your orders, searching out the best resources and building good customer relations was the same thing for a intelligent crafter as running raid instance #3 more than 5,000,000 times is for the combat types. Very sad that developers only see the combat side of that coin.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
From MY multiple level 90 crafting alts to yours.....we salute you.
Great article. They made a great decision adding you to the writing staff. Your work is always a great read, even when I don't agree with it all (I think WoW is the weakest of all games for both adventuring and crafting....for ME).
Lots of good farming memories from LotRO....especially smokin' up the first crop of all my assorted pipe weeds.
I've often bragged that I enjoy playing the WHOLE game when I play a game. I've never understood people skipping the adventuring, the PvP, the crafting, the housing, etc. If a game doesn't provide me a pretty robust experience all the way around....I eventually leave it whether it's with a lvl 20 of everything or a level 80 or 90 of everything. I'm still playing EQ2....it offers me the most in every arena for now.
Really enjoyed your article! Happy New Year....Happy Holidays!
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
I wonder if we will see the return of non-combat classes to mmorpgs. It is such a rewarding aspect in these types of games. And novel to say the least. But it gave weight to the world and depth to the community.
Wonderful article. Well articulated and well thought out with the proper experience and time invested into the Topic. This is something I have wanted to say for years, but I am not very good at writing articles with this type of clarity and detail.
Everytime I try to write an article like this, my thoughts get jumbled together and, in the end, I end up deleting what I wrote and make some sort of declaritive statement similar to this...
The "Next" Indy mmo to have a small(compared to WoW) community, but big enough to be profitable(Eve), will mimic the SWG crafting system. FE tried but the devs decided early in Alpha to ignore the crafting community and focus on Combat and PvP.
Crafters need a reason to KEEP crafting. If the "best" that can be made is "static", ie, the same, then Crafting has a set time limit to crafters before it becomes boring. If the "best" is constantly changing, ie, stats of resources, then Crafters have a reason to KEEP playing for years.
Add the symbiotic relationship with Combatants in SWG(Pre-CU), you have an actual Player Driven Economy.
As complex and, extremely difficult, SWG Pre-CU was to learn how to play, 250k people stuck with it for a reason for a year and a 1/2 before they quit because of the stupidity of the Management.
@Khalathwyr
"
According to your very last article the old games like AC and SWG and UO had absolutely nothing good going for them and that any of us old timers that cited them as having good qualities that rightly should be copied and upgraded and used in the making of modern MMOs, well, we just had our "rose tinted glasses" on..
Now you write and article citing those same games for gameplay that you enjoyed? Fairweather journalism much?"
That is *absolutely* not what I wrote and I'm one of those old timers myself. Seems to me you're reading what you want to read and no matter what I write, you'll slam me for it.
/shrug. Free country.
Wait a bit; "But there are problems with crafting in all the MMOs I've played,.. (grind)". I most certainly have never felt crafting in EVE as any kind of grind, especially as resource collection (in EVE) should been seen as a completely separate occupation to pure crafting and can be completely skipped. In fact, the whole research and invention aspect to crafting has been developed into a trade in itself in EVE too.
Basis for my crafting is tech 2 ship production and all it requires for me is to once every half year collect all data cores for the next months invention tasks. Then on a weekly basis I restart all invention and copying tasks, take a trip to Jita and back to collect production materials and setup new production tasks. All in all work for half to one hour.
If I want to do any more crafting I dabble in booster production that is such an exclusive crafting field that no sufficient guides existed to it until I wrote one myself.
Btw. I never feel any pressure from customer demands due to the wonderful dynamics of EVEs market system (3 month sale orders ftw.) If anything, increase in demand simply increase my profit.