Land management

Land management mechanics are present for gathering artisans.

As you draw resources from your surrounding area- what type of effect does that have on the land; and then also how effectively can you draw those resources without having such a deleterious effect on the land, which might impact future resource gathering for some period of time: And it makes relevant the movement of these players who are collecting these goods from the environment, that they actually cannot always just do so in one particular area, as the land management begins to degrade. So it actually encourages movement across the world to discover new areas that might not be as perturbed as the ones you're coming from. It's a very interesting idea. It's something that we're going to be prototyping in Alpha 2 and getting feedback on and testing. – Steven Sharif

• The spawn rate of resources in a given area is influenced by how players are interacting with those resources.
  • Drawing excessive amounts of resources may have a deleterious effect on the land health value for that area.
  • Actions like ridding an area of invasive species or performing crop rotations on freehold farms may have a positive effect on that area's land health value.

It could be could be positive or negative, or both simultaneously. So the land health value ties into the health of a specific ecosystem; and the ecosystem can kind of scale with different segment sizes of the world, or the world itself: A biome, maybe a node, maybe the player's freehold. And the things that a player does in those areas will contribute to health in a positive or negative way. So doing something like rotating your crops might increase the health of the land because that's considered something good to do; and maybe apprehending or removing poachers that are over hunting a certain species could be helpful to the health of the land. Maybe the mayor puts out a request for players to try and get rid of invasive species that are plants- maybe they're overgrowing weed and it's stopping other valuable plants from growing. – Kory Rice

Surveying

Surveying plays a key role in helping gatherers identify resources in particular locations through the use of surveying tools.

Surveying is a way that players can check out an area for resources. Players can learn where resources are that are static and that grow back in the same location; but we'll also have resources and Ashes that can spawn anywhere, so surveying will help players locate those those resources. So if they're looking for something specific they can hunt them down. Surveying will also allow players to uncover hidden resources that players wouldn't be able to see with their with their naked eye. Another thing that a surveying would provide is some of the information that we're talking about before, like for instance if you survey- and inside of your survey area there's plants, you might learn what season that plant likes to grow in. You might learn whether it likes to be watered during the winter versus how it likes to be watered in the summer. – Kory Rice

• Surveying can identify the types of resources that spawn statically within an area and also provides information about the seasons and locations they spawn in.
• Surveying can help uncover hidden resources that are not visible to the naked eye.
• Artisan progression unlocks higher level surveying tools that enable better identification of gatherable resources within a location.
  • Unlocking surveying pylons allows the gatherer to adjust the shape and extend the area of their survey.

You'd work with a surveying tool; and you set the surveying tool down, and that tool would have a specific area in which it's able to uncover and extract information about the resources that are in the area. As a starting out gatherer you might end up with one of the tools, but as you as you progress and become more proficient with using the tool you might be able to set up additional pylons and extend the the area of your survey. That allows you to start making shapes and having more strategic areas that you're surveying. If you could connect multiple pylons to create a shape, maybe you could follow the twisting caverns of the cave. Maybe if you're out in the open like we are here you could just try and make yourself a nice widened shape to scan as much of the area as possible. So it'll be up to the player to be tricky with their surveying tool to try and get the most efficiency out of their survey. – Kory Rice

Resource tiers

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

This section contains information from Alpha-1 testing. It will be updated when new information is made available.

In Alpha-1 testing there are 4 tiers of gatherable resources across all gathering professions:

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

Artisan tools

Sickle artisan tool in Alpha-2.

Gathering requires the creation and use of harvesting tools that enable the gathering of resources.

• Progression in the gathering artisan class unlocks higher level harvesting tools that enable gathering of higher level resources.
  • Artisan progression unlocks higher level surveying tools that enable better identification of gatherable resources within a location.
  • Higher level of progression can also speed up gathering times, resource yields, and may allow access to resources at earlier growth stages.
  • A gatherer at maximum proficiency will unlock master toolsets that will grant them access to the highest quality gatherables.

• Tools will have durability and tool lifespans.
  • The amount of usages of a gathering tool increases as the gatherer becomes more proficient in the gathering artisan tree.
  • Tools may become non-repairable, requiring re crafting.
• Artisans will not need to rely on other trees in order to make their tools.

Tools do advance within the artisan tree, so your ability to either gather, process or craft will require the equivalent tools necessary at that stage of crafting in order to accomplish the task at hand. So, you could not mine copper and mithril with the same tool. – Steven Sharif

• The developers are considering the introduction of gathering tools that require two players, such as two-person saws that can fell larger trees.

Your progression within the profession will take account what tools you can use. There might even be some opportunity to do some gathering with other players that you know. Typically in other games that I play you usually do the gathering alone. You're venturing around alone; and we wanted to take a look at maybe having a friend to help you with a two person saw on a larger tree. Maybe there's some panning that you could do as opposed to just hitting with the pickaxe. So, we'll have other tools that are part of that progression path and other activities that players can do if they would like to gather together. – Kory Rice

This section contains information from Alpha-1 testing. It will be updated when new information is made available.

Gathering tools for Mining, Herbalism, Lumberjacking, and Fishing are associated with a resource tier. For example: A tier 2 axe can gather tier 1 and 2 lumber and no higher.

Tool rarity	Resource tiers	Vendor price	Vendor location
Common	1	10g	Alpha-1 starting area
Uncommon	1 - 2	100g	Expedition (stage 1) nodes
Rare	1 - 3	500g	Encampment (stage 2) nodes
Epic	1 - 4	2000g	Village (stage 3) nodes

Artisan gear

Artisan gear will boost artisans in their gathering, processing, or crafting professions.

• Artisan gear may be able to be equipped in an "undergarment" slot that can be toggled between adventuring gear and artisan gear.
• The developers are planning to have artisan gear sets available for Alpha-2.

Gear for artisans are going to live alongside your adventuring gear. So you will currently- the approaches, and we'll test this but currently- the approach is you'll have artisanship oriented gear. This might be beneficial for your gathering; it might be beneficial for your processing, or crafting, or whatever it is- your profession. Essentially you will craft that gear, you will equip that gear, it'll live almost as a undergarment slot so to speak; and then you can activate that and it will show the appearance if you wish during the activation when you gain the benefit from the from the gear itself; and then could disappear afterwards and go back to your adventuring gear. That's the current approach. We're going to play with that a little bit. There's some discussion and disagreement on the team about how we do that, but our hopes are for Alpha two, we will have I think a couple of sets at least. We're demonstrating all of the artisanship from gathering to processing to crafting in limited fashion in Alpha 2 want to have that gear present to kind of play with this approach.

Artisan progression

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 and up to two (2) professions within this mastered artisan class (subject to testing).

When it comes to complete mastery, we're really identifying around two or three right now, but that's something that gets play tested- something gets iterated upon. – Steven Sharif

• A character will be able to achieve up to tier 3 or tier 4 proficiency in professions that are not mastered.

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

• Based on testing, it may be decided to limit profession mastery certificates to a capped value.

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

• Masteries aren’t just about making an item. They grant many things, including titles, access to items, bargains, and quests.
• Previously it was stated that with considerable effort a player can master all professions within a mastered parent artisan class. This was later changed to a player being able to master some but not all professions within a mastered parent artisan class. This was changed to being able to master up to two or three professions within a mastered parent artisan class (subject to testing). The current stance is being able to master up to two professions.

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.

• 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.

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

Timeline

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

• Approximately 10 percent of the artisan system were online in Alpha-1.

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

See also

• Surveying
• Artisan tools
• Gathering