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Crafting - How important to a game should it be?
Amathe
Member LegendaryPosts: 7,630
I have played mmos where crafting was something fun to do, and you could make or have others make some nice things. But you would never absolutely need it. In those games I did some crafting of my own.
In other games being a high level crafter was serious business and took enormous time and resources to master. In original EQ, for example, having a relationship with someone who could make high level items was a big deal. I remember being introduced by a friend to one of my server's best crafters so she could make me an item, and it was like meeting a movie star lol.
In original SWG, being a crafter was actually a class. It's what you did (although you could have a second class also). If you were the best at making armor or weapons, everyone on the server knew your name.
Then there are games like DAoC (which I have not played), where I am told you needed crafters all the time because of item decay. I wish I could say more about this because I feel it bears mention, but people who actually played DAoC can maybe help me out.
I have seen some pretty serious debates about the role of crafting in a game. There is a school of thought that the best items should be crafted ones, whereas other people think the best items should come from raids or PvP. A lot of games try to bridge this gap by having the best items be crafted from materials that drop from raid bosses.
There are also issues of whether to allow an item or its equivalent to "drop" when it is something a crafter makes.
What do you think? Does a game suffer when crafters aren't able to distinguish themselves in their craft or play a meaningful role? Or does a game suffer when one players' hobby becomes another players' obligation to help support?
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Comments
Crafting? What is that.
Seriously i've never bothered with any crafting aspect in any mmo, it is always so tedious and time consuming. So it gets a 0/10 on my importance scale :P
I dont really need crafting in a game, but if its nicely done I do use it.
For example I do like crafting in SWG and Fallen Earth. Both for different reasons. SWG because of the crafting system and the way you gather resources and also that resources have different stats. Fallen Earth because everything you craft is actually usefull for yourself and you can learn any tradeskill. Which totally fits in a post apocalyptic setting where you have to learn how to survive.
Other nice crafting systems were in Ryzom, Anarchy Online and Vanguard.
In other games I got bored with it quite fast because it wasnt thought out well or even completely meaningless.
Pretty important to me...
I may, or may not do it at all, but the more depth you can add to the game, the better the chance i will play it.
i played daoc for over 4 years and i was a legendary crafter in all possible fields. can u say i was hopelessly addicted to the game. crafting in daoc is very important not only for the usual decay of armour and weapons but all the good(uber hehe) players needed player crafted armour to make there uber templates for the main characters and all there alts. needless to say i was a very "popular" guildmate since i was constantly asked to make templates and the necessary items to fill out that max template.
imho crafting should always be a vital part of the mmo experience. but i will be the first to say that crafting in most games(including daoc as i knew it ) is absolutely boring to say the least. a mmo game that makes crafting as fun as leveling up a dps or magic class will definitely "hook " me again.
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if urgent do it yourself
if you have time-delegate it
if you have forever-form a committee
I didn't craft in DAoC, but I did patronize crafters. I'd put in my order, and then they would tell me when it was ready, and I'd meet them and pay for my purchase.
So I don't mind having crafting in the game, item decay is fine, and if it's done rigth everyone benefits. The crafters have something to do that they enjoy, and the people that don't like crafting dont' have to do it.
It is important to me in a game because it helps build friends in the game. In SWG i was the guy that went out and got materials from boss and other mobs that the crafters need in my guild plus i was also a doctor in the game and so our head doctor in the guild use to give me packs of buffs to sell buff people at the star ports since all the guild hunters would give the crafters all there materials for free in exchange for free armor and weapons and buffs.
This help build long friendships inside the guild and outside as people knew our guild as the place to go get cheat gear
I think it depends on the game. My personal opinion is that crafting should be important. Crafting classes and skills should be on par with combat classes and skills.
My sig is just as logical as your posts are
I think crafting should be... an option in an MMO...
I think it can be an advantage, but shouldn't be TOO much of a job, or take up that much time. Granted, it should still require effort.
It should be a personal skill in my opinion. To use for yourself, and if you so choose to try and sell some of the things you make. It shouldn't be a main skill... just my opinion though... I know there are people who like to play games and literally just craft. Mastering all the crafting skills and profiteering...
- Ross
It depends what a game is trying to achieve.
If its primarily action / loot based, obviously crafting is not going to be an important aspect.
IMHO all these games that tried to do both at the same time have failed. Either a game is crafting based or loot based. You can't do both and not disrupt the balance for the crafter. (unless the loot is junk or components) The second you add the loot Uber sword, it disrupts and can negate a crafters place in the game world.
This has played out in so many MMO's it's sad.
Another weakness of crafting in MMO's is it is f*cking mind numbing, stupid repetitious and boring to do. Generally speaking it is a task best suited for people without a pulse.
I was also one of those that LGM all the crafts in DAoC and loved every second of it.
First gotta explain about the decay, in DAoC the armor and weapons do wear down from over use (or getting hit a lot in the case of armor and shields) therefore you needed a crafter to repair it, armor crafter for armor, fletcher for bows and staves, etc. The more you repaired an item, the more it's durability would go down (logically), when it reached 0% it would stop affecting the player, you could wear it, but it would give you no bonuses and no stats (except resists, we did find that bug with the SI expansion necklace from the repeatable quest!).
So of course you could see how crafters were not only useful but in demand, besides the fact that at LGM you only have a 2% chance to make a critical craft (100% quality) so it was hard to get the "uber" armor, at some point that perfect equipment would decay and more would be needed to be crafted.
Now don't think that it was 100% crafter economy (except alts), at the higher levels you needed to mix match between crafted equipment, PvE raid equipment and yes even PvP bounty point and PvP dungeon items (labyrinth). So it was completely viable to PvE and PvP with full set of PvE or PvP equipment, but get the "best" your character could be, you needed to mix and match and make a template.
Personally I liked that feature, I love crafting, but I know that many do not, so don't make it the "ultimate" equipment, but don't simplify it either (WAR and STO for newer MMO examples), but make it complement what's already in the game.
As a way to craft, I like the way EQ2/Vanguard did it that you actually had to be in front of your monitor to do it and not doing useless repetitive macros, in those two games crating was like a PvE fight, something happened during the craft and you had to use a specific skill to counter it, different problems required using different skills. For gathering I've had bad experiences with going into the world and gathering, I didn't mind getting PKed while at it, but the whole racing against 7 other gatherers for the same collection point or node, it's stressing; I like DAoC's way where you could buy everything you needed from merchants in the capital city, so crafting would be more of a money sink than a time sink (well yeah it was a time sink but not as bad as spending hours in the field to only gather a quarter of what you could have bought).
At one time to me I felt high end mobs should be the sole provider of high end "magic" items and I still feel this way to an extent. I Think that a player who is into adventure should have a proper reward for their efforts but all the while I have gotten more involved with crafting. See to me a crafter should be able to offer a steady supply of high end items and an adventure should get a prize. A prize should be a random and a crafted item more in tune with a goal in mind.
Now a goal(ed) item should have statisics that are complemnary and attached to a certain way of producing them. If we rely on a random factor for crafting it loses some of the fundementals of having a trade. Where a dropped item will always need to rely heavly on a random factor, it should have a higher top end only matched by its rarity.
See players who craft are looking for an experiance of regularity where an adventure seeker is looking for excitment. Now crafting the best posible item takes from that excitment and not coming close to top end takes away from crafting so a balancing act in needed.
If you take a % value and attach it to a moddifacation of an item we can say that a specific mod like mana leeching can get to 80% but on a random it can reach 100%. Crafting isnt about adventure. Thats what adventuring is about. Now 999 times out of 1000 a droped weapon while still managing to hit the 100% mark may not be better then an 80% crafted item. if its mods are tailored to the task. But that 1 time it will have both catagories covered and that is the adventure.
Crafting is not important to a MMO, BUT it can add a alot if done right. And it should not be done at all if its not going to be done right. The problem with crafting in many games is its just a token feature, without any serious thought behind it, and never and updates to it in the future. So, it often sucks. Take EVE where it is a central feature of the game and is treated as such. Versus Conan, where it is basically useless.
Hey buddy, i resent this comment, i have a pulse
. To me crafting is important, i am trying out SWG (still on trial account) for the crafting alone. I was also a prolific crafter in EVE.
The reason i like crafting is it takes thought to be successful. In EVE, I had to constantly think how to streamline my supply chain in order to maximize my profit, i eventually realized that shipping was more profitable than building and so i did that
. I did however, craft a new ship the Orca when it came out and i raced to get the blueprint and get my supply chain ready to build it before anyone else came in order to price gouge my alliance 
I was still 200-300 million cheaper than in Jita 
. But yeah that was fun, the fact that instead of grinding xp or doing raids and raids, i had to use my brain to figure a way to get my xp (xp in EVE = was money). That's why i like crafting and i couldn't imagine things being more fun than being a well-known crafter in a game.
It's nice to be a star in a game in a sense to have that feeling, that notoriety, that celebrity ship, i mean, isn't that why we play games to be awesome cuz it's damn near impossible in real life lol. This last paragraph is a bit facetious but crafting to me is a way to be someone in which it isn't time-based it's partly intelligence based and with my busy schedule (full-time student) it's difficult for me to pour in the time. If i had unlimited time, then i'd try to kick everyone's ass but that's way more time consuming than crafting.
Back to SWG, i can't decide if i should sub to it, population is important
.
In my opinion crafting should be a viable career choice and not a necessity and not completely useless. Viable in-game career choice and that's what i loved about EVE. You actually had career choices
.
- trader, freighter, crafter, blueprint maker, PvPer, PvE, and all the subspecialties that you could choose. Whereas in WoW you are just a raider and in lineage 2 you are just a grinder and what not. I still can't believe i got addicted to L2/RoM
.
Cryomatrix
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
how about a crafting system in game where you could only choose one crafting/gathering profession and thered be no weapon armor drops from monsters and npc would sell only beginner equipment
now thatd be interresting economy
Never been a huge fan of crafting. Only in Fallen Earth am I really trying my best to become a crafter, maybe that's because you get xp for crafting/gathering components.
I think crafting is a very important aspect of mmo that has been neglected for years. Crafting and non combat skills in general have become little more then a novelty instead of part of the mmo experience. It is something to be done only because you need 1 piece of gear that can only be crafted and is bind on acquire. Not something you do because you enjoy creating items in game or something you do to define your character. Some of my fondest memories of UO was playing my fisherman. I defined that character by his non combat skill not combat skills.
I have never understood this mentality that crafters have to be adventures or that ingredients need to be these semi-rares which cost more then the item they created. And receipts dropping off mobs wth is that?
Items destruction really needs to come back.
Crafting is "bleh" to me.
I want the good gear to come from doing quests not from doing crafting.
Crafting sucks and is boring.
Death to the crafters!
All those memories will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.
While I enjoy crafting, and want it in an MMO, I don't want it to be an impossible endeavor. The items should not be as good as raid drops, but they should be close. And most of all, I want crafting to be a minigame, like in EQ2 and Vanguard. That way it is an alternate way for me to play the game if I don't feel like slaughtering mobs atm. And I get a feeling of creative satisfaction from making my own equipment. Silly, but true.
Really?
Good for you.
And say no to crafting in your MMORPG.
All those memories will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.
Hey buddy, i resent this comment, i have a pulse
. To me crafting is important, i am trying out SWG (still on trial account) for the crafting alone. I was also a prolific crafter in EVE.
The reason i like crafting is it takes thought to be successful. In EVE, I had to constantly think how to streamline my supply chain in order to maximize my profit, i eventually realized that shipping was more profitable than building and so i did that
. I did however, craft a new ship the Orca when it came out and i raced to get the blueprint and get my supply chain ready to build it before anyone else came in order to price gouge my alliance 
I was still 200-300 million cheaper than in Jita 
. But yeah that was fun, the fact that instead of grinding xp or doing raids and raids, i had to use my brain to figure a way to get my xp (xp in EVE = was money). That's why i like crafting and i couldn't imagine things being more fun than being a well-known crafter in a game.
It's nice to be a star in a game in a sense to have that feeling, that notoriety, that celebrity ship, i mean, isn't that why we play games to be awesome cuz it's damn near impossible in real life lol. This last paragraph is a bit facetious but crafting to me is a way to be someone in which it isn't time-based it's partly intelligence based and with my busy schedule (full-time student) it's difficult for me to pour in the time. If i had unlimited time, then i'd try to kick everyone's ass but that's way more time consuming than crafting.
Back to SWG, i can't decide if i should sub to it, population is important
.
In my opinion crafting should be a viable career choice and not a necessity and not completely useless. Viable in-game career choice and that's what i loved about EVE. You actually had career choices
.
- trader, freighter, crafter, blueprint maker, PvPer, PvE, and all the subspecialties that you could choose. Whereas in WoW you are just a raider and in lineage 2 you are just a grinder and what not. I still can't believe i got addicted to L2/RoM
.
Cryomatrix
lol,
Oops, what I mean to say is that they could make it much more interesting give folks more incentive to do it. Loot is fine and all but if a game is going to have a serious craft system like EVE or SWG, they need to seriously tone down the loot and up the playability of the crafting and not make it such a chore.
No offense was intended to you cryo I was speaking in broad general terms. Vanguard had a fairly entertaining crafting system...Lord of the Rings...not so much...you get my drift.
I think crafting adds depth to any game. It gives players something else to do instead of running dungeons and doing objectives all the time. It is definitely important but not the most important.
A game can be fun without crafting, and it can be fun without combat. Just depends on whether the activities within the game are fun and amusing.
So the word "should" doesn't belong in the topic's question, because there's no one way for games to be fun. Only the most stubborn of gamers manage to latch on to one specific type of game (to the point where they can only enjoy that one particular game, or game type.) Most people are a lot more open and if a new type of fun comes out they'll try it out and enjoy it.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I look on crafting as an extremely important part of the best games. It adds depth to the variety of gear, a whole economy around materials and non-drop items and enables a whole new set of objectives outside the usual kill and explore options.
It allows a player to differentiate themselves from the masses if they put the work into it - very realistic and important for character customisation, which is my #1 requirement of any MMO. The crafting in WoW, while increasing the grind, made the game that much more fun for my Dwarf Paladin, running around throwing goblin explosives at people through his engineering.
Crafting adds important new dimensions to a game and allows it to differentiate itself from the myriad of hack-and-slash, find-and-buy games out there, both single player and MMO. If it wasn't there, I think it would be sorely missed. I'm really looking forward to the eventual incarnation of Mortal Online, which (fingers crossed), sounds like the crafting system will be immensely varied.
One word "Vanguard" best crafting system of any mmorpg to date,dare i say better than SWG.
From items to houses to guild halls to ships/galleons to paint and bricks and 1000s of other items. Crafted item are really good and really put some of the looted items to shame. Crafting is level based,you really have to level it up like you would adventuring,it takes time.
You can just be a crafter and nothing else if you want.
www.youtube.com/watch
www.youtube.com/watch
www.youtube.com/watch
It's worth just downloading the free trail to check it out.
vanguard.station.sony.com/isleofdawn/
Furious Fighters
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