Crafting & Economy in Age of Conan

[Mrbloodworth]

Please excuse me, i thought this deserved it own thread. If not, feel free to merge or what ever.

It's time to take a better look at the crafting system in Age of Conan, and how you can make a bit of money on something that does not involve killing people!

Ask any adventurer journeying through the lands of Hyboria for advice on how to survive the brutal realities of the world, and they'll tell you to get a good sword as soon as possible. If it's not demons haunting you at night, clawing at your back ready to rip out your eyes, it's the treachery of man you must defend yourself from. Unarmed you will not get further in Hyboria than the nearest graveyard.

But there is one thing that can be just as persuasive as the sharp end of the sword: cold cash. Tin, copper, silver and gold – they flow through the cities of civilization like blood flowing through the heart of man: the Stygian merchant, whose commodity is death, hiring assassins to slay his competitors for a few pieces of gold; the Aquilonian noble fuelling political conspiracies with the promise of silver; the Cimmerian chieftain trading his last copper pieces to feed his starving tribe.

For you, as the player, there are numerous ways in which you can acquire some currency. You can head out into the great unknown to perform quests for people in need. You can murder innocents and loot their bodies for valuables. Maybe you would prefer hunting for game and selling the skin?

Either that or you can pick up a trade – a craft – using your hands to make something others want!

Becoming a craftsman

In the world of Hyboria there are certain locations where craftsmen (and women!) congregate to form societies where they can practice their trade. These are commonly called resource and gathering regions as they are areas with a special abundance of resources needed for crafting, and here you will also find many who are more than willing to learn others how to practice their trade.

Upon reaching the required level needed to start crafting (which is currently set to level forty, but that might change during the beta process) you need to seek out a crafting trainer who can teach you his or her trade. This will be your mentor on the long road ahead, sending you out on various quests where you need to prove your worth as a crafter. The important thing to remember is that you can only have one crafting profession, so choose wisely before dedicating yourself to your mentor!

Here are the different crafting professions in Age of Conan:

• Weaponsmithing: Picking up this trade allows you to craft various types of weaponry, from swords to staffs, from daggers to crossbows. Everything needed to kill your opponents!
• Armorsmithing: If you wish to go the completely opposite route from the weaponsmith, try picking up the armorsmithing craft that allows you to craft various types of armor pieces.
• Alchemy: Do you enjoy mixing things into vials and seeing how the result affects people? Then you should try your luck at alchemy, allowing you to make various types of potions.
• Architecture: City-building is an integral part of Age of Conan, and you will need someone skilled in the arts of architecture to draw up the plans needed for the different buildings.
• Gemcutting: Monsters tend to drop rough gems that the gemcutter can turn into powerful enchantments, and these can be placed into other crafted items to make them more potent.

We have tried making it so that crafting is as intuitive as possible, while still maintaining the level of challenge that makes progression so entertaining. When you’re ready to start crafting something, all you do is bring up your recipe book and click on what you want to create. If you have the required resources in your inventory, the item will be created for you. There are certain exceptions to this, as some of the top tier recipes will require that your guild is in possession of certain types of structures within the guild city. Some of the top tier alchemy recipes will, for instance, require your guild to have an alchemist’s workshop constructed within the guild city.

Once you have chosen a crafting profession you will start out small, with little knowledge of how to create anything at all, much less anything of real use! Now it’s time for you to prove your worth to your trainer, allowing you to craft more and more advanced items over time.



(click HERE for a larger version of this image)

Collecting resources

Integral to crafting is, of course, resources. It’s what you have to pour into anything you create, whether it is a basic sword or an entire tower structure for your guild city. In order to collect a specific type of resource you will need to learn how to master the resource gathering profession that is associated with that resource. Note that you can master all of these professions at the same time.

Here are the different resource gathering professions you can master:

    * Mining: This profession will allow you to gather resources such as copper, tin, iron and more. You can also find rare ones like aurichalcum and blue iron.
    * Prospecting: This profession will allow you to gather resources such as silver, electrum, gold and more. You can also find rare ones like illustrium and platinum.
    * Skinning: This profession will allow you to gather resources such as different types of leather, some of which are rare ones like the grained leather and the whorled leather.
    * Stonecutting: This profession will allow you to gather resources such as sandstone, granite, basalt and more. You can also find rare ones like adamant and obsidian.
    * Weaving: This profession will allow you to gather resources such as cotton, wool, flax and more. You can also find rare ones like bloodflax and cottonwisp.
    * Woodcutting: This profession will allow you to gather resources such as ash, yew, oak and more. You can also find rare ones like soulwood and amberwood.

The alchemist doesn’t actually go out and gather resources for his potions. Instead the different ingredients required will drop from defeated enemies, just as with the gems used by the gemcutter. One of the reasons why we are doing this is to create a certain level of dependency between crafters and adventurers, making it a bit more interesting for everyone involved! Another way we’re creating dependencies between the two is making it so that only crafted items can have gems embedded, so the adventurers will be running back to the crafters with the gems they just picked up in some dark dungeon, asking the weaponsmith to make a weapon for them and the gemcutter to put the gems in! Using gems you can customize items, while dropped items can’t be customized.

One central element of the resource gathering system is the rare resources. When gathering a resource there is a small chance that you may collect a rare version of it. Using rare resources when you are crafting will allow you to make a special version of an item. These items will have additional bonuses, such as allowing gemcutters to put more gems into them. This allows crafters to make some incredibly potent and unique items by using several special gems and rare resources!

The primary reason for us allowing you to master all resource gathering professions is because of how important resources is to so many different aspects of the gameplay in Age of Conan. As an example you will need to pour resources into your guild city in order to pay for its upkeep!

Progression

In stark contrast to similar games out there, progression within your chosen craft is not done by simply producing items or gathering resources over and over again until your skill improves. In Age of Conan you do not have a numerical crafting skill listed somewhere – instead you progress through different quests whose rewards allows you to craft better items and gather more advanced resources. This means that progression is entirely tied up to quests that you do for your trainer.

Progression is split up into tiers. You start with the first tier, involving basic items/resources, and you will have to be a certain level before you can move onto the next tier. Each tier consists of various quests that will reward you with new recipes for items to make, and resources to gather.

As an example, when you first start out in the alchemy craft your trainer will teach you how to craft what we call crude remedies. One of the first quests requires you to make a set of crude remedies for your trainer, and in return he will show you how to make common remedies. Within the first tier, currently starting at level forty, you will learn how to make crude and common potions. As you reach level fifty you will be eligible for tier two quests, rewarding you with refined potion recipes. It’s the same with resource gathering: the stonecutter will start gathering sandstone while he’s in tier one, but will quickly move up to adamant and basalt when he complete quests in higher tiers.

One of the reasons why we have chosen to make progression quest-based is to eliminate the feel of going through a grind. Instead of producing one hundred basic potions just to learn how you make something a bit more interesting, you will actually progress through a storyline that will also reward you with a healthy amount of experience points which will count towards your next level!

Hard work pays off

Sooner or later once you have started to master a crafting profession (and/or resource gathering profession) you will want to get paid for the hard work. There are several ways to flog your items (and resources collected). You can stand in front of Conan’s castle in Tarantia, screaming your lungs out for someone to please buy your wooden crossbow – or you can seek out the tradepost.

Tradeposts are Age of Conan’s equivalent to the auction house that you find in most other games of this genre. Tradeposts can be found in cities and player cities, and using them brings up an interface that combines your bank, your mail and a marketplace where you can buy and sell items. To sell something you have crafted you simply put it on your bank and tag it for sale with the appropriate price. Someone in need of it will eventually come along and buy it from you.

One important aspect of the tradepost is actually that it is not an auction house. There is no auctioning, there are no bids. You put something up for sale with a set price and either someone purchase it or not. It certainly makes things interesting and the market much more fast and furious!

At the end of the day you can finally head home with a few gold pieces in your pocket, proud of the fact that you once again managed to make a solid living – without cutting off someone’s head!

Source

EDIT: Added Source.

[Stormwaltz]

Upon reaching the required level needed to start crafting (which is currently set to level forty, but that might change during the beta process)

At last, craft players have their own equivalent of grinding to access raid content.

[Mrbloodworth]

Upon reaching the required level needed to start crafting (which is currently set to level forty, but that might change during the beta process)

At last, craft players have their own equivalent of grinding to access raid content.

From what i understand 1-20 is incredibly quick, 20-40 med, 40+ long.

[Nebu]

I love seeing the words "HARD WORK PAYS OFF" in a writeup related to an MMO.  I enjoy paying $20 a month for a second job. 

[schild]

I love seeing the words "HARD WORK PAYS OFF" in a writeup related to an MMO.  I enjoy paying $20 a month for a second job. 

You can't make it green while actively playing the top levels of WoW. >_<

[Nebu]

You can't make it green while actively playing the top levels of WoW. >_<

If WoW weren't fun, I'd quit.  Ok, maybe I have an unhealthy addiction. 

GO PLAY YOUR DAMN CONSOLE GAMES AND LEAVE ME ALONE!

[Mrbloodworth]

I love seeing the words "HARD WORK PAYS OFF" in a writeup related to an MMO.  I enjoy paying $20 a month for a second job. 

In stark contrast to similar games out there, progression within your chosen craft is not done by simply producing items or gathering resources over and over again until your skill improves. In Age of Conan you do not have a numerical crafting skill listed somewhere – instead you progress through different quests whose rewards allows you to craft better items and gather more advanced resources.

and lol @ schilds comment.

[DarkSign]

So how does Architecture work? You draw plans and watch to see if your building falls?
I'm seriously curious about that.

[Stormwaltz]

So how does Architecture work? You draw plans and watch to see if your building falls?
I'm seriously curious about that.

Maybe the floorboards creak.

Or it costs more in maintenance.

Or it spawns giant termintes at odd intervals.

[slog]

So how does Architecture work? You draw plans and watch to see if your building falls?
I'm seriously curious about that.

Maybe the floorboards creak.

Or it costs more in maintenance.

Or it spawns giant termintes at odd intervals.

Or it falls down when attacked faster?

[JoeTF]

That is the shittiest crafting/trading system ever.
They basically took away every possible way to become specialized crafter/trader/resource collector. It was bad in WOW, this is just mega suck.

[Teleku]

That is the shittiest crafting/trading system ever.
they basically given every possible way to be specialized crafter/trader/resource collector. If was bad in WOW, but here it's just mega suck

Wait, whats bad about being able to become a specialized crafter?

[JoeTF]

I guess writing at 2am does that to you; I'm scared to see what I wrote in EVE forum .

The whole point is that you cannot become specialized crafter in Conan, that's what's wrong.

[Teleku]

Ah, OK.

[Aez]

I don't think you can fail, so you shouldn't have to watch your building crumble.

It's pretty much : We are different!  You don't have to grind crafting, instead grind for quests then grind for ressources.  Revolution!

To their defence, it's a nice secondary system if ressources gathering is easy but you have to fight for the best ressources.  It promote immersion and interesting meaningful battle. I see it has a step forward from most system.  It's definitely not EVE but I don't think it's what they were shooting for.

[JoeTF]

I don't think you can fail, so you shouldn't have to watch your building crumble.

It's pretty much : We are different!  You don't have to grind crafting, instead grind for quests then grind for ressources.  Revolution!

To their defence, it's a nice secondary system if ressources gathering is easy but you have to fight for the best ressources.  It promote immersion and interesting meaningful battle. I see it has a step forward from most system.  It's definitely not EVE but I don't think it's what they were shooting for.

World cut into large resource gathering areas. Hi end stuff droppping as random drop from normal ore. In other words: DENIED

[Aez]

ah crap

[tmp]

The whole point is that you cannot become specialized crafter in Conan, that's what's wrong.

Hmmm how so? You can only pick one profession and you advance it by running the quests to learn how you craft the shit. That's about as specialized as becoming specialized sword swinger or whatever they use as spell casters. Except sword swingers advance swinging the swords and crafters advance well, crefting apparently.

[Dtrain]

The flavor text at the begining of the article makes me want to barf.

Also, the heading "Hard Work Pays Off" seems a little misleading. This crafting system actually seems more palatable to me than any other I've played with. Personally, I loathe crafting in MMOs. I think it's mostly a dreadful chore.

Give me another point of view if you have one, but from everything I've witnessed, crafting players craft either because they enjoy being resourceful or they want to get rich, not because they like putting a bunch of crap in a window and clicking combine. Over. And over. And over.

This system proposes to remove the grind, and put crafting advancement in line with quest based adventuring advancement.

I'm not opposed, in principal, to anything that I've seen here. The proof, of course, will be in the playing. I could see this being a fairly painless secondary activity you do along with your adventuring that allows anyone to contribute to themselves, their guild, or the economy at large. It might also be a thin veil laid over 'same shit, different game,' depending on how effective the tradeskill items are, how rare the rares and monster drops are, and if the quest based advancement ammounts to something lame like "make 20 widgets and bring them to the stygian in butt fucked egypt."

Also, does anyone know what the PVP looting rules are?

[JoeTF]

The whole point is that you cannot become specialized crafter in Conan, that's what's wrong.

Hmmm how so? You can only pick one profession and you advance it by running the quests to learn how you craft the shit. That's about as specialized as becoming specialized sword swinger or whatever they use as spell casters. Except sword swingers advance swinging the swords and crafters advance well, crefting apparently.

Problem will be that I estimate at least 70% of playerbase will be 'specialized' in swordcrafting, and the very few that can make worthwhile items will be actually the guilds, not the players. Now, it's a great system if you want to popularize, crafting content, to make it truly mainstream. Only problems is that people who actually like to play the industrial type won't have anything to do in this game:(

[Slyfeind]

Only problems is that people who actually like to play the industrial type won't have anything to do in this game:(

I wonder if that was intentional; bringing back the whole "don't play to bake bread, play2crush" thingie. I mean, if players can spend their whole game lives crafting, there will be an awful lot of those industrial types, which might be considered kinda weird for a Conan game.

[DraconianOne]

I wonder if that was intentional; bringing back the whole "don't play to bake bread, play2crush" thingie.

"Come to Hyboria where you can be Conan The Builder."

All sounds reasonable to me.

[slog]

There are certain exceptions to this, as some of the top tier recipes will require that your guild is in possession of certain types of structures within the guild city. Some of the top tier alchemy recipes will, for instance, require your guild to have an alchemist’s workshop constructed within the guild city.

Translation: Hope you have a guild!!

When gathering a resource there is a small chance that you may collect a rare version of it. Using rare resources when you are crafting will allow you to make a special version of an item. These items will have additional bonuses, such as allowing gemcutters to put more gems into them. This allows crafters to make some incredibly potent and unique items by using several special gems and rare resources!

Translation:  The stuff people will actually want you to make will be the stuff that uses “rares.”  The rest will just be regular crap they you will need to sell at a loss since it won’t be the good stuff.

Another way we’re creating dependencies between the two is making it so that only crafted items can have gems embedded, so the adventurers will be running back to the crafters with the gems they just picked up in some dark dungeon, asking the weaponsmith to make a weapon for them and the gemcutter to put the gems in! Using gems you can customize items, while dropped items can’t be customized.

Translation:  No where did we say that crafted items will be better than drops.  You just can’t customize drops, but you can customize crafted items. 

[Slayerik]

The primary reason for us allowing you to master all resource gathering professions is because of how important resources is to so many different aspects of the gameplay in Age of Conan. As an example you will need to pour resources into your guild city in order to pay for its upkeep!

I have to pump resources into my castle again? I had enough of that in SB.

I think things like player built / owned areas should actually provide resources free (your serfs mine the land and shit). It would take a good chunk of resources to build at first, but after that it would be profitable. This makes them something beyond a 'WEE LOOK WHAT WE HAVE WE ARE UBER'.

[slog]

The primary reason for us allowing you to master all resource gathering professions is because of how important resources is to so many different aspects of the gameplay in Age of Conan. As an example you will need to pour resources into your guild city in order to pay for its upkeep!

I have to pump resources into my castle again? I had enough of that in SB.

I think things like player built / owned areas should actually provide resources free (your serfs mine the land and shit). It would take a good chunk of resources to build at first, but after that it would be profitable. This makes them something beyond a 'WEE LOOK WHAT WE HAVE WE ARE UBER'.

That would be inflationary.  Imagine what the RMT folks could do with it.

[Zetor]

Translation: Hope you have a guild!!

You mean 'hope you have an uberguild'. The pvp section of the faq mentioning "substantial guild resources" and "large guilds" leads me to believe that smaller guilds are screwed, as usual. :P

Which reminds me - is there any sort of alliance / allegiance system in AOC? The FAQ doesn't mention anything, but if smaller guilds could ally with other smaller guilds [or swear allegiance to an uberguild, even], it'd probably help a bit.


-- Z.

[Mrbloodworth]

I'm surprised many people are surprised that a guild based game would require guilds.

[slog]

I'm surprised many people are surprised that a guild based game would require guilds.

Surprised? No.  I was pointing out that this is a system that rewards the powerful with the best gear.   Creating disparities like this tends to make PvP suck for the have-nots.

[Snee]

This is mildly disappointing. relatively "deep" crafting is a major plus for me in an MMO.

If it's going to be a WoW system, clickieboomdone, but even less interesting for the casual crafter... that's bad.

Something vanguardian, but with more randomness and/or customizability in output would have been great.

If they want to give guilds an advantage, it should be on the resource side.

I suppose they're hoping you go for the boobs and stay for the blood?

[Nebu]

Crafting only serves a purpose at two points in the game:

1) The regular stuff that you use to level is only useful when the server is in its infancy.  Once the server matures, general crafted items become merchant fodder.

2) At the endgame.  If the best items that you can craft require super rare drops and a long grind while only being marginally better or the same as random drops, noone will bother buying crafted items.  

DAoC is the only game I've seen really get any mileage out of crafted armor and weapons.  The addition of jewelcrafting and ability to effortlessly macro to max skill made this so.  

[Mrbloodworth]

Crafting only serves a purpose at two points in the game:

1) The regular stuff that you use to level is only useful when the server is in its infancy.  Once the server matures, general crafted items become merchant fodder.

2) At the endgame.  If the best items that you can craft require super rare drops and a long grind while only being marginally better or the same as random drops, noone will bother buying crafted items. 

DAoC is the only game I've seen really get any mileage out of crafted armor and weapons.  The addition of jewelcrafting and ability to effortlessly macro to max skill made this so.   

Regular crafted items can still be slotted.

On your point 2, drooped items can't be customized (Gem slots) but crafted can. Making the utility of it the fact that it can be customized to your Play style/orientation (In AOC).

The major advantage to this system, is that resources, and the ability to craft are now fuel for guild wars and Territory, instead of being an unimportant part of the game (IE: The war between the two sides in WOW, or any other game for that matter).

I was pointing out that this is a system that rewards the powerful with the best gear.   Creating disparities like this tends to make PvP suck for the have-nots.

Sounds like a case for war to me. Also, the Perceived "disparities" is an assumption, based on past game experiences i'm sure, but an assumption none the less.

The games endgame is guild wars, and Territory conquest, tied into crafting and resource controial. So, again, i'm surprised people didn't expect it to require guilds.

[Nebu]

I stand corrected.  Thanks for the info... and the slight glimmer of hope.  I enjoy crafting, but feel that my efforts are futile in nearly every game out there.

[Mrbloodworth]

I stand corrected.  Thanks for the info... and the slight glimmer of hope.  I enjoy crafting, but feel that my efforts are futile in nearly every game out there.

Me too. Thats why i find it rather refreshing. Not only are resources (basically, the economy) fuel for the war. But you wont be crafting 100,000 swords to finally make a good one for your range, on top of that, even a low level sword can be customized!.

All the proof will be in the playing however, but i like the possibilities that this brings, and it IS different than other MMO's in the fact that those that controlling the resources, have the power, and you still have the ability to BURN DOWN THERE TOWN and take it from them.

Whats not to like? As a crafter, i would be smiling with glee that a competing guild just got razed.


EDIT: On the flip side, this system also makes PvP mean something, take away that alchemy workshop mentioned in the first part of this blog, thats going to piss someone off.  Not only do they have to rebuild it, but they cant make anything that required it.

[Draegan]

I hate crafting in MMOs.  It's a dumb timesink.  There is no way to make crafting fun for most people.  To me it's just collecting crap and making stuff and get a +1.  I like the fact that you can max out your crafting painlessly.  More time for other stuff.

[Soukyan]

I hate crafting in MMOs.  It's a dumb timesink.  There is no way to make crafting fun for most people.  To me it's just collecting crap and making stuff and get a +1.  I like the fact that you can max out your crafting painlessly.  More time for other stuff.

I'm in this boat, too. If I enjoyed crafting as a major part of an MMOG, I would play ATiTD. Of course, implementing a great crafting system into a game can attract more players who are into that. Alas, there are not a lot of players who are into a complex, grindy crafting system, so what happens is you attract the few who are, and the rest of the crafting is done by guilds. Regular players cannot always get into it.

I credit WoW with making crafting accessible. If that meant dumbing it down and making it click-to-create, so be it, but it worked in that I actually don't mind crafting in WoW. It can still be a time and money sink, but it integrates well with the other gameplay. Not requiring a person to always be hovering over a "tradeskill table" is a good thing sometimes. Of course, there are still some requirements that are maintained (like the a forge for blacksmithing), but for the most part, tradeskills are more readily available and encouraged.

The complexity and mini-game of the EQ2 trade skills is always an interesting approach, but one that has kept me from getting extremely involved in crafting, mostly because I need to return to a city frequently to craft, and I prefer to stay out and about adventuring. I have no idea what my point was other than to state that I am one of the players who prefer a simplified crafting system, especially if you are going to require me to use those skills to obtain better equipment, components, potions, etc. Of course, I also prefer the shortening of any grind in MMOGs to a snappy enjoyable pace.