I totally miss really involved crafting models, too. That’s probably my biggest complaint on WoW — please please please add player housing and more social options like social clothing, housing items, etc. Would be awesome to leave the non-combat pet home to “guard” the place.

Anarchy Online had an interesting crafting model, except in that game you were creating implants. Not “crafting” in the truest sense, but it scratched that itch. Horizons (I think?) was also really cool with the crafting model, in that players could collectively repair/build major city structures or doing so opened new areas for conquer or what not. At least, I think that was the game’s name?

Anyway, thanks for the mental ramble — it lined some ducks up in a row in my own thinking.

I’ve been running a forum since I left Strategy Plus Magazine (1994). It’s very small these days and in fact I think I’ve got new registrations turned off after I went a year or so with nothing but spammers registering. http://www.jadedspub.com/forum/

@Dickie — Y’know, you make a good point re hooks. I found LOTRO housing to be kind of limiting, but oto I find EQ2′s housing to be kind of intimidating. Maybe LOTRO just needs to add more hooks rather than removing them completely? But, as an example, I had a “pesky doormouse” for my house, which was a crack in the wall and a bit of cheese on the floor and every so often a mouse would run out and grab some cheese. But it took a “large wall” slot (iirc) of which I had… 3? 4? in the whole house.

“My next project might be actually working on my character’s inn room in EQ2. I see the crazy things people build and while I’m impressed by them, I also find the range of options a bit daunting. Again, with these simple not-games, the limited choices are almost a blessing. There’s nothing intimidating about arranging your barn and cabin and apple trees in Frontierville, y’know?”

I think right now in LOTRO there is a great mix of choice and restraint. There are tons of ways to decorate your house, but the hooks provide me a limitation so that it doesn’t seem all that daunting. Otherwise I’d probably just be too intimidated by it all and not bother.

It appeals to the part of me that like figuring out process. But heck, I’m a programmer, this is the kind of thing I like. I feel the setting is terribly inaccurate, and without much trouble, they could have designed just a little more realism. For instance, I have no idea where in the West you would find oaks, tall pines and cactus together. Or why your spouse just wouldn’t make the trip WITH you. Or what happened to the horses that pulled your covered wagon across the country. Or how many people died of dysentery along the way.

But that’s not the POINT. The point is to manage assets and investments. If they made a “Wall Street-ville”, I’d be first in line.