38 Studios auction

Crafting only really works if it adds to the game. I can't think of a game that has implemented it in this way, but I think this would enhance a game:

1) Make magic weapons/armor impossible or near impossible to find in the world or in stores. Maybe magically enhancement has been banned or something. Could do the same with potions and such. What's the point of making a custom item in a SP game if you can just go buy the same thing or better?
2) If you want magic enhanced equipment (and you really do need it to finish the game), you have to find the ingredients, acquire the skills, etc. It basically becomes part of the leveling system.
3) Make defeating certain boss style enemies dependent on finding out their weakness and crafting a weapon or armor that is tailored to that. The weakness probably would need to be some type of plot point though I think.
4) Make certain crafted items help you to eliminate grind or mobs of low level enemies. So for instance say you want to explore a crypt, but if you go there without some type of undead turning device, there are just mobs and mobs of skeletons. You might be able to work your way through it (and maybe you do a bit for the experience points at first), but to really get through it, you need to craft into a weapon or armor a level of undead turning. Get that, and the skeletons just don't even spawn or only a few and you move deeper into the crypt against bigger enemies.

But crafting for the sake of crafting (here's looking at NWN2) is boring.

Seal of Evil's best feature was crafting. It was amazing what some combinations did.

Anything interesting at this auction?

Originally Posted by dteowner
I think he's talking about crafting as a "career" rather than just crafting being in the game. That said, most games that do include crafting don't really make it all that useful—by the time you collect the skills and components to craft something, you've already found far better.

Ah but that is why I like crafting in NWN 2. It was the opposite case there. Some very powerful items were ONLY available through crafting.

EDIT: Same thing for Temple of Elemental Evil. Good stuff.

Originally Posted by Fluent
I played Reckoning for somewhere around 180 hours, and left a ton of content unfinished, so I would say it was definitely worth the full asking price for me. On top of the sheer amount of content, the game on the whole just oozes high production value. I would say the graphics alone were some of the best I've ever seen on the Xbox 360. Some of the locations in that game were jaw-dropping.

I must have played a completely different game.

Reckoning failed because player turned wannabe professional + big bux =/= Great Game. Even the pros that have been making successful games for years have titles tank. Putting all your eggs in one basket is rarely a good idea. Of course, in their case, they were putting a lot of other people's eggs in one basket.

KoA sold around a million copies, that's pretty decent for an RPG title from a studio that had made nothing on note before, the problem wasn't with the game, it was with the people purring way to much money into it.

Originally Posted by Firestorm
KoA sold around a million copies, that's pretty decent for an RPG title from a studio that had made nothing on note before, the problem wasn't with the game, it was with the people purring way to much money into it.

It wasn't really a problem with the single player game, although the sales were a bit lower than Curt Schilling's predictions, it was still relatively successful.

The company went bankrupt because of the Copernicus MMO, not because of Reckoning.

Originally Posted by CountChocula
The company went bankrupt because of the Copernicus MMO, not because of Reckoning.

this

And the MMOG didn't have to happen according to the devs of the SP game. The MMOG and the company was dependent on a huge government contract so the company got caught up in the crossfire of Rhode Island politics.

Originally Posted by Fluent
I thought Reckoning did a great job with crafting. If you chose to go that route you could get some powerful equipment, and lots of the time you could make something better than the gear you were finding. It was balanced pretty well I thought.

Balanced? About halfway through the main plot crafting rendered all subsequent loot drops pointless. I hadn't realized it at the time but after about 12 additional hours of not finding a single piece of loot that was good for anything - few even being potentially useful as scrap for components - I checked the wiki and found out that I had already crafted what was very close to the best possible set of equipment I could and better than anything I would find afterwards.

In comparison with unique high-end loot items it was not very balanced. Those unique items should have probably been made a bit better - particularly the ones likely to have been aquired at higher levels. It would not have been nescessary for them to have been vastly superior to crafted equipment by any-stretch, but it was problematic that for some classes they would be rendered irellevent by crafting and could be rendered so fairly early given parts that could be obtained from certain shops.

Eh, it worked for me because I didn't always need the absolute best gear, I'd use the gear that had the best stats for my build. I was using a set of very low level gear for my Finesse build for a very long time simply because it granted me great stats, stats that I could not replicate with created gear. There was better protection offered by crafted gear, but I would lose those great stats so I kept the low level stuff.

Often the best move in Reckoning was to salvage the gear you found and craft better. But my character was outfitted with a good bit of both worlds, found loot and crafted loot. So it worked well for me. I honestly can't remember the details of the game well enough to argue anymore, it's been awhile since I played. But at the time I was thinking they did a very good job with it.

A bunch of people on the internet complained though, and said crafting was overpowered. I'll have to play the game again in the future to give more of an assessment on that. But I do know that combining Sagecrafting with Blacksmithing yieled some very good results. At least no one could argue that the crafting was underwhelming in any way, it was pretty much powerful if you sank points into it.

Originally Posted by Fluent
Eh, it worked for me because I didn't always need the absolute best gear, I'd use the gear that had the best stats for my build. I was using a set of very low level gear for my Finesse build for a very long time simply because it granted me great stats, stats that I could not replicate with created gear. There was better protection offered by crafted gear, but I would lose those great stats so I kept the low level stuff.

Often the best move in Reckoning was to salvage the gear you found and craft better. But my character was outfitted with a good bit of both worlds, found loot and crafted loot. So it worked well for me. I honestly can't remember the details of the game well enough to argue anymore, it's been awhile since I played. But at the time I was thinking they did a very good job with it.

A bunch of people on the internet complained though, and said crafting was overpowered. I'll have to play the game again in the future to give more of an assessment on that. But I do know that combining Sagecrafting with Blacksmithing yieled some very good results. At least no one could argue that the crafting was underwhelming in any way, it was pretty much powerful if you sank points into it.

It may have been more clearly problematic for staff-using mage characters like mine. I did like salvaging and the dimension that added but unfortunately they also made the best base components for weapons availible in stores in the largest city. The early access to those, without knowing they were top tier at the time, effectively meant I created the last staff and armor I'd ever want half way through the game. With other builds though I can imagine it might not have been so clear cut.

For me however that provided a character that, halfway through the game's content, was able to area-attack one-shot almost all mobs with a single spell regardless of difficulty setting.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
Ah but that is why I like crafting in NWN 2. It was the opposite case there. Some very powerful items were ONLY available through crafting.

Like what? I never crafted a single item in NWN2 OC or through 1/2 of MotB (didn't finish it). Seemed like the crafting was pointless with the really powerful stuff I was able to buy.

Belts of dexterity, rings of intelligence, holy weapons, and that's just off the top of my head. Just because you didn't craft them doesn't mean they didn't exist.

Originally Posted by jhwisner
It may have been more clearly problematic for staff-using mage characters like mine. I did like salvaging and the dimension that added but unfortunately they also made the best base components for weapons availible in stores in the largest city. The early access to those, without knowing they were top tier at the time, effectively meant I created the last staff and armor I'd ever want half way through the game. With other builds though I can imagine it might not have been so clear cut.

For me however that provided a character that, halfway through the game's content, was able to area-attack one-shot almost all mobs with a single spell regardless of difficulty setting.

Well if that happened to you, then yeah, I would say that is a problem. I don't remember being able to buy the best core components early in the game, but I guess I wasn't specifically looking for components in shops. I don't really remember. But I don't think it should be that easy to craft the most powerful gear. Thankfully it didn't really affect my game too much. In my game I never noticed it being overpowered.

Originally Posted by Fluent
Well if that happened to you, then yeah, I would say that is a problem. I don't remember being able to buy the best core components early in the game, but I guess I wasn't specifically looking for components in shops. I don't really remember. But I don't think it should be that easy to craft the most powerful gear. Thankfully it didn't really affect my game too much. In my game I never noticed it being overpowered.

They weren't sold in component form but as armor and weapons to be broken down. The weapons and armor themselves seemed underwhelming but they yielded top tier base components.

I enjoyed Reckoning for several hours too, though I didn't finish. It seemed like the most interesting stuff happened early and the late game was just a slog. I got bored.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
I enjoyed Reckoning for several hours too, though I didn't finish. It seemed like the most interesting stuff happened early and the late game was just a slog. I got bored.

Yes I concur the game was fun in the beginning then quickly grew flat and boring. I'm glad some really enjoyed it though. Especially Fluent since it first came out.

I found it fun for the first ten minutes of the demo, after that it fell flat for me.

I thought Reckoning was one of the best RPGs I've ever played, but I feel that way about a lot of games really. The core game was great but the DLC was just mind-blowing. Legend of Dead Kel was some of the coolest content I've ever played in an RPG. Reckoning is another game like Fallout: New Vegas and Oblivion that I am going to have to replay some time. I'll probably visit it sometime next year and it will be like playing the game for the first time all over again.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
Belts of dexterity, rings of intelligence, holy weapons, and that's just off the top of my head. Just because you didn't craft them doesn't mean they didn't exist.

Didn't mean that they didn't exist, just that they didn't seem to add anything to the game. You can get super powerful stuff from tons of merchants as well as finding it in loot.

No, that's my point. You don't get enough of these from merchants or loot. You have to make them to have enough to go around.