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Series of QuestionFollow

#1 May 08 2004 at 8:55 PM Rating: Decent
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Now, I've heard bits of pieces of these questions answered elsewhere, but I'm kind of curious to have them answered?

WoW looks intriguing, but I've already vested an exorbitant amount of time into FFXI, so I want to know if WoW is worthwhile (I'll try it before I switch, assuming I do)

Questions:

(I'm a big crafter in MMOs, so things like economy mean a lot more to me then levelling)

1. How is the server economy? Does it use an Auction House system, that has a centralized buying/selling point for every server? Players run their own shops? Or do people just hawk their wares on trade channels til somebody buys it.

2. How does crafting function exactly? I understand you use skill points to advance your caps in a craft? Can you only get these skill points when you level? Also, I hear that crafts that you have a recipe for never fail (I pray this isn't the case, takes half the fun out of crafting).

3. How many crafts can you be in at once? Can you join several and only specialize in one, or does joining several spread you thin? Or can you just master them all and corner the market?

4. Is crafting profitable? IE, do the materials to make an item cost less than the finished product, or are the materials worth more? Or does it vary?
#2 May 10 2004 at 11:54 AM Rating: Good
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6,678 posts
1. There is no real system in place *yet*, but I understand there are plans to incorporate that still. As of right now, everyone goes to the hub zones to do their auctioning, much like East Commonlands used to be used in Everquest. The alliance players all go to Stormwind Keep. I haven't played horde, but I think they go to the Crossroads in the Barrens.

2. Crafting is a little tricky to explain. First you have to buy the basic skill from a trainer at the cost of "skill points" which you get from exp gained from raw mob slaying. (It's used for a couple other things, but not in bulk like tradeskills need right now.)
All tradeskills that produce things generally have a gathering ability. Leatherworkers really need to be, or have a good friend that does skinning. Herbalism and Mining are other gathering skills.
Once you have the materials and the basic skill to do, say, alchemy, you open a menu where you can brew the alchemy recipes you already know. The menu will list the recipes, along with how trivial they are, and how many you have the materials to make. Combines never fail. The trivial level is only for determining skill-up rate. Additional recipes can be bought from the skill's trainer for money, however some are drop only and you have to acquire from mobs. They all have a required skill level to "scribe".
If you have the ability to make an item, you ask the game to create it, a small bar appears at the bottom of your screen as you complete the item, and reaches completion 4-5 seconds later.
The interface is clean, and simple to use. I find tradeskilling much more enjoyable in WoW than Everquest.
There are a few downsides though. Gathering herbs for your alchemy can be a full-time job, and when you reach certain plateaus of skill in a trade, you need to spend more skill points to advance from Apprentice level to Journeyman to Master, and there will be more levels at release. Players argue about how useful tradeskilling is right now; with the latest push, the crafted items have apparently taken a hit in relative power to the items mobs drop. And sometimes you reach a skill level where there is simply nothing you can do to gain skill-ups without doing one of two combines that both require the same resource, assuming you haven't found any non-vendor recipes.
The whole system is still under some measure of revision, ofc, but I find it to be much more pleasurable than Everquest, where I adopted the slogan "Friends don't let friends do tradeskills."

3. You can do as many crafts as you have skill points to pay for. However, while an initial cost of 5-15 points is not bad, advancing to journeyman costs 50-100 points (per skill), and the third level is even higher. Chances are, you will probably not want to focus on more than two skills, one being a resource gathering skill. When you get higher in level, the skill points come much more quickly, but you have to go to the newbie lands to practice your skill on basic stuff before you can, say, mine the ore deposits in the higher level areas. So while you can do all you want later, it's good to get a start on *a* skill early on if you intend to.

4. Selling to a vendor, crafting isn't profitable. However, some player-bought goods have decent earning potential. I've never been a good entrepreneur, so I'm not the best to answer that question, but some people do make money enchanting people's cloaks or selling engineered helmets and tailored backpacks.
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#3 May 19 2004 at 9:28 PM Rating: Decent
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526 posts
Questions:
1. How is the server economy? Does it use an Auction House system, that has a centralized buying/selling point for every server? Players run their own shops? Or do people just hawk their wares on trade channels til somebody buys it.

Azurac answered this one really well.

2. How does crafting function exactly? I understand you use skill points to advance your caps in a craft? Can you only get these skill points when you level? Also, I hear that crafts that you have a recipe for never fail (I pray this isn't the case, takes half the fun out of crafting).

Doing crafting fairly heavily myself. it is true that you never fail. at least i havnt yet.

3. How many crafts can you be in at once? Can you join several and only specialize in one, or does joining several spread you thin? Or can you just master them all and corner the market?

You can be in as many as you like as long as you have the Skill points for them (ive talked to a few people who have maxed out 4-5 different crafting specialties but they wont tell me how).


4. Is crafting profitable? IE, do the materials to make an item cost less than the finished product, or are the materials worth more? Or does it vary?

It can be profitable. depends on if you buy your materials from other players and vendors, or go farming for the items yourself. Be warned, quite a few of the materials are purchased from vendors and (from my understanding) cannot be found on monsters. I do Tailoring with some minor leathercraft on the side. A good combo to have because certain items need some leather to make. Bags, among other things. -- I am unsure if you are familer with the money system. Gold, Silver, Copper. every 100 copper is 1 silver, every 100 silver is 1 gold. I dont know if there is anything above that. -- Because of the tailoring leatherworking, and skinning (a very small skill that is just needed for the materials to craft with the tailoring) i had almost 2 gold at level 12. It dissapeared quite quickly when the monsters that i needed to get materials from were far over my own level. But yes, if you are selling the right things in the right place, you can make quite a bit of money.
#4 Jun 13 2004 at 10:40 AM Rating: Decent
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4,520 posts
Ok this is the one thing i wish they adressed with the tradeskill system. Before i mention anything i want to say that i dont play on the beta and im just going off of what i heard, but theres one thing that really makes me mad about this game.

TRADESKILLS:Having tradeskills are a mainstay in MMORPGS, it lets people make items that are more powerfull in some cases than bought in shops, and sometimes from monsters.Now having said that, the Tradeskill system in WoW seems nothing more than a quest system where you gain points for doing the same quest over and over again. Sure its nice to be able to gain skills to craft better things but the thing is that these tradeskill craftings could be also called quests(this reminds of many fetch quests in other games which reward you for bringing crafting materials to the npc, the npc then gives you a peice of armor and later on based on level/faction/fame you can get another quest for a higher lvl item for higher level items).

This is one of the things that will stop me from playing this game(along with the rest system) if not tweeked during beta.
#5 Jun 13 2004 at 10:48 AM Rating: Decent
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469 posts
VampyreKnight, don't knock it til you try it. The trade system is the best one I've seen in any MMORPG, and I've seen many. Blizzard knows how to take anything and make it downright enjoyable.

Right now the economy's kinda wonky, as higher levels don't have much to do but tradeskill and farm, so you see a lot of high level blues (rare items with good stats and lower than normal level requirements) for sale, and you see a lot of tradeskill gathered items (ore, herbs, leather) selling for a pretty penny. But that's what happens when you cap a game in the middle of progression.

Edit: Forgot to explain what blues were. Fixed.

Edited, Sun Jun 13 12:02:25 2004 by JAEFo
#6 Jun 13 2004 at 11:34 AM Rating: Decent
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4,520 posts
ill take your word for it heh. After typing that i thought a little and seeing as how you actually have to have a certain skill to craft some of the better stuff its a lot like the tradeskills of yesteryear, just with less time consumed into getting .1 skill point every 5 failures.
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