So ArenaNet blogged about their crafting system yesterday. Here’s a summary of some of the salient points, with my feelings on them:

I’m Andrew McLeod, one of the Game Designers responsible for creating an in-depth but accessible crafting system for Guild Wars 2.

Well hello, Andrew.

Characters can be proficient in up to two crafting disciplines at a time. We feel that this allows players to have a good variety in the items that they can craft, but still maintains player interaction and exchange. It also gives a stronger focus on the specifics of what you can craft- especially with the depth and size of each of our crafting professions.

Show me the depth and size of your crafting profession, baby.

Although a character can only have two disciplines at a time, they can change their crafting disciplines by visiting the master craftsmen NPC that can be found in all major cities. When you change back to a crafting discipline that you’ve previously learned, you regain your skill level and known recipes from that discipline, but the cost of changing disciplines increases with the skill level in that discipline.

Mmmm, yes.

Characters can gather all types of crafting materials, and gathering nodes in Guild Wars 2 are not exclusive, or used up after a player gathers materials from it.

Ohhhhh, yes.

If you’ve played other MMOs, you may have felt frustrated when trying to gather crafting materials; you’re running around zones trying to find nodes, only to have someone beat you to the node, or take the resources while you’re fighting an enemy that attacked you before you could gather them. In Guild Wars 2, each node can be gathered by every player, so when you see a rare node off in the distance, you don’t need to abandon what you’re doing to try and beat other players to it.

Nnnnn, yesssss!

We decided to make gathering available for all characters for a couple major reasons. First, we wanted gathering nodes to be sought after by every player, so that when players are grouped together they don’t need to feel guilty by making the group wait for them while they run off after an ore vein on the side of the road.

Oh God! Yes! Yesss!

Secondly, gathering professions are often used for economic gain, through selling materials to other players, and we didn’t want crafters to have to sacrifice their economic potential in order to be able to craft gear for themselves and friends.

YEEEAAAAHH Oooooooo!

If you haven’t previously crafted that item, you discover the recipe for that item, allowing you to easily view the correct combination to recreate the item. Some basic recipes are automatically learned by characters, but the recipes for most items must be discovered by the crafter. A few recipes can only be learned from a trainer or from drops in the world.

Ooo, ow. Not like that. That’s awkward, I don’t want it in the wiki, baby.

Leveling up your crafting skill uses an experience system—each item you craft is worth an amount of experience. There are 400 skill points in each discipline, though crafting items will often give multiple points worth of experience.

Mmm, that’s better!

Our intent is that you should never have to make something you consider worthless while leveling a crafting discipline.

Oh yeah, here we go. Here we go. Oh. OH! Yessssssss.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this look at crafting in Guild Wars 2. As you can see, the crafting system we’ve created really reflects our philosophy of cooperative, accessible gameplay.

Well, it was good for me.

/cigarette