Neither. It should be a separate track and fully fledged game in and of itself. It should not be mandantory that people be or use products from crafters but crafting should be both useful and rewarding.
I agree. The tricky part is balancing it in such a way that players do not perceive a path they don't enjoy as "better" than the road they would prefer to take.
This is much, much easier in sandbox style games where you start knowing that everyone is going to carve out their own endgame instead of all chasing the same bosses at the end.
Open-skill systems like UO do very well at this - a crafter character is a complete game in itself, but at the price of not being useful in the high-end fights where the high-end artifact drops happen.
In a progression-based game, I would suggest developers treating "no crafting" as a crafting skill in itself - providing a slightly improved range of loot drops for people who forgo crafting (similar to how each crafting skill is usually balanced to provide a buff that's roughly equivilent to every other crafting skill).
I dont want casuals to do it. Im tired of the entitlement movement. Reminds me of how kids are comming up no adays. They get ribbins and awards for just showing up to things now insted or erning them. A 12th place trophy? come on now.
Not everyone should be able to craft. Just like not everone should be able to raid or PVP. Now if you want to put in the time and effort them sure, you can achive high lvl crafter status. But if you just want to mas buy mats of the broker and 1-300 in an afternoon then hit the bricks.
I feel like if someone is going to pull out the "kids these days" line, they should at least be able to form said statment in a way that doesn't make them sound like one of the "kids these days".
God forbid "casuals" are able to play games. You know, if you are going to buy Boardwalk and Park place you should at least play Monopoly twice a week, otherwise you're just a casual and you're being handed those top-tier properties. Don't people understand that they have to invest large amounts of their time into a game before they should be allowed to enjoy it? Also unless you've won at least 50 games of risk, you should only be allowed to roll 4 sided dice, 6 sided dice are for hardcore players.
Casuals ruin it for hardcores. Don't even try to lie your way out of that. Casuals already control an incredible amount of the market. So if hardcore players want just a few fucking games that are made for them, why does that piss off casuals so damn much. If you don't like hardcore games, don't play them.
Bottom line is if your the type of person that doesent feel they should spend any more time at the crafting tables then you do learning how to beat that 20-40 man raid boss then your NOT a crafter.
If your the type of person that doesent feel that you need to spend anymore time at the crafting tables then you do say, organizing a group of your piers to partake in open world PVP or farm BGs/WFs for faction then your NOT a crafter.
Now this is fine. Its ok to NOT be ca crafter. Some of us arent raiders or PVPers ( Just fyi, i do it all ) But stop trying to dumb down a system just to make it easy for you to do so you can get back to your instance and or PVP. Leave crafting to us crafters.
I dont like easy games. I dont feel its right to be able to max lvl a toon in 1-2 weeks ( unless you just stay up and play the game for 15 hours a day then w/e do you) in whatever aspect of the game you choose to play. Eather being Advent/PVP/Crafting/Dip or anything they add to games. It should take time and effort. thats whats goin to keep people playing these games for years, not mouths.
Crafting should be as core and important to an MMORPG's gameplay as Combat. It can be done, and it has been done before. But if you are Loot Based in gaming, it is absolutely impossible to do that. And Loot Based gaming I have seen will have the absolute worst joke of a Crafting and Game Economy in place.
The best I have seen was Pre-NGE SWG. Firstly, what made everything possible was that practically everything decayed after so much use and wear and tear. Decayed to being broken for good.
Next, SWG had the deepest, most varied Crafting System I have ever seen. Crafted like-items can have different stats from another. What I meant was that a Laser Carbine could be crafted with high damage, decent accuracy, but it would cause lots of points to use. Or, the crafter, with the customer's request, could try to make that same Laser Carbine with moderate damage and accuracy, but low points cost to use. Those are very general descriptions, but it greatly depended on the crafter's knowledge of the game, resources, resource quality, and quality of crafting tools used.
There was actually many players who played solely because of the Crafting and Merchant aspect of SWG and never cared for combat at all. Everyone had their favorite crafters that they'd return to, because they offered quality items at fair prices. But one was always on the lookout for a better place to do business. Because of this, crafters were very, very competitive to get you to do business with them. In the old days of SWG, I still can remember my favorite Weaponsmith, a guy by the name of "Az" on the Ahazi server. It's been about 6 years since I played SWG and I can still remember that Weaponsmith's name, who was widely considered one of the best on the server. Can your MMORPG say that about it's playerbase and game economy / crafting system?
SWG's original, non-NGE system was perfect, IMO. It struck a great balance. Crafted items were central and core to every player and eventually broke for good. A deep crafting system was in place that offered tremendous possibilities and variety for those that love to dive deep into it. And if you wished to have nothing to do with crafting but just wanted goods, items were easily within reach with a bit of shopping. And they were available in fair prices.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
I dont want casuals to do it. Im tired of the entitlement movement. Reminds me of how kids are comming up no adays. They get ribbins and awards for just showing up to things now insted or erning them. A 12th place trophy? come on now.
Not everyone should be able to craft. Just like not everone should be able to raid or PVP. Now if you want to put in the time and effort them sure, you can achive high lvl crafter status. But if you just want to mas buy mats of the broker and 1-300 in an afternoon then hit the bricks.
I feel like if someone is going to pull out the "kids these days" line, they should at least be able to form said statment in a way that doesn't make them sound like one of the "kids these days".
God forbid "casuals" are able to play games. You know, if you are going to buy Boardwalk and Park place you should at least play Monopoly twice a week, otherwise you're just a casual and you're being handed those top-tier properties. Don't people understand that they have to invest large amounts of their time into a game before they should be allowed to enjoy it? Also unless you've won at least 50 games of risk, you should only be allowed to roll 4 sided dice, 6 sided dice are for hardcore players.
Casuals ruin it for hardcores. Don't even try to lie your way out of that. Casuals already control an incredible amount of the market. So if hardcore players want just a few fucking games that are made for them, why does that piss off casuals so damn much. If you don't like hardcore games, don't play them.
^ THIS ^
I have no problem with a game being made for the hardcore players, the problem is you NEED the casuals in order to keep a game running. Sorry, but there are just not enough hardcore players interested in one type of game to keep it profitable for a company. So you whine and complain about the casuals ruining your game, but without them you don't have a game (i.e.- SWG or even Perpetuum). Complain all you want about the casuals, but when your game goes under because it isn't making money OR is boring because no one plays it, just blame yourselves.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
Crafting should be as core and important to an MMORPG's gameplay as Combat. It can be done, and it has been done before. But if you are Loot Based in gaming, it is absolutely impossible to do that. And Loot Based gaming I have seen will have the absolute worst joke of a Crafting and Game Economy in place.
Loot is an absolute must in MMOs. It satisfies the treasure hunter in a lot of players. My only problem with loot is that the loot you receive doesn't make sense in 90% of games.
Kill a wolf, get an enchanted breastplate twice the wolf's size. This is just ridiculous.
Getting that breastplate off of a monster that actually wears armor is another story. Maybe if the wolf's pelt was exceptionally tough and you could craft some very nice leather gear from it things would be different.
Aside from WoW and EVE, untill a Dev figures out how to intergrate crafting well, I beleive their won't be long lasting, well polulated mmo. So yes, I beleive crafting must be a major part of crafting. The problem is that most dev that following this line of thinking beleive it also goes hand in hand with PvP. While I agree with a bit of this,there is yet to be a game that has balance a pvp system. MO and DF are examples if this. Both have ok crafting yet are failing because of the PvP factor (+/- some playing/gaming issues). That being said, even these doesn't come close to crafting in game like Wurm Online, etc. I haven't played WoW in a while but something simple Blizzard could do to change drop to mats.
I played Fallen Earth nearly 100% because of the crafting. Its likely I will not play an MMO that doesnt have intresting crafting. The thing is about MMO's is that computer technology basically allows us to 'virtualize' ANYTHING in real life and in our own imagination. The possibilities of what can be done is crazy mega huge...and yet all we want to do is kill another 100 golbins...
really?
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
I like Fallen Earth as well. I just wish it was more indepth on the crafting aspect. Meaning: more than just have mats and trainings. If they would have added the Vangaurd features with what they currently have, it would rock even further.
They also need to make crafting combos possible as well as doing something about better building. Making a tent is as smart as I am.
to be popular, you need to combine both types of crafting, casual crafting for those not very interested, but with a selection of high grade items which can only be crafted by the devoted.
However, those not interested in crafting will usually gear up by running raids etc
here lies the problem, for a crafter to be interested in persuing his skills, he must be able to sell his gear. If his gear is equivalent to farmed gear from raids etc it makes content skippable. So the gear then becomes worth a ridiculous amount of money in game, making gold farmer problems.. or the gear is obsolete.
So, in the case of a a theme park game, you cannot have high quality gear made by players without introducing a world of problems.
Hi quality crafted goods, imho, can only work in games were gear is destroyable, making a dynamic market, and a constant demand for goods.
Either that, or the gear needs to be bound to the player, and that in turn makes crafting more of a diversion.
In a game were gear level determines effects the ability to "complete" content, you cannot really be bale to make it all.
Eve works, i can make a hi tier equipment, i may not be able to use it... will it let me pass content by? no... anyone in his ship has the potential to rip it from my dying hands...if he doesnt, him and a handful of friends certainly can..
Casuals ruin it for hardcores. Don't even try to lie your way out of that. Casuals already control an incredible amount of the market. So if hardcore players want just a few fucking games that are made for them, why does that piss off casuals so damn much. If you don't like hardcore games, don't play them.
Man, hardcore players have such entitlement issues. they make up such a small portion of the market but want entire games to themselves.
And the only person here who sounds angry is you, the "hardcore". If you think "casual" players ruin games, thats fine and dandy, but please don't try to make it sound like fact.
If you don't like casual games, don't play them, go play EVE.
Everything creates huge amounts of negativity on the internet, that's what the internet is for: Negativity, porn and lolcats.
I like Fallen Earth as well. I just wish it was more indepth on the crafting aspect. Meaning: more than just have mats and trainings. If they would have added the Vangaurd features with what they currently have, it would rock even further.
They also need to make crafting combos possible as well as doing something about better building. Making a tent is as smart as I am.
'group crafting' (crafting that requires multiple people and multiple skills to reaslisticaly complete) would be nice to. It would be awesome to be able to build an RV park
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Nearly every MMORPG to ever come out has it in some form or another. But it's relative importance in the game tends to widely vary between different games.
In most sandbox games, for example, crafting tends to be a very integral part of the game experience. You really can't play the game successfully without interacting with crafting in some way, whether it be through selling materials, making goods, or buying goods from other players.
But in most themepark games, crafting is really just kind of a side activity. Crafting can get you good gear, but you can also get good gear through PvP, questing, raiding, or dungeons. So really, you can play through the entire game without ever realizing crafting exists and be completely fine. In this case, crafting is just an optional diversion to the main game.
So my question is, how "integral" do you think crafting should be to the game experience? Should players pretty much have to interact with crafting (or the results of crafting) in some way to succeed? Or should crafting be a "diversion" that players can do if they get bored of the main game, but is not at all required
This is going to vary depending on who you ask, but as far as I'm concerned, crafting must be an integral part of the experience. I cut my teeth on SWG's crafting system, and as such I guess I'm somewhat spoiled. I've never found its equal, or anything that could even rival it. One of the reasons that SWG's crafting system was so amazing (at least amongst us crafters) was that it also carried with it the necessity of character interdependencies. Crafting profession A, needing materials that only crafting profession B could produce, and so on. Because of this, the game felt alive and as a consequence you made friends and the community grew and matured because of it. I really miss this.
All in all, if the developers of the game wish it to be a sandbox, then a robust, meaningful, in-depth, and nuanced crafting system must be a requirement of such a game. It's fine to allow players to acquire gear from drops, but in such a game, the best gear should only ever come from crafters.
In a themepark, crafting should never get in the way of the story, as those who play themeparks are only interested in the gear and the story. Forcing them to do otherwise, just makes them irritated. Honestly, I don't understand why crafting exists within themeparks in the first place. More often than not, it does just get in the way.
Casuals ruin it for hardcores. Don't even try to lie your way out of that. Casuals already control an incredible amount of the market. So if hardcore players want just a few fucking games that are made for them, why does that piss off casuals so damn much. If you don't like hardcore games, don't play them.
Man, hardcore players have such entitlement issues. they make up such a small portion of the market but want entire games to themselves.
And the only person here who sounds angry is you, the "hardcore". If you think "casual" players ruin games, thats fine and dandy, but please don't try to make it sound like fact.
If you don't like casual games, don't play them, go play EVE.
entitlement issues? please. every damn game made today is marketed at the " casual gamer " If you can have games made for you, why cant we get games made for us.
Now before you go off saying something stupid like you have eve to play or something to that effect... damn you already said that. my bad. Yes we would like a well funded AAA game made for us. only problem is that investors are only looking at the WOW model to make there bucks.
So untill a developer makes a deasent sandbox or sandpark or w/e the hell you want to call games today. untill someone makes some cash off of this type of game, we the "hardcores" are fucked. entitlement issues lol. take a look in the mirror and tell me whos the entitled ones are again.
In a themepark, crafting should never get in the way of the story, as those who play themeparks are only interested in the gear and the story. Forcing them to do otherwise, just makes them irritated. Honestly, I don't understand why crafting exists within themeparks in the first place. More often than not, it does just get in the way.
I would have to agree with you here. In theamparks, crafting shouldent even be added. There some of the worst examples of crafting iv ever seen. WOW/RIFT/LotRO/WAR just to name a few. God awful crafting systems.
I heard that minecraft had a wonderfull crafting system though i never played it. I hear SWG befor it got dumbed down had an awesome crafting system. There was another game i heard about that had a very good crafting system. sorry i cant remember what it was called. believe it started with an A and got changed to another name at some point?
I did however play VG and i thought it had a great crafting system. But todays theamparks just dont give a shit about crafting. Rifts crafting at lauch was an after thought. only after mouths of bitching they added crafting rifts. Big whoop. more farming for mats and the dreaded "plaque" BTW i HATE the idea of a "plaque" system. just putting that out there
All in all, theamparks have some of the WORST crafting systems of all.
Eve works, i can make a hi tier equipment, i may not be able to use it... will it let me pass content by? no... anyone in his ship has the potential to rip it from my dying hands...if he doesnt, him and a handful of friends certainly can..
Crafting in EVE works for many reasons, and is very different to the usual "themepark" crafting.
Here's a short overview for those that have never played EVE:
Crafted goods are not directly linked to player progression. High level players don't automatically fly carriers or dreadnoughts, equipment use is totally dependant on the situation.
Crafting skills can be learned by anyone. No need to make 10,000 grind items before your crafting becomes "useful", every single thing you make is just as good as anyone else can make. Your skills affect only the cost and speed of production, not the quality.
Crafting skills are learned over a set time. Crafting actual items has no influence on this learning proces. You can max your crafting skills without crafting a single item !
What you can craft is almost entirely dependant on which blueprints (mostly sold by NPC's) you can afford to buy. Only higher level items might require a specific level in a certain skill.
A battleship (or any other item) made by a 1-day old crafter is exactly the same as one made by a "max-level" crafter, it's just slightly more expensive to produce.
Huge amounts of equipment are destroyed daily, hence high demand for replacement goods.
The world is very large, with no instant travel, so regional markets thrive.
Players in EVE often buy locally, because flying a 15-minute roundtrip just to save 10% on the price is not worth it.
There's no single game-wide auction house. You can only see what's for sale in the region you're in. You have to fetch the item yourself from wherever it is for sale, no matter how far away.
A serious crafter in EVE buys most (if not all) of his resources from other players (miners, mission runners, etc.) that specialise in gathering resources. High volume production of larger items simply needs far more resources than 1 or even 2 players can generate.
entitlement issues? please. every damn game made today is marketed at the " casual gamer " If you can have games made for you, why cant we get games made for us.
Now before you go off saying something stupid like you have eve to play or something to that effect... damn you already said that. my bad. Yes we would like a well funded AAA game made for us. only problem is that investors are only looking at the WOW model to make there bucks.
So untill a developer makes a deasent sandbox or sandpark or w/e the hell you want to call games today. untill someone makes some cash off of this type of game, we the "hardcores" are fucked. entitlement issues lol. take a look in the mirror and tell me whos the entitled ones are again.
Dude, calm down. You're getting way too riled up over nothing. I'm in the "hardcore" crowd, I spend tons of time online having tons of fun. I'm not attacking you, just pointing out the obvious hypocracy of your statments.
The red part sums it up really. Hardcores aren't putting in the money in the same way casuals don't put in the time. Yet somehow you think casuals have the entitlement problem when you expect people to make games aimed at your demographic. If you can't see the obvious logical fallacy there then I don't know what to do.
You have to remember these are games, intended to be "fun". If you think people don't deserve to have fun because they are too casual and don't put in enough time, I think you have your priorities a bit skewed. Content = fun. Withholding content from people is kinda antiproductive when the entire point of a video game is for someone to have fun.
You want hardcore games, but you scoff at EVE? If you just want a challenge, leave the MMO genre and move to those crazy sidescrolling shooters where there are like 1k+ bullets on screen. If you just want a grind move to a korean MMO. But whining that "casuals" feel that the games aimed at them should cater to them is just plain silly.
Everything creates huge amounts of negativity on the internet, that's what the internet is for: Negativity, porn and lolcats.
Any MMORPG should have an integral well thought out crafting system. Please note I said integral which is different from required.
This would mean that crafted items are the best in the game, but not so much better that they would make it so you absolutely had to have crafted gear to compete, but enough better that the elitist PvPers would "think" they needed it to be the "Best"
IF you're going to put crafting into a game, it should be a deep, complex and integral for the players who choose to craft as the other game systems are (pve, pvp) for the players who enjoy those game systems, otherwise its just a waste of time and resources.
Crafting should be as core and important to an MMORPG's gameplay as Combat. It can be done, and it has been done before. But if you are Loot Based in gaming, it is absolutely impossible to do that. And Loot Based gaming I have seen will have the absolute worst joke of a Crafting and Game Economy in place.
Loot is an absolute must in MMOs. It satisfies the treasure hunter in a lot of players. My only problem with loot is that the loot you receive doesn't make sense in 90% of games.
Kill a wolf, get an enchanted breastplate twice the wolf's size. This is just ridiculous.
Getting that breastplate off of a monster that actually wears armor is another story. Maybe if the wolf's pelt was exceptionally tough and you could craft some very nice leather gear from it things would be different.
Loot is NOT an absolute must in MMORPG gaming. Maybe it seems like that today with practically all titles now, but it was not always so. Today's titles are all about Raids (Hamster Wheels), Kewl Lootz, and Uberawesome Rewardz. Nothing else.
In SWG's original system, loot was there but not in the way you're probably thinking. Loot came in 5 varieties in the game.
a. Total trash.
b. Useless, but looks real cool for some as a trophy to put up in their homes.
c. Equivalent items to what crafters can make, but usually not in the same quality as what crafters do. For a beginning player, it could be a godsend.
d. Crafting components: They can be given / traded with a crafter to greatly affect the result of a crafted item. There are some that are really rare to boost up a crafted items stats.
e. Extremely, extremely rare, top of the line, loot items. Sometimes a player by pure, blind, and alot of luck, will loot a powerful piece of gear.
Regardless of whatever gear you found, practically *everything* decayed and eventually broke for good after enough heavy usage. What this did was it regulated the use of those rare, powerful items out there (esp. PvP), and it ensured a very healthy cycle between player consumers and crafters / merchants. The player crafters / merchants in old school SWG were very, very competitive for repeat business and to provide goods and services to ideally garner your loyalty as a buyer.
I have yet to see anything close to these dynamics between crafters and non-crafters in any MMORPG since SWG was irreversibly altered in '05 when I left. The system in place worked beautifully.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
entitlement issues? please. every damn game made today is marketed at the " casual gamer " If you can have games made for you, why cant we get games made for us.
Now before you go off saying something stupid like you have eve to play or something to that effect... damn you already said that. my bad. Yes we would like a well funded AAA game made for us. only problem is that investors are only looking at the WOW model to make there bucks.
So untill a developer makes a deasent sandbox or sandpark or w/e the hell you want to call games today. untill someone makes some cash off of this type of game, we the "hardcores" are fucked. entitlement issues lol. take a look in the mirror and tell me whos the entitled ones are again.
Dude, calm down. You're getting way too riled up over nothing. I'm in the "hardcore" crowd, I spend tons of time online having tons of fun. I'm not attacking you, just pointing out the obvious hypocracy of your statments.
The red part sums it up really. Hardcores aren't putting in the money in the same way casuals don't put in the time. Yet somehow you think casuals have the entitlement problem when you expect people to make games aimed at your demographic. If you can't see the obvious logical fallacy there then I don't know what to do.
You have to remember these are games, intended to be "fun". If you think people don't deserve to have fun because they are too casual and don't put in enough time, I think you have your priorities a bit skewed. Content = fun. Withholding content from people is kinda antiproductive when the entire point of a video game is for someone to have fun.
You want hardcore games, but you scoff at EVE? If you just want a challenge, leave the MMO genre and move to those crazy sidescrolling shooters where there are like 1k+ bullets on screen. If you just want a grind move to a korean MMO. But whining that "casuals" feel that the games aimed at them should cater to them is just plain silly.
who the hell is whining? im stating facts. and i never scoffed at eve. i do however dont wanna just play eve for the next 30 years because game cos dont want to produce games that i want to play. And you got it right. People play games for fun. So if crafting isent fun for people then they dont need to craft.
By making crafting easy and meaningless they have made crafting Unfun. so wheres my fun? why cant i have some fun. The same fun i want doesent mean its someone elses fun. so there NEEDS to be games made for different people. give hardcore gamers games to play and let those console wannabe MMOers there pieces of shit to play.
If casuals get the games they want to play then we should get some aswell by your defenition. I dont understand why you have a problem with this.
who the hell is whining? im stating facts. and i never scoffed at eve. i do however dont wanna just play eve for the next 30 years because game cos dont want to produce games that i want to play. And you got it right. People play games for fun. So if crafting isent fun for people then they dont need to craft.
By making crafting easy and meaningless they have made crafting Unfun. so wheres my fun? why cant i have some fun. The same fun i want doesent mean its someone elses fun. so there NEEDS to be games made for different people. give hardcore gamers games to play and let those console wannabe MMOers there pieces of shit to play.
If casuals get the games they want to play then we should get some aswell by your defenition. I dont understand why you have a problem with this.
This is all reasonable what is being said here.
Gamers tend to have tunnel vision. Its
1. well there is eve you could always play that...forever
2. everyone should game like me and all games should be made for my tastes.
no, games should be like books or movies, something for everyone.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
crafting should be equal to the rest of the game due to the simple fact, there are gamers who like to craft more than bashing mindless mobs.
Vanguard and SWG knew how to make crafting a true class for itself not like latter MMOs like TOR, RIFT who basicly put in crafting just beacuse other games has it, and they werent that thought out either.
entitlement issues? please. every damn game made today is marketed at the " casual gamer " If you can have games made for you, why cant we get games made for us.
I think that it's important to remember that to most of the world outside our little hobby, *any* MMO is considered an absolutely insane commitment of time and energy.
Comments
I agree. The tricky part is balancing it in such a way that players do not perceive a path they don't enjoy as "better" than the road they would prefer to take.
This is much, much easier in sandbox style games where you start knowing that everyone is going to carve out their own endgame instead of all chasing the same bosses at the end.
Open-skill systems like UO do very well at this - a crafter character is a complete game in itself, but at the price of not being useful in the high-end fights where the high-end artifact drops happen.
In a progression-based game, I would suggest developers treating "no crafting" as a crafting skill in itself - providing a slightly improved range of loot drops for people who forgo crafting (similar to how each crafting skill is usually balanced to provide a buff that's roughly equivilent to every other crafting skill).
^ THIS ^
Bottom line is if your the type of person that doesent feel they should spend any more time at the crafting tables then you do learning how to beat that 20-40 man raid boss then your NOT a crafter.
If your the type of person that doesent feel that you need to spend anymore time at the crafting tables then you do say, organizing a group of your piers to partake in open world PVP or farm BGs/WFs for faction then your NOT a crafter.
Now this is fine. Its ok to NOT be ca crafter. Some of us arent raiders or PVPers ( Just fyi, i do it all ) But stop trying to dumb down a system just to make it easy for you to do so you can get back to your instance and or PVP. Leave crafting to us crafters.
I dont like easy games. I dont feel its right to be able to max lvl a toon in 1-2 weeks ( unless you just stay up and play the game for 15 hours a day then w/e do you) in whatever aspect of the game you choose to play. Eather being Advent/PVP/Crafting/Dip or anything they add to games. It should take time and effort. thats whats goin to keep people playing these games for years, not mouths.
For me crafting is integral to m enjoyment of a game. If the crafting system is poorly designed i will not play the game.
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Crafting should be as core and important to an MMORPG's gameplay as Combat. It can be done, and it has been done before. But if you are Loot Based in gaming, it is absolutely impossible to do that. And Loot Based gaming I have seen will have the absolute worst joke of a Crafting and Game Economy in place.
The best I have seen was Pre-NGE SWG. Firstly, what made everything possible was that practically everything decayed after so much use and wear and tear. Decayed to being broken for good.
Next, SWG had the deepest, most varied Crafting System I have ever seen. Crafted like-items can have different stats from another. What I meant was that a Laser Carbine could be crafted with high damage, decent accuracy, but it would cause lots of points to use. Or, the crafter, with the customer's request, could try to make that same Laser Carbine with moderate damage and accuracy, but low points cost to use. Those are very general descriptions, but it greatly depended on the crafter's knowledge of the game, resources, resource quality, and quality of crafting tools used.
There was actually many players who played solely because of the Crafting and Merchant aspect of SWG and never cared for combat at all. Everyone had their favorite crafters that they'd return to, because they offered quality items at fair prices. But one was always on the lookout for a better place to do business. Because of this, crafters were very, very competitive to get you to do business with them. In the old days of SWG, I still can remember my favorite Weaponsmith, a guy by the name of "Az" on the Ahazi server. It's been about 6 years since I played SWG and I can still remember that Weaponsmith's name, who was widely considered one of the best on the server. Can your MMORPG say that about it's playerbase and game economy / crafting system?
SWG's original, non-NGE system was perfect, IMO. It struck a great balance. Crafted items were central and core to every player and eventually broke for good. A deep crafting system was in place that offered tremendous possibilities and variety for those that love to dive deep into it. And if you wished to have nothing to do with crafting but just wanted goods, items were easily within reach with a bit of shopping. And they were available in fair prices.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
I have no problem with a game being made for the hardcore players, the problem is you NEED the casuals in order to keep a game running. Sorry, but there are just not enough hardcore players interested in one type of game to keep it profitable for a company. So you whine and complain about the casuals ruining your game, but without them you don't have a game (i.e.- SWG or even Perpetuum). Complain all you want about the casuals, but when your game goes under because it isn't making money OR is boring because no one plays it, just blame yourselves.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
Loot is an absolute must in MMOs. It satisfies the treasure hunter in a lot of players. My only problem with loot is that the loot you receive doesn't make sense in 90% of games.
Kill a wolf, get an enchanted breastplate twice the wolf's size. This is just ridiculous.
Getting that breastplate off of a monster that actually wears armor is another story. Maybe if the wolf's pelt was exceptionally tough and you could craft some very nice leather gear from it things would be different.
Aside from WoW and EVE, untill a Dev figures out how to intergrate crafting well, I beleive their won't be long lasting, well polulated mmo. So yes, I beleive crafting must be a major part of crafting. The problem is that most dev that following this line of thinking beleive it also goes hand in hand with PvP. While I agree with a bit of this,there is yet to be a game that has balance a pvp system. MO and DF are examples if this. Both have ok crafting yet are failing because of the PvP factor (+/- some playing/gaming issues). That being said, even these doesn't come close to crafting in game like Wurm Online, etc. I haven't played WoW in a while but something simple Blizzard could do to change drop to mats.
I played Fallen Earth nearly 100% because of the crafting. Its likely I will not play an MMO that doesnt have intresting crafting. The thing is about MMO's is that computer technology basically allows us to 'virtualize' ANYTHING in real life and in our own imagination. The possibilities of what can be done is crazy mega huge...and yet all we want to do is kill another 100 golbins...
really?
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
I like Fallen Earth as well. I just wish it was more indepth on the crafting aspect. Meaning: more than just have mats and trainings. If they would have added the Vangaurd features with what they currently have, it would rock even further.
They also need to make crafting combos possible as well as doing something about better building. Making a tent is as smart as I am.
to be popular, you need to combine both types of crafting, casual crafting for those not very interested, but with a selection of high grade items which can only be crafted by the devoted.
However, those not interested in crafting will usually gear up by running raids etc
here lies the problem, for a crafter to be interested in persuing his skills, he must be able to sell his gear. If his gear is equivalent to farmed gear from raids etc it makes content skippable. So the gear then becomes worth a ridiculous amount of money in game, making gold farmer problems.. or the gear is obsolete.
So, in the case of a a theme park game, you cannot have high quality gear made by players without introducing a world of problems.
Hi quality crafted goods, imho, can only work in games were gear is destroyable, making a dynamic market, and a constant demand for goods.
Either that, or the gear needs to be bound to the player, and that in turn makes crafting more of a diversion.
In a game were gear level determines effects the ability to "complete" content, you cannot really be bale to make it all.
Eve works, i can make a hi tier equipment, i may not be able to use it... will it let me pass content by? no... anyone in his ship has the potential to rip it from my dying hands...if he doesnt, him and a handful of friends certainly can..
Man, hardcore players have such entitlement issues. they make up such a small portion of the market but want entire games to themselves.
And the only person here who sounds angry is you, the "hardcore". If you think "casual" players ruin games, thats fine and dandy, but please don't try to make it sound like fact.
If you don't like casual games, don't play them, go play EVE.
Everything creates huge amounts of negativity on the internet, that's what the internet is for: Negativity, porn and lolcats.
'group crafting' (crafting that requires multiple people and multiple skills to reaslisticaly complete) would be nice to. It would be awesome to be able to build an RV park
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Please do not respond to me
This is going to vary depending on who you ask, but as far as I'm concerned, crafting must be an integral part of the experience. I cut my teeth on SWG's crafting system, and as such I guess I'm somewhat spoiled. I've never found its equal, or anything that could even rival it. One of the reasons that SWG's crafting system was so amazing (at least amongst us crafters) was that it also carried with it the necessity of character interdependencies. Crafting profession A, needing materials that only crafting profession B could produce, and so on. Because of this, the game felt alive and as a consequence you made friends and the community grew and matured because of it. I really miss this.
All in all, if the developers of the game wish it to be a sandbox, then a robust, meaningful, in-depth, and nuanced crafting system must be a requirement of such a game. It's fine to allow players to acquire gear from drops, but in such a game, the best gear should only ever come from crafters.
In a themepark, crafting should never get in the way of the story, as those who play themeparks are only interested in the gear and the story. Forcing them to do otherwise, just makes them irritated. Honestly, I don't understand why crafting exists within themeparks in the first place. More often than not, it does just get in the way.
entitlement issues? please. every damn game made today is marketed at the " casual gamer " If you can have games made for you, why cant we get games made for us.
Now before you go off saying something stupid like you have eve to play or something to that effect... damn you already said that. my bad. Yes we would like a well funded AAA game made for us. only problem is that investors are only looking at the WOW model to make there bucks.
So untill a developer makes a deasent sandbox or sandpark or w/e the hell you want to call games today. untill someone makes some cash off of this type of game, we the "hardcores" are fucked. entitlement issues lol. take a look in the mirror and tell me whos the entitled ones are again.
I would have to agree with you here. In theamparks, crafting shouldent even be added. There some of the worst examples of crafting iv ever seen. WOW/RIFT/LotRO/WAR just to name a few. God awful crafting systems.
I heard that minecraft had a wonderfull crafting system though i never played it. I hear SWG befor it got dumbed down had an awesome crafting system. There was another game i heard about that had a very good crafting system. sorry i cant remember what it was called. believe it started with an A and got changed to another name at some point?
I did however play VG and i thought it had a great crafting system. But todays theamparks just dont give a shit about crafting. Rifts crafting at lauch was an after thought. only after mouths of bitching they added crafting rifts. Big whoop. more farming for mats and the dreaded "plaque" BTW i HATE the idea of a "plaque" system. just putting that out there
All in all, theamparks have some of the WORST crafting systems of all.
Crafting in EVE works for many reasons, and is very different to the usual "themepark" crafting.
Here's a short overview for those that have never played EVE:
Crafted goods are not directly linked to player progression. High level players don't automatically fly carriers or dreadnoughts, equipment use is totally dependant on the situation.
Crafting skills can be learned by anyone. No need to make 10,000 grind items before your crafting becomes "useful", every single thing you make is just as good as anyone else can make. Your skills affect only the cost and speed of production, not the quality.
Crafting skills are learned over a set time. Crafting actual items has no influence on this learning proces. You can max your crafting skills without crafting a single item !
What you can craft is almost entirely dependant on which blueprints (mostly sold by NPC's) you can afford to buy. Only higher level items might require a specific level in a certain skill.
A battleship (or any other item) made by a 1-day old crafter is exactly the same as one made by a "max-level" crafter, it's just slightly more expensive to produce.
Huge amounts of equipment are destroyed daily, hence high demand for replacement goods.
The world is very large, with no instant travel, so regional markets thrive.
Players in EVE often buy locally, because flying a 15-minute roundtrip just to save 10% on the price is not worth it.
There's no single game-wide auction house. You can only see what's for sale in the region you're in. You have to fetch the item yourself from wherever it is for sale, no matter how far away.
A serious crafter in EVE buys most (if not all) of his resources from other players (miners, mission runners, etc.) that specialise in gathering resources. High volume production of larger items simply needs far more resources than 1 or even 2 players can generate.
Dude, calm down. You're getting way too riled up over nothing. I'm in the "hardcore" crowd, I spend tons of time online having tons of fun. I'm not attacking you, just pointing out the obvious hypocracy of your statments.
The red part sums it up really. Hardcores aren't putting in the money in the same way casuals don't put in the time. Yet somehow you think casuals have the entitlement problem when you expect people to make games aimed at your demographic. If you can't see the obvious logical fallacy there then I don't know what to do.
You have to remember these are games, intended to be "fun". If you think people don't deserve to have fun because they are too casual and don't put in enough time, I think you have your priorities a bit skewed. Content = fun. Withholding content from people is kinda antiproductive when the entire point of a video game is for someone to have fun.
You want hardcore games, but you scoff at EVE? If you just want a challenge, leave the MMO genre and move to those crazy sidescrolling shooters where there are like 1k+ bullets on screen. If you just want a grind move to a korean MMO. But whining that "casuals" feel that the games aimed at them should cater to them is just plain silly.
Everything creates huge amounts of negativity on the internet, that's what the internet is for: Negativity, porn and lolcats.
Any MMORPG should have an integral well thought out crafting system. Please note I said integral which is different from required.
This would mean that crafted items are the best in the game, but not so much better that they would make it so you absolutely had to have crafted gear to compete, but enough better that the elitist PvPers would "think" they needed it to be the "Best"
IF you're going to put crafting into a game, it should be a deep, complex and integral for the players who choose to craft as the other game systems are (pve, pvp) for the players who enjoy those game systems, otherwise its just a waste of time and resources.
Loot is NOT an absolute must in MMORPG gaming. Maybe it seems like that today with practically all titles now, but it was not always so. Today's titles are all about Raids (Hamster Wheels), Kewl Lootz, and Uberawesome Rewardz. Nothing else.
In SWG's original system, loot was there but not in the way you're probably thinking. Loot came in 5 varieties in the game.
a. Total trash.
b. Useless, but looks real cool for some as a trophy to put up in their homes.
c. Equivalent items to what crafters can make, but usually not in the same quality as what crafters do. For a beginning player, it could be a godsend.
d. Crafting components: They can be given / traded with a crafter to greatly affect the result of a crafted item. There are some that are really rare to boost up a crafted items stats.
e. Extremely, extremely rare, top of the line, loot items. Sometimes a player by pure, blind, and alot of luck, will loot a powerful piece of gear.
Regardless of whatever gear you found, practically *everything* decayed and eventually broke for good after enough heavy usage. What this did was it regulated the use of those rare, powerful items out there (esp. PvP), and it ensured a very healthy cycle between player consumers and crafters / merchants. The player crafters / merchants in old school SWG were very, very competitive for repeat business and to provide goods and services to ideally garner your loyalty as a buyer.
I have yet to see anything close to these dynamics between crafters and non-crafters in any MMORPG since SWG was irreversibly altered in '05 when I left. The system in place worked beautifully.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
who the hell is whining? im stating facts. and i never scoffed at eve. i do however dont wanna just play eve for the next 30 years because game cos dont want to produce games that i want to play. And you got it right. People play games for fun. So if crafting isent fun for people then they dont need to craft.
By making crafting easy and meaningless they have made crafting Unfun. so wheres my fun? why cant i have some fun. The same fun i want doesent mean its someone elses fun. so there NEEDS to be games made for different people. give hardcore gamers games to play and let those console wannabe MMOers there pieces of shit to play.
If casuals get the games they want to play then we should get some aswell by your defenition. I dont understand why you have a problem with this.
This is all reasonable what is being said here.
Gamers tend to have tunnel vision. Its
1. well there is eve you could always play that...forever
2. everyone should game like me and all games should be made for my tastes.
no, games should be like books or movies, something for everyone.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
crafting should be equal to the rest of the game due to the simple fact, there are gamers who like to craft more than bashing mindless mobs.
Vanguard and SWG knew how to make crafting a true class for itself not like latter MMOs like TOR, RIFT who basicly put in crafting just beacuse other games has it, and they werent that thought out either.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
I think that it's important to remember that to most of the world outside our little hobby, *any* MMO is considered an absolutely insane commitment of time and energy.