Crafting and Gathering in MMOs

After playing Aion for almost half a year now I've come to realize that not everyone plays the game the way I do. For some it's not about "wtffacepwning" asmos in the abyss or getting 1337 lootz. In fact, some play this game casually or with the purpose of just PvEing. I do not understand why these types of players chose Aion and not WoW as their primary MMO but judging from Aion's fleeting player base they might be regretting their decision. But I digress, when I first started thinking of becoming a game designer I felt that no MMO, RTS, RPG, or some combination of the aforementioned genres should be made for the 'casual' gamer. My reasoning for this was that you can never satisfy the casual gamer in the sense that attempting to quell the massive amounts of complaints they file on forums would break any semblance of game balance and these players could choose to become more than casual with a greater time investment. However, adjusting classes balance is not always the solution. Instead one could improve upon other aspects of the game to satisfy these players' needs. One aspect of MMOs that desperately needs an overhaul is the craft and gather system. In a game one buys up all of the materials needed for the Berserking Bone-wand of Bile and clicks a button while praying to the RNG (Random Number Generator) god to be kind and grant one perfect damage values. There are entire professions dedicated to gathering and crafting so how is it possible that we have reduced this art to a mouse click? Furthermore, this is a game world with limitless possibilities so why not expand upon what we have already?

Some fixes I came up with while browsing the d'Orsay museum in Paris:

Weapon/Armor/Jewelry Sets from the same gathered source yield bonus (bonus stats, a cool neon green glow, ability to transform, new skill, etc). This deemphasizes gathering en masse and is not reliant on RNG procs (high grade, pure, etc). Resource nodes should visually represent quality and quantity (i.e. X type, Y Quality, Z Quantity). One could easily make a mine full of resources or a riverbed with small quantities of rare materials. Between types quality can be further discerned by a signature on the resource. In life, it is difficult to say A is strictly better than B since the term better quantifies something subjective which is inherently qualitative description. In fact the way we get around this idea is by creating rubrics and standards but without these tools we can only raise comparisons and assign adjectives. This line of thinking led me to believe in this new form of item sets. Instead of sets of items baring the same name they should be made from the same piece of metal or tree. One could easily come up with some backstory for this revolving around the circle of life and the dead returning to earth (i.e. cutting a tree down that is the spirit of some old commander in a previous war and making a badass bow out of it). The way that this improves gameplay could be from fighting the spirit or searching for some special tool to harvest the material. There does not need to be one way to do this either. One could take the Good/Evil approach that Fall Out 3 used (i.e. Fern Gully/Avatar harvesting vs Native American harvesting methods).

Crafting should not be a click and go afk action in MMOs. Also one should remove RNG as much as possible. It can be made more challenging by acquiring special  (mob dropped vs purchasable vs quest) tools. Furthermore, it should be based on timing and spacing. There are lots of fun casual games that are based solely on this type of game play one could easily dig something up and replace the shoddy crafting systems most MMOs use (Berry mixing in pokemon comes to mind). Some other gameplay mechanisms that could arise from this include:

Competitions between craftsmen. Who can build the best sword?

A "Phonebook" of craftspeople and all of the items they can make.

Trade for craft system. This avoids giving mats+money and not getting stuff back.

GDC

This year I decided to attend the Game Development Conference in San Francisco. I have been to a game conference in Brighton but I did not get much out of the experience. Since GDC has usurped E3 as the premier event for gamers and game creators; I felt that this would be a much more productive experience.

Day 1

As an introverted person, the act talking to strangers intimidated me. However, I was able to move past this reservation and make a few contacts. When I first arrived at Moscone Center, the bright banners and hordes of gamers disoriented me. After getting lost in the lobby, I managed to work my way to the career booths. I had no idea what to expect at the time so I spent a good five to ten minutes walking around. I happened to see a booth for ping0/Flagship, which is the company that made the Game, Hellgate: London. While the game did not experience much success, I still play it once in awhile. Furthermore, I felt that I had enough experience with the game to speak comfortable about it. There were two people stationed at their booth and a student already chatting them up. I stood, somewhat awkwardly, behind that student waiting for my chance to ask for an internship. When the person in front of me finished, I lunged in and introduced myself. I mentioned that I played Hellgate and that I was a student at UC Berkeley. We talked for a bit about the internships they offered and the level of experience they were looking for. They seemed to like me so I asked the guy from Ping0 what I should do at this event. He smiled and said, “Get to know as many people as you can. Ask them what they do and why they do it but make sure that you have fun.” This immediately became my goal for the rest of the conference.

Shortly after talking to the people at Flagship, I made my way to the Keynote Conference. It was supposed to be about creativity in the game industry but I think it closely resembled a huge Microsoft and Xbox 360 advertisement more than anything. They did manage to showoff some pretty cool games like Ninja Gaiden 2. On a side note, the lead designer for Ninja Gaiden 2 looked like he had fought off some demons himself. His skin was clearly very worn (possibly a burn) and he wore a black leather jacket. With his dark hair and sunglasses he could have easily won a cosplay contest. I was blown away by the demo of Ninja Gaiden 2. Impressive graphics ensure that a game sells well but fine tuned gameplay is the most important aspect of a game. The weapon and combat system looked comprehensible and polished. While I wish that switching weapons was done in real time (a la Diablo 2) going to the start menu works well. It does look like a linear hack-and-slash sort of game but at the same time it feels like it could be a very good game.

After the keynote lecture, I rushed to get in line for the lecture being given by the Lead designer of WoW. I waited patiently in line only to push and shove my way to get a great seat. Rob Pardo, was the lead designer of Wow and he also worked on the other blockbuster games released by Blizzard. Needless to say, I now know what it feels like to be a tween at a Hannah Montana concert. Everything he said about Blizzard’s approach to multiplayer gaming made sense. Also, the material was not obvious to me. In fact, much of the lecture discussed the nuances more than the highlights of multiplayer gaming. One such idea was that Blizzard designs the multiplayer aspect of a game before the singleplayer game. At first this did not make much sense to me because all of Blizzard’s games had great singleplayer or story modes.

To be continued….

Welcome!

Hi, I’m Matt. I’m a sophomore at the University of California at Berkeley where I plan to major in mathematics and economics. I grew up in Oak Park, Illinois and I am a gamer. I have played games my entire life and I have been playing video games since elementary school. I’m writing this blog in order to document my analyses of the gaming industry, games, developers, and other relevant trends.

As for experience in the industry, I spent much of my summer between freshman and sophomore year at the Electronic Arts Headquarters in Redwood City. EA was my first break in the industry and I relished the chance to see what making games was all about. I worked under Shawn Stafford in the Global Online Services team. The team was responsible for the online features of many EA titles. The work behind the game that we see on the screen is so much more than leader boards and matchmaking. I’m very grateful to my friends at EA for giving me my first taste of what I hope to be a long and fruitful career in the game industry.

The games that I like to plan now are mostly role playing games. However, I have been known to pick up an FPS from time to time. The immediate thrill of shooting someone and then hearing them whine about it over Ventrilo is a great temporary high. However, it’s not quite as satisfying as finding a perfect ethereal Death Cleaver Berserker Axe off of a Baal run in Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction. I played Diablo 2 for most of my childhood. Back in the day when I had little homework and no desire to do anything productive I powered up my computer and played Diablo with my friends. In fact, I just quit playing this past summer. Coincidentally, Hellgate: London, a game made by Diablo’s creators, was just released. Before Diablo, I played mostly action and fighting games on the Nintendo 64. My friends met with a swift defeat when we played Killer Instinct Gold. Sadly, my button-mashing induced blisters and my mother told me to seek pleasure in other games.