Processing

Furnace that can be placed on a freehold.

Processing is one of the artisan classes in Ashes of Creation.

• Processing involves the refining of raw materials obtained from gathering and item deconstruction.
• The bulk of the time spent in the artisan system resides in the processing branch. The processing time varies based on the quality of the processed goods.

• Blueprints are required for the construction of the feehold buildings that are used to process resources.
  • The amount of goods that can be processed while unattended by the player is based on the rating of that particular processing station.
  • The time spent processing can be reduced by upgrading the capabilities and quality of the processing station via a progression tier system.

That's going to be very important as you get to very late game processed materials that are required. Because some of these things might have days to process within a station, but if you have spent the time and done the work to advance that processing station you could cut that down considerably, perhaps even greater than 50 percent; and that's going to have a significant impact on your ability to either control markets or to create goods. – Steven Sharif

Processing professions

• Animal husbandry
• Smelting

Artisan mastery

Players must choose a path in the artisan skill tree for each character. Within each of the three parent artisan paths (Gathering, Processing and Crafting) there are different professions. A character may only ever master one of these parent paths.

• It is possible to master multiple professions (but not all) within a parent artisan path, but this will be a long and labor intensive feat, requiring many resources.
  • A player may only master a profession if they have achieved the artisan path mastery.
  • Based on testing, it may be decided to limit profession mastery certificates to a capped value.

Gathering is a parent artisan path, along with processing and crafting. Within each of the three parent paths lies different professions. You may only ever master one parent path. But you may spend time mastering each profession within the parent artisan path. – Steven Sharif

Becoming a master Crafter or a master Processor or a master Gatherer should be a significant time investment and resource investment; and because of that it should also be something that when you achieve that status it's like people on the server know who you are. – Steven Sharif

Artisan progression within the artisan tree occurs based on experience (repetition of tasks) within a branch and also via achievement of certain benchmarks within each branch.

• Players can dabble in all professions at a "beginners" level before they decide to master a particular pathway.
• Choosing a specific path in the skill tree allows the player an opportunity to specialize in a certain area. This encourages player inter-dependency, enhancing the artisan experience.

• Masteries aren’t just about making an item. They grant many things, including titles, access to items, bargains, and quests.

Players will have the opportunity to kind of dabble in all of the professions at a very beginners level and then you know that kind of gives them an understanding of what that profession feels like and then allows them to kind of pinpoint the direction that they want to go in to master particular professions. – Steven Sharif

When we reference not being masters of all that doesn't mean you're not a master within your own one of the three artisan types, which is you know crafter or gatherer, processor. You will be a master of one of those, you will not be master of the other two. – Steven Sharif

Raw materials

Gatherable mushrooms found in an underground cave.

Gatherable resources (also known as raw materials and harvestables) occur in locations where you would expect them to be organically.

• Some resources will be one-time gatherables that will randomly respawn at a different location once collected.
• Other resources will exist as a cluster (also called vein gatherables). These will last until the full resource is depleted.

  Like a large mine that's present and has a vein of mithril ore in it, or a herd of some type of animal that you can collect fur or wool from. – Steven Sharif

  • There will be moving resources such as herds of animals that are constantly moving around the world.
  • Once a resource is depleted from one location it may respawn in the same location or somewhere else, depending on the type of resource.
  • Resources respawn on a cooldown basis.
• Resources won't be locked to the node system.
• Some unique resources may be monsters in disguise or have monsters defending them.

We want our players to have a reason to explore the wilderness, to travel with purpose, and much of that will be driven by our resource system. Transporting these goods might just be more difficult than gathering them. Our regional market system allows players to participate in creating pocket economies that will reinforce the stability of goods in particular regions.

We really want resources to be persistent and non-renewable. If there’s a mithril vein, that mithril vein will be there until it runs out. The server will manage these amounts on its own, and will repopulate things where and when it desires. You might find another mithril vein in that location sometime later, or somewhere nearby, or maybe never again!

Players drop resources and other items upon death, based on their applicable death penalties.

Raw materials (gatherable resources) are not to be confused with crafting materials (processed goods).

Resource quality

Flanggler (Flower angler or Mimic flower).

Resources will have differing tiers of quality for the same resource type. This is somewhat similar to Star Wars Galaxies.

• Gatherers who are more advanced in their artisan tree will unlock higher level harvesting tools that have a greater chance of collecting higher quality resources or proccing a greater quantity.

You will have an opportunity to proc certain qualities based on your progression in the Artisan tree. So if you are a gatherer; and as you advance in your gathering, you'll have a higher opportunity to collect better resources. – Steven Sharif

In Alpha-1 testing there are 4 tiers of gatherable resources across all gathering professions:^{[ citation needed ]}

• Tier 1 (Common)
• Tier 2 (Uncommon)
• Tier 3 (Rare)
• Tier 4 (Epic)

Processed materials

Materials (also known as processed goods and crafting materials) are obtained in the following ways:

• Processing raw materials.
• World boss drops.
• Item deconstruction.

The quality of crafting materials will influence the quality of the crafted item.

Players drop materials and other items upon death, based on their applicable death penalties.

List of processed goods (crafting materials)

• Cloth
• Dyes
• Grinding stones
• Ingots
• Iron
• Leather
• Wood

High-level materials

Materials for crafting high-level items are obtained from world bosses and through the deconstruction of other high-level items.

Many end level items with crafting will require mats from world bosses etc. we want those systems intertwined. However. There may be opportunities to deconstruct high level items and replace those needed materials as well. We will be testing the crafting trees in alpha and beta. – Steven Sharif

Artisan supply chain

Artisans within Ashes of Creation must choose a path in their artisan skill tree. This inter-dependency establishes a supply chain from raw materials to finished product. Each stage of the chain may require caravans to transport goods from one artisan to another.

1. Obtaining raw materials:
   • Using the Gathering profession.
   • By killing mobs and bosses.
   • From deconstructing weapons or armor.
   • By purchasing them from other players.
2. Refining the raw materials with the Processing profession.
3. Crafting the finished product using its crafting recipe.
   • Recipes are also obtainable from boss drops.

As a crafter you're going to want to know where certain recipes can be fulfilled; which nodes have the capability of creating what you've processed material that you've gathered for; and then you're going to want to plan out your route to either transit the goods there or make sure that you're situated in the area so that you can go out collect and build in that area as well. So there's a lot of planning that's going to be necessary. – Steven Sharif

Gathering

Alpha-1 gathering.

The whole gathering component of Alpha one is not the intended gathering for the actual game. You will not be seeing sparklies on resources out in the world. – Steven Sharif

Gathering in the Alpha-1 early preview.

Gathering is one of the artisan classes in Ashes of Creation.

• Gatherable resources are discovered by trial-and-error and by learning their visuals. There will not be "sparklies" on gatherable resources in the final game.
• Gathering requires the creation and use of tools.
• Gathering within a node's Zone of influence (ZOI) will contribute to its experience growth.
• Certain low level gatherables will have a tiered progression into higher level crafting.

Certain low level gatherables will have a tiered progression into higher level crafting. So for example you know if I'm gathering... leaves of the blue petal flower to craft a pigment that's going to be used in the development of a tunic that I can wear at level one, then I may need to collect those in order to craft the pigments to craft a greater pigment that might be present in the in the crafting of a higher level item. So it's going to be kind of a tiered progression so that materials have relevancy throughout the different levels of of crafting; and that's important from an economic stability standpoint. You need to have layered demand from a supply standpoint so that players who are interested in collecting and gathering those materials still are relevant when the later level items are crafted. – Steven Sharif

Crafting

Alpha-1 Forge concept art.

Crafting and gathering is a very important component of the economy that players will have direct control over. Whether you wish to build a sprawling plantation around your house, or wish to travel the vast wilderness in search of treasure and resources. There are many tools available to the crafters of our world. Regardless of how you gather your resources, we believe that every item that exists in the world should in some way reflect its creator. As such, there will be extreme versatility in our crafting system – giving crafters the ability to create unique items that represent their strengths and weaknesses.

Crafting is one of the artisan classes in Ashes of Creation. It is a driving force for the game economy.

• Crafting requires the acquisition of recipes in order to craft items.
• Crafting stations are located on freeholds or within nodes.
  • Higher tier crafting stations are unlocked with node progression.
• There will be gear that boosts artisans in gathering or crafting stronger items.
• Crafting times may vary between professions but the bulk of the time spent in the artisan system resides in the processing branch.

Anything that you want to bring into existence in the world is going to be built by players: Whether that is Ships, Siege engines, Weapons, Armor, etc. – Jeffrey Bard

There will not be a labor or energy system in Ashes of Creation.

There is no labor or energy system in Ashes. However, that's not to say that crafting will not be difficult. Crafting is very difficult; but it is because it is difficult that it will be very rewarding as well. – Steven Sharif

Freehold buildings

Velkor's Eye pre-order pack cosmetic Vek freehold skin.

Freehold buildings can be placed on a freehold plot.

• Blacksmiths
• Forges
• Freehold farms
• Guild halls
• Homesteads
• Inns
• Lumber yards
• Mills
• Shrines
• Smelters
• Stables
• Taverns

Buildings will require blueprints and materials.

• Basements in freehold buildings are to be decided.

Freehold buildings will not change in terms of footprint (within a specific tier of that building) but may increase in height.

• Certain buildings will have multiple tiers, with different footprint sizes. For example: Small, medium, large, to mansion-sized homes.
  • A mansion sized home may occupy up to 50% of a freehold plot.

Freehold building architecture is based on the blueprint for the building.

• Cosmetics can also be applied to a blueprint based on the type of building.
• Players are not locked into any particular race for freehold blueprints.

The way we look at it is the freehold is your space so we want you to be able to make it look the way you want it to. – Jeffrey Bard

Freehold building placement

There may be a grid-based system that freehold owners can use to place items/props and buildings on their freehold plot.

• Players will need to manage how these are arranged to maximize adjacency bonuses.

Depending on where your place you're freehold, you're gonna have different environmental tiles available to you and those will kind of enable or buff existing structures that you place in your Freehold... I don't know that we would put like fish farming just for a freehold that's on a river. What we would probably do is give you a buff to fishing in that area. That kind of a thing. So there'll be more buffs for existing things rather than necessarily a special buildings just for that area. But again we're not fully baked in on that system yet, so it's very possible though we end up going down that direction. – Jeffrey Bard

Timeline

Artisan classes (Gathering, Processing, Crafting) will come online fully in Alpha-2 and the Betas.

In Alpha One the core basics of what crafting represents as a gameplay loop that is represented. So that means that there are gatherables out there. You will have to have tools in order to service those gatherables. There will be processing that's necessary; and then there's crafting stations that are available and can be constructed by the players. This is in Alpha One. You have to collect the recipes, you have to collect the materials, and you have to refine the materials; and then you have to create the reagents and then use those to kind of create the final crafting component of that you're trying to create. So that in and of itself is present, but it is a very very small piece of really what will be the larger crafting puzzle for Alpha 2 and betas. – Steven Sharif

• Approximately 10 percent of the artisan system will be online in Alpha-1. The core basics of the artisan gameplay loop will be facilitated via the merchant (NPC) system.
  • Gatherables and gathering tools.
  • Some processing/refining of materials.
  • Recipes will be able to be collected.
  • Crafting stations will be available and can be constructed by players.

Crafting honestly will not come online in any sense of its true form until Alpha-2. Alpha-1 has essentially what are intended to be the core gameplay loop of crafting, meaning the collection of materials, the translation of those materials into processed goods, and the use of those processed goods into item acquisition. That's the core gameplay loop that is currently present in Alpha-1. But those are mostly facilitated kind of piggy backing the merchant systems right now and not actually using the real crafting system; and that's because crafting hasn't been completed in a form that can be implemented in Alpha-1, but will be for Alpha-2. What's present in Alpha-1 doesn't even really scratch the surface for crafting. – Steven Sharif

Artwork

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  2018-02-18
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  2017-10-15

Community guides

• Ashes101 - The Artisan System - Processing

See also

• Gathering
• Crafting
• Resources
• Materials
• Artisan classes