The Theory Of

Here you'll find discussion of all manner of topics relating to the theory of multiplayer games. As I see it, anyway. A note to commentors: if you stray off-topic or if your reply contains ad hominem attacks, your comment will be deleted.

Author: JB47394

A game that entertained an Artisan swordsmith would do something like the following:

The player first gathers the raw materials needed for the blade.  That would be a block of metal.  That metal could be any kind of metal.  Tin, lead, gold, silver, iron, steel, and so forth.  Don't assume that all swords should be steel.  Suppose a magic spell needed a sword made of silver?  A deception of a well-armed military involved tin swords?

The block might not be pure.  It could be an alloy or have inclusions.  It could be in the wrong shape for the Artisan to begin working.  Not all raw materials are created equally and there may be some preparation time involved before the main task can begin.

How can a game do all that?  Procedural content.  Generate a random number for a block of metal, and all of the necessary information is derived from that.  Where the inclusions are, what types they are, whether the metal is alloyed, etc.  It's all a question of how well you can construct the procedural generator.  It is only when the Artisan begins fiddling with the block of metal that the game has to turn the procedural content into detailed information.  Until then, blocks can be bought, sold, traded, juggled and otherwise manipulated without ever deriving any of the available information.

How is metal worked?  By heating and hammering.  So an Artisan would have access to a heat source of some kind as well as a hammering mechanism.  This is the fun part for the Artisan.  He drags the lump of metal into the fire, watches it as it heats up, and notices the color of the metal, not a scale or timer countdown.  The point is to appeal to enthusiasts of metalworking, and that's how metal crafters did things.

The metal reaches the desired temperature and the player moves the metal to an anvil.  He holds down the mouse on the spot where he wants his assistants to strike.  Again, this is how it was traditionally done.  The assistants are an NPC fiction.  They're just unskilled muscle labor.   They strike at the places that the Artisan indicates with the mouse until the Artisan stops the process.  All the while, the metal is cooling, making the hammer blows less and less effective.

Each strike will reshape the metal block.  That's key to the Artisan.  The Artisan is using his skill in working with the game systems to get that block shaped the way he wants.

For reasons of practicality, the artisan cannot make an arbitrary item.  The goal is to make a particular item.  He's making a specific pattern of sword blade, and how well he matches the ideal blade will determine the properties of the item that he is crafting when it is finished.

This is how A Tale in the Desert tackled its own blacksmithing.  Its system was primitive and could be done far more intricately, but the essentials are there.

The metal block might start as an amorphous blob of metal, as a purpose-built rod of metal or just a cube of the stuff.  Any way it arrives, the Artisan has to work it into the proper shape.  Note that the form of the raw materials will influence the desirability of those materials to various artisans, affecting the game's commerce system.

Now the Artisan has hammered out the blade and declares it complete.  The sword is rated by the computer (a simple calculation) and assigned certain numbers for durability and so forth.  At that point, the blade is ready to be incorporated into a sword or whatever other engine of destruction it was originally built for.

Note that I have glossed over the meat of the Artisan's activities, which is the shaping of the metal.  The fun of the crafting is in landing blows where the player wants them, and seeing the shape of the blade take form.  The blade should be straight or curved, of a certain length, perhaps tapered, perhaps with a specific type of edge, perhaps even the metal needed to be folded at the beginning.  The blade would have to retain the best properties of the metal it is fashioned from, and too much heating or the wrong cooling could damage those properties.  The game would lay all this out for the player, but the player would have to use their skills to ensure that the blade was properly crafted.

In order for a player to be entertained by all this, the player has to be an enthusiast of blade crafting.  While blade crafting is similar to any other blacksmithing task, it's different from whitesmithing.  Working with silver and tin to make jewelry and decorative pieces is a different game system.  So you might imagine that different players will spend their time in different systems.  Further, there is real player skill in mastering one of the systems.  Just as there is skill in mastering the level/loot system in most fantasy MMOs.

If you want a sense of having to master many individual systems, try playing EVE Online.  They implemented multiple systems that operate on different principles.  Manufacturing, trading, PvE, PvP, corporate operation and so forth.  Fantasy MMOs just don't do that.  All systems are about levels, classes and character skills.  So if you are having a hard time understanding what I'm talking about, or don't believe it's practical, try the free trial of EVE Online and get a sense of being overwhelmed by your gameplay choices.