What can we do to make crafting more fun in Star Wars The Old Republic MMO?
My question to you today,
What can we do to make crafting more fun in SWTOR?
For some people in MMO’s today crafting can sometimes be looked at as simply more than a utilitarian function, a means to help the overall leveling process. As something you do as merely a side thought when you need some type of item in-game. Some people would go so far as to call crafting “boring”, or something they do out of boredom.
To us that thoroughly enjoy these types of systems in MMO’s, we know them to be capable of so much more.
So what can we do to make crafting more fun in SWTOR?
What can we do to give other people more enjoyment in their MMO experience using the crafting mechanics?
Rewind a decade or so, into a realm called Ultima Online….a few years after release of that game me and my guilds top crafters had come to the bright idea to use the crafting and housing mechanics to our advantage and create a player driven in-game event to showcase our crafting ability as a guild.
We decided to host a weekly auction of player created or enhanced weapons, armors, items, etc…no lowbie stuff here, this was the primo, using charges from your grandmaster sewing kit kind of gear.
We talked among ourselves to determine who had the perfect house and perfect location for the auction to be located at. We settled on my plot that was a 16×16 – 3 story plot, that was right next to the Britannia moongate. We deconstructed my house that I had built already so that I could customize it to be the most efficient set up for the auction.
our AH!
The first time we got ready to do the auction we sent runners to all the cities with a 10 minute time limit to get to the bank area or where ever people were gathered and start announcing the auctions and the time/place over the in-game chat to groups of people in their areas. They each then timed out 30 minutes that they made this announcement. After this time they were to come back to assist with the auction or to just mill around the area to make the place look happening and lively.
After about 30 minutes the auction would start giving people time to bank and store gear and bring their gold, and travel to the auction site. The appointed auctioneer would take his place on the podium and welcome the guests and begin the auction.
As the items were being auctioned the owner of the home plot that had all the permission settings for the home would take the items out of his bag or nearby chest and lock them down on the counter next to the auctioneer so that the attendees could mouse over the items and see what they were and their stats to help them decide if they wanted to bid on the item or not.
In true auction form via the in-game speech bubbles the auctions were done one by one until all 15 items we had chosen to auction were sold. The buyers could then go to the house owner after the auction and via the in-game trade window make the swap, gold for item.
The player doing the buying got the fun of attending an in-game event, they got a very nice item for what ever deal they might have gotten, in the end crafting helped that person to have a fun time using the mechanics available.
Me as a crafter I got the pleasure of interacting with others, showing off my skill as a tailor, meeting people who later came to be guildmates, feeling like I was needed for my skills, and also I got to make quite a bit of coin in a way that was way more fun than standing at a town bank area and spamming….
“LRC chest piece, 25% LRC bonus—-> 25k gold”
My suggestion is to use your skill as a crafter and the available in-game mechanics to come up with ways that you can turn crafting into an event for other people, creating more fun for you and others in SWTOR.
Some other ideas of things that could be turned into a crafting event for guildmates or people in the game space:
“free repairs night” where crafters of a guild would gather and offer free repairs for others of their items if the in-game mechanics caused item degradation, and if the crafter had the ability via the crafting skill to make repairs on items.
“group harvesting night” if there is a resource in-game that is hard to come by and is desperately needed by the guild crafters then gather your guildmates and make an outing of a group gather for that particular resource.
“guildmate lotto” if the armor in the game can be made in “sets” pick a guildmate via lotto of some sort to be geared up. Have crafters of respective crafting skills, make that certain guildmate the best gear they can make all at once in a group effort to provide that guildmate with a “set” or the best the guild crafters can provide for armor and weapons or other items.
I am sure that with some thought you could come up with many more ideas, these are just some of the options we have when trying to make crafting in SWTOR more fun!
Thanks for reading!
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