I really loved the crafting minigames in EQ2 and espescially Vanguard.

Which makes me wondering what MMO will bring such an intrigueing interface and make it possible to play the game/craft from your mobile device.

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

I really loved the crafting minigames in EQ2 and espescially Vanguard.

 

Which makes me wondering what MMO will bring such an intrigueing interface and make it possible to play the game/craft from your mobile device.

I pity those who never got to experience the depth and complexity of Star Wars Galaxies' crafting system.

This should be the standard for every MMO, as should the endless content of World of Warcraft.

The thing with crafting minigames is that you only should have to do them until you actually made an item the first time.

I mean ingames like EQ2 you need to make a 100 useless items to get another crafting level and that is bad enough, the fact that you have to play a silly minigame while making each of those items just makes the grind worse.

I could see a minigame that actually is hard to learn to craft a cool item, that is a good idea. Forcing players to play a minigame every time they make the same item on the other hand is incredible boring and worse than spawn camping.

And I agree that SWG is together with APB one of the 2 good crafting system we seen so far. VGs is so so.

Most systems just plain suck, why do my dwarfs crafted armor or weapons look just the same as if an elf smith made them? Everybody knows that an elf made armor looks foppish while a dwarf made looks nastier. Heck, some games even have dwarven chainmails and stuff (like EQ 1 & 1) but still when my dwarf make a chainmail it looks just like if any other race made it.

No customization either. Heck, Biowares Neverwinter nights had better crafting than any MMO I played andthat was 11 years ago. At least you could change the looks on your stuff there.

I absolutely hated grinding the crafting mini-game in Vanguard. It tells you something when they made it so that it cannot be macroed. I have never used a macro but in that game I desperately wanted to.

Crafting mini-games are neat but they are little more than a nuisance if crafting is, like in most MMOs, secondary to every other part of the game. In games like SWG, Vanguard and Free Realms where crafting is a viable progression path, it does work very well though.

Originally posted by Loke666

The thing with crafting minigames is that you only should have to do them until you actually made an item the first time.

I mean ingames like EQ2 you need to make a 100 useless items to get another crafting level and that is bad enough, the fact that you have to play a silly minigame while making each of those items just makes the grind worse.

I could see a minigame that actually is hard to learn to craft a cool item, that is a good idea. Forcing players to play a minigame every time they make the same item on the other hand is incredible boring and worse than spawn camping.

And I agree that SWG is together with APB one of the 2 good crafting system we seen so far. VGs is so so.

Most systems just plain suck, why do my dwarfs crafted armor or weapons look just the same as if an elf smith made them? Everybody knows that an elf made armor looks foppish while a dwarf made looks nastier. Heck, some games even have dwarven chainmails and stuff (like EQ 1 & 1) but still when my dwarf make a chainmail it looks just like if any other race made it.

No customization either. Heck, Biowares Neverwinter nights had better crafting than any MMO I played andthat was 11 years ago. At least you could change the looks on your stuff there.

I believe that its in these foreced crafting situations that communities are made. Sure it depends on the type of crafting system you have but even something as hard as VGs crafting made you stand there and craft stacks of mats. And in the amount of time you spent at the crafting tables, you had conversations with those around you. other crafters doin the same thing.

For those that dont know about VGs crafting, it took some time to do a fair amount of crafting at on time. I was a Tailor so you had to make cloth. Well if you didnt have enough points spent in the right skill, you could only produce 1 cloth at a time. the more points you spent, you gained actions on the Crafting UI. Would go from 1 - 3 - 5 cloths can be made at one time. 5 being the most lol.

So you see making massive amounts of mats could take 30 mins or MORE. Longer when your having a conversation with 5 other crafters while your tring to craft yourself. Hell there were full days i only crafted. This i miss. The community and the fact that i could put in 4 hours of crafting in one day and not give a shit about adventing.

Now you just walk up to a crafting station with 30 stacks of raw mats and hit [ Create All ] and go take a shit, come back and in 3 mins all your shit is made. Garbage crafting system.

Originally posted by Quirhid

I absolutely hated grinding the crafting mini-game in Vanguard. It tells you something when they made it so that it cannot be macroed. I have never used a macro but in that game I desperately wanted to.

Not for nothing but the fact VGs crafting made people like you feel that way made it GREAT! What i mean by this is it kept people that ready didnt want to craft the hell away from the crafting tabels. NOT EVERYONE was a crafter and the market wasent flooded with gobs and gobs of crap. infact crafting was just hard enough so that most crafters worked based off of ORDERS. people would mail gear/weapon/house items/ship parts/housing mats, you name it, there were orders for it.

Sure there were some things on the broker. thats how things went. People will always make and sell stuff on the broker but it was awesome to have your name out there in the community. Getting crafting work from word of mouth. Cant do shit like that anymore when everyone can make EVERYTHING cause crafting is so fucking easy now. The Harder crafting is the better imo.

If you dont want to put in the time to craft then stay the hell away from the crafting tables.

I liked EQ2's crafting minigame. Up until about level 10, then I was sick of it. I cannot imagine grinding that tedious minigame all the way to level 90 - let alone on multiple characters!!

The only way I could stand a crafting mini-game is if it was different for every recipe and it was a puzzle or something.  For example in ATITD, if can cut gems. Every gem is different and you have to figure out a way to cut it to match the pattern that you needed. Or, Puzzle Pirates, you had a different game for each craft. How well you did in the game determined the quality (I think) of the finished item.  For this game, its still the same game over and over, but at least the game is fun.

I really enjoy mini games like Vanguards.  I think it should be part of all MMOs.  I get myself in trouble when I talk in generalities, but I don't care.  I think that crafting mini games are only going to appeal to dedicated crafter types.  I've found that crafter enthusiasts enjoy a bit of complexity in having to craft things.  Especially if crafted items have the same capability or more than dropped items.  I have a couple of characters in SWTOR, and they remain broke for a considerable bit of time because they are very heavily into the crafting scene.  I'm enjoying crafting in SWTOR, but it is defintely one of those areas I think could be improved (like turning it into something like Vanguards or other crafting mini games)

NOTE:  I in no terms speak for crafting enthusiasts, SWTOR fans, or any other group I may have mentioned.  The views expressed are solely mine and not of this website.  There were no gamerrs hurt in the writing of this post.  I am not affiliated with any company and attempts to sue me will probably succeed, but since I don't have anything, the cost will not be worth it.