January 2011: Crafting

This month, we'd like you to think about crafting systems in MMOs.  Just think!  All those months harvesting minerals/materials/ore/plants/resources haven't been put to waste because you can now write about your experiences and give us the benefits of your wisdom :)  

Crafting allows players to plug into a game's economy.  Ideally, this creates a form of interdependence since players may need resources or items from other players.  On the plus side, crafting allows for personalization and gives a reason to come back to the game every day as a player plies his/her given trade.  On the minus side, crafting can be a boring grindfest whereupon a player makes several items (that look exactly the same as the next guy's wares) in order to level up in crafting, only to find out that all the better recipes are dismally useless.

• What do you like about crafting?
• What complaints about crafting need to be addressed?
• How can designers better integrate crafting as part of an immersive MMO experience?
• What games have successful crafting systems?
• What aspects of crafting can apply to other games?