A lot of people are interested in focusing in crafting. Can you tell us how it will work?
McPherson: So, we're not ready to discuss the details of crafting, but we're going to be playing in a very rich, deep world-as [David Georgeson] mentioned, you can take a weapon and make it out of multiple parts. And, the reason you want to make it out of multiple parts is because each character class, and each multiclass build, will have different requirements and different ways that you can augment and fine tune it. Weapons have a huge role in that. Armor has a huge role in that.
Butler: Weapons are actually recognizable, for instance. With acuity and experience in the game, I can look at your weapon and I can tell what its properties are, just by looking at it.
McPherson: I can go, 'Oh, I see what you've done. You've made it out of this material."
"We don't expect the need to build 10,000 rifle barrels to become a grandmaster."
Butler: I think the thing that's additionally, extremely relevant as far as crafting is concerned is that exploring through the world is, in itself, a kind of element of crafting. We're digging, we're building. If we want to cross a chasm, build a bridge.
McPherson: I can tell you one of the things you won't be doing as a crafter, and that's making the same thing over and over and over again to advance your skill. That's not how it will work.
Butler: We don't expect the need to build 10,000 rifle barrels to become a grandmaster.
McPherson: It's not a skill-based system, it's very much like the system of advancing your classes. We have multiple tiers. You begin digging, you explore and you find, and those things give you progression and advancement that can be spent on your crafter.
So, to advance your blacksmith, you don't have to only create many items over and over again. That's not the way it works.
Butler: Another great example, we could be here in this room right now and want to destroy things. We might be able to destroy the walls with the weapons and materials we have, but not the floor. But there's probably something that can destroy the floor, and we have to craft it-get better materials, put them together, and then start chewing through the floor to see what's underneath us.
McPherson: And because of the way our world works, resources-if you're an MMO player, copper is the newbie metal, it's the metal you find right outside the starting city and eventually you don't need it anymore. Because of the way our game works, copper is always useful, because copper has specific qualities. Iron is always useful, mithril is always useful. All of these things are always useful to you, depending on what you want to make.
If you want to make a weapon that does electrical damage, or a weapon that is really good against undead, you need to find the right material to make it out of, and that could be any of the materials you find in the world.