[MUD-Dev] trade skill idea

[Yves K]

I do not think the large amount of repetitive tasks involved in some 
current MMORPG's crafts do really add to the game quality and 
enjoyment, on the contrary, this leads to the Ebay phenomenon 
and macroing or the infamous carpal tunnel syndrome. The 
economic and social aspects of crafts, on the other hand, do add a 
dimension to the game that tends to make it more a virtual world.

That is why I would rather think about completely abstracting the 
involved tedious tasks the same way it is done in tabletop RPG or 
even in movies, where the focus is set on the action and not on all 
the preliminary work. I would suggest two ways of achieving this, 
the economical and the social.

With the economical way, the character is simply assumed to do 
the tedious work outside of the focus, that is when the player is not 
playing it. The quantity and/or success of his material production 
could therefore depend on his skill level, the time (real time) 
elapsed, the target quality of the product (better is harder, longer), 
the availability and/or cost of the raw materials.

The social way would involve even more abstraction. Based on the 
ratio of skilled non-skilled crafters inside a social organization, a 
guild, a clan or even a party, and even on the skill levels of these, 
co-members would automagically benefit from the corresponding 
craft. Say, you have some ratio of weaponsmiths in your guild, 
therefore your weapons benefit from this damage bonus, and, if one 
is in your adventuring party, this advantage is even more acute. All 
the skills providing a commodity which can be expressed as 
quality, in game terms, bonuses, can use this principle. Of course, 
this indeed expects the system to not be completely overwhelmed 
by the "mule" symptom, say, a one-character-per-account 
hypothesis.

The former economical way present the advantage of encouraging 
player interaction by trading and of creating a virtual economy 
though balancing it with a proper economical sink can be tricky. 
The second, social way, encourage the organization of social 
entities within the game world a bit similarly to the character class 
complementarity concept but without its mandatory aspect. 
Probably, a combination of both ways would make the craft skilled 
character a rich enough alternative to the omnipresent adventurer 
archetype.

Now, who wants to play a pure crafter character as his primary and 
only character? I would guess that, without the possibility of 
multiplaying, a very large portion of player would rather chose an 
action empowered role, that is generally an adventurer who faces 
epic risks and rewards. Very few players would indeed chose never 
to adventure in some dangerous places, and even most would not 
even sacrifice a little bit of their combative skill quota for a more 
individualized, social character, of course, most fighters wish to be 
the best.
Such a situation would marginalise the crafts to the point that the 
question of implying them arise despise their obvious social 
benefits.

To tackle this problem, I would suggest using a hierarchised skill 
system, that is, for each character, a somehow fixed number of 
each primary skills and secondary skills, the laters could never 
equal the formers in efficiency. Players who want to be the best in 
one area, would not want to have pertaining skills in the secondary 
set and would therefore chose an alternate area, this opening the 
way for a personalisation of each and every character, including the 
use of craft skills. Of course, most fighters would be tempted to 
chose, say, weaponsmith as a secondary skill, but if this benefits 
the whole social body (guild or party), as suggested earlier, then 
the advantages of diversity could also start to be taken into 
account.






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