Make Me A Sandwich

Category: Scribe's Corner

Last Updated on Thursday, 04 August 2011 21:18

Written by IceRazor

This week in Icicles, our crack team (Okay, just me) continues our work bringing you the latest and greatest news on TOR, speculation about TOR, and subtle jabs at Bioware. As always, any questions, comments, or blind hatred are appreciated. Also, if you have an article topic, I'm always open to ideas.

All economies revolve around selling or trading of stuff. MMO economies are no different. The “stuff” in MMOs is generated through crafting systems in which players make weapons, armor, food, potions, etc. We’re going to look at how crafting will be dealt with in TOR, as well as the problems that other games’ crafting systems have experienced.

Crafting in TOR

For better or worse, crafting in TOR will not be like it is in any other game. In other games, the player is the one who has to gather the materials, and produce the finished products. TOR is going to change this paradigm. Players will instead command their companion characters to do these tasks for them. The companion character will depart for a period of 5 min to 24 hours and return to you with their results. Apparently these results will not always be what you want, or anything at all for that matter.
 

In addition to gathering and producing skills, players can also order their companions to go out on what are called missions. These missions can be used to gain light/dark points, look for treasure, and 2 other as yet unknown tasks. One more important piece of info that we know is that players can have 3 crafting skills, but only one of them can be a production skill.

Okay, for those of you that have been following along, you’ll notice that I haven’t used the term “Crew Skills” yet. Yes, I know that “Crew Skills” is the official name for TOR’s crafting system, but I’m sorry, I’m calling it crafting. I get somewhat annoyed at how Bioware has to come up with there own silly name for every single thing. Oh no, we can’t call them dungeons, that would make too much sense, they have to be “flashpoints”. Also, why do they have to stick adjectives on everything? Instead of just calling it combat, it has to be “heroic, synchronized combat”. Sorry for the rant, but Bioware, please stop confusing us with all these terms!

The Problem of Overabundance

Alright, so my intro to this article made a comparison between MMO economies and real economies. Well, that comparison isn’t exactly accurate as MMOs face certain problems that real economies do not. For one thing, pixilated equipment doesn’t break down like real items, so they never have to be replaced (Okay, fine, equipment in some games does suffer durability loss, but that’s a gold sink issue, not a crafting issue). Also, in most MMO economies, many players may have the capability to make a certain item. These two factors cause high supply and low demand, combining to make crafters feel unimportant and unprofitable.

Hey guys, I just crafted a bunch of guns, you need some? No? Alrighty, then.

Developers have a few ways of combating overabundance. One obvious way is to make valuable items require obscene amounts of very rare materials in order to artificially decrease supply. The problem with this solution is that potential buyers may be turned away by the subsequent high price, and instead try to obtain the item through other means (i.e. monster drop). The other common practice to keep crafting relevant is to give crafters the ability to make items that cannot be obtained through any other means in the game. However, by doing this, crafting begins to take on a larger role in the game world than other forms of gameplay, which bothers the rather large portion of MMO players that choose to craft casually or not at all.

Making Things Scarce

Well, how is TOR going to combat overabundance? Well, as is usual with Bioware, they’ve told us a little bit, but not exactly how everything will work. In an interview with TOROcast a few months ago, Daniel Erickson made this comment:

"There will be recipes you can have as a master craftsman that maybe only 1 or 2 people on the whole server will have."

This is a really serious statement, and I wish he’d clarified a bit more on exactly what he meant. If he is implying that certain recipes will simply be very hard to obtain (i.e. super rare drop off a very difficult boss), then I have no problem with it. However – and this is how I understood the comment – if there are certain recipes which will have an actual numerical limit on how many can exist on the server, then I have a BIG problem with it. What if the 1 or 2 people that obtain the recipe get bored with the game and stop playing? Everyone on that server is out of luck. Also, what if those 1 or 2 people just want to start a monopoly and charge exorbitant prices? There’s nothing anyone else could do about it.

You think gas prices are bad? Just wait for the lightsaber monopoly.

Going Mobile Youtube Video

For those of you that were following along in the first section, you’ll understand that TOR’s crafting system will be mainly a management system. From the way that I understand it, there’s no actual need for the player to view anything other than the crafting interface in order to manipulate this system. Hence, I think Bioware created this system with the idea of making it into a mobile app at a later date.

If you’ve ever played WoW, you probably know that it has a mobile app that allows the player to check their gear, check the auction house, and view their guild’s calendar. Obviously, these functions could be added as well to TOR’s potential app, but the ability to actually play a game system like crafting is a totally new concept. Personally, I love the potential there, and if I could craft on my phone, I might actually care about crafting for once. Of course, the main problem here is that it takes MMO addiction to a whole new level because you literally can’t walk away from the game. However, that’s more of a self-restraint problem that game developers can’t worry themselves about. Also, setting your 5 or so companions out on crafting missions shouldn’t take too much time anyway. I’m thinking it would be a good task while on a bathroom break.

Welcome to TOR crafting!

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