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High-end raid Materials turned into Weapons: How will it work? And possible concerns.
Asgerr
Member
I was thinking earlier of how we know that raids will mostly drop high-end materials which in turn we'll have to craft into high-end raid weapons.
My question and possible concern lies here:
Is there an NPC craftsman we have turn these material in to, in order to get these weapons? Or must we enlist the services of a master-crafter player?
In the case of the former being true, where then then need for players to spend hours improving their artisan skills?
In the case of the latter, how would that work? Do I have to give them my materials and hope they don't screw me over and leave with the material or the weapon? Is there a need for some type of contract that forces the artisan player to relinquish the finished goods to the player who placed the order?
Is the possibility of getting scammed something that should be a part of the game insofar as it's part of player driven story and drama, which will fuel the conflicts between players?
If not, how do we avoid this? What sort of interface should artisan players have for a raider-non-crafter to need not worry their hard earned materials will be stolen?
My question and possible concern lies here:
Is there an NPC craftsman we have turn these material in to, in order to get these weapons? Or must we enlist the services of a master-crafter player?
In the case of the former being true, where then then need for players to spend hours improving their artisan skills?
In the case of the latter, how would that work? Do I have to give them my materials and hope they don't screw me over and leave with the material or the weapon? Is there a need for some type of contract that forces the artisan player to relinquish the finished goods to the player who placed the order?
Is the possibility of getting scammed something that should be a part of the game insofar as it's part of player driven story and drama, which will fuel the conflicts between players?
If not, how do we avoid this? What sort of interface should artisan players have for a raider-non-crafter to need not worry their hard earned materials will be stolen?
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Intrepid has already mentioned that there will be an escrow service option available when trading materials for crafted goods with other players. There will be safeguards in place to keep people from just taking your materials and keeping the goods.
No trade needed.
This works in a game with a passive crafting system, but wouldn't work if there is any kind of active system.
Man, the amount of times you talk as if you know things about, let's say, a certain game with "passive crafting", just so that you can have an opposite opinion.
What do you mean passive crafting? What's passive about crafting in L2?
I would rather that the crafting be done without closing the trading window, like how a soulbound item could be enchanted before inscription was introduced in WoW. But this is just wishful thinking at best. So at least some other form of control should be provided to the person giving the mats.
One way I can think of is this can be a 3 step process called "craft my good"... I am not good with names
1. Raider/crafter both agree and initiate this process which makes it so that they cannot leave each others proximity, say 10-20 yards limit.
2. Raider gives his mats to the crafter and crafter does his job.
3. They exchange the item/gold, the process ends and the proximity restriction is removed.
I dont think having escrow services is 100% secure and can be worked around. I mean the crafter can still run away with the mats if he/she feels they are worth it, or just hate the raider for whatever reason.
PS: Whenever this process is initiated, detailed logs of trade between the two will be kept if GM intervention is required for easy resolution. Anyone getting scammed cuz they trusted the crafter and did not use this is on their head.
PPS: As far as restriction is concerned, it can be changed, I just mentioned the first thing that came to my mind.
My statement above wasn't an opposite opinion to yours, it was just a statement of fact on top of yours. We don't know if Ashes will have active or passive crafting - though we do know crafters will be able to make some decisions about the final item (which may be able to be made by the purchaser using the consignment system).
Now that you know that I wasn't disagreeing with you, do you still need the difference between an active and passive crafting system in an MMO described to you? I mean, I can if you want me to, but surely you do already know the difference...
For that reason, I doubt your first point will be true. You will not be able to take the materials to an NPC and have the NPC "craft" a.k.a. "exchange" it for a finished weapon/armor.
Most likely you'll have to sell your gathered materials. A "processor" will purchase these from you and process them into "processed goods". The processor will then sell processed goods to a "crafter", who will purchase all the processed goods required to craft an item, which could be many, each purchased from a different processor. In this economy, there is no getting "scammed" out of your raw gathered materials unless you simply gave them away to a processor, which is unlikely as the processor isn't even the person who would be doing the crafting. They would then need to give the processed goods away to a crafter. This system of "quid pro quo crafting" just isn't going to work. My guess is you'll just sell your raw mats on the market for gold and you can use that gold to buy a finished product on the market.
The alternative to this would be a "private economy" like that of an organized guild working together exchanging mats and processed goods.
I didn't say it wouldn't work in Ashes.
I specifically said that the system you mentioned from L2 wouldn't work in a game with an active crafting system, and the more active that system is, the more it wouldn't work (or, the more it would need to be altered to make it work). I literally never said it wouldn't work in Ashes - and I would not say that until we know more about the crafting system than we do now.
Honestly, if you truly think I said it wouldn't work in Ashes, that is abysmally poor comprehension even by your standards (which are historically low). If you do not actually think that is what I said - why would you represent as much?
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A passive crafting system is one where you get the materials, stand at an appropriate crafting station, press a button and do nothing else until you get a result. That result may be the item, or it may be a failure (I believe L2 has a chance of failing to craft some items - or at least it used to have this chance).
An active crafting system is one where the crafter has to actually be active in the crafting process, and their effort determines aspects of the final product.
One active rafting system in a game I played a while ago had you collect alchemy ingredients, each of which had various effects on them. When you went to craft, you would place the ingredients in to the apparatus, and being the process. You would then be presented with essentially slot machine wheels, with the effects of each ingredient on them, and they would be spinning. The crafter would then press a button to stop them - the rate at which they stopped being determined by factors influenced by said crafter. The resulting potion would be based on where these slot machine wheels landed, and using the same ingredients could result in potions with vastly different effects. The crafter also has various things they can do to alter the outcome of this process in a number of ways.
The system you outlined from L2 simply wouldn't work in a game with a crafting system like this because when the customer hands the crafter ingredients, the crafter has no idea what the customer wants made from them. It would be impossible to list every possible potion that these ingredients could make (well, impractical, perhaps not impossible). The player purchasing the potions would need to at least tell the crafter what effects they want from the potions.
The game in question had similar crafting for all professions - each with it's own mini-game, and each where the crafters performance in the game would alter the outcome of the final product.
The more active a crafting system is (the above is still only moderate), the more that is needed to be added to the system you talked about from L2.
Afaik, the rarest of rare item in AoC would be the flying mount egg of which there would be 1-2 in a server max. Now handing over this egg to a breeder without any insurance in place would be anxiety inducing for anyone and what can that breeder keep as insurance that will be of equal value, I dunno. Moreover, you cant change profession and hatch it on your own cuz these eggs have an in-built timer which I doubt will be long enough to level up a new profession to the required level.
Ill get back to this mmo and say that since the focus is on social gameplay, the design wouldnt leave you exposed to scammers.
As I said before L2 used to do player to player crafting without the need to hand out materials.
Some crafters in L2 would focus on processing base mats, so maybe in AoC we will see players visiting other peoples workshops in order to use their processing service for a cost.
I believe that the reason we havent seen modern mmos take into account what L2 did is that in modern mmos everyone can craft everything easily. They didnt even think that players might want to sell their services. Why would they? Every character is a master crafter and every final product can be found for peanuts on the global auction board. Look at eso, ff14, new world.
Crafting became a solo thing. People delude themselves if they think that they can offer something unique. It all role playing. Why would they code such a design?
Since in AoC players will really need crafting services and since Steven has played L2, Im sure he will borrow the crafting shop/service design.
It would be a problem for UI/UX designers - but that isn't something I have gone in to yet. This is just you not actually comprehending what is being said and trying to deflect to another topic when you realize that you actually didn't have a clue what was being talked about and were wrong in your assumptions that what was being said was incorrect.
Ashes will indeed have an escrow system, much as many other games have - it just won't be as basic as L2's.
I think perhaps the most amusing thing here is your assumption that the system in L2 was unique to L2 - either that or the way you said "Noaani is talking about other MMO's, I'm going to go back to talking about this MMO", and then continued to talk about L2.
That said even if we assume you may not be able to readily purchase outright something you want, an Escrow system set up so that it is possible to order a unavailable piece of equipment and place your payment there which is then, not retrievable by the 2nd party until both parties agree that the items placed in Escrow are adequate, would allow for commissioning of equipment that you can't readily find on the marketplace and would utterly prevent scams in that the items would be readily visible to both parties and pend approval from both parties prior to the release of the product/funds.
I cant see a way anyone would be able to easily scam outside of someone not knowing what they're doing, at which point I would hardly blame that on Intrepid at that point.