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A Report on Crafting - Current state my impressions - Avery
AmazingAvery
Age of Conan AdvocateMember UncommonPosts: 7,188
Hello all, I thought that the first thing I'll write up about is Crafting.
Remember, Im not press so I didn't bring everything with me whilst I was there to upload - I used that time to party with Funcom!!
ALSO please rememeber it is still beta and things are still being worked upon and tweaked ok!
Ok straight into it, my perspective:
Crafting in Age of Conan does give empowerment to the Crafter. This can especially be seen at later advancement through recipes and tier progression.
As with previous discussions on the subject some clearer clarification came to light regarding weapon statistics. After speaking with developers at Funcom, they basically viewed the crafter as the "Wild Card" in the game.
By this they were referring to the flexibility the crafter has with socketed gems with different statistics.
Again Raid weapons drops might not neccessarily be the best for PvP. However, crafting can have the ability to equip via sockets on the weapon gems with statistics that might be more beneficial to killing a particular Boss say.
A crafted weapon can quite possibly be more powerful in PvP than a dropped weapon.
Dependant on how good / advanced a crafter you are you can create (again as an example) weapons with different slots / sockets. Up to 4 of these Sockets on crafted items.
Also from what I understood you cannot add more slots/sockets to an item that has been dropped. And this is why Funcom have termed the crafter the "wild card" as its the crafter who has the power to manipulate items like weapons in game.
So another example - A weapon drop from a Raid Boss drops - It has 2 Sockets attached to it. There might be attributes attached to those gems in those 2 sockets that might say, carry fantastic statistics (in addition to the base weapon stats) that are really good against "Mobs". As a crafter you might carry different types of gems you can add into spare or empty sockets on items if they have the ability to hold them. You wont be able to add more Sockets to a dropped weapon though.
Crafters will have 100 inventory slots for Crafting / resources. Some items are stackable too. All items in you specific Resource Inventory wont affect your character in game - such as weight of items etc.
So with every crafted item comes components. These components are listed in your book of recipes, with the qualities you as a crafter will need to craft the item.
Crafting in Age of Conan is quest based. So you learn how to make something by being taught by a trainer who gives you the task for your progression. (The progression you make in crafting can be broken down into Tiers and different area's all kept nicely in your recipe book.) So as payment for being taught you need to return the favour in a variety of ways (you task/quest). Many times you might need to make something for the trainer too, to be able to learn how to do it yourself.
There are a few different area's and types of crafting in the game. There are naturally lots of different Trainer types. One thing I briefly saw was for the "WeaponSmith" and the person was crafting a "Crude Grit Sharpening Stone" as a task from him (the trainer). From this you can advance further down the "Tiers" in crafting advancement.
Over the weekend I was there we saw the Lachish Plains, which is just one area they say is a "resource gathering playfield" and that it was actually made for "Tradeskill".
There will be " 3 tradeskill playfields", so if you are set of being a crafter this is where you will spend alot of time and want to develop you tradeskills.
Each of these massive tradeskill playfields will hold one (or more) friendly village/hub's which will contain all the quests you need for advancement.
The other 2 Tradeskill Playfields are called: "Purple Lotus Swamps" (we had a glimpse here at the last GC Leipzig) and "Pontain"
We got to see a small part of the Lachish Plains, because quite frankly it looked like a BIG area! The hub/village we started out in was in the latest version internally and updated alot from beta they said. Comparitavely, Gaute said the same area in the current beta build was 4 months behind what we were seeing now.
Tradeskill professions for clarification are; Weaponsmith, Armorsmith, Alchemist, Architect and Gemcutter. As the 'Crafter', the 'Lord', the 'Commander' and the 'Master' were part of the Prestige Class' that are going. Crafting hasn't changed much here, its still the same all thats more defined is that fact crafters have these set area's now and that tier based progression and actual making of items has been made more accessible. If you want to be a Crafter all you have to do is do the quests and learn what is what, then your Recipe Book is you best friend!
Harvesting nodes in these area's, like in the Lachish Plains will be displayed on your map, I believe once you have learnt were from your trainer for future referance.
Most resources can be found in these 3 large area's, however, there will be other area's that may contain small amounts of resources in the game elsewhere - and its a big world!
We are talking alot of different resource types too, that people can harvest.
Rock Types, Trees and Gems etc are all plentifull (Gems drop from monsters too) They have made the resources in these specific area's stand out too - for example, we saw a tree that with its leaves animated falling down more promently in the area indicating it was harvestable. (As well as moving cursor over with icon change)
The actual crafting interface is very easy and simple to use.
Basically you pull out your recipe in you book in relation to the crafting area your after (by tabs poking out). The whole book opens up centre screen, and you click where you want to go for a specific item. Once clicked this brings up another interface next to the book, pretty much centre screen. Again for example, we saw some weapons. With weapons themselves being socketable, you can insert gems into these sockets.
Gems can add bonuses to say Health, DPS, Ability or Unlock a "Special Feature" for the thing you are making. Wide varieties! You can make a weapon just how you want to pretty much!
With Age of Conan, the crafting gives the power to the player to make whatever you want and more importantly - When you want it!
The ability to customize your weapon in this way and "Personalise" it any time is a huge bonus is you have the skills for it, of course 
Right now in game, crafted items are 'not' labeled / imprinted with the makers name. However! The developers in the crafting area expressed for this feature to make it to the game for launch, they are very keen on the idea, but can't promise right now it will be in, but they do 'want it' !
Items that are dropped right now, can't have more sockets added to them.
The role of the Crafter in Age of Conan looks to enjoy the adaptability, to find situations where there isn't an available type of weapon, or armor that suits the game in a particular part, and have the flexibility to personalise your equipment in this way, crafting for certain situations, and we were ensured of said situations will be plentifull.
With making a Sword for example, right now there are not race specific's for crafting.
Again, as we looked at the Weaponsmith task, in the recipe book you might find such area's to learn like the following that I zoomed in on
One Handed Edge ~ eg. Bronze Longsword
Two Handed Edge ~ eg. Great Battle Axe
One Handed Blunt ~ eg. Ash Cudget
Two Handed Blunt ~ eg. Ash Shortstaff
Bows ~ eg. Ash Bow
Cross Bows ~ eg. Wooden Cross Bow
Thrown ~ Wooden Javelin
Consumables ~ Crude Ore Counterweight
Crude Grit Sharpening Stone
This was just over two open pages in the Recipe Book, covering just one area, at specific time of what the player had learnt so far.
I asked about Item Durability in one of my questions. Simple answer was - Its not in the game right now.
Currently if you use a gem, you can't use the same gem on another weapon - this could change based on feedback Funcom are getting. Could depend on rarity of gems, or how hard things are to make.
Gaute specifically mentioned about the player driven economy and that is the direction they hope to achieve with the game. Again it looks like players are driven to get gems, creating specific markets for specific types and a need basis. They are still playing with idea's, but the core of crafting is in the game right now, balancing issues are still ongoing and will be for while like in anyother mmo. Its clear the direction and importance they talk when the subject is crafting though.
Last few bits of information now.
Crafting Anywhere! - Guild still needs to own the right stuff though, but Funcom don't want you or give you the choice for example not to stand at a Smithy for long periods of time.
Crafting is fairly quick and accessible. Progression seemed like a decent speed from judgments I made. It will feel quick because crafting is story driven, doing your quests to be able to make the next specific's and the rewards you get will make it seem fast. In reality though doing it this way from what I saw, gave your character even more definition. Choosing what you want to learn, questing for that specific will give people more affiliation for the character they created. You both learn together and the way Funcom is implementing quests and meeting the people responsible for quest types at different levels and seeing snippets, assures me that immersion is a big key here. All the experiences you go thru on a quest, you take with you into crafting. What they want to do is eliminate grind for items, they have these big open area's and try to make crafting not like a full time day job. The onus is on you if you want to participate, but its not forced on you as a timesink, the ability to make something anywhere adds to social aspects too.
Im pretty confident that it was mentioned there were 1500 Armor sets in the game with each set being between 4-8 pieces (not 500). And you can wear up to 4 layers of clothing come launch.
As a crafter in other games this was an important topic for me. After seeing what I saw and hearing the way the devs were enthused for it, made it an important aspect to the game for me personally. On the face of it it can look a bit basic (yea I've read the whinging posts) but really there is alot more to it. Its just they chose to make it accessible to those that want to craft and also not make it like a day job where you spend 10 hrs at an anvil.
Thanks for reading and I hope that this adds a bit more to what we know right now. I'll be doing some more topics soon from my experiences, next one "Questing" within the next 24hrs.
Regards,
Avery
More can be seen here: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=53149
1500 Armor Sets in game video Clarification: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=53176
Comments
Thanks Avery! This crafting does seem very different than a lot we've seen before, but might be deeper than I first thought. I really wish you could take more than one crafter profession though. Still, if you have to specialize into one of four things, only one of which is a crafter, they could be in really high demand. I can easily see "The guild alchemist" or "The guild armorer" for instance.
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.
-Thomas Jefferson
the crafting system in this game is simpler than WoW or LoTR
thx avery. i have some questions
do we have to be a member of a guild to craft high end items? i think being a member to some guild brings some advantages but to what extend? do you have any info on this?
there has to be some kind of difficulty to do crafting. right now the difficulty is level req (40 right?) and they say they are planning to lower it. then wouldnt everyone roll secondary chars to craft their thingies since it will be easy (someone mentioned it taking 2-3 hours ). is there something im missing?
I need more vespene gas.
Very cool.. Just like i wanted it to be.. Please more info about resources.. To make for example a really rare item do we need to gather, for example, a 1 "rare gem" from "Raid Cave" (all examples) OR it will be easer? I mean, i dont want it to be so easy, to get a cool, rare item... Cose of in game economy..
Next question^:
Crafted items will look different from others? I mean, depends on gems in them.. They will be a different shine color... or fire covered blades (if swordaxes)..?
It will be very cool to have 1-5 unique (crafted) Sword(s) in whole server.. And they sopose to look unique aswell.. That what i want to be..
strange now that theres another delay i dont care to read your information
ill probably read it in march
Just when you think you have all the answers, I change the questions.
i honestly can say....after reading his discription of crafting, I am now really on the fence about the game. Crafting for me is my secondary profession but my primary love. Resource gathering and crafting in this game seems to be rediculously easy. And you can only collect resources from designated, and limited (3) areas? Least with games like eq2 which have harvesting nodes, every zone has a node or 2, with many tiers.
To me it sounds like the only thing weaponsmiths and armorsmiths are good for are upgrading. Why can't companies make a decent craft system. SWG was great for this, even in EvE, you didnt craft so much as manufacture, but the economy is complexed. Seems like the newer games are not catering to crafting at all, and this is disappointing.
Why wouldn't you want a good crafting game in mmo's these days? I don't see the logic behind it. It brings in another playerbase who thrive on economics and production rather than loot.
The only positive i really see from this is the recipes from quests, nice little idea there. Other than that, this really bummed me out
*Sigh* I really dont know what to say. I visit Age of Conan own forum and found this thread
Official asking for REVAMPING/REVISING the current crafting system.
Link: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=52849
Just seems that a lot of people really dislike AoC crafting system.
I hope crafting will be a fun addition to the adventuring. Also hope that the road to end game crafting will not be a grind. Games like EQ2, Vanguard and SWG (the original), had crafting very well integrated in the game but the road to reaching that level was a grind-fest of worse proportions than your average F2P Asian grinder.
sounds good on paper, but will have to see how it works out in practice
So I saw in the video that some of the armor have "female" after the name. Is that just a graphical thing as in it's displaying what the armor looks like on a female, or are the male and female versions of the armor separate items?
Here's what I'm thinking. They are trying to tie crafting into the pvp. I'm only assuming this but the way I understood it, the nodes will be in zones where guilds will compete for land, so why not make the resources part of that. This just gives people more reason to fight, defend resources so that their crafters can then go out gather what they need and make better items. I could however be wrong.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
i thought the resources lands were neutral territories, though again i might be wrong.
I have a question for you Amazing Avery, how much of your post is a direct impression from actual game play you experienced and how much is just the opinion or perspective you got from listening to the developers talking.
The reason I ask is because I’ve read other people that where invited to Oslo saying that they spent most of the time talking with the developers but spent very little time actually playing the game.
Also do you have any explanation for the contradiction between your obvious enthusiasm for the games crafting system and the considerable amount of dissatisfaction by some players (including beta testers)?
There are male and female versions of armors/clothing in AO, so I don't see why they wouldn't carry that over to AoC.
Thanks a lot Avery.
Did you hear anything about changing profession ? Crafter as prestige class was one of the things that pulled me into the game tbh. I hate it to roll alts for crafting. Well, now that the prestige class Crafter is gone i am curious if it is possible to change profession. The game is new and nobody knows which profession will be more or less useful in upper tiers/endgame. I mean... in 20 months probably nobody needs a armor or weaponsmith and the architects will be useful maybe. Any word that we probably could learn more then one profession ? Man, the loss of the prestige classes really sux
Did you hear/see something if it is possible to solo all crafting quests or are some tasks within murderous dungeons ? Neither is good or bad, i am just curious.
Otherwise crafting seems exactly how i imagined it. Economy will be about gems, rares and a few other things. I also think there will be a market for all raws needed to build towers, keeps and cities. Oh, btw. Is anything tradable in AoC or is there BoE and BoP too ?
I can help ya there.
Folks on the forum only have a few written words to go by, how do they how good or bad the crafting system is.
I think some over react, I posted a response with the positives of the crafting system based on that text, and how it looks better then most these days, including WoW. Several replied to my post saying I had convinced them and that they over reacted and didn't really think about the positive side. Course in this day and age, it's quite rare to find someone thats actually positive lol.
And beta-testers. Didn't they say in the video most of that stuff wasn't in beta yet? That would explain it, besides the fact that it's 4 months from release. What ever itteration of crafting is in beta (if any are, I've not read a single NDA break that even mentioned crafting,) it could very well not be whats done internally.
/agreeThe quest driven advancement sounds a bit like the crafting in ATITD (Which is probably the best ever. Well, its a crafting only game
) just less complex.
People will want crafted items. At least until everyone is caped and in perfect gear. But the grindless advancement will encourage a lot of people to pick a profession. A good sign for having decent prized items on AH.
Great post as always Avery...thanks for bringing it too us.
I'm amazed how you took one of the simplest crafting systems to every be developed and turned it into a massive post about how great it will be.
Here are the facts:
1. Crafting is easier than WoW, you don't need tools, you can craft everywhere, and it only takes a few hours to master
2. Harvesting can only be done effectively in three zones in the game world, and any nodes outside are no better than the ones found commonly in the primary three nodes
3. Items to craft will be severely limited. It has been stated repeatedly by the devs that AoC is not an item-centric game
4. Socketed items are nothing new, and hardly make an item unique.
How this could be perceived as a good thing, I just don't know. I want to play AoC for longer than a couple of months, but I'm not going to feel like it if I can master everything in a few hours, now am I?
How do you know that all ?
Hypothetically it could be like....
Avery mentioned 9 recipes. Ok, let say every tier has only 9 recipes. Lets say every recipe take only 30 minutes to do the quest. That is 4.5 hours per tier. If crafting starts at 40 there are 5 more tiers. This would be 22.5 hours. Which is about one week work for an average player. If some recipes need one or more rares to finish the time you need increases.
If there are more then 9 recipes per tier the timesink grows. It is also unknow if 30 minutes are enough to finish a crafter quest. Some might take 50 hours... who knows ?
It was absolutely clear from the beginning that AoC has no standalone carfting. I wouldnt be suprised that the trainers for the next tier of crafting quests are in a village in a remote area surrounded by mobs who one shoot you if you are to low. Probably be prepared that there are time gaps until you are able to continue with the next tier.
Having the recipes for a four slot chestplate is one thing. Having the right gems is another thing.
Avery mentioned crafting as the wirldcard. It is possible that you will run into a mob that is doing massive firedamage and is imune to fire and physical damage. It might happen that you have to see a crafter just for that one mob. Then you will be happy that a lot of crafters are around to make you such an armor and a weapon with cold damage at a decent price.
There have been many games out there.. not just WoW, EQ2 and Vanguard.
Am I the only one who watched the video released about crafting with all the AoC devs answering questions?
It's a 15 minute or so presentation that sheds a lot of light on the crafting process. Items 1 and 4 on my list are my observations, while items 2 and 3 come almost verbatim from the video.
QFT
I would have to play the game myself to really form an opinion, but I wouldn't be so quick to discount the beta testers comments. They are there to test the game and give feedback. If the feedback is ignored then what is the point of having beta testers.
Also, I will agree with some of the previous posters that precu SWG had a good crafting system. I make the precu distinction because they had decay then.