Mhmm… Alright finally have the time to go at this @ben i know i promised to play nice, but i’m gonna need some slack for this post, I have tagged your name where i answer you question directly but i would recommend reading the whole thing if you have the time.
Okay, a warning again, i argue and define you from what you write and your ideas, it is nothing personal.
let me get the worst out of the way. Olihax, while your opinion is valid, your arguments managed to severely ■■■■ me off, it is just horrible to try and argue from something you have no clue about, if you had said ‘‘in my opinion’’ for most things then i could live with it, but you always said it as definitive
Let me put some things out there before i start for real, Sandbox is NOT the same as minecraft, i can see from what you write that you are a minecraft player first and foremost, which is where your view on games comes from, im on the opposite, im an mmorpg player mainly, which is where my views are, i will try to stay relatively unbiased through the rant, but it is going to be felt.
Back to Sandbox, another thing that greatly bothers me in everything you write, you see sandbox as the opposite of rpg which is not the case, at all. sandbox is the opposite of themepark both are genres used in games, whether they are singleplayer or mmo, let me draw it up for you
Themepark: Following a set storypath, Predetermined quests, it is used as a word because rollercoaster is a very good comparison to the game style, meaning you start on place and you follow a set paths with specifically imput things that happens, these are games such as wow where you make a character and you are seen as the chosen one (ignoring the fact that there are a million the chosen one
Sandbox: Having the freedom to choose your own path within a specific ruleset, you make your character the way you want to make, you define who you are. Are you a travelling trader always looking to make a profit? a dashing adventurer who never says no to a chance of getting loot? a thief hiding in the shadows waiting for travllers to pass by? an assassin who makes your money from taking death contracts on other players? or a bountyhunter that kills assassins maybe? all of these things are possible, You choose the path you take. HOWEVER this does NOT mean that there are no progression which you use sandbox as an argument for, sandbox games usually mean that everybody starts the same way and they can then define an adventure for themselves, they arent forced to pick classes as in other games, they can make their own class, making a battlemage by running heavyarmor and spells, or a spell blade by using leather, teleportation spells and daggers, maybe a protecter using cloth armor and wards to shield from harm, these are the cool parts of sandbox games.
now that that is out of the way i have some more things before i start, i am interested in hearing peoples opinion and having a good and fair discussion, this also means that i have a few rules i would like people to follow so we can have that.
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the biggest one is that NOBODY will use try to use the arguments ‘‘but oort is more of a sandbox than an mmorpg’’ and ‘‘but oort is more of an mmorpg than a sandbox’’ as a way to dismiss another persons argument, these are things i have no respect for. as an mmorpg player i am not going to use this either, cause it pisses me off to be honest, Oli have already tried to use it once which is why i’m somewhat annoyed. Oort is an amazing idea and i even as an mmorpg player i think there needs to be a balanced in how much is focused on the building part and the rpg part, if they get that balance right then the game will do something no other game have managed to before,
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everybody have an idea of what the game is gonna be like and ofc that paints our opinion, but lets try to avoid making definitive ideas that THIS is how it will be, which means that this
is not something that should be said, its not a discussion, its not even an argument, it is just purely dismissing something for no reason what so ever.
If we do this its gonna be a good discussion, i cannot force people to do anything, i dont have the power to do so, im just saying this is something i would like to see, and if you dont then its fine, but personally i’m just not gonna take it as a proper argument if these are involved.
Then a clarification, i said earlier that what Oli have in mind is a ‘‘survival’’ crafting system, which he confuses with ‘‘Sandbox’’ crafting, which is not a thing, at all. what i mean with survival is what i can see he is painted by, which is the one used in games such as rust and minecraft, its the idea that if you have something you can make it, because they are made for games where you are kinda alone and have to use what you have around you, these games generally have no progression, which is another reason i really hate having people compare it to minecraft, not just because i like RPG’S but because in an MMO (not necessarily an MMORPG) there are certain things that needs to be considered, MMO’s are fundamentally about keeping people in the game so you can make money and keep the servers running, while Singleplayer games arent that forced to keep people playing the game so they dont have the same amount of things they need to focus on. this is one of the fundamental difference on Oort and Minecraft.
Last thing that you need to keep in mind is ‘‘player types’’ and what they expect from the game, @DarkRepulsor made a nice picture however it is too simplified, its not just Minecraft/RPG but more, its not like people are ‘‘either or’’ but imagine it like sliders, these sliders include Solo player/Party player, Hardcore gamer/Casual gamer, Builder/Fighter/Crafter, PVP player/PVE player and many many more, its not just simple ‘‘either or’’ but instead everybody have different values for the sliders, i might be a 75% hardcore, 55% Pve, 65% fighter, 72% solo player. and what supports that is what i define as my ideal game, however when everybody are different and have different opinions of an ideal game, then what do you do? think about it a bit.
Alright with that out of the ways lets get to the meat of the discussion, how crafting and crafting progression can be done in the game, these are just my personal opinions and observations i have made over the hundreds of games i have played and more i have read up on.
First i would like to answer @ben on his question ‘‘why do we need crafting professions and what do you see as crafting professions’’ i have a rather lenghty post about how it could work and professions i would like to see here:
https://forum.oortonline.com/t/suggestions-for-crafting-professions/793
but in short, the difference on having crafting professions and having everybody being able to craft everything is whether you want crafting to be a valid playstyle or a tool, i have seen it before in many many games, having crafting being something everybody can do with ease without being dedicated to it removes crafting entirely as a part of player driven economy, if i go into the game now and make a pickaxe would you buy it? no, why not? because you could make it yourself with little to no effort anyways, crafing in itself loses all value, then it can be argued that the materials themselves is where the value is at, which might be partially true, but this removes an option of the game, namely being a crafter. We know that it is a sandbox game which means you have the freedom to choose your playstyle and path, those who focus on that path are going to get better at that, however focusing on one thing means that you cannot use that focus on something else at the same time.
some people’s argument is that everybody should be equal at everything, time used should not play a role, which i sadly find to be a very bad attitude, if i start the game and focus only on weapon smithing then after a good amount of time i might be a master weaponsmith, however the time focused on that means that i might not have used as much time on getting better at fighting as my friend have who is now a master swordsman but on the other hand that means that he have used almost no time on crafting. Now my friend needs a new sword but he cant make it because he is not a crafter, what he can do though is go out and kill enemies to get the materials needed to make a good sword which he then brings to me and i make him the sword he needs, he pays some gold and gives me the rest of the materials he found which he cannot use. This happens time and time again and soon i have a shop running where people comes to buy weapons because they cannot make the weapons themselves
This is what i mean by being a crafter, i can enjoy the game and make a living from doing nothing but crafting, however now lets assume that there are no limitations on crafting, no professions, i cannot play a crafter, i have nothing to dedicate myself to, and even if i tried i would have nobody buying anything from me because they can make their items themselves, which in term forces me to fight if i want to get materials since nobody are going to sell them either. it have been stated that there is no plan for NPC’s atm, which means that the economy is going to be player driven, the biggest drive in economy is supply and demand, you can only sell what somebody else is willing to buy, the biggest part of that is usually crafting and crafting progressions, the more the better (though it shouldnt be insanly complicated SWG or The Repoulation crafting) even just splitting armor into tailor, leatherworker and armorsmith, the value is what the persons value on the item is, meaning that cloth pieces are not worth anything to an armorsmith and metal ore is not worth anything to a tailor, however they have somewhat equal value on what the other person have so they trade and are both happy.
i know this is getting quite long but hang in there
this is my argument for crafting, to create unity in the community, now while this system is ideal in my eyes it focuses on a few things, dedication of time to the game, player driven economy and trading, and then people working together to make bonds and enjoy the game together, the biggest problem with this is what i mentioned above about player types, for example the ‘‘solo’’ players who wants to be able to do everything alone, these started appearing ove time because MMO’s turned more and more casual to get more people in, most MMO’s nowaday have lost the point of being multiplayer, it is not about living in a world with others but rather about going through a huge world and do what you want alone while there are other people doing the same, this is a great article about it in case you have the time to read it.
http://mmo-play.com/mmo-blog/mmos-multiplayer-aspect-lost
The vital point of this is that no matter the case, a person who have just started should never be as good as somebody who have dedicated time to learning something, so a crafter who have used a month on dedicated crafter will always be much better than a person who just started, if you dont have that then being a crafter would again have no point in terms of player economy. some people disagree with this because they want everything given and dont want to dedicate time to something, dismissing the idea as ‘‘grindy’’
MMO’s in general uses Timesinks and Goldsinks, meaning that to keep it fresh, things takes time to level so they can have people in the game longer and feel a sense of progression, this is not just RPG’s that use that but in general MMO’s. a sort of Timesink is usually ideal in one form or the other, collecting the materials for an item and getting enough materials to level the crafting is usually the timesinks, some tries other more artificial timesinks (like @TheBirne’s idea that i will also look at later on) but the most commonly used one is the material gathering.
Now that i have stated my views on it let me go to suggestions from other people starting with @olihax who suggests tool and forge level crafting. Some games have tried this system, even a voxel mmorpg called Trove tried to use this, which i think is a good example so i will use that, basically you would start with a basic forge making basic things, then you could find materials to make a better one that makes more things and so on… This would fall into the category as i mentioned above removing the feeling of being a crafter in the game, for example if forge level is all that matters then a person who just started could walk into the main square of a city where the highest tier forge have been placed for convenience and then make the same things as a person that have been playing for months, the argument could be that ‘‘he needs the tool’’ which could just be given to him, ‘‘but he needs the high level materials’’ which somebody else could give to him. The point of having crafting on the player as he didn’t want is the fact that you cannot just be given the ability to craft good things, but rather that he have to work his way up to become a good crafter. another argument was that ‘‘no matter what you do people can always put the best gear on sale’’ which is absolutely true and supports mine, a form of progression is needed so a new player cannot just equip a tier 10 master sword of doom a system that could avoid this was as i linked above, the idea that the equipment determines your strength however you need to spend time on doing something, you need to make yourself worthy of getting the better gear, you cannot just be given it.
Now lets go to @TheBirne
Ah yes, automated timesinks, i have talked about that in great detail here
https://forum.oortonline.com/t/automated-timesinks/645
They can add some great depth to the game and encourage people to log in more often, however done in a way that you described it would not be ideal, let me explain.
as i mentioned before Timesinks are what keep most MMO’s ticking and this is one of the other types of timesinks that i mentioned, it have been implemented to certain degrees in games, the problem however by making it the main system is that it becomes virtually the same as the mobile game energy system which everybody hates, it somewhat removes the need for dedication so it is good for the more casual players, but on the other hand it removes the ability to level up as fast or slow as you want, for example i put on a recipe and all i have after 24 hours i have learned it, lets say that that it takes 1 hour to get the materials for that recipe, then the good part is that all the player needs to do to keep the max pace of crafting is play 1 hour every day, however the downside to that is that after that 1 hour have gone by a player cannot level crafting more for the next 24 hours, this means that the casuals who have little time they can have it easier, but what about the more dedicated players? those who uses 3 hours of a day on the game? maybe even 10 or 12 hours in a weekend on it, they might feel that the time is wasted because they cannot level crafting after that 1 hour, even though they have the time and will to do it, those players might be discouraged to play the game because it have such an artificial timesink. which is the main thing about this system, its artificial, some people would say that this is against the point of sandbox, and i have to agree (though i hate to) Sandbox doesnt mean no limitations, but its also a very hard balance of not having too many limitations. what you can draw from this is the specialization of crafting though which is a very nice though
Then i think somebody mentioned something about a recipe system and that is one of the things i personally also support alongside skill and profession crafting,
Recipes are a great way of adding variation to crafters and make them feel valuable, i mentioned it in another post how i would see it, lets say we have a small city where me and @Thorbjorn42gbf (pulling you into this discussion) live, we have both used time on leveling weaponsmithing and both have a shop for it, we are somewhat equal level, now the difference is that while we can both make a steelsword, i can make a steelsword with a firegem embedded in it to make it a flaming sword since i found that recipe and learned it at an earlier point, however thorbjorn was lucky enough to find the frostsword recipe at a point in time so he can add a frostgem into his sword, this leads to the fact that we are both needed because i can make something he cannot and the other way around, it would add a great way of making multiple crafters feel useful instead of having everybody on the same skilllevel being able to make everything.
However with recipes mentioned i know some people imagine ‘‘have this recipe and you can make the item’’ without any limitations, this i personally feel would end in the same problem again as earlier, give a new player the recipe for ‘‘master sword of doom’’ and he can make it, not enough with that it might also mean that a crafter who have used months on crafting might not even be able to make it because he havent found that important recipe, an argument against that could be ‘‘then dont make recipe’s tradeable’’ which is decent, but it would again remove the difference on crafter and fighter, if the recipe is tradeable then an adventurer might find it in a cave and then get a nice amount of money from a crafter who needs the given recipe.
Alright… i think this was the most of it, im not saying the system have to be a certain way, this is just how i would imagine a possible good solution to the problem, i dont know everything. Ben might say this is an absolutely horrible idea and i will just have to go back and think up something new. trial and error in ideas is what is going to make oort an amazing idea, the wishes of the players made in a way that they are possible to implement and the amaizing devs who can make it possible is what is going to make Oort a game people have to get and will thouroughly enjoy.
Lastly i again apologize for sounding arrogant and rude (which i know i do) but everything i mention and critize are ideas and arguments, i hold no personal grudges against anybody and in no way to do i want to make people think that their opinion aren’t valid, however a part of getting oort to be amazing is not clinging to ideas too much and to make them the best possible systems in the game for the least possible developement effort, I, like many others have had to give up some ideas because they are too big in scale or not worth the developement cost.
Lets keep it going and figure out how to solve the problem in unity, and amazing job to anybody who managed to get through this thing, this is it for me for me. hope it was worth the read.
(3.6k words, bloody hell…)
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I agree 100% and I really appreciate your honesty! 
(the point about people using but oorts more of sandbox, but oorts more of mmorpg)