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General: Crafting: Does Every MMO Need It?
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
MMORPG.com Community Manager Michael Bitton has chosen the forum topic "Crafting: Does Every MMO Need It?" as the Community Spotlight for the week. Check out the MMORPG.com Staff Blog for links and information so that you can participate in the thread. Make your voice heard!
Obviously in sandbox game it's a must as you're supposed to feel you're in a world.
But some people complain that the crafting sucks in a themepark game about gear grinding, and it's like why does it matter if you can get way better gear from raiding? Why really even bother having drafting in say WoW or a better example DDO? Why is it a must?
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No, every MMO doesnt need it. In fact, some MMOs need to stop putting it in unless theyre going to take it seriously.
*cough* WAR *cough*
Yeah i feel that WoW's system is the bare minimum effort you need to put into crafting for it to be an actual feature and not a complete waste of time.
That being said i love a good crafting sytem as it adds more things to do aside from kill things in MMO's. Far too often i have played a new MMO only to find that killing things is pretty much the only thing you can do and makes me realise i'd be better off playing a single player game instead.
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
I think the AAA game companies should OUTSOURCE their crafting.
Crafting is worthy of essentially devoting the time required for a small game to the effort and it never gets it just due as a small cog in the big machine. If it were outsourced to companies that were only making the crafting portion of the game -- then it would be much larger and get the attention it deserves.
Note this can be outsourcing to a completely different division inside the same company -- the whole point is you are giving a million dollars to come up with a whole crafting system that is viable and fun as opposed to throwing 3 workers at the problem.
I saw this sentence and I had to laugh so hard.
"I think Inscriptions are the only player supplied items in WOW".
Really? And it got a quote of the editors ...I mean do they even play these games at all ?
There's not many games that have done it very good. WOW was stupid, maybe it has changed now. You needed a prof to stay on top ... change one and you end up mining all over azeroth for days. Warhammer isn't much better, but atleast it wont give you much of an edge. You get the mats as you play so no big need to grind them.
Fallen Earth was very cool when you could level from it. But in the end it started to get mad (when you reach highest level). Grinding mats or not - it was FUN to build those bikes and swords
Eve has done it the best. While it is possible for a character to both fight and build, it takes a LONG time to get good at both. But if you only have a semi-old character you have had to choose. You do in no way need to craft, and a crafter in no way need to fight. And both ways are great fun.
Almost forgot Startrek ... um ... lets make it stay that way
I haven't tried it for .. almost a year, only played it first month, so maybe it has changed. Im thinking of giving it another month.
Runes of Magic .. the most superretarded piece of sh*t when it comes to .. everything, but especially crafting. Buying a book and then let your computer stay on so you could get a couple of % over a night. I guess they have never heard of enviroment and energy. A friend of mine spent lots of time doing everything he could to level blacksmithing. Even to this day he freaks out as i mention copper and beetroot. He finally managed to make a grey hat that was totally useless.. still he wore it with pride.
double post for some reason.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
First: I love the pin-up picture. Great Choice and totally fits with my aesthetic.
Second: I agree with MCalvert's first post. Not every game needs it and developers should not feel like they have to put it in every game.
I also agree with Centkin. If they are going to have crafting they either need to "do it right' or give it to someone else to handle.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Well I agree that most MMO's dont NEED crafting. But that doesnt mean it wouldnt be a welcome addition. It certainly adds to the diversity of a MMO. If you want to see playing MMO's as a hobby, then you want to have many different features in it.
I think that the OP's example of DC Universe Online is a bad one. Crafting would certainly fit within a superheroes MMO. Where else do they get their gadgets and suits from? Making it themselves would make the most sense for most of them. Especially considering their secret identities. The fact that you barely see it in the comics, is just because it doesnt make much of a story in most cases.
But for a superheroes MMO it could be a good way to let players create their own customised armour on top of the fact that it would add diversity to the game. But this would be a tough task for a developer to get right probably. And looking at DC Universe Online in this case, for which they didnt even manage to create a full selection of superhero powers at release, crafting would be certainly too much.
The problem with crafting in most MMO's is that it's pointless, because you can acquire far superior gear as loot. Very few games have gotten it right.
DAoC (pre Atlantis), SWG, EVE, E&B are examples of how to get crafting right. In all of these games the best gear available was player made. Crafting was meaningfull and rewarding because it produced the best items. If that's not the case I can't see the point of including it in any game.
If crafting is useful and not overly-grindish, and is well thought-out, it's a welcome addition. After all, sometimes you don't feel like killing mob after mob, and crafting can be another avenue to hold people's interest.
Do MMOs need it? No, not really. But aside from questing and combat, is there another progression track that you could put in to entertain folks aside from crafting? One that has the potential to impact the other tracks directly?
Best point in the thread. Crafting in Wow has always been an afterthought. True you get a few bennies from it, but the major skills, like blacksmith, tailoring, leatherworker, engineer and pretty much worthless.
With out crafting, MMOs would be one dimensional. It doesnt hurt someone to go out and seek a proffesssion and earn income from it. I love crafting. I spend hours and hours doing it. I did in FF11 and made a lot of cash. If you love to craft then ffx11 has the deepest crafting system ive seen around. Has a virtual economy like no other. But wheres theres wealth, there is also sickness "RMT". I feel that many companies did away with the crafting system due to Rmt activity.
Edgar F Greenwood
The Guild Wars 1 crafting is the perfect system for me.. all the options are there.. you gain resources without time wasting, or grinding skills, and it seems pretty balanced on rare vs non rare. I wish every MMO had that sort of system.. it also helps to make vendors worthwhile again (because in most these days you will never buy a new sword from an NPC.
I hope they have the same system in GW2. Anyone know if they do?
I like crafting.
If I remember correctly, Anarchy Online doesn´t have much crafting. But the character customization is so big and confusing, you don´t miss crafting.
"If I put this Implant in, then this, then this Trenchcoat and that goggles, then ask for this and that buff, I can wear this weapon which is much higher in level than me for sure. *15 minutes later* NO! Miscounted!"
Unfortunatly most people havent played AO to understand what a real game is.
All these games like WoW, EQ2 are laughable in comparison to AO. AO was a game that actually took a brain to play.
On topic. I like crafting because its something to do when you get bored. But I agree with most posters crafting in games these days are pitifull
This. Do it right or dont do it at all.
EVE does it nearly right with the sole exception of being unable to produce anyhing different from anyone else. There's no way to customis or personalise what you produce. I hear tales from the old SWG guys of being able to do this and I am envious.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
I loved the reverse engineering in SWG. A lot of people said you needed to be a math wiz to do it, but you didn't. I made some great stuff from reverse engineering. That aside, every game should have crafters. Some people just play to craft and help out peeps with their toons.
The only game that did it right was SWG. It was vast but not too overly complex. It was quite fun and rewarding too. Well, until the NGE came. Do all MMO's need it? No. I usually avoid crafting all together tbh.
The question for me isnt, do we need crafting in an MMO, it's why hasnt single player and console made use of it as content? Crafting is the assembly of loot. Be it the assembly of loot from loot or the assembly of loot from lot from loot. Its a means of making items for ones self and others that could be done in a single action broken down. Its a time sink and thats what makes games work. Time sinks that feel like play. Skill up with grind, to make from the higher stat stuff to have a better avatar through equpment. Need? All games should have crafting. Its called game.
A deep crafting game is a staple of traditional MMORPGs...but we haven't seen many games do much with it because the new model of MMORPGs is action based and loot driven.
The only way you can have a deep crafting system is if the crafts are worth something on the open market. If a game uses loot to drive players to complete content, then they can't have crafting skills competing with the items to be had from dungeons. Hence....why we don't see good crafting systems outside of sandbox MMORPG games.
One of the biggest problems with crafting in MMO's is that it is purely a solo activity.
In the old days the crafts were connected by dependencies which for the most part merely made things annoying which is why they were removed but it leaves us with the following issue:
If crafting is a solo activity then how can it provide rewards commensurate with Group/Raid runs?
It would add a lot of depth to crafting if you could have three people working on making that chestplate doing different activities and if any of them failed it would fail -- just like groups work -- if anyone fails it fails. And at that point there can be greater rewards.
Mighty magic items could require raids of crafters, all doing their jobs correctly (or it makes someone elses job MUCH harder and then if they fail you are pretty much done) or the item fails. Problems come up and require action by various people to correct it or it spreads across the whole process and it fails -- etc. At that point you have something that has a sense of excitement and danger -- and you also have an amount of man-hours going into a single item that you couldnt obtain without it being horrid as a solo-crafter.
$.02
Crafting should be the only way to get magical items/equiment. No drops.