I am not really sure how the crafting is going to work in this game. I can see it going two ways once a character reaches the level that they can make the secondary play style choice.

First way, a character may chose to be a crafter, but may only craft in one specialty, be it armor, weapons, potions, etc. The problem I see if this occurs is that only one character per player position may elect the secondary play style choice, and with the quantity of secondary play style choices not everyone will be choosing crafter. Many of the other secondary play style choices are quite attractive, with being a lord, commanding troops, having NPC to gather for you, etc. Thus, it would appear that with limited crafters the prices for the specially crafted/imbued items would be high indeed, perhaps upsetting the economy. Also, I assume that crafters will not be interdependant, that is, a weaponsmith need a leather hilt from a tailor to manufacture a sword, similiar to the EQ 2 early crafting style, and what appears to be the style of Vangaurd. It would appear that a weaponsmith can manufacture the completed sword all on his lonesome. This makes crafting a solo play experience in a MMORPG, and removes the facet of community from the crafting play style. Is not developing a crafting community something the developers really want to do?

Second way, a character may chose to be a crafter, and may craft in any specialty. This would seem to me to be crazy, as a single crafter could do anything from a weapon, armor, chair, or a Land Rover. I highly suspect/hope this is not the direction the developers are going.

Basically, not all players of a game like this are going to want to craft. But, as I have read that the crafted items will be high quality, and therefore more desirable in PvP environment, crafted items are going to be in demand, and supply would seem to be short. Enter inflation/price creep, not good in any game. Perhaps, in the case of the first example, players should be allowed to chose crafting professions for more than one character, increasing the number of crafters available, thereby increasing the supply/competition.  Also, consider the effects of the farmers moving into the game, which generally tends to monopolize the supply even more, pushing players into e-bay et al to purchase either the game currency for the phat loot, or the phat loot itself. Once again, this is not a healthy position for a game to get caught in.

Just some ramblings of a demented mind. Anyone else out there have any ideas on this?

Originally posted by bendecki
i dont know if you guys have played Vanguard but i like what they did with the crafting system because crafters can do work orders to create cash while they are lvling instead of having to rely on making good weapons that players will buy

just helps the crafters out a bit

I'm curious as to how extensive a list of resources will be needed for crafting. How much of a mini-game will crafting actually be?