Intro to crafting - Grimforge Mountain

[Davairus]

A bit of discussion has led us to consider expending some effort on producing some legitimate crafting methods for the mud. If this gets a good response, we'll continue to implement more crafting methods.

On with the details...

Forging

This all takes place in Grimforge mountain, and is available to all classes. Its most favourable for the high levels, since that's who'll gather the ore the quickest. Incase you're not aware, Grimforge Mountain is located beyond the void, 500 years in the past, corresponding to where you usually find the large hobgoblins. (Its what was there before the goblin invasions that have ravaged the dwarf kingdom.)

Components are:

* ore. this is the "currency" of forging
* a mine, which you will search to find "ore"
* gems. You've already seen these. They're the iouns, stones, jewels, etc, that typically float nearby.

Since gem level sets the limit of the process, you'll want to get the highest level gems you can find to make the best stuff. If you just want to make low end +1 dam, +2 dam etc items, there are less important gems you can waste on them. For making the high-end stuff, you need rare gems. (identify the object and check its "type gem", incase you're not sure)

* a furnace, where you will combine your "ore" together (the more ore you put in, the better the item eventually produced, up to a maximum of 50 ores for level 50 gems)
* furnace is also used to fuse your ore with the necessary gem
* anvils, where you shape the ingot into whatever you want (helm, breastplate, etc). sequences are to be found exploring Grimforge Mountain
* a tank of water, which you dump it in to harden the shaped armor (i.e. roll its stats)

Now, the entire process is essentially split into four stages:
1) collecting ore, which determines the range of the objects eventual bonuses
2) heating ore + jewel in a furnace to create an ingot
3) shaping the ingot into an armor
4) cooling the armor to harden in (add stats)

Notes:
* If you have enough ore, you can be guaranteed the biggest bonuses.
* Stages 2 and 3 involve player skill, stage 4 is a bit of a crapshoot. These are used to determine the object's penalties.

After you've cooled the item, you will be the proud owner of something like a "reinforced silver helmet of crudeness"..

"reinforced" is a prefix. This is determined by the skill with which you forged it.
"of crudeness" is its suffix. This is determined by how much ore put in.


Detailed signs are placed around Grimforge where you need them, but you'll find you also need to explore the area a bit to learn what to do. For example, if you're looking for the sequences to use on the hammer/tongs stage, explore Grimforge, and you will learn them. To make helmet is 2 hammer strikes and 6 grips with tongs. The rest you can find yourselves by searching Grimforge Mountain.

The mine is soloable for sufficient high rank, and its not a bad place to find gold. One thing. You'll find the mine is unlike other places in AR, where you always know where the mobs will be. In this place, you'll know where the mobs are, but have no idea how many you'll be facing. i.e. random encounters. This is to relieve boredom. Also look out for the wandering aggressive in there, he should be avoidable in theory.

Aaargh! My crafted armor is crap. Priceless gem ruined!

Just throw the forged armor back in the furnace and it'll melt back down into the original gem. Burn grimforge armor for rare gems! Or if you find a rare gem keep plugging away with it. Something like that.



Credits go out to:
- Nychlas (pip) for building the original area
- Vhrael for making the mine
- Vanisse also did the signs and helped with improving the authenticity of the forge
----------------

Crafting of course is difficult to fit into the AR rubric. Unlike most popular commercial games, where crafting is just an endless treadmill with one direction - forwards - AR is a game where you will suffer serious setbacks, most obviously the loss of the item. So we're not really too sure how well this'll work out, but there's already an established base of people using evermore gambling, imbues, etc, so we're willing to make a go of it.

We'll be waiting for your feedback, and please, not just bugs this time. We need to know if you are enjoying this stuff, so we don't waste time making more methods if it isn't that interesting.

[Erlwith]

Sweet. Soon as I get a certain someone to pinnacle I'm deffinetly going to be checking this out. I will reserve any suggestions for once I actually have an idea of how it works.

[Erlwith]

Oh, just a thought... give high level mobs (lich king, iiglywhatever, etc.) really nice ores to use in crafting. It'll help integrate forging into other aspects of the game. Maybe this will even lead to a growth in player commerce in the game. Selling ores for various prices, etc.

[beia]

Wait a moment, I am comfused, only high lvs can forge or does all classes and abilites have that skill?

[Smotpoker]

i dont think its a skill

[beia]

Ahh ok, that explains it, it is hard to get ore.

[La_PaRCa]

Ok, so... what is a rare gem? What exactly qualifies as one?

[Davairus]

Object type "gem" ... iouns, gems, stones, jewels.. etc. I added some new gems of varying usefulness, so there's enough of them around.


As for the hammer/grip thing, look around the area, the correct sequences can be found by exploring the rest of Grimforge.

[Vhrael]

I think the confusion on the "gem" topic was that it was mentioned as having to be a rare gem (i.e. "rare" or "unique" item), as opposed to being an item that isn't used very much and therefore probably isn't well-known (i.e. gemstones, jewels, etc.). Hopefully that's cleared up now.

[Davairus]

I removed the rare restriction on gems, but gem level is now used to cap the ingot level (ingot level = amount of ores mixed). So you dont need gem of envy to roll a +1 dam crap item or something. You can just use a deep red stone instead.

[Grayden]

I found the mine, but there are some serious golems in my way. Is the forge meant for level 40+ or can the rest of us get a passage past thoes basterds.

Grayden Grim of the Bloody Fields of Flesh

[Erlwith]

Pop on a monster potion and let have.

[Davairus]

I've changed the mine a fair bit tonight, and redid the restringing to help people judge the quality of objects they're making. Let me know how it goes. And yes it is aimed at high level. Solo high level, though.

[beia]

*NOT a rant*


Shouldnt Crafting be for all levels? Why do we have to be strong to do it? That seems kindof unfair..... I just think it should be for lower levels also, incase someone wants to make a pure crafter!

[Davairus]

Because we're just trying it out with our vets right now.

[Burzuk]

Think of it as an incentive to level up.

There's also the matter of player interest -- most players would prefer to kill higher-level creatures for more powerful items (after having levelled up) than to waste time and effort with low-level crafted items. Low-end crafted items would also simply duplicate many of the nonrare items easily attainable by newbies, or even guild-issue. It's possible for us to add lower-level crafting, but I don't foresee a whole lot of player demand for it -- players want the most powerful items possible, and that's going to mean item creation methods need to be tailored toward level 50's. Also, AR's crafting uses mobs to control how long it takes to gather reagents, and having max-level people waltz through lowbie mobs to spam-craft would cause some balance issues, to say the least.

In other games (especially ones with no- or optional-PK) you can often camp the same spot over and over for a reagent to craft, and the repop restrictions are things like time intervals and probability. We want our mud activities to be more dynamic than that, so on AR players need to actually accomplish things (such as killing mobs) if they want to craft.

Every AR character is a potential crafter. On AR, crafting is something you do, not who you are.

[Erlwith]

[Burzuk]

[Davairus]

Its now possible to throw your crafted armor into the furnace to melt it back down. This is a way to get the original gem back.

[_Clifton_]