Crafting Items - comparison of latest releases

Hypo

For some strange reason, crafting is a major draw for me. I only have experience in FFXI and WoW, with FFXI having a better crafting system IMO. It must be said my FFXI days ended in 2004, so things might have changed.

I am considering getting back into a MMO. As much as I liked it, I am hesitant to go for FFXI, given its age. WoW, well, I am waiting to see more about WOTLK. So the question I am putting out is:

-Which current or upcoming games have crafting systems that are interesting, show signs of real thought and effort on the part of the developers and overall really add to the game?

Toxin01

Vanguard.

littwentythree

Wurm Online has a pretty interesting crafting system. You have to be into those kinds of games, though.

HarshLanguage

EQ2 has a really excellent crafting system that has (gasp!) continued and increasing support from the developers. The need and desire for player-made stuff is well-integrated into the adventuring side of the game, with things like Mastercrafted gear and the amazing house decorating. You can level up a tradeskill to synergize with your adventuring class, or just be a crafter full-time (though generally you need an adventuring character to finance your first tradeskill). There's also a lot of neat little things just for crafters throughout the game, quests for cool cloaks and skill-increasing items, recipes and special crafting stations in dungeons, a level 80 "epic" questline with awesome rewards. (Which I hope to get one day; I'm still relatively a newb.)

I've never enjoyed crafting in an MMO before EQ2, partially because my first attempt at it was in FFXI which is so punishing.

Tomanta

Classic Star Wars Galaxies had a great crafting system. It was the only reason I played for six months.

Sadly, that went the way of the dodo during their massive game overhaul.

Dhalphir

Ultima Online has a nice one, IIRC

kidsol

Lineage 2 crafting was pretty crazy I have a huge excel spread sheet i made to calculate costs lol

They even had 60% and 70% recipes where you used less mats to craft but risked fialing and losing everyhting.

Dyvion

FFXI (with windower) is gorgeous on my rig. You can scale the textures above your current resolution, so it looks crisp and clean and no jaggies or pixelation at all. Mostly what I'm trying to say is that it has aged extremely well, and looks as good as the games coming out now.

There's a thread in this forum with screenshots. It truly is gorgeous.

quaigy

A Tale In The Desert ?

Dyvion

quaigy wrote: »

A Tale In The Desert ?

That's not really fair... all you do in that game is craft! And play games... by crafting!

Aldo

I liked LOTRO's system a bit. At least compared to WoW.

Italax

FFXI was too reliant on HQing stuff in so many professions to make profit. Sure, it was nice when you did but so many recipes had such a slim margin for profit if you only made the regular version that often it wasn't worth the risk.

Oh yea, BREAKING SHIT IS RETARDED. I broke so much high end clothcrafting shit it was unreal. I lost so much money, just gone.

kidsol

Toxin01 wrote: »

Vanguard.

Last night i did my first crafting on Vanguard, and holy shit.......most complex shit ive ever done, its done in steps and you have your own crafting armor and crafting weapons. Almost makes it seem realistic with the amount of steps lol

Entriech

quaigy wrote: »

A Tale In The Desert ?

I'd have said this. An entire game based around crafting.

Scroffus

I always like the way crafting in Runescape was done. Most of the stuff you wear is player crafted (there are a few rare drops that sold for a lot but for the most part it was all crafted stuff). The crafted items usually require low level and high level items (eg Rune armour requires rune bars (high smelting skill) which are made of rune ore (high level mining) and coal (mid level mining). This combined with the fact you dropped most of your items on death and the lack of an AH led to an active market with constant supply/demand from all levels of players.

Its a shame leveling was so grindy and the community wasn't that great. They had some really great concepts in the game which I loved.

Saban

What ruins crafting in a game for me is if the crafted items for the most part have no use besides raising your skill.

WoW? Only times i ever used things i made with blacksmithing was green copper armor and then Stormherald.

DiscoZombie

kidsol wrote: »

Toxin01 wrote: »

Vanguard.

Last night i did my first crafting on Vanguard, and holy shit.......most complex shit ive ever done, its done in steps and you have your own crafting armor and crafting weapons. Almost makes it seem realistic with the amount of steps lol

yeah, Vanguard takes the cake, IMO. LotRO is pretty good too - a little simpler, but less in-depth too.

Then of course there's EVE. Has no one mentioned EVE yet? most complex of all I think... of course, that game is not traditional and is also a pain in the ass.

logothesia

LoTRO crafting is nice in that as you level you can actually use the things you make, unless you really rush leveling and even then you're good until Tier 5. Gear can be "critted", and this is the holy grail of high end crafting. By critting you can produce teal gear (equivalent to purples in wow) that sell for mucho dinero. It is on a par with dungeon and even some raid gear; everyone uses crafted gear at most levels (except for the first half of Tier 5, which is rendered useless by the easily gotten "Fem" quest set around level 40).

Most of the crafting economy centers around one-shot receipes for Tier 5, which are rare drops that require a rare component. If you're into that sort of thing, it's quite a complex game in and of itself.

darklite_x

Tomanta wrote: »

Classic Star Wars Galaxies had a great crafting system. It was the only reason I played for six months.

Sadly, that went the way of the dodo during their massive game overhaul.

I hate to go down this road, but if a new MMO came out with a crafting system similar to classic SW:G then I'd be all over it.

Oscreth

EVE has a great manufacturing system. And almost everything you create is useful in some form or fashion. If you like gathering, crafting, and the economic aspects of MMO's, this is the game. And you don't have to start out making light leather patches repeatedly to get some skill increases, to move on to medium leather to get more skill increases etc etc..

darklite_x

I hear Eve is a pretty good game for that, however, it's also a bit intimidating to get into considering their skill system is literally based upon real word time. In a lot of MMOs someone who starts today can reasonably, within a few months time for example, become as strong as someone who's been playing for years. In Eve someone who starts today will NEVER be as strong as someone who's been playing for years.

Tav

Saban wrote: »

What ruins crafting in a game for me is if the crafted items for the most part have no use besides raising your skill.

WoW? Only times i ever used things i made with blacksmithing was green copper armor and then Stormherald.

I dunno. There are a good few things in WoW that would be useful, but really not neccassary. I think the worst thing is that the materials to make the items go for more then the item costs to sell.

For example, the ore to make an adamantite axe on my server would cost 40g but the axe itself owuld only ever sell for 5-10g if you're lucky.

Timmer

I can only coment on the games I've played of course. I'll make note of the ones that stood out:

Vanguard -- Definitely one of the better tries to make crafting a true game in itself. My only issue is that leveling is a bit tedious in it when you can't make things useful (and since it takes a minute or two to make a single item for a while..). I will say it's the only crafting I've done where I truly felt I was making the item. I made my first mace as a blacksmith and by the time I had all the pieces together I was actually proud of my handiwork!

Everquest2 - I give EQ2 points for style as it's fun to watch but while the magical feel of crafting works for things like writing spells, it feels weird if you're doing something mundane with a non-spell caster class. Also, while it seems interactive at first, once you figure the system out it doesn't require much thought. Still, more interactive that just clicking the 'make' button.

LOTRO - While not anything too creative like the above games, I give them credit for doing a nice mix between the simpler "Click button to make Uber Awesome Sword from nothing" to the more complicated time consuming approaches. Crafting is not interactive but you do have to combine pieces together and they usually require a mix of different crafting professions making all crafts reliant on each other. This keeps the economy flowing and I've met some nice people by doing trading this way. So while the mechanics are nothing to speak about their implementation in the larger picture is well done. Also, I never got annoyed with the components (unlike trying to do smithing or engineering on WoW).

Saga of Ryzom - Awesome crafting system. Again, simple mechanics but good implementation. It's a crafting-based economy so things you make are actually usable. Also, your templates are just that: templates. You have a pants template but say you want something that helps INT and you want it blue, well you need to find the right berries and hide and leaves or whatever to get the right combination (every skin or material you get from mobs, harvesting around the world has unique properties which can all be combined and the result is that of the combination of your mats for the recipe) -- wondrous!