MMO Crafting sytem using Wario Ware like mini-games.

[Picho]

Just an idea i want to throw out there. Imagine instead of doing "push button, make item. Repeat. " over and over to make one item, instead the MMO creates a set of mini-games.

They would be fast paced, and are ment to be enjoyable masking the grinding that you are doing. This is done, because it is immpossible to get rid of the grind when stats are involved, but damit! we can at least make it truely fun.

A blacksmith mini-game may be something like Metal dust, The rules of this minigame are simple. Use the mouse to move the stiring stick, and the pound the space bar to heat it up (the metal that is) using a rythmatic pattern gives the best results. With the stick you need to blend together the diffrent colors and push out impurities.

Then it is followed by Pour the Metal. This mini-game you need to get the metal into the cast. This is done by using a series of pipes (like pipe dream) to get the hot metal to the cast. Using diffrent pipes and such can change the final product.

The last mini-game to make a sword could be something like "pound the sword" I game where you have to use your hammer (controlled by the mouse) to pound target points in the weapon.

Granted, these are high twitch mini-games, but for the most part, is not the funnest video games twitch?

[ZippyDSMlee]

sounds better than FF11s find 5 things and repeat 20 times to get a normal item...

Managing the grind is good,however making unqie weapons is better like binding all kinds of things to a weapon and use counter effects to make that it cheaper to make

Morrwind/FF11typething bear with me
say all it takes to make a vampire sword is 3 items and a smith normal cost of the is based on the sword base so a starting sword that heals you 50-100% of the damage it puts out would be 10k-25k

however add - 50% exp a 90% confusion rate and its only 200 gold

point being create a system where you can build our own weapons based around the powers in game then use stat alments and other ill effects to balance out the cost of the weapon.

[georox]

My only thoughts on this, being an MMO player myself, is many MMO players don't have good twitch-reflexes. I feel I personally have them, but thats being raised on near-impossible games such as NES Megamans and other various titles. I think something like this would be nice, but to many people would not like it.

*edit 1*

I wanted an example for above, my mom plays WoW, played DaoC and is starting LOTRO, and she enjoys the crafting grind, but she has barely any twitch reflex for the type of stuff its sounding like. Also, older/adult gamers and casual gamers make a large chunk of MMOs last I knew, and games in general anymore. Not all of them want to be bothered with said minigames. I know its not all, but it might turn people off in the long run. Let me also point out EQ2s crafting mini-game, it was cool the first few times, after that it was annoying as hell and I mean that.

*edit 2*

What crafting needs in most MMOs is a bit more customization. Things such as graphic used for the item, color and maybe special textures/skins to toss over it instead of just a color, aswell as effects. Lets also not to mention naming items *tastefully, within normal naming rules of course* would be favored by people aswell I'm sure. People love customization, more of it needs to go into crafting for most MMOs.

[KN]

What you describe is a bit more like Cooking Mama.

But yeah, that would be great.

[Picho]

Well my idea for the crafting is not only to have the wario ware style, but to also have a little more standard MMO crafting as well as an AFK style. (or rather Offline style)


The Offline style allows you to produce items when not logged in. (Good for casual players) This style however you dont get to fully interact with the crafting and thus dont gain as many bonuses from doing good in the WW or through stratagy. This way also takes longer. While you can produce several items with in a few hours (depending on the items) In Offline style you can only produce them as fast as real life. (or slower)

So lets say you want to make a set of armor. Dependin on how many parts you have to make, (Inner cloth, outer metal, bolts, bars ore ect.) It could take you maybe 30-60 minutes to make it manually. but it may take 3-4 days of offline time to make. (This is in game time, not real world time. )

This is to allow people to be able to play the game, with out having to work the game as so many do right now. Of course though, the guy who sits at the crafting station and grinds out armor after armor will still have more then the casual player, but now the casual player can actually make some and be able to compete.


As far as i know though there is none that uses the WW style. Puzzel quest (that little bejeweled like game) has you solve a puzzel to craft items. Most MMO do the grind style, but Eve allows for the offline style.

[CharliesNickel]

I crafted heavily in DAoC back when that was popular, and it was possibly the most basic you can ask for. click on "recipe" and if you had the material needed to make it, a little bar went by and you made it at a random quality. (aka progress quest sytle gameplay) still it was plenty. I agree that while the minigames might be cool at first they would get really annoying later.

A good comprimise would be 2 tier system: you can either choose to do the mini game for "bonus quality" or not. Then a crafter trying to simply skill up can grind away, but when he has a customer he tries for better quality.

Ultimately crafting is only fun if there's a live economy behind it, that means actual demand for your wares. I loved dealing with customers, it was a way to socialize that I loved, and something totally lacking in WoW's ebay-like system. There was about a 3 month "golden period" in DAoC after gemcrafting was implimented but before the first expansion came out when crafters made the best available weapons and armor. Then the new drops from expansions made crafting high quality stuff less and less in demand.

that's what ultimately killed crafting in DAOC, and eventually led to my dropping the game.