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Friday, November 03, 2006
Master crafter in one hour
I am not a big fan of the World of Warcraft tradeskill system, because it involves only trade, and no skill. The only difficulty in the non-gathering tradeskills is getting all the recipes and the materials. Thus about one hour after the Burning Crusade expansion goes live, we will have the first master jewelcrafters. It is easy enough, you just need to have all the materials ready in your bank, and a couple of clicks later you hit 300 in jewelcrafting, or even a bit beyond.
I have a growing suspicion that because it is so easy, and because you can hoard all the materials already before the expansion comes out, there will be a *lot* of jewelcrafters. Far more than there is demand for. Of course some of them won't be properly prepared, and will get stuck half of the way, because they underestimated (and didn't look up) the huge amount of materials needed to reach master jewelcrafter. But even those who make it to 300 will find that after having blown hundreds of gold worth of materials on reaching master jewelcrafter, there isn't much money to be made with that tradeskill. I'm not even sure that a cut gem will sell for more than what the ore is worth from which the gem was prospected.
Mastering tradeskills takes a lot longer in other games. But it is rare that it needs any skill. I still remember with horror Star Wars Galaxies, where I made 1680 Mabari chest plates to reach master armorsmith. Now gathering resources in SWG was fun, but the actual crafting was really bad. In Everquest 2 they tried to slightly improve the act of crafting by turning it into a simple mini-game. But again the amount of skill needed was very low, and the amount of items you needed to grind was very high.
The best tradeskill I have seen in any MMORPG is smithing a blade in A Tale in the Desert. Because there are no "skill points" or anything involved. You start with a block of metal, a choice of different hammers, and clicking on the metal with your mouse simulates a hit with the hammer, and deforms the metal. You can switch at any time between a view of how the blade should look, and how it actually looks. The quality of your blade is simply given by how close your shaped metal block comes to the target. It is an interesting game, and smithing a good blade is a skill the player has, not his character. A high-quality blade is valuable, because it needs either a lot of skill, or endless patience and tries from a less skilled smith.
Another good game for tradeskills is Puzzle Pirates, where every tradeskill is a different puzzle. Again your own skill with solving that particular puzzle determines the quality of the outcome, there is no grind through a stack of materials to gain skill points.
Of course World of Warcraft won't change their way how tradeskills are handled any more. And I must say that the gathering portion of the crafting isn't that bad. But when mastering a tradeskill is a simple matter of consuming a large amount of resources, with no effort or skill involved, being a master in anything doesn't count for much. People tend to value a crafter by the amount of rare recipes that he has found or bought. I would have preferred if the act of crafting involved some sort of game, and playing the game well would have given you some crafting advantage. But as it is I will be just one among many master jewelcrafters, with not much of a business.
- posted by Tobold @ 8:36 AM Permanent Link
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Great blog.
Though I havenet played too many MMORPG's, I've always found WoW's tradeskill stuff to be lack luster. I thought EQ2's was pretty fun and at least better then Lineage2.
I'm currently in the process of trying to decide whether or not to drop tailoring/enchanting and picking up mining/jewelcrafting. OR - level up my rogue, dropping engineering and adding jewelcraft.
Though I havenet played too many MMORPG's, I've always found WoW's tradeskill stuff to be lack luster. I thought EQ2's was pretty fun and at least better then Lineage2.
I'm currently in the process of trying to decide whether or not to drop tailoring/enchanting and picking up mining/jewelcrafting. OR - level up my rogue, dropping engineering and adding jewelcraft.
# posted by 
: 3/11/06 15:59
: 3/11/06 15:59
We can only really hope that Blizzard may re-invent the WOW trade skills at some point but that would take a great deal of undoing.
With maybe the exception of the PVP honour system I think Blizzard have got most game mechanics to a level of basic enjoy at the very least, some better than others but none terrible. Could a similar tradeskill system of that in A Tale in the Desert work in WOW? Hmmm Jewelcrafting could be a step that way I suppose with its socket placement in items but I haven't read a great deal just yet about Burning Crusade expansion so I shouldn't really comment there just yet.
One thing I think would work well with a better tradeskill system is player housing. A player in WOW could deck his house space with tools etc which require being fixed to an area ie forges, cooking equipment etc...damn I feel a little dream state coming over me!!
With maybe the exception of the PVP honour system I think Blizzard have got most game mechanics to a level of basic enjoy at the very least, some better than others but none terrible. Could a similar tradeskill system of that in A Tale in the Desert work in WOW? Hmmm Jewelcrafting could be a step that way I suppose with its socket placement in items but I haven't read a great deal just yet about Burning Crusade expansion so I shouldn't really comment there just yet.
One thing I think would work well with a better tradeskill system is player housing. A player in WOW could deck his house space with tools etc which require being fixed to an area ie forges, cooking equipment etc...damn I feel a little dream state coming over me!!
# posted by : 3/11/06 16:09
: 3/11/06 16:09
I'm planning on taking jewelcrafting for my personal amusement and character enchancement, so the "not making money" part doesn't trouple that much, since I never bothered to do profit alchemy either.
Speaking of which, how useful the jewelcrafting created statues are?
Speaking of which, how useful the jewelcrafting created statues are?
# posted by : 3/11/06 17:00
: 3/11/06 17:00
Jewelcrafting is a cool way for Blizz to intro some craftable rings and neck peices but most importantly Jewelcrafting is the new consumable tradeskill.
Cutting gems is relatively cheap (~5-10g per gem) and gear will have as many as 3 slots for gems. Each time you pop a new gem in to min/max your gear for the next boss fight, the old gem is "consumed/destroyed".
This means for about 15-30g per item, you can buff yourself for a new raid boss encounter. Think of Jewelcrafting fitting in between normal pots which are cheaper and flasks which are more expensive.
Cutting gems is relatively cheap (~5-10g per gem) and gear will have as many as 3 slots for gems. Each time you pop a new gem in to min/max your gear for the next boss fight, the old gem is "consumed/destroyed".
This means for about 15-30g per item, you can buff yourself for a new raid boss encounter. Think of Jewelcrafting fitting in between normal pots which are cheaper and flasks which are more expensive.
# posted by : 3/11/06 21:03
: 3/11/06 21:03
ATITD allows bots and external scripting, the only limitation is no unattended play, so you can try to automate parts of the game (and most hardcore players have some automation) but you can't just leave it running while you go to work, because a GM will show up, prod your character, conclude that it's unattended play and you'll return to find the character sat on an island with no means of escape. ATITD charges per character not per simultaneous user, so getting sent to an island, exiled by other players or outright killed is really bad™.
People don't use automation on blacksmithing though, it would be really hard (in fact even just writing a bot that can manipulate metal randomly would be pretty hard). They need automation because blacksmithing is very much the exception rather than the rule. To make a very high quality axe (it's a world with no violence, hence no need for swords, but you use axes to cut wood and better axes cut wood more quickly) requires a lot of player skill and some time. But to gather the materials for that axe just requires hours of mindless clicking. Most gathering, harvesting and trade skills are just a matter of going to the right place and LOTS of clicking.
I know someone who played several years of ATITD as a hardcore in several of the most influential guilds (ATITD lets you join more than one guild)
* He needed to play 2-4 hours per day as "maintenance", any less than this meant his livestock would begin to suffer, structures fall down, etc. When he went on holiday he would find two or three other hardcore players to take his share of this work, and then he'd do the same for them.
* Usually he'd play for 10-14 hours per day, rising to more than 24 hours continuous play for certain special events.
* During this time he had a job (he rarely worked a full day but he's hard to replace) but no other commitments, and no time for them anyway
* He used two or three computers at once, paying for an additional "mule" account to hold extra stuff and assist him with projects deliberately engineered to be impossible for a single character to complete alone, and also sitting on #ATITD in IRC to circumvent the in-game chat limits.
* He had macro software to automate the most tedious gathering and processing tasks, particularly bonfires.
* He eventually obtained the rank of Demi-Pharoah, which meant he could exile any other player at whim (effectively delete their ATITD account)
* He was a member of several guilds which existed solely to conspire against one of the tests. e.g. many tasks in the game expect you to compete openly with everyone else to achieve something, the highest achiever each hour, or day or week or month, gets some reward. It's obvious that all the effort from non-winning players is wasted, so guilds form to decide internally who will compete each week, then the rest of the guild supports that person. In this way instead of everyone having a fair chance, guild members are certain to win in the long run so long as they obey guild instructions. If you don't agree with this way of playing you'll be competing against the whole guild of conspirators every week...
In fact, I just remembered something that's relevant to a recent post here. ATITD doesn't have quests, but the tests you can complete to "progress" in the game include a test of Marriage. Your character marries a character of the opposite gender (no same-sex marriage) and then the game literally enforces the concept that two married people are inseparable (there's no divorce) and must share everything (there's a menu item to switch to your partners character, and you are automatically an equal rights holder in their property). This results in a big improvement over the typical MMORPG "marriage" where two characters dress up, jabber some nonsense into public chat in a picturesque location and then go back to playing the game much as before. Marriage in ATITD is a serious affair.
A disgruntled wife can "become" her husband, announce that he's tired of the game, throw everyone out of his guilds, tear down his expensive structures, kill his livestock, renounce his friends, run to the farthest corner of the world and then switch back to herself and pretend to be astonished at all the destruction. When a deadly poison was introduced, some husbands would switch to their wives, knock back a bottle of poison and then switch back and hope she didn't log in quickly enough to take the antidote. To marry in ATITD is to profess a remarkable trust in another player. It was most commonly a success for real world partners (whether actually married or not) and very close friends. As in real world politics, who you were married to became an important political issue. People would find that a poor marriage ruined their own chances for power and influence, because if you don't trust the wife you can't trust the husband. Of course if you aren't married people will ask themselves whether it's because you aren't trustworthy enough.
People don't use automation on blacksmithing though, it would be really hard (in fact even just writing a bot that can manipulate metal randomly would be pretty hard). They need automation because blacksmithing is very much the exception rather than the rule. To make a very high quality axe (it's a world with no violence, hence no need for swords, but you use axes to cut wood and better axes cut wood more quickly) requires a lot of player skill and some time. But to gather the materials for that axe just requires hours of mindless clicking. Most gathering, harvesting and trade skills are just a matter of going to the right place and LOTS of clicking.
I know someone who played several years of ATITD as a hardcore in several of the most influential guilds (ATITD lets you join more than one guild)
* He needed to play 2-4 hours per day as "maintenance", any less than this meant his livestock would begin to suffer, structures fall down, etc. When he went on holiday he would find two or three other hardcore players to take his share of this work, and then he'd do the same for them.
* Usually he'd play for 10-14 hours per day, rising to more than 24 hours continuous play for certain special events.
* During this time he had a job (he rarely worked a full day but he's hard to replace) but no other commitments, and no time for them anyway
* He used two or three computers at once, paying for an additional "mule" account to hold extra stuff and assist him with projects deliberately engineered to be impossible for a single character to complete alone, and also sitting on #ATITD in IRC to circumvent the in-game chat limits.
* He had macro software to automate the most tedious gathering and processing tasks, particularly bonfires.
* He eventually obtained the rank of Demi-Pharoah, which meant he could exile any other player at whim (effectively delete their ATITD account)
* He was a member of several guilds which existed solely to conspire against one of the tests. e.g. many tasks in the game expect you to compete openly with everyone else to achieve something, the highest achiever each hour, or day or week or month, gets some reward. It's obvious that all the effort from non-winning players is wasted, so guilds form to decide internally who will compete each week, then the rest of the guild supports that person. In this way instead of everyone having a fair chance, guild members are certain to win in the long run so long as they obey guild instructions. If you don't agree with this way of playing you'll be competing against the whole guild of conspirators every week...
In fact, I just remembered something that's relevant to a recent post here. ATITD doesn't have quests, but the tests you can complete to "progress" in the game include a test of Marriage. Your character marries a character of the opposite gender (no same-sex marriage) and then the game literally enforces the concept that two married people are inseparable (there's no divorce) and must share everything (there's a menu item to switch to your partners character, and you are automatically an equal rights holder in their property). This results in a big improvement over the typical MMORPG "marriage" where two characters dress up, jabber some nonsense into public chat in a picturesque location and then go back to playing the game much as before. Marriage in ATITD is a serious affair.
A disgruntled wife can "become" her husband, announce that he's tired of the game, throw everyone out of his guilds, tear down his expensive structures, kill his livestock, renounce his friends, run to the farthest corner of the world and then switch back to herself and pretend to be astonished at all the destruction. When a deadly poison was introduced, some husbands would switch to their wives, knock back a bottle of poison and then switch back and hope she didn't log in quickly enough to take the antidote. To marry in ATITD is to profess a remarkable trust in another player. It was most commonly a success for real world partners (whether actually married or not) and very close friends. As in real world politics, who you were married to became an important political issue. People would find that a poor marriage ruined their own chances for power and influence, because if you don't trust the wife you can't trust the husband. Of course if you aren't married people will ask themselves whether it's because you aren't trustworthy enough.
# posted by : 5/11/06 12:33
: 5/11/06 12:33
My personal idea for a tradeskill system would be one where players had to work together to make the ultimate items. Also, instead of a time sink being in collecting materials that have rare drops or require 40 people at once (lame) I would like to see the time sink just be literal.
Meaning, if you want to make a really great sword, you and a group of other blacksmiths would start the crafting process. This process could take days or even weeks of "real" time where someone has to occasionally maintain the process. Game play can go on as normal as the item is "baking" but maybe at least going to the WoW website and playing a mini game or playing the same game from within the game client to make the process continue.
The advantage of a system like this is that it actually encourages people to work together in a true fashion. It also makes it cool in that if someone spent a month crafting a sword, then it might be really awesome, but hey, only one awesome sword a month enters the market. Heck, maybe you can craft a legendary item but you have to bake it for a full year. Anyone willing to only be making one item for a year (or a group of craftsman!) deserves to have something legendary out of it.
Thank god that WoW took out failing. I never saw the point in skilling up a tradeskill that fails and eats your resources.
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Meaning, if you want to make a really great sword, you and a group of other blacksmiths would start the crafting process. This process could take days or even weeks of "real" time where someone has to occasionally maintain the process. Game play can go on as normal as the item is "baking" but maybe at least going to the WoW website and playing a mini game or playing the same game from within the game client to make the process continue.
The advantage of a system like this is that it actually encourages people to work together in a true fashion. It also makes it cool in that if someone spent a month crafting a sword, then it might be really awesome, but hey, only one awesome sword a month enters the market. Heck, maybe you can craft a legendary item but you have to bake it for a full year. Anyone willing to only be making one item for a year (or a group of craftsman!) deserves to have something legendary out of it.
Thank god that WoW took out failing. I never saw the point in skilling up a tradeskill that fails and eats your resources.
# posted by : 6/11/06 04:05
: 6/11/06 04:05<< Home
