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The Maker's Mark
Panzakat
Member Posts: 24
Sitting as I often do, looking at mains, alts, etc with max crafting levels in various games, I often wonder, ok so what sets me a part from the other guy, Price?
In EQ2 I often tried great customer service and care with every special request out of the normal and got good tips and repeat sales on more stock items because of it.
So sitting looking at my now 20 something Gladiator alt in aion I began to wonder, what would it take to differeniate my armor or swords from the next laycrafter.
The solution may sound simple but opens up a whole new level of crafting complexity.
So as an example, we'll randomly pick on Bill, the master weaponsmith, with a million +hours behind the forge.
and then Ben, the nooby weaponsmith just hitting max level. What is the difference between them in almost every game save SWG, you got it, nothing, save Bill may have some rarer recipes on hand than Ben. In SWG, Bill had the advantage of knowledge and perhaps a better network of rarer resources, so he could in theory craft a better weapon than Ben, even tho they had the same amount of skill points to influence the outcome. Now while SWG is by almost any shadow of a doubt pre-cu the best ideal of a crafting system ever, the overheads it placed on databases was quite extreme. I believe every single item had to have its own unique record, you can imagine thats a big database table after a few months.
So how do you make unique items, with little overhead ?
Taking for granted almost every game I have played attaches to player made weapons, your name,
eg. Great unobtainium longsword (lol at Global Agenda there). made by Bill
& Great unobtainium longsword made by Ben.
Difference, nothing statically, however they both contain a unique player reference, you guessed it Bill =/= PlayerIs 11111 and Ben =/= playerID 11112
Since the game is already performing a look up to player name, we take this player refence, and lookup perhaps, a maker's mark bonus table.
Dun de dah!
the Maker's Mark Bonus Table!
This table would then include a list of bonuses that can be applied to each weapon created.
Crafters can now earn bonus' depending on what ever the game designers fancy, be it quest or use or crafting, my example
Bill makes 100,000 of our nice unotainium longsword, he has a passion for longswords, so he could get, a bonus say, 10% more damage for all longswords he makes or alternatively he could specialise ina certain kind of material, so that all weapons he makes from say unobtainium are 10% faster. As Bill has what was it, 100,000 hours of forge time and could have done all these fancy bonus quests, the difference between a master weapon created by a master smith becomes more indivual.
People would then have the choice of seeking a mastersmiths for the bonuses. Bill may make the fastest weapons under the sun, while Ben may choose to focus his art and there for the bonuses applied to his creations in different directions.
The possibilties are almost unlimited. While the overhead never goes beyond 1 extra record, or a slightly longer player record, the result is an infinite possibility for better and more varied crafted items.
Comments
love Maker's Mark
Edit: Pewp. Image blocked
Anyway, I like Maker's Marks on crafted iitems. UO had it well before stats and properties were on weapons, so when you haf a GM Crafted weapon from a known crafter, you knew it was good quality. It was either Sonoma or Pacific that I would regulatly buy my weapons for the day from Krom Flaa's shop. I knew his exceptional katanas and krysses were top damage and durability, which was perfect for a night of relentless PvP.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
So exemplify the worst aspects of grind(doing the same thing over and over). So that one person's crap becomes the optimal for all other grinders.
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
Not really, so one person's crap becomes different from anothers. Since I am currently playing it, I'll flesh an aion example out.
Crafter a makes a staff and because he has quested for bonus attack, makes a staff with +attack
Crafter b makes the same staff but because he specialises in Magic boost, his staff gains +MB, so a chanter would buy staff one and a cleric might buy staff 2. Each crafter becomes known for his or her particular bonuses.
Grinding out 100 items for a bonus was just one example. It might involve a quest chain that takes you to the deepest dungeon or the highest mountain to learn say the secrets of weapon forging from the giants of unobtanium mountain. Allows to progress crafting beyond simple, left click combine, sell get cookies game play. shrug.
I'm completely for having it so that crafters can make different items or that certain components are needed for different items.
If crafters could add bonuses and "negatives" to their armor and items then this would be a good thing.
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