Crafting in MMOs (Or, “Can’t We All Just Get Along?”)
There are some who feel that crafting in MMOs exists purely as a casual time filler. This attitude, when it surfaces, is most often exhibited by those who concentrate their gameplay solely on adventure. Killing big mobs is what it’s all about, so anything else is just something to pass the hours until the next raid.
In truth, dedicated crafters are every bit as hardcore about what they do as raiders are, often spending just as many hours each week fixated on their trade. While in most games crafting is something that can be done in one’s spare time, it can also be the complete focus of a person’s online experience.
Instead of figuring out a leet strat to take out a dragon, the hardcore crafter figures out how to maximize their profits or stack various objects to make fireplaces or other crazy decorations outside the scope of the game’s existing artwork. Regardless of how they spend their time, the obsession is the same–and therein lies the conflict.
Adventuring and crafting are competing styles of play. I say this not only because a player must generally choose which they will do at any given time (yes, sometimes you can adventure to acquire things for crafting or craft to further your adventuring, but you understand what I mean), but because they are often pitted against each other by the very design of certain types of MMOs.
There are fundamental ways in which MMOs can differ from each other. One of those ways is whether or not the game is item centric. That is, whether the acquisition of rare loot is a core motivation, or whether items are common and somewhat disposable.
EverQuest is a prime example of an item-centric game. The most highly desired armor and weapons are rare, entering the game world at a deliberately slow rate. This causes players to strive to acquire them, usually by taking on extremely challenging opponents. Once obtained, these items generally stay with the player until he or she upgrades them to something better.
Ultima Online is an example of a non-item-centric game (note: I haven’t played UO in years, so I am basing this statement on the game as it was during the year or so after it launched). While there were some items or raw materials that were less common than others, in general the player’s gear was easily replaceable. If somebody ganked me and took all my stuff (which happened a hell of a lot), I didn’t sweat it all that much because I could get a new set of equipment made.
Typically adventuring is the major focus of the item-centric game, while crafting plays a major role in the other. In the latter, crafters excel because adventurers rely upon them for a steady flow of goods. There can be no adventuring without crafting in this case.
The item-centric game can depend upon crafting to various degrees as well, of course. In fact, the crafting systems can be extremely robust and involved. But if crafters are supplying goods that compete against drops, conflict is a certainty. Why? Because one of them has to be the best, and having the best stuff is a major goal of the item-centric game.
If the best sword in the game is crafted, adventurers will argue that their preferred playstyle is rendered worthless. Why spend all that time learning how to kill dragons if you won’t get the best rewards from doing so?
If the most desired gear in the game is dropped, crafters will protest that their products have little value and their efforts making them are wasted. Why take the time to master your craft if you can’t produce things that people want?
There are ways to mitigate the conflict. You could have the best sword in the game be a drop, but have a crafted sword (or variety of swords) that is nearly as good but somewhat more easily obtainable. As long as getting the crafted version isn’t ridiculously more common than the best item, most players will find the situation acceptable. Or if the best item is crafted but requires a component that only comes from that big nasty dragon, both types of players find value in their chosen playstyle.
However, such a balance is extremely delicate and tricky to maintain long term. The very first time that balance gets out of whack, players on both sides will scream. In other words, this approach is going to require a lot of effort (and frustration) on the part of developers–partly because it will be subject to the whims of player perception.
So is the situation hopeless? Are adventurers and crafters destined to partake in an eternal conflict? Must devs pull their hair out trying to maintain a semblance of balance across all levels of their game?
There is another way that conflict between crafters and adventurers can be avoided in an item-centric game and a mutual reliance can be established. You could place a more narrow focus on what crafters can make, then ensure that drops never compete with goods made by artisans. For example, say you decide that crafters can make jewelry, cloaks, food/drink, furniture, potions, and ranged ammo. If you make sure that those types of items never drop in the world are are not given as common quest rewards, then crafters always have a constant market for their goods. Adventurers need crafters on a regular basis since they need nourishment, useful potions, ammo, etc.
The flip side of this is that you can’t allow crafters to make swords and armor. This may be a hard sell, because you will have some folks throw the realism argument at you. “My character lives in a medieval town and you’re telling me she’s not smart enough to make a sword? How unrealistic!” And yeah, it is kind of funny that monsters carry swords around with them but players can’t make them. To mitigate this you can show actor NPCs in towns working at forges, presumably making swords. Their union simply doesn’t let players join.
Is this a copout approach? Maybe, because at its heart it is designed to retain the lust for rare items while eliminating potential conflict. Someone who loves making armor and weapons for personal satisfaction or roleplay reasons probably isn’t going to like the game as much as they otherwise might. But on the other hand, it just might allow crafters to feel needed enough to offset the feeling that they are somehow being artificially restricted in what they can make.
As ever, the game designer must decide which goals are most important. Do you want an item-centric game, or do you have other replayability mechanics in mind? How much emphasis do you want placed on crafting? Do you want to foster competition between adventurers and crafters, or would you rather avoid it?
Decisions, decisions…
(Note: This article is part of a three-pronged assault by myself, Aggro Me, and Blackguard where we all take a swing at a single topic. We haven’t read each other’s articles; our ground rule is that we give ourselves a topic and post whatever we come up with at about the same time. If it works, we may do this again from time to time. If not, we won’t. Anyway, check out the other articles on Nerfbat and Aggro Me.)
[...] As I noted before, be sure to head over to the sites of my partners in crime from the MMO Round Table, Moorgard and Aggro Me, for their posts on crafting. Links to their posts? I’ve got ‘em now: Craft This by Aggro Me | Crafting in MMO’s (Or, “Can’t We All Just Get Along?”) by Moorgard [...]
Interesting topic, for me, a lot of this comes back to adding more realism to the game.
I’ve always had a very strong dislike of rules like NO TRADE, and am generally disappointed in the lack of true item decay in most games. Tinker with those two rules and quite a few more possibilities open up for crafting vs. item centric design. eg. if you know your “best” sword could break randomly during a battle, you’re going to carry a few backup weapons, ideally the best you can purchase from your local weaponsmith.
Adding dynamics like giving a weapon a 50% chance for a massive crit when it breaks (eg. it has 3 sharp edges now, and a small shard is impaled in the target’s leg), would give some level of compensation to the player when the break occurs, perhaps adding a stun proc to allow the player time to swap weapons. (giving players a realistic reason to swap weapons mid combat).
Regarding the concept of rewarding adventuring players for very tough kills, I would suggest that systems could be designed to bring more rewards to a crafter for enhancement or molding.
The odds of a dragon having a piece of armor on his treasure pile that would fit you perfectly are actually pretty slim. Given that the dragon probably didn’t craft or wear the armor himself, it really doesn’t have any real reason to be special armor, other than the fact that it resides in the dragon’s lair. Given that dragons seem to enjoy collecting things, combining armor or metals found in a lair with spells/enchantments that might also be collected gives a good reason for the adventurer and the crafter to work together, while actually providing a touch of realism to the game. (fashioning new armor from the scales of a dragon would work as well, perhaps adding room for a harvesting skill/talent to obtain extra scales).
The challenge in all of this is avoiding the trend of trivializing concepts like these as time goes on and new content is released. The minute someone slips and makes an item that is nearly unbreakable with massive stat/ability bonuses, it will be hard to recover b/c people won’t want to move away from such an item. This can be tough to do because as players reach the vaunted end game, they seem to want to care less about issues like these, allowing more time to simply focus on the next big kill.
Oh, and if a ranger shoots 700 arrows into a mob, he should be able to loot at least 2 of them off of the corpse after the fight.
Couple thoughts: No reason you can’t have some good items only made by crafters and some items only obtained by adventuring without overlap. Then you are attempting to address both sides.
Another thing: It’s hard to compare crafting with adventuring where one is very difficult (raiding and challening quests) and one is very easy (gather components). If you make it challenging to make the “super” sword, then few would complain. In most games, the reality is most attention is focused on creating the adventuring content and little on the crafting content of a game. How many devs are devoted to each area? I guess I’d ask: what is the equivalent of raiding the epic dragon in crafting?
Here’s a novel approach to the whole conflict between crafted vs. adventured items.
Make the items exactly the same, after all someone had to make the items you are looting in the first place.
Most item-centric games have too much loot, most of which isn’t really much use for one reason or another. A simpler, more consistent item special ability system (a la D&D) where all items have a use, and there is no trash loot, would work better in general I believe, why spend time making items that people just won’t use?
lisasdarren: How do you overcome the issue of making adventuring rewarding (I’m assuming this game is adventure and item-centric) if both crafted and dropped items were identical? If it’s easier to obtain an item from a crafter, why bother adventuring to find the same item?
The trick is to make it easier to obtain items by adventuring, but random.
If you want a specific item you can get it made, but it’s gonna take a long time to get it and will be very expensive. If you go adventuring you can get more items in the same time period of a similar power, but not necessarily the one you want. With lots of unique items, that all have a use and that will all be desirable to the right person, there is plenty of scope for getting good items without getting your dream item.
To do this you have to make crafting more of a challenge, and actually cost something (Like the burning of adventuring XP in D&D), so it isn’t easier to get items by crafting, but crafted items still have their place.
Synchronicity….
So completely unknown to me as I was writing up my posting about Something for Everyone on Friday Steve Danuser, Ryan Shwayder, and Aggro Me got together to post articles about crafting (I feel so left out).
This is funny to me because a lot of what i…
[...] In response to my post, Moorgard’s post, and (to some extent) Aggro Me’s post last week on crafting, Evan Sampson provided his opinions in a post entitled “Synchronicity.” Before I begin, I must first comment that I work with Evan at SOE, and he never told me he made a blog. For that, I give you a wag of the finger, Mr. Sampson. For daring to challenge the mighty ego of Blackguard, however, I give you a tip of the hat. Make sure you read Evan’s post before this one, and it would do you well to read all three of the other posts I linked before reading his. Moving on… [...]
For a functional player driven economy all crafted things have to go down the drain eventually. So even the very finest sword has to break after some use. To please bot the crafter and the adventurer, the following idea might be a solution:
As proposed, the “Uber Sword Of Tremendous Pain” cannot directly found in the dragon’s loot, but the dragon leaves a “Moonlight Gem” behind. With this gem (and other expensive, but not too rare ingredients), a sufficiently skilled blacksmith can make the sword.
This sword eventually breaks, but maybe always AFTER a fight, not in between (prevents the player from having to switch weapons amid a fight). When it breaks, the gem remains in the player’s inventory. So he can go back to the blacksmith for having him forge a new Uber sword.
That idea seems to have several advantages: Players do not entirely lose the rewards from slaying the dragon, the crafters alsway have something to do and crafters aren’t restricted to craft only inferiour things.
[...] Â (Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series. Before reading it you should at least read the Role of Crafting in Massive Multiplayer Games, Synchronicity, and Crafting: My Argument Against Synchronicity. Optionally you might want to read Something for Everyone, Crafting in MMO’s (or Can’t We All Just Get Along?), and Craft This. [...]
I agree with most of the article above… I think crafting plays a critical role in that some players don’t have the time or connections to go on giant raids to go kill the dragon, and even then no guarantee of getting a nice drop. due to some of the raid item drop freaks out there (my precious..my precious). However, crafting gives players the chance of getting gear as good as players that literally ‘Live in the game’. Also I agree that crafting these high end items should not be easy to do…but doable by say a solo character in time. Another point I’d like to make is that quests should give great drops as well.. I remember in EQ1, doing super long quests… but in the end getting really good item from it. There should be quests for the solo guy, as well as the small group, and large group.
[...] Crafting in MMOs (Or, “Can’t We All Just Get Along?â€) (Steve Danuser) [...]
[...] But I have comments. Oh yes. Also, in response to some other posts, my Vision Statement on how to make player crafting in a virtual world not totally suck! [...]
[...] Anyway… crafting! Aggro Me, Moorgard, and Blackguard (the members of the Round Table) kicked off the tradeskill discussion with Craft This, Crafting in MMOs (Or, “Can’t We All Just Get Along?”), and The Role of Crafting in Massively Multiplayer Games respectively. With Synchronicity, MadScientist negates the Round Table’s postulate that mob loot must be made better than crafted items. Wondrous Inventions (”me”) then chimes by posting Crafting in Today’s MMOs just before Blackguard returns to further debate Synchronicity. To finish, West Karana dumps The Crafty Adventurer on the rest of us, who by that time I am sure are just about sick of reading about tradeskills. [...]
Ideally, you make a system where crafting and adventuring comingle:
The best items are crafted, but only come from components which are dropped or quested for. This maintains not only the dominance of adventuring (as opposed to just harvesting) as a source of items, but the items themselves then require an appropriate crafter to be involved.
It involves both playstyles in the creation of an item, and eventually works out to more interdependance between the playstyles in the an item centric game.
This was actually alluded to quite a bit in the development of Everquest 2 by Mr. Danuser himself back in a few articles written in 2003 which outlined possible hypothetical goals for the game’s crafting/raiding systems:
“You take that purple dragon hide to an Artisan of the appropriate ability who can, through effort and skill on his part, make you an uber item that is usable by your class. Some components will make specific types of items: an orc captain might drop a component that can be made into leather armor, a gnoll commander might drop something that can be made into chain armor, etc. Rare components from uber mobs will probably have a larger variety of things they can be made into. The purple dragon hide could be made into boots or a tunic or sleeves—whatever the player needs most. In any case, the purple dragon hide will make an uber item that will be every bit as rare and desirable as standard drops.”
That I can see there are several obstacles to overcome to “just get along”, from my humble point of view.
First of all there is the extended idea that nothing beats raiding in difficulty. Its what I call the raider monomyth. Even people like me, ready to challenge that concept, have that idea so imbebed in my subconscious mind that sometimes I surprise myself saying something supporting it
Even Moorgard at this post, after stating that crafters and raiders have a lot of merit, and put a similar effort and time to maximize their gameplay, later states: “You could have the best sword in the game be a drop, but have a crafted sword (or variety of swords) that is nearly as good but somewhat more easily obtainable”. Again: somewhat more easily obtainable. So, even in the posters mind, down below the surface, raiding is still the worthy way to earn the item. But, again in my humble opinion, this hasnt have to be that way. Ive known raiders that wont ever craft because they find it tedious and arid. For them it doesnt seem easier to get the item crafting. If you balance well the time spent and the effort put in front of the table, it hasnt have to be easier. But the fact remains that we tend to think like raiding has more merit than anything else.
Someone has written that items could be made comparable or even equal. Thats a possible solution but it would be extremely difficult to implement. I dont want to make the mistake of using wild generalizations here, but raiders tend to be very competitive people. If they raid, they do it because raiding HAS the best drops. How many times, in a forum, a raider has said something like: “If this crafted sword is the same as the one from the raid, why raid then”? Ive seen it written thousands of times. So they dont do it because they have fun doing it, or at least, a lot of them dont. Soloers have fun soloing for crap. Groupers like myself, could navigate a dungeon with 5 friends any night and have a great night, even if we dont even get the money for repairs. Crafters get enormous pleasure on crafting, making useful stuff, playing the market and advertise their goods for good prices, even if they cant make higly desired items. But a lot of raiders do it for the gear. The conflict here is unavoidable, obviously, for the competitive reasons Moorgard pointed.
Add to this that the design of a crafting system complicated and involved enough to warrant high level items to their followers in terms of merit must be a really difficult task, while a challenging raid monster design looks like a much easier chore in which most developers have a lot of practice and keep high-end guys busy for weeks while all of them earn their dkps. So designers have to face the possibility that after a heck of a time designing a very complicated system, people will react badly because they would prefer to have raiding material that could have been created by the score with the same effort. They have to be real sure of how the market would react.
Sorry, didnt want to bore you guys to death. Just some thoughts that have been on my mind lately.
I do not find it necessary for crafting to “commingle†with adventuring. That creates a terrible situation for those that only want to craft!! I think crafting can and should be able to provide items up to and through legendary to players. The Adventure/guild/raid oriented players scream their head off and say their work is being devalued. I don’t think it is essential that the two go hand-in-hand. Adventure/loot/item/raiding oriented players insist that the two must go hand-in-hand.
But wait – this is a game — if you have fun getting your items by raiding why should others not have their fun by making that legendary item. The raider centric people shout out, but then why would players raid if they can get the items made. Well to put it simply you would raid if you get fun out of raiding, if you don’t enjoy raiding why should the game make that your only path to great items? By saying that people won’t raid if they can get the items crafted the person making that argument is admitting that raiding is NOT fun for a lot of people, even if they do it. A true raider wouldn’t care about how he gets his items, the joy of the game is in raiding and any strategy that may be involved to defeat the boss mob ( I think the strategy involved in raiding is probably greatest in EQ1 which has extremely complex raids compared to EQ2 or WoW).
It is important to recognize that many players do NOT want to be in a guild or are in a guild which is not a raiding guild. They should not be slighted by this fact. Guild membership SHOULD never be so important that a player’s progress in the game is hindered if they are not in a guild. EQ1 not only made guilds too important, but if you weren’t in one of a handful of big raiding guilds on your particular server, you would never get anywhere in the game.
After all people play the game to have fun, not to have it turn into another job. And many players view adventuring and raiding as “another jobâ€. So as a company designs a game, they look to have the broadest appeal possible for the demographics that play that game. . From the company’s point of view they publish a game to make money which means that people playing the game must have fun in the game and not feel slighted by developers or have their play style sacrificed to improve other player’s play style. Therefore a well-rounded MMO must offer crafting and adventuring paths for character progress and access to items. To those who would say that “if you don’t raid, you don’t need legendary items†– that is NOT the point. The point is that a player wants these items even if only to wear while crafting or harvesting. If the raider feels that allowing a crafter to make these items diminishes his efforts then let him have a title, or a medal to wear on his armor that signifies his achievement.
Crafting appeals to people who may not care much for adventuring or only want to do some in small doses or have limited time to play. Some people are anxious to get to the highest level in the game as quickly as possible and spend hours grinding away at XP. For the crafters the game is about getting rare materials to create one-of-a-kind/legendary items or to make great gear to outfit themselves and their friends/guild. For their effort in increasing their skill they expect to be rewarded by making high-quality, highly desired items. And crafting should require skill – it should not just be hitting the “combine†button and letting the dice roll the results. Also remember that what one player finds tedious another will not. Tedium is in the eye of the “doerâ€.
The source of rare material should not be from raids only as that would serve only to benefit guild members and not the entire crafting community. Harvesting provides an avenue for this – but harvesting could be made more difficult – by needing to locate a particular type of rare node etc., requiring special equipment to harvest that node etc. Harvesting is the essential complement to crafting and should be viewed just as important to development as the other parts of the game. It should be more than a bush to click on.
In one sense UO did the crafting end of MMO’s very well – however, I never liked the rest of their game – but they did understand the role that crafting should play in a game and players did have a true, fleshed out crafting path to play. For EQ1 crafting was just another form of a money sink.
I realize that some designers believe MMO’s should be a form of socialization, but social engineering is NOT the function of a game nor should it be. There are other institutions in society and government that perform that role. The function of a game should be to create fun for as diverse a number of people as possible, and not attempt to compel people to adopt certain play styles in order to progress in the game. Never forget that what you may consider fun another may not — the next new MMO is always just around the corner.
Poetalia, you are correct when you say there is a mindset that only Raiding gives the best gear. That mentality was fostered to its highest level in EQ1 and also in the pencil and paper games like AD&D. You had this colossal battle with Mr. Bad at the end and got fabulous loot. That design was carried forward first into single player PC Games ( remember the Gold Box Games from SSI) and later into MMO.s But today companies need to think outside the box on this one. I mean go over to WoW forum and see all the complaints about raiding as an End game – and they exist too on the EQ2 forums. And people really used to complain about the 72 man raids in EQ1
I think designers need to get rid of the idea that there has to be an end-game raid. After all the next expansion, add-on has a new end game raid with new gear and tougher mobs. I think the end game should be more than just a raid for a minority of players and guilds. I think there should be multiple end games adventures adapted to various play styles – such as a huge quest or discovering something unique etc.
I think UO had a great design for crafting as they thought outside the box ( a lot of other design ideas, like PvP they could have lost). EQ2 had a good crafting system up until LU 24. But somehow people had the idea that crafting should be something everyone can do easily. That is a poor philosophy — to be a high end raider you need time and dedication and the same is true with high end crafting. Designers need to accept the fact that just as a minority of players will be high end raiders, so too a minority of players will be high end crafters. In an MMO there are always certain facets of the game that will only attract the most dedicated of players, while the majority play and have fun doing simpler things – small groups, small raids in instances, crafting to a certain level etc.
Also harvesting in most games has been made too easy for a sophisticated crafting system – harvesting needs to be enhanced beyond “click on a bush†– I would like to see Rare Nodes which drop Rare Components to craft truly fabled items – or involved quests to find these rare nodes coupled with a quest to get the rare recipe to craft that fabled item. To say that the solution to the quest will be published on a web site, well tactics for raids are published on web sites too and that does not mean that the raid has been “spoiled†because a group didn’t develop their own tactics.
I know Moorgard worries about crafting generating too much money and maybe wrecking the economy. But the economy in an MMO cannot really be controlled by Designers – their control exists only for the first few months the game is live. After that all sorts of other factors from gold farmers to offline gold sellers control the money flow in a game no matter how hard a company may try to keep control. Putting constraints on players’ ability to sell stuff is simply not facing the reality of MMO economics. Other than controlling fraud and violations of the EULA the game economy should work out all the kinks on its own. No MMO’s designer-planed economy survives its first contact with the players than a commander’s battle plan survives its first contact with the enemy.
Also Moorgard raised the point that if people can buy great gear why would they bother to go adventuring. Well to me that in effect means Moorgard is saying that the game is not intrinsically fun in its own right. The vast majority of players play the game to run around and kill mobs, see new areas, level etc. otherwise there would be no point in paying a monthly fee if you did not have fun doing that. People don’t just log on, buy the best gear and then cancel their account.
I think a well developed crafting system which can turn out high-end items needs to have item decay as a component. Now it appears that EQ2 rather than have Item decay has adopted the EQ1 approach of “Attuning†and “No Trade†to accomplish the same ends. I really don’t personally think that approach is as effective or realistic in removing items from the game world as Item Decay is. Also if the Crafter was also a Mender then you would have the human interaction designers like to see. But lest someone can’t find a mender, there should also be NPC menders – who at the highest level maybe cannot mend the weapon properly etc. EQ2 has dipped its toe into this with the mending item you can buy and carry around with you, but that is it.
The problem for all MMOs really lie in the current generation of designers who all played games like AD&D (if they are older), Daggerfall, Muds, and then EQ1. So they basically have bought into the raiding is “THE GAME†concept and they design the new generation of game accordingly. WoW did some unique things but they drew on the battle.net background with Diablo and then they too went for a “raiding endgameâ€. Maybe some designers have to come from outside of the MMO/RPG genre and bring a totally different perspective to the genre. After all there are plenty of games out there which are not RPGs. The MMO is really creating a virtual world and a good crafting experience enhances the virtual world not diminish it.
[...] The recent articles by each of the three members of the MMO Round Table, Moorgard, Nerfbat and Aggro Me, got me thinking about my experiences with crafting in MMO’s. [...]
To GnomeDepot:
I read your article and I disagree that crafters must be dependant on Adventures. I think this could lead to favoritism and too much of a role for guilds. Crafters are independant and should remain that way. We do not ask Adventurers to be dependant of crafters and that the reverse should be true. It didn’t even work out and when crafters were asked to be dependant on each for sub-component so it is naive to think that crafter should be dependant on adventurers for rare harvests.
Rare harvests can be done through reqular quests and the recipe to make that rare item can be questable also. Rare recipes can be limited in use or the opportunity to get a rare harvest can be limited. But again it a wrong to tie crafters to adventurers.
A question or two about this topic now that I’ve had a chance to think about it a bit more:
Is real interdependance between crafters and adventurers actually achieved if players are able to fulfill key crafting roles through multiple accounts? And how should the concept of players multi-boxing around socialization and interdependancy influence your design?
Naladini –
Let me ask you a question? You state that you are worried about the lack of socialization caused by players multi-boxing of fulfilling key crafting roles through multiple accounts. Why do you think that a game has to fulfill a socializing role? Do you think that a game should players to group to get ahead — like EQ1 does? Shouldn’t a game allow various playstyle to make progress whether in a group, solo, raiding etc.
There is a game that SOE will publish called ROME:GODS & HEROES which supposedly will let you hire mercenaries to fight with you in combat which I would imagine negates, to a large extent, the need for a group.
Some of the latest surveys done of US Society indicates that people are “more alone” than they were several decades ago. I do think that society as a whole is becoming less “social” and more solitary. I think that it is the nature of the age we live in, and that it is a mistake to expect behaviour to change in a game. I think that manifests itself in an MMO by the way people move around between guilds, the way guilds arise, collapse, etc. that there are guilds made up of only soloers etc.
Crafting will never achieve much of a use and entertainment factor so long as MMOs rely on the traditional system of endlessly spawning monsters and bosses dropping uber loot. But to simply remove the uber loot does not remove the basic issue itself: that those endless and repetitive monsters must drop good loot at some point, or else it simply is not worth the effort. Raiding can be fun, yes. But after a short people of time, most NPC opponents simply become boring and recycled, maybe requiring a slightly shifted strategy at best to defeat. Crafting is ultimately a niche profession for most players in these types of MMOs, as the entire game ultimately tends to focus around the warrior, limiting the extent and usefulness of crafting; no matter what small changes are implemented, the imbalance will greatly weaken either the raider or the crafter.
There is a game being released by Red Bedlam, a small and independent developer, on July 16th named “Roma Victor”. This is a MMO, but with an entire different take on the action of the game. Rather than pitting player-warriors against dragons or what have you, the game pits Roman players and barbarian players against eachother. The game is really more of a simulator than an RPG in the classic sense, focusing on realism and historical accuracy more than traditional RPGs.
Due to this focus, though, crafting has become the preferred profession for around half of the players. Since PvP is (between barbarians and Romans) open, crafters find themselves needing warriors and since there are no dragons to drop uber loot, warriors find themselves relying on crafters for everything from food to weaponry.
The game isn’t executed perfectly, due to the constraints of the team and general lack of major funding. However, it is proof of concept (it was pre-released to a limited number of players) that the traditional MMO structure isnt necessarily the best and that many players find a more detailed and realistic crafting tree to be exciting and interesting.
On the issue of isolationism. Time efficiency should make most players in any craft-heavy MMO have to either specialize in a craft or suffer reduced performance across the whole board.
“You state that you are worried about the lack of socialization caused by players multi-boxing of fulfilling key crafting roles through multiple accounts. ”
I think you’re reading too much into my post.
My take on the original article is that there appears to be a drive to help foster an interdependancy between crafters and adventurers, essentially adding additional socialization elements to games.
Meanwhile, players, while not necessarily adverse to socialization, will often take measures to ensure they have as much control over their virtual experience as possible. Some of these measures include purchasing additional accounts to assist with “soloing” in some games, EQ1 is a fine example of this. Others will pick up a second account to get around “artificial” limitations placed on characters (SWG’s original 10 lot land limit, and EQ2′s more restrictive crafting specializations are good examples).
The concern in my questions is more focused on the fact that you have developers looking to find ways to advance a design that is great on paper, but winds up being a design that players will look for ways to work around once implemented.
It has always been my view that for some unknown, illogical reason, MMO developers seem to believe that part of their mission is to get people to socialize. Now I am not sure how they arrived that this or what makes them think they will be successful — after all the UN tries the same thing on a global scale and see what a mess they are making.
Basically you can’t force people to socialize with strangers if they don’t want to and it is a waste of time trying. And I am not sure why you think various schemes for “forced socialization” look great on paper. Lots of things look great on paper till they collapse after construction. You are right, thought, when you say that players will look for ways to get around it, like multiple accounts and “boxing” as was done in EQ1.
I suspect that developers assume that people will form closely knit circles like most development shops do once the folks settle in. Unfortunately you don’t “settle in” when you play an MMO. You login to have fun not to deal with drama queens.
How many groups have you been in where you litterally wanted to strangle some members for their sheer stupidity as you get “rezzed” for the umpteenth time that night? How many time have you become so sick of the “drama queens” on guild chat that you don’t want to listen to them or see the text any more? How many times have you dreaded logging into knowing that you will have to raid that night? These are all the reasons people don’t care about “enforced socialization” and seek to avoid it.
I think that developers have to accept the fact that lots and lots of people do NOT want to play the game with a group of strangers. The guilds and groups that are most successful are usually made up of people that know one another BEFORE they play the game and the game becomes an extension of their real life friendship.
A lot of people do crafting as it is somthing they can do as an individual without worrying about needing a team. This is why people like to solo. I think one of the reason’s WoW was so successful was that it allowed the solo player to have fun, get good loot etc. etc. then when they hit level 60 the game ended for them ( note all the complaints about raiding on WoW boards).
The era of manipulating players the way EQ1 did and still does is dead — EQ1 in that sense will be the last of its kind.
Crafting, from my viewpoint, went obsolete when your team simultaneously made rare-crafted ‘treasured’, and with Kingdom of Sky introduced a flood of easy-to-obtain legendary items with far superior stats. Most of these items are cheaper than the rare anyways. With near-constant pickup relic farming runs, players can get greatly rewarded(Fabled gear) for free, for fun, and get a full set of armor at a quick pace (I geared my alt this way).
The problem with eq2 crafting is that effort vs. reward seems to have no meaning in the games current state. Even with the introduction of mastercrafted I have seen little interest in crafted player gear.
Please note these comments do not stem from ‘raider mentality’. I leveled my weaponsmith to 70 on my spare time because I enjoy crafting and was looking forward to making money. I felt obligated to comment here when my first weapon order in 4 months fell through because the guy ‘found a fabled 1hander with particle and proc in halls of fate’. /sigh.
I think, you are raising some very interesting points in your OP. I never thought about separating the market for crafted object and objects of adventured source.
More I’m thinking about it, more I’m starting to like it.
Also I would not separate them completely, but I think the best stat items could come from the adventuring sphere and if you are looking for something visual consistency you could found it from the crafting sphere (I hate to look like a parrot with all the different armor pieces – at least most of the time). You may end up with two sets of equipment one with max stats and one with slightly lower stats but corresponding visual, to the expectations you have about your Avatar appearance (I’m not talking about fluff stuff. That’s in addition to useful equipment crafter can produce).
One additional idea I like is that crafter could improve rare powerful loot slightly (just a bonus and that could as well involve rare resources).
The main marked for crafter, following that separation scenario, would then be consumables. Where I think, many of the consumables should provide you with a smaller or larger benefit for adventuring (or crafting/harvesting) but they are not essential necessary (example may be to help you mitigate a missing key class in your group or providing something like 10% additional damage).
Only very few crafting consumables should be a necessary for playing (necessary in that case does not mean you can not play without them, I think more in a way you may not be desired by a group if you don’t have it. Example may be doing less than 60% of your usual damage without it) and for them, there should be alternate sources (NPC, loot, harvest or something else) to retrieve them (but not as comfortable as buying it from a crafter). I don’t like the idea that few people could control an important part of the game (may not so important if there is a large user base who builds a stable marked).
Also I like the idea that crafter could recycle old equipment. Not as normal resources but as necessary component to craft the more powerful equipment (something like extracting the magic of the object to build a patch; this would introduce a additional mechanic, if the magic of the object would increase by usage, making long worn objects more desirable).
I also think it’s better to split the crafting sphere not by equipment purpose (equipment class) or equipment slot. It could make it more difficult to balance the different crafting classes (several classes would be able to craft furniture, not necessary all; more than one classes can craft armor maybe separated based on used material, but both classes can craft other things as well for example furniture).
What I don’t like is that you adventure only the raw and you would need a crafter to build the powerful item. This removes, in my opinion, the options. I’m really more in the upgrade thing loosening the connection between both spheres.
I agree with some of the other people comments. I would like to have some challenges in the crafting sphere. Crafting should need some basic skill not stupid pushing the combine button.
I don’t like the idea that the adventuring is the only source of raw but I like the idea that it is an additional source of resources.
Crafting would not generate money if I would not be forced to produce things nobody wants and need to be sold to a NPC. It seems very difficult, in the game I’m currently playing, to find a balance between the availability of resources and the demand on good produced with them.
This is the case in both directions (I’m not talking about rare, just the common harvest) some resources are high in demand that they are almost not available other resources harvest from the same node are not needed much that it’s waste of time trying to sell them. Because crafting produces more items faster than the marked needs the goods are difficult to sell to someone else then the NPC.
These are just my thought and it’s a way to long writing.
I think LU24 made unnecessary and unwanted changes to crafting which caused a flood of unsellable junk. Once they diminished the stats on crafted items they became sellable only to an NPC. Right now there is, by design, no market for ordinary crafted goods whereas before there was — ordinary crafted better than common loot drops which I believe was the way it should be.
You cannot mindlessly push buttons and get a pristine product everytime. You have get the combinations right — especially where durability is concerned.
I believe, as SOE promised when EQ2 came out, that crafting would be a viable career path through the game for those that did not want to adventure. And believe it or not, there are people that do not like or want to adventure. Now SOE has broken that promise and killed a carerr path that a lot of players enjoyed.
The recipe changes messed up the raw needs with now and overwhelming need for roots to the point where roots sell for more money than crafted good. In provisioning they removed spice packs and replaced it with roots — now what was the point of that I ask you?
Just as EQ1 had good “foodstuffs” desired and purchased by players for their stat buffs so did EQ2 — suddently we lost that with the LU24 changes and no rational explanation was ever given.
What needs to be done is to boost the quality of crafted stuff and make it harder to make pristines and still allow crafters to make legendary or fabled gear with rare components. I do not believe that all the best gear should come from adventuring, I think crafting should also be able to produce that level of gear — not mass produce it, but highly skilled crafters should be able to put some some great gear in limited quantities.
If the changes made with LU24 were unnecessary and unwanted is above my judgment. I have a personal opinion on this and mixed feelings. There are some aspects I like and I really hate that selling to NPC aspect.
I’m not sharing your opinion Theageoflegends that the LU24 killed the career path crafter. This option was gone much before LU24. I think to make crafting a valid alternative career path for a MMO is a very difficult task.
The other question would be how to balance the requirements on time and effort of player for the career path crafting with the time and effort for causal crafter.
The casual crafter should also be able to reach a goal, do you agree?
My understanding is that SOE decided in the flavor of casual crafter. In my opinion you can’t make both groups happy at the same time.
However I agree with you about the sellable only to NPC stuff (I wear only quest / raid gear nothing crafted with my main, actually with one big exception half of the swap resist jewelry is crafted) and the balance issue with raw needs.
I did not understand your comment about “mindlessly push buttons†because that’s actually what I’m doing as Carpenter (I need to be a little bit more careful as Jeweler).
I would be interested in your proposal/opinion how to limit the quantities for the great crafted gear. I think this would really help the professions but I’m totally clueless how to archive this without creating lots of frustrations for all involved parties.
When you talk about highly skilled, you talk about skill numbers or do you talk about player skill?
People who were really dedicated crafter did not want the change. What would have been better was to eliminate WORTS(washes, oils etc) and put them on vendor. But many of the subcomponents made crafting seem more real – as a scribe you had to make your paper and your quill and you ink — that seems more real than what we have now for sages.
Experienced crafters correctly saw that this would flood the market, increase harvesting, and make crafted goods unsellable. Now SOE may have decided in favor of the casual crafter, but the casual crafter now makes worthless unsellable junk — not sure why anyone would want this. By killing all the stats on crafted armor SOE made it useless except to level up and sell to a vendor.
A large amount of stuff that was crafted was always sold to a vendor — but thanks to the arrival of casual crafters, we no longer make any profit selling to the vendor. We used to make enough profit on a level to buy the next level crafting books plus some advanced books. That is no longer possible with crafting. I am not sure why anyone would see this as better.
Actually UO did a great job wtih crafting — there was a lot wrong with the game ( like PvP, ganking etc.) but they did get crafting right so it was an alternative career path. SOE had crafting right in the beginning. In a way it was like raiding — not for everyone. It took time to level up ( personally I think since LU 24 levelling takes longer) and a lot of casual crafters did not like the WORTS and sub combines. You had to spend hours getting all those skills up to the point that you could confidently make a pristine. Unless you had high thaumaturgy you really didn’t dare attempt a rare ink — but all dedicated crafting sages had Thaumatury at max. So that was not for the casual crafter, but I can’t believe the casual crafter enjoys what is left now — making unsellable junk and spending lots, and lots and lots of time harvesting, especially for roots.
Crafting to be a career in an MMO has to allow the crafter to raise their skills to the point where, with the appropriate recipes and raws, they can make both legendary and fabled items. Prior to LU24 rares were not that frequent which kept the amount of legendary goods to a reasonable amount. Controlling the amount of high quality goods is really a quetion of how frequently you let rare raws be generated in the game world. Another approach is to quest for a rare recipes which has limited number of uses etc. or even a 1 time use.
To make a pristine,the player has to have his skills at Max value or very close to it, but in addition he has to understand how the interface works. Now I can recover from a Critical Failure and still make a pristine, but it takes knowing what each individual button does when you press and what is the desired button combinations — you only learn that from crafting a lot.
I have given a lot of thought to what you guys are debating and so far what i have found is not being talked about much.
I fall into that catagory of hardcore crafter. please understand this when i describe a few things.
when determining whats needed to bring any item into the game it needs not be looked at as risk vs reward. risk vs reward is a fallacy thats often talked about in the mmo industry. instead lets talk about what really matters. time vs reward.
- 25 man raid takes 8 hours to complete and a total of 8 items drop that people are looking for. thats basically 1 item for every 25 man/hours of play time.
-when questing on a solo quest a comparable item should be available after 25 hours of questing, be it running around or killing solo mobs.
-when crafting the same rules apply ,but i am going to go a bit deeper into this.
crafters will often try to assemble a stockpile of raw materials to work with prior to crafting. they will want to make multiple items in a single run. the time to gather the items (wether buying from someone else or harvesting themselves) and the time to create are the major factors in whats involved here.
things i really need to see inproved on but so far the gaming industry wants to ignore….
1- crafting should be skill based. when you look at adventuring they have all these skill of things they can do to a mob. to earn xp. a crafter who wants to make something in alot of cases has a single button to click and chance takes over. eq2 has come the closest to a real working model on crafting but stopped way short on final implementation.
2- crafting needs to be varied. the biggest thing that crafters can give to the adventuring community is options. let us control the stats on the items. its very easy to do.
3- bring in group and raid content to crafters. crafters often work together in real life, why not in a game.
4- bring back the community. crafters need to get to know people. the crafters should be depend on each other for lower end consumables in the trade. eq2 had it right before they decided to simplify things.
if any of the writers want to talk … feel free to email.