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The Mog Log: What crafters can do in Final Fantasy XIV
A couple of weeks ago, I was chatting with one of our fellow writers about MMO design. This, as you might imagine, is actually a fairly common topic of discussion amongst Massively staff members. (It's beaten out slightly by talk of cats and horrible puns, but still.) Said writer was lamenting the fact that we haven't seen a game in years that allows players to really focus on a non-combat role and level up without having to march out and kill things. "Yes, we have," I countered. "Final Fantasy XIV lets you do that." "Well, yeah, but you have to kill stuff to get materials and get money to start with, right?" "No, you can just craft the whole way through." And as I said it, I realized that one of the real shames of the game's launch was that everything the crafting and gathering systems do correctly wound up being overshadowed by other issues. There's a reason I started calling the game a sandpark when I was writing my first impressions, because the devotion to non-combat gameplay options is almost peerless among more modern games. And it's worth some tribute.
