Crafting, while an important part of any MMO, is at heart a mindless grind fest.  Gather X materials, to create Y new materials that can be them combined with A & B materials to create the desired item.  While crafting tends to mirror real-life crafting, it’s about a million times more boring.  Is it a wonder that bots and macro scripts have become so popular in today’s MMOs?  Why in hell would I want to spend hundreds of hours of my life mindlessly gathering matrials and then watch my characters crafting bar slowly progress as they craft for hrs.

I for one don’t craft in MMOs.  My highest level crafting character ever was probably in the medium low range of his crafting career.   I just refuse to waste my time grinding away gathering resources.

So why do developers continue to use the same tired crafting system.  Why not create a crafting system that’s more like a mini-game based on skill instead of grinding.  While not very realistic, I’d rather play a small mini-game then run around for hrs looking for iron deposits or some rare flower.

I’m sure some people might have a problem with that since it’s not how crafting really works.  If someone in medieval times wanted to craft a sword, they would have to go collect the materials or buy it, so that’s how it should work in games too.  To those people I say, good for you, feel free to waste your life gathering materials in a video game, I play to have fun and I have yet to find a MMO where crafting is.