Crafting whats good.

Today I was reading posts and trying to decide what is good for a crafting system. Many hard core crafters rely on the same type of games to determine what is good and what isn't. So here are my favorite guidelines on how to design a crafting system.

1. Customizable - What is the point of a crafting system that gives you the same stuff no matter how many times its crafted. Give the crafters the ability to change the look of the visible things that other players see. Before completing the craft pop up a new dialog that allows players to at least choose which model to use. Color is another good thing but may be reserved for dyes.
2. Uniqueness - Give the players some play when it comes to item creation. Let them decide the stats of an item to some degree. Give crafted items a base and give the players some points that they can invest to make the base item just a little better. Sure you can make it random when they craft but at least let them make it unique.
3. Modifications - Along the same lines as uniqueness allow the players to craft something truly spectacular. Give them even a 5% chance to craft a rare item. Heck give them a .01% chance to create a super rare. Or you could have rare drops. Raids are the perfect place to add a rare drop that players can take to a crafter and have them create a rare item by placing the rare into a mod slot. Different rares could do different things. Make it interesting for players.
4. Recipies - Give the crafters some quests for recipes. Make some recipes rare drops off of raid mobs. Make books of recipes. Make some recipes experiment only. Some people don't enjoy this as much as others but it gives some uniqueness and some social ability for crafters.
5. Materials - Make the materials interesting. A few games such as SWG and the upcoming Beyond Protocol give stats to each material. Want to make lightweight armor? Let them use aluminum to give it light weight. Want to make it as strong as possible, suffer with steel for weight but it gives the best protection. Let the materials help define how good an item is.
6. Harvesting - This is my personal favorite. I enjoyed how Saga of Ryzom allowed players to look for materials without making static visible spawns. If you combine it with SWGs ever changing resources you could make one heck of a game just for harvesting classes. I have more thoughts on this that will have to wait for another blog post.
7. Leveling - Seriously, who thought it would be fun to force players to level their character to advance their crafting? Was it really so hard to make it separate that you have to tie it into the combat levels? Really? It wasn't hard for Ryzom. It wasn't hard for EQ2. It wasn't hard for AC2. Heck, you could be a pure crafter in SWG and never touch combat. The point I'm trying to make is that I don't want to be forced to level a stupid class just so i can make stuff. Is it that way in real life? Do I have to join the military and learn to shoot a rifle at 200 yrds just so that i can go into the hills and chop down a tree? Do i have to learn how to become good at swinging a sword just so i can hammer metal into shapes? If a blacksmith in the middle ages didn't know how to make a armor he just wasn't hired to make armor, he could go learn from another blacksmith, but he didn't have to join the local militia to learn it.
   

These are just a few points that true crafters are looking for when it comes to an online game. Seriously, throw us a crumb or two and we will follow the trail to where it leads. Make it fun for people other than those that just want to kill things. Give us room and watch us lead the economy to new levels.