Rise of Kunark Crafting

Crafting has changed some what in the newest expansion due to release this Tuesday, all wonderful changes from my point of view but some folks may not like them. Pictured above ist he new crafting window. That’s right folks, your hotbars will no longer be cluttered with 6 hotkeys for crafting — unless of course you are a creature of habbit, then you may want to. By default the buttons are 1-6 and become active when your crafting window is up. The 3 +durability are first and then the 3 +progress follow. It automatically uses the highest of each, so no more switching them around. However, if you’re used to your buttons being in a specific order, you may not enjoy the convenience offered here. I love it. to the bottom left is your recipe book icon, and to the right a stop botton (which switches to the repeat button if you’re done the recipe).

Some recipes don’t have tiers any more. That is to say, that unless you craft pristine, you’ll just get fuel components back. As far as I know furniture is the only one that works this way but it may be all levels of crafting, I didn’t really get a chance to test. The reasoning is quite simple, who wants to buy a less then pristine item these days. There’s no need for less then pristine house items at least.

So you’ve made your way to Kylong Plains and you’re wondering what all of the new nodes are going to look like? Well, here they are:

Common

Metal Ore : Ferrite
Pelt : Bristled
Root/Cloth : Lichenclover root (Damask cloth)
Wood : Redwood
Gem : Kunzite
Precious Metal : Deklium
Loam : Mineral salt loam
Berry : Cranberry
Vegetable : Succulent petal
Meat : brute meat, devourer meat, drachnid meat, hornet meat, mountain giant meat.
Fish : Barracuda, King Prawn
Coffee Bean : Cabilis Cocoa Bean
Tea Leaf : Torsis Tea Leaf

Imbue

Smoldering Material

Rare

Metal Cluster : Incarnadine
Pelt : Hidebound
Root/Cloth : Mantrap Root (Swiftcloth)
Wood : Mahogany
Gem : Fire Emerald
Precious Metal : Tynnonium
Loam : Silicate loam

Kunark is also going to attempt something new with crafting besides the window. Dens, will no longer drop meat. That’s right, rodents everywhere have stopped hoarding chunks of elephants in their dens, and are now leaving that to the actual creatures out there. Meat will drop from mobs. Now, if you’re a provisioner you may be slightly offended by this new tactic. Domino has assured crafters everywhere that it will not be overwhelming though, as very few of the new recipes will actually use meat. It’s also an incentive for people to go out and experience both the crafting and adventuring aspects of the game. Players can list their meat for sale on broker for crafters who may be too small to obtain it themselves.

Since I have a provisioner, I’m affected only slightly. I’m actually looking forward to the change, I think it’s good. I’m far more happy that recipes will not use meat for every combine, so that I can still level without their use if I don’t want to kill mobs for their meat drops. Hopefully prices will be reasonable so that I can at least get a first time pristine combine on them. We’ll have to see how it actually goes.

A few other small (new, fun) crafting changes, provisioners will be able to make food and drink that basically work as temporary buffs on top of regular power and health regen. These are the recipes that use meat I believe. Weaponsmith will also gain the ability to create temporary adornments for weapons that (as far as I know) stack with regular procs and permanent adornments. What are these specifically? Well, you’ll just have to poke your local weaponsmith when RoK comes out and see what they are (I’m of course still madly leveling Goudia, since she’s my weaponsmith). There are also crafting stations and writs posted at various outposts around Kunark, which I love. Out door crafting is far more prevalent in RoK then in any other expansion. I think adventurer and crafter alike will adore the changes and new levels. The carpenter house items, are amazing as a side note. There were far too many to post pictures, but I can already see my housing being revamped for each character to include some of the nick nacks such as an ink well, thrones, very amazing paintings (although, I am slightly pissed off because three paintings look exactly the same as three of my “rare” paintings that I managed to obtain.. making them worthless now) amazing looking counters, and other goodies.

Domino, the Eq2 Tradeskill Dev. Had this to say about Crafting in RoK:

Thought I’d take a moment to explain a little bit about tradeskills, factions, and Kunark.

Kunark is a big and pretty unfriendly continent, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.  Those here have been isolated a long time.  Even the remains of the old Overthere outpost was only marginally friendly to travellers at the best of times in the old days, and is now inclined to charge visitors a hefty extra price markup for their trouble.

To get normal vendor pricing pretty much anywhere in Kunark (unless you’re a Gorowyn resident of course and can shop there) you will need to earn the trust of one or another of the local factions.  Adventurers have a wide selection of ways to do this, some of which can be described as the usual hit [x] of [y] over the head [z] times, though there are other types. SMILEY;)  For crafters, there are three main areas that you can focus on, should you wish — these are intended to be optional, not requisite.

Greeblentus in Teren’s Grasp in the Kylong Plains will give you a little starter mission to gather information and help him out, and in exchange, you’ll gain enough faction to become non KOS to the Riliss and Bathezid encampments in Fens of Nathsar.

Riliss – an Iksar encampment in the middle of the Fens of Nathsar.  Speaking to Preparations Officer Zekilius will get you started on a series of writ quests to create supplies for their armies.  Being Iksar, he should not give you these quests if you are an enemy Sarnak (however, he SHOULD be fooled if you go in with any illusion on, so you aren’t actually prevented from doing these).

Bathezid’s Watch – a Sarnak fortress in the south west of the Nathsar.  Supply Sergeant Anuhadux will also offer you a series of writ quests to help their armies against the Iksar.  Again, he shouldn’t talk to Iksar players but will be fooled by an illusion if you’re really keen.

Both these NPCs will give you the recipe books for these writs, they’re divided into archetype (a scholar book, an outfitter book, a craftsman book) and you’ll have to craft a random item each time.  The books will be removed from your recipe list at the end of the writ.  The items should just update your quest and don’t really create anything in the world.  If you make extras after finishing the quest you’ll get an item, but it has no stats and is no trade – these are just for fun, flavour, and a little more interest than having people make 5,000 of the same long sword or whatever.  There are 4 levels of these writs at 72, 74, 76, and 78 with new recipes for each.

Then we have a further quest from Greeblentus, doable at (I think) 75.  This will make you non-KOS with the third faction:

Danak Shipyards – located in the Jarsath Wastes towards the south west, this is also an Iksar outpost, so same rules apply to Sarnak players as for Bathezid.  Work Requisition Sergeant Zildrax will offer you a new set of writs.  These recipes are all level 80, though you should be able to start making them from 75 onward.  Again the books are divided by archetype, though there’s just one book for each archetype since they’re all the same level.

The maximum faction you can gain through crafting with these three areas is “warmly”, you cannot get to “ally” without doing some adventuring side stuff also.  They will stop offering you writs when you max “warmly”.  The amount of faction per writ is still open for tweaking, the general idea is that it should take about as much time for a crafter to get to “warmly” as it would for the adventurer to quest his way there, and this is still something we’re working out.  It will certainly not be an instant path.

Apart from the obvious convenience of having good faction with someone on the continent, friendly merchants, a place to craft etc., and extra pristine bonuses and xp from the writ recipes of course, each of the three areas will also have faction merchants who will sell rewards to both adventurers and crafters.  The tradeskill rewards will be some additional recipes above and beyond the normal “advanced” books which will be available in the normal manner.  The recipes should have a bit of a Kunark flavour to them, e.g. armor with the new Kunark graphic, Kunark themed furniture, etc.  For some classes this is harder than others (*gets a headache just thinking about it*) and some classes will get more stuff than others, but there should eventually be at least a little bonus there for anyone who bothers to work up the faction.  Some of these recipes are already in place but they’re not all done yet and will be appearing in the future (before release is the intention, but we’ll see).

The recipes aren’t intended to be overpoweringly OMG MUST DO items that force all crafters to grind writs, they’re intended to be a nice reward for those who do choose to, but all the essentials of life should be available in the normal essentials and advanced books as in every other tier, so those who don’t like writ type grinding don’t have to.  They will of course be no trade, however.

The above quest lines were mostly designed and implemented by Olihin, my tradeskill apprentice, who has unfortunately been evacuated due to the fires in San Diego and I’m not sure yet when he will be able to return.  So, while the quests did get checked in and are currently in beta, I haven’t had a chance to check them for bugs and it’s quite possible there are still issues to be ironed out which he may have been working on when chaos broke loose down here.   Do go ahead and /bug any issues so we can get to them.

For those not interested in the new continent there are of course the normal tradeskill writs offered by the crafting societies in your home town.  These will give you guild status, the Kunark writs will not, though both will give you tradeskill XP.

Hopefully that gives you a bit of an overview of the areas of Kunark that will (potentially) affect crafters, and the intention behind them.