Interesting idea: Your very own crafting supplies NPC

by Kyle Horner on Mar 19th 2008 7:00PM

There's a compelling idea over on Adele Caelia's EQ2 blog concerning crafting in the comfort of your character's home as opposed to the -- assumed -- cold crafting halls. The concept would be that for the fee of some status points, a player could hire a butler (NPC) who lives in your home and sells you crafting supplies for a slightly higher fee than out at the less convenient crafting halls. Status points are a bit harder to come by in EQ2, so buying a 'butler' would be a decision that carries a bit more weight with it.

We think it's an interesting concept and one that could would be nice to see in other games as well; like Lord of the Rings Online. Often times, finding basic crafting materials requires players -- especially ones who participate in crafting often -- to waste a lot more time than is truly necessary.

Crafting often becomes discouraging to do over long periods of time because of the constant running around to grind enemy NPCs, selling the useless loot they drop and then running around buying various essential raw materials. So having a dedicated NPC right in your home for the sake of convenience -- even at slightly raised raw material prices -- would be a nice option to have.

Although it could be taken too far, if say, developers added in more of these NPCs in an effort to ease various needs of players. Part of what makes a good MMO is finding the balance between killing player time and keeping players entertained and interested. Finding the balance is always the hardest part in developing a massively game, though.

Source

Tags: adele-caelia, crafting, everquest-2, lotro, soe, turbine

Reader Comments (2)

This would play into the same vein as other game systems where ubiquity has cheapened the work done by those who were forced to put their own sweat into the project before the "more accommodating" system was introduced.

I've really stopped being a fan of crafting once SWG bit the bullet. Both SWG and UO's resource gathering were excellent, and never really left the player wanting for mats -- just QUALITY mats. I've sort of gotten into the crafting route in LotRO, but harvesting mats and selling them raw at auction has made me more money then grinding the crafting actions to make items to sell. Often times when I don't have enough time to undertake quests, I'll just harvest mats for a half hour, process them, and sell them. It's not a waste of time; it's another game play mechanic (sorry...it's not combat).

But that comes full circle, and shows that there are loads of people who would sooner buy mats (from any source) then to collect them themselves. But that would seriously hurt the economy, where a good portion of players sell the raw mats for profit (especially at lower levels).

Thanks for the link:) In response to Scopique, the butler in question would not sell raw materials:) Only the materials that players already purchase from a NPC vendor:)