the Crafting Ideas thread

[brohawk]

I got this idea from Reoh since he said he was thinking of writing an article on it, give him some advice... here is mine:


first of all, I would like an opt-in system of crafting, so take harvesting where the player can either mine themselves and say get 5 of something, or play a mini-game and get like 15 to 30 of something, or setup a mining camp operation and get however many of something. obviously the mining camp would require a certain level and a set amount of resources and be crafted. also, the only way to get rare mats (if they exist in the game) would be to do the mini-game.

for crafting itself, the player could either do automode where an item(s) is crafted either singly or through a factory, or the player could do a mini-game where the skill of the player affects the overall quality of the crafted item. the factory like the mining camp would be crafted and require resources, maybe a lot of them.

however automated harvesting/crafting would never create items better than if the player 'hand-crafted' them, so yes you could pump out say a lot of healing potions or even armor/weapons, whatever you wanted, but if you wanted say a special weapon/armor piece, well then the crafter really would need to do the harvesting mini-game to get rare mats and the crafting mini-game to get the special results.

on crafted items, to me they should be either the best you can get, or the only items you can get. Special skins would be cool as rare/raid drops. There should be a cap on basic stats and then have quality of materials/player skill have an affect on the secondary characteristics of items. That way, everyone is pretty much on equal footing gear-wise, but if you put in the time and effort you should get something slightly better, or better looking or both.

the other part would be reverse-engineering and deocompsition of drops into components that you could slot into your gear as well. this would add some customization that I think would be cool and people would generally like.

anyway, this really is a compilation of several systems that I have used in MMOs.

[Azureal]

Woah, a thread dedicated to the art of MMO crafting subsets.

Its 9pm, Im dead tired, need to shower and shave then go to bed, and you spring this on me, not cool man!

I have found a massive amount of enjoyment with crafting (and playing the role of Merchant) since UO, and later with SWG. This is a great thread, and I'll reserve this spot for some thoughts when Im not so tired.

[Reoh]

Thanks Bro, thoughtful of you and I hope to hear some really good ideas for the article I agree with much of what ?bro said there although there's a few things I would add.

For resource gathering as an example, I think that nodes should 'lock' to the first person fighting nearby (or their group) and remain so for a short period after the combat ends to stop people from nabbing what you clear.

I also like the idea that as you progress in the game you get rarer materials but that the earlier game ores are still required in manufacturing items so that they don't flood the market and become horribly devalued.

Further onto this I would suggest that the market should also have some NPC traders who buy and sell things. If there's too much or none of an item then an NPC vendor could provide it (with strictly monitored pricing - they charge too high and want to pay too little) to help stabilise the economy and keep it flowing without the auction houses becoming inundated with materials.

There could also be quest givers who do a similar thing, trying to take in materials and rewarding experience/gold for items that are too common on the AH, this would mean the player used their money to get the item, had their money returned and was awarded xp. a net reduction in surplus stock with no additional money entering the economy.

As for the crafting itself, as mentioned above it would draw from earlier tiers in conjunction with later and rarer tier components. There would be minigames involved that would let you improve (or make worse if you performed badly) the quality and/or quantity of items.

By default you coudl just craft in an opted out mode which would make an average quality item. Your skill level and the difficulty would adjust this though so you might still make decent items without troubling yourself. You should also be able to make larger quantities of items with some difficulty modifier involved. Succeeding in total success, partial success, total failure based on your performance.

The gear itself would be comparable to other sources (pve and pvp). Just as with the other avenues for gear progression there should be varying degree's of commitment with some being better and harder to produce than others.

Bonuses on such items would be comparable to the makeup of the game, either offering better stats (etc) or just new looks (for games like guild wars).

Taking crafting skills should not detract from your abilities in other areas (like combat)

There should also be more non-combat skills. things like searching, climbing, etc.

[brohawk]

yeah I forgot that crafting should give you xp!!! I like your ideas as well. Hopefully we can get some more good discussion and just maybe some dev will listen to us... I know it is a long shot but hey, gotta try.

[Reoh]

Originally Posted by brohawk

yeah I forgot that crafting should give you xp!!! I like your ideas as well. Hopefully we can get some more good discussion and just maybe some dev will listen to us... I know it is a long shot but hey, gotta try.

I'm sure there are a lot of dev's that agree with what has been said and want it themselves. But there are more factors than that. What can be done with the budget they're given (in time, as well as money)? Can they make sweeping changes to the system by adding it in post-launch and not piss off their player base?

I'm really tempted to try this Free Realms game just to see the crafting, it sounds interesting.

[brohawk]

you don't have to play Free Realms for very long to see how they did crafting, matter of fact, in the tutorial there is a cooking crafting station and you get a quest to make some food. That gives a pretty good idea on what is involved. Some of it may seem silly, but it is more realistic than any other crafting system I have seen.

[jamesy]

I've tried Free Realms with my daughter. I didn't delve too deep in to the crafting side, but what I did was fun. Mini games, when they are good, are win.

I don't really enjoy crafting, but one thing that I would love to see is more customisation.
If I'm an artisan blacksmith for example, then I should be able to have more control over what my finished sword/axe etc looks like. From the style of the hilt to the length of the blade, glow of the metal etc.

[kiwiitis]

My pet peeve with resource gathering.

Why all these horrid icons for gathering .I would like to see mines for mining,farms for food etc. etc.

Mining, numerous dungeons I have seen in games would make nice mines,instead of being filled with mobs and icons have veins of minerals different sections for different minerals.

Risk of floods explosions earthquakes etc.instead of mobs.

Always having to fight mobs for resources seems silly even from early days villagers protected resources by fences traps to name a few.

A miner/farmer was a miner/farmer and only called upon to fight when the town village was attacked.

The same bush and fishing spot dishing up various fruit/fish possibly something a child might appreciate.

Ryzom,Eve SWG were the best of the ones I have played.Forgot Wish from memory one of the better ones.

[Reoh]

Ryzom was good like that Jamesy. They gave you patterns for armor and weapons that you could use to stylise the cut, and the materials were a lot broader. For example you might need to use an oil to treat leather armor but the type of oil you chose would affect the final stats (not just some were better quality, but also some might give better resistance vs fire, or cold or whatever). Same with the leather and other parts of the armor. In that regard though, I would like to see fantasy style mmorpg's take a page from the comic hero style and let you choose your own look as you please, unlocking pieces as you go.

Nice idea Kiwii, maybe add a prince of persia element to the game for non-combatative getting around mines to harvest nodes!

[brohawk]

I had forgotten about Ryzom. The rare mats there were indeed rare as they would only spawn at certain times on certain days, some only a couple of days in a game year. The other thing about Ryzom was everything was crafted, even your skills.