How to build a game on crafting.

Realistically, there are only two ways to do crafting. The rest is mostly extra details and customization, but two options are mutually exclusive and greatly change how things work. They are also very easy to understand, but very hard to properly put in. Decay, or no decay.

If you go with a non-decay route, then your crafting system won't really have a major impact on the game. Typically, I-lvl type progression games take this route so the 'crafting' system that the game really uses is drops. However, if you do a sandbox route, 'drops' really don't make sense. Why would a vulture have a two-handed sword?

I plan to go with Decay, and it's not just to carry through with 'realism'. With decay, you can create enough of a player market that it becomes the economy itself. With players at all ends of the creation process, You create an entire class of players that can succeed in what they want to do in a non-combat related way. You do, however, need to put some kind of barrier in the process to allow some kind of 'progress'. In EVE, this barrier is blueprint research. That process involves researching a blueprint and allowing the possibility of discovery of a new level of tech (i.e. level of the item, or a stronger version). That, however, doesn't fit a post apocalyptic society, at least in that form.

Well, blueprints will sort of be part of the equation. Let's take a sword for example. It will have a Blade, Hilt, and Pommel. Each would have a size allowance. As in, a minimum and a maximum. You could chose anything in those ranged. Then, you would choose curved, straight, wave, or notched for the blade. Server side, each of these would do specific things to the weapon, from major (making a weapon take two hands) to minor (increased damage on angled plate).

However, the root of the system is actually much more important than this. Here, we have my jewel of a system created from bits and pieces of many games all into one amalgamation of awesome...at least awesome in my opinion.

Everything in the world will have 'unit's. A tree would have X 'units' of wood. When you choose to harvest an item, you choose a unit size of X by Y by Z. Then, each unit will have properties viewable and not-viewable. These properties will be given a value by some form of in-game scanner. Of course, have to keep it realistic, but making it technology related keeps some of the sci-fi theme. So, let's say you pull a 2 x 2 x 10 unit of tree. If you scanned, you'd get:

• Hardness: 5, Flexibility: 7, Flammable: 10, Aging: 3, Bouyancy: 8

Now, when you go to make a sword, it requires an item at least 2 x 1 x 8 for the blade type you chose. Items must at least have a hardness of 3, a flexability less than 10, and an aging less than 8. Since this wood you took is within range, you can use it. The item will keep the other factors as well. So yes, you could make a wooden sword, but it might not be your best choice. So, why go with this system? Well, everything feasible in the game will have stats like this. this allows Minecraft level gathering with EVE level crafting. Just fit your items in the limits and you can make it. Of course, gathering becomes a bit interesting. Metal, cloth, rock, meat, most anything becomes a barter good. This will lead into my post Monday on Currency.

However, what if all the rock in your area is of junk hardness, and you want to build your fort out of very hard materials? Well, here is where the Caravans come in. Caravans at their end-points become markets where you can buy and sell materials...kind of. When you arrive at a carravan end-point, you have a buy and sell option. For Buy, you can either search for specific stats, items between a range of stats, or place a buy-order for an item with specific stats. Then, that caravan will spread the word to other caravans, and if there is a sell order with that item then will give you a time frame when it arrives.

When you put in the buy order, it takes your money at that time to keep things from getting out of hand. Note, the item you will get will be the first item it comes across, so you'd need to be specific since it will be chosen by whichever caravan they run into first. Selling is also just as simple, with you giving your items in a sell-order to the caravan and they take it with them selling it to the first order that comes up that is above your minimum allowed, or you can scan buy orders they have and sell yours instantly. You could also add in the option that if the cost of an item, or the offer by the buyer was too low or high, you would be allowed to approve it instead of just passing over a possible good market transaction. Also, the caravan would likely take a cut, but it would be a small amount.

These caravans, however, become an entirely different PvE element when they are traveling between towns, and that will be on the list Monday as well.

Combat evoltuion in MMO's does not impress Darwin.

So, last post I went over how combat as an environment can actually drive crafting forward, as well as adding in a very player-base important feature. Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room in all MMO’s. Combat.

Let’s face it. Combat hasn’t really changed since Everquest. Perhaps even before that. It’s still the same stat + button system. Now, as much as I’d like to call it a failure like many might, I’m actually here to say that it’s a success. What the stat+button system does is turn combat into something trainable in such a way where you can go about half-auto-pilot and ‘enjoy’ the visual content of the game. However, if you see that statement in its true form, you see why things have hit the way they are in SWTOR. The belief is that, by making combat less invasive you allow for even more visual content. That’s the error though; people do not want purely visual content. They want game content. Unfortunately, because that hasn’t really gotten through, we have a visually stunning game with great audio.

There are two ways to handle this and not make the player-base feel like they are just paying to watch a movie. First, you can diminish the role combat has in the game. For a good example of this, you can see A Tale in the Desert. There is no combat at all in the game, yet it still functions and succeeds decently. By no means a AAA-rating MMO, but it does show there is room to buck the curve. And does this curve need bucked. First, the deficiencies of the system need pointed out.

Let’s start with what should be glaringly obvious, but isn’t. Stat+button is NOT skill based. I’ve seen people in World of Warcraft that actually just hit one button and keep up with people that perfectly follow the priority based rotation. Yes, the rotation users could be called ‘skill-based’, but with the macro-user being non-skill based, that kind of throws off the whole system. If the macro were published, ‘faith’ in the system would quickly vanish. So, how do you cater to both of these people? Well, I’m here to say you can’t cater to them without including the third person. And that is the twitch-gamer. I’m talking the guy who can sniper-shot a moving target in a video game from far enough away all you see are a few pixels, but you still pull it off. How you might ask?

Well, I consider it a mix of combat from many various games. It’s a fatigue and balance based system. Damage would be based off of two variables to be determined, be it stats or skills, and chance to hit would be based on other variables, preferably realistic ones. However, you would have two styles of play. Locked combat and Unlocked combat. There would be no penalty to either, but each would have a couple of downfalls. First off, locked combat would start by picking a target and locking the target. As soon as you lock a target, you are given the option to Engage, Keep Distance, or Disengage. This allows ranged or melee to take advantage of this style. Locked style allows you to not worry about moving. The AI would be enough to keep you from running through, or backing into things. Now, just because you are trying to disengage or keep your distance doesn’t mean you will, other factors are involved to keep it realistic (i.e. trip over a rock?).

In locked combat, combat becomes more about key presses. In unlocked, however, combat becomes very much FPS style. Chance to hit would be entirely based on reach, aim, and speed of the user. As you could imagine, firing arrows off a castle wall into a sea of players and mobs might not be the best idea. Friendly fire will be possible, but limited by a ‘Lookout Sir!’ rule. In other words, due to the nature of lag and just common sense, you wouldn’t fire an arrow without saying ‘Lookout Bob!’ Anyone hit by friendly fire would get a penalty to X things for Y seconds, showing that you did get hit, but not badly. The distraction from avoiding would be the worst part of it, since your balance would be thrown. This benefit is only from ‘party’ or ‘guild’ members. Direct PVP is handled later, with different consequences.

Now, what about the single-button guy? First off, macros would be allowed, but just the pure chaos theory around this type of balance/fatigue based combat, you would only be able to macro like that if you wrote really well or fought easy things. So, we have two styles here too. We have finesse and power. Finesse involved stringing attack after attack, as each attach affects balance and fatigue differently, as well as putting you and your weapon in a position that whatever you do next could greatly or minimally affect your balance. You could use ‘Bash Bash Bash’ and probably slowly become more and more unbalance, or you could use ‘Bash left, Bash Right, Bash Left’ and keep your balance perfect. This allows button mashers some degree of success, but also gives seasoned players constantly changing combat. The seasoned player could go unlocked as well for even more realistic combat, giving a massive risk vs. reward for those truly ‘skilled’, but keeping things realistic enough to make it easy.

Tomorrow, I’ll be tackling that other part of combat that just needs revamped as well, Damage.

Environment Driven Story

This is perhaps one of the most basic concepts that has been born out of the MMO industry that, for some odd reason, they keep trying to run away from. It, I believe, is solely responsible for EVE’s rise as an MMO, despite its spreadsheets in space description. For these systems, the ‘end-game’ is not a boss, it is a place. Moving to that place is the ‘goal’. By making this a place, you remove the ‘Well, I killed the last boss, guess I beat the game’ mentality that is rampant in World of Warcraft, and any other game with a boss-focused-raid-end-game. But the question is, how do you implement this?

Well, the simplest approach here is best. The side effect is also very nice, being able to forgo balance as a whole. If you are finely tuning a single encounter, yes, balance is needed to make all classes feel useful. However, if you expect players to act as a community, you can skip balance because skill itself becomes your balance.

The Story So Far:
You are a colonist, your colony can not leave the planet, cannot call for help, and there is no space travel due to a universal (literally) fuel outage. Your technology is running out of its own fuel, and soon your society itself will be required to become self-sustaining.

From there, you can easily craft a variety of devious environments to continue the story. However, here we run into the first technical hurdle. How large a gaming world? Well, we are hoping for planetary based, so we’re looking at land-mass. Above ground and below ground should be considered. Now, a way to add some suspense factor is to go underground. Underground is always an under-used bit of the sci-fi genre, one need only think of Pitch Black to see how effective underground can be used.

So, now that I’m at the first technical aspect, we have to start thinking player amount. That will be tomorrows tidbit, since it will take a bit of math and some hard thinking to get right.

Sometimes, I need to end posts a bit early when there is way too much going on inside this brain. I'm trying to go over environment layout and I'm already designing individual zones in my head. At times like that, slowing down is best.