Heresy488
06-01-2008, 02:36 AM
First, start with the gathering professions.
The game starts with every character being a level 1 noob who is threatened by angry dogs, and this is true in every MMO you go. But in WAR, the character needs to use every wit about them to simply survive. Any desire to craft magical items or brew a potion are completely secondary to that simple goal of survival. This puts every player in the frame of mind of a hunter. The world is dangerous. There are things out there that are out to get them, it's called RvR. Even those players who's characters are part of a regular army, like Humans or High Elves or Dark Elves or Chaos, every soldier knows the value of proper scavenging.
Every character should begin the game knowing how to scavenge and this means looting. This means cutting pieces off of animals, using furs for warmth, bits for decorations, and meats for sustenance. It means getting wounded and learning which herbs tend to wounds and which are poison, race specific of course. It means taking weapons and armor off the dead to enhance your own offense and defense. It means learning how to enhance your own weapons and armor. It also means spinning salvaged cloth into thread to make clothing, flags, rope, nets, bows, etc. Salvaged leather, metal, lumber, and more can be used to make other materials, like armor, weapons, etc. But the characters start with looting.
See, if we start the game with the premise that even basic survival is a challenge, the characters in the game can take much more proactive movements towards survival, and this means the players can go out of their way to care about their character, to want to protect him, and most importantly, to want to kill their characters enemies for ever daring to threaten their guy's faction. The more the player is challenged to feel, the more the player will desire to see their character win.
Second, staving off the wolves.
Those are the angry dogs I was talking about. Now, as I introduced in the first section, crafting professions are what the characters do with all that they've looted. Before I go further, I must make two demands, the first that characters must begin the game with maxed possible inventory. This is a must. Second, every gathering/crafting profession must be accessible to the character, none of this “1 gathering and 1 crafting” profession nonsense. These two must happen.
Now, once your character is able to stand on his own two feet, then he can have the luxury of putting some thought into the crafting professions. Apothecary and Talisman Making are two ideas proposed. Apothecary is natural; it is rich in lore and societies demand pharmacists. Apothecaries are players who have taken their given, if small, knowledge of plants (which ones give a boon to their race and which ones are poison to their race) to a greater degree and learned to experiment with chemical cocktails. The creation concept of a primary ingredient and three bonus flavors is intriguing.
I recommend that Apothecary creations are centered more on character utility instead of flat numeric effects. For example, a potion should heal based off a percentage and not a number value so that this potion is just as useful to a low level character as it is a max level character. Mark Jacobs says that grinding is a problem and I agree with him. I just don't want to see a max level character who initially skipped the professions component of the game the first time through, decided to go back, and found himself grinding through the skill ranks because none of the entry-level items had any utility for him.
Talisman Making seems to be what I was talking about in terms of a character learning how to enhance their own weapons and armor, except TM seems to focus on magical items exclusively. I recommend that magic take a smaller role in items in the game. A well-constructed, thick ax of iron doesn't need any fancy fireworks to cleave an Orc's skull any better. Dwarven elders were killing Orcs just fine before they discovered magic and even after it's discovery most Dwarves find they're Dwarfy enough to not need it, so really, magic must not be that necessary to the goal of Orc-slaying. The concept of TM, salvaging special or rare components from loot and using those components to enhance the character's gear, is a fine idea. What I'm saying is that the system need not concern exclusively magical items. It might also help stave off meta-gamers if some extremely viable gear was not magical.
If Mythic is intent on not having a direct creation profession for weapons and armor, I understand. I am however disappointed at the many numerous options that would be available to characters, cut short, because of an anxiety towards improperly implementing the system. Nevertheless, a general-item creation system must be added. Items such as what I was discussing before: clothing, flags, rope, nets, food, trophies, trinkets, etc. There needs to be a system for players to create these items and receive benefits from them (even if it just means a better-looking cape than the other Chaos Chosen next to me).
Lastly, direct points to the podcast.
Cultivating is a terrible idea and must go. Again, I understand why Mythic would create a system where the responsibility of reagent-farming is placed on cooldowns and timers, completely dependent on the playing being online and playing the game for hours without end, but Cultivating, even if its a step towards innovation, is a step in the wrong direction.. The first problem is I do not see my Chaos Chosen tending a garden. I don't see it, I don't want to see it. The idea is just stupidly . If all the player needs is a system to acquire materials for the Apothecary profession, then use the conventional system and either learn to tolerate farmers or make the more desirable Apothecary craftable item reagents not able to be traded.
Go back to what I said about the different plants affecting every race differently. There will be five races in the game: Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and Goblins. Because there will not be one weed or fungi equally desirable to all five of them at the same time under my system, at the very least (assuming racial population balance) farmers will be split five ways as to what to farm. This would be an innovative and practical solution to a common problem (farmers) without drastically modifying a non-broken gathering system.
The game starts with every character being a level 1 noob who is threatened by angry dogs, and this is true in every MMO you go. But in WAR, the character needs to use every wit about them to simply survive. Any desire to craft magical items or brew a potion are completely secondary to that simple goal of survival. This puts every player in the frame of mind of a hunter. The world is dangerous. There are things out there that are out to get them, it's called RvR. Even those players who's characters are part of a regular army, like Humans or High Elves or Dark Elves or Chaos, every soldier knows the value of proper scavenging.
Every character should begin the game knowing how to scavenge and this means looting. This means cutting pieces off of animals, using furs for warmth, bits for decorations, and meats for sustenance. It means getting wounded and learning which herbs tend to wounds and which are poison, race specific of course. It means taking weapons and armor off the dead to enhance your own offense and defense. It means learning how to enhance your own weapons and armor. It also means spinning salvaged cloth into thread to make clothing, flags, rope, nets, bows, etc. Salvaged leather, metal, lumber, and more can be used to make other materials, like armor, weapons, etc. But the characters start with looting.
See, if we start the game with the premise that even basic survival is a challenge, the characters in the game can take much more proactive movements towards survival, and this means the players can go out of their way to care about their character, to want to protect him, and most importantly, to want to kill their characters enemies for ever daring to threaten their guy's faction. The more the player is challenged to feel, the more the player will desire to see their character win.
Second, staving off the wolves.
Those are the angry dogs I was talking about. Now, as I introduced in the first section, crafting professions are what the characters do with all that they've looted. Before I go further, I must make two demands, the first that characters must begin the game with maxed possible inventory. This is a must. Second, every gathering/crafting profession must be accessible to the character, none of this “1 gathering and 1 crafting” profession nonsense. These two must happen.
Now, once your character is able to stand on his own two feet, then he can have the luxury of putting some thought into the crafting professions. Apothecary and Talisman Making are two ideas proposed. Apothecary is natural; it is rich in lore and societies demand pharmacists. Apothecaries are players who have taken their given, if small, knowledge of plants (which ones give a boon to their race and which ones are poison to their race) to a greater degree and learned to experiment with chemical cocktails. The creation concept of a primary ingredient and three bonus flavors is intriguing.
I recommend that Apothecary creations are centered more on character utility instead of flat numeric effects. For example, a potion should heal based off a percentage and not a number value so that this potion is just as useful to a low level character as it is a max level character. Mark Jacobs says that grinding is a problem and I agree with him. I just don't want to see a max level character who initially skipped the professions component of the game the first time through, decided to go back, and found himself grinding through the skill ranks because none of the entry-level items had any utility for him.
Talisman Making seems to be what I was talking about in terms of a character learning how to enhance their own weapons and armor, except TM seems to focus on magical items exclusively. I recommend that magic take a smaller role in items in the game. A well-constructed, thick ax of iron doesn't need any fancy fireworks to cleave an Orc's skull any better. Dwarven elders were killing Orcs just fine before they discovered magic and even after it's discovery most Dwarves find they're Dwarfy enough to not need it, so really, magic must not be that necessary to the goal of Orc-slaying. The concept of TM, salvaging special or rare components from loot and using those components to enhance the character's gear, is a fine idea. What I'm saying is that the system need not concern exclusively magical items. It might also help stave off meta-gamers if some extremely viable gear was not magical.
If Mythic is intent on not having a direct creation profession for weapons and armor, I understand. I am however disappointed at the many numerous options that would be available to characters, cut short, because of an anxiety towards improperly implementing the system. Nevertheless, a general-item creation system must be added. Items such as what I was discussing before: clothing, flags, rope, nets, food, trophies, trinkets, etc. There needs to be a system for players to create these items and receive benefits from them (even if it just means a better-looking cape than the other Chaos Chosen next to me).
Lastly, direct points to the podcast.
Cultivating is a terrible idea and must go. Again, I understand why Mythic would create a system where the responsibility of reagent-farming is placed on cooldowns and timers, completely dependent on the playing being online and playing the game for hours without end, but Cultivating, even if its a step towards innovation, is a step in the wrong direction.. The first problem is I do not see my Chaos Chosen tending a garden. I don't see it, I don't want to see it. The idea is just stupidly . If all the player needs is a system to acquire materials for the Apothecary profession, then use the conventional system and either learn to tolerate farmers or make the more desirable Apothecary craftable item reagents not able to be traded.
Go back to what I said about the different plants affecting every race differently. There will be five races in the game: Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and Goblins. Because there will not be one weed or fungi equally desirable to all five of them at the same time under my system, at the very least (assuming racial population balance) farmers will be split five ways as to what to farm. This would be an innovative and practical solution to a common problem (farmers) without drastically modifying a non-broken gathering system.