Posted on January 10, 2013, James Murff Why MMO Crafting Sucks & 5 Ways To Fix It

READERS: Is MMO crafting fun, or does it suck? Head over to Facebook and vote in our poll.

Do you hate crafting in MMOs? Because I do. Don’t get me wrong. I love crafting’s allure of making your own gear. It just lets me down all the time.

Crafting has been an essential part of the MMO experience since the very first days of the genre. From the trade skills of Everquest to the Mystic Forge of Guild Wars 2, players have (almost) always been able to create weapons, armor, and items to benefit their characters. Unfortunately, crafting is still stuck in the stone age in terms of design. Create some bronze bars to level up your skill, then create X bronze leggings to level it some more. That doesn’t seem to capture the allure of exploring an open, persistent world, does it? I’m sure that there’s some way to design crafting to better encourage players to find, rather than grind.

What follows is my personal take on what is wrong with crafting systems, and how it can be a little less wrong. I’m only one player, though, and every person approaches games in a different way. Share your feedback! Let me know just what kind of system you’d like to see as well. And with that, we move onward.