Insider Trader: Crafting a future for professions
by Lisa Poisso 
Feb 1st 2008 at 5:00PM
Are you a tradesman -- or are you simply a player who crafts? The determining factor is yet another question: Do you care? For the vast majority of WoW players, crafting is a means to an end: better gear, more money, consumables and resources. For others, though, crafting is a game in and of itself. The WoW tradesman relishes the entire process of crafting: training up, obtaining rare recipes, scrounging mats, actually crafting items, researching new possibilities, interacting with customers ... an enjoyable pursuit in its own right.
WoW's crafting system is by no means complex or even especially compelling – and perhaps even anachronistic. This week, Insider Trader brings you musings on professions inspired by well-known MMORPG blogger Tobold's predictions on the shape of MMORPGs in the year 2020. We have a lot for you to ponder and pontificate about – so please come join the conversation, after the break.
Crafting in tomorrow's MMOs
Let's launch our mini-salon with some thoughts from Tobold's recent look at trends for the next generation of MMORPGs:
MMORPG developers in 2020 have realized that many players want a wide selection of options to play games inside the game, not just combat. In a development pioneered near the beginning of the century by Puzzle Pirates, every different craft is now a different mini-game. The games are skill-based puzzles, easy enough to play but not trivial to master. The times where you could buy gold from a gold farmer, buy lots of stacks of raw materials from the auction house, and master a craft in an afternoon have gone. Many people just craft for fun, as developers realized that crafting as a money sink didn't make sense, and as long crafting an item took as much time as getting things from combat, it should be profitable to do so. Some dedicated players built up great reputations as master crafters, really mastering the puzzle games, and some even claim that being a master crafter is being more leet than people who only do combat well.
As rife with peer pressure as WoW can be (better roll T5 or higher or flash a blingy Arena rating, if you want to avoid being labeled a n00b), there are plenty of players who don't play "best of the best." Check out the comments for this week's Gamers on the Street column for a blizzard of comments on this very matter. What's "elitist"? What's "average"? Going even deeper, consider the common (mis?)perception that there is a "right way" and a "wrong way" to play WoW. Players like Noor the pacifist have created their own ways of enjoying the World of Warcraft. (And stay tuned to WoW Insider's 15 Minutes of Fame for an insider's perspective on the attractions of "metagaming" – playing WoW in an alternative way, as a game within a game – from the thoughtful and inspiring Gweryc the melee hunter.)Simply put, there's a lot more to the World of Warcraft than raiding and Arenas. And one of those pieces could be crafting.
Crafting: A compelling mini-game
Dedicated craftsmen approach MMOs in much the same way, viewing crafting as an enjoyable pursuit in its own right. They want a robust, compelling experience.
- Crafting as a mini-game. Crafters want what Tobold calls "skill-based puzzles" that they can sink their teeth into. Crafting should be interesting and enjoyable enough to pursue for its own sake.
- Crafting as a mechanic that requires dedication. Without becoming tedious or annoyingly complex, crafting needs to rise above its state of triviality. Mastering a craft should not be possible by dropping easily farmed gold into raw materials available on a public Auction House and applying them to skills that are able to capped in a matter of days or even hours.
- Crafting as a viable source of profit. In Tobold's words, "as long crafting an item took as much time as getting things from combat, it should be profitable to do so."
- Crafting as a viable source for items and gear. Again, there's no reason a thoughtful crafting system that requires time and effort equivalent to combat cannot provide an alternative stream of worthwhile gear and items.
- Crafting mastery as a desirable goal. MMORPGs are social environments, and developing a reputation as a master crafter should be a laudable and enjoyable goal in and of itself (as well as the associated financial and item-related benefits).
Back to some thoughts from Tobold:
The broadening of the appeal of MMORPGs to a much wider audience was only possible by them becoming the new places to hang out. Social interaction between players has been much improved. Guild features have exploded, encouraging players to work together for the greater benefit of their team in a more permanent way than winning some encounter on some evening. Player-built cities are at the core of this system, with various crafters and adventurers all adding to the splendor of their guild's city.
Do you ever wonder how it can be possible to be a successful tradesman in the game world without ever needing to personally interact with another player? Blizzard had the right idea (if not necessarily the right overall balance and implementation) in mind when they designed enchanting as a service-based profession requiring face-to-face interaction. But as far as the rest of the professions ... Customers? Other players? lolwut?
Incredibly, the design of the current crafting and Auction House system -- while convenient for time-pressed players being nudged into the end-game funnel of activity – literally strips the "multiplayer" from this MMORPG. The incentive for the WoW crafter is to become antisocial, to produce quickly in mass quantities and sell anonymously over a multi-city linked auction system.
Think about some of the ways a more socially oriented crafting system could enliven our game world:
- A lively, items-focused trade channel and city environment
- Bazaars, auction houses and crafting districts as popular watering holes
- Inter-profession and inter-specialization dependencies that lead to relationships between craftsmen
- Burgeoning, long-standing customer-client relationships
- Competitive relationships and cooperative partnerships with other craftsmen
- Items and benefits for guilds available only through the contributions of their craftsmen
- A robust player-based economy where player-made products have lasting value
What do you think?
So why are you a tradesperson in WoW? What do you enjoy about crafting? Why did you choose the professions you did? Do you think secondary professions are a waste of time? What do you see lacking from the crafting system as a whole? Do you craft for fun? For profit? For the profession-specific BoPs? Do you relegate professions to one or more crafting alts?
And do you enjoy crafting?
Yes, Insider Trader's Lisa Poisso does enjoy game crafting (although not always as implemented in the World of Warcraft).
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, WoW Social Conventions, Economy, Insider Trader (Professions)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
lfnotter Feb 1st 2008 5:15PM
When I feel the need for meaningful and rewarding crafting, I play Horizons. Playing WoW to be a crafter is somewhat like joining the priesthood in order to meet girls. ;-)
Please note, there is a difference between doing crafting and being a *crafter*. The crafting system in WoW is adequite to meet the needs of the game, but that's all.
Rob Feb 1st 2008 5:37PM
I think pretty much everyone who has played WoW must hate the crafting system. Its always the case that crafted items are 20 levels below the required skill to make it. For example, the things you can make from heavy leather are useful to a level 20 player. Yet you have to be level 30+ to fight heavy leather containing beasts.
Not only that, but the mats are always more expensive than the item's market value. That's not blizz's fault in that they dont set prices, but its their fault for making crappy items in the first place. Blue items? Ha, don't exist while leveling crafts, for the most part.
At level 70 its a different game, where you can make some epic level stuff at 375. But that's pretty much *all* crafts are good for. Most mages etc in our raiding guild powerlevel tailoring to get the uber cloth stuff that only tailors can use.
So to fix I would say a) dramatically increase the item level so that its an appropriate item for the crafter. Dont have stuff with +4 stats that you need to be level 30 to get the mats for. b) Slightly decrease costs in materials, so you have a decent chance of leveling your profession while leveling your character, and not have to spend hours on farm sessions to buy mats. c) much more blue BOE or BOPU drops or vendor available blue recipes while leveling. Give crafters a reason for leveling it, not just at 375. d) More crafter only stuff, ie a recipe to make some decent blue that requires tailor 150 to equip, for example
braydn Feb 2nd 2008 2:13PM
i don't think that crafting should be anything more than it already is in the game currently, but i think it needs improvements for sure, crafting should be only a way to complement what your toons and other people's toons do, and that is go wage battle through pve, pvp, areas, and raids.
i agree that the professions do not make hardly any useful stuff 95% of the time, and i would like to see that change. now, i don't advocate making items as powerful as what bosses drop from instances, but they should be almost as powerful. that way people will buy the items, and get good use out of them, and then if they want that extra special goodness, they can do the raids and pvp and arenas. that way, casual players whom do not like to raid or pvp at all can still get some good items from other crafters, or craft them for themselves if they want.
Snailking Feb 1st 2008 6:00PM
If you have any experience in other MMO's you are bound to know how sad WoW's crafting is. I'm not saying its the 100% worst ever, but I'd argue fervently that it's near the bottom of the hill.
Fixing it, in a way, is a lost cause, since the core problems are systematic. Improvements can be made, to be sure, but after 3 years of stubborn determination to craft, I've converted all my chars to pure gatherers. Best. Decision. Ever.
mirilene Feb 1st 2008 6:17PM
Star Wars Galaxies had a lot of what you're asking for, but i wouldnt use flowery words like depth and value. I would use tedious and like a real job.
Who wants to run a whole business online? or work for someone who's become the more successful of crafters on a server. I was an asteroid miner for a few shipwrights in SWG and while at first it was a lot of fun to fly around in my space ship (only thing about the game i liked) eventually it all became about meeting quotas and having to skip out on real fun to deliver.
WoW's system isnt perfect, but the best thing about it is that it doesnt get in the way of me playing the game.
Dejablue Feb 1st 2008 6:24PM
Pretty much everyone I know is a gatherer or chanter except for mages and priests.
When you are low level, vendor white items are better than crafted items. When you go to the AH to buy materials for a new green item, you invariable find a better item on the AH that is cheaper than the mats for the green item you were to craft.
I have started new on a couple servers lately and have found it much easier to get gear for leveling by selling my materials and buying boe drops rather than crafting.
At the very least as one levels it whould be assumed and correct that the best gear you can get, other than killing bosses in stances or PVP, should be crafted, NOT green boe world drops. This is not the case.
And that just is the general purpose of craffting, that doesnt even cover my opinion on the actual "meta game" of crafting.
It is as staid as buying moonberry juice, except I actually look forward to the next level of refreshment at 5, 15, 25 etc. level.
Kamileon Feb 1st 2008 6:52PM
The crafting system, and the ability to be a crafter and not a combat artist from SWG is probably the best system I've experienced in an MMO yet.
Varshak Feb 1st 2008 7:54PM
Although there were a large number of useless or unsellable recipes as I leveled leatherworking on my Hunter, there were a few that really were useful to me, or my buddies. The Felstalker set was great, the Strength of the Clefthoof gear was excellent for druid tanks, the Netherscale Armor set was fantastic, and even lower level stuff like the Wild Draenish Armor set or Thick Draenic Armor set were great too.
I love the BoP recipes too, the Boots of the Crimson Hawk, and the BoP recipes with BoP mats, like the Belt of the Black Eagle. I was lucky enough to score the pattern and mats for Shoulders of Lightning Reflexes, which made LW completely worthwhile... and I didn't need to raid BT to get them.
ErsatzPotato Feb 2nd 2008 4:06AM
[late night rant mode on, with extra yelling and generalizations]
If there's a problem with crafting in WoW--I'm unconvinced there is--it's that players expect a "Craft Lite" system like WoW's should be profitable. That's nuts.
Think about it. When anyone can easily max their craft level, and only a few crafted items are difficult to make [difficult defined as not hundreds or thousands of others on the server] you have zillions of people able to make the items and the raw materials will sell for more than finished products. Far worse on the items made to level up the skills.
Crafting for money in WoW is a niche business. Full stop. Few will make it profitable at all and fewer still at a reasonable gold/hour. Where WoW's casual crafting shines is in guilds. You want an enchanter on your runs, you want flask and elixir specced alchemists. You want one of everything if possible.
There's really no way to fix the lone wolf crafted perceived problem without moving to a Crafting Deep System...
...which is something else entirely. SWG did it. I tried that and wanted to shove an icepick through my eye into my brain. Some loved it.
Deep crafting requires it to be, essentially, a class(es) of its own. Those picking a crafting profession up casually are screwed. Totally screwed. In WoW they're screwed *if they want to make money* crafting. They can still run around and kill mobs and generally do other stuff.
Tobold suggests a third path. Puzzle Pirates does do it and does it well as far as it goes. A Tale in the Desert goes even further in the suggested direction. A new player there can almost instantly gain renown (and wealth) if they happen to have a knack for one of a few in-game crafting puzzles.
There are problems here. First, combat is itself a puzzle (Pirates) or doesn't exist (ATITD). Pirates is all about puzzles and ATITD is about conflict that economic and political instead of combat. [It's no less brutal for that sometimes, btw.]
Second, it's a matter of scale. ATITD has thousands--not millions--of players. One character each account. On a single WoW server a person might have five characters with crafting profs feeding mats and finished goods back and forth.
I think Tobold's on to something, but it's not a true third path for a truly massive game. It'd fiddle with Lite (which works well for WoW*) or Deep (people love it in others).
*I think I lot of the frustration would be be greatly eased if Blizzard massaged the relevant texts. An in-character NPC warning that becoming a blacksmith is not the road to riches. Same way new players would be well served by a mention that paladins heal their friends and warriors get hit on the noggin instead of either being "easy mode" toons able to survive in plate solo and still toss down huge damage. Know tons of players who chose one or the other only to get mad later. My girlfriend's one of them.
Zombie3k Feb 2nd 2008 6:19AM
I think enchanting should be introduced to the Auction House. I've seen people spend hours standing around in cities spamming trade chat desperately trying to find an enchant that only a few people on the server are likely to have. Yeah that's a good use of my monthly fee right there.
Far better for the enchanter to apply the enchant to some kind of token, stick it on the AH and for a buyer to apply it to the relevant item of gear.
Junzim Feb 2nd 2008 8:29AM
In order for crafting to really work you need 2 things:
1) Equipment that will, in 99% of cases, eventually break
2) No Ubiquity of dungeon-drops
The fact is, WoW is built on Loot. WoW is L00t, L00t is WoW. It's a PvE game fundamentally (although some of us prefer the PvP gameplay).
Ultima Online had Crafting exactly right in a lot of ways. Crafters could make the best gear but you didn't normally wear it for fear of destruction or l00ting. Want a suit of armour? Go to a player blacksmith. Want something repaired? Go to a player blacksmith.
Crafting in UO was great but not nearly as involved as it has become in many other games.
Creating a true player economy with true player interdependency is hard to do but the UO server Siege Perilous did it well - Basically the NPCs sold jack-shit and put a 100% markup on everything they actually Did sell. So you HAD to use a player Smith/Scribe/Alchemist/Tanner etc
bodhimofo Feb 4th 2008 7:58PM
I love this idea, crafting is so much fun for me and I very much agree that it should be less of a pain in the ass. I'd love it if my lvl 10 character could be a Master Craftsman & make money actually making items, filling orders placed by both NPC's and players alike (much like in DAoC). Salvaging items for their parts (also from DAoC) would be a great addition to WoW - dont like that green quest drop, but want the things it's made otu of? Salvage it - like disenchanting for the other professions!
Salvaging would be one of the fist steps in the right direction, another includes making low-level crafted items relevant again. Someone, rightly, pointed out that for new characters what you can get from the AH is better than what you can craft at the same level. If you knew that crafting was going to get you an item of equal or greater value/utility than something on the AH you'd prolly make it yourself.
Following this line of reasoning I think it'd be great to see more - many more- low level (2-4 slot) crafted item sets to increase the draw to crafting. Especially if these sets have a specific look/feel/design that's different from your run of the mill gear. Make me wanna ware it!
Finally, if there could be some sort of more structural support for order-based crafting it'd be a huge help. I have a bunch of friends and guild-mates who often send me random trash-green items to disenchant I do this more or less for free, I say more or less because they often kick me 5 or 10g a week for providing them with all kindsa DE'd mats they use in their crafting or selling on the AH.
Pingmeister Feb 3rd 2008 11:45AM
When I started on my first server in WoW I rolled one of each crafter and took them to 35.
When I recently re-rolled on a new server to join some friends I only chose Gathering professions.
Please make some of the more desirable armors and items require a crafter. Maybe you can have quest/Raid/Tournament rewards be specific components of recipes rather than the item itself.
Metal Head Mike Feb 4th 2008 3:32PM
First, crafting items should have higher levels. As one person above said, world drop BOE greens should be the least valuable items. Crafted item should be more valuable than greens from the AH, especially considering the time and effort involved in leveling up you profession.
Second, I'd love to see crafting become more dynamic. Crafting a sword, let's say, has a standard set of materials to make. But you could add any number of other optional materials to give the sword other bonuses. Normal solo play would give you the mats needed for the standard craft while instances would give you more rare mats to make more powerful items.
That might be similar to professions at 375 with the upgradable weapons, but I picture my way being much more satisfying. Think of crafting that epic sword or mace at 350, but throwing in an optional material that gave it higher crit, or maybe even some fire damage.
Sure it may overlap what enchanting or blacksmithing currently has, but there is still so much more a dynamic crafting system could accomplish.
newellrp1 Feb 28th 2008 1:55AM
@9: I agree. Leveling enchanting can be very frustrating, especially now that TBC is out. Only the really high end enchants sell and most ppl just get their enchants from their friendly guild enchanter anyway. I shudder to think of the numer of times I have seen something like "Are you sure you want to replace +24 Attack Power with +24 Attack Power?" The easiest fix would be for enchanting to make items that could be sold on the AH, then applied to an item (Even if it was only by enchanters, a la Shield Spikes, spurs, etc.). Even if I only made, say 80%, of the value of the mats by selling the enchants on the AH, I would be happy. That would be better than the 0% return I get when I spam an enchant 10x on the same item just to level.
Noesis Mar 29th 2008 8:01PM
Personally, I rather like the anonymity/independence of the 'antisocial' WoW auction house system. The primary problem with the article's proposed crafting system is time. In a system that requires face-to-face personal interactions, the crafter in question is forced to be available during peak hours. With the current WoW auction system, I can simply craft/horde items and post them hours (if not days) in advance and be assured that they will be available for prime buying time. Thus, the most problematic profession (currently) in my opinion is enchant. However, I believe enchanters will be able to post their enchants on the AH in WoTLK. After all, armor kits, etc. work in the same manner and they can be traded, why not enchants?