Fairly solid list, but I feel like Dark Age of Camelot deserved an honorable mention for being the game that invented the modern crafting system.

Decent lineup, although I might put EVE at no. 2 and FE at no. 3.  I really enjoy EQ2's crafting as well.

Pre-NGE SWG was utterly amazing for me at the time.  Every time I think about that game I get sad.....that is another topic!

Originally posted by MurlockDance

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.

 This is only in response to the LOTRO part of the post above. While I agree to some extent that LOTRO has some good points to it's crafting, I just don't seeing it as being as complex and varied as any of the other listed. Don't get me wrong, the crafting system in LOTRO serves the purpose that it can. However, there is just not any variation between results. Most of the other leasted, especially SWG have or had some form of wider varitation of results based upon skill, ingredients and possilby tools used to craft items. LOTRO's on the other hand is pretty simplistic except for one ingredient you may be able to add and slightly higher success chance of making a better item then the generic one on the recipe. Now, I might agree to put LOTRO at number 8 but even then I would feel that a stretch.

Vanguard crafting at 6th place, should be lower down. Like on 4 or 3th.

Originally posted by Rockgod99
Hmm... Ryzom has a better system than half of those games. Oh well other than that it's a good list.

 

i really enjoyed the awesome harvesting system in Ryzom the best by far in any game , closest is SWG .

Originally posted by sungodra

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.

Given that about 2/3's of us left after the NGE, thats hardly surprising.  I'm still amazed to this day that people could be so bone headed, short sighted and out right ignorant as to have come up with the NGE to start with. Not to mention that dear old Smed didn't get black listed for life over it.   Oh well, moving on before I start to rant. ^^

I've never been one to focus first on crafting(I'd rather kill things and take their stuff ^^) , but it is a major draw for many people. Which makes it all the more surprising that so few games actually do crafting well.

I ilked DAoC crafting system. Sure, it was boring, but it ran the economy. Who cares about a fun craftinh system, if the crafted items are pointless.

Ryzom

I have played early SWG and Fallen Earth and Vanguard and imo as someone so crafted obsessed as to have said all this fighing is ruining my game, Ryzom far and away has the best crafting.

Customizability:  These ss give some indication of the breadth of customizability

http://s75.photobucket.com/albums/i284/Zyha/?action=view¤t=10ParryAx.jpg

http://s75.photobucket.com/albums/i284/Zyha/?action=view¤t=Amps99.jpg

I don't have ss of armor or jewels but there was siimilar detailed customizability, eg the ability to create mob specific armors rather than just good armor.

Mechanics:

While in SWG we were reliant on the server's random mat generator - no good mats generated no good items.  (Anyone else remember fibroplast on Intrepid?)  everyone works with the same mats in Ryzom and the result is 100% due to the crafter's ingenuity in combining them.  A plan would be something like 6 fiber, 4 metal, 5 wood and we were free to chose different mats for each slot - one of 6 different types of fiber, all 6 the same, or 2 of this and 4 of that, entirely up to us.  Each mat both increased and decreased stats across I think it was 6 attributes per mat, so a good item could not be made solely by, in the case of weapon, using all high dps mats as they lowered speed.

The system was so ingenious that 2.5 years after launch people were still creating items which no one had yet made.  I'm not aware of any games that give crafters this degree of control - and hours and hours of delightfully tortorous entertainment trying to crack the puzzle of just the right combo of mats.

It was suggested that devs consider the ideas from the games on the list.  I heartily suggest that if anyone is developing a game which hopes to attract crafters that they track down whoever designed Ryzom's crafting system.  It's in a class of its own.

Wurm online should realy be on that list, that is the best crafting game i have ever played

I like the simplicity behind the Runes of Magic Crafting System. 

In that one a player would need to make three characters. One character has all material gathering to 60. That can be your main character who explores the world and does whatever...

Then you make two other characters who are like "crafting mules" and level them slowly. In the midst of this, you have each of the two craft the craftable skills to level 60. 

A point comes when it does become a grind but at high levels you pretty much are able to make tons of money and help many players at the same time. The game allows you to also buy Diamonds through normal in-game money too and vice versa. It means that the cash-shop currency is attainable without spending a single cent. 

Of course its not the best crafting system in the world and more complex ones exist, but its better than the horrific nature of crafting systems introduced in games like Lineage 2 where it took me longer to make a virtual weapon in a game vs a real weapon in the real world. 

Meh DarkFall has a shoddy version of UO's crafting system, no Idea why DFO made the list lol. 

UO and SWG (Pre NGE) had the best crafting systems around. 

Crafting is one of the things I look for in a MMO, and also having played over 50% of the game son the list I would add Ryzom and Wurm Online to that list.

Most crafting these days is too limiting to me (only allowed to "harvest"/"craft" one or two lines), but Ryzom and Wurm allow you to do everything, but you still end up scpecializing because of the time/effort invovled.

Originally posted by Gruug

Originally posted by MurlockDance

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.

 This is only in response to the LOTRO part of the post above. While I agree to some extent that LOTRO has some good points to it's crafting, I just don't seeing it as being as complex and varied as any of the other listed. Don't get me wrong, the crafting system in LOTRO serves the purpose that it can. However, there is just not any variation between results. Most of the other leasted, especially SWG have or had some form of wider varitation of results based upon skill, ingredients and possilby tools used to craft items. LOTRO's on the other hand is pretty simplistic except for one ingredient you may be able to add and slightly higher success chance of making a better item then the generic one on the recipe. Now, I might agree to put LOTRO at number 8 but even then I would feel that a stretch.

Well actually, the crafting tool level will have an effect on the likelihood of a critical successs for a start. Then using scholar provided crafting scrolls can improve your chances, so can shards or other optional ingredients, your crafters level of course makes a big difference...and then there is just simply random chance. That makes quiete a bit of potential variation in results.

Having said all that though., it IS just another variation on the boring WoW system but at least it allows my cook to fund my other character's luxuries.

it seems like how crafting relates to the economy played a large role in the author's opinion. Darkfall's crafting system doesn't exactly blow you away as you're doing it. The act itself isn't really much fun. The value of having high crafting skills and being able to produce the highest equipment for your clan is hard to overstate though. I guess the role of crafting in the Darkfall world is interesting, but the system of producing items is somewhat bland.

I've seen worse, and this is the only game I've ever been a serious crafter in, but I was still kind of surprised to see Darkfall make this list.

Should be (1) SWG pre nge

(2) Vangaurd

(3) EQ2

(4) Eve

(5) fallen earth

the others I never crafted in.

Originally posted by sudo

Great choices. I've tried all those games but SWG and I love crafting quite a lot. Are there any people still playing that game and would you still recommend it for a crafter (at least before SW TOR is out, because that is actually the game I'm waiting for today)?

Last time i tried it swg had about 5k subs, if you want to try again you need to find out which are the 2 servers with any sort of population.  If you want to play as just a crafter i honestly wouldn't bother as is too much a loot orientated game(unless you are heavily into reing)

Also last i heard bioware said tor wasn't having a crafting system as such, have they changed this?

I agree with the list but Everquest 2 was only good when it launched at least. I'm not sure when they dumbed it down but it is crap now, like before you could fail and create loads of different qualities... now there is none of that :\ I just think it's worth a mention you shouldn't include the current shitty state it's in.

Originally posted by sudo

Great choices. I've tried all those games but SWG and I love crafting quite a lot. Are there any people still playing that game and would you still recommend it for a crafter (at least before SW TOR is out, because that is actually the game I'm waiting for today)?

I would say it's still the game game and crafting is one of the things most untouched, especially for shipwrights. Just it's lost it's identity it once had, basically it was a game with lots of potential that had an amazing profession system built around it where every profession needed other professions to survive. All that is gone now for a WoW like class system and the game has no potential cause it is dead and the only new stuff is loot card in the trading card game. It has horrible combat now, horrible animations and a horrible UI and just....... it's just pathetic and so sad what happened to it all because of the CU and NGE. 

It's basically like Everquest's PoP and Luclin or Planetside's Core Combat and BFR's or DAOC's Atlantis or WoW's TBC... etc etc.

Pre-NGE I was the pre-eminant armor crafter on my server.  Rebel or Alliance had to have one of my creation.  I was wealthy beyond belief, I financed my entire guild, built a city.  Post NGE, I was nothing.  Bitter, yes.

I have played all these games and belive they goo specially SWG, but i believe u are missing 1 that should be on top of list.Not because it fun sitting there for hrs crafting to lvl but because end product line.

 In DAOC i would say most boring crafting, but at end best results.The reson I say this cause now u can have 1 toon do all the crafting dont have to lvl 10 toons u dont want just to craft it all, but 2nd off once done there s nothing u cant make, say u have 2 pieces to make all ur resist and stats ate done but u need some +'s to ur sword and sheild well u can ad that in plus more to hit points i mean u have alot to work with there 2 pieces and 4-5  gems per slot aint no way u cant work out a awsome template better than anygame i have ever played.

So what am saying it should be included not for fun factor but cant beat the plus sides of finished crafter (like I said 1 toon to do it all)and templated and crafting everything u need even buffs and all, hard to beat...