Knowledge holes: crafting, and misc.

[Venkman]

I never bothered with this in beta... like, at all. There a good primer on Crafting.

• When can I start gathering resources?
• I understand it's node based (ala AC2 with mobs spawning on then), but are the resources that spawn zone specific?
• What crafting skills are there? I'm probably just going to gather, but curious anyway.

And then general dumb questions:

• Can I get to BC city without running there? And if I need to run, what level should I be to try? I'm assuming 20+.
• Mailboxes. Do they only appear in the major cities beyond Tortage?
• Are there reasons to return to Tortage after 20?

[Miasma]

Each region has a resource area.  Aqualonia has Potain (get there via Wildlands), Stygia has Purple Lotus Swamp (via Khopef), Cimmeria has Lacheish plains (via Field of the Dead which is just past Connal's Valley).  You train all your gathering and crafting from those zones in the NPC cities.  Regular adventure zones also usually have a small number of nodes to gather from.

All resources can be found in the resource zones but adventure zone resources are usually based on the level of the area.

Architect, armoursmith, weaponsmith, alchemy and gemcutting are the professions, you can train in two.  There is currently no way to untrain.  You can take all the gathering skills, they are used to get different tiers of metal, precious metal, wood, cloth fibre, leather and stone.

You can get to your guild city from any city guide npc by asking to go to your guild city.  Once they actually enable the guild feats there is also supposed to be a recall ability once you have the whole tier 1 city built.

There are no mailboxes, everything(bank/guild bank/auction/mail) is done through the trader npc and they only currently exist in the main cities.

There is no real reason to go back to Tortage unless you want to help others with quests.

Edit: I think you have to be 19 to get to the zones.  The best way to get there IMO is to go to Khopef and run due North to the Purple Lotus npcs then choose the one npc which lets you go to your city.  There are a few scorpions in the way and sometimes a group of three bandits right outside bubshur but you should be able to sprint away from them, just stick to the road when you start seeing the mantis creatures.  The resource zones themselves have animals but they are non aggro.  Walking around will sometimes trigger a spawn matched to your level, the mobs that spawn during harvesting are also your level.  The system sometimes breakdown though since if a level eighty is spawned on and runs away his mobs will still be there and can instantly kill you...

[Xeyi]

All resources can be found in the resource zones but adventure zone resources are usually based on the level of the area.

Some resources such as uncut gems, alchemy herbs and silk are mob drops rather than being from nodes.  For tier 1 gatherig everthing you need is in the gathering zones however.

[Miasma]

Right I forgot about that, I meant resources as defined by the harvesting professions and even then at later levels you need silk which is only from mobs.  You don't actually skin animals either, leather is a drop .

Both gathering and crafting are tier based.  You complete some quests to finish one tier and then can do the next but at a higher level, so adventure level is needed to craft.  Gathering tiers are 20, 50 and 70.  So for example you start with cutting ash then go to yew then oak.  The quests for each tier are the same, first you gather twenty of the resource and then you have to go out and find a rare gather.  The rares are very rare and I swear their random number generator hates me, I had to harvest over 500 sandstone to find a quartz.  The tier two rares were really easy for me though.

I haven't bothered crafting so I don't know much about it.  Everything they make is either worthless or can be purchased from NPCs for one fifth of the cost to make it.  Plus it's all very buggy.  The main idea is that only player crafted items can take gems so the professions build on each other somewhat.  Currently putting a gem in something crashes your game right now though...  Since stats like int/wis/str don't really do anything right now the whole thing seems completely pointless.  Your guild needs exactly one architect to build the entire city so only take that if you want to build siege engines which aren't even in the game right now.

Gems and alchemy ingredients are also tiered.  You get level 50 gems, then 60 etc based on the level of mob you are fighting.  You only start getting those at level forty I believe.

[Threash]

The main thing you should know about crafting is that its completely and utterly broken atm.  It might get fixed by thursday, but the whole system is still pretty terrible even if it works as it should.

[Venkman]

Ok thanks all. One last question:

If resources can be gathered in both resource zones and adventure zones, is there a difference? Like, do you have a higher probability of rares in an adventure zone?

[Xeyi]

Ok thanks all. One last question:

If resources can be gathered in both resource zones and adventure zones, is there a difference? Like, do you have a higher probability of rares in an adventure zone?

They are the same as far as I know.  I don't harvest much in adventure zones as the nodes are both pretty scarce and generally heavily farmed by passers by, I harvest them if I pass one but it doesnt seem worth actively looking for them in an adventure zone.

[Threash]

Ok thanks all. One last question:

If resources can be gathered in both resource zones and adventure zones, is there a difference? Like, do you have a higher probability of rares in an adventure zone?

Resource zones are just packed with resources everywhere,  they are a lot more scarse in adventure zones.  I dont think theres any other differences.

[Venkman]

Why did they make separate zones just for resources? Is it so that the players in adjacent adventure areas where they build their cities fight for control over these resource zones?

[Lakov_Sanite]

Why did they make separate zones just for resources? Is it so that the players in adjacent adventure areas where they build their cities fight for control over these resource zones?

you can't build cities in adventure area, only in the seperate resource zones, so your guild cities are sort of in their own little rental space with lots of nodes. the weird thing is these resource zones aren't pvp+ as far as i know so any random farmer can come into your guild city zone and mine the crap out of it.

[Miasma]

Why did they make separate zones just for resources? Is it so that the players in adjacent adventure areas where they build their cities fight for control over these resource zones?

Well they aren't really just resource zones.  They are tradeskill hubs and also contain the guild cities.  When PvP endgame starts they will also be the most populated zones as all of the border kingdoms link off of the resource zones.  They are instanced so even on a PvP server it would be impossible to get control of the resources.  Each instance of the zone contains three PvE cities so you aren't alone either.  There are also quest instance zones which you get into via the resource areas.

It is very rare that I am able to switch instances in the resource zones though, it's quite frustrating and I don't know why I can't.

[Arrrgh]

It randomly spawns mobs your level to attack you as you're mining. They drop resources as loot, and are decent exp, so I don't mind. Once in a while though you'll see high level mobs just standing about. I assume they were about to attack a high level miner who ran off. These would be hard on a L20 just picking up the gathering skills.

My question is has anyone respecced lately and did it screw up your crafting skills? I read posts from people who were bugged while respeccing earlier and their crafting skills are still screwed up. I'd like to move a few points around but not at the cost of resetting or bugging all my gathering quests/skills.

[Miasma]

I guess that only happened from the Tortage trainer NPC, their answer was to remove the Tortage trainer...  Kind of a blunt force move but you are safe to re-spec now.

[Xeyi]

Yep, I respecced just yesterday in Old Tarantia and didn't have a problem.

[Venkman]

you can't build cities in adventure area, only in the seperate resource zones, so your guild cities are sort of in their own little rental space with lots of nodes. the weird thing is these resource zones aren't pvp+ as far as i know so any random farmer can come into your guild city zone and mine the crap out of it.

Oh, so this is how they implemented Borderlands then. @Miasma: when you say tradeskill hubs, is this because the PvE cities contain the trainers and other sundries needed to craft?

[Miasma]

Oh, so this is how they implemented Borderlands then. @Miasma: when you say tradeskill hubs, is this because the PvE cities contain the trainers and other sundries needed to craft?

Yes each resource zone has one NPC city where you get all your crafting/gathering quests.  It is also where crafers buy thier components and tools.

[Lantyssa]

Edit: I think you have to be 19 to get to the zones.  The best way to get there IMO is to go to Khopef and run due North to the Purple Lotus npcs then choose the one npc which lets you go to your city.  There are a few scorpions in the way and sometimes a group of three bandits right outside bubshur but you should be able to sprint away from them, just stick to the road when you start seeing the mantis creatures.

Going to Tesso in the Wild Lands of Zelata and running north east to the Caravan Master/City Guide is similarly easy and with the river one can avoid all hostiles.