Tattered Page

Jason over at probablynot is talking about mini-games for crafting. There’s a weird sense of déjà-vu for both of us, as we both recall talking about this topic somewhere at some time, but can’t find it anywhere.

For you non-MMO-playing readers, “crafting” is just what it sounds like. While some heroes may slay dragons or explore the far reaches of the wilderness, others make the armor that deflects that deadly blow or that sword that slices a new path through the wilderness. Crafting across different games comes in many forms, but almost all of them have one thing in common:

They’re incredibly boring.

Yes, there may be some fun for the micromanager… you might be able to enjoy the number-crunching necessary to get the absolutely best stats for a piece of platemail (if your game supports it) but in general, there’s not much really engaging about the whole thing. In many games, crafting became the realm for the socialize- the OPPORTUNITY to interact with a patron made it a good opportunity for them. As such, it seemed that the game developers washed their hands of crafting altogether- sure, it’s boring, cumbersome, and not really effective gameplay, but it’s the means to an end… and crafting in real life isn’t much fun anyway.

I ranted about THAT sometime last year.

Introducing the Mini-Game

Crafting systems are usually rather abstract- combine X ingredients with a recipe, click a button, wait a while, and poof- you’ve got gear. The idea behind the mini-game is to have the user do something else besides “click a button.” Something fun.

Everquest 2 started down this path. For them, the crafting takes time, and during that time, you’ll occasionally encounter an icon representing a crafting problem, which can be countered by an ability with the same icon. It was intended (I guess) to keep people at the keyboard and not watching TV or AFK playing, but it almost qualified as a little “whackamole” game except that you got the best results just be repeatedly cycling through all 3 icons nonstop.

Still, that’s the mini-game concept- look at the different repeatable games at places like Yahoo! Games, put a few of these in your MMO for the crafter to play, and reward them for a success.

Now, Jason’s got an interesting idea- item “quality” is tied to your score in a mini-game, but (if I’m reading this right) that high score carries over- if you’re satisfied with the products produced from your high score, you don’t have to re-play the game.

Not a bad idea, but I do have concerns that it may lead to too much “lockout”- an established crafter could create more faster and corner the market without proper controls. Of course, Jason’s writeup was a summary, and I’d love to hear more.

Challenges

To me, there are several challenges in adding mini-games to crafting. Some are historical- many of the players who gravitate to crafting (the socializers) have grown accustomed to being able to chat and craft simultaneously. There were many complaints on the EQ2 boards on how the “whackamole” game ruined that by constantly interrupting their chatting.

Other challenges lie in the reward system- what do the crafters get out of their endeavours?

Sure, creating a product is a reward, but it’s a bad one when you think about it. If I have my crafting game set to give “rewards” at a pace that’s shown to be effective and fun… like the one we use for combat… then we’d have a HUGE stockpile of pristine platemail breastplates that far exceeds the market demands of the players. Heck, we ALREADY have that when crafting is so dull it drives away the vast majority. What will it be like when we make it more engaging?

Coupled with this problem is that the game developers often make craftable items less desirable than the loot you pull off your defeated foes in combat. You have to give the combatants something valuable, after all, but when they can get better stuff faster out in battle, where’s that leave your crafter?

My Mini Game Implementation

First, we need is to significantly increase the time it takes to make a craftable (thus reducing supply to closer to demand) while making the crafted gear more desirable, to increase demand. If we’re going to do this, we need an alternate reward system for the crafter. We also need to account for the Socializer that would prefer to chat, with crafting as a background activity, and prepare for the botter, who will try to automate the system and craft items 24/7 to corner the market.

The actual game presentation matters less to me- there are thousands of mini-games to draw inspiration from. Look at Puzzle Pirates. They’re all self-enclosed, each with its own reward system that keeps the action fun and repeatable. At the end, some of these “points” carry over back to the crafting session, having an impact on your actual crafting product.

What impact should these “points” have? If we allow them to make better quality items, we create a barrier to entry for new players. Until you get good enough to compete with the veteran players, you’ll never have a marketable item (but you’ll have all the costs of crafting crappy items).

Instead, I say we use the points to cut back on the TIME it takes for a crafting item. When you set your armorsmith up with the resources and the recipe, a counter starts. The longer you let that counter go, the better the product you’ll create. The time required for the next “quality” tier is double the previous one. If you could make a crude helm in 30 minutes, a rough one in 1 hour, an average one in 2 hours, above average in 4 hours, exceptional in 8 and legendary in 16 hours.

You don’t have to do anything but wait. If you’re online and within range of your crafting gear, the counter progresses. Socialize all you want, you’ll still craft high-quality gear… in time. If you’re not in a mini-game, the game will infrequently (very infrequently) prompt you with a captcha-like query to insure that you’re not a botter or AFK (the timer stops until this is answered correctly) but at scales we’re talking about, it would appear less than hourly, minimizing the impact on socializers.

The mini-game scores add directly to that counter. Through successful play, you might be able to earn enough points to crank 12 hours off that legendary 16-hour helm or make several lesser quality items … whatever you see fit.

Some Balancing Factors

Not all mini-games are created equal. Some are going to be easier play for the same reward. It would be possible to datamine the most popular ones and “weigh” the scores to account for this. It’s also possible to give “power hour” points to underused games to encourage people to take a fresh challenge.

One problem in many games is that uber-quality gear often becomes the norm. Part of the “doubling” effect in the tiers is to encourage people to gravitate to the “average” items as the norm. An item that takes twice as long to create doesn’t have double the stats of its predecessor. There’s a diminishing return on your investment. The “legendary” item will have notably better stats, but players should debate whether the extra points are worth the extra cost involved to get them.

Bring it all together

You’re ready to craft? In this system, you’d see many similarities to other games. Gather (or buy) your resources, decide what you’d want to make, and click “go.” While this is the end for many games, it’s only the start for you. You’re then prompted to select from a variety of mini-games- most with play/pause features- and play them to your heart’s content… or open up a chat window, if that’s your preference. As you win more and more points, your progress counter advances. You can finish tonight, come back tomorrow, or abandon the item for days on end as your guild suddenly calls for your help elsewhere.

A new player can create a legendary-quality item just through patience and determination. He may take longer and produce less in quantity, but his product won’t be at the bottom of the buy list… keeping him from participating altogether.

Well, that’s one technique, at least.  Been toying with a few others.  More on that later.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 at 10:29 pm and is filed under Gaming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.