When I first started brainstorming Crea and how I would do things differently from current sandbox games, crafting was the second thing that came to mind (after modding of course). The positional crafting system in Minecraft is an interesting approach but it, like other crafting systems, share a common problem: The player has no idea what can be crafted and/or what materials are needed for an item. Nearly everyone (if not everyone), loads up Minecraft, plays around a little bit and then opens up a wiki to find what items to craft and what is needed. The same goes for Terraria for the most part. In the end, players become wiki dependent and consequently the game does as well. This stops in Crea.
A player must first aquire the recipe for an item before being able to craft it.There are several means to acquiring recipes: monster loot; treasure chests; quests; and, most importantly, the Researcher NPC.
The Researcher is specifically for discovering new recipes. First you provide the researcher with materials. Upon returning to him after some time, you gain any recipes his research turned up. We are also considering a hint system that will help steer players into being able to discover more recipes.
This should help give new players direction and also keep them in the game. Basically, crafting will feel like a natural and intuitive aspect of the game rather than a mystery that requires switching in between the game and a wiki. Another exciting aspect of this crafting system is that it lends itself to the ever-expanding content Crea will see.
What did you have in mind for the hint system? My first thought was simply indicating on the item tooltip if it is “unresearched”.
Excellent! I started playing Minecraft a few months ago, and I agree – I didn’t enjoy having to look up everything on the wiki. Awesome possum! The more I read about the progress of this game, the more I’m excited to try it out!