How Crafting Should Work in MMO

With the upcoming release of Albion Online, a game that focuses entirely on a player driven economy, I wanted to throw my concept for true crafting into the ring and explain why I think it would be simply the best crafting system period.

First, games that had crafting, but dropped the ball.

World of Warcraft

Artificial Restrictions

As a base level comparison, no game should lack the crafting features that were available at least here in World of Warcraft.  Players had restricted professions, used specific tools and materials and they were extremely linear in progression, but also due to these restrictions, only certain professions of certain levels could create certain items with even more specific materials which gave rise to an economy.  These restrictions are artificial though, and we will take the concept and evolve it later on.

Guild Wars 2

Lacking Broad Use

Guild Wars 2 crafting is the most sure way of getting the strongest items in the game and it is also a good way to level up characters.  However, it promised a Minecraft-esc experience but gave us a hugely linear and watered down version which resulted in crafting to be a chore, not a fun gameplay mechanic.  When ingredients are more lucrative than the finished product, selling your items is a waste of time and so the player economy for Guild Wars 2 is almost non existent.  Especially considering that the strongest items in the game, which are only craft-able or found through intense RNG, CANNOT BE TRADED "barring Legendary Items".  However, in GuildWars 2 we are able to custom craft items with specific skins and stat alignments but the problem is these had no difference from world drops which were easier to find than craft.  Guild Wars 2 who's gameplay focused on the leveling pve experience, had meaningless crafting as that system only really starts to work at the end. game.  Some items can be crafted for aesthetics, but even those are easier found.  We will take that with us on our journey to find the best crafting system

Runescape

No Custom Creation

Now there is much more to Runescape's crafting than simple combat stats, but in a game that lacks mechanics, having tactical differentiation is important and for the most part Runescape, despite its no class system, doesn't offer enough customization with armors and weapons between it's different tiers.  Not being able to tweak or customize the individual items damages the complexity of the game and results in an overloaded inventory focus especially on foods for healing and attack resources like runes and arrows.  Overall Runescape has a great crafting system that happens to be lacking in combat diversity specifically which Albion Online succeeds in expanding.

Albion Online

Ability Diversity

Very similar to Runescape, Albion Online would have a similar economy and crafting but their added ability slots truly change the game.  There is not a lack of builds, but there is a lack of types of spells.  Many are just alterations of point and click damage, or different kinds of defenses or speed buffs.  In a game who's crafting is essentially focused on the skills slotted, there should be more offered in terms of gameplay mechanics than the strategic choices we have now.  Pulls, Leaps, Cloaks, Devours, Knock Ups, Walls, even abilities that focus on non combat mechanics like Instant Node Mining, Instant Tree Chop, or better gold find.  It is still in alpha, so it surely can improve and introduce more variety and will certainly do so.  Luckily, Albion Online seems to have solved or at the least alleviated the issues in previous games and so more than most, Albion has great crafting potential.

This trailer inspired this blog post as one developer stated how a player would be able to specialize and potentially be "the best at making" a certain type of weapon or armor.  With the game as it is now, I do not see that as a truly reachable statement.  In order to bring "Skill" into crafting rather than just sinking more time, I have a proposal.

A game focused on crafting, should still give the strategic, tactical, and mechanical diversity that a standard MMO build would.  There are entire sites dedicated to sharing build combinations in games like League of Legends, World of Warcraft, and Guild Wars 2.  Players are ranked in these sites and this should be evidence of a skill and mastery that comes with "crafting" these builds.  Taking these systems; talent trees, sphere grids, rune slots, and making them apart of the item crafting would add a sense of mastery for crafters and expansion for players.

Being able to make a weapon simply "stronger" is not good enough to consider another crafter better or more specialized than another.  Give them the tools to really CRAFT and to create a trade.

EXAMPLE

When making a sword, the crafter should be able to choose the active abilities slotted with it, passive mutators, as well as individual stat allocation.  If they have power over cosmetic choice, that is bonus.  

Strategy

Higher piercing increases critical hit chance and attack range , crushing increases white damage and attack AOE, and handling increases attack speed and cool down reduction.  Higher handling will lower the total durability, Higher piercing will increase the durability loss per hit, and crushing will increase overall weight/inventory space.  However, just raw stat upgrades, even if specialized, is not enough.  

Tactic

Different potential abilities based on depth of trait specialization.  Down the Piercing line will offer up more aggressive assassination based abilities such as lunges.  Down the Crushing line will give crafters the option of choosing from disabling type of skills and CC.  Down the Handling line will let players have more control over their other skills with abilities and spells that can be activated to cancel or modify others such as dodges, parries, or combo linking.

Mechanic

And at the highest degree of play, at the most intricate level of inspection, crafters should be able to enhance the actual game mechanics and give players a sword that they truly FEEL comfortable using. What is the shape of the AOE?  A cone?  A circle?  Maybe even a crescent, with a unique combination of handling and piercing, auto attacks can be modified to both slash and lung which gives an alternating sweeping auto attack.  With levels instead into crushing, the attacks would hardly lunge at all but instead encircle the player character.  

Of coarse, this is just a single weapon.  Imagine what could be done with dual items and also in combination with accessories and armor.  Who makes the most effective long range bows?  Who sells the most mana efficient staffs?  Not who has the highest tier materials, but who really is crafting the best items.

Add this into what Albion Online has already, and you would have an unrivaled crafting experience. 

"this is not supposed to be a recommendation for Albion Online specifically but my personal view on what crafting could be like in an MMO"

The "Overloaded" character kit, is what defines League of Legends.

The characters of a character based game; MOBA, fighting, or otherwise, obviously holds a lot of weight. but it is how Riot goes about defining these characters that makes League of Legends something special compared to others.  Certainly limited by many of the game's mechanics, we are going to be talking about how many characters break those limits rather by defined by them, and in that brokenness we find the secret.

First, understand that League of Legends had carved itself out of DOTA but shaped itself as a wholly different game.  DOTA character kits are rather complex descriptively but simple mechanically and visually because of its item shop which is grossly more active oriented compared to League of Legends.  This void was filled directly with the characters in LoL so from the start, we had "Overloaded" kits just to a much smaller less original degree than we do now.

A few of the many stand out characters among the League of Legends roster;

These handful of Champions are all very distinct from other MOBA characters.  Some of them have many defining traits versus any single and that is why many players consider their kits "overloaded" as historically, the MOBA character kits were rather simple especially with the inspiration from DOTA.  Every time Riot releases a new champion or updates an older character, we see their kits becoming ever more complicated and involved.


More Skill Shots
Because simple numbers being added or subtracted is boring and hard to watch.  It is clear to the audience and the players when we have epic tornadoes crossing the screen or laser blasts shooting out. E.G [Yasuo] "has windwall which can block skill shots and has a melee skill shot"

More Passives
Because sometimes a characters active kit is not actually the component that defines them rather the passive traits and then the actives work together with them. E.G [Kalista] "passive radically changes her movement in between auto attacks compared to any other character in the game."

More Mobility
A mechanical based game should strive for an ever increasing skill cap mechanically, and the MOBA genre is very much focused on movement rather than pure aim.  This creates a much more dynamic game.  Mobility is much more visible compared to outplays resulting from hidden math. E.G [Lee Sin] "who's entire kit is defined by him moving in and out of position and doing it often."

More Crowd Control
With such mobility, and a reliance on skill-shots and positioning, CC is required.  However, CC is not an answer to a problem but the final ingredient in a formula for an awesome viewing experience and a challenging competitive atmosphere.  E.G [Gnar] "having multiple forms of AOE CC in the form of skill shots and abilities that interact with the environment itself making player positioning just as important as enemy awareness"

In the end, its not like a complex character is better than an older champion, see [Annie] vs [Ahri] but more that the playstyle for one character is more often stagnant compared to other and in a competitive environment, you want anything but stagnancy.

A passive, three active abilities, and an ultimate active ability.  These have been broken by adding passives inside of active abilities, or making actives toggles.  Some characters even have toggle forms which allow them to effectively have 6 or more abilities.  Other characters even get unique items and who knows what next will be invented.  These rules are made to be broken because League of Legends itself is in a genre that was previously known as having very strict rules, and LoL has grown to what it is today because it set out to change that.  So as time goes on, it must and will expand and become more overloaded as some would call it, but it won't ever be diluted.  We can trust Riot to ever be expanding in new ways to interact in the game.

Different Kinds of Skill Shots!
Bolts, Blasts, Waves, Stabs, Swings, Chains
League felt much more mechanical compared to DOTA, so it made sense to have fighting style abilities and combos which required melee range aimed skills. [Riven]

Different Kings of Passives!
boons, debuffs, entirely new stats, new resources, hidden situation actives
A separate passive skill was new for LoL and with this comes new territory to expand kits situationally such as the ability to create towers out of tower ruins. [Azir]

Different Kinds of Mobility!
Leaps, Blinks, Entity Based Dashes, Terrain Based Movement
Bushes were unique to League of Legends, they put a character that could leap if he was standing in a bush next to an enemy [Rengar]

Different Kinds of CC!
Knock up, Knock back, Fear, Pull
DOTA is known for having huge CC timers but League has many/varied CC instead, so a character kit focused on crowd control would need control that could be stacked and used together or separate for optimum results depending on the situation. [Thresh]

Complexity in a kit does not always beat out raw stats, and complexity is not always more fun to watch, but the direction Riot is taking LoL is not pure complexity with their characters but rather reworking strategic diversity and translating that potential into more spectacular and visceral mechanics.  To make something new mechanically and to always differentiate itself from more strategic competitors, League of Legends has some regulations to simplify certain game-play elements and what is fun about these character kits is that often they are inspired by the very breaking those rules; this gives League an overall very understandable and watchable game flow, but potentially infinitely deep game-play.

YouTube Starter Kit! So you want to be a YouTuber?

Hey friends!  I’m Skylent Shore and you may know me from my top ten videos or maybe my video game first impressions, but I am here today to give out some knowledge that I have gained through trial and error over the years working on video production.  I’ll admit I made this in haste and I probably have much more to offer, but I feel it is important to get this out there since I have quite a few friends and acquaintances interested in working with YouTube.  So lets get started!

Tips and Tricks

Tip: Higher Quality doesn’t matter if you never upload the video.If you are afraid that because you can’t upload video in 1080p at 60fps that you can’t compete with others, don’t worry, you can.  Just make sure if you are going to upload, make it at least 720p with NO BLACK BARS!  That means, the video needs to fit the whole screen.  Do the highest quality that you have available to you right now, and commit to making videos RIGHT NOW!  Stop waiting, the more you wait the more you are losing out.  Yes, quality is important but what is more vital is that you actually put content out.  Don’t use what I just wrote as an excuse to be lazy, if you put your heart into it, your audience will continue to follow you.

Trick: Use a combination of royalty free content and your own content.Here is an example: “I want to start a makeup channel but I don’t have a good camera right now so I can’t make ANY videos”  Wrong.  Even without a camera you can still make at least top ten videos where you use product commercials/trailers and pictures.  Same for gaming, if you don’t have a good machine to capture perfect footage, you can use trailers which is what I STILL do for my top ten videos.  Certainly you won’t be able to do all the videos that you would want, but at least you are making some.  

Tip:  Have background musicSeriously, even professional grade mics pick up a lot of noise and background music cuts that out and makes everything appear perfect.  This is especially relevant for people with laptop mics or usual gaming headsets.  It also helps the video keep its energy so you get more viewer retention which leads to more views and subs.  Just make sure you pick a fitting song/beat.

Trick: do lists!  You are a new YouTuber, who wants to make new content, truly the “best” content you could make would be wholly original content but that doesn’t necessarily get views but neither does simply copying someone.  There is a balance and for me I found that doing list videos was the best starting place.  As a new YouTuber, you want people to discover YOU and the best way to do that is by helping others discover other topics, trends, information, content.  If you are a gaming channel, make a top ten list of some games or if you like make up, maybe do a top ten list on best brands.  Essentially, use the popularity of other original works to accelerate your own personal growth and demonstrate your own uniqueness.  

Tip:  Watch other YouTubersYou probably already do this, it is a given.  Find what they do that you like, but mostly find what they DON’T do, and make note of it and do it yourself.  You are trying to fill a niche somewhere, not copy someone else.  It is good to try and replicate their production, but not their content.

Trick:  Catchphrases!They are called catchphrases for a reason, you need to CATCH your audience or any new viewer who stumbles along into your videos.  Example: in my MMOATK.COM videos, I intro with “Welcome Back Attack!” It has a lot of energy and the start of the video is hugely important not just for your viewers but also to help maintain your performance, especially if you are recording live.

Tip:  Don’t expect much out of friends and familyI learned this back when I was in a band and it was also true for YouTube and I imagine it is probably true for any creative or artistic work.  It is unlikely that your friend and family will be the true target audience for what you are making.  Begging them to like and share and even watch whole videos is cringey and honestly unneeded.  I think every like helps, but what you really want to do is stimulate conversation in your comments and only people who are truly engrossed in your videos will do that.  You are building a community from scratch, not plucking your real life friends and placing them into your virtual one.  If they happen to really like your stuff, then great!  But otherwise, don’t beat yourself up because they don’t like it.  My family hasn’t watched a single one of my videos, and yet I make my living off of it!

Trick:  Don’t sight read your scriptsIf you have a script, that is awesome!  But even good actors can sound dull simply reading a script as is.  Likely, there will be errors either in the writing or your tonality, so really it is best to ad lib color words when you can.  If your script says “the game was good but not great” it is okay not to say those exact words if you are carrying a lot of energy by the time your eyes hit that line, maybe you can say something like “the game was pretty alright but I can’t bring myself to call it great”  Since you had more energy coming into that line, it was necessary to deposit it with more words and in the end your recording is more personal and better for it.  Many people speak differently to how they write, so it is important to know it is OKAY not to read directly from your script.  Often I will even purposely take my eyes off of my script so I am forced to ad lib.  People come more for your personality than the raw information.

Useful Websites (Free)

https://www.wetransfer.com/

If you are working as part of a team, this site will be your best friend.  WeTransfer is the fastest most professional file transfer website and with video upload timing being crucial, you want something fast and friendly.  Dropbox is awkward but Google Drive is a close second though it depends on how you want to use it.  Basicly, if you need to send a video sample or whole single video to someone, use wetransfer.  This is how I send clients my videos and  I use this daily.

https://pixlr.com/If you need to edit an image extremely quickly, such as a thumbnail, pixlr has you covered.  It also has some interesting royalty free effects/stickers that maybe you could use but overall this is for someone who needs to do image editing lightly, quickly, and with no need to download.

https://www.google.com/drive/There are so many good reasons to use drive.  There is no reason anyone should be using multiple alternatives when drive does them all better.  Holding all of your scripts, video ideas, is really important!  Plus you can share documents or entire folders with partners or clients to make sure the work is getting done properly. 

http://socialblade.com/This is a good site to track your/others progress.  If you are new, use this with other newer channels that you like and try to match or better them.  It is also a good tool for seeing exactly what you are getting into i.e how much money you could expect v.s how much work is needed.

Programs to Download (Free)

https://krita.org/You’ll need an image editing program so that you can quickly and cleanly create thumbnails, and if you don’t have someone hired for channel design/logo design you can also use this to get started.  There are others out there but I found Krita to be the most intuitive whilst giving me the most tools to use instantly.  Also here is a bonus link for an image to use as a background template for your channel http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2013/099/9/e/new_youtube_background_layout_2013_by_mariobink-d60zqir.png

https://obsproject.com/Regardless if you are a gaming youtuber/streamer or even work with computers at all, many videos could profit from on screen recording every once in a while.  This program is a great free resource for streaming video and recording.  Even if you have ShadowPlay with your video card, this program can simply do more and has better audio quality as well for free.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-live/movie-makerYes, this is a link to windows movie maker.  If you don’t have the means to get a professional video editing software, movie maker is pretty much the easiest and best to use.  I used it for the majority of my professional career until recently I purchased Adobe Premiere subscription.  I tried other video editors and found them not as easy to use but in the end, if you are hiding your video quality behind fancy editing, maybe the actual content isn’t that good huh?  Best to start out simple and then expand later.

http://web.audacityteam.org/It looks old, but it is tried and true.  Almost everyone uses this program to record their voice as it is quick and clean.  

What MODs Would You Buy?

Quick, What Mods would you actually spend money on?

For under $10 I'd buy:
MODs that are essentially a new game.










For under $5 I'd buy:
Massive Expansions
i.e just like Falskaar, which adds hours and hours of content, new quests with voice acting even!  New spells, items, etc.  However, just like how some workshops items are introduced into the public client, I would want these expansions to be maintained by the developers of the games and to be "quality controlled".  We see this in TF2 and DOTA 2.


For under $1 I'd buy
Single levels.
maybe it is a single dungeon or quest line,  maybe it is a collection of items with unique features.







For cents I'd buy
a single item or unique texture pack.









I think it is awesome that Steam wants us to spotlight mods and give revenue to the makers for creating them, but I feel pricing needs to be regulated as well as how they apply to be listed.

Weapons We Want in Guild Wars 2

Let's do this quick and silly because let's be honest, this is a lite topic completely based on speculation and filled with bias.  This is my list of weapons I'd like to see added into Guild Wars 2.  Now for those who aren't quite familiar with the game, know that classes have unique abilities/spells based on the weapon they are wielding.  Adding even one weapon to the game, would be adding 2-5 abilities for a single class but most likely dozens split between them.  We won't be discussing weapons other classes can use already, as very likely with the coming update we will see our wishes granted in that regard.  Let us focus on things entirely new for every class.

First I wanted to show you some concept art that reveals weapons that we don't have in the game yet.  We may or may not get these but I feel that since they are at least in concept art, we have a higher chance of them being realized.  "Spears / Cannons"  I'm sure there are more weapons than these that are in art but not in game so let's keep looking and hoping!

We also already have models/items in game for underwater weapons, so I think it could be safe to assume that we will eventually be able to use them on land at least in some capacity/combo with certain classes.  This is also where I got my inspiration for using spears.  This, plus the fact we see concept art with spears, I think it is a very safe bet we will be seeing them eventually.  But also I think Harpoon-guns and Tridents could work well with some classes.  I'll be sure to elucidate when we get to the specific class.

We also don't have crossbows. So why not?  If we can have a distinct skillset between shortbow and longbow, then we should be fine with adding crossbow.

Lastly I want to throw in a weapon purely based on the fact that no other weapon in the game is like it so far.  That is the Scourge.  You can call it whip, chains, w/e, let's just get it in the game already.  

3 classes get Cannons, 3 classes get Scourge, and 3 classes get Crossbows.

Cannon / Harpoon Gun

Cannon / Spear

Scourge / Trident

Crossbow / Harpoon Gun

Cannon / Spear

Crossbow / Spear

Scourge / Trident

Scourge / Trident

Crossbow / Harpoon Gun

So far we have next to no evidence to tell us what weapons the Revenant will be using when he launches, but assuming they give him unpopular weapons (Water: Harpoon Gun / Trident) then we will just say that as new content, he will get the crossbow and the harpoon gun as usable weapons on land later on.  Plus that evens out everyone's new toys to play with with 3 of each.

If you are curious as to how a Harpoon Gun might work on land, think about the abilities we already see on class kits with it equipped. Imagine a Thief ability that lets him grapple hook as a movement ability.  Picture an engineer who pulls enemies into his turrets/mines.  

The Trident, I imagine, would be similar to the difference between shortbow/longbow but compared to staff.  One would be more aoe focused/long range focused and the other conal or single target and closer range.

And as for spears, well, they are already a known land weapon historically and we even see some mobs in game use them.  I'm sure ArenaNet could have fun designing kits around it.  Maybe even a thrown move or two.

Let's hope that we do in fact get entirely new weapons added into the game, as well as current weapons being included in classes that before didn't have them.  There are already a lot of environmental items that can be picked up with very interesting move sets "such as Banners which could give inspiration for the Polearm move set" and if we do get water weapons usable on land, we could just translate some of those abilities though some would have to change because of the reduction a plane of movement.