Are there any F2P MMOs that have a more in depth crafting system? Something a little more complex than "get these materials to make 1 sword" ?

I've tried Wurm Online and I found it to be too slow and out-dated...

I've heard Eden Online is a decent F2P game, what's the crafting like?

If you don't mind older graphics until the update comes, we have a big group starting Anarchy Online. The crafting system in there has always intrigued me since it is quite complex. We have a good amount of veterans starting over and starting fresh, so maybe that's something to take a look at. We'd love to have you and be more than welcome to teach you since the learning curve can be a little steep (but not like Eve's).

I've heard good things about Fallen Earth's crafting system, but haven't done it personally. 

PoTBS, have to gain your resources from multiple ports, transport those reources yourself (unless you buy them from other players) to your main hub to make the items, everything costs a lot of money so it makes a good amount too. Only problem is watch the ports under contention for PvP, if someone kills you w/ cargo, guess what they get, all your cargo. :(

Thanks for the responses. PoTBS never intrigued me much, but I've tried Anarchy Online, and might try it again. I never did get into crafting the last time I tried it.

It's not something that you really can do up front unfortunately, but some basic crafting can be done early on. Nano Crystal creation, weapon creation, etc. It gets better later down the road. Roll a Trader or Fixer (or research what you wanna craft) and have at it. Just let me know if you're coming in on the other thread! ;)

Only problem is watch the ports under contention for PvP, if someone kills you w/ cargo, guess what they get, all your cargo.

If you want complex crafting in a "free to play" MMORPG, then try Uncharted Waters Online.  It is of the "get the materials, get a recipe, click a button" variety.  But getting the materials, the recipe, and sometimes even access to the crafting profession is incredibly complex.

That's complex as in, items are known to be in the game, but no one actually knows how to craft them.  Or in some cases, items are known to be in the game, but it isn't known where they come from, and they may or may not be craftable.  Or maybe some people do know how to craft them theoretically (after looking it up in a database, or perhaps a Japanese or Chinese language wiki), but you can't find anyone who can do all of the steps necessary.  Or even spread the various steps among multiple people.

Best crafting I know of must be Eq2, and if I am not mistaken it has gone f2p ?

Some like Vanguard crafting too, not sure if that has gone f2p though.

Ryzom.

Havent found better crafting system.

I second Pirates of the Burning Sea.  It has a very unique and deep crafting/economy system.   

Thanks guys. Sounds like a lot of stuff to  look into. Anarchy might be fun to get into again. Ryzom, isn't that free until level 120 or something? I dunno exactly...

Last I checked EQ2's f2p was incredibly gimped...

PotBS is sounding interesting too.. hmm..

But I never heard of Uncharted Waters Online

Pirates of the Burning Sea has crafting as a nice complementary feature.  It's something you can do for several minutes per day, but it's mostly about having enough labor available to craft what you want.  Buying crafted items from someone else is mainly buying their labor, as everyone gets a fixed amount of labor each day, and waiting until you can accumulate enough is the main barrier to crafting.  If you have ideas about spending an hour per day on crafting, in PotBS, you basically can't.  You use up your labor in a few minutes, and then you're out of labor and have to wait until tomorrow.

Some people see PotBS as superficially similar to UWO, as they both heavily involve sailing around in ships.  You can fight in ships, board enemy ships, and fight on land.  But the games aren't really that similar.  PotBS is a theme park game where you go to a port, pick up a bunch of quests, some of which ask you to fight at sea and some on land, and you do all the quests.  Then you go to the next port, pick up a bunch of quests, and so forth.

In contrast, UWO is a sandbox game that isn't primarily about combat.  There's a heavy emphasis on exploration and trading, in addition to combat.  Crafting is part of the trading system, as you might come up with a trade route that is, buy goods from this port, use a crafting profession to turn them into other trade goods (e.g., wheat into flour), and then sell the processed trade goods at some other port.  There are over 160 ports in the game and well over 400 trade goods, many of which aren't sold directly at any port.

UWO is also a very, very complicated game.  It's the sort of game that you could play for a month, focus almost exclusively on crafting, and still not even be aware of a lot of what is out there to do as far as crafting, let alone the details of how to do it.  And by that I mean, not even be aware of what theoretically could be done, which is a much lower bar than actually being able to craft it yourself.  If you come in with expectations that UWO will be like such and such other game, then you'll completely miss the point.

The business model in UWO is that it was originally a subscription game in Japan.  The "free to play" version in the US basically gives away the subscription game for free, and then tacks on bonuses that you can buy from the item mall.  If Netmarble decided to convert the game to a subscription game, they'd probably do it by making all of the item mall stuff disappear, charging a subscription fee to get access to the game, and that would be about it.  Well, I suppose they'd have to make special shipbuilding permits no longer needed.  So it's not at all the brief free trial that sometimes masquerades as "free to play".

For what it's worth, UWO is made by Tecmo-Koei (really by the Koei part of the company), and is heavily based on the Uncharted Waters console games (NES, SNES, Sega Genesis) from about 20 years ago.  But being an online game and having much bigger hard drives now lets Koei make things a lot more complicated.  Because Koei loves making things complicated, as you'll realize very quickly if you play any of their games.