Nice list. Eve would have been farther up and Wurm/ATitD would have knocked EQ2/Vanguard out.

Ultima Online would have been my first.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by Erikmicheal

All true... but one thing needs to be of note... The crafting system of SWG today is THE SAME as it was 7 years ago. Its more geared the way you descibed today then in the past. For instance... back in the day crafters were less dependant on other crafters then they are now.

Absolutely NOT, not even close!  SOE has made large changes in the SWG crafting systems, namely removing deterioration from equipment. They have also added significant enhancement of equipment to the menu.  Don't make ridiculous comments on this forum unless you are aware of what you are talking about.

Good list by the way although I found the EQII crafting to be overly complex and not fun.  Ryzom and Istaria also have decent ones.   Funny the most fun I have had crafting was UO.   My equipment was always in high demand there.

 

 The core foundation of SWG's crafting system is the same.  Resource spawns/shifts/random stats, experimentation during crafting, factory schematics...those basic componets are the same.

Yes there have been changes to match the updates in the combat systems and overall game systems.  You mention, specifically, the loss of durability as part of the crafting process.  When they took item decay out of the game, the durability line became useless so it was removed.

Originally posted by olepi

I love crafting in MMO's. My favorites are:

Ryzom -- by far the bvest. You can be killed just by harvesting, and there are no recipes.

Vanguard -- good mini-game and skill progression

PoTBS -- not impressed. No skill involved, no exploration and gathering.

Perpetuum -- like Eve, it is good.

 

Having only played Fallen Earth from the list you gave, you really blwe this one!  I agree with the poster above:  Ryzom has the best crafting I have seen yet!  While it is very difficult to be able to harvest mats that are good enough to craft items that are appropriate to your fighting skills, as primarily a harvester and crafter second [fighting skills were 100 points lower!] I could get enough materials to trade/sell for mats of the quality and level that I wanted.  Horizons crafting was ok, but having crafting classes instead of fully open skills like Ryzom, puts it at number 2 at best, more likely number 3 behind Fallen Earth.

Perhaps the author should've polled the community first before doing this article?

Originally posted by lady_lizard

1. The problem with NGE is that they (still?) removed durability for the items, so as a crafter you could not make a living.

2. Given, the system on it's own IS the best of all time, and they atleast did not change that (only that you can no longer choose the things you want)

3. Just sad that they destroyed a great game and made a wannabe WoW clone :( (not that I don't play WoW, but I stopped playing SWG when they destroyeed it with NGE)

 1. Agree that it's a shame they removed durabillity, but you are mistaken that crafters can not make a living, cause that's pure based on how some might play it, while it has been several years for me butpeople where saying the same thing in 2007 which was the time I returned for 8 months and saw from own experiance that as a crafter you could make a great living in SWG, but it all had to do with the effort put into it, as today's generation lacks the patience to put some effort into play (obviously not everyone) but vet. players of SWG have also proven to lack the patience to once more get into the game. My shops had many npc merchants, but the thing that made me different was that everyone from every lvl could shop at my store, where others when reaching cap lvl for some reason stopped making products for lower lvl's and it was excactly those type of cap lvl crafters that complained about the lack of business, while my business was triving very VERY well.

2. Agree

3. I stopped a few months after the NGE cause I was mainly a full crafter, and at the time when the NGE hit the only things I could sell where houses or bountyhunter droids, but I was glad to have returned in 2007 for those 8 months (only 8 months cause I had to put to much time into rl) and saw allot of the game had improved, but even then we saw the influx of pre-nge vets who simply did not want to give the game another change cause for some reason they expected the same type of play we had during pre-cu, we even saw topics where people stated that none of their old friends list would light up and they didn't see any crafters or so spamming their goods all around Coronet, which made me believe that those people for some reason totaly ignored that they stepped into a changed game.

Overall in regards to the craft list I felt Vangaurd was stated abit wrong cause how could we gather resources without the ol'exploring routine?

And can't say much about EQ cause that game never atracted me thought I did try it a few times back then and last week downloaded EQ2Extended but haven't really touched it much so far.

I agree with these choices and await another MMO to have the SWG crafting experience.  Just the best crafting in any MMO period.

I'm quite surprised that you didn't mention Horizons(now Istaria). It has one of the most detailed crafting systems I've seen in a long time. In fact, it would be fair that its a crafting game, around which they added some other MMO elements. ^^  But SWG pre NGE would be a good choice for number one.

You Missed one the Best Craft Systems.. HORIZONS.. Empires of Istaria.. No other Craft System can Compare to that MMO..  http://www.istaria.com/ ... it's too bad they Nerfed the Whole Combat System..

1. Craft the House & LandScape around you..

2. The Fact you could change the Empire with your Crafting..

3. Effectiveness of this system hauled in 1000's of Craft Addicts..

SWG was great because

• Items could have different stats and could be unique
• Item decay
• There was no Auction House/World Market - You had to search individuals stores

Fully agree that Ryzom really should of got a mention.

It's actually rather close in a lot of ways to Pre-NGE SWG.

Haven't posted on this site in ages due to reality, but here goes:

It would be cool to know what criteria the OP used to judge which game has good crafting and which game does not. Is it ease of making a crafter? Is it lack of monotony, is it being able to affect the outcome of the items you make, relevance of tradeskills in the game, what role it has in the game's economy?

I haven't played PotBS or Darkfall Online so can't discuss their relevance on this list.

I'll play a bit of devil's advocat here, namely with Fallen Earth. If you add FE to this list, why not add WoW, why not add LotRO? Let me explain before anyone flames me. Ok, so you can make tons of useful things, that's great, but how is the crafting and resource gathering *really that different* from WoW's or LotRO's in their mechanics? Looking at harvesting, in WoW or LotRO, you do it through randomly-appearing resource nodes that you click on once to harvest a resource. Same thing in FE, you click on a resource node once, you get a resource from it. In WoW and LotRO, you can use your resources and any other materials to pop out one item, same with FE. The only tangible difference I can see is that you can produce things while offline or while fiddly farting around somewhere in the game, but the downside is that each item takes longer to 'bake' as it were than in either WoW or LotRO. There is no other way to get resources easily without going through what I like to call 'the harvest grind' to get them. 

A big issue that makes me not want to see FE anywhere near that list is that any crafting character can craft anything since there is no limit to how many tradeskills you can skill up. The only limitation one seems to have is inventory and bank space. If anyone can be a crafter and can make anything, and your game economy is based on what items players make, you're going to end up with a sluggish one at best.

I agree with the rest, though I think the OP only touched the tip of the iceberg for EvE's complexity. Most of EvE is about resources and fighting over them, or fighting over blueprints. Then there is the optimization aspect in order to make the most ISK out of time spent inventing or manufacturing.

I am surprised though that there was no mention of UO's or ATitD's as many on here have already said. And then there is also DAoC's which I think should be mentioned not due to the superfun aspect of crafting (it wasn't fun in the slightest), but because of spellcrafting. It was one of the few games that allowed people to customize their gear according to their playstyle. Spellcrafted gear is still integral to every level 50's template, even to this day.

For swg I don't understand why the reviewer puts PRe-NGE since the swg crafting system is still unique to this day... Apparently the person never played past pre-nge or they would know the swg system is still a very unique crafting system.

I like the list, but your rankings are a little off. Why Vanguard is not closer to #1, if not #1, is a little mind boggling.

Haven't played all of the games, but played enough of them to have an opinioin.  I would move Vanguard closer to number one and I would move Darkfall last ( I would actually move it off the list)  While I love Darkfall and played it for the better part of a year, its crafting system was relatively shallow IMO.

Istaria had the best crafting of the games I´ve ever played!

Originally posted by Lanfea

defently missing: ryzom and istaria

 

Agree!

Originally posted by GungaDin

You forgot Ultima Online

 

This. For me it's UO, Vanguard, SWG, Eve.

I would also like to throw out Shadowbane.  In what other game could an architect be so impactful?  The best items came from player towns, player towns could be attacked, how you laid out those towns was critical, but yeah other then the slight of Horizons and aTitD (not familiar enough with Ryzom) i agree with this list.

another vote for Horizons (Istaria) as best all time crafting.  You can even make a trial account and play for free (no cash shop) as long as you only play 1 Char, Human only.  The entire game is available to you, and you jump right into crafting right out of the gate.  It is independent of adventuring as well