[...] not a result of player crying. They were a result of developer opinion. Most notably this guy. http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/02/06…ng-as-you-are/ I think you attribute to many changes to player concerns when in reality it’s uusally what the [...]

[...] on the other hand, I think takes them a bit too simply. I get the impression he thinks of them as misguided children that might be shaped into useful [...]

[...] http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/02/06/ganking-meaning-and-p... 02/08/07 10:32 AM Kevin T. says: [...]

[...] Ganking, meaning, and playing as you are [...]

[...] bringing back world pvp http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/02/06/ganking-meaning-and-playing-as-you-are/ Level 70 Warrior – Kor’gall http://ctprofiles.net/606775 http://surl.se/vyu Warriors are fine, it’s [...]

How do you think the credits that paid for those goods entered the market in the first place? They sure as hell didn’t come from crafters or harvestors, they came from combatants doing missions. Without the credits from the combatants doing missions there would have been no economy and hence no purpose for houses and things like that. The economy was centered around people who killed things. That is just how MMOs are designed.

Continuing to call on previous examples of MMOs as claim that this is how it should always be is short-sighted. Crafters could run crafting missions, entertainers could run entertiner missions, there were explorer missions for anyone brave (foolish?) enough to do them. Their payouts were weak, that doesn’t mean the concept failed. If you want to bring risk/reward into the argument….sorry, having even a single combat profession (hell, even two branches filled out of 4) could net you a million credits in a session easily. Meanwhile the dancer could scramble through missions for the same 3 hours and come up with a few thousand, or buff at the tavern for a little more (or maybe even less….combat toons making millions couldn’t be bothered to part with 5k for the buff that allowed them to make all that money). Why is gameplay style A the one that is rewarded while gameplay style B is disregarded as ‘subservient to players of gamesyle A’?

The focus of my disagreement here is ‘That is just how MMOs are designed’…which doesn’t preclude that they could be designed BETTER.

SWG was as combat oriented as any other MMO; it has a more complex crafting and harvesting system than other MMOs, but in the end the crafter existed on the whim of the combatant because the crafter had no way to earn money simply by being a crafter, they had to sell goods to combatants because combatants had the only way of making money without relying on another player. The only crafting markets that was able to continually sell their goods at a steady rate were the crafting professions that directly support combat (chef, armorsmith and weaponsmith), architects, tailors, and droid engineers were largely useless since once you had the goods you bought from them you didnt need to buy them anymore. Regardless, the economy was very combat oriented.

‘The crafter existed on the whim of the combatant’?

Again, I think the crafters might disagree with you. They are there to craft. The market they choose to make their wares available to is more of a social context than a purpose. As a member of , the now-long-gone elite entertainer troupe of StarSider, we had a number of crafters who found joy (not as alts, mind you) in creating outfits for our performances, decorating civic structures, guild structures, and were available to residents as well.

The crafters tend to make goods for combatants because the combatants have the money. Create interesting ways for non-combatants to gain money (aside from selling things to combatants), and you’d find there would be more interest in creating non-combatant-centric goods.

Your complaint that you cannot defeat a player in combat as a crafter makes little sense, what circumstance would you be fighting a player as a crafter? Certainly not while crafting, in every mmo I know of on the market crafters cannot be killed while crafting, so your point is moot.

Well since the context of this conversation is ganking (defined as a hopelessly one-sided affair) I’d think that the circumstances are obvious, do you really need me to list them all for you to understand? Could we then quible over which ones are valid or not based on which ones most serve our differing points of view? Would this accomplish anything or is it off the point entirely?

The point is not about who wins the combat, the point is about how much influence playstyle A has over playstyle B, while playstyle B has no such influence over playstyle A.

Every MMO you’ve seen on the market places the crafter in a state of invincibility/unattackability when they craft?

declaring my point moot based on your anectodal observations is probably the reason my responses come off a bit squared, please try and respect others positions and not outright dismiss them. Especially when taking the position ‘playstyle B is here to serve me’.

If you wish there to be no ganking, create an area with little consequence and little reward in which anyone may avoid combat. Make it seemingly large enough to overwhelm the casual player, and everyone who complains about ganks will be satisfied. A good way to make this space important in a non-impact level is to make most of the in-game fiction center around it.

Creating a ‘quarantine zone for the carebears’ is not the answer. Where is it written that if I want to have meaningful impact on the game world (community) I play in, I have to go outside this zone and open myself to griefers, gankers, and others who wish to engage in the very little effort/great reward system you’re trying to avoid.

Where is it written that just becuase I don’t PvP (I do, playing devil’s advocate) that I want little consequence? Who ever said that PvP gameplay is deserving of greater rewards? You are basically describing segregation….of the ‘seperate and NOT equal’ kind. I enjoy both modes of play equally. I do not, however, enjoy someone coming along when I’m in PvE and one-shotting me. I’ve taken risk and faced the consquences to get what I wanted from my playtime; they took no risks, face no consequences for their actions, and got what they wanted.

Power disparities are not the problem, wide power disparity in a (too) open setting with no consequences for (ab)using that power are the problem.

I used to love FPS games because they were far more balanced. Yes, in Quake II getting your hands on the rail gun could make you a fragging machine, but you could still die just as easily, and the rail gun wasn’t any more difficult for you to get to than anyone else. In CS, the AWM/P was about the same in terms of power, anyone could run a few rounds with a pistol and get the money for it without much effort. In MMOs, likely more to create a massive 3-month time sink more than anything else, we grind….and grind….and grind, and the masses have bought the line that this justifies disparate levels of power. I stopped playing FPS games when cheaters became unavoidable. I may have to stop playing MMOs if the industry continues its trend towards creating ‘giant virtual pecking orders’.

If you wish there to be no ganking, create an area with little consequence and little reward in which anyone may avoid combat. Make it seemingly large enough to overwhelm the casual player, and everyone who complains about ganks will be satisfied. A good way to make this space important in a non-impact level is to make most of the in-game fiction center around it.

Then, make the entire rest of the game a free-for-all where anything you build and work for may be gone, given time and inattention. All combat in this area is “honorable” since there is no a priori assumption on the part of either side that they are there for anything but combat, or making money in spite of combat. It is additionally beneficial to the game to provide great rewards in this area, to tempt people who do not play the combat game to enter it and gain rewards. They may choose never to give in to the temptation, but it absolutely must be there. Also, make products of the safe space similarly valuable to those in the dangerous badlands, so that cross-trade becomes important.

I’m sorry, I have to disagree with this sentiment. The main purpose of crafters is to craft goods. These goods can be weapons or armor for combatants, yes. Other markets could be clothing, housing, decorations, endless kinds of consumables, and more. Architects in SWG, for example, probably didn’t consider themselves there to ’serve people who are combatants’

How do you think the credits that paid for those goods entered the market in the first place? They sure as hell didn’t come from crafters or harvestors, they came from combatants doing missions. Without the credits from the combatants doing missions there would have been no economy and hence no purpose for houses and things like that. The economy was centered around people who killed things. That is just how MMOs are designed.

SWG was as combat oriented as any other MMO; it has a more complex crafting and harvesting system than other MMOs, but in the end the crafter existed on the whim of the combatant because the crafter had no way to earn money simply by being a crafter, they had to sell goods to combatants because combatants had the only way of making money without relying on another player. The only crafting markets that was able to continually sell their goods at a steady rate were the crafting professions that directly support combat (chef, armorsmith and weaponsmith), architects, tailors, and droid engineers were largely useless since once you had the goods you bought from them you didnt need to buy them anymore. Regardless, the economy was very combat oriented.

Your complaint that you cannot defeat a player in combat as a crafter makes little sense, what circumstance would you be fighting a player as a crafter? Certainly not while crafting, in every mmo I know of on the market
crafters cannot be killed while crafting, so your point is moot.

I cannot think of a single successful MMORPG where combat was not the primary means of advancement or at least a major factor in the ability for a player to advance.

I played one for over 2 years, it was called Star Wars Galaxies. The subscription numbers it reached were definately enough to be considered ‘successful’ before WoW changed everyone’s definition of it.

the main purpose of crafters is to serve people who are combatants

I’m sorry, I have to disagree with this sentiment. The main purpose of crafters is to craft goods. These goods can be weapons or armor for combatants, yes. Other markets could be clothing, housing, decorations, endless kinds of consumables, and more. Architects in SWG, for example, probably didn’t consider themselves there to ‘serve people who are combatants’.

I’ve been a part of far too many combatant vs. non-combatant arguments and heard a lot of these statements made before, they don’t hold water. The core of the issue has been presented in several forms here, basically along the theme ‘the crafter cannot exert the same influence over the combatant that the combatant can over the crafter’. The warrior can camp me all day, and my recourse options involve other people dropping what they are doing to help, logging off, or making fruitless effort after effort to get away (oddly, I’ve found many would-be gankers have aborted their harrassment when I stop and do nothing). In any case, these take away time I could be spending making some progress. My blacklisting said warrior from my shop doesn’t put much dent in his gameplay at all. As far as risk/reward, crafters face higher risks (assuming that crafting focus takes away from combat-ability) by way of less combat competence, they forfeit the time to track down resources and then risk having it all taken away by a PKer who happened upon them (or this takes place at some kind of ‘known’ spawning ground for resources) and put arguably much less effort into getting what he wanted. This paradigm doesn’t apply to the way WoW is set up, as crafting has very little impact on combat ability (engineering has PvP oriented tricks, herb/alch can make potions, but these make little difference when a wide disparity in power is the case).