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Pay 2 Play with good crafting.
Hia,
I'd indulge in F2P's, but more often than not you have to pay quite a bit more for various items that are sometimes even vital for the crafting process. You end up spending way more in the item shop of a F2P than you would on a monthly fee for a P2P.
I've fiddled with almost all the Triple-A mmo titles, but never indulged in any serious crafting in any of them except perhaps Lineage 2. They've all had rather generic crafting systems, and I don't mind that too much -- but if I'm to spend a lot of time on that aspect of the game, I'd atleast want a sense of novelty attached to it. Rare crafts and such.
I'd like to gather all the materials needed for the craft myself, but this is not a must-have if the game has a functioning economy (auction house/private shops).
The resource gathering segment I'd favor would be the one found in games like Aion and WoW. Running around picking flowers or chopping trees and whatnot. If there's PvP mixed in there that'd be a pluss.
I don't mind murdering hundreds of innocent creatures for their bones to craft bows, though -- as long as I wouldn't have to kill literally thousands of the same mob to obtain the correct quanta.
I'm open for most suggestions, except perhaps Lineage 2. It's too far along in terms of age for me to be even remotely competitive in any respect.
I'd greatly appreciate a small nugget of info along with your suggestions to help me get a sense of what's special/solid about said game's crafting system!
If all else fails, I'll just crawl back to Aion or WoW for my fix. But I'd rather not 
Comments
Vanguard, ryzom and fallen earth seems to be what crafters usually like so ill give em a go.
the three mentioned above are your best bet. With Fallen Earth, crafting is actually essential to your virtual survival.
FFXIV seems to put more emphasis on crafting and gathering resources than usually in MMO's.. the crafting classes are equal with the combat and magic classes.
from finalfantasyxiv.com you can see the Disciplines of Hand classes and a sneak peek of how crafting works in the game from the "lifestyle" panel at the site. Lots of other info for you to check out as well.
yeah i liked vanguards crafting system,it isn't click and let it craft its very involved. imperfections happen as you're crafting and you have to counter them to prevent from getting less than perfect gear/mats
and the different recipes from different regions looks different, and you have crafting gear that gives bonuses to crafting stats. gather your leather from kills then craft it into different quality grades of leather, the better you are at it the better the leather will be. same goes with the gear you make, the better you are at crafting the better the gear turns out. and the crafting gear has its own slots on the player so no extra stols being taken up. same goes with gathering gear,and you have gathering bags on your character (again not taking up extra slots you have gathering bag slots) your horse has saddle bags wich are also extra bag slots.
I'm quite interested in Fallen Earth, but seeing how I live in europe, I'd rather wait for it to localize to this continent. My ISP doesn't take kindly to stateside servers. Might be that I'm missing out, though, and that my ISP isn't that terribad for FE. Any Norwegians here with Telenor ADSL playing FE atm?
FFXIV is something I will definitly check out once it hits the stores. I'm worried about the quality of it's PvP content, though.
I guess I should put more weight on this: The game has to have pvp for me to even consider it.
Thanks for all the replies so far!
I'd have to agree with FE or VG (though the PVP threat you wanted, isnt really there). I played Ryzom a while back but never got "too" far into its crafting so saying try it would be premature. I know some people from eu that play, but don't know their ISP. I do know they get pissed when patching because its prime time in EU usually and FE runs on EST primarily.
Try Vanguard, it has the best crafing by far.
If you're looking for some of the best, most involved crafting out there, Vanguard is what you're looking for. However, with the PvP caveat, you'll have to look elsewhere unless you're willing to put up with a low-pop server (granted, it won't improve if people don't try it and stick with it). A pity; you're missing out on a very involved system which is one I, and I don't normally craft in games, thoroughly enjoy.
(TL;DR: Go to the bottom...)
You have to go out and gather materials, and then gather enough of those materials to stack into a usable, craftable material. Recipes have requirements for materials + utilities (which you purchase). Crafting is its own complete sphere with gear and tools, and you have points you can allocate to give your character some strength(s) in certain crafting stages/components. You need to have the correct/appropriate tools for that recipe, and when you have everything necessary, you can begin crafting the item for that recipe.
A side note, there are three tables for crafting: Refining, Finishing, and Assembly, and each has its own unique recipes (save for Assembly) used at those tables. You would create the individual item components at the Refining station, then you would combine them to create a final, usable item at the Finishing table. The Assembly table is used for combining several Finishing table items together to create a "larger" item, but it's a simple matter that doesn't involve active crafting.
There will be several steps you will need to complete to finish a recipe. You will need to complete each step (and some steps have multiple steps within them) before being able to move on to the next step in the crafting process. These steps will require the use of utilities and tools, and there are complications that will pop up. Some of these complications actually end up being beneficial in some capacity (pros and cons to them), while others are just not beneficial at all. You only have so many action points at your disposal per crafting session, though, so you'll have to decide which complications are worth resolving, and which you'll have to just let be, if you want to successfully complete the recipe (if you don't successfully complete the recipe, you'll lose the materials and utilities you used up to that point). You also want to shoot for the best level of quality you can, because better quality components and gear means better stats/capacities/etc. All of this needs to be balanced carefully so that you can successfully complete the recipe.
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Example:
My crafter is a carpenter and she is going to craft a ship (a sloop, to be exact). She went out and she had to chop down specific trees to get materials (granted, if another player has posted them on the broker, you can try and buy the materials instead). When I had enough timber, she returned to the crafting station and went to the Refining table. With the appropriate materials (some materials for specific recipes had to be crafted by other professions, and thus I had purchased them), utilities, and tools, she began crafting the timber into usable planks. She then took these planks to the Finishing table and crafted a number of these planks into a hull, a mast, a rudder, etc. Each of these are a different recipe.When she had all of the main sloop components built, she took it the Assembly table. She then selected to complete/Assemble the sloop using the hull, mast, rudder, etc., that she had previously built.
Going about this process, I should mention there are three regions to the world, and each region has its own style and recipes. You need to learn the recipes for that region to create that region's items. There are three tiers of ships (sloops, caravels, galleons), for example, and several styles of ships (read: figureheads and designs/patterns) per ship-tier and region. You can also give them different colors. All of this goes into the crafting process.
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(TL;DR:)
Anyway...that's just an overview and example of Vanguard's crafting system. If you'd like to try it out, Vanguard is free to try for two weeks. Just go to the website and download the trial. You'll be limited to just the Isle of Dawn (which is just one chunk in size, so if you think it's fairly big just wait if you decide to play the full game), but it's a very good tutorial area and you'll get a good taste of what crafting holds. If you decide you want to try the full game, and thus visit the rest of the (massive and seamless) continents, then the full game is free. That's right; VG itself is free, you just pay the $15 monthly subscription. You can also purchase the game off of Steam for $19.99, but I'd just go the free-trial route. If you find VG isn't for you after all, then you'd only be out $15 instead of the sub + game.
Try Rzyom, while I havent done any crafting because I'm a Melee/Magic user I hear its has freaking amazing crafting. As in you can make different quality of items and different variations of that item. There is a 21 day free trial and its 11 dead presidents a month. Download is here ~~~> www.ryzom.com/en/download_game.html