Crafting, sad state of affairs.

I don't understand why game developers ignore the shouts for quality and valuable crafting.

Author: Astrina

A Tale in the Desert brought player skill to some of its crafting, which I very much enjoyed.  Making charcoal in a charcoal oven was touchy, and if there had been a real demand to charcoal, I would have felt great about being able to provide some.  I wish that all games that implemented crafting made success a function of player skill.  But I wish that of all game systems.

The challenge with having a market for crafting is that it usually means that other players' characters become reliant on the crafters.  That's fun for the crafters, but not the players who now have to go to other players for their gameplay.  It's like forced grouping.

As a result, non-crafters start to do their own crafting.  Because it has historically been Just Another Grind, they pushed the appropriate buttons the requisite number of times and were able to craft the stuff that they wanted or needed.

I'd be content making equipment that NPCs order for their employees - which includes player characters.  So I might make 10 swords for an NPC lord, and he will hand them out to his soldiers.  Seven of them are NPCs and three are player characters.  If a soldier builds renown, the lord may promote the character, and the lord may order a more ornate sword.  A crafter of recognized skill would be given the commission for that sword.

This means that crafters can be making anything at all that a fictional world might need.  That's because it is supplying all the NPCs.  That's the demand.  I'd be content knowing that I had used my own skills to make a shirt that was worn by the town baker.  Or that I had used my skills to make the benches in the school.  Or even making bread that is going to be eaten by a bunch of NPCs and PCs in the tavern.  Each item type can have an entirely different game of skill associated with it; baking bread might be as simple as the 'Tale' charcoal ovens (it's fun to do occasionally), while making a sword might require a dozen steps that involve some thinking, planning and expertise.

Lastly, I'd say that I want crafting of items to take time.  That is, I want the crafter to be occupied with making decisions, reacting, judging and planning for 5 or 10 minutes at a stretch.  The idea here is that if a sword involved 10 steps of 5 minutes, then it takes an hour or two to make a sword (only an expert would cruise through it in 50 minutes).  We don't want crafters being manufacturers, but crafters.  When they make something, it should take time.  The crafter should be entertained for a while.  The resulting item should have weight to it because it's going to be around for a long time, and the crafter wants it to be tracked.

EVE Online is one of few MMOs where a crafter can be a pure crafter and all items are player made. player made items is what makes sandbox games fun and helps make a real economy. The items you make are actually *used* by players. All best items comes from the players. And whats even better items are composed of base materials.

I made an alt other day which I plan to use as a dedicated crafter but on my main I also craft and sell ym goods on the market

I hope to see more games like EVE but apprently CCP is one the few smart devs (along with other freeform MMOs)

JB: What sort of player skill was involved in Tale From the Desert? What exactly did you have to do? Most importantly, did you find the act of doing it fun?

Melf_Himself: "What sort of player skill was involved in Tale From the Desert? What exactly did you have to do? Most importantly, did you find the act of doing it fun?"

Charcoal ovens in "A Tale in the Desert" operated such that you put wood into the oven, then created a fire under it.  The temperature from the fire had to be controlled with a combination of wood, water and air flow.  It worked like a little simulator, involving three simple factors that could make for a complicated dance.

But it wasn't easy to control.  There was a delay between adding wood and getting an increase in temperature.  And the temperature increase wasn't constant.  So you found that you were playing with the air vents to make sure that the right amount of air reached the fire, keeping it at a relatively constant temperature (which was the goal of the oven).  The key was finding the right rate of adding wood while not having to mess with the air vent too much.  If you lost control, the whole batch would be lost.

It was fun to figure out and even to use.  The problem was that I wouldn't want to be doing it for batch after batch, for hours on end.  Perhaps a couple times a week, as an opportunity to do something different.  I think each batch took about 10 minutes.

Another point of skill in "A Tale in the Desert" was crafting iron items.  You started with a block of metal that you then hit with your hammer.  You selected where you wanted to hit by clicking on the metal block.  And you would see the metal deform as you hit it.  The goal was to get the metal block shaped into the target form as accurately as possible - and in as few strikes as possible.  After a while, the metal would be considered 'overworked' and the quality would drop.

I liked the idea, but not the implementation.  The interface was difficult to work with, and the metal didn't work in a way that I found intuitive.  With more practice, I may have hit my stride with the system and gotten good results, but I just wasn't drawn to it.  But I did make a couple items of modest quality, and that was a really nice feeling, partly because I then used those items in other crafting tasks.

The third system I can think of was a gem-cutting one.  I can't really remember the details, except that you started with a rough stone taken from a simple gathering action and rotated and 'struck it' to cleave it down to a specific shape.  Again, it was a system that showed promise, but I wasn't drawn to it in the form that I used.

As was stated, "Tale" didn't really have a market for the items we created.  Mostly people just harvested resources, processed them and build more stuff.  Having somebody around to use them would have made a big difference.

Very simple skills went into other systems, while no skill at all was involved in still others.  That means that there were very grindy actions in the game.  I guess it was all done to give a wide range of options to players.

The bottom line is that it was fun to learn each skill in turn, but that was as far as the overall experience went.  There weren't enough people to interact with, and there weren't significant reasons to interact.  But the crafting system was pretty good.  If it could be introduced into a game world that had other types of experiences, I think it would have a lot more traction in the market.

I would agree with JB here, the idea in ATITD was great, but the implementation was lacking.

However, the game did offer more than just crafting. The political system was unique as well and quite deep. The players created the laws, chose the leaders and through some fairly intense political manipulations, could even get players banned from the game.

I have played each tale that has come out (the game restarts every 1.5 to 2 years or so). The first 3 months are a true blast. Getting a camp set up, searching for minerals, picking herbs, growing grapes and making my own personal wines. After that, the game tends to fall on it's behind.

The concept, is to pick a path and become oracle. You can focus on worship, art, architecture...etc. As you progress and open up new technology in your region (this is usually done by the region), you personally, finish steps to accomplish your goals and gain titles.  This is not an easy process and takes some serious committment to the game.

The game itself has a great deal of potential and depth. Sadly, the pace of the game can be some serious tedium and at times, it feels way more like work, than a game. But I have to say, the community is amazing. If you enjoy being around true intellects, this is the place to be.