Tag: crafting

The Legion Dungeon Love-Affair

Posted on by Gazimoff

‘Thank you for fetching my tools, Wilkins. But, before I can teach you the secrets of Mid-Legion Tailoring, you must carry out one more task’

‘Yes, Master?’ The scruffy young apprentice looked up, hope welling in his big eyes.

‘Indeed. You see, we have run out of Milk. I’ve heard tales of the Naga breeding incredible cows, and I long to sample their produce within my precious Sin’dorei tea. You must travel into the Eye of Azshara, defeat the Naga, milk one of these cows and bring a pitcher back to me. Only then, will I feel refreshed enough to share such intricate work with you.’

The elderly figure, a stick draped in expensive robes, shared a wide, almost predatory smile.

‘But… but that’s Hero work!’

‘No buts, Wilkins. Now go, and don’t return without my Milk!’

By now, most of us have been chewing through Warcraft: Legion for a few weeks. On the whole, it represents a fantastic return to form for the ageing MMO, with a renewed focus on telling an immersive story and shrouding characters in a rich fantasy. It’s a formula that seems to have worked, with over 3.3 million copies sold and more players returning than ever before.

But, while most design updates have been enthusiastically received, one particular facet has come under increased scrutiny – the abundance of dungeon quests to gate content. If you want to complete your Order Hall missions, or even max out your Professions, expect to spend some intense combat time with four other people.

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Crafting and CREDD

Posted on by Gazimoff

WS_Settler_Scientist07Have you ever heard of the tale about the everlasting fan belt? The story starts with a small inventor who became frustrated at high garage bills for maintaining his car. Every time he visited for a seemingly minor problem, the sparkplugs or fan belt needed replacing. After one expensive visit too many, he decided enough was enough and worked on fixing the problem once and for all.

After a few years, the young inventor perfected an item that would revolutionise the car maintenance industry – an indestructible fan belt. He secured a patent on it, and began to tout the idea with various car makers the world over.

The inventor found a buyer, so the myth says, and rewarded him handsomely. But the belt never made it to market. Sensing what it would do to the lucrative car maintenance industry, the buyer (who owned a chain of garages) never sold a single belt using the patent. Instead, he continued to profit from the built-in obsolescence, guaranteeing a steady stream of regular customers.

How does this relate to MMOs? Let me explain.

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SWTOR: The Broken Mess of Crew Skills

Posted on by Gazimoff

Over the last few days I’ve been digging into the crafting system in Star Wars: The Old Republic. This isn’t something I really got into during beta – I was too busy waving around my lightsaber and shooting lightning from my fingertips to be concerned with harvesting materials and making pointless items.

I’m regretting that decision now, as I’d have loved to provide some choice feedback on the system. Other people may have found SWTOR’s biggest flaw, but for me crafting is about even with my issues on Space Combat.

For those of you yet to dig in to the intricacies of fabrication in Bioware’s MMO, here’s the run-down. At level 10-ish you gain your first companion, and with this you can learn Crew Skills. There’s three categories: skills that make things, skills that gather things and skills that send your companion on missions. Credit where it’s due, the last two choices are interesting as they allow you to focus on questing while your companion does all the tedious work of banging rocks together.

But pick a crew skill that makes anything and be prepared for a whole galaxy of redundancy. Let me explain.

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The Impossible Saronite

Posted on by Gazimoff

I’ve been setting myself goals for my characters recently in order to give me more of a reason to play them. For Curio I’ve decided to go for the Mekgineer’s Chopper, as it’s the only character I have that would suit it. As a result I’ve started this long grind of mining ores, making titansteel and selling anything I can on the auctionhouse.

I sometimes wonder if I’m strange by saying that Curio should have the motorbike, Shaemus should have all the pets and my other characters should have stuff relevant to them. It’s as if I have a picture of them in my mind about how they go about their lives and the kind of things they would obtain given half a chance. I see Curio as being in a workshop surrounded by gadgets and always having something to tinker on, so the bike is a natural fit for him.

Managing the auctionhouse is proving to be a bit of a slog. Price things too low and they get bought and relisted by someone else, while pricing things too high means that they never shift. I’ve seen the price of Frozen orbs drop from about 70g each when 3.3.3 came out to about 14g now. It’s got to the stage where I can by the orbs, exchange them for Frost Lotuses and sell them at auction for about 10g profit a time. Crazy.

In order to get stuff to sell, I’ve been mining. It started off as a way to gather enough Titansteel to make the chopper, but it’s now been a way for me to gather items to then sell at auction. I’m getting a fair supply of Saronite and various types of Eternals. Gems and titanium ore go to my fiancée’s jewelcrafter for prospecting, with any epic gems being sold. It means she gets to keep the blues and greens, as well as any titanium powder.

So far it’s not been a bad process. I’ve made about 3,000 gold so far with which to buy the remaining parts I need. It’s something I’m able to work on when things are slow, as well as being one of those gentle activities that provides a balance to pugging or raiding. I also feel like I’m achieving something with every gold coin that gets me closer to my goal.

It has got me thinking though about the overall crafting process within Warcraft. I’m not so sure what it’s like in other MMOs, but in order to be able to craft in this game you also need to be a sufficiently high level to gather the materials needed. Items that are difficult to craft require special patterns or plans that commonly require a reputation grind or raid instance farm in order to obtain.

I’m beginning to wonder if it would be viable in an MMO to have crafting as a different levelling path that would work independently of character level. Is it feasible to allow players to focus on adventuring, PVP or crafting as a way of increasing skill and providing different taught skills for each path. I’m sure something like this has been tried before in other MMOs, but I’d be interested to know if it worked or fell flat.

And why the Impossible Saronite? On my mining route around Icecrown, there are a couple of ore nodes that are impossible to harvest safely. Most of them can be cleared away without too much trouble. There’s the odd one though that pings up on my map, only for me to leave it as soon as I see what’s surrounding it. Having to battle four 80-elites just for a scrap of saronite just isn’t worth it.

I’ve always been a fan of crafting in MMOs, as I love to create items that are useful to my character and others. I ended up maxing out Tailoring back in vanilla before I hit the level cap as I was that keen on getting all the patterns I could. I’m still a collectionist, trying to get as many recipies, patterns etc on as many characters as possible. I just find it a touch irritating when my professions are made useless either because far better gear can be collected in dungeons or because the best patterns are rare drops from raid dungeon bosses.

Still, at least I can make a chopper. You can’t say that isn’t cool…