Crafting
Each character you make can choose any 2 of the following 8 disciplines:
-Weaponsmith: Craft melee weapons such as swords, axes and hammers.
-Huntsman: Craft ranged weapons such as bows, pistols, torches and war horns.
-Artificer: Craft magical weapons such as staves' and scepters
-Armorsmith: Craft heavy armor pieces.
-Leatherworker: Craft medium armor pieces.
-Tailor: Craft light armor pieces.
-Jewelcrafter: Craft jewelry, such as rings and necklaces.
-Cook: Prepare food which characters can eat for temporary combat buffs.
For the most part, these are pretty traditional. What's interesting though, is that not only can we make complete items, but also make upgrades for existing items. ArenaNet provided an example of a weaponsmith crafting a handle which can be attached to a melee weapon to give it a chance to poison enemies.
Gathering crafting mats (materials) are what you would expect, and do include looting items from fallen enemies, as well as gathering ore, herbs/plants, and trees. Also, players can get salvaging kits from merchants, which let them break down items for parts. What is a bit different though, is that all of us can gather all types of "harvestable" items, and they are not limited to just gathering
plants, or ore, for example. Nodes don't vanish once someone harvests them, and after someone has gathered ore from that vein, another player can immediately after, too. Given that fighting over ore nodes is something we can all relate to and is usually pretty frustrating... it's a little difficult to complain about that feature.
Another interesting part of crafting is the recipes. You will gain some recipes from trainers as you go, but not all of them. Instead, you need to somehow discover the recipes on your own. Players can just try putting different resources together and seeing what happens. If it makes something, it creates a new recipe in your UI so you can easily make it again. This would allow some crafters to distinguish themselves by being able to make certain items that other people haven’t figured out. Some people might work hard to keep secrets to better make profits, and it will likely still take a while before every combination possible is used.
Lastly, a few things to point out: Leveling up your crafting skill uses an experience system. SO, each item you craft is worth a certain amount of experience. There are a total of 400 skill points in each discipline. When you craft something, the items will often give multiple points worth of experience, not just one at a time. The intent here is that we should never have to make something we consider worthless while leveling our craft. Ingenious?!?
I think so!
