Harvesting in an MMORPG is just the boring gruntwork you have to trudge through before you can get to the glory of crafting — or it is? That’s just one of the challenges inbound PvP MMO Crowfall is faced with when it comes to its crafting system. In a new dev video out today, ArtCraft Design Lead Thomas Blair and Design Consultant Raph Koster discuss harvesting and resources and just how they all fit into the game, giving us an a “fly on the wall” perspective of the design process.
For example, Koster questions the harvesting system’s plan for dealing with a surplus of low level resources once the game is mature, since the game incentivizes higher-end materials. “I’m hoping that we don’t have that problem,” Blair says, “because everything is used for the alloy system.” The pair also namedrop Star Wars Galaxies when trying to sort out vertical dependencies and stop crafters from becoming their own sub-component suppliers without being “punitive.”
Crafter and economy players, it’s worth a watch just to see them talk through the problems — they’re problems every MMO must deal with, after all.
