Crafting and MMOs

Massively Multiplayer Online Round Table has an interesting set of articles about crafting within MMOs (I use “set” since the articles were written independently of one another about the same subject).

I have to say that all three are worth reading and have caused me to rethink my own view on crafting within MMOs. It is not so much in questioning the value that crafting brings to the game, is mostly based in my distaste for “Item-centric: A game that focuses on the acquisition of items (in which such items affect your avatar greatly).” (as defined by Ryan). Which you might think would make me a great supporter of craft based systems, but the problem is that you rarely have just crafted items only within a world (Horizons tried this, but later added limited use drops). So you end up with a competing system of dropped items vs crafted items, which is nearly impossible (if not completely impossible) to balance it to make either side happy.

As always, I don’t claim to know the right answer. But I do enjoy being challenged to reevaluate my views on MMO design, because without being able to see both sides of the discussion you will not develop any new ideas.