CMUd ideas
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Jonathan
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You misunderstand me. I ask why have a crafting skill, not why have crafting. Crafting is a good idea. Customization is always good. I just don't think it should be subject to the same sort of progression that combat is. If you feel the need to keep powerful eq out of the hands of newbs, restrict weapons by cost or combat skill to use. There's no reason to make someone make fifty tables or astromechs just so he can design a decent weapon. There's also no reason to have a chance of failure.
For eq, I was thinking more or less along the same lines as George, minus the trainable skill. Say a sword has a hilt, a a blade, a several spots for sockets or runes or whatever you want to call them. You can create a blueprint. You can crank out fifty of them with a mouse click if you have the materials, or give it to an NPC and let him crank them out as materials roll in either from a standing order in the auction house or from some sort of mine/factory. The NPC could charge a surcharge which would find its way into the NPC's PC owner.
Goods should be distinguished by the rarity of the components, not the skill of the crafter. To make this work, you need a sort of a technology tree of crafting, so that a crafter can craft advanced raw materials from basic raw materials. For instance, a dedicated crafting mother could buy up iron ore from the AH or from an iron mine. She could then combine it with carbon and nickel to create a steel blade. She could take that steel blade and combine it with a sharpening stone to make a keen steel blade with a plus to critical hits, or combine it with a faery fire scroll to create a steel blade with fire damage. Then she gets a hilt with a plus to AC or a plus to hit and combines them to make a new sword.
Note that a system like this is basically begging for a system of localized AHs to create price differentials across terrain. Make sure you have a mechanism (slow, not teleporty) that enables players to move quantities of goods much larger than their inv capacity.
For clothes, tables, and cakes, you're on your own. I guess "dyes" are good. Technically, Second Life has the market cornered on crafting. The question becomes, "What subset of the SL system are you willing to implement?"
For eq, I was thinking more or less along the same lines as George, minus the trainable skill. Say a sword has a hilt, a a blade, a several spots for sockets or runes or whatever you want to call them. You can create a blueprint. You can crank out fifty of them with a mouse click if you have the materials, or give it to an NPC and let him crank them out as materials roll in either from a standing order in the auction house or from some sort of mine/factory. The NPC could charge a surcharge which would find its way into the NPC's PC owner.
Goods should be distinguished by the rarity of the components, not the skill of the crafter. To make this work, you need a sort of a technology tree of crafting, so that a crafter can craft advanced raw materials from basic raw materials. For instance, a dedicated crafting mother could buy up iron ore from the AH or from an iron mine. She could then combine it with carbon and nickel to create a steel blade. She could take that steel blade and combine it with a sharpening stone to make a keen steel blade with a plus to critical hits, or combine it with a faery fire scroll to create a steel blade with fire damage. Then she gets a hilt with a plus to AC or a plus to hit and combines them to make a new sword.
Note that a system like this is basically begging for a system of localized AHs to create price differentials across terrain. Make sure you have a mechanism (slow, not teleporty) that enables players to move quantities of goods much larger than their inv capacity.
For clothes, tables, and cakes, you're on your own. I guess "dyes" are good. Technically, Second Life has the market cornered on crafting. The question becomes, "What subset of the SL system are you willing to implement?"
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Peijen
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I actually like the blue print idea, I just haven't had time to think it through. I personally doesn't like the idea of secondary crafter. I had one when I was playing UO, and it wasn't fun at all.
I am definitely thinking of 'service order' system as well. It's easier to have purely player run community with two way auction.
I am definitely thinking of 'service order' system as well. It's easier to have purely player run community with two way auction.
But if there's no prerequisite for crafting, then there's no reason you would ever contract out to a dedicated crafter. You'd go to the auction house and place buy orders for the raw materials and make it yourself. People who enjoy crafting exclusively would have nothing to do. That's especially true for items requiring rare or foriegn materials. An adventurer is going to be much more likely to obtain the rare non-minable materials than a crafter that's sitting in town. Since the adventurer is now able to use any material they find, they're not nearly as likely to sell them (or will sell only the second-rate ones). That means that the crafters will have to go hunting or be stuck with the resources that are locally minable.
Now, building a hundred of the same low-end item is annoying, but no more so than fighting a hundred of the same low-end monster. If you remove trainable ability, then everyone is the same. There's no possibility for growth and you basically have a massively multplayer FPS (or 3rd person or whatever). Some people would probably prefer it, but as far as I'm concerned, that's a step backwards.
I think the blueprint requests are probably an adequate solution. Low level crafters don't have to churn out a hundred identical swords. They can go to the auction house and build unique equipment for the other newbies. As the craft skill goes up, they can start bidding on more powerful (and more expensive) blueprints posted by more powerful characters.
Now, building a hundred of the same low-end item is annoying, but no more so than fighting a hundred of the same low-end monster. If you remove trainable ability, then everyone is the same. There's no possibility for growth and you basically have a massively multplayer FPS (or 3rd person or whatever). Some people would probably prefer it, but as far as I'm concerned, that's a step backwards.
I think the blueprint requests are probably an adequate solution. Low level crafters don't have to churn out a hundred identical swords. They can go to the auction house and build unique equipment for the other newbies. As the craft skill goes up, they can start bidding on more powerful (and more expensive) blueprints posted by more powerful characters.
As far as I'm concerned, creating a secondary character as a dedicated crafter to save money on your first character's equipment is an exploit. The game system should discourage any kind of synergy between multiple characters belonging to one player. You probably need the ability to create multiple characters to allow you to experiment, but if you want access to skills a character doesn't have, you should make friends, hire someone, or join a guild.Peijen wrote:I personally doesn't like the idea of secondary crafter. I had one when I was playing UO, and it wasn't fun at all.
Totally unrelated suggestion. I think any weapon, shield, or armor that is not currently equipped should tell you how much your stats would change if equipped in place of your current item (assuming you could equip it). I really like being able to bring up the info on an item in a store and see exactly what benefits I would get from using it. Some RPGs support this and others don't. The worst RPGs are the ones that don't give you any numeric information until you equip (and purchase) an item, and some don't even give you information then.
What kind of game exactly are you guys trying to make? And is this something you're hoping to eventually make money from?
I think the decision about what type of crafting system to use depends on the answers to those questions. If this is just something for fun, and you don't care if players play for too long, I don't think dedicated crafters are necessary at all; the only point of crafting should be to customize items and make fairly powerful items, not necessarily to make super-uber items that nobody else can access. If anything, you can make specific weapon types require different materials, so players looking to make a certain weapon will trade/sell materials they can't use for their items to players who can. So like a sword requires a specific type of ore that is different from the ore an axe requires, so a player who gets axe ore but uses swords will want to sell/trade away the axe ore so that he/she can buy sword ore. Or something less annoying. Otherwise I don't think there's any reason to have merchant/trade classes; you can just let anyone craft whatever the hell they want provided they have the materials.
I think dedicated crafting is mostly a way to increase the number of super-addicted players. Dedicated crafting = super high level player created items = player economy = people spending dozens and dozens of hours a week trying to make money/skill up in order to be able to make money = tons of super-addicted players searching for a way to increase what I like to call "e-respect".
I think the decision about what type of crafting system to use depends on the answers to those questions. If this is just something for fun, and you don't care if players play for too long, I don't think dedicated crafters are necessary at all; the only point of crafting should be to customize items and make fairly powerful items, not necessarily to make super-uber items that nobody else can access. If anything, you can make specific weapon types require different materials, so players looking to make a certain weapon will trade/sell materials they can't use for their items to players who can. So like a sword requires a specific type of ore that is different from the ore an axe requires, so a player who gets axe ore but uses swords will want to sell/trade away the axe ore so that he/she can buy sword ore. Or something less annoying. Otherwise I don't think there's any reason to have merchant/trade classes; you can just let anyone craft whatever the hell they want provided they have the materials.
I think dedicated crafting is mostly a way to increase the number of super-addicted players. Dedicated crafting = super high level player created items = player economy = people spending dozens and dozens of hours a week trying to make money/skill up in order to be able to make money = tons of super-addicted players searching for a way to increase what I like to call "e-respect".
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Jonathan
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Dedicated crafters should be able to take advantage of economies of scale to craft items more cheaply than a sole adventurer, even after adding on a chunk for profit. The adventurer should be able to design and produce his own equipment, but it should be costly. A crafter should be able to offer a better price. There should be sufficient crafting options available that most crafters specialize in certain types of materials and/or items.
What I attempting to say earlier is that crafters, through the application of gold and other raw materials, should be able to produce rare materials. Perhaps you apply adamantite to your steel blade to produce an alloyed blade, and then a dragon scale to produce a dragonsword blade, and then acid to produce a black dragonsword blade. The dragon scale should be obtainable via non-combat means: a summoning or something, but essentially just another crafting tree. If crafters have to depend on adventurers for raw materials that's the same as saying crafters have to go fight, which they shouldn't have to do.
The easiest way I can think of to accomplish this economy of scale is to use non-unit raw materials. For example, make the iron ore required to make a sword vary from 3.0 to 10.0. The linked statistic could be quantity (make 1 sword, it costs 10.0, make 3 swords, cost is 27.0, 100 swords, cost is 300.0) or skill. I would support a crafting skill in this limited scope. In Peijen's idiom, each basic material class (metal, organic, magic) could constitute a different feat.
As a newb, newb leveling is fun because you're learning the system, detecting patterns, and developing your character. As a vet, of course, newb leveling is mechanical. Crafting to gain skill is always mechanical.
Oh, and loot shouldn't take the form of raw materials. Loot should take the form of finished items which can be broken down into their constituent raw materials.
What I attempting to say earlier is that crafters, through the application of gold and other raw materials, should be able to produce rare materials. Perhaps you apply adamantite to your steel blade to produce an alloyed blade, and then a dragon scale to produce a dragonsword blade, and then acid to produce a black dragonsword blade. The dragon scale should be obtainable via non-combat means: a summoning or something, but essentially just another crafting tree. If crafters have to depend on adventurers for raw materials that's the same as saying crafters have to go fight, which they shouldn't have to do.
The easiest way I can think of to accomplish this economy of scale is to use non-unit raw materials. For example, make the iron ore required to make a sword vary from 3.0 to 10.0. The linked statistic could be quantity (make 1 sword, it costs 10.0, make 3 swords, cost is 27.0, 100 swords, cost is 300.0) or skill. I would support a crafting skill in this limited scope. In Peijen's idiom, each basic material class (metal, organic, magic) could constitute a different feat.
As a newb, newb leveling is fun because you're learning the system, detecting patterns, and developing your character. As a vet, of course, newb leveling is mechanical. Crafting to gain skill is always mechanical.
Oh, and loot shouldn't take the form of raw materials. Loot should take the form of finished items which can be broken down into their constituent raw materials.
I'm just playing around. I don't expect to produce a commercial quality version of my system; just something good enough to experiment with. I don't plan to implement a crafting system and probably won't even tinker with Peijen's if he makes one.
As such, I consider any discussions of a craft system to be purely hypothetical. I believe there are players who really want to craft. Jonathan's posts support this, but I'm even going off my UO experience, where some people chose to ignore the combat aspect entirely. Some people enjoy the business simulation, some like to feel like they're a part of the community, and yes, some are only in it for game or real wealth. But the first two groups are real, and if your game can support their interests in addition to (or in support of) the combat players, why not?
That's why I like the blueprint idea. It allows the people who like crafting to remain important, without limiting adventurers' customization opportunities.
Jonathan, I'm not sure how well your ecomomy of scale idea would work in practice. I'm wondering how a newb crafter can enter the game. Wealthy crafters can afford to produce larger lots so they can easily undercut the newbs prices on any item. I would not be surprised if prices on almost every item fell below a newb's ability to turn a profit. Without a profit, the newb can't buy more more raw materials or access to mines. Unless every newb finds a generous guild to join, they can't play.
I argue that with the blueprint system, newb crafting is every bit as interesting (to the craft-interested players) as newb fighting. You get to create a lot of very different items (probably more unique item requests than monster types). Depending on how raw materials are obtained, you'll probably have to learn how to get them, establish supply chains, etc. In fact, you're doing EXACTLY the same things you would be doing at higher skill levels, but you're not in competition with much more experienced players with established supply lines and economies of scale.
And I think that's what it boils down to. Most newbs can't have fun competing against experienced players. Especially if those newbs are housewives or other non-traditional gamers that crafting seems to attract. In the combat world, experienced players move out of the newb regions when the monsters aren't a challenge anymore (barring PvP).
As such, I consider any discussions of a craft system to be purely hypothetical. I believe there are players who really want to craft. Jonathan's posts support this, but I'm even going off my UO experience, where some people chose to ignore the combat aspect entirely. Some people enjoy the business simulation, some like to feel like they're a part of the community, and yes, some are only in it for game or real wealth. But the first two groups are real, and if your game can support their interests in addition to (or in support of) the combat players, why not?
That's why I like the blueprint idea. It allows the people who like crafting to remain important, without limiting adventurers' customization opportunities.
Jonathan, I'm not sure how well your ecomomy of scale idea would work in practice. I'm wondering how a newb crafter can enter the game. Wealthy crafters can afford to produce larger lots so they can easily undercut the newbs prices on any item. I would not be surprised if prices on almost every item fell below a newb's ability to turn a profit. Without a profit, the newb can't buy more more raw materials or access to mines. Unless every newb finds a generous guild to join, they can't play.
I argue that with the blueprint system, newb crafting is every bit as interesting (to the craft-interested players) as newb fighting. You get to create a lot of very different items (probably more unique item requests than monster types). Depending on how raw materials are obtained, you'll probably have to learn how to get them, establish supply chains, etc. In fact, you're doing EXACTLY the same things you would be doing at higher skill levels, but you're not in competition with much more experienced players with established supply lines and economies of scale.
And I think that's what it boils down to. Most newbs can't have fun competing against experienced players. Especially if those newbs are housewives or other non-traditional gamers that crafting seems to attract. In the combat world, experienced players move out of the newb regions when the monsters aren't a challenge anymore (barring PvP).
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Jonathan
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I am assuming Peijen will take his experiences with CMUd and create a nifty game which I can then pay him money to play. I am trying to ensure it is the niftiest possible game. I also wouldn't mind playing a MUD with modern game mechanics.
In the crafting world, don't the experienced crafters move out of the low-margin, low-priced newb goods and move into higher-priced specialty equipment, just as you suggest?
One should make the ranges for cost vary more widely for better equipment. The newb eq costs should barely change when skill or quantity varies. There could be orders of magnitude price differential for exotic and rare equipment to make it very attractive for crafters to sell exotic and rare equipment to other players. If newb crafters can pin the price easily on newb eq, there's really no percentage in it for vet crafters. Even if there is, the newbs can compete on equal footing.
In the crafting world, don't the experienced crafters move out of the low-margin, low-priced newb goods and move into higher-priced specialty equipment, just as you suggest?
One should make the ranges for cost vary more widely for better equipment. The newb eq costs should barely change when skill or quantity varies. There could be orders of magnitude price differential for exotic and rare equipment to make it very attractive for crafters to sell exotic and rare equipment to other players. If newb crafters can pin the price easily on newb eq, there's really no percentage in it for vet crafters. Even if there is, the newbs can compete on equal footing.
Well, since you feel strongly about the crafting aspect of the game, why not try implementing your ideas? I'm sure Peijen can come up with some kind of interface for you to plug your crafting implementation into CMUd. That way, you're guaranteed to get exactly what you want out of the game, unless Peijen comes up with something he likes better.
And for that matter, since everything's object oriented, it would be very practical to one day have several versions of the engine running on different servers with different combinations of your, my, and Peijen's rules (and anyone else who want to contribute).
And for that matter, since everything's object oriented, it would be very practical to one day have several versions of the engine running on different servers with different combinations of your, my, and Peijen's rules (and anyone else who want to contribute).
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Jonathan
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Actually, Alan-style crafting is more my bag. It should be like Diablo 2 or FFX, where customization is just something that adventurers do. I do have some things I might contribute code for.
Things I'd like to experiment with:
Combat and skill progression when all opponents are almost equally deadly, especially in lopsided encounters
Distributed Persistent Game Worlds via public servers
Melee combat that is both fun and not simply an abstracted zero range magic spell
RPG combat with movement as an integral part
Skill progression when new avatars start out relatively powerful
Economies where new characters add a significant amount of wealth upon joining
However, Peijen thinks crafting is an important game mechanic, so I'm suggesting ways it can be as non-asshatted as possible. Also, occasionally I read rants about how this or that crafting mechanic is br0ken, because I am not a loser but secretly wish I was.
In general, Peijen's strategy as discussed in the other MMORPG threads is to make all possibilities available to the new player, but to restrict the number of choices the player gets to select. With experience, the number of concurrent choices the player has is raised. I think that's the right tack to take in any persistent game world mechanic.
With that in mind, I don't think newb crafters should be limited by skill in the items they can produce. They might be limited by the economics, perhaps. Another way to do it might be to let newb crafters craft end-game quality gear from the get-go at the same cost as anyone else, but they can only craft one type of item. With experience, a crafter can create anything, but J. Random Adventurer can make any nifty sword (but only swords) he wants without grinding.
I do think non-combat advancement, especially in a PvP game, is pretty cool, though probably not something I personally would engage in, unless it were somehow strategic.
Things I'd like to experiment with:
Combat and skill progression when all opponents are almost equally deadly, especially in lopsided encounters
Distributed Persistent Game Worlds via public servers
Melee combat that is both fun and not simply an abstracted zero range magic spell
RPG combat with movement as an integral part
Skill progression when new avatars start out relatively powerful
Economies where new characters add a significant amount of wealth upon joining
However, Peijen thinks crafting is an important game mechanic, so I'm suggesting ways it can be as non-asshatted as possible. Also, occasionally I read rants about how this or that crafting mechanic is br0ken, because I am not a loser but secretly wish I was.
In general, Peijen's strategy as discussed in the other MMORPG threads is to make all possibilities available to the new player, but to restrict the number of choices the player gets to select. With experience, the number of concurrent choices the player has is raised. I think that's the right tack to take in any persistent game world mechanic.
With that in mind, I don't think newb crafters should be limited by skill in the items they can produce. They might be limited by the economics, perhaps. Another way to do it might be to let newb crafters craft end-game quality gear from the get-go at the same cost as anyone else, but they can only craft one type of item. With experience, a crafter can create anything, but J. Random Adventurer can make any nifty sword (but only swords) he wants without grinding.
I do think non-combat advancement, especially in a PvP game, is pretty cool, though probably not something I personally would engage in, unless it were somehow strategic.
Yeah, and that's the flaw in our debate. Neither of us are interested in dedicated crafting, so we don't really understand what those types of people want. To me, character growth is one of the most important parts (combat-wise) in an RPG, so that's probably biasing my opinions. The closest thing I want to crafting is the ability to customize (or custom-order) an item.Dwindlehop wrote:Actually, Alan-style crafting is more my bag. It should be like Diablo 2 or FFX, where customization is just something that adventurers do.
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I do think non-combat advancement, especially in a PvP game, is pretty cool, though probably not something I personally would engage in, unless it were somehow strategic.
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Jonathan
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Agreed.George wrote:Yeah, and that's the flaw in our debate. Neither of us are interested in dedicated crafting, so we don't really understand what those types of people want.
Here are some things I've heard from people who really do like to craft.
The number of clicks required to make an item is of paramount importance. Don't even think about asking them to drag.
Making stuff no player wants to buy sucks.
They hate to fight and resent being forced to fight.
If necessary, they will band together into guilds to afford stuff, but they will resent it.
People like to have a shop, a storefront, a name, a brand.
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Peijen
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If nothing else I can finalize a game system where I can make ugly single player games. I am not betting on creating a full scaled MMORPG, although I would like to see it happen.Dwindlehop wrote:I am assuming Peijen will take his experiences with CMUd and create a nifty game which I can then pay him money to play. I am trying to ensure it is the niftiest possible game. I also wouldn't mind playing a MUD with modern game mechanics.
Ok, this suggests that the interface probably needs to be menu driven. Click through the menus to find the thing you want to create. The game tells you what you need to create it and whether you have it. A copy machine-style button creates as many copies of the item as you told it to (or you have ingrediants for). Allow the user to add shortcuts to the top level menu to avoid digging for commonly created items.Dwindlehop wrote:The number of clicks required to make an item is of paramount importance. Don't even think about asking them to drag.
If the crafting recipies are implemented as an XML-type tree, then clients could have the option to do recipe searches and grouping. Select some or all of your inventory and the client can give you a list of every item you could make from the ingrediants on hand. It could also give you a list of everything that contains a particular ingrediant so you can figure out what to do with a brand new material. And the player should be able to regroup the menus however they want. Maybe default to menuing by item types (helm, gloves, sword), but then the user can regroup them into gold/silver/iron or high-margin/low-margin or common/rare ingrediants or any other multilevel grouping that makes sense to them.
The auction house request/blueprint system solves this, hopefully.Dwindlehop wrote:Making stuff no player wants to buy sucks.
Hopefully mines and caravans (intercity, player-initiated transport of materials) will solve this. As a side note, I think that caravans should actually manifest in game, so that they can be raided by competing guilds. Let players hire NPCs to escort it, or allow other PCs to act as escorts. This make a dedicated-merchant career (organizing transport of goods and arranging for their protection) feasible. It could also allow for blockades, which might be fun or might be really annoying.Dwindlehop wrote:They hate to fight and resent being forced to fight.
So, in the newb towns, you need enough cheap raw materials available to allow newb crafters to make the equipment the newb adventurers want without going broke.Dwindlehop wrote:If necessary, they will band together into guilds to afford stuff, but they will resent it.
One of Peijen's documents mentions different building types. I'd suggest that most towns (at least the newb ones) have a lots of no/low-rent storefronts for crafters to use until they can afford to buy their own building. Eventually people should want to move out and actually buy a place, but it gets them a place to start. Alternatively, create a bazaar in some towns. The bazaar is just a flat empty region segmented into square blocks and streets. A player may move onto an unoccupied block and through some action cause a temporary stand to be set up in that square. The stand costs nothing to set up or maintain, but periodically, all stands are closed down (at game "night"?), making it difficult for any one person to keep a prime spot for long. Thus, everyone wants to buy their way out of the bazaar.Dwindlehop wrote:People like to have a shop, a storefront, a name, a brand.
Another possibility to better distribute crafters throughout the world is to have a bulletin board right near the newbie spawn point. GMs can determine if a town or region needs more crafters and can post "want ads" on the board. When a newbie clicks the ad, it tells them where they are wanted and if they accept, they get teleported to the new town. This eliminates the problem of crafters having to explore (read adventure) to get to a new town.