Forums » Crafting and Gathering

The Soul of Crafting

    • 259 posts
    July 18, 2018 9:10 AM PDT

    This week in P99/EQ I have managed to raise my Blacksmithing skill to 175. This has been a very time and coin consuming endeavor. It has taken almost 2 months of real life gaming to get to this point. I have reached level 35 with the help of many groups of very nice people. Community in P99 is just outstanding. This is a pic of my Cleric showing his Blacksmithing skill.

    From this day forward my crafting will become a lot more expensive and slow down drastically. So, I have decided to take a break on my Blacksmithing before burn-out sets in.

    I am starting another crafting profession that I really enjoyed in original EQ, Fletching. Meet Aellos, my wood elf Ranger and Fletcher, another character from my old school EQ days.

    Yes, I was looking for a name that would reflect Pantheon and I remembered one of the two elven gods, Aellos from the lore section and thought it would be a very appropriate name for an elven Ranger/Fletcher.

    With my Cleric’s Blacksmithing I was able to craft his first set of complete banded armor to start life in P99 with. It is so rewarding being able to do just that, which is why I love crafting so much. Something you have created yourself from materials in the game to help other characters. That’s the soul of crafting I think. Well maybe not the soul but still a very important component of crafting. Do you feel this way about crafting?

    • 66 posts
    July 18, 2018 11:40 AM PDT

    Congrats on your Blacksmithing! I'm leveling that for some Antonian Javelins for my monk on Agnarr TLP as well. I recently did Fletching up to about 100 too. I would say if there's one thing about EQ crafting that is lacking, it's the UI. The recipes and components needed for one wearable/usable piece take many steps, and the UI feels like it actively thwarts you along the journey. Clicking a ton actually hurts my hand, and the search function on live/TLPs is a poor subsitute for a browsable recipe book.

    My hope would be that crafting in Pantheon is complex - even to the point of frustration - but does not feel hindered by obtuse UI design. I'm sure the devs can figure that one out though. I am similarly worried about crafting reminaing relevant in end-game. I'd love to see raid bosses drop crafting components for truly unique gear, for instance. More information on crafting in Pantheon would be lovely. I wouldn't hate if it were similar to Vanguard either.

    I love getting good use out of something I put time and effort into making.

    • 259 posts
    July 20, 2018 7:35 AM PDT

    I was thinking along the same lines while fletching yesterday. I truly love how complex the fletching skill is compared to the blacksmithing skill. A little more complexity in the bow making side would be great. The arrows feel very natural considering the number of components used to craft this item, the bow on the other hand seems very plain and basic in comparison. These are reflecting progress up to the mid 60's as of now. I know bows get a little more complicated later.

    As far as the UI I can agree and disagree. mainly because if you were there at the time of release you will remember that this was the first real 3D MMORPG ever created. That meant that many of the things we take for granted now as clunky and basic were very advanced during that time. And what a great world to walk into after so many top-down 2D games, but i'm getting sidetracked here. I am also hoping for a very smooth and usable UI when it comes to tradeskills.

    End game has always been a problem for the crafting community. Your put in so much time and effort only to find that all that work is pretty much useless once you reach end game. VR has talked about this problem and assures us that they are working on exactly that issue, making tradeskills viable for the end game crafter. I’m pretty sure that they plan to combine what worked well in Vanguard into the tradeskill system in Pantheon.

    • 24 posts
    August 15, 2018 9:12 AM PDT

    In general crafting system from EQ2, i feel was amazing in terms of it having a UI, being able to customize, and enabling interdependancy. however; it does still leave more room for further improvement and actual Cooperation and not just interdependency. i'd like to see Group Crafting (apprenticeships) be a thing as well as group gathering, similar to Vangaurd.

    @ Shyin,i also agree as to the original "clunkiness" about EQ and how it was the first genuine 3D MMO and having it's general limitations due to no real expectancy or knowing how to go about it as a UI to begin with having only MUDs and Maplestory as predicesors.

     @DagNabbit, i'm not sure if you are familiar with EQ2's Crafting system, but at times, trying to make the highest quality item you could was certainly a challenge and was very rewarding. especially if you were trying to craft something that you know was a higher level then your skill.


    This post was edited by Snoochy at August 15, 2018 9:15 AM PDT