A Look at Crafting in Elf Online
The Folks at Happymmo, the developers of Elf Online, have been kind enough to send us an overview of Elf Online's Production System, and MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood has decided to chime in with his own commentary.
On Friday, HappyMMO, the makers of the 2d MMORPG Elf Online released some new information on what the press release called their “Production System”, which plays an important role in the upcoming MMORPG. “High level armors,” says the press release, “rare pets, unique weapons… None of these could be done without the Production System.”
The Production System, which is the Elf Online’s name for their crafting system, is made up of two categories, Collection and Manufacturing. Each of these categories encompasses three sub-categories.
Collection includes the activities that you might expect in the way of sub-categories: mining, hunting and collecting. The second category, Manufacturing, includes cooking, manufacturing and forging.
Players will be able to begin learning Production System skills at level five. While they will not be able to learn all of the abilities, players will be able to choose one Collection and one Manufacturing ability.
After giving potential players an overview of the system, the press release went on to tell us hot the system will work:
As in almost any crafting system, specific tools are required in order to use the skills effectively. These tools will be available from the skill trainer. A second, more specialized NPC will be able to sell players better tools that will, in turn, produce better quality products.
If, for example, you were to learn the hunting ability, buying a high-quality hunting knife would allow you to do different things to the material in question. High quality tools used on high quality materials will, as a matter of course, give the best results to players.
Before players can craft an item, they have to get themselves a specific recipe for the desired product. Recipes can be purchased from the appropriate trainer NPCs. Once they have obtained the recipe, they can right-click and then press R to find a complete list of their recipes. From there, players select the desired recipe and will be presented with a list of required materials.
In terms of collection, we are told that various desired materials will be marked on your map, making them easier to find.
In the Production system, it is the material harvested that determines that items can be created. Materials gathered through hunting will make soft armors, while materials gathered through mining will produce fine armor. Some of the more rare materials in the game will make other things. “Rare ores like dark reef amazonite can be forged into weapons”, the release tells us by way of an example.
In the end, the press release indicates that the Elf Online Production System functions in much the same way as many of the current crafting systems available in MMORPGs, allowing players to build their own items from materials collected using specific recipes. While not overly complicated, the system will allow players to take an active role in building not only their characters, but their equipment as well.
