[Disillusionist]

I'm currently at a game that has player crafting, and offers the ability to make unique items.
I'm of two minds on this, being that quality control (spelling/grammar, lore deviation, or an item's descript that goes well above its actual capability) is an issue, while on the other hand, that player creativity is to be welcomed and enjoyed.

My current game has a policy, as I understand it, of self and player regulation (with staff oversight, of course), and a general trust of players to stay 'in bounds' during creation and of other players to monitor and adjust quality control issues. Much like some games allow an enormous amount of freedom in character description creations, not requiring a great deal of attention to staff-run alterers or merchants for unique displays.

Some games use menu-driven crafting, wherein quality control (or other 'control' issues) is paramount, and only certain descriptors are allowed. Presuming (heh, which I don't, having seen my fair share of staff-driven typos in alters) that the issue of spelling/grammar and lore adherence is dealt with, the option is to sacrifice player creativity.

My personal preference is to give the players the benefit of the doubt, and allow as much creative freedom as possible. Roleplayers -tend- to be fairly creative in nature, and it seems to me that stifling the creative impulse overmuch is detrimental to creative enjoyment. In menu-driven systems, one's creativity would generally be limited by someone else's creative limitations, which can range from brilliant to utterly mundane.

If there are other types of crafting out there, what systems have you seen?
What is your general take on the benefits and drawbacks of them?
What is your preference?

[Ide]

Originally Posted by Disillusionist My personal preference is to give the players the benefit of the doubt, and allow as much creative freedom as possible. Roleplayers -tend- to be fairly creative in nature, and it seems to me that stifling the creative impulse overmuch is detrimental to creative enjoyment. In menu-driven systems, one's creativity would generally be limited by someone else's creative limitations, which can range from brilliant to utterly mundane.

With the obvious caveat that the benefits of the system are tied to the type of game you're playing, one thing I don't like about restring systems (i.e., where the player asks the staff to restring an item description, or sets the description themself) is that is becomes difficult to tie the description into the world model. Unfortunately one of the benefits of a mud (over a MMO say) is that staff can respond to restring requests fairly efficiently, so I realize that by eliminating restrings you're kind of hamstringing an inherent advantage of muds over other types of MMOs.

Also you need a description system that reacts to the world model in the first place to accomplish this -- but if you go into the design of your game with the idea that you will allow restrings, then your design is going to be shaped by this assumption.

Now for something like mush-style RP, restrings are a no-brainer.

But if you're doing something, for lack of a better phrase, 'more gamey', I would go for more of a parameter-based crafting system, where the player chooses materials, effects, and so on and the system produces the description of the object. Given enough paramters you should still have a great deal of creative latitude. The added benefit is that the new object and the game world will mesh thematically (and possibly produce happy synergies that add to the theme), and the object can respond to the world model (easily getting wet, burnt, honed, burnished, responding to properties of other characters for identification, lore, etc. -- the possibilities are endless). This is not to say that in a RP environment players can't agree by contract that an object is responding to the world model, and possibly they can restring on the fly. But for a lot of these little effects I think it's more interesting to let the system handle the details.

[Molly]

We do both restrings and crafted items in 4D, but we still retain quality and no-cheat control over the items.

Over the years I have learned that giving the players 'the benefit of doubt' is a bit naive, at least when it comes to the ability of creating powerful items. If you allow them to choose their own stats, the majority, if not all, will go for maximum, which will soon make all existing equipment in the Mud obsolete and probably unbalance the game too. And as for the spelling and grammar of some players... well, imms may make the odd typo too, but at least with them you have some guarantee of the standard of writing.

What we are offering our players when it comes to Crafting are two things:

The first one is the option to 'buy' restringed items. The prize in Mud currency is dependent on the type, either you can buy a totally stat-less RP item just for show, or you can get a new item made from an existing one, with the same stats as the original. In both the cases the players write the descs themselves, and then note or mail them to an imm, who makes the actual item. In this way both creativity and security are satisfied.

The second feature is a Craft system that we are in the process of implementing. It allows the players to craft weapons, armor and some other items, based on a step-by-step system, where you have to gather the raw materials and process them in various ways, before you can make the actual item. In this system the end productss are all pre-made, but the quality is dependent on the material for certain parts, colour, decorations, finishing and of course the crafter's own skill. To avoid crafted items competing with the ones in the game, you can only craft armour or clothes for certain wear_locs, which are only used for crafter things.

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by Molly W The first one is the option to 'buy' restringed items. The prize in Mud currency is dependent on the type, either you can buy a totally stat-less RP item just for show, or you can get a new item made from an existing one, with the same stats as the original. In both the cases the players write the descs themselves, and then note or mail them to an imm, who makes the actual item. In this way both creativity and security are satisfied.

You don't even need to make imms create the actual item. Why not have players submit items that they propose to create for approval before they're created? Takes an extra step out of things for the imm when the imm can just go down a list checking 'yes' or 'no' (with a short explanation as to what was wrong with the item).

For instance, in Achaea items are made from patterns, and you need to submit a new pattern for approval before an item can be created from it. The admins thus never have to make the items (which come with various commodity costs for each item created) but still retain pre-approval powers over crafted item descriptions.

--matt

[dasy2k1]

NWA has a large amount of player created crafting in the form of clothing and jewelry but this is only available to two guilds (one in each main area) these guilds are also the only ones who can modify playes descs, modify ships and rooms and many other peices of palyer generated content... this way is easier to police as there can be IC guild rules on what is permitted and what isnt. A customer can design the item for you (and write it on a parchment) but the merchant or traider has to create it and will refuse if its not allowed.....

it must be said that nothing created with this much flexibility has any major stats.... they are mainly prestigious items... all amour and weapon manufacture done by merchants and traiders (not much) is a normal coded power and cant be changed,

things like ships have an unchangible type, dinghy skiff sloop yacht etc which allow for differnt things (fishing, whaling etc).. the actual descriptions can be changed but not the stats. whch prevents abuse

[Qzzrbl]

The crafting system on Armageddon's pretty much my favorite out of all I've seen.

It's not exactly what I'd call perfect, but I still dig it pretty hard.

It's cool beans, you have a raw, unworked item and you have a crafting skill-- type "craft item" to see what you can make out of the unworked item with your various crafting skills and their respective skill levels. You'll get a little list you can choose from, if you've got a few crafting skills or high skill levels.

Type in "craft <item> into <finished product>", and, depending on your skill, you'll either fail to make your finished product, or successfully make your finished product.


That's for common items that anyone with the skill can craft though....

For completely new objects that have never-been-seen-before-in-game, you've gotta talk to the Staff about that.... They do it pretty regularly, but only if you've completely maxed out your particular crafting skill.

[MudMann]

I have never touched on crafting, and never fancied it, but discovered it quite by accident in Primordiax when armour was low in stock and I needed armour for my combat class.

Crafting in Primordiax is broken down into skills, each character level gives you a certain amout of skill points to spend. This means no one crafter can specialise in everything. There are four main crafting proffessions, armoursmith, weaponsmith, tailor, cooks, with alchemist and tinkers to follow soon. Each of these proffesion can touch on the others as they have primary skills, secondary skills and hobbies.

Example, a level 10 armourcrafter can have up to level 10 in armour crafting skills, up to level 6 in secondary skills (i.e dabbling in weapons crafting or cooking) and level 2 in hobbies (allowing training of combat skills, or healing or magic).

Armour crafting can be either leather, chain, or plate with each of those subsets breaking down further into head, legs, chest, etc)

You gain recipes, which require a certain amount of skill points to understand, and these recipes need resources in the form of raw metals, leather, wood, or for cooking raw ingrediants and herbs. The raw ingrediants can be gathered by all chracters as everyone is allowed to skin, mine, gather, chop etc. These resources are then processed to remove any taint (void taint is part of Primordiax;s history and has resulted in 2/3'rd of the world being uninhabitable.

Crafting is then carried out like 'combat' with the item having a certain amount of life that needs to be removed before you pass out from exhaustion.

In place of armour, you have crafting gear such as aprons, instead of weapons you have crafting tools of various quality, instead of special attacks you have to combat such things as fatigue (using annealing), clumping in food (by mixing).

This combat method allows crafters to group together and make joint projects.

Gear can be produced for practice as in Primordiax, but as is proper for finite resources this gear can then be salvaged breaking it back down into a percentage of the original raw resources.

Normally crafting needs the making of components (handles, blades, plates, dough's, batters) which can be done for low levels, or is usually passed onto low level apprentices (i.e other players) to do, whereas end products (plate armour, war axe, scrambled eggs) are classed as 'elite' monsters. Currently, Primordiax is in the bronze age of production, with iron on the horizon.

The system is alwasy evolving, but even in its present form it is quite attractive a prospect even to people who prefer hack and slash.

[plamzi]

The biggest challenge to crafting is the concept of uniqueness and how to cheat to get there We are currently working to deepen our crafting system so this has been a helpful read -- thanks to all participants.

It's the first time I've heard of the 'battle with an item' idea. It sounds like a neat way to throw in some randomness and make sure the whole process takes time. It's a clever move all in all but it sounds complicated and difficult to pull off well. Unless it is the main highlight of a MUD, I don't think it would be worth trying it on for us.

We are building up on a pretty conventional crafting system, a set of skills that turn PK arena trophies into a limited set of wearable items. The goal is both to increase the pool of raw materials and products, and to make sure that there's something unique about each product (therein lies the rub).

I have to say that as an English teacher I shudder to think of opening item strings to players. A great balance seems to be user submissions passing a screening process. We're already doing that for quest ideas and I think we can carry it over for crafting.

Letting players control the power of the product is, I think, pointless unless the penalty for failure offsets the rewards for success. Even if there is reciprocal punishment and successes are few, game balance will eventually slip away from control, I think.

[MudMann]

Originally Posted by plamzi The biggest challenge to crafting is the concept of uniqueness and how to cheat to get there We are currently working to deepen our crafting system so this has been a helpful read -- thanks to all participants. It's the first time I've heard of the 'battle with an item' idea. It sounds like a neat way to throw in some randomness and make sure the whole process takes time. It's a clever move all in all but it sounds complicated and difficult to pull off well. Unless it is the main highlight of a MUD, I don't think it would be worth trying it on for us. We are building up on a pretty conventional crafting system, a set of skills that turn PK arena trophies into a limited set of wearable items. The goal is both to increase the pool of raw materials and products, and to make sure that there's something unique about each product (therein lies the rub). I have to say that as an English teacher I shudder to think of opening item strings to players. A great balance seems to be user submissions passing a screening process. We're already doing that for quest ideas and I think we can carry it over for crafting. Letting players control the power of the product is, I think, pointless unless the penalty for failure offsets the rewards for success. Even if there is reciprocal punishment and successes are few, game balance will eventually slip away from control, I think.

Well on that score, its best not to be too restrictive and just keep a log of what is created for typo purposes or use a method of 'if you dont treat the item with IC respect you will lose it or waste resources". Example with the same game Primordiax, has a clothing machine which is another type of crafting.

It allows for the total unfrestricted creation of wearable items. You get to decide where it is worn, if it is on or over, how transparent it is, how warm it is, the ASCII colour, does it cover more than one part of the body (an apron would cover chest, top of legs for example), can it be worn under something and if so how visibile it is if it is. You can create a full set of clothing, with underwear, briefs would be invisible under leggings, but you would just see the socks peeking out from top of the shoes for example. Its great fun!

Players have complete free reign to make anything they want, the description, the alias's, the alternative id names etc, and so far, from what I have seen there has been zero abuse of the mechanic, and a lot of care.

The way this process is protected and how players are made to be careful with it... this process is only avaialble to players who have medallions which can be won through IC means or by a small RL purchase (and soon I would assume by the tailor class for expensive IC currency).. i.e are either great players who will respect the game, or those who have paid for the privilidge and wont be wasting it.. so in a free to play game, you would make sure only players with commitment and who are vetted 'by-proxy' by their game playing time would be allowed to let loose or make sure that continued use of bad grammar / bad typos are classes as 'broken items' which are wasted. Or even use the players themselves as the vetters. Have long term players 'inspect' apprentices work(ii.e the spelling) and make it an in game mechanic that is fun!

[silvarilon]

Originally Posted by plamzi We are building up on a pretty conventional crafting system, a set of skills that turn PK arena trophies into a limited set of wearable items. The goal is both to increase the pool of raw materials and products, and to make sure that there's something unique about each product (therein lies the rub).

We have item properties, usually color and material, that are set by the materials it is crafted from.

An example might be that you get felt. You add green dye to it, and now you have green felt. You tailor the green felt into a jacket, and you've got a green felt jacket. You tailor the green felt jacket into a green felt admiral's coat.
There are other additions, such as being able to add buttons (gold toggle clasps vs crude wooden buttons, etc.), trimming, and so on. So you've got a fair number of customizable options.

We've found that players create uniforms ("Our mercenary company all wear black woolen caps, and red jackets") and do still value the unique.

Although anyone can craft an admiral's coat using the above process, the primary descriptions will still be based on the raw materials. That gives a nice amount of freedom to the players (anyone can have a green felt admiral's coat) while still allowing unique rewards. The unique reward would sometimes be a unique item (maybe I offer you a carefully sewn humanskin admiral's coat. Because I'm, y'know, disgusting and crazy) or it could be some unique raw materials (Kill a giant blue snake in the arena and I might offer you a roll of azure snakeskin, which you can then craft into whatever you want)

It also leads to more reuse of the unique items. I can give that roll of azure snakeskin to three different characters, and they'll probably use it for three different things. One might make a snakeskin hat and coat (how pimping!), while another might make a snakeskin cape and scabbard. While another might make hundreds of snakeskin buttons, and set themselves up as a button-merchant with the only supply of snakeskin buttons in the game. Five different "unique" items, even though staff only made one addition.

It also means we can add new item types without much worry. Someone wants us to add a housecoat? We can just do that. Now players can customize their housecoats based on the already-existing options. We don't need to make different unique housecoats for players A and B.

This has, of course, bitten us. Because it's so easy to add unique items, we regularly do. Now every player has a number of unique items, which in a lot of ways is really cool. But it also means unique items aren't nearly as valued as in some other games. Players won't scramble to win that one unique item on offer anymore.

[xanan]

In the game i play called Duris, the crafting system is based on random pieces of material types and a purchased craft skill. The piece drop randomly on npc corpses and there is a set amount of pieces of a certain material to make certain slots. For instance a badge would only require 1 piece of platinum while armor would require 3 pieces of platinum, etc. The stats on the created item are random standardized by a medium level of max stat or save (depending on whats standard for your mud). The outcome of the end eq made depends on the skill level of the character and luck stat. The names of the items are all randomized like a beatiful platinum badge or an elegant platinum cloak, etc. Works pretty well there.

[Darren Brimhall]

For Ironclaw its depends on 'what' you are crafting.

For instance,if I wanted to make a simple chest, then it would be 'carve my 1st lumber ('1st' not 'First') into Chest...and I would have a chest.

If I wanted to make a huge chest, then its get a little complex because I must first carve the chest then carve it again to make it a huge chest.


In Second Life, almost anyone can build. Its knowing how to get the prims in the manner you want them in, and then taking the time to script animations (doors/lid opening are popular) or buy them at SLMarketplace.

Right now in SL Mesh building is gaining steam, but like Sculpturing (which I'm learning with Rokuro) done with the Blender 3D engine it wont surpass it or basic prim building. BUt there are steep learning curves to deal with.


Darren Brimhall

[Will]

We use a system where characters can customize items any way they want by applying different prefixes and trailers either taught at their guilds or which they design themselves. Player designs are submitted and screened by gamemasters through an automated process where designs are either accepted and added to a character's repertoire or rejected with a reason why.

A character who knows a lot of alters can create items with a nearly endless range of appearances, and with the ability to do custom designs, one of a kind items are also possible: a stately black steel dagger with an adamantine handle wrapped in scarlet cord.

The one thing I don't like about the way our stuff works is that itt doesn't require the actual materials that appear in item descriptions. I'm torn over the desire to keep things fun and flexible vs. keeping it immaculately realistic.