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Am I the only one who's bored with the "add materials and click next" style of crafting?
Crafting should be more "hands on" - requiring a crafter to be more interactive. Good crafters should be recognized by their skill vs their level.
Here's an old clip of a PC game called Life & Death (1988): https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=RSZ2_MEmYow#t=23
Even this old game was able to create a hands-on approach to surgery. I had this game as a child. However, I was borderline stupid, so all my patients died ;/
Try to imagine the game I linked as a type of forge, where positioning, heat monitoring, sanding, grinding, tempering, oil use, etc all impact on how sharp, light, and durable a sword can be.
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FFXIV. There are entire classes for leveling, not just a tradeskill bar, complete with class-specific tools, gear with stats, and skills. And a crafting system that not just rewards but requires risk vs reward.
That would actually be pretty amazing. My favorite crafting mini-game was always Vanguard which had a lot of ways of tweaking the end product, but that more interactive first person perspective during the operation would improve my immersion levels by an order of magnitude.
Love that game! Would be pretty cool to have tuned mini-games similiar to the one in the video to skill up your crafting in an mmorpg.
I do wish that there was a dev that put as much thought into crafting as they did with combat... Even half as much.
Right now with combat you can have people justifiably argue the best way to do something with combat, but that's rarely the case with crafting. The exceptions are like EvE and maybe Ryzom. Other crafting games care more about survival rather than the actual crafting actions.
If you go with non-MMO's Space Engineers is pretty epic.
If you're willing to go with "not game" second life can be interesting if you have programming/art/design skills.
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."
Have you ever played A Tale In The Desert? It does in fact have some crafting actions that are skill-based, in particular blacksmithing. This is my favorite kind of crafting too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V6uCF3Epc4
You're making it sound like the player base was small because of the crafting type, which IMO is not true at all. The lack of combat in the game is probably the main thing that makes it unappealing to most MMO players.
I agree. It's one of the reasons I despise crafting.
It's a tedious collection of virtual bits all so I can click "create".
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
Thats the thing about crafting, especially of this nature, in an MMO. Its there so people who actually like that gameplay, can focus on it and have enough depth to keep them happy, while others can focus on adventuring or whatever other form of play they like the most. Ideally in a true sim world, people want to play the game for completely different reasons. Some just aspire to be humble shopkeepers mending armor and making horseshoes, while others are slaying notorious villains or giant monsters, and others might be creating a city or running for mayor. The way games are now its nothing but shallow gameplay in every direction so everyone can be a self sufficient master of the universe.
I self identify as a monkey.
Are you saying that A Tale in the Desert failed because it had active crafting?
No one said it failed. It was built for an audience of 500-1000, garnered several thousands and retained a good portion of that. What Quizzical stated was that a game offered what you were asking for and that type of game seems to have a very niche audience. Very few developers find those numbers viable/profitable for a persistent world game.
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
I didn't say it failed. Whether a game succeeds or fails depends as much on the budget to create it as on how much revenue it brings in. A game that costs $1 million to create and brings in $10 million is a massive success, while one that costs $100 million to make and only gets that same $10 million in revenue is a disastrous failure. And ATITD was made on a shoestring budget.
But I am saying that it's not a huge audience for such a game. ATITD subscription numbers don't inspire copycats the way that WoW subscription numbers do. But if you want more active crafting, you really should try ATITD to see what you think of it.
Not one person it seems mentioned Repopulation...
Hands down only good crafting system left of late in the mmorpg games available. Thank god some people had the insight to how important degradation and quality of materials and randomness of chance and skill plays in crafting again.
People should get behind such developers with these build types as people keep asking for them but then ignore the support, otherwise welcome to your next game of put one item into the slot and click create. For of course a totally useless item.
Hahah thank you for reminding me about that old game. I actually played it around 92 I think.
I like your idea too. I would like to see something like this in only certain types of MMO's. Some are meant to be fast action types. I would personally love this in games that provide an actual virtual world you RP in though.
So... to be clear... you're saying you want an actual hands on crafting system... like what you would find on a Nintendo DS, but in an MMO?
... I never thought of that. That would bring a VERY large and new dynamic to mmo's.
Player: Where did you that sword?
Player2: From SoAndSo
Player: Ah, his swords are good, but his daggers are complete crap.
Player2: So i've heard.
Not that this would be hard to do.... but man it's a lot to think about.
In my game, i have it setup so that you can create your own recipes and blueprints. And the crafting is on a grid style crafting system.
You know...... if crafting and a controller where paired, I could pull off what you want. Thumb flicks for hammering on a sword, heat, pressure, cooling down the metal... This sounds pretty cool!
The Legend of Kilgore - http://www.thelegendofkilgore.com
Basically it type of crafting where crafting mini game decide how good the results ?
It nice , only if my ping wasn't too high.
But say , if the crafting depend on skill of player , how developer reward the PVE player ?
What called crafting in most of games are task to collect materials through PVE to get the reward.
This reminds me of a situation that occurred when I played A Tale in the Desert. At the time there was only one really good active blacksmith on the server. Having a high quality hatchet saved you a ton of time but hatchets were very hard to make properly so everyone went to the that one player to get their hatchets. The guy was clearly fed up with making hatchets all the time even if people were offering a lot in trade. I think he quit the game a few times just so people stopped bugging him about making hatchets.
You have to be careful that you do not make a 'necessity' item too hard to obtain by requiring player skills that only a few posses.
Hand on crafting reminds me of Vanguards crafting system. And yes... it was considered tedious by many.. only because the repetitiveness necessary to level could get to you if you did it all day. It was a pretty unique system though, requiring you to utilize the right tools at the right time and it wasn't "easy" to craft REALLY good items.
The tediousness is what drove me away from the crafting portion though. I'm more of an adventurer than a sole crafter.
This was actually old school SWG. I remember flying to certain planets and visiting certain specific shops because their ship parts were the best you could possibly find. the actual crafting itself didn't take as much skill.. just.. more time, but you did create a lot of "special" items
People who are saying that a good crafting system is risky and the majority of 'players' don't like it are just wrong,the reason being,the people who don't like crafting don't even do it in the crappy excuse for a MMORPG we have now.
So why not make a better system than gather mats and click create? The answer is there are too many suckers that buy every piece of shit that's made so they have no need to.
That's exactly what I'm saying. I don't mind having the typical "click-drag materials and hit next" for the little things, but armor, swords, bows, blasters, etc... I'd like it to be hands on.