Crafting isn’t a necessity

Ultima Online set many benchmarks for the MMO industry due to its status as the first large scale graphical online game. One standard, however, continues to plague new games as a “must have item” and I think it has been taken too far. I am talking, of course, about crafting. I recognize that I may get a lot of hate mail for this article but I do ask that you read it all before firing off the nasty-grams.

The unique thing about UO was that most of the player economy and item generation was based on crafting. This was an amazing and exciting feature of the product. You could harvest materials, combine them into usable goods, and sell them to players. There is no issue with this because the economy was designed with this in mind. Star Wars Galaxies originally had the same methodology. Dropped items were the minority.

To turn things around, however, let’s look at EverQuest and similar games. Due to the fact that UO had such a rich crafting environment EQ was original designed to support a similar system. This design choice lead to a lot of discord between development and players. EQ was a game where the best items were generated through rare monster and raid drops. Crafted items were frequently not up to par. An awkward balance was frequently created and destroyed as development tried to make some worthwhile items crafting without changing the core of the game. Ultimately though the best course would have been not to include the mechanic.

The same mistakes are still repeated today, however, as crafting continues to show up in games where items are generated primarily by monsters. One of the methods by which designers have mitigated this is through a separation of products. Monsters generate weapons and armor while crafters generate potions and items that supplement primary gear. This is a better compromise but games still release with insufficient or poorly thought out crafting systems. Warhammer Online is a good example of this. Crafting is clearly an after thought and the minimal design time could have been better spent elsewhere. I’m sure, in time, it will improve but I can’t help but wonder how big of a difference that design time might have made in other areas.

This comes down to something I’ve been discussing for a while now: being everything to everyone. The more MMOs I play the more I realize that “one size fits all” is a terrible mechanic. It is unnecessary to pack rich PvE, PvP, RvR, crafting and any other feature you have in mind into every MMO. Look at Darkfall for instance. They attempted to create a niche game with a small fan base and now it is surrounded with great excitement. It fills a role: hardcore PvP with items generated by players. There is no ambiguity there.

There is obviously a role for crafting in MMOs but it needs to stop being a center piece in games where the economy doesn’t focus on player goods. It also doesn’t need to fill the same role it did in WoW for a short time. Potions became a necessity to raiding because Blizzard just wanted to have craftsmen feel useful. Crafting, in these types of games, needs to be nothing more than a supplement that everyone can do (or with no no-drop items) without a lot of time involved.

It would enhance a PvE raid game if every raid mob dropped a piece of crafting material in addition to their loot. Those materials, (perhaps a combination from five different monster), could then create an item superior to anything any one of those single monsters would drop. The key here is not to force everyone to craft. Any guild craftsmen should be able to do the combine for the winner.  The true charge should be in the service, not the product. Combine fees are not uncommon or unwelcome.

Ultimately, for me, it comes down to my old rule of MMOs. If it wouldn’t be fun in a sit down D&D game why should it be in an MMO? You’d be amazed at how effective this method can be. Keep crafting where it belongs and remove it where it doesn’t!

Bonus: A poor attempt at humor.

You and your six friends sit around the table for your Saturday morning D&D session. What adventure waits for you today? Is it a dungeon filled with orcs? Perhaps it will be an epic tale of a dragon that oppresses the hill dwarves! You can scarely wait to find out.

The GM says, “You’re sitting around at the tavern trying to decide what to do. Your axe is sharp and your tools ready.”

Player one says, “Is there a forest nearby?”

The GM says, “Yes!”

Player one says, “I take my axe and I go out to the forest to cut trees.”

Player two says, “Oooh me too!”

Player three says, “I’m going to look for ore in the hills!”

The GM says, “Ok, you all find materials!”

Player four says, “I’m going to buy the materials from the party and make ingots and planks!”

Player five says, “And I’m going to buy the ingots to make armor! Then I’ll sell the armor to other adventurers!”

Player six stares at the others and says, “I think I’m going to go play Halo.”