Personal Recipies ?

[Menthalion]

Mark's video suggested the crafting system isn't based on procuring recipes, but experimenting and therefore creating your own. As other people mentioned in different threads, if such a system would be implemented, it would be very easily bypassed by sites putting up the recipes for all to see, thus making people depend on external sources for playing as a crafter, and undermining the time needed to figure out recipes.

This seems to go against the grain of the WAR philosophy, with the ToK as the hub of all information needed in game. However, what if the recipes/effects yielded by ingredients were unique to each person, and stored in your ToK after discovery ? This would truely be revolutionary and solve TONS of problems inherent to crafting in MMORPGs up til now, and could be very simple to implement with only a tiny amount of extra storage serverside compared to the whole of the ToK.

Every crafter would have to experiment for themselves, and how THEY can make certain crafted items, ensuring the time taken for each crafter to become proficient in his craft is relatively stable; Until now people could take advantage of knowledge gained before them, knowing where to grind/buy the ingredients and recipes, considerably shortening the time to master their craft compared to old veterans. Now, it would require people to actively roam the world themselves to gain different ingredients, and see what these ingredients will do for THEM (even making it possible to craft at the spot).

Another big advantage to this system would be curbing the rampant speculation of ingredients on the Auction Houses, driving up the prices ridiculously. The effect an ingredient has in crafted items is averaged over the different recipes each player will use it for, and so the price (because of averaged demand) will stay more stable as well.

Examples from further on in the thread:



The general consensus is the crafting system will be similar to Morrowind / Oblivion, where ingredients each will have a certain effect inside a recipe.

So , for instance, if I combine

Eye of Newt=Resistance
Toe of Frog= Lightning
Wool of Bat= Increased Duration

that would give a long duration lightning resist potion.

I could vary and use the following ingredients

Eye of Newt=Resistance
Toe of Frog= Lightning
Tongue of Dog= Increased Effect

which would yield a increased lightning resist potion

It would be great if both the effects an ingredient yields, as well as the used recipes of all succesfully made potions would be stored in your Tome of Knowledge.

However, a drawback would be that if these "recipes" you made would be the same for everyone, spoiler sites would ruin the progression of crafters.

In the system I am proposing, for every person, the effects of every possible ingredient is randomized ONCE and stored serverside. That way you would have to "find out" what each ingredient would do for you, and which combinations you should use to gain a certain effect.

So, if above recipes would be the effects I got from using these ingredients, other persons might get other or no effects.

Molnu might get

Eye of Newt=Stat Increase
Toe of Frog= Increased Duration
Tongue of Dog= Intelligence Stat

resulting in a long duration intelligence increase potion

Garthilk might not get anything at all because the combination of effects of his ingredients in the used potion make no sense

Eye of Newt=Poison
Toe of Frog= Strength Stat
Tongue of Dog= Range Increase

However, since failed attempts in crafting does not consume ingredients, he will still have the ingredients to use in a different combination.

This way, guidebooks and spoilersites would be of no use, there would have to be no "crafting xp" level, and thus no grinding x items for a new level, because the time invested is used in the "crafting minigame" of solving the puzzles your ingredients bring you.

I truely hope such a system will be implemented, since it's the kind of (r)evolutionary thinking about systems Mythic is well known for, and makes them stand out among the crowd of MMORPG developers nowadays. Most players relatively new to MMORPGs don't know real innovation when they see it, even mistaking developers throwing an extra layer of obfuscation over a combat interface for the greatest thing like sliced bread.

Luckily the people on this forum seem a lot more intelligent, so what would you think of a personal recipe system like this ? What would be additional benefits/drawbacks, and what could be done more ?

[Archerion]

It would be kinda cool, but it might be a little hard to actually make.
Also some people could get recipes with incredibly hard to get or expensive stuff and some may get them really cheap. This might not be all that good.:confused:

[Nolife]

Its the nature of internet. Today you could probably find a guide on how to build a nuke if you searched hard enough. Or even how to make your own coca-cola. Whats my point? Good question, probably that the nature of the beast is such that you cant keep a secret from it no matter how hard you try.

The thing is noone competitive will give their secret uber potion combinations away so easily. Its not good for business nor for competition. I really dont expect all the best combinations to be known as fast as people think. One might argue with morrowind/oblivion, but those are not competitive games. I dont care if someone will use my potion of 2h immunity in Oblivion because it doesnt affect me in any way. In War on the other hand its a whole other ballgame. Imagine your opponent guild simply overrunning you using the potion they found out about from your War blog. I bet you would make a lot of friends in your guild :p.

To get back on topic, i must say that your proposed system would create an economic chaos. Price ranges would be wild at first, but in the end everyone would eventually put up the highest prices for everything. Its worth more to wait for one guy who needs the mat badly enough to pay 5x value then then trying to sell it for your average estimate if that mat is worthless by your standards.

[Rhianni]

I think this is actually a good balance.
Its much like quests.
If you want to explore and do quests or want to experiment with crafting you can. The responsibility is on the player.
If they dont want to do it and just skip past it they can go find websites. As another posted there is no way to prevent that these days. In this way both types of people (explorers and the those that dont) can have their fun.

I would personally like your system of having to explore and everyones is unique but thats only cause i like to explore and try things out. There will be some guilds that just nobody likes to craft and they do it to get through because they have to in order to compete. I'd like it to be as painless as possible for them if they just dont want to experiment.

[Molnu]

Awesome idea. Not too hard to implement, give each character a "seed" value upon creation, and an algorithm would hash your general recipe resultant. This of course would differ every time you did it because of the randomness involved, but in general what would come out for your individual character.

Hope this somehow makes it in one way or another.

[Stiltzkin]

I think it breaks immersion. If one man throws eggs, flour, sugar, milk and butter into a bowl and makes a cake, why would another man throw those things into a bowl and make a turkey? I don't like the idea. It makes no sense.

[Menthalion]

I think it breaks immersion. If one man throws eggs, flour, sugar, milk and butter into a bowl and makes a cake, why would another man throw those things into a bowl and make a turkey? I don't like the idea. It makes no sense.

Remember we're talking potions and talismans here.. It's all wing-of-bat, eye-of-newt stuff.. Its not like "nitrate phenol using sulfuric acid, separate the para isomer by destillation, reduce to 4-aminophenol using sodium borohydride and react with acetic anhydride" (even if it was, you could easily substitute the ingredient names without 99% of people noticing).

If you know what goes into a good potion or talisman, you're more knowledgeable than me.. Even then, in lots of cultures (even 15th century Europe), recipes were the personal secret of physicians and medicine men. As most cooking recipes were.. We're talking about societies where FDA standards or even Delia cookbooks would still take ages to develop..

[Stiltzkin]

I support the idea of keeping some things secret for trade's sake. Maybe that will get people to answer questions when asked instead of saying "go online newb" because you don't want them to see all the recipes haha. but IF people mix the same things in the same amounts it SHOULD have the same result... maybe if this was in some sort of Chaos plane the system would make sense but it's a solid world and it should act that way.

[Menthalion]

I just don't see any other option to an experiment based system where:
1) time invested need to be kept equal between people making equally powerful items
2) there's no need to build in repetitive timesinks like batch-crafting
3) it's impossible to exploit the system (and invalidate rule #1) by sharing recipes on external sites
can be done..

The only other system that might come near is Eve's blueprint system, which is even heavier recipe based and imho further removed from the fictional reality of WAR.

If you have thought of any other way of doing it, please share yours.. Personally, I would love to hear of another option that would also be able to incorporate your objections.

I personally think it's a minor point compared to the above requirements. Why would you care what some other person's way of creating a similar item is ? Especially if there's no need to share the way you make it. Plus, all recipes would still have an internal consistency, because each ingredient will give the same effect in all the recipes you're using it for.

[Stiltzkin]

I don't feel the need to validate my own in-game experience by comparing it to other player's experiences. Why can't someone else have an easy chance at doing something that was hard for me as long as it's not PvP imbalance? I don't care if it's "unfair" that some new player to the game can go on a website to find a potion that I had to experiment for because I played the game from launch. I mean do you think the Greeks are in the after-life complaining that these modern engineers are getting an "unfair edge" by taking advantage of their mathematics? So the concept of keeping it equal is not important to me (except in PvP balancing of course).

Now... Their system says that each cultivating plant can create a type of potion (main ingredient) and the rest supplements the main ingredient. Are you hoping that the supplementary items do different things for each player or that the main ingredients do different things for each player? I think the system they have is just fine. I think your system makes the world less real to me because in the real world if I mix the same ingredients as you in the same amounts I should get the same end product.

[JimmyTwoTimes]

I think it breaks immersion. If one man throws eggs, flour, sugar, milk and butter into a bowl and makes a cake, why would another man throw those things into a bowl and make a turkey? I don't like the idea. It makes no sense.
If all it does it breaks someone's immersion then I don't think it is much of a problem. But from the video, I got the impression they weren't doing a normal recipie thing.

It won't surprise me if the experimentation is just really a percentage chance of the current work producing a better/interesting result. Meaning, you won't gain a recipie for the forumla. So next time you combine the same items, they have the same percentage chance of getting that better results. Not like wows alchemist with their special proc for a recipie.

[Molnu]

Mark is trying to avoid a recipe-based system. Basically, if all items do the same thing all the time, it will be a recipe-based system, they just won't tell you the recipes, and then you'll just find it in some guidebook and it'll be a recipe-based system anyway.

The OP's suggestion is a perfect way to remove the recipe-based system, and prevent guidebooks from ruining the joy.

[Drunsul]

Its the nature of internet. Today you could probably find a guide on how to build a nuke if you searched hard enough.

Really, this took me less than 1 minute to find.

http://home.clara.net/nybbles/oldestuff/vik/nuke/index2.html

[logicalmayhem]

Mark's video suggested the crafting system isn't based on procuring recipes, but experimenting and therefore creating your own. As other people mentioned in different threads, if such a system would be implemented, it would be very easily bypassed by sites putting up the recipes for all to see, thus making people depend on external sources for playing as a crafter, and undermining the time needed to figure out recipes.

This seems to go against the grain of the WAR philosophy, with the ToK as the hub of all information needed in game. However, what if the recipes/effects yielded by ingredients were unique to each person, and stored in your ToK after discovery ? This would truely be revolutionary and solve TONS of problems inherent to crafting in MMORPGs up til now, and could be very simple to implement with only a tiny amount of extra storage serverside compared to the whole of the ToK.

Every crafter would have to experiment for themselves, and how THEY can make certain crafted items, ensuring the time taken for each crafter to become proficient in his craft is relatively stable; Until now people could take advantage of knowledge gained before them, knowing where to grind/buy the ingredients and recipes, considerably shortening the time to master their craft compared to old veterans. Now, it would require people to actively roam the world themselves to gain different ingredients, and see what these ingredients will do for THEM (even making it possible to craft at the spot).

Another big advantage to this system would be curbing the rampant speculation of ingredients on the Auction Houses, driving up the prices ridiculously. The effect an ingredient has in crafted items is averaged over the different recipes each player will use it for, and so the price (because of averaged demand) will stay more stable as well.

I truely hope such a system will be implemented, since it's the kind of (r)evolutionary thinking about systems Mythic is well known for, and makes them stand out among the crowd of MMORPG developers nowadays. Most players relatively new to MMORPGs don't know real innovation when they see it, even mistaking developers throwing an extra layer of obfuscation over a combat interface for the greatest thing like sliced bread.

Luckily the people on this forum seem a lot more intelligent, so what would you think of a personal recipe system like this ? What would be additional benefits/drawbacks, and what could be done more ?

IMO if you dont have an option to save a recapy after you make it in your tomb somwhere it will be a big mistake

[logicalmayhem]

Really, this took me less than 1 minute to find.

http://home.clara.net/nybbles/oldestuff/vik/nuke/index2.html

lol funny stuff

[peedei]

Its the nature of internet. Today you could probably find a guide on how to build a nuke if you searched hard enough.

Well I thought of a way to solve this and that is a player driven library, much like those spoiler sites, except that the players write down their journeys and recommendations left by other players deeming the book to be of any use.

So all these recipies could be left in the library, taking out a book would be extremely cheap, all books are only for rent if they are donated to the library.

You can find a more elaborated post in my thread I wrote, its the 3rd post which builds on this idea.

Link: http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38512

[Menthalion]

Peedei, a library being ingame is an interesting and novel idea, but as already mentioned in the thread, I think ingame resources costing ingame money will be beaten by sites that are available freely at the cost of an alt-tab..

Stiltz, I can see your point now I know you don't care much for people using information others have gathered. However, I think the fun of crafting for most people comes from a sense of accomplishment and perseverance in their trade, which would be nullified by having the information they worked hard for being up for grabs by every Tom, and Harry.

Also, time invested is the usual way of progression in MMORPGs, not just for the players, but also for their creators. The trick is to make the time spent FUN for players, while making them spend more time in the game. I can't imagine more fun trying to throw stuff together, and when I find something that works, trying to make different variations, slowly unravelling the system, getting better ingredients, and so really getting better at my crafting. Its something no MMORPG has done yet.

Anyone being able to throw stuff of all levels together from a website if he just could get the ingredients, would ruin the sense of accomplishment that crafters pride themselves in. I'd see no sense in a crafting system that way, you could just as well set up a network of merchants selling or exchanging the end result for ingredients. A simple dynamically changing pricestructure could even ensure the buffering a real economy would bring. Guildwar's NPC crafters and dye sellers come to mind, which would be a total waste.

[SlothBear]

I think it would be simpler to make the recipes the same but the result a bit random. So for instance I throw flour, eggs, and sugar into a bowl and some calculation based on my skill, the ingredient quality and the weather in Paris determines how many cakes and of what quality I make.

There's no way to keep recipes secret unless you want to make people find them in game before they can use them and that's like the one thing the WAR devs have said they don't want to do.

[Molnu]

Stiltz, I can see your point now I know you don't care much for people using information others have gathered. However, I think the fun of crafting for most people comes from a sense of accomplishment and perseverance in their trade, which would be nullified by having the information they worked hard for being up for grabs by every Tom, and Harry.

You hit the nail of the head with this one. Crafting should be a sense of accomplishment, something you get good at and not just grind or read a guidebook about. Too many MMOs kill crafting because it's nothing more than following instructions.

With the method proposed by the OP, I think it would be perfect. Each person has to discover their own way of crafting things. Would be a neat concept, but it's probably too late in the design stages to make that change. I fully expect to see guidebooks for apothecary, and who knows probably even talisman making. Hopefully my talisman making will be different and not any Joe Schmoe can read a guidebook on how to make the most uber talisman in 3 easy steps.

[Menthalion]

I think it would be simpler to make the recipes the same but the result a bit random. So for instance I throw flour, eggs, and sugar into a bowl and some calculation based on my skill, the ingredient quality and the weather in Paris determines how many cakes and of what quality I make.

There's no way to keep recipes secret unless you want to make people find them in game before they can use them and that's like the one thing the WAR devs have said they don't want to do.


Sloth, the general consensus is the crafting system will be similar to Morrowind / Oblivion, where ingredients each will have a certain effect inside a recipe.

So , for instance, if I combine

Eye of Newt=Resistance
Toe of Frog= Lightning
Wool of Bat= Increased Duration

which would give a long duration lightning resist potion.

I could vary and use the following ingredients

Eye of Newt=Resistance
Toe of Frog= Lightning
Tongue of Dog= Increased Effect

which would give a increased lightning resist potion

It would be great if both the effects an ingredient yields, as well as the used recipes of all succesfully made potions would be stored in your Tome of Knowledge.

However, a drawback would be that if these "recipes" you made would be the same for everyone, spoiler sites would ruin the progression of crafters.

In the system I am proposing, for every person, the effects of every possible ingredient is randomized ONCE and stored serverside. That way you would have to "find out" what each ingredient would do for you, and which combinations you should use to gain a certain effect.

So, if above recipes would be the effects I got from using these ingredients, other persons might get other or no effects.

Molnu might get

Eye of Newt=Stat Increase
Toe of Frog= Increased Duration
Tongue of Dog= Intelligence Stat

resulting in a long duration intelligence increase potion

Garthilk might not get anything at all because the combination of effects of his ingredients in the used potion make no sense

Eye of Newt=Poison
Toe of Frog= Strength Stat
Tongue of Dog= Range Increase

However, since failed attempts in crafting does not consume ingredients, he will still have the ingredients to use in a different combination.

This way, guidebooks and spoilersites would be of no use, there would have to be no "crafting xp" level, and thus no grinding x items for a new level, because the time invested is used in the "crafting minigame" of solving the puzzles your ingredients bring you.

[Hericus]

You can't beat internet and, no offense, your system that randomizes combinations for every single player wouldn't change anything. An example:

I need:

1. Dried weasel paw (resistance)
2. Eye of Newt (fire)
3. Camel spit (prolonged)

You need:

1. Boars tongue (resistance)
2. Bears hearth (fire)
3. Wings of bat (prolonged)

So we both want to make prolonged fire resistance potion. We need different ingredients but same effects from them. So basically I'll make a database that tells you what effects you need to mix to get a specific potion and you're back at the beginning :)
Plus you added a grind portion because I know have to grind like an imbecile to get Camel spit (they are in the high level zone) and you need bats that are the lowliest level mobs. It wouldn't be fair and it would bring even more problems. Any thoughts?

[Menthalion]

Well, not completely back at the beginning, since you would have to experiment to find out what each of your ingredients will do (since none will drop from a mob or grow from a plant with a label attached stating its effect) , which would cost time. Even if you made a finished recipe you'd have to figure out which ingredient had which effect by making other recipes with one ingredient in common.

The whole idea of experiment based crafting like in Oblivion for instance, is that if you knew the effects of the ingredients, there would be little need for a database since you could dream them up by yourself, because the combinations had logic to them. My system would insure you had a kind of puzzle mechanic to figure out what effects are available with which ingredients, and slowly being able to broaden your crafting product line.

After each succesfully crafted item that uses a certain ingredient, all possible effects each ingredient could have according to the created recipes would be listed in the ToK, until by method of elimination, only the true effect of an ingredient would be shown.

Of course ingredients should be dependent on the tier they're found in (so the differences in getting bat wings and camel spit you described will never be that big), and have results that match the level of the players there. That would mean you could slowly switch out the old tier 2 ingredients in your recipes by finding out what tier 3 equivalents they have, and increasing the numeric values of their effects compared to your level. Giving each higher tier more ingredients (and thus possible effects) would mean more recipes would become available at higher levels, and keeping the amount of puzzling in each layer relatively equal.

Another advantage of this would be that people picking up crafting at higher tiers wouldn't have to venture into lower tiers to become able to make equal level potions and talismans, while still having to discover most ingredient effect from scratch.

What I want to know is in what little we do know from the current crafting plans, where is the time invested (levelling) mechanic coming from if not from batch creation, and how do you minimize the influence of spoiler sites on impacting it ?

I thought my idea could provide a simple but elegant way of ensuring both.

[Soriin]

I don't think you're understanding that it is back to the beginning. Time means nothing to a DB site. Not only that but they aren't made by one person, it's a large group of people inputing their observations. Even with that system, an effect-based-db site is still right around the corner.

The other (valid) concern I saw (can't remember if it was the same guy) was the location of the ingredients. Do all of the ingredients that can possibly have the same effect have to be located in the same area? If not in the same area, then doesn't that mean some ingredients would be harder to get than others for the same effect. If in the same area, then doesn't that mean you have to absolutely LITTER the zones with different ingredients? Then doesn't that also limit the amount of randomness between items since it would be very strange to put every item in every thing that can drop an ingredient?

It's an interesting idea but another major flaw is it doesn't allow for expansion of the system. If I (assuming I was the developer) wanted to add in more ingredients later it becomes an incredibly difficult task very quickly. Because if I add one ingredient then that ingredient either has to be the same for everyone (destroying the original system) or has to reset the random ingredient-effect pairing which just introduces excessive frustration/anger on the gaming community. The other option is to add in a bunch at a time and then just randomize those together, but then how much is a bunch? Do I then have to come up with an excessive number of effects and items each update to the system in order to preserve the original system's randomness?

You can't beat DB sites. It isn't possible to have a fun system that isn't exploitable by people with enough time and a web server. So you might as well just have a fun system (for those that choose to use it properly) and ignore them.

And quite honestly it sounds like a lot of work. That may be interesting to you, but I have my doubts on whether or not that is going to win over a wide range of people and if it's only interesting to a few people, while that makes those people feel nice inside, it will alienate the rest of us. The point of the crafting system was for something quick that would NOT interfere with RvR'ing and force you to sit in a little corner next to a tree taking notes. This way does not promote sharing of information or community (the second, at least, is a HUGE design goal for the devs). Even ignoring the flaws I pointed out above, it's just not feasible anymore to make systems that only a few people can be good at in a MMO. Times have changed.

[CrazyGoldShield]

You don't need to beat the DB sites. If all of the ingredient effects are logical, then there is no need for anyone with a functioning brain to go to websites. They can, but it is not really advantageous.

[SlothBear]

I see no reason to make recipes difficult.

One of the main focuses in WAR crafting is to avoid a grind. What is trying out dozens of recipes until one works if not a grind?

The solution to avoiding database sites is to integrate the data into the game, not to make it so difficult to find that a website can't keep track of it, but to make it so easy that there's no need to go look it up. That seems to be what the WAR devs are doing and I think it's the right solution.

[Menthalion]

The other (valid) concern I saw (can't remember if it was the same guy) was the location of the ingredients. Do all of the ingredients that can possibly have the same effect have to be located in the same area?

It's an interesting idea but another major flaw is it doesn't allow for expansion of the system. If I (assuming I was the developer) wanted to add in more ingredients later it becomes an incredibly difficult task very quickly.

Soriin, you're right these are very valid concerns. Having ingredients for effects in one tier might still cause certain effects to be several levels apart from others. That would mean one person would be able to make different items than another, and balance out that way, but could result in a random fluke for an unlucky person not being able to make anything until the end of the tier. This could be remedied somewhat with personal crafting drops, which would make the system more complex. Also, in the currently revealed system, only 1/4 of possible ingredients are the ones you can get by yourself.


The expansion of the system could indeed be difficult. It probably would not be necessary until the underlying core game mechanics would significantly change (like WoW's resilience being introduced with TBC), and allegedly the developers have built a system that can handle possible level cap raises elegantly. Also, changes in the craftinng system would not consist of single ingredient additions, but multiple ones at a time, which could be randomized between themselves, without having to touch the existing structure.

I think with more inside knowledge into the precise crafting mechanics, solutions could be found to both issues.

The big question is, why would people want such system, or as Slothbear put it

I see no reason to make recipes difficult.
One of the main focuses in WAR crafting is to avoid a grind. What is trying out dozens of recipes until one works if not a grind?

My answer is, because the grind IS the game, and Mythic is not trying to avoid the grind at all, but trying to make it fun. Catering to all kinds of people by making it possible to level through quests, PQ's, Scenario's and RvR, is one way to secure they're going through the grind in a way thats fun for them.

All MMORPG mechanics are based on gaining levels, powers, items, territory while building your character, guild and realm. All these mechanics are meant to introduce the available content gradually, meanwhile giving the player the sense that he is constantly gaining something which abstractly can be described as a sense of accomplishment, which you can share with or boast about to your friends, guildies and realmmates.

What fun would a MMORPG be if you could gain access to all of its content from the start ? Access to all zones and instances, max level, all powers, epic gear. It'd be like playing Quake in GOD mode, you'd blow through all thats available once and be done with it. At best PvP wise it would be like an expensive version of Battlefield, Team Fortress or Savage 2 (try it out for free if you haven't yet !). Win and lose some matches and be done with it as well.

The sense of accomplishment just wouldn't be there. The same seems true for the crafting mechanic as we know it now. If everything could be made instantly according to known recipes, be they from the ToK or spoilersites, or just spread out a bit by arbitrary ingredient level requirements, where is the sense of accomplishment in crafting ? What crafting level mechanic we don't know about could give us that ? If there isn't, THEN crafting would be a chore, and we just as well might buy potions and talismans at a merchant.

The idea of this thread was to discuss this missing link in MJB's presentation. I understand the reasons why people will only be able to enhance existing items (as not to invalidate the efforts of either crafters as well as RvR / raiding item gathering players), and applaud introducing a completely new way of experiment based crafting. I also understand keeping crafting confined to a core set of professions because of these decisions.

I am curious, however, how a sense of accomplishment will be created in a system that will do away (thankfully) with batch craft levelling. My idea was just a suggestion how such a mechanic COULD work, and how gameplay elements could be added around it.

This could be by making people able to puzzle out the ingredient/effect combo's by themselves, but also create quests that could help them by giving hints about it. I'm a thorough believer in the Law of Conservation of Misery in RPGs. There should be several ways around an ingame challenge, but they all should cost roughly the same amount of walking.

Like accomplishment can be gained through quests, PQ's, scenario's or RvR, how will crafting accomplishment be gained ?

[UNREST]

Its the nature of internet. Today you could probably find a guide on how to build a nuke if you searched hard enough. Or even how to make your own coca-cola. Whats my point? Good question, probably that the nature of the beast is such that you cant keep a secret from it no matter how hard you try.

The thing is noone competitive will give their secret uber potion combinations away so easily. Its not good for business nor for competition. I really dont expect all the best combinations to be known as fast as people think. One might argue with morrowind/oblivion, but those are not competitive games. I dont care if someone will use my potion of 2h immunity in Oblivion because it doesnt affect me in any way. In War on the other hand its a whole other ballgame. Imagine your opponent guild simply overrunning you using the potion they found out about from your War blog. I bet you would make a lot of friends in your guild :p.

To get back on topic, i must say that your proposed system would create an economic chaos. Price ranges would be wild at first, but in the end everyone would eventually put up the highest prices for everything. Its worth more to wait for one guy who needs the mat badly enough to pay 5x value then then trying to sell it for your average estimate if that mat is worthless by your standards.

Agreed 100%. Just look at the (even though I hate to bring up the forbidden game) WOW language system. even though It is almost completely random, people find a way around it. Nothing is fool proof, and by making the system random, it kinda ruins the exploration of the system doesn't it? I mean think about it, you through some raccoon eyes in with some nightshade, and for you it makes a potion that restores 10 manna and drains 10 hp , so you are a combat class that doesn't really need manna much, but then your caster friend is like "woah, man were did you get that?" and you say" don't tell anyone, but I mad it by using a couple raccoon eyes and 3 nightshade." so your friend goes out and finds the ingredients and makes the potion, only to find that for him it just boosts stamina by 10 for 1 min. it would individualize people too much, it is a mmo. people are supposed to interact with each other. it is social. humans are social beings.

[Menthalion]

Agreed 100%. Just look at the (even though I hate to bring up the forbidden game) WOW language system. even though It is almost completely random, people find a way around it. Nothing is fool proof

Technically, no, since the WoW system is based on communication, It could be cracked because the sender and the receiver also could communicate outside of the system, and both wanting to crack the system.

by making the system random, it kinda ruins the exploration of the system doesn't it?

Uhm, I think it promotes exploration. But if you meant that it ruins the EXPLOITATION of the system, yeah, thats the whole point of it. Being able to look up recipes ruins exploration. Think about it. The idea behind WAR's system is exploration through experimentation (They could add quests that can hint at partial recipes / ingredient effects so people that get stuck can quest for answers). My system would only ensure people would HAVE to experiment and abide by the system in place.

I mean think about it, you throw some raccoon eyes in with some nightshade, and for you it makes a potion that restores 10 manna and drains 10 hp , so you are a combat class that doesn't really need manna much, but then your caster friend is like "woah, man were did you get that?" and you say" don't tell anyone, but I made it by using a couple raccoon eyes and 3 nightshade." so your friend goes out and finds the ingredients and makes the potion, only to find that for him it just boosts stamina by 10 for 1 min.

The only foolproof way system that promotes voluntary sharing without opportunity of exploitation in a game is Eve's blueprint system. Its a recipe system where you can copy a recipe to other people, the amount of uses for that recipe, and/or the amount of copies other people can make from that recipe. Its heavily recipe based, so I don't think it would work in WAR. Furthermore, the time invested in Eve's crafting is still protected by the skill system, based on how long ago you have taken the crafting skill, and how long you've played the game. The most unfortunate part in that is that it has no bearing on the amount of energy you have put into crafting at all, other than giving up a skill slot.

it would individualize people too much, it is a mmo. people are supposed to interact with each other. it is social. humans are social beings.

How about being social and making some of these potions for that poor caster buddy of yours ?

[Essar]

I think this is indeed an excellent idea. Hell, I could even imagine it being extrapolated so that not everyone can even MAKE the same kinds of potions at the various level ranges. For example consider this:

If there are x number of herbs and y number of effect associations for herbs of a particular level, with y>x of course and an algorithm that maps x number of those associations uniquely and injectively to a herb for each player* then you might have a player that can make super powerful short duration int buff potions whilst another that can make super long duration ones whereas it is IMPOSSIBLE for each to make the other just because they don't have a herb available to them with that effect.

It would require a bit more work and balancing but I would like it, though I'm sure some (maybe most:-|) people will be vehemently opposed to the idea.

*based on how Molnu suggested, each player just has a random (hidden) number designation to start.

EDIT: for sharing there could be some sort of potion analysis option, though I am unsure how much this would be compatible with my idea because it could involve a bunch of unknown herbs if a person does not have a herb available to them with that association. It is not unrealistic though, to think that one may be able to derive what the ingredients of a potion are after examining it.

[Menthalion]

Actually in crafting, when I started the idea, I thought of totally random crafting, that each ingredient would do something different. Then I thought about what effect that would have on the economy and said that won't fit, never mind. It is a great theory for a single player game. People can have that joy of discovery and the disappointment. Each ingredient would do something different. You could not go get a guide. In an MMO with the game economy that sort of thing just doesn't work. On the other hand the idea of a surprise for the player, the idea of a Christmas quest as they call it should be in there. It is fun to know that when you are crafting in every one out of who knows how many something really cool happens. I think it is a very good dynamic.


Too bad, and I probably won't agree with Mark on this, I see only a stabilising effect on the economy. Now the ingredients of most used items will be the prime target of Auction House speculation. And the christmas quest idea ? I think its a fun idea to have some sort of crit effect every now and then, but it is no match for the system of exploration as levelling mechanic.. Why choose an experimentation based system if experimentation will have nothing to do with it for 99% of the players, who will just rip them off spoilersites ?

As for the levelling mechanic, he says this:

That is not to say that if you make one potion you'll become the master Alchemist. It is an RPG after all. There has to be some amount of things you have to accomplish. There has to be some kind of progression system. We do not want the progression system to be a big time sink. With the Cultivating system, you can put your stuff in the back pack to grow and go out to do other things. That shows how dedicated we are to not forcing the player to sit down and grind out one thousand plants. They can go do other things.


Nice information on what Marc DOESN'T want the system to be, but NOTHING about what the accomplishment / progression system he was talking about WILL be. Okay, so cultivation will have a built-in timesink by having to give plants time to grow, but you won't have to do anything about it. Very good. But how will the system decide what level plants you can or can't grow ? What about the the other skills, like butchering and gathering ? And, most importantly, what about the experimentation side of things, Potion / Talisman making ?