GU53: Crafting & Housing Preview

Also known as "Mum's Brain is Full!"

Game Update 53 is currently being poked and prodded at on Test and Test_Copy, and there are an insane number of things going on there, all at once. This preview will be an attempt to cover the crafting- and housing-related changes. Please excuse any stray dribbles of grey matter you see splattered around on the ground, as I'm sure quite a bit dribbled out my ears while I was trying to come to grips with all of this!

As always, this is a preview while the content is still on Test. Things can/will change, so don't be surprised if one or two things get some additional tweaks or changes before this is released.

Indented dark brown text below indicates a cut & paste of the Test server version of the patch notes.

Achievements

The new achievement system gives players a fun new way to track their accomplishments! Most achievements will award players with achievement points that can be used to compare their progress against other players. Some harder to complete achievements will offer non-stat item rewards. The basic categories are General, Quest, Exploration, Combat, Slayer, Tradeskills and Triumphs. Triumphs are large scale achievements that combine multiple achievements into one large one. An example of this would be to do all of the combat, quest, and exploration achievements in a specific area.

Think of the new achievement system as "bragging rights" for various accomplishments within the game, and it might help you wrap your brain around the concept of achievements a bit better. Once in a while, you may get some fluff item (for example, an appearance-only robe for one of the Kunark achievements), but otherwise, you just get "points" that help you see where you stand in relation to other players as far as certain accomplishments go.

Tradeskills aren't totally left out, but tradeskill achievements aren't yet as robust as combat achievements, and there is currently no triumph involving tradeskills. (This isn't to say this cannot change in the future, just that, as it currently stands, there's only a bit here.)

Currently, the following achievements (which will show up under a new tab in your Journal) are listed for tradeskills:
AchievementPoints
Every 10 crafting levels gained10
400 transmuting skill50
Clockwork Rescue Mission Completed*10
Supply Stocking Mission Completed*10
Shipyard Services Mission Completed*10
Emergency Portal Repairs Mission Completed*10
All four crafting missions Completed*50
1000 crafting combines*25
9000 crafting combines**25
25,000 crafting combines**35
50,000 crafting combines**40
75,000 crafting combines**45
100,000 crafting combines**50
400 tinkering skill50

*Anything completed before the achievement system is put in place does not count towards the achievement. (Currently, number of items crafted is tracked, not combines completed, so the achievement starts at zero. Due to multi-yield recipes, there is no way to verify how many combines were actually made. With regards to the crafting missions, since they are removed from your journal after completion, so that you can repeat them when they next cycle, they cannot be retroactively tracked, and thus, have to also start at zero.)
**Achievements don't show on the list until you complete the achievement before it (9000 items shows up after you finish the 1000 item achievement, 25K items shows up after the 9K is completed, etc. Due to how this is currently implemented, we do not have a full listing of the combine achievements, and it may still change).

The crafting achievement list, as well as any possible crafting triumph, is still being fine-tuned. This information is likely to change more before the feature is released.

Rewards

Completion of the 50,000 crafting combines achievement earns you the suffix title "the Patient". Completion of the 100,000 crafting combines achievement grants you the suffix title "Master Crafter". Completion of "Hero of the Far Seas Supply Division" (all 4 crafting missions completed), earns you a mystical nayad plushie, 500 status reduction, that allows you to teleport to the Village of Shin.

Additional Resources

Since crafters often tend to explore in very creative ways while harvesting, I'd also like to recommend a lovely little resource for those of you who are going to work on exploration achievements, Heilig's Discoveries I made heavy use of this while running amok on the Test server these past few days, helping folks find various locations.

Further details on all achievements can be found in this achievement resource compiled by Xalmat

Chronomagic

When we're young, we're often in a rush to get older. Once we hit a certain age, however, it seems we want to try turning back the clock. While we can't do this yet in real life, at least we can in the land of Norrath, albiet only temporarily!

This is what, until now, we have been referring to as automentoring. It is the ability to, with the help of an NPC, temporarily lower your adventuring level -- which may be handy for those wanting to take yet another stab at certain crafting books, or to farm DFC for blood iron ore, low-level treasure items for transmuting, etc. You must be at least adventuring level 20 to use this feature, and the automentoring levels are every 5 levels (75, 70, 65, 60, etc.). Further details can be found in the GU53 Test Patch Notes" for those interested.

The Shard of Love

A new group instance, The Shard of Love, is being added, with all sorts of neat appearance-only items, house items, fireworks, petamorph wands and other such fluff. The instance itself, which will be a permanent addition to the game, is level 50+ (scales to level) and, from GU53 to when GU54 is released, there will be an introductory lore/access quest also available. (The access quest will not be needed/available after GU54 is released, but in between those two updates it will be a way for players of all levels to assist in the opening of this new zone, while also learning a bit more lore along the way.)

In addition to all the lovely fluff items, there are two new provisioner recipes that use pomegranate, which is found in the Shard of Love. The book is lore, requires 30K Far Seas Supply Division faction as well as a Far Seas Supply Division token and coin, and can be scribed by a level 80 provisioner. The pomegranate is found on one fresh and one fermented node in the Shard of Love instance. The two recipes create level 85 drinks - one alcoholic, and one yummy str/sta/int drink (26 to each, at level 80). Yield is 5 on these on pristine, but again, there is only one node of each type in the heroic Shard of Love instances, so don't expect to be able to make this in bulk without a lot of work being involved.

Oh, you want to actually see some of the lovely stuff, you say? Well, I suppose I could oblige with pictures of a few house items ...

What? Oh, all right, a few more ... good thing I called this a Crafting & Housing preview this time, eh?

No, no, don't tell me. Let me guess. You want to see what everyone has been raving about already, don't you? Level 80, no-trade. While it didn't come out well in the screenies, there's a nice glittery sparkle effect on them, and they flutter as well ... (and now you get to see why I normally let Kaisha do the image tweaking - this was as high as I dared to tweak my graphics for a screenie inside a guildhall due to crashing.)

Racial Traits

Racial choices have changed. As a result, your character development choices have been reset.
In addition to the above, while you used to only get 1 racial trait choice for every 10 adventuring levels that you gained, the choices will now be based on either your adventuring level, or your crafting level, whichever is higher, allowing non-adventuring crafters the opportunity to access more traits. ***See details regarding the Tradeskill-based racial traits here***

Housing - Room Added!

Player houses have been given an extra room!
All homes, including the 1-room starter homes in the various inns, have had a room added. In addition, Kelethin and Maj'Dul homes have had window(s) added! In the case of the starter homes, this essentially doubles your home's floor space.

Along with the lovely floor space increase, player housing gets an item-limit increase as well. So far, it looks to be an increase of 100 items per home, though this, of course, may change during testing, as they take a closer look at things. In general, it looks like you can take the Home Sweet Hovel guide and add 1 to the room count and 100 to the item count for each housing type. The one exception to this seems to be Aerie Ilka in Kelethin, which went from 150 items to 200 items.

Also, while I'm not going to take a ton of screenshots of the new housing layouts, Zam has a GU53 housing gallery in place, complete with images.

Housing - Saving and Loading Layouts

Players can now save and restore their house item layouts. Use the commands save_layout and load_layout . House layout files can only be loaded in houses of the same type. This also works in guild halls!

Do you have your home laid out exactly how you want it, but want to redecorate for a holiday or other special event? Now you can save the furniture layout to your computer, so that you can reload back to your favorite arrangement once the holiday is through!

In addition, you now have a right-click option on furniture for moving single items into your moving crate, which is perfect for seasonal redecorating.

***See details regarding saving/loading house item layouts here***

New Furniture ... For Your Mounts

* Carpenters can now provide a few essentials for those stabling their mounts in their homes.
We recently gained the ability to turn our mounts into house items, let's take proper care of the poor things, shall we? How about hay, troughs, hitching posts, and possibly some fencing?

***Check out Further Details on the new Carpenter recipes here***

Red Glowie Collection - Peacock Club Relics

Another red glowie collection, visible only when wearing the Earring of the Solstice (crafting epic reward), has been located. The Peacock Club Relics collection is a 6-item collection found in Maj'Dul. The glowies are LORE. Reward is a lovely no-trade house item "a peacock feather."

New Look On Crafting Handbooks

The tradeskill society tutorial books now have an improved appearance. If you do not have a copy and would like one, visit your local tradeskill society merchant.

This refers to tradeskill society book that you are awarded when you're just starting out, such as the Handbook of the Ironforge Exchange. If you have lost your copy, your city's crafting society merchant will be happy to sell you another one.

Unlimited Flame Tapestries!

The recipe for the Flame Tapestry found in Najena�s Forge is no longer limited in uses.

The Badly Burned Notes on Tapestry Weaving, which can be harvested in the Deepforge mission instance in Lavastorm, have been changed from 5 charges to unlimited use. (I was quite happy to find that my already scribed 3/5 charge recipe in my book was no longer charged after the patch on Test). It should be noted that the recipe from that scroll, "Flame Tapestry", creates the item "Crimson Fire Tapestry".

Other Little Crafting/Housing Changes

Player-Crafted Books

Just a couple small fixes and tweaks to the player-made books:
Player-written books will now be editable when transferring to another server.
Also:
Fixed a bug where when sometimes editing a very large player written book some text would be lost when closing and reopening the book.
And:
The confirmation box for destroying a player written book with special characters in the title will no longer displayer gibberish.

Minor Adornment Change

Balanced Ayr Stones may now be applied to fist weapons of any damage type.
These transmuter-made adornments are being changed from requiring a slashing weapon to requiring a slashing or fist weapon. (FYI: recipes are "Balancing" ayr stones, the item made is "Balanced" ayr stone)

Byproduct Labeling

Byproducts from tradeskilling will no longer have the crafter�s name on them.
This applies to things like byproduct dusts and the like. Not a huge change, but it was kind of silly for them to track the maker on it in the first place (the maker name disappeared anyway, when you stacked it with similar items made by someone else).

Recipes with Long Names

The recipe window now auto adjusts to fit very long recipe names
and, to go along with it:
The examine recipe window will now use multiple lines for very large recipe names.

Bookcase Change

This one didn't make it into the Test Patch Notes, but the Vale Briarwood Bookcase (recipe from a questline in the Enchanted Lands has finally been given a unique look. It no longers looks exactly like the briarwood bookcase, but instead, comes complete with some books already placed within it.

But Wait, There's More!?

There are a boatload of other changes in GU53 on top of the crafting and housing ones listed here.

If that wasn't enough, the Nights of the Dead (Halloween) events were also activated on Test so they can be poked and prodded into shape. Due to how much information I was already trying to cover, and the fact that Nights of the Dead won't be activated for the live servers until much closer to Halloween, I will do a separate Nights of the Dead preview in a week or two. (Kaisha has already given me yummy gallery-style screenshots of the new crafted items for the event, now I just need to find my get up and go!)


Late-Breaking News

It never fails that almost immediately after I publish a preview of an upcoming feature, something is added or changed. When/if that happens with this preview, not only will I update the appropriate section of this preview, but I will leave a note down here, so that you can tell more easily what has been changed.

Created: 2009-09-01 06:08:52          
Last Modified By: Niami Denmother          
Last Modified on: 2009-09-22 05:33:13          


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