SWG and WoW crafting were BAD BAD BAD!

[Hadanta]

SWG Crafting = EPIC

 

SWTOR Crafting = EPIC FAILED

[Counterintel]

SWG Crafting ruled in my opinion as well. Same crafts between 2 different players, make the same item, TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT RESULTS.

 

You had variation that was DRAMATIC due to what quality of materials you invested in the parts.

 

Then the sum of those parts assembled.

 

ANY game that makes me literally clinch my colon and go "HOLY SH#*" when I dig up tubers that have 8500/9000/9500/9900 ratings for the stats I need is a game who has done VERY WELL to make me feel rewarded.

 

Tubers, man. F@#$%@$ potatoes made me exclaim verbally, and was a buttclinch moment. Awesome crafting.

[PotatoPaper]

Lemme see if I get the gist of what many of you are saying... You got excited about potatoes and think that is a GOOD THING? Scary.

 

You want characters that have to be entirely dedicated to crafting to craft anything worthwhile? Interesting but then you already have that right? It's in that other game your playing. So go play it.

 

You think SWTOR crafting sucks on an epic lvl? Your not contributing anything to the discussion, goodbye.

 

Someone earlier suggested the concept of reverse engineering was both terrible and unrealistic though they phrased it in a far more inflammatory way than that. Clearly this person is unfamiliar with invention and how it is general accomplished.

 

The chief problem with SWTOR crafting if it can be said that there is one, of course there is because every system has at least one, is that there is a tremendous draw on credits exiting the economy in a relatively hands off way. This isn't a problem unless of course the credits are not able to reenter at a similar rate by a similar process. Unnerf lockbox missions, particularly in treasure hunting in which they are for all intent and purpose worthless at current return(-).

 

p.s. I do every craft in SWTOR.

Edited January 31, 2012 by PotatoPaper

[Quentis]

SWG crafting was really involved, the standard of what MMO crafting should be.

 

Oh, and when I played it at least, in the first two years of it life, crafting actually mattered and people knew who the best on the server were. Crafting in WoW was just annoying. Here its better than WoW, but its not nearly as involved as SWG, but its two different types of MMO's.

[Nabosian]

I never played SWG but from everything I've heard and read on it here and elsewhere it seems like that crafting system should have became the standard for all MMO's.

[bountywookies]

Sorry, Swg crafting was the best. I hate swtor's crafting. WAY to simple. I loved crafting in swg so much, it was a great way to be rich. But dont get me wrong, you couldt just be a trader and be rich, you actually had to do work. not spend like 1k creds to get mission items. heck, crafting capped armor was a pain, but it sure well payed off. Especially 35's/exotics, that stuff made the $$$. This game comes no where close to swgs crafting, ever.

[Oawe]

This is true... in fact, if you go to page 2 of this thread, I posted the links.

 

Another game that had great crafting (because of the dynamics of combat) was UO. (Ultima Online) In fact, I believe someof SWG's crafting ideas were based around the UO model.

 

Z

 

Good point. The only two games I enjoyed crafting were UO and SWG. Those are also the only two games that I know of that expect players to have a specific character for crafting.

[evileeyore]

For those looking for a deep crafting system, Fallen Earth has a very complex crafting system.

 

It's not as good as SWG's was, but it's close.

[Jedifeet]

It did get to be a drag sometimes when I would get home from work, log on and all my shipwright vendors in my house were empty. At times it felt like having a second job. Lots of fun usually though.

[Sithking]

When i played SWG in launch, i still remember it having the best crafting system i've ever experienced.

 

I actually played the 3 first months just crafting stuff.

 

In other MMOs. it's something i MIGHT do if i want the bonus it comes with.

 

So I completely disagree, SWG crafting > all other MMOS.

 

This

 

I like the crafting in TOR but you had to be hardcore to be a really good crafter in SWG. If you were a good crafter everyone would flock to your shop to buy your stuff. Loved the crafting system and totally player driven economy in that game.

[Cemellyn]

You people just don't get it.

 

I think you are the one who isn't getting it despite what many others have already said.

 

If any MMO wants to appeal to a wide audience of players, it will NEVER have a crafting system as complex as SWG's. That is why SWG's crafting system was inherently bad, because it doesn't appeal to a wide audience of players.

 

Yes, crafting in SWG was a bit complex but it wasn't terribly hard. What SWG did was to create a system that allowed people to devote themselves to crafting and reward them for it.

A crafting system with more depth had more re-playability than one that is cut and dry.

 

Also there is nothing stopping a Casual player from doing crafting but if they just want to dabble in it. Then that’s all they will ever be. If they want to TRULY MASTER it then they will have to put in the time and effort to do so.

This applies for everything else in the game as well. If you want the best loot, you have to invest time and effort to show up for raids and pay attention to what you are doing.

 

Making it appeal to a wide audience of players does not mean it has to be dumbed down for their sakes.

 

Trying to make a game appeal to wider audience of players does not necessarily mean handing everything to them on a platter. It means the game must be accessible but must be able to provide challenges for those who seek to Master it.

[Copperheadr]

This thread falls on deaf ears.

[Swijr]

The main difference between SW:G's crafting and other MMO's that I've played (I can't speak for every single one out there, of course), was that in order to be a good crafter, you needed to devote your character to being a crafter. By that I mean absolutely no combat skills. Before the NGE, you could only have one character per server, and when you pooled all of your skill points into one of the crafting professions, you barely had anything to spend, and what you could spend on wasn't powerful in the least.

 

Not entirely true. I was a Master Brawler, Master TKA, 3 lines in fencing and a Master Chef. I did end up dropping Master Brawler for more crafting/merchant skills once I was fully committed to it, but you can make due without it.

 

 

Swijr

[mdobrowney]

I see lots of people referencing SWG crafting on here and the majority of people that are actually outside this particular forum found SWG crafting to be way overly complex and time consuming and I agree with them.

 

Even a Co-worker who was a hardcore crafter in SWG thought that SWG's crafting was just too much!

 

Crafting in WoW was completely on the opposite end of the spectrum and was too simplistic. All you had was the pattern and needing the mats for the pattern and that was it.

 

I absolutely love SWTOR's crafting and find it very refreshing, yes it could use some small tweeks, but in all, it is one of the best crafting systems I've had the pleasure to play.

 

SWG crafting system was the best because it was so complex .. that is what made it great .

[Ishkur]

Swg crafting was the best crafting system in any mmo ... Yes, complex and it took time .. Thats what an mmo is all about .. Swtor crafting, any nub can handle, very very dumbed down ..

 

This.

 

SWG was the best crafting EVER, with suge a huge gap to the 2nd place. It also had the best player city & housing ever created. Period.

[Diopter]

Not entirely true. I was a Master Brawler, Master TKA, 3 lines in fencing and a Master Chef. I did end up dropping Master Brawler for more crafting/merchant skills once I was fully committed to it, but you can make due without it.

 

 

Swijr

 

Good point. I forgot about needing merchant (what a grind that is). It has been YEARS, however ...

[Iheamylap]

SWG crafting was "true" crafting and was the best. Not (just) because it was complicated, or actually took a bit of skill, but also because of the features of the game it was connected to:

 

1. Dynamic resource spawns.

 

2. All objects could be "dropped" into a house/structure/city and used to decorate.

 

3. A crafter could grind from lvl 1 to 90 JUST from crafting and from supporting themselves...they didn't "need" a combat class to support. (they could use an alt if they wanted, but it wasn't necessary).

 

4. Personal vendors and linked Bazaar terminals made the market very strong and popular. Nothing beats the feel of going into a crafters personal shop, often decorated, and buying from their own vendors. You could also more easily contact them to make sepcial orders.

 

5. The BEST weapons in game were made by crafters. These weapons did require loot from combat situations, but the loot was USELESS unless you had a good skilled crafter assisting.

 

6. The variety and amount of things craftable by the four various crafting professions was amazing and kept things interesting.

 

 

There were some issues, like that right after NGE changes, crafting was weaker than before, but they fixed that and added in many features and important goods that made crafters important to combat players and each other. There were inter-dependencies and reasons to be social.

 

This game is a themepark MMO that you can solo 80% of the content or more. Anyone who says "SWG CRafting was bad" was basically someone who should only stick to combat classes and should keep their judgments reserved.

[Tkara]

For one I do not think we can compare swg's crafting with any other game that is currently on the market. SWG was a true sandbox game. The majority of gamers in the current generation do not want sandbox games so we get themeparks with crafting set up as an afterthought.

 

In SWG you could easily be recruited into a guild BECAUSE of your crafting abilities/knowledge. In swtor, everyone is a crafter because it is a simple, send companions for raws, click craft, the end process.

 

To the one that mentioned beast mastery...right until the end the beast mastery forum was the most active of any other group with more unique topics than pilot, and a whole lot less flaming than any board. It catered to a type of player that has no home in the current mmo game market.

 

I agree, it's like comparing apples to oranges. SWG was the best but it was sandbox and TOR is not.

[Swijr]

What's funny is that TOR missed the boat (and every other MMO for that matter) when it comes to crafting.

 

If instead of named gear dropping from raids/FPs they had components drop, you could get a crafter involved and they could make the gear for you. Sure, it opens up the ability to sell what you loot and give non-raiders the chance to have good endgame stuff...but who cares?

 

Having a sliced Krayt gun and comp armor made that game a ton of fun! (Especially when we had all black armor with red helms for PVP...it was a great look when we rolled 20 deep to fight the Imps! )

 

Customization...another miss with TOR.

 

 

Swijr

[Balrozgul]

You people just don't get it. If any MMO wants to appeal to a wide audience of players, it will NEVER have a crafting system as complex as SWG's. That is why SWG's crafting system was inherently bad, because it doesn't appeal to a wide audience of players.

 

The crafting system in SWG only appeals to veteran's of games or MMO's, it doesn't appeal to the casual gamer.

 

I think the problem with this argument is that you have to apply it equally across the entire game; essentially that all aspects of a game must be completely accessable and enjoyable to all potential players at any one time. The foolishness of this argument is burned into "most" of us (apologies to a lack of evidence) by way of the following quote which again "most" of us know: You can please some of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time.

 

The very idea that the only way a game appeals to a wide audience is to make all aspects of it accessable is insulting. One might as well make the argument that in order to get more people to play basketball you could make the basket 3 feet in diameter, and hey maybe take away the darn bouncing requirement because some of the people can't dribble worth a darn. Lets lower the basket height too while we're at it... etc, etc... To put it more into current context, did we SWG crafters ever put more thought into crafting an item than say a raid leader? Or how about a high end PVPer? Google any raid video you want and it's practically a guarantee that you overhear conversations that would make most math teachers glow with pride that at least something was learned. I think that some of those game subsystems are overly complex too but it makes for an interesting challenge to THOSE PARTICULAR PEOPLE who play those systems.

 

Once you simplify a system enough you have to start considering the argument of why bother to engage in that system at all? To speak frankly, we don't want a game to hand us everything on a silver platter and in this case, we are. Barely any of the crafting done in SWTOR seems to have any use once you reach the end game and hardly any differentiation is possible between crafters. If I can get the same thing another way, why bother about spending the time to level up that particular craft? If I wanted an overly simplistic game to play where I always ended up equal to everyone else I would play tic-tac-toe instead.

[JsunJay]

I think the problem with this argument is that you have to apply it equally across the entire game; essentially that all aspects of a game must be completely accessable and enjoyable to all potential players at any one time. The foolishness of this argument is burned into "most" of us (apologies to a lack of evidence) by way of the following quote which again "most" of us know: You can please some of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time.

 

The very idea that the only way a game appeals to a wide audience is to make all aspects of it accessable is insulting. One might as well make the argument that in order to get more people to play basketball you could make the basket 3 feet in diameter, and hey maybe take away the darn bouncing requirement because some of the people can't dribble worth a darn. Lets lower the basket height too while we're at it... etc, etc... To put it more into current context, did we SWG crafters ever put more thought into crafting an item than say a raid leader? Or how about a high end PVPer? Google any raid video you want and it's practically a guarantee that you overhear conversations that would make most math teachers glow with pride that at least something was learned. I think that some of those game subsystems are overly complex too but it makes for an interesting challenge to THOSE PARTICULAR PEOPLE who play those systems.

 

Once you simplify a system enough you have to start considering the argument of why bother to engage in that system at all? To speak frankly, we don't want a game to hand us everything on a silver platter and in this case, we are. Barely any of the crafting done in SWTOR seems to have any use once you reach the end game and hardly any differentiation is possible between crafters. If I can get the same thing another way, why bother about spending the time to level up that particular craft? If I wanted an overly simplistic game to play where I always ended up equal to everyone else I would play tic-tac-toe instead.

 

Well said... +1

[KidRaid]

I did not play SWG.

 

Reading this thread and other it makes me wish I did.

 

1. Having your own shop? (did I understand this correctly???) Wow!! (not the game the expession of uther amazement and envy)

 

2. Actually having to work at crafting other than doing 3 clicks and crossing my fingers that luck will be on my side? again...envy

 

3.Having the result of my work actually be usefull? awsome! (notice that I said usefull not necessary)

 

 

A note to those who said that the reason for the meager crafing system is that they want to please a maximum number of players: If you want to please the maximum number of players you make the PvE with PvEers in mind , the PvP with the PvPers in mind and the Crating with the crafters in mind. Creating a crafting system to please the PvEers is as logical as trying to create PvP that will please PvErs. It is a receipy for failure because you are going for the lowest common denominator.

 

This being said I beleive that the best we can expect is tweeks to the current system. Once a software is lauched the law of unintended concequences will impede greatly a full re-engeenering of the system.

 

 

At this point I will refrain from making specific suggestions as to how they could improve the system because it is impossible to know the limitations they created for themselves when dezigning it.

 

What I will say to BW is that I hope they find ways to make crafting relevant, rewarding and interesting for dedicated crafters the same way they have made the PvP and PvE rewarding and interesting for plares whose focus is on that part of the game.

[Fight]

1) WoW doesn't have the option to make your crew craft/gather resources, and I can gather resources myself if I want. I LOVE being able to send my crew on missions to do stuff for me.

2) Compared to WoW, in SWTOR you can learn new patterns by reverse engineering, up to purple level items. LOVE THIS. Especially love all the different possible types of patterns you can learn this way.

 

3) You also have a chance to "crit" on an item you craft and get an extra mod slot. LOVE THIS.

 

 

 

 

Don't try to tell me that SWTOR's crafting is exactly like WoW's, because it simply is not.

 

At no point in that guys sentance structure did he once even start to mention that they were the same, are you reading the same post?

 

Also SWG crafting system promoted individual skill, took time and effort and required considerable social input to make it successful. If crafting is ever as good as SWG in any mmo, even hello kitty online, I will go play that. Simply the best system ever conceived. In my opinion of course...

Edited February 1, 2012 by Fight

[E_Huber]

SWG was only one of two MMOs I've played that I actually enjoyed the crafting system. You could do macros, doctors could do stims, repairs by professionals were possible, you could improve your crafted items by seeking out harder or pliable metals and compounds from all over the universe.

 

My combat medic had some nasty poisons that were almost un-survivable that I made --after great toil and sacrifice in time and effort-- and that was a point of pride.

 

This game... sorry, but zero creativity and the world GTN interface I've ever seen in an MMO.

[Rypht]

I did not play SWG.

 

Reading this thread and other it makes me wish I did.

 

1. Having your own shop? (did I understand this correctly???) Wow!! (not the game the expession of uther amazement and envy)

 

2. Actually having to work at crafting other than doing 3 clicks and crossing my fingers that luck will be on my side? again...envy

 

3.Having the result of my work actually be usefull? awsome! (notice that I said usefull not necessary)

 

 

Yes, you could have your own shop, there was player housing and you could decorate it however you wanted, with any items found in the game. I remember one tailor took the time to provide color samples of the clothes she could make, it was like whole shop racks full of shirts and clothing just to give customers a real visual representation and they could then ask her for that color for custom crafting work. Also you could have droids that would stand there acting as merchants, and they functioned very much like npc vendors in swtor, you could even set them to say (in text chat) certain phrases when a customer approached.

 

The player city I was a part of had a shopping mall, they took a large guild hall structure, then had multiple crafters take different areas of it and bring all their goods together. It was a lot of fun collaborating and decorating that.