Feedback on crafting

[Ula Fey]

Well, I had hoped Ula was finally going to get to make some stuff, and I'd be able to fill a thread with gushing praise for how good the system was.

But....I finally found a mortar and pestle for sale, not in the centre of town in, say, the alchemists shop which my simple brain thought might be the obvious place, but way out at the gate of the sunderer with rodwick the sage. And I only found that out by asking another player.

Smith hammer...hmm, logical places again... the avanthyr smithy? Nope. Either of the armour shops in the centre of the trade tier? Nope. Err...mirakus post? Orlan's generally got at least one of everything....Nope.

Metal? Maybe with the miners out at Sharahan? Nope.

OK, I can understand that metal might be 'hidden away' somewhere and have to be found...in the hills, maybe, I haven't really looked. But all I've found so far are moulds, but not the tools or materials needed to use them.

There used to be a merchant in Port avanthyr who specifically sold 'crafting supplies' and ironically I carried around a stack of ingots, a couple of moulds and the requisite tools for weeks on end...now that crafting has been implemented, I'm stuck at stage one.

Have I just missed whoever is selling this stuff? In which case, fine, I'll keep looking, but would question the logic of the most obvious merchants not stocking them. Or have they not been added yet?

[Saulus]

The iron igots and some of the crafting supplies can be found at a few vendors, you just have to do a bit of searching. More supplies will eventually become available on drops as well.

As for the hammer and mortal & pestle, they were actually in those stores but it seems they somehow were removed by an overwrite. I will have this fixed in the next update.

[Ula Fey]

Ah, ok, thanks for that! I'll keep trawling the vendors then, and ask around in-character in game.

Thanks for the response. Err...and apologies for the sarcastic tone of the first post. I should know better than to ask questions when I'm still frustrated ...

[Raksha]

Just a suggestion on the new stores: Maybe there could be some kind of advertising post where new or altered vendors "advertise" what they have to offer? It seems rather odd that they wouldn't do that when there are hordes of adventurers running around with ridiculous (by commoner standards) amounts of gold to spend.

Just a thought, so that folks don't have to brave twenty transitions and five crashes to find out what's where. ^_^

[Ula Fey]

Ooh, like the idea of a guild mall...

...but for now, some pointers to where things are (and things actually being in logical locations) is more than enough.

[Vichtor]

Any way to implement a "Town Crier" near the most heavily travelled zone points.

Basically an NPC that can be interacted with that will give the location of certain things, accessed through a simple conversation window:

"Welcome to Sundren City! Anything you're looking for, I can help you find! What would you like to know about?"

1. Armor and Weapons
2. Crafting supplies
3. Magical Vendors
4. General Goods

Each option may have a subset; option 2, for example might be broken down into:

1. Smithing
2. Alchemy
3. Gems (For creating magical items)
4. Traps

And once you find what you're looking for, he could give you nice in-game directions:

"Ah, an aspiring smithy eh? You'll want to talk to IronBeard down at the local Armor smith, by the Cresting Wave Inn. I hear he usually has some spare materials available...for the right price."

[Ithildin]

well I can say crafting simple things like half plates work, saved about 300 gold making it with a friends help as new characters.

[Ula Fey]

Yup - the items are fixed now.

[undeadsteak]

Im fine with a town crier as long as it doesnt shout across the whole map like most NPC's in avanthyr do..

[Ouroboros]

Maybe a new Crafting Flavour

For a more advanced Crafting Idea, check out "The Complete Craftsman" on NWN2 Vault. It's a really good crafting Hakpak. It does the following:

- It allows DM's to preconfigure how it works. I know you can add costs to items (i.e. XP or Gold) and I'm also pretty sure you can Add and / or Change the recipies in it.
- If When you Make an item like a sword or armour, if your skill is greater than 5 or 10 (can't remember), you create a Masterworks weapon which is like an improvement. Rewards people who excell in that Crafting skill. Weps do more damage, Armour moves better (Reduces Dex Penalty) and so on.
- Fixes the whole stuff up in NWN2 where an item property steals an enchantment slot. Also, if you Hex the item (Add a Race / Class / Alignment Restriction), you get a max of 1 bonus enchantment slot.
- Also allows you to Rename items.
- Allows enchantment of ANYTHING. So if you find a ring, and you can enchant, you can enchant it!
- Allows you to.. Whats the word... Salvage items. You can basically smelt swords and items for their Ingots or get essences out of Magical Items.

I think it may be of use as the guy said it was very customizable. Maybe this could help add a new Flavour to the normal Crafting System?

[Gnarr]

Tried out some crafting the other night and enjoyed searching all the buildings I could find for the various vendors. At the same time found it somewhat frustrating as previously mentioned... needed to start writing down places to try and keep stuff straight.

On crafting magical items one combination returned an odd result. Most combinations say "not a valid recipe" while a couple told me I was not high enough level, but one simply have no feedback at all nor did it produce something. Not sure if it was supposed to or not. It was 1 Iron Ingot, 1 Faint Earth Essence, 1 Sapphire and Mage Armor cast upon it.

[Saulus]

For a more advanced Crafting Idea, check out "The Complete Craftsman" on NWN2 Vault. It's a really good crafting Hakpak. It does the following:

- It allows DM's to preconfigure how it works. I know you can add costs to items (i.e. XP or Gold) and I'm also pretty sure you can Add and / or Change the recipies in it.
- If When you Make an item like a sword or armour, if your skill is greater than 5 or 10 (can't remember), you create a Masterworks weapon which is like an improvement. Rewards people who excell in that Crafting skill. Weps do more damage, Armour moves better (Reduces Dex Penalty) and so on.
- Fixes the whole stuff up in NWN2 where an item property steals an enchantment slot. Also, if you Hex the item (Add a Race / Class / Alignment Restriction), you get a max of 1 bonus enchantment slot.
- Also allows you to Rename items.
- Allows enchantment of ANYTHING. So if you find a ring, and you can enchant, you can enchant it!
- Allows you to.. Whats the word... Salvage items. You can basically smelt swords and items for their Ingots or get essences out of Magical Items.

I think it may be of use as the guy said it was very customizable. Maybe this could help add a new Flavour to the normal Crafting System?

I've already been reviewing the usefulness of this.

[CainSF]

I like the idea to this crafting thing. The only thing I would worry about is people abusing it and wandering from RP. Might I sugest that the gems or such to make the really exeptional items be out of the way? In otherwords a place that only those who can use them are likely able to get to. Maye it would deswade people who just craft for gold's sake if they have to wander too much, or atleast give us time to brainwash them not to.

Don't get me wrong. I would love a strong enchantment on my equipment. I just think people should have to work for it.

[Saulus]

Sundren is a highly balanced server, it won't be at all possible to exploit crafting. Don't think for a second that we'll make it easy to make powerful items.

[Venture]

i crafted my first weapon last night. It was frustrating cause my character started with no gold, so I had to kill some bandits with my bare hands and a couple low levels spells, but eventually i had enough coin to craft myself a hammer. Kinda nice feelling, to accomplish something with ones virtual hands.