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Get a sneak peek at FFXIV's crafting
There's a lot to look forward to in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, and now you can decide whether you're adding gathering and crafting to that list! You'll begin, as most crafters do, by gathering materials. As you run through the world, you'll have skills to triangulate gathering nodes. Upon approaching a node, you'll get to choose from a list of things you can try to gather from it -- a tree, for example, might be a place where you could find a log, or a feather, or maybe some sap. Once you've got materials, it's time to head to your crafting bench, pick a recipe, and start working. You'll have construction skills that focus on the quality and progress of your crafting. Skip below the cut to see all the fast-paced, high-octane gathering and crafting action.
SOE Live 2012: EverQuest II interviews highlight focus on crafting, player stories
It is undeniable: Between panels, keynote addresses, and interviews, SOE Live offered fans a smorgasbord of information this year. Even as we reported on some information, more came our way. Such is the case with EverQuest II and its upcoming Chains of Eternity expansion; no sooner had I shared the new tradeskill AA and prestige lines than I was able to sit down developers to gain more insights into the new features. And of course, another panel came along offering even more tidbits about the expansion and beyond! Did previous announcements leave you wondering whether crafters will be required to grind their own AA tree up from 0? How many crafted items can actually be mass produced at one time? And what's in store for the Dungeon Maker and SOEmote? These questions and more were answered as I sat down with Brain Ferguson (PvP and tradeskill game designer), Holly Longdale, (Producer), and Dave Georgeson (Director of the EQ franchise).
WildStar Wednesday details crafting and economy
Here we are at yet another hump day, but there's no need to moan and groan. Carbine Studios is here to relieve the midweek slump with a new WildStar Wednesday, this time focusing on the upcoming sci-fi title's economic and crafting systems. If you're the type of player who would rather be a trade magnate than a fierce warrior, then this WildStar Wednesday is for you. According to the devs, player crafting "will play an integral role" in WildStar because of the game's item modification system, and they stress that "modifying your gear [is] about choice and customization, rather than following a blueprint for the 'best' choices." The developers also reveal that dye and costume systems will be in the game, allowing players to perfect their outfits so they can explore the universe in style without sacrificing function. For the full interview, which includes a few more juicy tidbits on the costume and crafting systems, head on over to WildStar Central and check it out.
Addon Spotlight: TradeSkillMaster tips and tricks
This, readers, is the final installment of our TradeSkillMaster (TSM) series. We've previously looked at TradeSkillMaster Crafting and TradeSkillMaster Auctioning, and today we're going to be having a little look at some of the brilliant additional functionality of this fantastic addon. I really want to encourage reader feedback here. I'm certain don't have the space to write about all the awesome little things you can do with TSM to make your gold making life easier, and I'm even more certain that I don't know them all. So please, do share your clever TSM tricks and any tips you think might be useful to other readers. Then we can all learn something. Download TradeSkillMaster: TradeSkillMaster.com, Curse TSM Destroying Firstly, I'm going to talk about a feature that I use a lot and have recommended to guildmates on several occasions. What does it do? Well, with a little setup and the click of a button, it can disenchant all the greens in your bag. OK, so you actually need to click the button once for every green, but quite frankly, that's a vast improvement on the other options for disenchanting.
Leveling to 80 through pure crafting possible in Guild Wars 2
Combat has long been the focal point of most MMOs' progression systems, and in most games it's borderline impossible to get to max level without spilling some blood. Pacifistic Guild Wars 2 fans seem to be in luck, however, as ArenaNet designer Linsey Murdock has revealed on the forums that, with some hard work and perseverance, players will be able to level all the way to level 80 by doing nothing but crafting. According to Murdock's post (viewable only if you have access to GW2's beta forums), it works something like this: Leveling a single crafting profession to level 400 will grant enough XP to gain 10 character levels. As a result, by maxing out all eight crafting professions, a player can go all the way to the level cap without ever laying hand on a weapon. A few players on the forums have expressed concern that this will lead to a "pay-to-win" style of play, since players can pay money for gems, exchange those gems for gold, and then use that gold to buy crafting materials for a (relatively) quick level boost. Others point out that while this method may increase a character's leveling speed, it offers no statistical benefit and therefore is not pay-to-win in the truest sense of the word. So what do y'all think, kind readers? Is this treading dangerous pay-to-win territory or not? Give us your tuppence in the comments.
Trek through fire and flame in RIFT's Infernal Dawn raid
RIFT's Carnival of the Ascended is in full-swing in Telara, but there's something dastardly dwelling under the veil of the festivities. While the Ascended feast, imbibe, and debauch, the less-than-phlegmatic cults of the Golden Maw and the Wanton scheme to free their dragon overlords from imprisonment in the upcoming raid, Infernal Dawn. But no Ascended should go up against the dragons unprepared, so Trion Worlds' Adam Gershowitz has volunteered to take players on a short tour of the Earth Wing of Infernal Dawn, where they will be tasked with destroying the Golden Maw, the Wanton, and ultimately their leaders: the earth dragon Laethys and the infernal Maelforge. Infernal Dawn isn't the only new feature in the works. Gershowitz also reveals that the studio is working on new Instant Adventures set on the Ember Isle. Less pugilistic players will be receiving some new treats as well in the form of new tradeskills. While Gershowitz doesn't reveal any specifics on what these new tradeskills will be, he does hint that they "may or may not involve bodies of water." We've been fishing for ideas all day, but we're just not getting any bites. Oh well, we'll find out soon enough! In the meantime, check out the full video tour and prepare yourselves; Infernal Dawn is planned to go live in "just a month or two." Oh, and remember: Former RIFT subscribers can play free starting today until March 14th, so if you wanna get back into the world of Telara, now's the time. And finally, be sure to keep an eye out for our own Karen Bryan's RIFT coverage straight from GDC 2012, which will surely shed more light on these upcoming additions.
Age of Conan prepares to pillage 2012 with basketweaving
The Funcom team is happy with its bone-crunching achievements in Age of Conan last year, but it has moved on to bigger and better conquests. In a new development update, the devs outline their roadmap for 2012 -- and it might not be what you'd expect. According to the update, the team felt torn between adding more content to the game and going back to rework and tweak systems that needed it: "Our problem there in 2011 was that with so much content to support, the majority of the systems time was consumed by the creation of everything that is needed for the content itself." As a result, the first half of 2012 looks to be light on the content side of things -- although with new tier-four raids, it won't be non-existent. Instead, the team will be reworking the tradeskill system this summer to make it more involving and complex than the modern "point and click" setup. Other improvements on the way include enlarging bank space, a dual-specification system, class balancing, and single-server development. Following these projects, the team will shift back into content-creation mode, starting with a new adventure pack for later this year.
Massively Exclusive: WindSlayer 2 dev diary gets economic
Now that we've gotten a look at the basics of WindSlayer 2's melee and ranged classes, it's time to delve into what makes the game's economy tick. So if you're a shrewd businessman, head on past the cut to the dev diary and find out how you can play the market in WindSlayer 2.
Choose My Adventure: Meet Alira
Everyone, I'd like you to give a warm welcome to my brand-new Final Fantasy XIV Choose My Adventure character, the Miqo'te Lancer Alira Zhyn. Before we get down to the nitty-gritty, let me go ahead and address the fact that yes, the top vote for gender was male, while the top vote for race was Miqo'te, and it's not possible to roll a male Miqo'te. I made an executive decision to allow race to override gender, as I feel race is a bit more of a deciding factor when creating a character than gender is. Now that that's out of the way, head on past the cut to read about Alira's first few days of adventure in Eorzea!
Guild Wars 2's crafting system detailed and demonstrated
Guild Wars 2 fans, it's time to get out your smithing hammers and fire up your forges. Freshly imported from Gamescom 2011 is a new video outlining Guild Wars 2's crafting system. The game offers eight different professions, and -- like many other MMOs -- you are granted your choice of two of those professions at any given time. However, unlike many MMOs that give you a set list of recipes based on your crafting level and then limit you to crafting only those recipes, Guild Wars 2's system allows players to experiment with different combinations of materials to see if they form a new recipe. Only guy on the server who's figured out how to make that badass warhammer? Don't tell anyone and monopolize the market! Also gone are the days of skill points. Rather than giving crafting recipes a somewhat random chance to give you a skill-up, Guild Wars 2's crafting system provides you with an experience bar for your tradeskill, with each completed recipe providing a set amount of experience toward the next level. But what if you're not happy with your profession choices? While the game only allows you to have two active professions at any given time, you're able to freely swap one profession for another while retaining progress made in your former profession. So if you want to drop your level 50 profession to mess around with another, you can pick back up where you left off at a later time. For the developer commentary and a whopping 20 minutes of hands-on time with two different professions, hop on past the cut for the full video. [Thanks to Paul for the tip!]
Prime: Battle for Dominus shows off crafting and professions
Pitchblack Games has been steadiy releasing new tidbits of information on its upcoming PvP-focused MMO Prime: Battle for Dominus, and today we've got some spanking new information on the game's crafting and professions systems. In addition to their main classes, players will be able to choose one of seven crafting professions. These professions are Harvester, Armortech, Weapontech, Chemist, Inventory, Biotech, and Soldier for Hire. Most of these professions are fairly straightforward; Harvesters harvest crafting materials, Armortechs and Weapontechs craft armor and weaponry, Biotechs craft biological augmentations to enhance players' abilities, Chemists create "powerful enhancements that can turn the tide of any battle," and Inventors appear to invent new schematics that other crafters on their faction can use to create new and more powerful items. But what about the black sheep of the bunch, the Soldier for Hire? That's where things get interesting. Perhaps you're the sort of player that would rather make a living destroying things than creating them. If so, the Soldier for Hire is right up your alley. You work as a mercenary, protecting other players, with your payment worked right into the game mechanics. The full details on the rather in-depth crafting system can be found on the game's official site.
Addon Spotlight: Work harder with GnomeWorks
Each week, WoW Insider brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. This week, GnomeWorks is to trade skills what fire was to cavemen. These past few weeks have been very good in the old email box for suggestions for addons to be featured on Addon Spotlight, so keep those recommendations coming. In the next few weeks, I've got a recommendation spotlight planned as well as a grab bag. Also, there is an idea kicking around in my head about a "my first addon" spotlight, where new addon developers pitch their addon and we talk about it constructively. What do you guys think? Today's Addon Spotlight is one of those "long time coming" pieces; people were utterly shocked over the fact that I had not talked about GnomeWorks before. Well, there is a good reason for that -- GnomeWorks is still in its alpha development stage. As far as profession windows go, prior to Cataclysm, an addon of this type was almost required. The sorting features and customization options on the default profession window was lackluster at best.
Massively interviews BioWare on SWTOR's crafting and PvP
This past Wednesday, I had the opportunity to head down to LucasArts in San Francisco to check out the current build of Star Wars: The Old Republic and chat with some of the BioWare developers. While my hands-on with the game won't be out until next month, we can deliver a couple of smaller interviews on two of the recently revealed systems in the game. And I think you'll want to hear what the interviewees have to say! Join me past the cut as I ask lead writer Daniel Erickson and lead PvP designer Gabe Amatangelo all about the Alderaan Warzone, the PvP reward system, avoiding battleground design pitfalls, companion tradeskilling, player-made gear, and hardcore crafting in SWTOR.
Gold Capped: How to calculate inscription costs and prices
Every week, Gold Capped brings you tips on how to make money on the auction house. This article from inscription specialist Steve Zamboni has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. With its myriad of materials and finished items, inscription can be one of the more complicated professions for a crafter who's trying to track his expenses and profits (or even to know if he's made a profit at all). Herb prices have changed dramatically over the past several months, dropping to record lows as farming bots proliferate and climbing just as dramatically during the ban wave that followed. After months of being spoiled by a market overflowing with cheap herbs, many players stopped paying attention to what they were paying to make each item. Now that herb prices are climbing, it's left a number of sellers scrambling to reprice their items and to take a closer look at what they're paying for their supplies.
Gold Capped Ask an Auctioneer: My first mailbag
Every week, Gold Capped (from Basil "Euripides" Berntsen) aims to educate players about how to make money on the auction house. For the inside line on crafting for disenchanting, transmutation, cross-faction arbitrage and more, check in every Wednesday. Also, feel free to email Basil any comments, questions or hate mail! I've gotten quite the mail bag of questions emailed to me. I'm going to select a few and answer them approximately whenever I feel like it. Remember when writing your question that if you want to remain anonymous, all you need to do is ask! The first question comes to us from Mahgo, from Dath'Remar (US): I am emailing your for some advice regarding making gold on the auction house. I have most professions at max level. I currently use Auctioneer to undercut when I am selling what I make. Do you have any advice or could you please point me for some help regarding niche markets, or how to tackle the whole market?
Cataclysm: Alchemy mount hinted at on EU forums
European community manager Ancilorn posted in the Cataclysm forums that there might be an alchemy mount in the future. There are extremely little details for us to speculate on as this could mean something from a flying broomstick to a potion you drink in order to become a mount yourself. However, one thing that we can be sure of is that there is at least talk of doing this, but nothing is certain. We can probably also expect such perks to pop up in other places as all professions are getting a revamp in the coming expansion. And before your fire burns and cauldron bubbles, just remember that we're not even in beta yet and that a lot of things could change. Ancilorn Quote: Goblins should have a ogre as mount. If you have played WC3 the alchemist is riding on an ogre ( but it is the ogre who attacks and stuff ). You can always dream.blah blah blah You mention Alchemist and a unique mount, eh? ;) We may well have a surprise coming in the future for those who dabble in the Alchemy profession. Watch this space! I cannot promise it will be an ogre, though. :P source
Gold Capped: Casual auctioneering
Want to get Gold Capped? This column shows you how. Basil "Euripides" Berntsen, also of outdps.com, the Hunting Party podcast and the Call to Auction podcast will endeavor to fill your head with so much economic wisdom that you won't be able to see straight afterwards! Making money in game can seem complex. Well, it is. The real pros have addons and UI customizations most people would never bother developing, keen understanding of the chains of supply and demand in the in-game economy, as well as inordinate amounts of time to spend in the auction house. What if you're just out to fund your epic flyer, though? If you're reading my column to see whether there's a cap on the amount of gold you can stuff into a guild bank, chances are you've already carved out a niche for yourself. If, however, you don't plan on spending any more time in the AH than you absolutely need to, what can you do to make more money there than you make grinding dailies?
Breakfast Topic: An alternative to tailoring
For people who are starting the game and looking at professions for the very first time, some of the professions are fairly obvious in how they should be combined. If you're going to take leatherworking, you'll likely also be taking skinning so that you have some leather to work with. Mining is matched up with blacksmithing, jewelcrafting, and engineering. You've got alchemy and inscription intended to be with herbalism. Lastly, you've got tailoring and enchanting. All you really need for enchanting is a profession that makes uncommon quality or better equipment. Enchanting doesn't really have to be matched with tailoring, but all of the other crafting professions need a gathering skill, and enchanting works better when you have another profession to disenchant from. The gathering skill for tailoring is just killing humanoids and undead over and over again, and thus it can be matched with any gathering profession just to fill a slot. If you're anything other than a warlock, priest or mage, then taking tailoring is fairly unintuitive if you want enchanting. You could just combine it with a gathering profession like mining or skinning, but that means you need to obtain your enchant materials via the auction house, get really lucky via the dungeon finder or use alts with other professions. What the game needs is an alternative, self-contained profession that could be matched with either. Could it be the woodworking profession idea that they announced had pretty much been scrapped during this past year's BlizzCon? How about merging leatherworking and skinning into a single profession? Or do you take a page out of Final Fantasy XI's book and go with bonecrafting (we just finished an expansion heavy on the bone armor theme)? What's your idea for a single slot crafting profession that would be useful to something other than cloth-wearers?
Gold Capped: Selling with Auctioneer's Appraiser
Want to get Gold Capped? This column will show you how, and is written by Basil "Euripides" Berntsen, also of outdps.com, the hunting party podcast, and the call to auction podcast. Auctioneer is a wonderful addon I've mentioned a few times already, and today we're going to talk about how to use it to sell your goods efficiently. First up, go download and install it. Now, when you open the auction house, you will see a different interface. We'll be going over a bunch of other useful functionality this has in another post, but today, we're focusing on selling. Do a quick scan by clicking on the fast forward arrow: You should make a point of scanning the AH this way as often as possible, but generally not more than a few times a day. I do it every two days, or whenever I need the data. This allows auctioneer to learn what items are worth in your economy, by keeping track of the listing price over time.
The Daily Grind: How much grind is too much?
Grind. There's no mechanic in MMOs quite as discussed, debated and decried. Some people dread it, feeling that having any form of recognizable grind in an mmo just destroys the experience for them. Others actually enjoy it, when there's only a little of it at a time, or it's for a recognizable goal, such as grinding materials to level tradeskills or grinding instances to get a certain drop. For still others, who seemingly have the patience of a saint, they'll take pretty much any amount of grind dished out just to continue playing a particular game, grinding for hours, days, weeks, months to accomplish the smallest of things. This morning we thought we'd ask - at what point does a particular game cross from merely difficult or time-consuming to 'grind' for you? Or are they pretty much one in the same? Are you OK with some small amount of grind, or does it send you running for the cancel account/uninstall the second you experience it? How much grind is too much?
