crafting
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Mythos adds "MMO View", more, in latest patch
Flagship's forthcoming free-to-play MMO Mythos, patched their closed beta with lots of bug fixes and new features. The camera has been completely re-done; it now has four-options -- Isometric Style (the original, far-overhead view); Isometric Orbiting Style, where the camera turns with you; MMO Style, which is the over-the-shoulder view common to many MMOs, and MMO Outdoor Only, which reverts to isometric view when you enter a dungeon. Ambient (non-attackable) creatures have been added to the Overworld to make it more lively; other Overworld creatures have had their aggro range increased and respawn time decreased to make the Overworld more ... deadly.Why not take a look at the full patch notes, after the break?
Foraging for furniture in EQ2
SOE is getting sneaky. Along with their recent EverQuest II game update 46, SOE added (without telling anyone) red shinies to the game. In EQ2, you might see little harvest-able white sparks here and there while you are walking around. These shinies can be collected and turned in to collectors for experience and items. The Echoes of Faydwer expansion introduced "blue" shinies, that can only be seen when wearing special goggles that are themselves the reward from a collection quest. And now, GU46 brings us "red" shinies.Red shinies may only be seen by level 80+ crafters that have obtained and are wearing the crafting epic, the Earring of the Solstice. Stargrace of MMO Quests has an excellent article showing off some of the many house items you can get from red shiny collections. So head down to the Barren Sky, Loping Plains, Steamfont or the Fans of NASCAR (er, Fens of Nathsar) and get digging!
Angels Online first impression
Putting aside the whole concept of being a good angel tasked with protecting the people of Eden (Spoiler alert: They get kicked out. Guess you didn't do your job very well). Anyway, that aside, playing a cute little angel in Angels Online who must earn his or her wings via the tried-and-true tropes of killing and crafting has a fun factor built right in. Flying! You get to fly!But you aren't handed your halo, harp and wings from the moment you log in. You must learn the sacred jobs and responsibilities of an angel. And you must learn to slaughter those legendary enemies of angels, the Slarms. In her first impressions review of Angels Online, Ten Ton Hammer's Amber Weldon sets out to learn how to be an angel in a sinful world, from the stern lessons inflicted by Archangel Raphael, to her hours and days studying for her exams in the Lyceum, to her robot-assisted resource-gathering excursions.School? Lessons? Robots? If you're dying to become an angel (in Angels Online, that is), you'll definitely appreciate this clever first glimpse.[Ten Ton Hammer]
Shadow of Legend overhauls crafting system
The folks over at Shadow of Legend have taken a second look at crafting, and made it yet more awesome. Like the old system, the new system will show you the materials required to craft an item, the item that will result, a progress bar showing the progress made, and a cancel button that ceases production immediately.To this has been added varying features -- crafted items can vary from up to 30% better (or worse) than their base item. Don't worry -- if the item isn't sufficiently awesome, it can still be split into its original components. Secondly, crafted items take far fewer resources than before, and you will only need to harvest one sort of material for your class. Combatants only need to find ores, Mages seek only wood, Monks require only leather, and Archers need only come up with some cloth for their items. These welcome changes will make item crafting easier and more rewarding than ever before,[Via MMORPG]
Crafting, what is it good for?
Crafting in MMOs is a complex and widely varying thing. While most games include crafting in some form or another, it doesn't seem like there's much of a consensus on what purpose crafting is supposed to serve, and similar systems are often received radically differently depending on the title in question. Brian Green of Psychochild has had crafting on the brain recently and simplified the perceived goals of crafting into three areas (which I have further simplified): fun, utility, and money sink. His analysis is pretty in-depth, but he stops short of offering his own version of a crafting system, which we would have liked to have heard.It's interesting that something as valuable to a rewarding MMO experience as crafting is so routinely put on the back-burner. Age of Conan and Tabula Rasa are both glaring examples of recent releases whose crafting systems are either incomplete or mostly useless as they exist in the game. We'll be interested to see whether Warhammer Online's crafting system will be as interesting as it seemed when it was explained to us, or whether it will join the ever-growing pile of time wasting duds.
Interview with Mythos' Travis Baldree
While we wait for Mythos to enter open beta so we can all play in the action-MMO inspired by Diablo II's fast, furious and inviting gameplay, we were thrilled to read this interview with Mythos' Project Director, Travis Baldree. This is one of the guys with his arms elbow-deep in the code. If you've been following Mythos' sometimes-funny, sometimes-frustrating struggles toward release on Travis' "Almost-a-Blog", then you already know that Mythos is a game that definitely proves the old canard that change is the only thing you can depend upon.Read about the most unbalanced crafted item ever made, consignment houses, new classes and races, and when Open Beta might start ("Soon". Oops. Spoiler!)[WarCry]
Earthrise game mechanics confirmed in Masthead Studios dev chat
The creators of the sci-fi MMO Earthrise have been very active in recent months -- granting a number of interviews, releasing monthly newsletters, and participating in dev chats. Stratics recently hosted the third Earthrise 'House of Commons' dev chat, with three members of the Masthead Studios team.The Masthead Studios devs that took part were Atanas Atanasov (CEO of Masthead Studios), Apostol Apostolov (Lead Game Designer), and Moll (Community Manager). Their discussion ranged from the professions available to players to the extensive crafting system in the game. Read on after the jump for details straight from the devs about what we can expect from Earthrise.
More details from Fallen Earth interview
Italian gaming site Alter Ego has an interview up with Lee Hammock, lead game designer of Icarus Studios, about Fallen Earth. It's a short piece, but chock-full of great information for those hungry to learn more about what FE is all about. Note: The first section of the page is in Italian; scroll down for the English version.Hammock dishes up some radioactive dirt on the game's factions and what their philosophies are; mentions that there might be a comprehensive hit box for attacking an enemy (for example, you could shoot someone in the foot, but a head shot would do much more damage); the state of PvP; and what sounds like a rich crafting system.The game's site says in its FAQ that "It'll be done when it's done", and as difficult as that may be to hear for those of us who are itching to get our hands into some Road Warrior-style mayhem, it's a strategy that's worked well for Blizzard; there's no reason to think it shouldn't work as well for Icarus Studios.[Thanks, Nolvadex!]
Age of Conan Dev goes on berserk question-answering rampage
What was in LordOrion's coffee this morning? The FunCom developer began by making two parallel threads on the Age of Conan forums, one on the US forums and one on the EU. Each one was a 'leak', with the EU getting a preview of PvP gear, and the US getting an image of what looked like a dungeon of some sort, with no further hints as to what it might be.That done, he began to answer direct questions. The players on both sides of the Atlantic wasted no time in firing them off, while expressing their gratitude (and disbelief) that FunCom was actually talking to them for a change. Now that the flurry of posts has died down, we've collated all the new information from both sides, presented in interview format and edited for relevance and context.
A LotRO guide to the new rare crafting trophies
In many MMOGs, there appears to be a plague of seemingly useless items you find along your travels. These usually include various animal parts in some disgustingly descriptive state. Many of these items are simply merchant fodder, but there are a fair majority of them which are used in crafting. The frustrating part is discovering which ones are worth the 25 copper the merchant gives you, and which ones are worth 5 gold to another player at the auction house.In Lord of the Rings Online, this can be especially confusing because you're even teased a bit in the item's description. "This item can be used in crafting" is a frustrating statement, because you're torn between saving the item for a potentially useful rare opportunity in future crafting, or selling it for a few silver and that precious extra inventory slot.
Mark Jacobs continues talks on Warhammer's crafting
What do you want to know about Warhammer Online? Last week Massively went to war with Warhammer: Age of Reckoning. The result was an information bonanza never before seen on this site for any big title in development. Our coverage runs the gamut and ranges from crafting, guilds, various classes, capital cities, interviews with developers, and even a controversial post regarding perceptions about the game and its delayed launches. With such an emphasis placed on PvP and combat, until recently not much has been known about Warhammer's crafting. Mark Jacobs has sort of become the official spokesperson for WAR's crafting system and is still making the rounds hitting up TenTonHammer in this one and two part interview. Nothing new is really discerned if you've been following the news closely. In the TTH interview Jacobs discusses scalability, the impact Apothecary will have on other areas of the game like combat, and more. A definite must read while you wait for your beta invite and are frothing at the mouth for anything WAR related.If you missed out on all the news be sure to check out first-hand coverage for all the latest goods on Warhammer.
Massively goes to WAR: Insights into Warhammer's crafting system
Many of the systems developed for Warhammer Online focus around the art of war itself. Realm vs. Realm combat, Keeps, sieges ... the bread and butter of the game is combat, adventuring, and excitement. Which is not to say that a few moments of quiet time aren't appropriate even in the harsh world of WAR. The most recent newsletter unveiled a new production video from none other than Mark Jacobs himself, talking all about crafting.During our visit to EA Mythic last week, we had the chance to talk with one of the folks that's turned concept into reality. Justin Webb is a Senior Design Manager with the company, and sat with us to clarify some of the particulars Mr. Jacobs set out in the production video. Join us as we explore the world of potions, lotions, fungi, and butchering: Warhammer Online's crafting system.
Massively goes to WAR: Insights into Warhammer's crafting system Pt. 2
So not only do the gathering skills work with the crafting skills, but they also overlap with each other? Yeah - there's a little bit of overlap all over the place. Like earlier on, when I was saying Scavenging mostly helps you out with Talisman-making; there are edge conditions and all sorts of weirdness that we put in. Hopefully players will find it interesting, particularly like killing someone and finding they had a leech on them. Then you loot the leech and you say "Oh, this can be used to make healing potions, because it's a leech!" Stuff like that. So apothecary is a potion-making system. As a skill level one player I learn this skill from a trainer, and then I go to this guy here and he can give me some stuff. First thing I need to do is put it in a container, and then put in my main ingredient, and then there's a little thing that tells me whether the mixture is stable or not. So it's completely stable with these new additives. I press 'Brew', and we get a potion out at the end. It's real quick to make something as an Apothecary. Now the really cool thing about the system is we have a main ingredient which goes in that slot, which basically can determine what kind of potion we're making. In this case, you can check on the tooltip and know that this guy always makes intelligence potions. However the problem with the main ingredients is that they're very, very unstable. So as soon as you put them into a container, you are going to have a battle to make sure the overall stability of the concoction is positive. So, to do that, I've just used the three basic ingredients that I know have good stability. Other ingredients can also do other things, like the two basic other types which I'm going to show you today can increase the length of an effect on a potion, and increase the number made. It's a little bit difficult to be designing potions early on. Once you get into the swing of it, and you are starting to find more gatherables and you also have more money, you can buy stuff and you can can trade from players. It enables you to start designing the sort of potions that you want. Mark used a really good example in his podcast where he said "I'm going to make some potions for my guildmates ...
The Digital Continuum: Crafting conundrum
Whenever I start playing a new MMO my interest in crafting tends to go through two phases: hope and realization. During the hope phase I find myself wondering what sort of cool things I could create. I also think about being able to use those creations in useful and interesting ways. My head tends to float up into the clouds as I contemplate all the great times I'm about to have with a game's crafting system.Then there's the realization phase, where my crafting dreams are crushed. This is the point when I start playing with the crafting system and moving through its inner workings only to find the same old thing: Talk to an NPC, get crafting skill of choice, look at recipe, gather ingredients and proceed to select how many I want before clicking a single button to create my item. When will developers admit that this is incredibly boring and at least try to spice things up a bit. They don't have to re-think the entire system. I would be perfectly happy with some evolutionary changes.
Mark Jacobs expunges the mystery of WAR's crafting
We've been receiving a lot of information about all things Warhammer Online for some time now, but the one topic that hasn't been touched on is crafting. The veil of silence has been lifted as you can now go and read Gamespy's recent interview with Mark Jacobs. It's all about the very different and astoundingly intriguing crafting system being developed for the game wot's got gobbos 'n stuff. It's typical for MMOs stick close to the tried-and-true crafting system we've all come to know and oft-lament. Yet that's not something EA Mythic is up for this time around. No, this time they want to challenge the status quo. Lets not mince words, though. By choosing to create a more in-depth crafting system for Warhammer Online, they've given up a certain amount of profession variety upfront. If the discussed system works as intended it could be very well worth the risk of reduced crafting diversity -- and there's always content updates too. Hopefully EA Mythic can pull it off so we can see other MMOs experimenting with their crafting systems as well. Wouldn't that be nice?
Wonderland Online furniture review
Aspiring carpenters in IGG's Wonderland Online may wonder, rightly, if they are as clean and fresh as they possibly could be. Is the bathtub that they picked out when they first started their fight against nature's foes still relevant to their faster-paced lifestyle? Is the tent just getting a little small, needing perhaps a second floor or a larger garage? It is these sorts of questions that the Wonderland Online developers answer in their list of furniture improvements that will turn your old tent into one that will be the envy of your friends and the inevitable gathering place for your guild. Learn the benefits a bookcase will bring, or how to decide between an ancient bathtub or air conditioning.Wonderland Online is a free-to-play Asian import that combines standard RPG elements with interactive social spaces. In how many other games can you leave your rustic cabin in the middle of the forest primeval, climb into your robot and jet away into space? Darn few.
Making/Money: Flawed by Design
Last week your intrepid blogger was caught up in the other kind of beta testing - a Statistics final. Yeah, that was a bad pun. Oh well. Back to the money talk!In the last column, we discussed value chains and how, in World of Warcraft, they work when dealing with NPCs but not the auction house. Today we are looking at another game and how it deals with value chains to ensure that they do not work when crafting by NPC purchases/sales alone.Lord of the Rings Online offers players vocations - sets of three linked professions that cannot be chosen by themselves. In any given vocation, there is usually one "useful" gathering profession which supports one of the craft professions in the set and another, unsupported, profession. In other words, vocations are structured to enforce cooperation and trade between players by ensuring that no one can gather all the raw materials they will require to level their craft. But that doesn't mean that the supported profession is good to go from the start.
The Digital Continuum: Daringly duo
There were a great many things I took away from my experience at ION 08 this year. I learned how amazing community managers can be. I also learned how much they put into their communities -- if you're wondering, it's quite a lot. Among all the waves of information I soaked up there were little leaks of ideas to take away as well.During the "Online Games in 2013" panel there was a point of Damion Schubert's presentation that piqued my curiosity. It was his prediction that MMOs will see far more "Duoing" content. The fact that playing with a friend or two -- along with playing solo -- could become much more ubiquitous fills my heart with hope. If you're wondering why, I'll be more than happy to explain.
Mythos Overworld delayed; more beta news leaks out
Flagship Studios sends their regrets, but the mega-update to Mythos that would turn their heavily instanced over world into one seamless land spattered, Oblivion-like, with dungeons has been delayed. Due yesterday, it now looks as if Mythos beta testers will have to wait until next week to run naked and free ... through Mythos' world of Uld, at any rate.To tide us over while we wait, player Kirent has compiled a list of all the interesting snippets of developer responses to questions about the delay. Characters won't be wiped when the Overworld goes live, but they likely will be wiped when the test server is folded into the live beta server, after which open beta will likely begin. Zones 2 and 3 (mid and high level areas) won't be enabled initially, but we knew that. The pressures of pushing the Overworld out the door means that new monsters, dungeons, and quests won't be in in any significant way. Most of the crafting changes will be on the test server, but the balancing of the heraldries (temporary buffs applied to crafted items) will not be. Special armor sets, a new class (!!!) , retirement (here you voluntarily retire a high level character to start a new character with some sort of advantage) and any sort of endgame are all taking a back seat to the Overworld. However, it sounds like Epic weapons will be in.Mythos is currently slated to release late this year. It will be free to play, but with an item store where you can buy items for real money, though you will be able to see and do everything in the game without paying a cent. Bored with waiting for the update? Kanthalos at MMOre Insight has been writing a series of articles about the best character builds for maximum wtfpwnage -- check it out!
State of the Tradeskills in EverQuest 2
Earlier this week, EverQuest 2 crafting designer Domino laid out a fantastic 'state of the tradeskills' document on the official forums. The lengthy post delves into crafting changes going all the way back to Game Update 36, just after Neriak and the Arasai were added to the game. Some of those old notes will definitely bring back fond memories - and some interesting links as well! Domino linked to, for example, an interview with Gnobrin about Neriak house items, a Rise of Kunark faction guide for crafters, and of course her developer diaries from the days of Kunark's testing.Domino also offers up EQ2 players an advance look of what's coming for crafters in GU 45, and out into the future. We've already discussed crafting changes in the next patch, so what's out beyond that? The addition of imbues to lower level armor sets. Most lower level sets are currently not able to be imbued. The addition of 'missing' equipment to lower levels, filling holes in crafter's repetoires. Revisiting mastercrafted jewelry, and hex doll stats. Revisting cloth and leather crafted armor appearances. And, of course, more quests! From the maybe list: big changes to adornments - if time permits. Make sure to check out the full post to enjoy this great retrospective.
