[MUD-Dev] Crafts Systems (was:Simpson's "In-Game Economics of UO")

[Ananda Dawnsinger]

Off on a bit of a tangent...

----------
>From: "Charles Hughes" <charles.hughes at bigfoot.com>

>Paul.Schwanz at east.sun.com wrote:
>> Also, I see the
>> intermediate-producer paradigm as realistic for some items, but not so
>> much for
>> others.  I guess you could go: iron ore-->iron rods-->steel rods-->steel
>> plates-->plate mail breastplate, but with other items, it's hard to
>> imagine how
>> you can do more than: animal-->leather-->leather boots.
>
>farmer/hunter-->butcher-->tanner-->cobbler-->merchant
>
>Any final product probably has 3 previous steps to create it which
>require specialists.  From a single player perspective, there are
>few, if any items, which a player would want to create from scratch.
>(I can only think of things such as magical staves or perhaps potions,
>or items that are linked to the owner.)

Though this seems to beg the question: how many players are going to want to
be the butcher or the tanner?  I don't see being the middleman as having
much job satisfaction.  "I tanned the leather that went into those boots
that Bob is wearing.  Really, you can't tell what a good job I did at
tanning that leather now that they've been made into boots, but it was a
really great tanning job."

This is just instinct on my part -- does anybody have any experience with
games with middlemen?  Is it something that enough players enjoy doing to
make it a workable mechanic?

I do have to agree, though, that most items wouldn't be made by a single
person from raw materials to finished product.  For example, in the few
examples of clothing-making that I'm personally aware of, a single "weaver"
seems to be expected to start with raw materials, spin the thread, weave the
fabric, dye the fabric, and finally make the clothes.

>From a realism standpoint (the less important one!), even in medieval times
weaving, clothmaking, and tailoring/dressmaking were three separate jobs
done by three (or more?) separate guilds, except for the peasantry making
clothes for their own families.

>From a gameplay standpoint, it seems like trying to pad a poorly-understood
activity into a game mechanic.  Especially since the early stages are
generally very complex, and the final step of making the clothes themselves
is sketchy and anonymous.

Like I said, this is a tangent, because my point turns out to have nothing
to do with economic systems and everything to do with the problem of making
fun and engaging crafts systems.  But from a purely fun-based standpoint, I
think it's more desirable to have only the high-level craft processes (the
ones that make the items that players buy/wear/use) and do them well, than
to simulate a large cascade of steps in a sketchy fashion.

   -- Sharon



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