[MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems

[Ron Gabbard]

From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>
> Ron Gabbard writes:
>> From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>
>>> Paul Boyle writes:

>> Make is such that the items created are useless?  That's the
>> situation with most MMOGs.  Mob-dropped items are almost always
>> superior to player-crafted.  I agree with the 'explorer' argument
>> with regards to crafting.  One thing I've tried to put into the
>> trades system I've been toying with is a sense of discovery and
>> ownership of that discovery... as well as random events that get
>> the heart racing.

<snip>

> My suggestion was to provide a test for designers coming up with
> crafting systems to determine if their crafting system was
> entertaining.  If they only packaged up the crafting system and
> tried to sell it as a game on its own merits, would anyone play
> it?  In truth, I'd apply that test to the combat systems as well.
> I've gotta believe that people play these games primarily for
> social reasons.  The raw entertainment really isn't there.

I agree with you that people play these games primarily for social
reasons whether it's conflict with other players, banding together
to achieve commons goals, hanging out with friends, etc.  This isn't
a bad thing.  It's a market dynamic that sets certain expectations
in the customer's head.  Players who pursue crafting in a
multi-player world expect that the output from their work will have
value to and be demanded by the player base... be meaningful.  Yes,
most trade skill systems are mind-numbingly dull.  However, this is
truly a secondary problem (that DOES need to get fixed).  The
primary issue is that the output is typically meaningless to the
in-game society which gets back to the 'social reasons' for which
the players play the game in the first place.

<snip description>

> I have an aversion to long hours of boredom punctuated by moments
> of entertainment.  My most fundamental tenet to crafting is that
> the boring part has to be entertaining.  If it can't be done, then
> don't have players do that part.  Have NPCs do it and have the
> players manage them.  I could easily imagine that harvesting could
> be made entertaining, at least for a while, but it's not by
> hearing the same chopping and cutting sounds and seeing the same
> animation on the exact same tree graphic over and over again.
> Every activity in a game that a player is invited to engage in
> must be more entertaining than current combat systems.  And that
> includes combat and forestry.

'Long hours of boredom punctuated by moments of entertainment' is
the main reason that I never got into writing code.  For some
people, writing code is a fun and exciting process and I respect
those people who can sit down for hours and turn functional
requirements into working code.  It's just not my cup of tea... it's
boring A multi-player game, like the real world, is made up of all
types of people with all types of personalities and all types of
real-life constraints on their play time.  What I tried to shoot for
with my trades system is a distribution of required involvement and
interpersonal interaction such that every type of player has a craft
that fits their personality and RL constraints.  (Picture a graph
where Involvement is the X-axis and Interaction is the Y-axis both
going from low to high.)  Each trade has a range of involvement and
interpersonal interactions required such that each quadrant is
represented.  Not every game experience can be so intense and
involved that players can't deal with RL issues that arise
(telephone ringing, bathroom breaks, dinner burning in the oven,
kids starting a fire in the living room) without being penalized by
the game.

> Note that I don't believe that harvesting raw materials *by
> players* has anything at all to do with a balanced,
> inflation-proof economy.

Ack! This is an entirely different thread.  I'm just going to list
the economic laws I used to derive that statement and people can
draw their own conclusion.  'Inflation-proof' and 'balanced' are
technical terms within the science of economics so this is coming
straight from the 'textbook' (Microeconomics 8th edition by Edwin
Mansfield and Macroeconomics 6th edition by Dornbusch and Fischer,
to be exact) as opposed to my opinion.

Macroeconomics -- The only significant costs of inflation are
associated with those wages and prices that are fixed and unable to
adjust to inflation (unanticipated inflation).

By definition, any game with hard-coded wages and/or prices and an
open economy with an ever-increasing money supply is not
inflation-proof.  Note: Wages and prices include obvious instances
like the prices at which NPC vendors buy/sell items but also include
not-so-obvious instances like mobs that drop currency as loot and
the Transmutation skill in AC2 where players themselves convert
items into coin (or visa versa).

Microeconomics -- A balanced economy is one where the supply of
goods equals demand for those goods and the resulting price is
determined by the value the market places on those goods in relation
to competing goods.  This is also called equilibrium... the point
where there is no tendency for change holding other factors
constant.

Thus, to have an inflation-proof, balanced economy you need: 1a. A
closed market with a fixed money supply, or 1b. An open economy with
no hard-coded prices or wages and a system by which prices can
adjust to inflation.  2. A system by which the supply of goods is
able to equal the demand for those goods.

If a game designer can create a system where the available supply of
raw materials equals the player-driven demand for raw materials
without the players providing the supply and where the price for
those raw materials can adjust to inflation and are market-driven,
more power to them.

>> The second stage crafters are the component makers... the
>> alchemists and metallurgists.  I went with an attribute-based
>> system instead of a recipe-based system.  [snip details] > >
>> Doesn't that just delay the onset of a recipe system?  Same
>> comment > for 'final stage crafters'.

It depends on the other game systems.  Being a 'master craftsperson'
in the system I put together has little to do with a character's
"skill level" and more to do with the player's ability to take input
variables and determine the optimal product for that customer given
the situation in which they are planning to use the item, (like
silver weapons versus undead in UO).  If the combat system is set up
such that any 'fighter' character can use any weapon and differences
in effectiveness for a single weapon across all opponents is
insignificant, then the result will be a recipe system with
templates that are posted on Stratics within a week (if not
shorter).

In short, the crafting system can be no more complex than the system
into which it's selling/supporting.  The exception to this is the
aesthetic or prestige angle where having an item with a
cool/unique/rare graphic adds value to the product even though it's
statistically similar.

<[snip and snips]>

>> Secondly, one of the biggest downfalls to most crafter
>> communities stems from the oversupply of crafters.  Rich players
>> will log on their trade mule and powerskill their trade mule
>> character while at work or otherwise occupied where they can't
>> play a 'real' character.  It's that low of involvement.  The end
>> result is that the trade mule has the same skill set as the
>> character who spends their entire life in a city hawking their
>> wares and really 'playing' the crafter role.  Increase the
>> involvement of the crafting process and you have given the 'core
>> crafters' a much-needed competitive edge over the trade mules.

<snip example>

> Short form: being a crafter is a commitment by the player to
> pursue a certain avenue of entertainment in the game.  If I want
> to be a master tailor, I have to choose that over other avenues of
> entertainment.

I agree depending on what is meant by 'master'.  (That term is so
over-used in games.) To be the best of the best should require a
huge commitment but should also have a huge reward.  This ties back
to crafting being supported by other game systems but also ties back
to the concept of a balanced, inflation-proof economy.  Support from
other game systems is obvious in that the items created by 'master'
craftspeople must be significantly superior to those produced by
journeyman crafters to justify the investment the master
craftsperson is asked to make.  Support from the economy is not so
obvious...

In most games currently available, becoming a master craftsperson is
a matter of player time and in-game currency invested into a trade.
The problem is that 'advanced' players amass huge amounts of money
which inflation has made virtually worthless and they typically play
more hours such that the 'real' cost of one hour of game time for
the 25-hour/week player is significantly less than one hour of game
time for the 5-hour/week player.  If the trade system is set up
'PvE' such that becoming a 'master' requires X coins and Y hours,
those players who have 'extra' money and time will build trade mule
'masters' at very little cost as both the coin and time had little
incremental value to them.

Kill inflation and create a 'PvP' economy where the advanced players
are bidding against each other for scarce resources and there is no
longer such a thing as 'extra' time and money.  Investing that time
and money into a trade mule automatically means that the player is
less competitive in bidding for items or on the battlefield against
their peers (people that play the same amount of time) -- they will
have lower quality gear, a less 'prestigious' house, etc.  Thus, the
trade-off mentioned.

I agree that making the process of crafting more exciting and
enjoyable is important.  However, making the crafter's activity
meaningful and protecting the crafter's investment in time is even
more important.  A player that invests 30 played days into
developing a 'master' combat character will have a character that
always has value because there are limitless mobs/respawning players
to kill out there.  A player that invests 30 played days into
developing a 'master' craftsperson will have a character of value
only as long as there is a market for their product that is large
enough to justify their initial investment and provide rewarding
on-going crafting experiences on a regular basis.  If there is no
market for the crafter's goods and what they are making has no
meaning in the game world, it would be more fun and honest to the
player to have the game kick over to a game of 'Gems' when they
craft and just deduct X coins from their account every couple
minutes and after they play Gems for 1000 hours give them the title
Master Craftsperson.

Cynical?  Yeah... sorry.  It's just that UO has been out for what,
5+ years?  MMPs released since then are actually going backwards
with regards to designing integrated systems that will efficiently
support thousands of concurrent players... particularly in the area
of crafting and economics.  What's up with that?

Cheers,

Ron

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