I love crafting in Vanguard. It’s one of the most complex and interesting craft systems I’ve seen, and it’s not timed which makes it more enjoyable for me. While I can appreciate the system EQ2 has in place, some times the phone rings, or the door, or a pot boils over or some other real life interruption occurs, and in EQ2 this could mean disaster for the process. In Vanguard it just means stepping away and hitting the next button in the stage when you get back. There’s so many combinations of things you can craft, and so many different catalysts and powders and dusts and what not that you can add to each and every individual item, I just love it. There’s a LOT of crafting quests in Vanguard as well, which makes it interesting and fun. I love crafting in any game, but yes, Vanguard is my favorite.
My artificer managed to hit level 46 in crafting yesterday, and is now 60% through that level. Leveling is hard, and it takes a long time. I do writs which reward me with bags of goodies, as well as faction and coin. The faction is used to purchase recipes, and is needed for certain quests. For example the brick quests. I need to earn 5,000 faction in order to be able to learn granite bricks for each continent. So far I’ve only learned Kojan style, but I’m well on my way to the remaining faction I need for Thestra. Qalia will just have to wait.
I also noticed another change since I’ve been gone. When you’re leveling up, as soon as you get to 20+ you’re required to save up Masterwork Sigils for your upgrade recipes. Basically this is the difference between crafting handcrafted items, and mastercrafted items (except mastercrafted items in VG are really really really nice, and sell very well). These sigils used to be VERY rare. In all my levels I only ever earned 4-5 of them. You need 8 per recipe of the current tier you’re on, and 2 less for every tier you’ve passed. There are (for me at least) three recipes to purchase that use these sigils, per tier. That’s a lot of sigils! When I started crafting yesterday I thought it may have just been dumb luck that I managed to get two on my first batch, but by the end of the craft day when I was looking at 15 sigils, I knew things must have changed. I’m not lucky, and I’m certainly not THAT lucky. I did manage to buy the T5 jewelery recipe upgrade (30g, OUCH!) so that means I can make rare jewelery for levels 40-50. Crafting also still involves help from other crafters. To make rare jewelery I use a rare gem but then I also use a truesilver sheet, which is crafted by blacksmiths. It’s nice, and it’s one of the things that have kept the community together and so strong.
There are a LOT of artificers in game because they craft houses, furniture, and boats (including the galleons that are due out next month) which are all pretty popular. With fishing being implemented next month I’m also trying to think about who to level next. Do I go with my carpenter so I can own a boat and get myself some actual furniture in my house, or do I want to go with a ‘useful’ class like my leatherworker (there are the least amount of those around) or a blacksmith armorer or weaponsmith to be able to make my upgradeable bits.
Ah, the choices!