Warhammer Online’s Accidental Crafter

Highlights
I’m a crafter and crafting always plays an equal part in my character’s achievement map.  While I don’t like grinding mats anymore than others, I can tolerate it in order to attain crafting advancement and participate in the economy using my chosen profession.  My early impression of crafting in Warhammer Online (WAR) is that the mechanic supports a more “accidental crafter” motif.  Casual crafters – crafters of convenience, will also benefit from this system, whereas dedicated crafters will on some level, find it a bit more frustrating than other designs.

• In WAR, the items are all dropped from mobs, facilitating the idea that this is “war” where you’re meant to be killing things not whacking nodes.  This is both a blessing and a curse.
• When you aren’t looking for particular items, collecting them as random mob drops makes life simple.  However, it’s a considerable disadvantage when you need specific components and the only way of acquiring them yourself is to kill mobs, which have no guarantee of dropping the items.
• It’s extremely advantageous and encouraging that the vast majority of your creations will be useful to you or wanted by others.
• Actual production of this smaller amount of items felt like it took just as long as crafting advancement in a game like World of Warcraft (WOW) – at least at the low to mid tiers.
• Too much granularity in production output thwarts item stacking, which results in a crafting system that consumes too much of your VERY LIMITED pack space and bank slots.
• While I enjoy the interactivity options of cultivating, I’d like to be able to manage the multiple plots from the Home tab.  It’s tedious to click in and out of the plot windows.
• I find the crafting in WAR good enough even though I personally prefer something more in depth – not all grinding is bad.  It is pointless grinding that is the bane of many crafting systems.  And while this system is light for my tastes it’s not game breaking for me if it never changes from what it is right now.

Obtaining Components
Like other games, you must collect and process sub components in order to craft items.  Unlike other games, none these materials come from static nodes positioned within the virtual landscape.  In WAR, the items are all dropped from mobs, facilitating the idea that this is “war” where you’re meant to be killing things not whacking nodes.  This is both a blessing and a curse.  While it makes collecting components transparent when you don’t care about what materials you’re collecting and you’re just getting them in the course of questing, getting particular items will require work or payment (auction house). GuildWars (GW) which doesn't have player created items, employs a similar method except that the components are taken to NPCs to perform the creation. 

Mob-only drops of components can be a considerable disadvantage when you need something specific as there is no guarantee each kill will produce the item.  I liken it to killing “God only knows how many” pigs to collect 5 pig snouts when every pig doesn’t drop a snout.  In a static nodes situation, you know exactly how many nodes you’ll need to harvest at a maximum which may turn out to be less as most nodes yield multiple items.  I prefer the exactness of that scenario.

Production Output
It’s extremely advantageous and encouraging that the vast majority of your creations will be useful to you or wanted by others. They’ve eliminated the idea that you grind out several hundred crap items just to advance your skills to the point where you can make the “good stuff”.  However, the actual production of this smaller amount of items felt like it took just as long as crafting advancement in a game like World of Warcraft (WOW) – at least at the low to mid tiers, which is all I can comment on at this time.  I'm currently at 114 Cultivating and 106 Apocathary which I achieved in no less time than I could have reached the hundreds in WOW. If you’ve done crafting recently in EverQuest II (EQ2) then it’s easier than that process, which even though it requires work, remains my favorite crafting system.  WAR is sits somewhere in between GuildWars and WOW/EQ2 crafting for effort, time required and production interactivity.

I like the optional semi-interactivity options in the crafting.  For cultivating at least, I can choose to add soil, water and enhancement components during the various phases of seed growth.  My understanding is that doing so will increase the probability of creating an uncommon item or having a critical success which would yield multiples?  I’m not absolutely clear on that as nothing has actually happened when I’ve gone through the trouble of doing so.  Yet the option is there and if it’s not working as intended now, I have no doubt that it will be shortly.

Variability
Unfortunately, one of the lessons learned by the EQ2 crafting developer was not caught by the WAR developers.  Too much granularity in production output thwarts item stacking, which results in a crafting system that consumes too much of your VERY LIMITED pack space and bank slots.  This problem impacts crafters AND consumers.  I get the idea of combining random items to produce variations and that’s all fun, well and good.  However, I can combine the same exact items using the “repeat” button and the potions stats will vary slight which means they don’t stack.  This is a VERY UNDESIRABLE result. 

EQ2 suffered from a similar mechanic which they eventually changed to reduce the level of variance so items would have more stacking opportunities.  I don’t subscribe to the idea that managing inventory is a mini-game, no matter what Tom Chilton has to say on the subject. Even Blizzard got over themselves and improved inventory management, increased bag sizes and removed instance keys into a free key-slot bag.  I can only hope that WAR will see fit to find a better way of handling this variance vs. available storage.

Interactivity
While I enjoy the interactivity options of cultivating, I’d like to be able to manage the multiple plots from the Home tab.  I can see all of the phase activity, as each possesses an icon that displays the progress but I don’t seem to be able to do anything from that view.  As it stands, you have to click into the individual plots to work with them.  There’s nothing entertaining about clicking in and out.  In fact, it’s rather tedious.  Conversely, if the work to manage multiple plots could be done from the Home view, it would be a mini game of sorts – watching the timers, adding nutrients, harvesting and planting again.  While some will find doing this much beyond their interest, it would be more convenient and entertaining over all.

In the End
I find the crafting in WAR good enough I suppose.  My tastes lean toward the desire for something more in depth but I understand why they’ve opted for this ultra casual, more along the lines of accidental crafting model.  It will certainly please non-crafter types, as it eliminates much of the grind.  However, not all grinding is bad.  It is a badge of honor of sorts to achieve what some will not or cannot submit to achieving.  While I don’t advocate extreme, wasteful and pointless grinds, I would like a little something more from crafting in WAR.  It will not however, be a game breaking situation for me if it’s never more than what it is now.

Comments

[Ysharros]

My thoughts almost exactly. It didn't take long in beta for me to resign myself to WAR not being a crafter's game. MMO development on the whole seems to be shying away from player-created item bases and sticking firmly with loot-based item systems (even Vanguard totally changed their tune on that one during beta). It's not impossible to have both meaningful crafting and fun loot, but I think it's outside most developers' desires and/or budgets.

Still, WAR is fun even without crafting, and at least on the bright side I can dabble or ignore crafting entirely in WAR depending on my mood. Could be worse.

[Hudson]

Wow you just explained crafting better than 70% of the fan sites. NICE

[saylah]

@Hudson - Thanks! I don't want to do any guide type posts. Seemed pointless with so many people posting about WAR. So I'll stick to what I know best - my own opinionated 1st person perspectives. :-)