Are most items used by players crafted by players?

Are there any sandboxy elements to VG, or is it a quest hub to quest hub ride?

Originally posted by jramsay61

Are most items used by players crafted by players?

Are there any sandboxy elements to VG, or is it a quest hub to quest hub ride?

Vanguard is about as 'sandboxy' a (modern) PvE MMO as I have found.

Of course, 'sandbox' means different things to different people. Can you just walk out into the wilderness and just start building a settlement in a random location?

No.

Can you change your mind about the quests you are currently doing and just up sticks and walk (or ride ,or fly) across the entire continent, or travel by rift stone or ship to a different continent to try something else?

Yes.

I use player crafted items quite a lot. Usually stuff made by friends, rather than 'store bought' stuff.

Some items like houses, boats and such, as far as I know, can only be made by other players or by you. You can't buy them from NPCs.

VG's crafting is very deep, but almost too time-consuming. Dealing with "issues" that arise while crafting can become very frustrating. Especially when you get a string of problems that come up.

VG definitely has sandboxy elements. Your house isn't instanced, like SWG. Dungeons aren't instanced. The world is gigantic and open. No loading screens except when going from one continent to another. There are quests, but you don't have to do them in any particular order. It's a themepark with some sandboxy elements. One of the best PvE MMOs out in my opinion.

Originally posted by jramsay61

Are most items used by players crafted by players?

 

Are there any sandboxy elements to VG, or is it a quest hub to quest hub ride?

www.youtube.com/watch

Watch all the VIds on Crafting and the game in general...

Oh,their is a trail you know..

vanguard.station.sony.com/isleofdawn/

Lots of people do use player-crafted adventuring items, but in my personal experiences I don't think I'd go nearly so far as to say that a majority of player-used adventuring equipment is player-crafted...although the specific percentages might depend a lot on level range? 

That said, I do think that crafted items are at least somewhat relevant in adventuring, though, and the crafting process itself was always kind of inherently fun.

VG has probably the best crafting ever seen in any mmo's

( Ryzom comes close but shines mostly in the harvesting department)

The problem is SOE / Silius made this awesome crafting system nearly obsolete.

Most of the stuff you craft is useless, you get better drops left and right, boats are useless too, etc..

Originally posted by vladww

VG has probably the best crafting ever seen in any mmo's

( Ryzom comes close but shines mostly in the harvesting department)

 

The problem is SOE / Silius made this awesome crafting system nearly obsolete.

Most of the stuff you craft is useless, you get better drops left and right, boats are useless too, etc..

Ships are there for the water travel and a good feeling to have one. What other use would you expect?

Crafting is noway near useless. As you level up, and if you keep up your crafting level equal to adventuring, then most of your gear will be crafted.

The very best heroic items dropped from quests, raiding, and named bosses are better than the best crafted items, but not by too much. If  you rely on just dropped items you will have a lot of holes in your equipment.  

Originally posted by morpin

The very best heroic items dropped from quests, raiding, and named bosses are better than the best crafted items, but not by too much. If  you rely on just dropped items you will have a lot of holes in your equipment.  

 

There are also a lot of 'speciality' items crafters make that even the best equipped raiders in the game will use.  Could be counterspelling gear for casters, a special weapon that a tank might use for a specific fight etc.  Always seems to be something new that crafters can make too. 

Crafted items are not the best items in the game.  That said the best items in the game are pretty hard to get so you are gonna need a fair number of second best items, ie crafted items.  On my characters I've always contracted crafted items for gear I considered critical that was lacking an good item.  Keep in mind generally the crafted items for sale are not the best items that can be crafted and another thing you can craft an item specifically for a purpose.  Like my bard had two special daggers that boosted energy recovery or something like that.  Even when I had a better weapon I'd consider the crafted ones if I needed energy and was using some heavy draining songs.

So crafted equipment is definitely viable in the low to mid game.  In the upper game when you start capping you probably have time to get all the best items from drops and quests but even so when you get there investing in some crafted stuff is still reasonable. 

Well, if you're looking to get rich off of armor and weapon crafting then you shouldn't bother so much. Just because every guild should have all types of crafters in em and you wont get much buisness. But on the other hand, if you find it very difficult to get a group to do your armor sets and get weapon quests, then crafting is an alternative. Some if not most crafted armor and weapons are better than the quested ones. The only time you will see crafteed items being inferior is from the raid or end game stuff. But even then if you feel like your raid gear isn't good enough you can pick up some raiding materials to craft yourself some pretty awesome end gear. And to top if off you're almost in control of the stats you want on crafting. Vanguard has by far the best crafting system out there. The only other crafting system I like would be from Ultima Online.