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[WillowLuman]

@MoLAoS
The point is, though, that saying that real artisan work takes lots of boring practice to get right justifies the grinding that most games have for crafting, does not hold up. You're not actually practicing a skill, not mastering something that when finally you become competent at enables creative freedom. You get the tedium, but not the abilities that would come from spending that time working on a real skill. Your character may make a sword, true, but it's the same sword every time from that recipe, and the same as if anyone else had used that recipe.

What we really want from our crafting, even in an RPG, would be for our character's skill to enable us to practice our own creative skills, like say choosing the design of the blade, or the hilt, etc. Making something our own rather than being a worker on an assembly line.

[GavJ]

^MoLAoS, your post confuses me. You spend half the time talking about how RPGs are roleplaying and it's not supposed to be defining things based on the player.
And then the other half of the time talking about how crafting in a game is nearly impossible, because it's not defined around the player.

You addressed your own argument already, yes? The CHARACTER is doing physical hand building of things necessary for the definition of crafting.

Personally though, I think crafting also necessarily implies an aspect of artfulness, which can't be very meaningfully provided by a character, so that's where the player has to come in and contribute for the full experience (otherwise you get progress quest)

[alexandertnt]

"Classic/traditional RPG" - To me, that means a slow moving plot and heavily statistics-based game systems. Its also a misused term like "retro" - a vague term lazily shoved into the description of anything to try to make it sound better.

"100's of hours of gameplay" - To me this means "Lots and lots of grind", "Lots of fetch quests" or something like that.

Anything with "Epic" in it.

"RPG elements" - Usually misses what makes an RPG fun and instead referes to the statistics-based gameplay, which IMO is one of the weaker parts of RPG's.

"Become stronger", "Attain great power", "improve your character" or anything like that. Generally a code-phrase for "grind to increase your statistics"

People complain a lot about RPGs, which most MMOs are, being all about the character's skill and not yours. Like no shit guys, do you not understand the definition of RPG? Role playing, pretending to be something YOU aren't doing things YOU can't.

I find it quite difficult to pretend to be something else when I only feel like I am observing and ordering that character around. It creates this divide between me and the role I am supposed to be playing.

Regardless, the fact that you can aim with your own skill doesn't change the fact your character is still doing/being things you can't, unless you have worked out how to shoot lightning from your hands.

[scrdest]

Of all things, I think a Minecraft mod (TerraFirmaCraft) has gotten one part of the item crafting semi-right - the way it's done, when you want to make metal... anything, really, you need to work the metal at an anvil, and it involves a fairly simple logical minigame that is different for each item type, but consistent for each item... on a per-world basis, so you cannot follow the same steps to get the same item in another world.

It does a similar thing to meals - you can mix anything, but certain mixes have special, beneficial effects, and this too is randomly generated based on the world seed.

What it does is introduces a level of player competency - you cannot just go read a wiki, but you need to experiment on each world - of course, you COULD make a wiki with the recipes for each and every world, but since the latter is infinite, it's simply not feasible. What it however lacks is that personal touch - you're more of an inventor, not an artist, but the latter, of course, is the area for builders to shine.

[Vector]

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[MoLAoS]

(removed)

[MoLAoS]

Regardless, the fact that you can aim with your own skill doesn't change the fact your character is still doing/being things you can't, unless you have worked out how to shoot lightning from your hands.

Well actually, I have, sort of. Among other things like breathing fire. Certainly neither activity is super safe.

You can't actually shoot lightning the way its portrayed in most fantasy but there is a trick that could allow it to sort of work.

[GavJ]

how the hell could that game be relevant to the conversation?

1) It was pretty clearly an example of a game that "Can't be fucked over by a wiki explaining everything."
2) Also, I for one have always been excited in the past about a game featuring birds flapping, but then when I got it, I learned to groan about it instead.

You can't actually shoot lightning the way its portrayed in most fantasy but there is a trick that could allow it to sort of work.

I can shoot water out of my fingertips in the shower.

[MoLAoS]

(removed)

[Vector]

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[Mech#4]

Well, if a wiki does have all the information on how to do something there is the choice to look at it or not, but I understand that it could be seen as a waste of time if someone has already figured it all out and the information is just there available to you.

A crafting system based more on player skill, like an FPS? Faster reflexes means you get purer results or maybe you can perform difficult transfers of ingredients that require careful timing to create something.

With a system like that though, I can see them being made into something like plumbing hacking before a more complicated system involving time and multiple outcomes.

I don't think I fully understand your gripe MoLAos. Could you summarise it in a single sentence or two please?

[Retropunch]

The word "retro" makes me want to throw up.  Retro graphics, retro 4bit indie pixelfuck garbage.  I can't draw or afford an artist so I'll just do shitty pixel art and call it retro.

Going along with crafting, multiplayer survival games.  Survival games in general.  It has to do something pretty intense (The Forest, for example) to make me care.

A little to the side of the topic, but getting excited about games in general has soured for me.  I used to get so excited about upcoming games, I'd watch the trailers and dream about playing, but nowadays I feel like I'm saturated with it.  If I'm reading about a game and I see the word "kickstarter" I immediately forget that the game exists.  If it comes out and it's good, great.  Until then I'm no longer mentally capable of giving a shit.

[miauw62]

Tools breaking. I considered this to be one of the most amazing features of minecraft back in the day :v

And yet it adds nothing but annoyance even then, right? Axe breaks... carry another or make a new one. So you've gone through or are going through the same crafting process over and over again for... some.... reason I guess?

I guess it adds some things. It's not really "makes you groan" but looking at it afterwards it's far from the thing i made of it.

[Sonlirain]

Epic sotryline - Every game that claims this usually has a storyline that's either accidentally hilarious or stupid.

[Zireael]

I think it's possible to do interesting things with crafting.  In The Witcher there's an alchemist who suggests the best way to learn new formulae for alchemy is to discover them yourself by experimenting with the formulae you already have.  I haven't done much with it since I don't really have the materials to sit down and experiment, but I think a seriously experimental crafting method would be interesting.

Not like mashing things together randomly, but something you could experiment empirically and derive conclusions with actual practical implications.

Like, you mix X and Y together to create a potion that lets you see in the dark.  You can mix X and Z to create a poison that blinds the enemy.  You make a note that X seems to involve vision, and using other ingredients with proven or postulated effects, you can create a new potion with a predictable effect.

That kind of thing.

That's a pretty good solution to crafting, indeed.

My list:
Waving your sword using mouse.

First seen in an ancient game named the Forge. Then in Gothic 3.

Then Witcher came along.