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Crafting in MMOs is a complex and widely varying thing. While most games include crafting in some form or another, it doesn't seem like there's much of a consensus on what purpose crafting is supposed to serve, and similar systems are often received radically differently depending on the title in question. Brian Green of Psychochild has had crafting on the brain recently and simplified the perceived goals of crafting into three areas (which I have further simplified): fun, utility, and money sink. His analysis is pretty in-depth, but he stops short of offering his own version of a crafting system, which we would have liked to have heard.

It's interesting that something as valuable to a rewarding MMO experience as crafting is so routinely put on the back-burner. Age of Conan and Tabula Rasa are both glaring examples of recent releases whose crafting systems are either incomplete or mostly useless as they exist in the game. We'll be interested to see whether Warhammer Online's crafting system will be as interesting as it seemed when it was explained to us, or whether it will join the ever-growing pile of time wasting duds.

Meridian 59 is a game with a pirate problem. A while back, the server source code leaked onto the internet and seedy players began hosting their own servers without subscription fees. Pirate servers are a problem for many MMOs, but because of M59's comparatively small scale, it has a lot more to lose to the trend.

Amidst these troubles, some M59 players can be quite loyal. Case in point: the blog of game developer Patrick Rogers tells the story of two former M59 players hacking into a pirate server and mass-killing all its residents with powerful admin commands. The vigilantes hoped to make life (and death) on the pirate servers as unpleasant as possible so as to encourage the residents to migrate to the legitimate servers hosted by Near Death Studios. That's not the most amazing bit, though.

Brian "Psychochild" Green has up a post to his personal site discussing some of the steps massively multiplayer games take on their way to market. His article was based partially on a post to Elder Game we discussed here on the site early this week. Brian notes that the earlier post took the right tone: actual game development can be a sometimes-haphazard and often-confusing process. Roles are blurred, important steps can get lost in the shuffle.

Mr. Green lays out the different disciplines that are involved in bringing an MMO to fruition. He moves on from there to describe a 'blue sky' version of milestones for a game in this genre. Over00's Dave Toulouse points out how similar these milestones are to your average software project's. For anyone interested in software development or getting into the games industry, the post is an interesting insight into the process. It is, of course, important to remember that the list is an idealized version of reality; SOE's Grimwell notes that putting 'Feature Complete' before the 'Beta' phase could be seen as a note of humor. "I'm not sure we've ever seen that goal accomplished," he states.

As a gamer who was holding a controller long before I'd ever even heard of a D20, the attribute systems that seem to be standard in the world of RPGs were always a little foreign and foreboding. The idea of Strength and Dexterity were easy enough to grasp, but what the heck did Constitution mean? And for that matter, what's the difference between Wisdom and Intelligence? Even as an adult, the attribute system in a game like World of Warcraft is a bit strange to me. They give general descriptions on the website and in the game's manual, but when you start throwing in things like crit chances, the five second rule, and attack power, it all becomes a dense, tangled mess.

On his blog, Brian Green ponders whether such a system can't be simplified in a way that would encourage a deeper understanding for players who don't take their games so seriously that they've got their gear progression mapped out in Excel. His first suggestion is to sweep away derived stats, or more accurately, JUST have derived stats, and ignore the base stats that influence them. Seems reasonable enough, if a bit more long-winded. His second suggestion is to take away the level curve, making stats behave the same regardless of the player level. It's an interesting idea in the abstract, but one wonders whether developers, and indeed the players they're developing these games for, are ready to put in such a radically different system.

Every week, hardworking Massive gaming fans put their voices on the line to bring us news, opinions, and 'critiques' of their favorite games. Podcasts are a staple of many hobbies nowadays, and fans of online worlds are especially fortunate in this regard ... there are a ton out there.

As such, every so often we'll try to update you on the podcast world. Keep your eyes on this space for links to your favorite MMO-commentary celebs. Good and bad, straight-man or blue-mouthed, they all have something to offer about this amazing style of gameplay.

Today we've got an rundown on the latest updates from podcasts across the genre, covering everything from the still-going classic Merdian 59 to the still in-development Warhammer Online.