Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

I could see the production queue/npc idea working, but more as a supplement to the player"s own crafting. Otherwise, the player isn"t even the crafter, and some people (like myself) want to be the ones physically making the item. I want to be the Blacksmith or the Alchemist, not hire one.

At least, not at first. I could see it being something that high level crafters are rewarded with. It would be cool to be able to set up a buyer for yourself that would act like an NPC vendor but will only buy specific mats or items. Other players could sell these items to your NPC, and you could set it to automatically process these items into manufactured goods to sell, which you simply go and retrieve. Maybe the vendor could even offer to sell items to other players EQ1 Bazaar style until you come and collect them to put them on the AH.

I dunno, I just think a lot of players would rather be the crafter themselves rather than having NPCs do everything for them.

Zehn - Vhex said:

Step 1) Player doesn"t craft shit, player hires an NPC crafter.

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I think this is fail. I hate crafting but I know there is a solid core of the MMORPG playerbase that really digs it (see e.g., Kuro & Grave"s posts). Any good crafting system should appeal them first -- I don"t think yours will.


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Bah Grave beat me too it.

Crafters want to craft, which is who you create a crafting system for. People that don"t like to or want to craft, should be able to access and enjoy the system as well.

I like crafting except at a certain point in your characters progression you seem to never do anything with it anymore. I"ve been a tailor and enchanter on my mage for 2 years and maybe click the profession buttons once a week.

Also daily profession quests are really awesome, especially if they have a very, very low chance to drop a bunch of random (some fun) items. The number of wow players who do their fishing dailies to get things like the Paris Hilton fishing pole or the pets is very high, and some people still do the Outland daily fish quests 2 years after they have been out. If every profession in wow had a set of rotating daily quests with 20+ rewards each, ulduar raiding would grind to a halt as everyone is busy just doing dailies.

Ngruk said:

Crafters want to craft, which is who you create a crafting system for. People that don"t like to or want to craft, should be able to access and enjoy the system as well.

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Crafting almost completly depends on what kind of game are you producing. Eve? Diku? Sandbox?

Diku: Keep crafting simple and easy. Clear out useless craftable items, insert usable ones. Get rid of the material grind. There are a myriad of ways of hiding the material and crafting mechanics. You can go with Zehn, James" or keep it the same minus the grind and dependencies i.e. WOW.

Eve: I think they did theirs just fine. But it"s a PVP game where material is constantly being used and lost. You may want to tinker with that notion but reduce skill dependency and time/material costs.

Are you making a sand box? Just go play ATiTD and hire that dude.

Are you making a fun, light, young-adult game? Just steal SOE"s Free Realms bejeweled gathering system.

However no one can suggest a crafting game until you tell us what kind of game you"re making and what the game systems are. But you can"t do that can you?

I personally have never found a crafting system I enjoyed to spend much time on it . It"s always been a means to an end, rather than the end itself.

Are you hiring a game developer that has worked on crafting before in a game? Is that the only pre-req?

Agreed, crafting is tied directly do the format of the game. Leveling, gear, pve, pvp, etc.

Can"t even begin discussing it without knowing what kind of base we are starting with.

I think VG had a few good ideas with their system. I liked that I did not have to grind resources or visit IGE to level my crafter.

Draegan said:

I personally have never found a crafting system I enjoyed to spend much time on it . It"s always been a means to an end, rather than the end itself.

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I definitely like the idea of alternate advancement. And end game progression that is not farming raid bosses.
Both pvp and economic(crafting and buying/selling), stand as two obvious possibilities here.

You can create some pretty good games that are economically driven. But when you have a game that is about slaying the dragon, a crafting system will always come down to making something to help you slay that dragon.

Crafting will always be secondary in a DIKU-RPG. Once you get out of the Diku rut you can find some interesting things to do.

Draegan said:

You can create some pretty good games that are economically driven. But when you have a game that is about slaying the dragon, a crafting system will always come down to making something to help you slay that dragon.

Crafting will always be secondary in a DIKU-RPG. Once you get out of the Diku rut you can find some interesting things to do.

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Secondary maybe, but I don"t think it has to be as supplementary as it is right now in DIKU games.

If you give the crafter interesting quests and fun rewards as they advance, I think it would feel just as fun and meaningful as adventuring and leveling up your main class. In WoW, it feels pointless and boring to craft 10 of some junk item just because its the cheapest way to get some skill ups, but what if you were instead crafting those items because an outpost is in need of new arms and armor. You could craft it for them, turn it in for gold and experience (maybe advancement with certain crafter-only reputations) instead of just vendoring it.

There could even be a line of end-game quests that result in some kind of exclusive crafter gear that might not have stats on par with raiding gear but looks awesome. I think that"s one thing to realize about the crafter/socializer types, they are huge on aesthetics. Looking cool is WAY more important than having the best stats, so you could easily tailor the crafting end-game around that and they"d be happy enough. It"s not like crafting wouldn"t be providing a real adventuring benefit anyway via crafted gear and gold income.

You could also give them special crafting items that lower creation time, give a chance to retain mats after a combine, chance to proc an extra item, and so on. All ideas that have been done in games before, but if you added them to gear that was earned through quests then you"ve given crafters more things to do and strive for.

I know those who dislike crafting think that the people who do like it are just strange. The fact is, if you make a crafting system that isn"t geared for the hardcore crafter you"re just wasting your time.

WoW"s crafting is the perfect example. Instead of aiming for a crafting system that crafters would enjoy, then aimed for a crafting system that everyone would use. Use, not enjoy. They ended up with a system that crafters think is shallow and non-crafters are able to put up with, but that no one actually LIKES. People who don"t like crafting would be just as happy if the crap was on a vendor somewhere. People who do like crafting probably feel the same way, since everyone can craft it anyhow!

Ngruk said:

Crafters want to craft, which is who you create a crafting system for. People that don"t like to or want to craft, should be able to access and enjoy the system as well.

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A man can not server two masters & etc.

You can not make a crafting system that is both (a) super interesting to crafter-types like Grave and (b) super accessible to crafting hating adventure types like me.

The best you can do is interpose some additional element in between the two - such as an accessible harvesting system so that adventuring types play a necessary part of the system but don"t have to actually craft.

VG sorta got crafting right at the beginning though they screwed it up later. Main problem at start was that the XP curve was ridiculous for the crafters and certain resources were basically unharvestable for adventures.

Ngruk said:

Crafters want to craft, which is who you create a crafting system for. People that don"t like to or want to craft, should be able to access and enjoy the system as well.

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I like crafting, so take what I say from this point of view.
What I"d like to see in a crafting system:

1) Make useful gear at all levels or level tiers: this doesn"t mean that by the time I collected enough T1 mats I"m already T2 like it"s in every single game out there and that this repeats itself for all tiers, including the last one where by the time I have mats, quests, bosses and stuff geared me up better than I can do myself.
Make me craft T1 mats from the trainer mats directly: I choose to craft, an npc teaches me and I get my first set of armor.
Better for higher tiers: let me pay NPC to collect mats for me: I place an order at 8pm and get it delivered, for example, 1 to 4 hours later, depending on the rarity of the materials.

2) Make it either automated or interactive: yes interactive.
Zehn has a point in asking for NPC who do the job for you, but I"d let them do the mundane stuff, I"d like to be more involved with a minigame of sorts to craft the best items, i.e. I order my blacksmith slave a ton of iron rings, my leatherworker one a lot of paddings and so on, but I"d like to be the master who puts the final product together, telling my lackeys thanks for making the parts for me.

I"m sure EQ2 whack-a-mole is not the best minigame (urgh) out there, but in my eyes it was ten times better than Lotro "wait-10-minutes-that-I-auto-smelt-your-400-ores" crap. If I have a reason to pay attention at my crafting processes I enjoy the whole activity a lot more. The problem arise when I need to pay 100% attention to craft 100 useless items just to get enough "experience" to make something different.

As an example, in Free Realms beta (which I played for a few hours) I kinda liked to run after moving chicken legs with my meat stomper or chase the onion with a knife, it was silly and on the side kinda cool. If I don"t have to do it a hundred time per tier, it may even be enjoyable.

Minigames could be more puzzle oriented than twitchy oriented, as a matter of fact you can just have a hundred of them.

3) Get rid of the limitations (do it also for PvE combat/adventuring - job system): if I want to spend time and effort levelling all the 10 professions you offer me and do it on a single character, for the love of all gods, let me do it. I tend to roll alts for this and it gets me pissed off like nothing else.
Oh... I don"t want the crating proficiency to be tied to my adventuring level, while you"re at it. Lvl 1 paladin and grand super master alchemist? Fuck, yeah!

4) Crafting shouldn"t be something for an elite of people who can stand the tedium of watching progression bars filling up. While I understand that the majority of the joy in crafting is found in the completion of an item or in obtaining a profit from a sale, there should be a certain amount of items craftable only with a certain dedication for which one would actually feel happy he made them. They don"t necessarily need to be better than raid gear either, they need tho to be different (that depends from game mechanics really).

Tieing this item creation together with adventuring is something that should be used sparingly, and this adventuring should mostly be a solo effort: coldain shawl is as of today the only crating quest I did that felt epic. I did it with a wizard and I could solo all of it pretty much (for what I remember) and I was exstatic when I obtained my reward (praying to not get a failed combine, but that"s another story).
On the contrary, doing raids to get patterns and mats like in WoW was so out of place that I can"t even start to comment about it, let"s just say it always felt wrong and having them tied to RNG was even worse (we never ever got Mongoose to drop in guild, just to mention one).

5) I have many other ideas to merge crafting and adventuring even more, but that would start to be fine tuning.

Crafting is nice to have around but it shouldn"t be a requirement for your characters like it is in WoW now. Crafting should be optional.

Miele said:

1) Make useful gear at all levels or level tiers...

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The problem with doing this in a linear game like WoW is that you dilute the economy. If crafting is the single best choice for gear, why would anyone choose any other option?

If the gear is "one off" so that you can craft it at level 20, but it is only useful at level 10 then right there you have a buyer and seller. The problem in WoW is that the item crafted at 20 and usable at 10 is still worthless. That is more a problem with itemization and the leveling curve.

This is why crafting seems to work so well in "sand box" games. The idea is that the buyer and seller never occupy the same space.

Miele said:

2) Make it either automated or interactive: yes interactive...

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There is really no excuse why SWGs crafting system hasn"t been flat out copied 7 years after it"s release. The schematic system they used was very fluid. On one pass through, instead of physically crafting an item, you create a schematic which you can plug in to a manufacturing station. Place the desired number of materials in the station and in essence hit "craft all".

A game could have the best of both worlds when utilizing a system like this. Make the initial craft an invested process, you could have a mini game associated with it or whatever. That item is the primer or mold. From there it goes to a manufacturer which makes the process generic, and in turn, less tedious.

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Automation needs to be applied liberally. But you also have to "pick your spots".

I have always wanted to see NPC harvesting groups play a bigger role in automated harvesting. For example: maybe there are no manual resource nodes in a game. Instead you have resource hubs all over the world which are controlled by NPCs. From there you have a system of investing in a particular group in sort of a mini-stock market. You could even tie the valuation of these groups to randomized or contested events in the game.

While you can"t have it both ways for crafters and noncrafters you CAN have a few things to give options.

NPC crafter can make stuff, it just takes longer and/or more materials and/or more expensive and/or slightly lesser quality.

NPC harvester can gather crap for you, but is slower and always charges current market + 25%.

Play the minigame on a combine for bonus quality/build speed/mat usage/exp, or just say fuck it and hit the build button and go take a shower.

Have enough reuse of lower level craft items in the making of higher lvl ones. Rather than having to build 80 low quality iron skullcaps to level up, give me a recipe to make Iron rings, which I"ll then use to make ring mail later.

Quests tied to draining finished goods out of the market. Hopefully truly dynamic ones rather than solely static or rotating static ones (any form of static one simply drains those single items, meanwhile there are 8 thousand of the next item up/down the list on the market. Dynamic would let the server determine whats in highest supply and demand those). These quests need to ask for the item, not for us to craft it. This lets crafters craft, everyone else to loot and/or buy from market to complete the quest.

etc etc.

Atlantica Online"s system is actually pretty solid for crafting/economy. There"s still some excess grind to it (making 30 of an item to get to the next tier of that craft), and the ever old issue of leveling faster than you can build equipment to keep up; but they"ve also got quests, subcombines, disenchanting/dismantling, etc.

Ninen said:

While you can"t have it both ways for crafters and noncrafters you CAN have a few things to give options.

NPC crafter can make stuff, it just takes longer and/or more materials and/or more expensive and/or slightly lesser quality.

NPC harvester can gather crap for you, but is slower and always charges current market + 25%.

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No. Players will go to the path of least resistance. Here they"d just go NPC.

I would prefer never to craft again -- making complicated crafting systems that attract crafter types to the games I play is one way to do that -- they can craft for me whil i go do heroic and in-game monetarily rewarding things like kill giant mobs -- I don"t think a hybrid system like you are suggested will work for them.

With respect to making items -- Crafters should be able to make the best "stat" sub-endgame items. If I want the best sword - as determine by stat (i.e. dps) that should be crafted. This still allows for interesting proc-based weapons/armor to drop. Do I get the Armor with the best STR/DEX/AC from a crafter or do I camp a_random_mob for a ruby bp that has regen on it though lower st/dx/ac?

For endgame items - mix it up at each tier. Tier 1 - drops are best, tier-2 recipe drops allow for crafters to make the best stuff, tier-3. Or you can split it by type: endgame best weapons are dropped, endgame best armor is crafted. There"s a lot of ways to split the baby.

I agree with ToeMissile on the concept of a transitional system in terms of crafting. As for my general approach on crafting itself:

UnchainedAcolyte said:

I think both a tiered system and one of interdependency should exist in MMOs. I completely understand those who need a "break" from grouping/questing and decide to craft for awhile. However, for those that really love getting into crafting, there should be greater depth and complexity for them to explore, and the socio-economic meta-game should be a cornerstone of a good community MMO.

To a general extent this is true in MMOs currently, but most players should have access to "practical crafts" - basic recipes for simple items, basic repair, harvesting of particular items (though specialized harvesting could come into play - mining ONLY where more materials/more rares are achieved, but this is the only harvesting skill you have).

Why should there be a spectrum? To me, MMOs will always be about community and especially the interaction of different segments of the population. A single-minded population gets very bland and boring; however, when you have vested interests in crafted items, raw materials, hunting, exploring, as well as adventuring, it gives the game much more depth.

Have the crafting spectrum begin from being as simple as WoW (simple recipes, guaranteed successes, etc.) to as complex as Vanguard at the top, and have the goods be somehow relevant to NPC factions and world events.

To me, crafting and any other type of meta-game helps to round out community and flesh out the world I"m playing it. Yes, it"s a cliche and a dead horse, but I personally want a world with depth and a community to play in, not just a "one-night stand" MMO with features that get stale and repetitive quickly.

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