[MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems

[John Buehler]

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

>> 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.

I won't argue primacy of problems, but I will certainly agree with
you that lacking a use for crafted items is a problem with current
multiplayer games.

>> 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

<laughs> My career over the past 20 years or so has been as a
software engineer :) I find the process of crafting the code itself
entertaining, and that partly serves as the basis for my
observations here.  I enjoy the crafting process, and then I enjoy
the use of my product by customers.  Games are about entertainment,
and having to do something that is not entertaining in order to gain
something that you *do* find entertaining is just silly.  If there
are people who just want to sell crafted items from their shop, then
they should be able to hire NPCs to craft items for them to sell.
That way, they retain a sense of ownership of the items without
having to go through the non-entertainment of crafting, but they get
to provide the service of new items for the community.  And all the
checks and balances of the world economy are retained (e.g. no
insta-crafting).

> 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.

I think that's an admirable approach to crafting.  I guess I
described something similar just above, but with the attitude of
breaking each trade into chunks so that a player can step into the
overall process at any level that they care to.

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

[snippage]

> 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.

All I was really saying was that whether NPCs provide raw materials
or whether players provide them makes no difference.  As you've
suggested, uncontrolled introduction of assets (cash being something
of an aside) into an economy with fixed prices is another of those
'sillies'.  We're in essential agreement on what is viable and what
is not in an economic model.

> 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.

Ah, I see.  You're saying that the player's decision is not mindless
when crafting an item for a customer.  That each item is
custom-designed.  If sufficiently involved, I could see that working
well.  It certainly seems to answer my hope to make crafting itself
entertaining.  It would, however, take a very involved environment
in which the items functioned.

>> 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...

I didn't mean anything particularly specific by my use of 'master'.
It's simply a statement that if I want the elevated levels of
entertainment in a given character skill set, I have to commit to
doing that and forego other entertainment.  What the entertainment
that I gain access to might be is highly dependent on the game.
Being a master tailor might mean that my character gains access to
certain social circles because nobility only hires master tailors.
No journeymen are admitted, thank you.  At the same time, that
tailor is completely unable to engage in combat or do any magic.
The player has chosen the career of a tailor, and the most complete
entertainment that a tailor has is available to that player.

> 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.

I broadly agree with this.  I suspect that many interested in
finding some kind of real reward from combat would argue that there
is no purpose to all their combat in much the same way that
tradesfolk argue that there is no purpose to all their crafting.
All of the discussions about player-controlled worlds is a sign of
that discontent.  While I think that player-controlled worlds are a
bad idea, I certainly like the idea of players feeling a sense of
impact and involvement in the operations of the game world.  All I
want to do is to make some wagon wheels and know that the NPCs of
the town are using them - and that the NPCs are going to be around
for a while and do something with their lives while they're around.

> 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?

I guess it's the perception of Folks With Money that combat is
entertaining, while the more subtle stuff is not.  When the games
that successfully pursue the subtle stuff come out and are hugely
successful, Folks With Money will start cranking out copies as fast
as they can.

JB

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