Other Games with Tradeskills

[pennyrose]

I debated putting this post in Primal Scream and won't be offended if it is moved there, but it is really more of a request for information than a complaint.

EQ is the only online multiplayer game I've ever participated in and I have been very impressed with it. However, I have increasing concerns about the direction it is headed and increasing frustration with some of the technical problems (such as being locked out of game with a 1018 error twice in the last three days, each time for many, many hours). I can't accept "avoid the Bazaar" as a solution to the problem, since my game centers around tradeskills, transferring materials and Bazaar commerce, both buying and selling.

That is just to explain that I am beginning to wonder what options there are to EQ if I should decide it is time to walk away. I know there are other multiplayer games out there. What I don't know is whether there are games that are not basically slash-and-hack style games.

To me, combat is the most boring part of EQ. I like tradeskills, I like interacting with people, I like exploring. I know many of you are more experienced gamers than me and I wonder if you could tell me what game, if any, you would recommend to me if I should leave EQ.

Thanks.

Pennyrose and Company

[Hibashira]

Star Wars Galaxies

I'm in beta at the moment. All the goodies are crafted. Not to mention Jedi will have no choice but to craft his/her own lightsaber. There is an extensive model (for better or for worse) to ensure the viability of tradesperson at all levels (as in lower level supplies components to higher levels).

[Newmoon]

Well, I played UO (Ultima Online) for 4 years.. I still think the tradeskills there are far superior to anything in EQ. Now, they have customizable housing out as well. The advantage of housing has always been placing player NPC vendors that are around even if you're logged off, and the huge capacity for storage space. PLUS, it was designed from the very beginning to be a great way to gain profit. As a tradeskiller I made far more gold that I ever could from looting creatures. The drawbacks are that the graphics are far behind EQ. However if you're having trouble running EQ, you can easily run UO. UO is also a windows mode game, so you can run ICQ and look up stuff on various UO websites. After 4 years I got bored, after you make your first 500 million gold, you litterally have nothing you can spend it on. UO started making alot of gold sinks before I left, but when you have chests full of nothing but 1 million gold checks, its time to move on.

[Larong_Alsou]

I have been playing Dark Age of Camelot for a little over a month, and I really enjoy the tradeskill method there.

Pretty much everything for the skills can be shop brought, but then again my tailor is only at 298 skill atm. You can see EXACTLY what you need to craft to progress (the recipies follow the colour con system that the mobs do) so skilling is really only a case of having the time and the money to do so.

Plus theres the ability to perform trade quests (consignments, i think they are called) from the Master tradeskiller of your chosen profession, where by they tell you that soandso needs a particular item, you craft it, give it to the person (always an NPC, and so far, always in the same town) and they pay you for it.... but I have found that to be a bit buggy, I dont always make a profit from them (and the consignments, as I understand the process, is a guarenteed method to make some money, atleast more than selling to vendor, but not as much as selling to a player)

Also there is Earth: Above and Beyond.... they have a class (like SW:G) that is a dedicated Trader..... but I never tried it, so not sure what they are like.

Just my 2cp.

[Hibashira]

Earth and Beyond's tradeskill is pretty limited. If you break it down, you can specialize in:

beam weapon
particle weapon
missile weapon
shield
engine
components/devices

You can only buy skill when you level up. Then you can research store bought / drop goodies of and below your level. If you succeed, you'll learn the recipe. Then you can start making it if you can locate the components. Trader made items can be twice as good as store bought or dropped ones.

However, since skill points comes very VERY slowly after level 40, you cannot specialize in more than 1 or 2 skills and still keep up with the demand of combat skills.

I played it for 3 weeks and quit. Was a good game as a diversion but no staying power at all.

[Calabar]

I played UO for a year and a half and that’s where I learned to love trade skills. On the plus side, you can make items players want to buy fairly quickly after starting a skill. And the entire system is geared towards players buying from players. With EQ you can’t really do much of that until you’ve spent a LOT of time working up you skills. On the negative side of UO trade skills, they are very limited. You can make one kind of bow and one kind of arrow, for example. And if you like baking in EQ you’ll find it to be a joke in UO. I haven’t played UO in almost two years, so things may have changed.

Trade skills in both EQ and UO have pluses and minuses, so I’d have a hard time saying which game really has a better system. But if you should decide to play UO, don’t expect EQ trade skills. Try to keep an open mind and see how you like their take on player made items.

[eqNichola]

Re: Other Games with Tradeskills

To me, combat is the most boring part of EQ. I like tradeskills, I like interacting with people, I like exploring.

A Tale in the Desert - go now and you won't look back

[Quinner Sparrowhawk]

Re: Other Games with Tradeskills

To me, combat is the most boring part of EQ. I like tradeskills, I like interacting with people, I like exploring.

A Tale in the Desert - go now and you won't look back

Sorry, but the premise sounds boring. I like the combination of the combat, tradeskills, and player interaction. Any good game is a sum of all of its parts. One part alone does not make the game.

[Morani]

I can tell you a little bit about the other half of the question; the social aspect of it. I only play EQ (I can only afford to play one pay-game at a time) but I know a lot of people who have played many others. This BIGGEST thing I hear when they leave and (always) come back to EQ is that the other games don't have the social aspect that EQ has. Things may vary because of your server but 60,000 people on-line at any given moment does mean there are a lot more people you're going to like (and dislike but those are easy to ignore most of the time.) DAoC has next to ZERO people interested in role-playing, Anarchy Online is set up in was that makes it HARD to role-play and (comparatively) a chore to really even interact with groups of people, Earth and Beyond (unless it's changed a LOT from it's Beta) is more a group of people who snipe each other ro just chat with a game running in the background (there is really very little to do once you learn the game and during the Beta there were HUGE balancing issues.)

I did a little looking to see what else was out there because your question made me curious and I found a few things that were interesting. Here is a semi-poorly organized list of a BUNCH of MMORP's. It's the ONLY list I've been able to find though and there are a LOT of game on there that I've never heard of before. And here is a link to a game called Neanderthal that looks VERY interesting. It's the only prehistoric MMORP game concept I've ever seen and the graphic look really nice.

[syrinne]

EQ, DAOC, EQ2

I played DAOC and liked both the tradeskill and combat systems, as they were much more logical than that of EQ. The consignment process for tradeskills was a great and fun way to gain skill.

Problems included though:

1) getting other players to understand that crafted items were almost always better than looted, magic, spiffy-sounding items;

2) there's simply more of a rewarding feeling to looting an item than buying it off a tradesperson;

3) until very high levels (and this wasn't even available back when I was playing, so I'm not even sure how much of this higher level stuff has been implemented), there's nothing combinable that isn't store-bought. This might seem like a relief for some (farming endless silk and hides off greens can get old in EQ for instance... although I often kinda dug it - it was the praying for a stupidly rare drop from a tough, rare mob that would probably end up resulting in a failed combine anyway that reeeeeeally got old for me in EQ (I'm talking to YOU, Haze Panthers!!)). But: a result of this is that everyone's items are largely the same (although there's a nice equation with a random factor for deciding the Quality rating of a crafted item, which really figures into the item's overall AC value... very cool). And this is linked to...

4) the fewer number of items craftable aided in boredom setting in, and basically, EQ's whole recipe catalog (especially now, compared to back when I was playing and reinforced leather armor was God in tailoring) is massive and very creative. There's simply a whole lot of fun in EQ's variety, complexity, and flavor of tradeskill items.

It's useful to mention the DAOC combat system here: it was much more interesting because yes, you do hit auto-attack, but the way to really aid in your success is to use a variety of special moves that are available for your weapon's class (say, 1H Blunt) by skill level. They would range from being as simple as doing a little extra damage to a three-strike combination, such as... you can only use move X after you parry; you can only use move Y after a successful X; and even a Z only after a successful Y (this complex order would be at higher levels). And the moves would have other effects as well, such as slowing an opponent, stun, or combinations like a defensive move that does less damage but boosts your AC for a tick or two. Each of the moves has their own cost in Endurace, so, there's a whole strategy as to what you should use when, and how often, and so on. Very smart stuff.

DAOC is the only other MMORPG I've played. I returned to EQ because DAOC just couldn't compete with EQ's sheer depth, massive content achieved over time, etc.; and there were other boring aspects of DAOC as well. There were some very nice game dynamics in DAOC which often were appropriated from EQ and then improved. But overall it failed to really grab me, although part of it was probably a feeling of general burnout for MMORPGs in my case.

And so it happens that - after leaving DAOC a year + ago, and playing EQ again off and on - I've just quit EQ for the final time. I've played EQ since near it began, so things just seem old to me after all this play, no matter what handful of new zones get added. I've totally fond memories of EQ, and try to forget the annoyances of the less appealing game dynamics and connectivity problems and bugs and occasional puerile players and so on.

So, here lies Syrinne Taz, proud inventor of the Snow Bunny Hood of Evil Death, Tailoring 202, Baking 200, Brewing 193, Pottery 198, Fishing 200, Smithing 145... Keeh Estrogena, warrior-mechanic, Tinkering 204, Fletching 198. I'll miss 'em both.

BUT.

Not for too long, since they'll be back. The MMORPG I'm completely excited for, as a tradeskill addict, is EQ2. From http://www.everquest2-europe.com -

There will be a brand-new trade and crafting system in EverQuest II. Players who want to be craftsmen their entire gaming lives can do so with the new Tradesman base class. The inclusion of an all new tradesman character class allows players to gain experience by trading and selling goods, or defining themselves as craftsman. Additionally, tradespeople will enjoy the same benefits of grouping as adventuring classes, even to the point of having the trade equivalent of raids. 'Trade raids' will essentially be enormous civil engineering projects that require the efforts of several players in order to create large structures (such as temples) that will then provide huge benefits to other players. After construction, maintenance of these structures will be another crucial task for tradespeople.

Crafting items won't be a simple matter of piling materials into a box and smacking a 'create' button ... Since EQ2 awards XP for successfully making an item, you're going to have to earn it via a crafting system that mimics combat, complete with risk and tension. Upon selecting a recipe for something - say, a very rare shield - you'll go to the crafting window. There you'll see the basic components you need, as well as any special, rare ones. If you've got it all in your inventory, the crafting process will begin. Separate bars on the crafting interface track the item's progress and your character's concentration. As long as your concentration outlasts the progress bar you're fine. But events will occur during crafting to complicate matters, and you'll have to execute 'manoeuvres' (which are essentially trade-based spells) to deal with them. Manoeuvres are chosen before crafting and are lined up on the left side of the interface so that when you see an alert like 'Overheating Metal, ' you can click on 'Cool Metal' to salvage the crafting process. Of course, manoeuvres cost you concentration, so you have to select and use them with care. Should you fail, you lose the raw components and money you put into the item. Happily, rare components, like that golden sea tortoise shell you were hoping to convert into a shield, aren't lost. And a planned secure transaction window will protect adventurers who spent the last week trying to get that tortoise shell - you won't have to relinquish possession of your rare items when contracting a craftsman.

In addition to all this, items will - as they do in DAOC - decay and eventually break. Tradespeople can repair these; that was always a fun interaction with players in DAOC... "let me see that sword... hm... it's taken quite a beating... let me see if... Ah! there we are! Good as new! Uhm, almost." EQ is also appropriating DAOC's system of 'recommended levels' more closely than it does now, and that's an excellent system. From the same FAQ as above: "Items will be able to decay and eventually break. They will have recommended levels of use, and using an item that is too far above your level will have reduced effectiveness and a higher chance of breaking. Items will be able to be repaired." That was another great part of DAOC: hard to twink, and has a fair bit of logic to it. Put a gorgeous sword in the hands of a newb and the next thing you know he's knicked the thing. Give a veteran a crap, poorly-balanced sword, and he can use it to its maximum effect, but that max is way shy of his real potential given a weapon proper to his skills.


The idea of items breaking and needing repair and/or replacement is huge. It makes your equipment ever-changing to an extent, it's realistic, and helps fight against a glut of items abounding, which I believe helps prevent inflation. And just the idea of a player handing off a nice but old, very-worn item down to another, lower-level player is great for role-playing. "Here mate... it's old, it's worn, but the magic is there. For now it'll serve you well, until you can earn a more noble weapon yourself. Just be sure to care for it properly though, hey? Best you learn that on a weapon in its last years, instead of on one that's new and too young to be ruined...." In any event, this all helps to make tradespeople useful on a more consistent basis, and provides more of a market for your newly-produced wares. In DAOC, one of the most enjoyable aspects for me was that I ended up becoming the personal smithy and tailor (as Highlander armsman Banger MacLaren) for a number of people. I had my clients, basically, for which I was an outfitter. You'd get to know people, and since they liked my prices (in general I've always favored high-volume, low-profit pricing schemes) and quality (for some favored customers, I'd re-work an item if I scored a lower level of quality), I'd get these real, friendly, ongoing relationships. "Banger! I've been wearing those asterite chain mittens for like four levels now and they've barely taken any damage! At one point I looted some vindicator gloves and was all psyched, until I put them on and somehow lost AC? How'd that happen, they were magic?" "Ach, well boyo, yer've just encounted the magic of fine craftsman****e, wot! Har! Harve yer tried me famous Banger lady's breeches?" /cough

Side note: one thing I'm hoping will come into play in the production of items in EQ2 will be that, since there's this nifty, active process of properly making an item... perhaps a better performance in crafting it will result in an item of slightly better quality? Just the fact that it's an active process at all is very exciting. I really can't wait for this game (although, uhm, I'll have to I guess).

So. EQ2. Shop for your fine tailored goods from a scrappy little halfling named Syrinne, if you can find her...!

[Calabar]

Syrinne, I greatly enjoyed your post. But you brought up a point that is both a plus and a minus for my own personal feelings about trade skills. Overall I don’t like games where your gear degrades and eventually falls apart. On the plus side it’s almost a requirement for a thriving trade skill market. Consider what it would be like in the real world if cars, for example, never wore out or were ever damaged in a crash. There would thankfully be fewer used car commercials, but car sells overall would be greatly reduced. Your only customers, more or less, would be people who had never owned a car before or those who simply wanted a different look. The same holds true in game. Once you sell a player armor or weapon X, its unlikely that same player will be back to buy anther one unless it’s for a different character. But if that weapon or piece of armor eventually broke, you might well see repeat business.

However, there’s another side to this as well. When I played UO, where weapons and armor do wear out and break from use, I noticed something happening. A player would loot a very nice magical item from a mob, put it in the bank after excitedly showing it to all his or her friends and then rarely if ever use it. The reason was simple; if you used it you might break it. And even if you decided to use it, there was always that dread when wielding it that you’d break it. And that took a lot of fun away from owning such an item. How would you feel if you were wielding your epic, for example, and it broke half way through your fight with that dragon. Granted, a crafted item is easier to get than a looted item, but I would still dread wielding my 5k hammer of hamster bashing and have it break just when the dreaded giant space hamster was about to sever one of my limbs. Okay, maybe that’s a bit extreme, but I’d hate to lose my favorite weapon because it finally just fell apart and have to scrimp and save for another one. Yes, it’s more realistic but so is having to go to the bathroom and dealing with character aging. In general I prefer a bit of unreality in my fantasy environments.

So I’m not really sure what to think of EQ2. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see how system actually plays.

[syrinne]

Thanks for the compliment!

As for items degrading... if EQ2's system is anything like DAOC's, it won't be as ruinous as you're fearing, hopefully. In DAOC, players almost always outgrew their items before they took on much damage at all. And when they did take damage to their items, it wouldn't mal-affect their damage/defense/etc. values all that much. If you then had it repaired, it would likely be good as new, but its durability would decrease, and if you had work done to it repeatedly, that durability would get very low, and at zero the item would become unusable. So hopefully there's that sort of softer effect wisely employed in EQ2. Plenty of people never bothered to get their items fixed up, without experiencing notable (to them at least) decrease in their effects.

As for items breaking, I'm not sure how EQ2 will handle this, but I'd never seen one break in DAOC... so I'd hope you'd have to use your weapon for a very long time and perhaps not take care of it in order for it to have a chance of breaking. As for magic items, I think in DAOC they were significantly more difficult to damage, and most quest items barely ever suffered damage. Epic-style items would probably be totally immune from damage.

So, hopefully EQ2 will follow the DAOC mold when it comes to item degradation, and that it will have a notable effect, but not one that is too substantial. Enough though to make it useful to have maintenance be sought out, thus giving another role for tradespeople.

I think if EQ2 really had such major danger of nice items breaking, etc., players would go berserk. Even if they did make things too rough initially, it wouldn't last, I'm betting.

[Striken]

Just wanted to point out that if item decay is done intelligently, its not really bad at all. In UO, you could repair most items, and if it did get to the point of no repair, you could fork over a few hundred gold and replace it with a new item.

Swords would usually last an entire dungeon crawl, shields, you might need two if you fought multiples alot=)

But when you got back home or to town, you could repair the items and use them again.

Too many people consider item decay and apply it to EQ. That isnt how it works though, since EQ has all the gear coming from uber monsters, and rare drops mostly. In a tradeskill based economy, you'd buy your weapons and armor from players, not a rare drop off a rare spawn. It really is apples and oranges.

Ofcourse, in UO, if you got a high end magically item, you saved it for when it really counted=) Like if you heard about a well known PK or thief roaming in a certain area, nothing like busting out that Halberd of Vanquishing for that fight!

I guess the aim of my post was to just say "All item decay isnt bad".