Do characters do too much?
by Jennie Lees 
Jan 2nd 2006 at 8:30PM
My WoW characters are amazingly skilled; without any training, they can instantly kill enemies, cast spells they've never seen before, learn how to make complicated devices, potions, poisons and bandages... and I only need to press a few buttons to make this happen. In different games, I have to do a lot of this myself; in FPS games, for example, I have to choose my weapon, aim, shoot, jump and run -- all as part of normal combat. In MUDs, learning a spell takes time and effort, and I get it wrong a few times before I correctly cast it the first time.
This article on GamerGod points out that our avatars in MMOs are increasingly handling more of the "tedious" side of gameplay, as decided by developers, leaving the more interesting parts for players. However, it's not all perfect, and there are some parts of gameplay that become tedious simply because they are abstracted into "click this button, go AFK". One of my favourite tradeskill quests in WoW is the Artisan First Aid quest, which requires a modicum of skill and is a lot of fun--when you receive Artisan level First Aid you really feel you deserve it.
The gathering professions do take the hands-on approach, as you have to scout out the materials yourself, but the other professions are based more on button-clicking. It's hard to please everyone, though; mini-games or mini-quests to learn new skills may work well (imagine taking WoW with you as a mobile game so you could train up your Engineering by playing a Tetris clone on the bus) but add another time-sink into the game which would put many players off.
Do you like the way the tradeskill system is handled in WoW, or would you prefer a more involved approach?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, First Aid, Enchanting, Tailoring, Leatherworking, Engineering, Cooking, Blacksmithing, Alchemy, Skinning, Mining, Fishing, Herbalism
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
forzaq8 Jan 3rd 2006 1:55AM
to learn a new thing you must obtain its recipe you ca't just make hammer of the titan out of thin air
and WoW tradeskill is least annoying of the past MMORPG i played
for example in EQ you had to open the forge , drag your items your self to it , then click combine
if you got have all the items right and you had the skill , you may still fail , and lose all your items down the drain , and at first you couldn't drag one item from a stack ( unless you right click , and move the number bar from 20 down to 1 with the mouse ) , or buy a stack from the merchat
not only that , but in EQ , there was no recipe , if you had the skills you can make , you never know if you can get more skill with an item , you had to try
you don't know what recipe there is , you had to try
basicly it was gambling on every tradeskill in EQ
so yeah , i love WoW tradeskill , at least my figers are not in agony after gaining 10 point smithing
boneyard Jan 3rd 2006 4:56AM
i find it too easy usually, you click make all and walk away, it's pretty much a macro in other games. i would love to see some more small quests instead of the collect lots of junk, click and wait.
thies Jan 3rd 2006 5:28AM
Make it optional for the RP servers for them to waste an hour on sewing some crappy leatherpants out of what you made by skinning for three hours only to sell it for 35 copper.
I'd rather do away with realism and just do the fun parts like running around killing orcs.
aux Jan 3rd 2006 5:58AM
It's a lot better than UO was. You buy your equipment, and spend about 4 hours gathering enough material so that you can destroy half of it failing to make what you were trying to create. Then, when you finally did create some items, you could sell it to a vendor for next to nothing because the "player run economy" was flooded with other worthless junk that no one wanted to buy.
I think WoW has the most user friendly tradeskill option out there.
Timmay! Jan 3rd 2006 8:19AM
I rather like the trade skills as they are now. Most of the raw materials you need can be found while questing, and once you found a rather substantial pocket you can just hang out and build up or supplies. Then head back to a city, gather up what you need to put it all together, and make a little cash.
Sometimes you don't get a ton of money off of what you make, but you can at least get a little bit of a return off of it.
It would be nice to have mini-quests to get new recipes for every trade skill level.
PodMonkeys Jan 3rd 2006 9:02AM
#4 has it right on. UO was my first thought. As much as I liked UO in the first several years, I think the system used there wouldn't work as well in WoW. If anything, I could see this making the amount of farming and the cost of resources go up in WoW.
A_B Jan 3rd 2006 10:39AM
I think it would be great if there was a mini-game during the crafting process so that, if you "won" the game, your particular product would be better than another person that used the same recipe.
It could be something as simple as a "Simon" like game where you repeat a string of keystrokes. If you do it correctly, then your product would get some bonus. That way, you could get a little bit more in the auction house and there could be some differentiation. The higher the level of difficulty, the better the bonus.
Plus, it would mirror real life skills. Sure, there's a recipe for chocolate chip cookies, for example, but there's a million ways to go about it.
In general, I like how WoW has incorporated trade skills, but I wish there was some value to the resulting product. I don't think it should be worth less than the raw materials. I don't know how to solve that problem, but it would be nice if they did.
spencer Jan 3rd 2006 1:10PM
I agree with what you said about the Triage quest, the game needs more skill based fun, less time based advancement.
Pete Jan 4th 2006 8:46AM
Any of you play EQ2? Tradeskills there are sort of like a combat interaction, with you having to hit various skills or take damage from crafting disasters.
It can be fun for a while, but crafting just isn't going to be as neat as fighting monsters, and after you've done the same 'tradeskill combat' a bajillion times it gets really old. I mean making a pristine leather backpack just isn't much more exciting than making a tattered leather backpack. Combat in these games is just as repetitive if you were to fight 1 on 1 with the same monster throughout the game. But groups, but on the player side and on the monster side, keeps combat interesting (as well as bigger and more exciting beasts to slay as you level up).
Tradeskills aren't going to have that level of excitement.
When Blizzard was hyping WoW they talking about it being a MMRPG with all the un-fun stuff yanked out. I think the crafting system is great as it is.