35 replies to this topic

[Zheng]

The attempts of various games (Vanguard, most recently) to make crafting a viable stand-alone alternative to adventuring in MMO's has gotten me thinking that perhaps we should take that to it's next step.

:arrow: It's time to have crafting groups.

Same rules as adventuring: two to six people get together and form a team with a goal in mind (a certain recipe or large amount of items to produce) and work toward that goal together bringing their various talents into play to form a well-balanced team of individuals capable of things that each member alone is not.

Example:
Zheng, the noted weaponsmith, invites Syndic the Leatherworker and Dice the Jeweler/Enchanter over to join him in crafting. They even get a second weaponsmith, Grimwell to join them. Because they're crafting a masterpiece of a weapon, the two smiths will be definate boon. They form a team and Zheng suggests a legendary two-handed sword. They agree and Zheng begins. A pop-up box appears to each member of the team to confirm they'll be working together and they agree to add their talents to the mix.

They each start an individual crafting process at their respective stations. Zheng and Grim working on the blade and hilt, Dice on the jewels for the pomel and lower blade and Syndic on the leather for the hilt and scabard.

Because there are two smiths working together, they can either have one craft while the other acts as a watchful eye giving +'s to item creation, or they can each craft the same thing and then choose the better of the two outcomes to be used in the final process.

Once each crafter finishes their respective pieces, they all roll invisible assembly rolls and they are averaged to determine final quality. Once done, Dice the enchanter places enchantments on the leather scabard/hilt and the blade itself. The item is given a name and because of the quality, it goes for a high enough price to ensure the time spent finding the team and crafting was worth it.

This can work with my thread on masterworks or just for common items to speed up the process and increase output. It can also help time go faster as you'll have someone to talk to and compare crafting notes with. As far as I know, this hasn't been done yet to this extent.

Disclaimer: No forum members were hurt during the drafting of the above example.

[dice]

100% agree.

Group/team crafting would be awesome. I'm not sure how the game mechanics could handle it, but I completely agree. The Ford motor company was successful simply because individual workers could specialise in only one aspect of car manufacture; with multiple people with different skills all working on different aspects of the same project, the project is completed faster, the completed product is of much greater quality, and efficiency increases.

Crafting _needs_ something like this. It would be sweet that at the start of some crafting project, the "Master Crafter" (the person with the blueprints/schematics) could select whether the project would be single or group. The schematic would define which specialisations would be required to complete the project (2xWeaponsmith, 1xLeatherworker, 1xJeweler/Enchanter). Special crafting workshops could be available in-game, with various "specialisation stations". The different characters man the stations, and do their thing.

Alternatively, you don't even need the crafting workshops or anything related (although it makes sense to require everyone to be in the same place, and to have the necessary tools at hand). I guess the problem with crafting workshops could be supply vs demand. Meh, that's something for the dev's to work out. The important thing here is that Zheng is absolutely right - crafting should be about teamwork just as much as adventuring can be.

Cheers,
dice.

[lurker1]

Nice idea I am not much of a crafter most of the time but it would be nice if they did something like this as it would make the cities you goto more alive and not seem like a ghost town with just a few npc's standing around.

I would like to see them expand on the deplomicy idea that VG started but that is another topic. All and all like I said nice idea Zheng. I have a few question through

1. How would you know the people that you group with are masters at their choosen craft and won't end up costing you more time. Would their be lower lv recipes that you could do with these people so you would know tha are good at what they do?

2. Would you only be able to do these groups with people around your lv/skill. How would you get together with these people or with others that would be near your lv/skill.

If they did do crafting groups I would like to see them do something like apprenticeship where lower lv crafters could learn off of masters players in game(not sure how that would be done)anyway like I said nice idea I am in complete agreement.

[Syndic]

There certainly needs something to be done about crafting. Currently since games now seem to introduce an XP system into levelling it seems more of a grind than ever before.

It needs something to spice it up. Adventuring doesn't have to be so boring while getting xp becuase your moving to different areas fighting different things, see the sights and the grouping aspect. Crafting you sit and stare at a machine. Yes you get more levels but there is no oppurtunity for a different set of scenery or other oppurtunities for variety.

Adventuring just seems to offer more variety, so we certainly needs ideas like this to come out.

[Grimmway]

Two heads are better than one.

When multiples work on a project, they can make something above their own individual skill levels?

Too many cooks spoil the broth.

Too many people in a group project will capsize the progress. Increased chance for failure? (huge amount for each extra person getting in the way?)

Zheng - really unique idea.

"I'm gonna log on to Alganon. My sewing circle is making quilts, and some enchanted prayer shawls."

Why was Grimwell invited and not Grimmway? Trolls hands too large?

Grimmway

[dog]

I think this would be a neat idea and if designed well could be quite fun and encourage players to work together. There is a problem with this however. If three people create one item, who gets it? Each player would feel that they are entitled to the mighty sword or fine piece of armour and there would be arguments.

I think a better way of doing it would be to design some recipes or blueprints or whatever you want to call them so that they require an item or reagent that is only available or able to be created by someone from another profession. That way players could trade resources and there would be collaboration between the professions.

What do you guys think?

[Syndic]

I think a better way of doing it would be to design some recipes or blueprints or whatever you want to call them so that they require an item or reagent that is only available or able to be created by someone from another profession. That way players could trade resources and there would be collaboration between the professions.

I've seen this tried in EQ2. When it launched the tradeclasses had subcombines. So to make a sword you would make a handle, crossguard and blade and then join them to make the sword. So the final combine to make the sword was all in one class, but too make the individual pieces required not only refined items from your class but others as well. It didn't work out very well so eventually crafting was redone to remove dependance and subcombines altogether.

Could the system work? Possibly but you'd have to have an amazing community who is will to work together and sell trade items at a resonable price. From what I've seen in MMO's is if someone knows someone else absolutely has to have something the price just doubled or more.

EQ2 had it's basic flaws of the classes were not equally dependant on each other. You had alchemists who were relied on by every other class yet relied on no class, provisioners who were self sufficient, the other classes relied upon 1 to 2 other classes, yet some classes were needed by between 1-5 other classes.
Of course this led to some classes being more popular than others. Alchemist was a must if you didn't want to be at the mercy of gougers (prices of individual resources sometimes were more than the resulting product and you needed multiples, thats even if you could find them available). Provisioner was the most popular since they only relied on themselves and made consumable items.

I personally don't think dependance can work between classes, but I'd love to see it happen.

[Razurescens]

Would it be a good idea to have the blueprints of these masterpieces familybinded. This way the crafters of each family can work together and each family can make some different special items. It would also ad a traditional aspect to the family, a blueprint that has been passed on from one generation to the next.

Maybe not only blueprints for groups but also individual blueprints or recipes can be familybinded. For exemple a food recipe that is only known in your family, like a pie that gives u more strength or so.
Or maybe this is just a bad idea
What do u think?

Razurescens

[Jergis]

-I like the idea here of family recipes, although unclear how best to do this in-game. But absolutely, it'd be neat to have that connection for the characters.

Jergis

[Ozium]

making one super item would be great for guilds but normal groups would create chance for mistrust/hassle of selling said item i think.

something that would work better and easier for devs is a crafting bonus for being in a group, say 5% to quality or chance for great combine.

[Aquarian]

making one super item would be great for guilds but normal groups would create chance for mistrust/hassle of selling said item i think.

something that would work better and easier for devs is a crafting bonus for being in a group, say 5% to quality or chance for great combine.

I agree, trying to sell an item between the group would be a hassle and would require a great community for it to work.

Crafting bonus's are a good idea or maybe less raw materials are used when in a group.

[Zinn]

Group crafting never worked in Vanguard beta and never made it close to release. But group harvesting did and works very well in vanguard.

What I would love to see taken from Vanguard is the mechanics of crafting. Rather than making crafting a brainless click and wait they made it interactive and more like combat where you are actually fighting to craft the item you want with a (very low) chance of failure. Now there may be some issues here of crafting in vanguard being to easy and crafted items being of little value but they got the mechanics right.

What I would love to see is a combination of vanguard's mechanics with Horizons world changing crafting. In Horizon's crafters could tunnel into new areas to find new content. Could build bridges to islands and areas that otherwise could not be accessed. Horizon's had absolutely wonderful meaningful community based crafting projects. I hope I am right in crediting David Allen for that crafting design. It is the community based part of Horizon's that makes me excited about David Allen's new game.

[gloryforixseal]

If anyone in NJ/lower NY area is doing a group buy from NCM let me know cause Im in. My brothers store has a forklift to offload the truck, so if we get enough people in we could save big on the shipping.

[Hamarhand]

Very interesting ideas. I generally like the process as initially laid out at the top of the thread. I think there are a number of mechanics which could help here (alone or in combination.) I'll just throw up my thoughts and all y'all can glom onto any you like:

• Crafting sessions. Those in the group agree ahead of time on a certain number of items to craft. If any of those in the group aren't actually interested in the items to be crafted, the fee for services rendered would be determined ahead of time (basically you have an interface to indicate who gets what, and all parties have to check "Agree" before they can proceed.) As there would likely be slight variations in the items produced, at the end of the session, each participant who will receiving one or more items indicates which they prefer via the session interface (perhaps even a first and second choice.) In the event that multiple individuals want the same item(s), they would be distributed randomly. At this point, any who are simply interested in a fee for services could walk away, and any players who want to attempt trades of the item(s) received, could do so amongst themselves.
• Escrow. After crafting an item, that item is placed in escrow with each participant holding an equal share. From there, the item can be auctioned with the proceeds being split evenly (fractional coppers would be retained by the AH). Perhaps the participants could have a grace period in which to "buy out" the item before it went on the general AH.
• Varied Fractional Shares. Perhaps for a given group craft a specific profession provides more, or is in shorter supply. In this case, I'd have an in-game algorithm determine the share of the proceeds assigned to each crafter, with each being informed of the division before crafting started. Although the programming of an algorithm could be tricky, it would be impartial (and hopefully minimize price gouging.)

[Therian]

Very interesting ideas. I generally like the process as initially laid out at the top of the thread. I think there are a number of mechanics which could help here (alone or in combination.) I'll just throw up my thoughts and all y'all can glom onto any you like:

• Crafting sessions. Those in the group agree ahead of time on a certain number of items to craft. If any of those in the group aren't actually interested in the items to be crafted, the fee for services rendered would be determined ahead of time (basically you have an interface to indicate who gets what, and all parties have to check "Agree" before they can proceed.) As there would likely be slight variations in the items produced, at the end of the session, each participant who will receiving one or more items indicates which they prefer via the session interface (perhaps even a first and second choice.) In the event that multiple individuals want the same item(s), they would be distributed randomly. At this point, any who are simply interested in a fee for services could walk away, and any players who want to attempt trades of the item(s) received, could do so amongst themselves.
• Escrow. After crafting an item, that item is placed in escrow with each participant holding an equal share. From there, the item can be auctioned with the proceeds being split evenly (fractional coppers would be retained by the AH). Perhaps the participants could have a grace period in which to "buy out" the item before it went on the general AH.
• Varied Fractional Shares. Perhaps for a given group craft a specific profession provides more, or is in shorter supply. In this case, I'd have an in-game algorithm determine the share of the proceeds assigned to each crafter, with each being informed of the division before crafting started. Although the programming of an algorithm could be tricky, it would be impartial (and hopefully minimize price gouging.)

1 could work, 2 would probably be the easiest to implement, and 3 would just cause trouble.
many recipes in wow required mats produced by other crafts, in most cases it wasnt too bad but in some items were really overpriced.
I like the idea of a 'group craft' though. but I think I'd go for the group crafting 1 each of whatever the item was, with all the same stats. (kinda like the assembly line thing... raw mats in, 5 identical items out (in a 5 person group)....avoids any conflicts.)

[Hamarhand]

1 could work, 2 would probably be the easiest to implement, and 3 would just cause trouble.
many recipes in wow required mats produced by other crafts, in most cases it wasnt too bad but in some items were really overpriced.
I like the idea of a 'group craft' though. but I think I'd go for the group crafting 1 each of whatever the item was, with all the same stats. (kinda like the assembly line thing... raw mats in, 5 identical items out (in a 5 person group)....avoids any conflicts.)

Well, the point with 3 is that with supply and demand, the cost of some trade materials can vary pretty wildly. Perhaps another option would be to allow players to contribute to a gold pool as part of the process (so everyone feels like everyone is putting in the same amount.) The pool could then be divided equally when everything had been crafted... I can see either system being abused (as sadly there seem to always be people trying to abuse the system.)

Edit: Or here's a thought... Go with the gold pool, and then display the estimated market value of each person's contribution. The group could then use discretion as to how much intangibles added...

[Therian]

Well, the point with 3 is that with supply and demand, the cost of some trade materials can vary pretty wildly. Perhaps another option would be to allow players to contribute to a gold pool as part of the process (so everyone feels like everyone is putting in the same amount.) The pool could then be divided equally when everything had been crafted... I can see either system being abused (as sadly there seem to always be people trying to abuse the system.)

Edit: Or here's a thought... Go with the gold pool, and then display the estimated market value of each person's contribution. The group could then use discretion as to how much intangibles added...

I honestly dont see a good way to do it, I mean even if you ended up with everyone getting an item, you would still have people complain that their mats were worth more than someone else's. people are just greedy that way it seems. well, not all people but enough to have an impact.

I agree, any way it was done would have abuses & complaints.

[Hamarhand]

I honestly dont see a good way to do it, I mean even if you ended up with everyone getting an item, you would still have people complain that their mats were worth more than someone else's. people are just greedy that way it seems. well, not all people but enough to have an impact.

I agree, any way it was done would have abuses & complaints.

At least with a gold pool, people could attempt to come to some agreement about equivalency. And if you're too greedy, you may just not do much business

[Therian]

I read this in the 'MMORPG.com Dev Chat!, Transcripts posted!' thread from may 2009.


QOL_DavidAllen: We do have collaborative crafting in Alganon.

QOL_DavidAllen: Which is pretty cool; this will require people to team up to make more complex items.

QOL_DavidAllen: And pushes people to become specialissts.

QOL_DavidAllen: and those specialists can be in high demand.


you should read the rest of the thread, some nice information in it.

[Hamarhand]

I read this in the 'MMORPG.com Dev Chat!, Transcripts posted!' thread from may 2009.


QOL_DavidAllen: We do have collaborative crafting in Alganon.

QOL_DavidAllen: Which is pretty cool; this will require people to team up to make more complex items.

QOL_DavidAllen: And pushes people to become specialissts.

QOL_DavidAllen: and those specialists can be in high demand.


you should read the rest of the thread, some nice information in it.

Ahh yes, I remember reading that now. All kinds of cool stuff. Still, it's fun to speculate, even if 90% of what I say becomes irrelevant (and silly sounding) at release. And who knows, someone may come up with a killer idea that the devs hadn't thought of yet -- I've seen some amazing ideas from posters on these forums.