(there's a failure chance right?) isn't that bad with the luck thing and all...
Nah, it didn't make much difference if you lost the materials for a few items during experimentation if it meant that you could produce hundreds of perfect items in a factory once the experimentation finally succeeded. The only notable exception were the very few "unique" luxury items; I recall making a luxury speeder with components worth 3 million credits, and praying on my knees that it wouldn't fail... but I recall someone saying stuff like that couldn't fail anyway, you always succeeded, well or even better. So even then it was just a question of kicking huge portions vs. epic portions of ass with the final item.
time driven crafting ( like how eve has time learning skills ).
I don't like that idea because then it's not a question of effort, it's just a question of sitting on your arse and waiting, and you get to be the best without any real effort whatsoever. All you need to do is start training those skills before anybody else and nobody will ever catch up, eventhough you never lifted a finger to earn any of your guaranteed success. Also, when it's a complex system based on effort, it's possible to play it smart; networking, innovative combinations, making the most out of what you have, finding special business niches, it all allowed a smart crafter to advance faster and get better results than someone less talented in that sort of thing. This was a crucial aspect of the system IMO; if anyone could do equally well regardless of ability, I would not bother with it at all. I guess that also means that the more complex the system, the better it is, because it's harder to understand and therefore find the most efficient ways of doing things. And the SWG system was most certainly rather complex.
even if 2 or more crafters are able to craft the same exact or very similar items, they both can still sell their items, because no one guy is able to mass produce any one item.
Nah it wasn't a problem, those who couldn't make the best quality stuff yet would make a buck just by selling their stuff cheaper or by finding niches. For example, doctors would make these things called "buff packs", which would give people pretty insane boosts to nearly all stats for several hours. Someone who couldn't make the top quality stuff yet could, for example, figure out that PvP players weren't going to survive two hours straight anyway (buffs were lost when you died), and adjust the stats to sacrifice duration in favor of higher stats, and then sell these packs at discount to PvP players. The system was also self-adjusting; when there were lots of crafters, combat professions were able to make a buck by selling organic materials (which they harvested from dead animals) and special components to crafters, and by running their own harvesters at good deposits since it took almost zero effort. And when there wasn't enough crafters, it usually didn't take much time for someone to realise that there was a shitload of money waiting for him, so he would try to meet the demand. Free market economy at its best.
Often it was also a question of marketing, there was a central bazaar at each main city but there were price limits and other limitations, so most people just plopped some NPC vendors in their houses and let them do the selling for them. So even if they had the best stuff around, most people probably didn't know about it, and they had a steady customer base anyway who knew their stuff kicked ass so they didn't bother to market so much anymore. Their raw materials were limited anyway. One could actually make nice profits just by flying around and buying cheap stuff from private player vendors which could then be sold at huge profits at the bazaar. That was just another innovative service niche; people who made the best stuff sold more, people who didn't know where to look had access to better quality items than they otherwise would have, and the courier made a profit for his services too. Everybody wins.
Daoc : Great class system, Bestest PvP/RvR out there, nothing is more fun then haveing 8vs8 grp fights, captureing relics, castles and gaining realm ranks that would improve your charachter by a mile
SWG : Great Sandbox game, best Crafting ever done in a MMORPG. Very good Roleplaying if you were into that sort, Most social game ive ever played
WoW : great artwork, Newb friendly, easy to play casual
RO: communiy, cute chars =] L2: Big, beautiful world, sieges, Cool looking chars/armours etc. WoW: Number of quests GW: gorgeous design/graphics/chars/artwork, battles, no lag and downtime and it's one of the few which has storylines =]
WOW: accesibility; excellent accomodation of different playstyles; modifiable to a large degree; high fun factor and social factor; pretty much bug-free. Easily the most polished offering out there, despite its weaknesses and many critics. Doesn't appeal to the more hardcore gamer.
EQ2: harder core oriented game; in-depth crafting system; ubiquitous voice-overs; next-gen graphics. Was a nice attempt, but a misfire because of its release around the same time as WoW (which crushed it in retail really) and its significant system requirements, which kept many EQ fans away from the game.
DDO: 100% instanced content; very good graphics; limited to one city and its hinterlands; not solo friendly. Really a mishmash of a game ... not generally liked by D&D fans, and not like other MMOs in providing a virtual world. Dungeons are very well done, but the game feels ... incomplete due to the lack of a world beyond the city of Stormreach.
CoH/CoV: action-oriented gameplay; more focused gameplay, fewer sidebars than other games. More appealing to the action-oriented gamer.
Lineage II: grindfest; sexy Asian anime graphics; open-world PvP. Appeals to more hardcore gamers, people who don't mind taking months on end to level. Relatively few subscribers in the West. The graphics are among the prettiest, and are provided at incredibly low system requirements.
GW: free online play; very sharp graphics; highly customisable character builds; fun arena style PvP. All around a very fun game, but not really an MMO, in my view.
EVE: sandbox game; awesome PvP (combat, but also economic, territorial, political, etc.); steep learning curve; hard on newbies. EVE is a hardcore game suitable for hardcore gamers who want to play in a sandbox. CCP is a very dedicated team, and the fanbase is fairly rabid in support of the game. I played EVE on and off for over two years before tiring of it, and no other MMO has come close to that record.
All you need to do is start training those skills before anybody else and nobody will ever catch up, eventhough you never lifted a finger to earn any of your guaranteed success. Also, when it's a complex system based on effort, it's possible to play it smart; networking, innovative combinations, making the most out of what you have, finding special business niches, it all allowed a smart crafter to advance faster and get better results than someone less talented in that sort of thing. This was a crucial aspect of the system IMO; if anyone could do equally well regardless of ability, I would not bother with it at all.
Okay I see some of your points...
When I say time driven crafting, I don't really mean click a skill to train and wait... I mean craft something and wait... Maybe crafting common/average items takes only a few hours or less, while crafting powerful items takes a a day or few days to craft. While in SWG you're able to craft 10s or 100s of items at once. Also, I mean there would be a limit to how far you could advance your crafting skills though, isn't it the same for SWG? You really like the fact that someone can exploit the fact that no other crafter is around so he can sell alot huh? ( I'll keep that in mind, but I think my idea still works for that too, except the crafter can't craft a bunch at once )...
When you say smart crafter, what I understand by "innovative combinations" is experimenting right? (I didn't mean to not have this in my idea) What do you mean by "networking"? When you say "advance faster", do you just mean he's crafting more items so he advances faster or are you saying the crafter that finds better combinations somehow advances faster?
While in SWG you're able to craft 10s or 100s of items at once.
Umm, no, the factory churns out one item at a time and it takes a certain amount of time to do it, so if you were to run hundreds of items, it would take a few days real time... you could of course run several factories in parallel, but then you would have less slots left for running harvesters etc. The same was also true of the harvesters, they extracted the resources at a steady rate, units per hour, depending on the quality of the harvester. So it was quite time based enough IMO.
Also, I mean there would be a limit to how far you could advance your crafting skills though, isn't it the same for SWG?
Sure, it's true of every game out there... not like it was possible to design a limitless system.
You really like the fact that someone can exploit the fact that no other crafter is around so he can sell alot huh?
Of course; it's called "capitalism". Smart people with an eye for business and good products succeed, others fail. Although in a game you can't actually fail, you just do a bit less well. The reason I like it is because it automatically cuts out innefficiency and waste, and pours most resources to those who can put them to best use for everyone. Real world economies are about as remote from true capitalism as they can get (despite fervently claiming to be forms of capitalism), so it's really refreshing to be able to simulate it in a virtual universe. I wouldn't use the term "exploit" though, expect maybe in the sense that I do very much enjoy exploiting my own mental capacity to its fullest.
what I understand by "innovative combinations" is experimenting right?
Yeah, well, it goes back to that niche thinking again... you could adjust the different attributes so that your items were better for specific purposes, which is where the business sense comes in; it took some eye for business to identify the need before others did, but the point is that if there wasn't any special reward in it, many needs might go totally unmet, with NO crafter making that item at all. Fun eh?
What do you mean by "networking"?
Social connections... like, the more friends you have, the faster you hear about new super high quality resource zones, and friends often have materials they don't need which you could buy, and so on...
When you say "advance faster", do you just mean he's crafting more items so he advances faster or are you saying the crafter that finds better combinations somehow advances faster?
I mean it as in "able to create higher quality items consistently". Raw materials, harvesters, factories and so on cost loads of cash, especially those of the highest quality, so in order to expand your business you needed a large amount of cash, large reserves of high quality raw materials and very high quality tools.
Comments
SWG : Great Sandbox game, best Crafting ever done in a MMORPG. Very good Roleplaying if you were into that sort, Most social game ive ever played
WoW : great artwork, Newb friendly, easy to play casual
L2: Big, beautiful world, sieges, Cool looking chars/armours etc.
WoW: Number of quests
GW: gorgeous design/graphics/chars/artwork, battles, no lag and downtime and it's one of the few which has storylines =]
WOW: accesibility; excellent accomodation of different playstyles; modifiable to a large degree; high fun factor and social factor; pretty much bug-free. Easily the most polished offering out there, despite its weaknesses and many critics. Doesn't appeal to the more hardcore gamer.
EQ2: harder core oriented game; in-depth crafting system; ubiquitous voice-overs; next-gen graphics. Was a nice attempt, but a misfire because of its release around the same time as WoW (which crushed it in retail really) and its significant system requirements, which kept many EQ fans away from the game.
DDO: 100% instanced content; very good graphics; limited to one city and its hinterlands; not solo friendly. Really a mishmash of a game ... not generally liked by D&D fans, and not like other MMOs in providing a virtual world. Dungeons are very well done, but the game feels ... incomplete due to the lack of a world beyond the city of Stormreach.
CoH/CoV: action-oriented gameplay; more focused gameplay, fewer sidebars than other games. More appealing to the action-oriented gamer.
Lineage II: grindfest; sexy Asian anime graphics; open-world PvP. Appeals to more hardcore gamers, people who don't mind taking months on end to level. Relatively few subscribers in the West. The graphics are among the prettiest, and are provided at incredibly low system requirements.
GW: free online play; very sharp graphics; highly customisable character builds; fun arena style PvP. All around a very fun game, but not really an MMO, in my view.
EVE: sandbox game; awesome PvP (combat, but also economic, territorial, political, etc.); steep learning curve; hard on newbies. EVE is a hardcore game suitable for hardcore gamers who want to play in a sandbox. CCP is a very dedicated team, and the fanbase is fairly rabid in support of the game. I played EVE on and off for over two years before tiring of it, and no other MMO has come close to that record.
Okay I see some of your points...
When I say time driven crafting, I don't really mean click a skill to train and wait... I mean craft something and wait... Maybe crafting common/average items takes only a few hours or less, while crafting powerful items takes a a day or few days to craft. While in SWG you're able to craft 10s or 100s of items at once. Also, I mean there would be a limit to how far you could advance your crafting skills though, isn't it the same for SWG? You really like the fact that someone can exploit the fact that no other crafter is around so he can sell alot huh? ( I'll keep that in mind, but I think my idea still works for that too, except the crafter can't craft a bunch at once )...
When you say smart crafter, what I understand by "innovative combinations" is experimenting right? (I didn't mean to not have this in my idea) What do you mean by "networking"? When you say "advance faster", do you just mean he's crafting more items so he advances faster or are you saying the crafter that finds better combinations somehow advances faster?