by Karen Hertzberg on Nov 08, 2006
Now
that we hopefully understand how to craft, let’s talk about
my crafting
experiences. I arrived in Mekalia and finished the tutorial crafting
quests advancing me to level three. I then started taking work orders.
Each crafting encounter takes roughly one to two minutes. On its face
it may sound a little boring. But what I noticed is that I quickly
gained a feel for how far I could push each encounter. Almost every
crafting encounter I end up with between zero and three hundred points
left. I seem to barely survive each crafting encounter but
it’s rare
that I ever fail. This uncertainty has the effect of keeping me on edge
each crafting encounter. A couple things that quickly become apparent
is that crafting in Vanguard requires thought...and that crafting is
addicting.
After a few hours of crafting and reaching level
eleven I did a search for a few friends that might be in beta. I found
one of my friend’s names and sent him a message. He told me
he was a
Weaponsmith and was crafting in Tursh and could use an outfitter to
make some parts for some weapon recipes. Although it was pretty late
and I should have been asleep hours earlier I decided to run to Tursh,
which is on the continent of Thestra.
I could write many pages
about my journey to Thestra. But let’s say it just took many,
many
hours to get there. Maybe I should say many more hours than it should
have taken me to get there. The world is huge. On the way there I
learned many elementary lessons about traveling in Vanguard.
It was quite a humbling and
embarrassing journey. After many hours, and many corpse runs I arrived
in Tursh close to daybreak real life time. My friend and probably most
other players on the server were asleep by now. But I was there and had
somewhat survived the journey. I was just happy and thankful that there
was no item decay upon death or all my valuable level four and seven
equipment would have been turned into dust.
I decided to go to
sleep and try again tomorrow. My friend said I needed to be level 19 to
make grade A quality parts for him. I was so excited about the game and
it was so late, or early, I could barely sleep. After a couple hours I
just decided to get up. It was Saturday morning and there was no reason
to sleep when there were levels that could be gained.
Upon
starting crafting in Tursh I met a very nice crafter who offered to
give me some free crafting gear. He then explained to me how to place
my attribute points which I had so far completely ignored. The crafting
gear and possibly the attribute points made a huge difference. I was
struggling to make C quality grade on easy crafting work orders before
the gear. After getting new gear I was able to make B to C quality
grade items on difficult work orders which greatly increased my
experience rate. It took me about another ten hours of playing that day
to reach level nineteen.
One thing I have noticed is that I
make much better quality items when I am more awake. I have tried
crafting while tired and it’s much harder to make the same
quality
items when I am not thinking or paying as much attention. What might be
most exciting about Vanguard crafting is there is actual thought
involved, not just mindless button mashing.
Here is what I like about crafting:
There
is really not much I dislike about crafting right now. Most of my
dislikes will be fixed as Sigil adds new content and balances
experience and the classes.
I
was very scared coming into beta that crafting would be a lot of
mindless button pushing like some other game I won’t mention.
I was not
expecting much in terms of crafting being fun but I was excited there
was building and construction. The crafting in Vanguard is very well
done and far beyond any hopes or expectations I had. Everyone I meet in
game seems to love it. It is very well done.