Now that Aion is officially in full swing there are some things that you may want to know while you are exploring Atreia. There are many quests to complete, opposing factions to compete with and items to collect along the way. But what if you want to create your own items instead of hoping for them to drop from monsters? That is where the fine art of crafting comes in. There are a variety of crafting skills that can be learned ranging from Weaponsmithing to Alchemy to Handicrafting. They each have their own benefits and useful purpose within the game. Your first steps into crafting will start with your gathering skill.

One tip that I would suggest is leveling your gathering skill as soon as you begin playing. The first items you'll be able to gather are Angelica, Mela, and Iron. Once you ascend (and get those fancy wings everyone talks about), you will be gathering the Atheric essence of items in addition to ores and foods. You are not limited to what you can gather, which is nice since some other MMOs make you learn a separate skill in order to collect certain items. You're also able to use your gathering skill three times on an item. At low level, your gathering skill will increase after about every two or three attempts. Once it gets higher, it will take more attempts to increase and may not increase at all if the item you are gathering is low level. Leveling your gathering skill will help your crafting since some items that you will use can only be obtained through gathering. I was able raise my gathering skill to 35 before I left the starting zones.

Once you decide you want to begin crafting and you've made it to your faction's first main city (Sanctuary for the Elyos and Pandemonium for the Asmodian), you will be able to find the NPCs that teach the different crafting skills. Acquiring your chosen crafting skill will cost about 3,500 Kinah.

After you purchase your chosen skill, talk to the NPC again and click on the Work Order button. This will bring up a list of orders that can be completed to help you level your skill. For the first work order that you can do, the NPC supplies all of the materials that you need to complete it. When your crafting reaches tenth level, the next work order only has part of the materials supplied to you. The other needed items may be purchased from a vendor or gathered. After you accept the work order, look to the sides of the room for the crafting tables. Click on the table to bring up the Craft Tool window. This window lists all of your work orders and items that you can make. Under the work order menu, select the one that you want to complete. The window will tell you if you have all of the required materials, and what you are making. If you need to make multiple copies of the same item you can click the Craft All button or just type the number you need into the appropriate field, then click the craft button. A status window will appear and show your progress. You may not be successful at all of your attempts. The first level work order usually supply enough materials to complete the order even if you fail a crafting attempt. For the level ten work order, you may want to have extra materials on hand in case you fail an attempt. When you are finished with the work order go back and talk to the NPC and click the Work Order button again, then click on the order you just completed to turn in the items and receive your reward.

The work orders can be repeated multiple times and will reward you with anything from materials that you need, to craft items, to plans that teach you new items to craft. Repeating the work orders is also an easy way to increase your crafting skill quickly. The NPC also has a quest that you can complete which has something to do with the skill you learned and usually has you going to another zone to gather some material before it can be completed. The quest usually rewards you with a crafting plan.

As you gather different plans to learn, if you hold your mouse pointer over it, it will display three different pop up windows. The first window is a description of the actual design and lets you know what materials you need, what skill level you need to have in order to create the item and what level you need to be in order to learn the plan. The second window shows you what will be created along with the stats of the item and such. The last window shows a Greater Output. This is an item that is made exceptionally well during your attempt and is usually a green item.

Once the plan is learned, it will show up in the Craft Tool window. One restriction that I have noticed with the crafting skills is that you can only create items at the crafting tables. And the only place you can see what plans you have learned is in the Crafting Tool window. Some people may find this to be a problem when purchasing materials or plans and others may not mind.

Crafting is a good way to increase your Kinah if you find yourself running low. You can put your items up for sale in the Trade Brokers, set up a personal store or just sell them to a vendor. If you are in a legion, you could also trade items with other members of your legion.

There is one last thing I'd like to mention about crafting: With all of the different crafts that can be learned, which ever one you may choose, take a moment and appreciate the details that were put into the crafting tables. They are all different and interesting. The animations are entertaining also. Most importantly though, have fun.