MMORPG crafting

[Superrock]

SWG had the best crafting. FFXI isnt bad either since crafters can actually make money from crafting.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: QuantumPion
UO's system worked so well because it was a fundamentally different gear system then WoW et al. In UO:

-There was very little "magic" gear that dropped from bosses, and those items weren't in very high demand.
-Since when you die you lose all your loot, generic player-crafted gear was in the highest demand.
-NPC vendors had a limited supply of goods which only refreshed occasionally, so pretty much all gear had to be player made.
-There were no classes, so every player could use every item. E.g. mages wearing plate, warriors using bows, etc.

UO had an amazing robust economy that truly was player driven. WoW's crafting system is basically just a way for non-raiders to get epics through grinding.

Since items in UO can now be insured, they've added "runic" hammers and sewing kits that you can acquire through collecting bulk order deeds from NPC tailors. The runics add values within a certain range to random resists and/or magic properties. It's not like it used to be with the sets of GM armor flying off your vendor, but you have the potential to make millions of gold off one item if you're lucky. The bulk order system there is enough to keep a full time crafter busy, which is really cool. If they ever combined the best of both eras of UO they'd have something.

 

[Wreckem]

Originally posted by: Linflas

Originally posted by: Genx87
UO did it right. Miners mined, blacksmiths made items. Items got sold at a vendors house.
WoW's crafting system is the worst I have come across. Unless you want to make yourself a weapon there is literally no point in crafting. Most of the weapons at bind on pickup. Who thought that would foster a good crafting maket?

Edit: EVE's system is also very well done.

UO was the only game where crafting actually paid off for me. When I hit GM in blacksmithing it was like backing up the Brinks truck to my bank vault. And you could actually make cash along the way to allow you to keep crafting and raising skill.

UO had the best player and crafting economy. As mentioned EVE is second.

In general though(not crafting).

UO(pre felucia/trammel) stands as the Best MMO in my books.

Followed by Asheron's Call, DAoC(preToA).

WoW is and will always be crappy compared to them. I dont care if it has eleventy billion subscribers. It has that because 1. its Blizzard 2. South Korea(which makes up almost half of WoWs player base).

On a side note, I played UO more than all other MMOs Ive played combined.

 

[GenHoth]

I always want to play a dedicated crafter, but the system is never good enough

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: GenHoth
I always want to play a dedicated crafter, but the system is never good enough

Check UO. As I said earlier there is a Bulk Order Deed system for crafters that can lead to special crafting tools that give you chance of making super powerful/valueable armor or weapons. The time you spend collecting, organizing, trading, buying, selling, filling, combining, and turning in BoDs and then using whatever tools you earn and then selling the stuff you make will keep you as busy as you want to be. Especially if you take up mining to get your own ore and collect your own leather.

 

[Dman877]

The problem isn't the way crafting is structured in mmo's, it's the fact that mmo's are really nothing more than mindless scavenger hunts for equipment. What we need is more focus on story, adventure, fun. But why would that ever happen? Millions of mmo subscribers are willing to pay 15 bucks a month to scoop up the next uber item so they can be on an even playing field with everyone else and their uber items... and they then buy that expansion to get more uber items, again, to stay even with everyone else.

It's like an FPS game where you have to pay with your money and your time to have a fighting chance. If anyone knows of an mmp that breaks this mold, please enlighten me.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: Dman877
The problem isn't the way crafting is structured in mmo's, it's the fact that mmo's are really nothing more than mindless scavenger hunts for equipment. What we need is more focus on story, adventure, fun. But why would that ever happen? Millions of mmo subscribers are willing to pay 15 bucks a month to scoop up the next uber item so they can be on an even playing field with everyone else and their uber items... and they then buy that expansion to get more uber items, again, to stay even with everyone else.

It's like an FPS game where you have to pay with your money and your time to have a fighting chance. If anyone knows of an mmp that breaks this mold, please enlighten me.

UO wasn't like that. It's why I can't play any of these shit games like WoW.

 

[Nohr]

I loved crafting in SWG, back in '04 I think. Making swoop bikes and stuff that everybody needed and selling them on the Bazaar (which was awesome) or a vending machine in a store/home you owned. Plus there were always people that needed something specific crafted and would make it worth your while (AV-21 Landspeeder ftw!).

Surveying and extracting minerals kept me busy but it was fun to find something that had the right properties to make higher quality crafted goods. And every week new ones would show up. Thankfully there were player run websites that kept databases of what was on each planet, etc.

Ah good times. Glad I never bothered to grind out jedi though, sheesh. Did damn near everything else.

 

[BudAshes]

Originally posted by: Nohr
I loved crafting in SWG, back in '04 I think. Making swoop bikes and stuff that everybody needed and selling them on the Bazaar (which was awesome) or a vending machine in a store/home you owned. Plus there were always people that needed something specific crafted and would make it worth your while (AV-21 Landspeeder ftw!).

Surveying and extracting minerals kept me busy but it was fun to find something that had the right properties to make higher quality crafted goods. And every week new ones would show up. Thankfully there were player run websites that kept databases of what was on each planet, etc.

Ah good times. Glad I never bothered to grind out jedi though, sheesh. Did damn near everything else.

Too bad the game had more glitches and bugs than any other game i have ever played. I think they tried to made the game too complicated and the programming just ended up being a mess.

 

[Elcs]

Despite the game being absolute insanity incarnate, FFXI had a good crafting system.

Combining goods with elemental crystals, training skills with successes and failures, occaisionally leaving some salvagable junk from failure and you could end up having a crafting chain which produced profits. There were areas where you needed a lot of resources at high cost to progress but these were offset by profit areas.

End game crafting produced some nice items which were really worth something.

Notorious Monster kills like Leaping Lizzy for her boots and the Valkarum Emperor for his Pin produced a lot of money also but they were always camped heavily and not a guranteed drop.

 

[tk149]

Dungeons and Dragons Online recently implemented a crafting system, which sort of satisfies the OP's complaint.

There is one region (The Vale of Twilight) where ingredients randomly drop. There is one Raid where different (and rarer) ingredients drop. You have to go into the Raid itself to create and upgrade your items. The end items are some of the best in the game.

Any character can make the items, as long as he can enter the Raid (which has certain prerequisites), and has the ingredients. No special skill is required, hence no grinding for minor ingredients to make crappy items. Just grinding for ingredients.

Players sell the different ingredients on the Auction House for good money, with rarity dictating the prices.

You can use the ingredients to create a "basic" item, which is still pretty good. But once you equip the item, it binds to your character (i.e. it can never be given to another character). It is still very rare to find these "basic" items for sale on the Auction House, which shows what a pain it is to get all the necessary ingredients.

You can go into the Raid and use more ingredients to upgrade your "basic" item (up to 4 times), but it must be bound to your character first. This eliminates uber items from being sold or traded to other players, and ensures that even if a character is given all the ingredients, he must still go into the Raid to upgrade his items.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: BudAshes

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: BudAshes
I actually think star wars galaxies had the best crafting system. Too bad the combat sucked.

SWG's true powerhouses were the crafters, as there was almost no looted weapons that were good. Everything from guns to houses were crafted by the players.

That's just tipping the scale the other direction though. That's easy to do. The hard thing is to make both craftable items and loot very valuable and very fun for almost all players throughout the entire game.

Well loot is still valuable because the crafters need the loot to make the good items. For example you had to go off into the tatooine wilderness and fight gigantic krayt dragons to get scales that let weaponsmiths make more powerful blasters.

It's the same with WoW when it comes to that aspect though. All of the good crafted gear requires items from raid instances. SWG does allow crafters to do a lot more things than gear related stuff though and that is a major plus.

I have a feeling that Blizzard's next gen mmo will have a fine shot at getting crafting professions right or at least much better than most of the MMO's out there currently.

 

[Lamont Burns]

Nothing has been as cool for me as when I was a Master Smuggler in SWG with a solid reputation among crafters. Slicing ubesi and composite for mass crafting guilds was quite entertaining, and profitable.

 

[QuantumPion]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: Dman877
The problem isn't the way crafting is structured in mmo's, it's the fact that mmo's are really nothing more than mindless scavenger hunts for equipment. What we need is more focus on story, adventure, fun. But why would that ever happen? Millions of mmo subscribers are willing to pay 15 bucks a month to scoop up the next uber item so they can be on an even playing field with everyone else and their uber items... and they then buy that expansion to get more uber items, again, to stay even with everyone else.

It's like an FPS game where you have to pay with your money and your time to have a fighting chance. If anyone knows of an mmp that breaks this mold, please enlighten me.

UO wasn't like that. It's why I can't play any of these shit games like WoW.

I loved UO back in the day because it really was a open-ended game, no quests, no classes, just exploring, trading, whatever you wanted. I love WoW too, but they are so much different they aren't even in the same genre. It would be like comparing, oh say, Neverwinter Nights and Final Fantasy. The former being an open-ended adventure game, the latter a plot-driven interactive movie, sort of.

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: Dman877
The problem isn't the way crafting is structured in mmo's, it's the fact that mmo's are really nothing more than mindless scavenger hunts for equipment. What we need is more focus on story, adventure, fun. But why would that ever happen? Millions of mmo subscribers are willing to pay 15 bucks a month to scoop up the next uber item so they can be on an even playing field with everyone else and their uber items... and they then buy that expansion to get more uber items, again, to stay even with everyone else.

It's like an FPS game where you have to pay with your money and your time to have a fighting chance. If anyone knows of an mmp that breaks this mold, please enlighten me.

UO wasn't like that. It's why I can't play any of these shit games like WoW.

I never really played UO in its time (mostly because I was stuck on dialup) but it seems it did a lot of things right, despite being one of the first. In many ways, its been all down hill from here. Its kind of sad.

 

[skace]

The big problem with UO is that people haven't figured out how to emulate it in 3D, it's not that developers don't want to create that kind of environment, it's that no developer has successfully figured out how.

And seriously, did this thread have to degenerate into slamming WoW? HoP, I hope you some day figure out the flaws in your view point. WoW could never do what it does and be similar to UO, the 2 games cannot fit into the same environment. Nor should they try to. WoW and a UO equivalent can exist in the same universe.

 

[GTKeeper]

Originally posted by: Wreckem

Originally posted by: Linflas

Originally posted by: Genx87
UO did it right. Miners mined, blacksmiths made items. Items got sold at a vendors house.
WoW's crafting system is the worst I have come across. Unless you want to make yourself a weapon there is literally no point in crafting. Most of the weapons at bind on pickup. Who thought that would foster a good crafting maket?

Edit: EVE's system is also very well done.

UO was the only game where crafting actually paid off for me. When I hit GM in blacksmithing it was like backing up the Brinks truck to my bank vault. And you could actually make cash along the way to allow you to keep crafting and raising skill.

UO had the best player and crafting economy. As mentioned EVE is second.

In general though(not crafting).

UO(pre felucia/trammel) stands as the Best MMO in my books.

Followed by Asheron's Call, DAoC(preToA).

WoW is and will always be crappy compared to them. I dont care if it has eleventy billion subscribers. It has that because 1. its Blizzard 2. South Korea(which makes up almost half of WoWs player base).

On a side note, I played UO more than all other MMOs Ive played combined.

Agreed, UO was fantastic. It offered SO MUCH at such an early stage. Player vendors, housing, PvP, PvE, Guilds, Crafting... best by far

 

[Dman877]

When was UO released and how long did it last with a good player base? My first mmo was DAoC, before that, I played CS

 

[ivan2]

SWG has the best system. Too bad it suffered from exploits early on and effectively killed the game.

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

I would love if crafting was a real skill where "master craftsmen" could make excellent items out of ingredients they collect from the wilderness. So they'd either have to be good warriors as well or be able to pay for muscle. Think magic-find characters in D2. This would allow crafters to ask for money, trade, or services in exchange for their awesome items.

 

[darkeneddays]

Originally posted by: Dman877
When was UO released and how long did it last with a good player base? My first mmo was DAoC, before that, I played CS

UO started in 97 I believe. It had a good player base until probably 2000/2001. UO:R hurt the game instead of help it and more MMOs began to emerge around that time.

The crafting in UO worked so well because there was a need for it. Full looting of players and durability on all items meant people needed to re-equip every so often. When something hit 0 durability it broke and was gone forever. You could repair the items, but repairing it made its overall durability go down. No matter what, whether from getting looted or breaking, nothing lasted forever. And as stated previously, there were magic weapons but considering you could get killed at anytime most people didn't take the chance of wielding them unless they felt pretty confident about their chances of staying alive.

Also the raw materials were available to anyone who wanted to spend the time to collect them. Any tree had wood. Any mountain had ore. They all had their own timer so you couldn't hack away at the same spot/tree forever. Some spots were better than others but you didn't go hunting for "nodes" (Something I despise in current MMOs)

Simply put, it had crafting perfect prior to UO:R.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: darkeneddays

Originally posted by: Dman877
When was UO released and how long did it last with a good player base? My first mmo was DAoC, before that, I played CS

UO started in 97 I believe. It had a good player base until probably 2000/2001. UO:R hurt the game instead of help it and more MMOs began to emerge around that time.

Actually UO:R helped the game in the short run. No more fear of PKs brought new players and old players back and people loved being able to kill monsters without fear of PKs. It grew in player base for a few years after that.

What killed it was AoS. Next to ToA the most idiotic expansion pack in the history of MMORPGs. They completely revamped the armor system, added really overpowering skills and weapons, and began a one way unstoppable trip down a track of adding more and more ridiculously powerful uber bosses and compensating for it with more and more insane weapons.

Right now you can be an archer and if your bow is "balanced" and has "spell channeling" you can chug potions and cast spells while simultaneously shooting arrows. And they added "repeating crossbows" which shoot arrows like a machine gun. LOL. And tamers can tame greater dragons and then train them up in skills and stats to be something like 800 hit points and, to top it off, if the dragon is a pet long enough, it becomes "bonded" and if it dies it follows you as a ghost and can be resurrected. As a result, the new player logs on to see everybody around him decked out in 20-200 million in armor and weapons and jewelry that can't be lost because AoS necessitated the addition of "item insurance" meaning you don't ever lose anything you have. That new player, by the way, still starts off with just 1,000 gold, a torch, and a blank book.

AoS turned UO into an item-based game where instead of grinding for levels you grind for gold to buy the crazy expensive uber items everybody else has. And once you have them you get to sit around on your ass cause all you've ever known is covetting and working towards thos euber items. It's like capitalism gone wrong.

 

[darkeneddays]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: darkeneddays

Originally posted by: Dman877
When was UO released and how long did it last with a good player base? My first mmo was DAoC, before that, I played CS

UO started in 97 I believe. It had a good player base until probably 2000/2001. UO:R hurt the game instead of help it and more MMOs began to emerge around that time.

Actually UO:R helped the game in the short run. No more fear of PKs brought new players and old players back and people loved being able to kill monsters without fear of PKs. It grew in player base for a few years after that.

What killed it was AoS. Next to ToA the most idiotic expansion pack in the history of MMORPGs. They completely revamped the armor system, added really overpowering skills and weapons, and began a one way unstoppable trip down a track of adding more and more ridiculously powerful uber bosses and compensating for it with more and more insane weapons.

Right now you can be an archer and if your bow is "balanced" and has "spell channeling" you can chug potions and cast spells while simultaneously shooting arrows. And they added "repeating crossbows" which shoot arrows like a machine gun. LOL. And tamers can tame greater dragons and then train them up in skills and stats to be something like 800 hit points and, to top it off, if the dragon is a pet long enough, it becomes "bonded" and if it dies it follows you as a ghost and can be resurrected. As a result, the new player logs on to see everybody around him decked out in 20-200 million in armor and weapons and jewelry that can't be lost because AoS necessitated the addition of "item insurance" meaning you don't ever lose anything you have. That new player, by the way, still starts off with just 1,000 gold, a torch, and a blank book.

AoS turned UO into an item-based game where instead of grinding for levels you grind for gold to buy the crazy expensive uber items everybody else has. And once you have them you get to sit around on your ass cause all you've ever known is covetting and working towards thos euber items. It's like capitalism gone wrong.

I guess I look at UO:R as the beginning of the end. Sure it spiked subs for a while, but Trammel completely negated the need for almost anything crafted. I couldn't PvP in UO worth a damn so naturally I was excited about Trammel at first. (Even dropped a castle on opening day) It didn't take long though to realize that the no-risk environment was killing the economy though. (An economy that managed to survive numerous dupe bugs over the years) No matter how awesome it might be to have a house and tons of cash, having it all in a no risk land stripped the very soul out of UO imo.

Mortal Online and Darkfall look like they are on the right path to get another "UO" out there, but since no other company has come close in 10+ years, I'm not holding by breath.

 

[Lumathix]

Originally posted by: Xed
Swg had the best crafting system, imo. (I don't know if they broke it when they did that game restart or whatever the hell they called it)

This.

 

[BudAshes]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: darkeneddays

Originally posted by: Dman877
When was UO released and how long did it last with a good player base? My first mmo was DAoC, before that, I played CS

UO started in 97 I believe. It had a good player base until probably 2000/2001. UO:R hurt the game instead of help it and more MMOs began to emerge around that time.

Actually UO:R helped the game in the short run. No more fear of PKs brought new players and old players back and people loved being able to kill monsters without fear of PKs. It grew in player base for a few years after that.

What killed it was AoS. Next to ToA the most idiotic expansion pack in the history of MMORPGs. They completely revamped the armor system, added really overpowering skills and weapons, and began a one way unstoppable trip down a track of adding more and more ridiculously powerful uber bosses and compensating for it with more and more insane weapons.

Right now you can be an archer and if your bow is "balanced" and has "spell channeling" you can chug potions and cast spells while simultaneously shooting arrows. And they added "repeating crossbows" which shoot arrows like a machine gun. LOL. And tamers can tame greater dragons and then train them up in skills and stats to be something like 800 hit points and, to top it off, if the dragon is a pet long enough, it becomes "bonded" and if it dies it follows you as a ghost and can be resurrected. As a result, the new player logs on to see everybody around him decked out in 20-200 million in armor and weapons and jewelry that can't be lost because AoS necessitated the addition of "item insurance" meaning you don't ever lose anything you have. That new player, by the way, still starts off with just 1,000 gold, a torch, and a blank book.

AoS turned UO into an item-based game where instead of grinding for levels you grind for gold to buy the crazy expensive uber items everybody else has. And once you have them you get to sit around on your ass cause all you've ever known is covetting and working towards thos euber items. It's like capitalism gone wrong.

Actually it sounds like capitalism gone right.