Despite the common perception that MMORPGs are only about smashing, slicing, and blasting foes to oblivion, these games typically offer a whole lot in the “creation” department as well. Players who enjoy pulling themselves up by their bootstraps (do kids even have bootstraps these days? Does anyone?) avail themselves of the deep gathering and crafting professions that come standard in almost every MMO that exists.
And just as MMOs draw upon tropish archetypes for their class design, so too they carbon copy gathering and crafting professions from one title to the next. Oh, they might put a slightly clever naming variation on it, but Culinarian is a Cook is a Provisioner. Let’s not get too elitist about it.
For today’s list, let’s look at the 10 most common crafting and gathering profs that our online games offer — what they do, how they appeal to our personalities, and whether they’re in need of a refresh in 2024.
Mining
Mining is such a staple of the genre that you can’t go five steps without seeing someone with a haunted expression and a pickaxe hacking away at a giant boulder sitting inconspicuously in the middle of the landscape. You know, like big ore-filled rocks often do.
MMOs always make mining look so easy, but I beg to differ. Our family went to an open mine once to smash rocks with hammers in the hopes of finding gems, and all we got was heatstroke and a trip to urgent care for my wife’s busted finger. But in games, rocks are a treasure trove of always-needed mats, so mining ends up being the “safety school” of any profession pick.
Lumberjack (and plantjack)
If smacking rocks ain’t your thing, then you can go ham on nature itself with lumberjack, harvesting, or any other profession that wants you to murder plants of all sizes for their bounty. Again, games just skim right over how hellishly tough it is to actually chop down a tree and cut wood into planks. Heck, sometimes you can merely punch a tree and get results.
Foresting always seems like a lesser brother of mining. Wood is nice and all, and herbs are always needed, but it’s not a Rough and Tough profession. It’s something you do when you get rejected from that safety school and have your parents pressuring you to get a job or move out of their house.
Tailoring
Going into our first crafting profession, tailoring is a classy choice. Sure, you’re not making big and beefy hunks of armor to hang off people, but making well-fitting clothes is a true skill. Then again, it does seem like a lot of tailors make robes and call it a day, which is probably what I would do in real life because I don’t want to learn how to do hems.
I do really like it when an MMO allows tailors to make things other than cloth gear. Bags, tents, cosmetic outfits — there are so many possibilities for this profession.
Armorer
I’m kind of lumping a few variant professions with this one, but basically, it’s whatever profession makes non-cloth armor and weapons for characters. Not that you’d find cloth weapons but let’s not pick on my sentence structure back there.
To be honest, these professions always seem like a fool’s errand to me. The idea that you can make your own gear is powerful, but the reality is that the devs are never going to let you craft anything better than can be looted from dungeons and raids. So it’s a lot of work for Second Place.
Jeweler
Someone’s got to do something with all of those sparkly shinies that the miners get, and those people are the jewelers. Unlike in real life, where tiny rocks serve to drain bank accounts in exchange for bragging rights, somehow MMO jewelers are able to imbue their creations with magical stat-boosting properties.
This opens up so many possibilities. A weight loss ring? A necklace that let you talk to dogs? A bracelet that allowed its user to jump 10 stories tall? An earring with Bluetooth? Forget +2 to agility — jewelers need to branch out to truly desired products!
Skinning
Every time I take up this profession, I have to try hard, oh so hard, not to let my overactive imagination contemplate just how gross this would be. It’s not like leather or fur coats on animals have zippers, after all.
But this is a great profession for slackers who would rather materials come rushing toward them than the other way around. Sure, for the animal, it’s like adding insult to mortal injury, but for you, it’s like bonus loot!
Fishing
As if playing video games wasn’t enough of a relaxing experience, tucked inside of pretty much everyone one of them is the opportunity to grab a rod and reel and go suffocate some aquatic animals. This certainly can be a good hobby for downtime or a reason to stand and soak in the environment.
As LOTRO says in a tooltip, fishing is the only way a Hobbit can be lazy and still earn his or her dinner. Plus, you never know what surprising — and lucrative — things you might fish up from the deeps.
Alchemy
For those of us who failed chemistry class, it might not be the best idea to be the person in charge of crushing herbs, mashing up pastes, and then mixing alchemical substances into “potions.” There’s absolutely no quality control on any of this, yet these flasks seem to work perfectly with no side effects 100% of the time.
One big plus of any alchemy crafting profession is that it’s an always in-demand service, seeing as how the products are consumed on a regular basis.
Cooking
The single biggest downside of MMO cooking — and I know you’ll agree with what I’m about to say here — is that you can’t actually physically eat what your video game character produces. And all that food looks so dang tasty, doesn’t it? Far better than the mac-n-cheese and hot dogs that I’m able to produce at my own stove.
Cooking tends to be an underappreciated profession mostly because people see food buffs as optional and not always needed. Yet a good full meal can provide a substantial boost in an MMO, and being able to make your own food is a far cheaper option for that.
Enchanting
Since we’re already hand-waving away how gear might be imbued with performance-enhancing stats, we can’t argue against an ability to cram even more stats into a thing. This profession does have a nice mystical vibe to it and seems to appeal greatly to squishies who need as much of an edge in survival as possible.
Everyone likes a good list, and we are no different! Perfect Ten takes an MMO topic and divvies it up into 10 delicious, entertaining, and often informative segments for your snacking pleasure. Got a good idea for a list? Email us at justin@massivelyop.com or eliot@massivelyop.com with the subject line “Perfect Ten.”
