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Ask Massively: A confluence of awesome edition
Every so often, awesome things happen. Apparently, for reasons I cannot begin to explain, I can now dress my characters in Final Fantasy XIII-2 in N7 armor from Mass Effect 3. This makes me happy in countless ways. I'd like to have full-on armor customization for the suits, but then, I'd also like the game to be a totally separate storyline as opposed to providing a wholly unnecessary epilogue to Final Fantasy XIII. So I'm focusing on combining an awesome game system with a visual element of an awesome game.
This week's Ask Massively has nothing to do with combining one thing with another thing. Or maybe it sort of does, seeing as how it's all about crafting and gathering instead of killing stuff. If you've got a question you'd like to see answered in a future installment, send it to ask@massively.com or leave it in the comments below. Questions may be edited slightly for clarity and/or brevity.
scfs123 asked: Dear Mr. Massively, what games would you say are the best for people who love dedicating almost all their game time to crafting/gathering?
I also answer to "Mr. Lefebvre." For the record.
The good news is that there are a lot of games that offer you a very involved experience as a crafter. Some even offer you the opportunity to spend all of your time knee-deep in crafting without ever needing to pick up a sword. Of course, that brings with it some additional hurdles, but you expected those, right? Right.
Final Fantasy XIV and Ryzom, for instance, both allow you to level solely via crafting and gathering. You can, of course, occasionally be stuck in harm's way without any combat skills, but there's no need to take part in combat if you don't want to. Less-known crafting sandboxes like A Tale in the Desert and Glitch offer tradeskills and social entertainment and no combat at all. By contrast, while Fallen Earth doesn't allow you to completely eschew combat, crafting is still a major part of the gameplay and can occupy a large chunk of your time if you're interested in it. And you won't need to spend all of your time fighting off mutated wastelands creatures.
Sandboxes in general offer an abundance of crafting opportunities. Games like Xsyon, EVE Online, and the upcoming ArcheAge all feature plenty of emphasis on crafting and gathering. I would be remiss in not mentioning Wurm Online -- while a bit rough around the edges, the game offers players a chance to craft pretty much everything, with any actual battle coming in as a distant second priority.
So which of the above are the best? They've all got merits and flaws. Personally, I'd aim for either Final Fantasy XIV or Wurm Online, but take a look around for a bit more information before committing. I'm sure our readers will have a few more options I haven't even considered down in the comments.
RogueJedi86 asked: Can you imagine where humanity will be in 150 million years?
Here's how it is: Earth got used up, so we terraformed a whole new galaxy of Earths, some rich and flush with the new technologies, some not so much. Then we used up those new Earths, so we terraformed a whole new galaxy of Earths again. Went on that way for a few more millennia...
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