Let's talk about crafting...

I like many people who grew up in the nineties was enamored by the endless possibility of video games. As time went on it was an amazing experience to watch this medium develop into a true art form. I started my career guiding a plumber to eat magic mushrooms and today find myself a literal war god trying to raise his son, which is crazy when a person takes a step back and things about it. The leaps and bounds this medium has gone thru are staggering and even though there are certain things I find repulsive about the gaming landscape (I’m looking at you micro transactions.) I am very hopeful for the future of this medium. I don’t pretend to know how to make a good video game or what the future will hold for gaming but I do know one thing. I really hate crafting in RPGs, weird Segway I know but with Covid happening and as the father of a new child I find that video games offer a fun way to relax and my personal favorite genre is RPGs. I Love them, there stories have moved me, their customization consumed more hours than I’d like to admit, but the part that I always have a hard time with is crafting. Nothing bugs me more than reaching a boss than realizing I’m almost out of potions and need to run around collecting flowers or have found some amazing schematics to an awesome sword or piece of armor only to be told I don’t have enough ore.

Why do video games always do this? At no point in my life have I or anyone I know had to find metal so that I could get a screw driver made. I know these games take place in fantasy worlds with economies more akin to a time before the modern age, but even than do you think that people went around collection ore for the blacksmith? Or went gathering herbs for the apothecary? If anyone had the knowledge to find those items they surely would know how to use them themselves or gather the products and use them to trade. So why do almost all video games do it this way? Is it just to have another carrot dangling on a stick to keep the gamer going? I don’t know but there is one game that did things a little bit different when it came to crafting and that is Dragon Age 2 and if you can look past the flaws of that game than I think there is bright idea buried in there.

Now I know that people have a lot to say about this game, and don’t get me wrong I hated seeing the same houses and caves over and over again, at times the story was lackluster and felt rushed, and a million other little nit picky things that people can come up, lets just say that I see peoples point. The one thing I did love about the game though was that I did not have to find individual items in large quantities to make things throughout my journey i.e. pick a bunch of flowers to make potions. All I had to do was find a supplier who could make things (Because lets be honest it’s ridiculous that I am both an awesome warrior and a master alchemist.) and than a source in the wild, example being some Deep Mushrooms in a cave, and than every supplier (Who needs to know.) would have knowledge of it, expanding their inventory. As a player you no longer have to hoard items and/or worry about managing your inventory. No more having to learn if materials re spawn or not and where. It also provided a good excuse to go looking around every nook and cranny. It was simple and elegant. It also meant I could spend more time romancing my companions and killing demons, you know the fun stuff. For me personally I spend enough time managing things and looking at list of ingredients when I make dinner, I don’t want to do that when I’m relaxing, I just want to murder some poor pixeled soul without fear of reprisal or guilt. Is that too much to ask?