Questions by: Garrett Fuller

Answers by: Mark Jacobs, General Manager EA Mythic

We wrap up our week of crafting coverage with the third and final part of our interview with EA Mythic's General Manager Mark Jacobs. Covering more specific aspects of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckonings crafting system, he discusses how created items will work in Realm vs Realm, the level of experimentation in required, and his feelings on the use of crafting alts by players.

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Garrett Fuller: Mark, are the Talismans going to be designed for specific classes like casters and tanks? Will they affect spells or is their primary impact going to be on player stats like Strength, Toughness, or Intelligence?

Mark Jacobs: If you say that "Yes it is going to be for tanks," then the hybrids get upset. If you say it is going to be just for healers, then people say, "but I thought there were no straight healing classes." I think it is safe to say we are trying to cover all the bases with Talisman Making. It is going to be useful but it is not suppose to be game breaking.

Garrett Fuller: What about the impact that crafting items will have on RvR vs. say PvE scenarios? Can you talk about how they will differ?

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Fizzy Lifting Drink!

Mark Jacobs: One of the things that I wanted to do especially with potions is that if you knew you were going into battle and you only had a few minutes maybe you could make a special potion. It would be more powerful than the potions you would use in PvE, because you want the PvE potions to last longer. That is just one idea. We have to be careful with that because the more powerful we might make them the more balancing you have to do. The idea is that you, as the crafter, can make stuff that is not just for the auction house. You can make a potion that would be more specific to RvR than something that would be used in PvE. One of the nice things about PvE is that you can afford to be more generous with the player. If something accidentally kills a monster 5% faster than they would have killed it anyway, it does not change the outcome of the day. You make that mistake with an RvR potion and you are going to make some people very, very unhappy. I have always liked the idea of separating stuff out. It was one of the original ideas with Imperator, and now over here with WAR unfortunately, it is just enormously complex to have two separate systems of skills and potions. If we ever can get that right, it will make PvE vs. RvR a much more fun experience for the player.

Garrett Fuller: In crafting you have your mix and match type of creation. It seems like there is a "you never know" factor. As a player says, I wonder what these four ingredients will do, is there still a guide that will tell a player what each basic ingredient is for?

Mark Jacobs: Yeah, players will figure it out pretty quickly. In 2008, you can pretty much assume that within 24 hours of launch, guides will be up everywhere on how to do all this stuff. Guides will be up on Ten Ton Hammer and they will be up all over, and that is okay. Actually in crafting, when I started the idea, I thought of totally random crafting, that each ingredient would do something different. Then I thought about what effect that would have on the economy and said that won't fit, never mind. It is a great theory for a single player game. People can have that joy of discovery and the disappointment. Each ingredient would do something different. You could not go get a guide. In an MMO with the game economy that sort of thing just doesn't work. On the other hand the idea of a surprise for the player, the idea of a Christmas quest as they call it should be in there. It is fun to know that when you are crafting in every one out of who knows how many something really cool happens. I think it is a very good dynamic.

On the other hand the one thing I did not want is for a player to be crafting and work hard to get ingredients and suddenly things blow up and they lose everything. That is a very old school dynamic, and even though I am an old school kind of guy, it does not mean I think we should stick with that dynamic, especially, not in an MMO. In a single player RPG where the player paces things, maybe I would have been a little more tempted. I want people to have a good feeling when they use this system. It doesn't mean it is going to work perfectly every time. It just means that it will be fun to use. We want there to be some suspense. Even if it fails, you are not going to lose your ingredients. Nothing is worse than getting these high ingredients off this monster and using them to have it blow up in your face. People lose everything; that can be very frustrating for the player. So don't worry nothing bad can happen.

Garrett Fuller: Every MMO has crafting bots. It seems like your system is going against the use of bots?

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Hang a Talisman...Where?

Mark Jacobs: We all know that based on other MMOs that you can create a crafting bot that you may not use so often. It certainly inspires people to have alts etc. It also helps people to stay in the game. I don't think there is really anything wrong with that as long as the bot activity cannot be automated or macroed out. On the other hand, in our system we don't have that many crafting skills in all fairness. I think there is not that much of a need to have it. Second, even if you do create a secondary character to do this, some things that you are going to want to make, you won't have the right to make them if you don't earn it. I do not mean grinding a thousand things or running an instance fifty times, I just mean you'll need certain things for your realm. If the realm requires you to do a certain task in order to be given these ingredients and only you can use them then again it is not grinding. If it all fits in with saying hey, this is how we want you to progress through the game but not have to do it one thousand times in order to get it. In order to make specific potions you will have to have done certain things in game.

I also recognize that there are a number of players who do not want to take part in certain aspects of the system without having to do RvR. We want those players to have things to do as well. You have to make sure you separate them. We are going to reserve things for certain types of players. If you follow this path, you can do this. If you follow that path, you can do that. Unlike, talent trees or specific paths for players you'll be able to do all of them. You can decide I just want to be a crafter or a cultivator. I am somebody's wife, I am somebody's friend, I am somebody's kid, and I just want to help my father or son and play that part in the game. I cannot have a problem with that. If you want to be a person who does and that also likes PvE then you will have more things open to you. If you also like RvR then even more will be open to you. So the idea is a really bad 80s or 90s quote: it is all about inclusion, not exclusion.

Then there is the idea that you have a choice as a payer. I kid Jeff Hickman because his wife Raine is an absolutely fantastic woman and she plays WAR. as well and she saw the cultivation system and fell in love with it. She kept playing it all night. So I said, from now on we have to make sure things pass the Raine test! She was content sitting there cultivating stuff while Jeff was talking and playing the game as well. That is what I wanted. I want people to be able to do that. One of the laws of WAR was that I did not want people to stop in the middle of a battle and pick poeseys. I did not want them to take a detour in a quest or dungeon to go and grab this thing. I wanted them to always be able to focus on the war! I think the system really does that.

Thank you again to Mark Jacobs for answering so many of our questions regarding crafting. Keep checking back with Ten Ton Hammer as we continue to provide updates on Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.