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.
• Some processing can be carried out in nodes, but the best processing can only be carried out on freeholds.
  • Blueprints are required for the construction of the freehold buildings that are used to process resources into processed goods.
  • 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

• There will be a preparatory phase to provide the building with needed fuel or other materials to process the required grade of materials.

Processing as it stands for Alpha-2's implementation is that there is a certain amount of prep work that's required first for the industry-specific component, which is the building. That prep work might be finding a certain amount of lumber to light the fire in kiln or whatever, to a certain temperature in order for you to process a certain grade of ore; and that grade of ore being malleable then into an ingot; and that produces that ingot so-to-speak. Now, in that process there's a gathering component, there's a preparatory phase, there is a time-related component. – Steven Sharif

• There will also be time-related and gameplay elements that require the player to interact with the processing building. These elements act to throttle for the introduction of processed materials from raw gatherables into the economy.

There's also possibilities that the machine you're using itself has some type of gameplay layer- should the kiln get overheated, and you have to throw some water on it or something. There are elements there in that process that we want to mimic this gameplay opportunity for players to interact; and not just be a time-sink. But time-sink is also a component of it as well, because that's the throttle for the introduction of processed materials from raw gatherables into the economy. – Steven Sharif

Processing professions

• Alchemy
• Animal husbandry
• Cooking
• Farming
• Lumber Milling
• Metalworking
• Stonemasonry
• Tanning
• Weaving

Artisan mastery

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

Raw materials

Gatherable mushrooms found in an underground cave.

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.

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, others will exist as clusters that will last until the vein is depleted.

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

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)

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
• Cooking ingredients
• 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 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 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

Gathering lumber in Alpha-2.

The first major reveal is that in Ashes of Creation we have now expanded the resource gathering system to include a great many of what the world is showing you of these resources. So when you see a tree, you can chop a tree. If you see a rock, you can mine a rock. – Steven Sharif

Gathering ore in Alpha-2.

Looking at this this rock here, I don't know what that rock is before I actually complete the Harvest. But after I complete the Harvest I see that I collected basalt in the bottom right hand corner. – Steven Sharif

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

• Many of the visible resources (such as Trees and Ore) in the open world are gatherable.
  • This is a change from Alpha-1 where a limited number of resource locations were highlighted with "sparkles" to indicate they were gatherable.
• The exact type of resource present within a resource node is not known until the node is harvested.

There's a bunch of different things in Ashes that will be gatherable. We have plants and trees and rocks and fish and animals and creatures that can be tamed; and we're thinking to reach the visual fidelity bar and to have things a little bit more rooted in what we know is that it wouldn't really make sense for you to just see gold all over the world in the same way that you would plants and trees; so we wanted to get feedback on what players think about some of the different gatherable types having different things that you would have to know and expect from them. So rocks are a good example of this, where you can see a rock but until you crack that thing open you don't know if it's full of stone, crystals, rubies, gold. So we wanted to try that out with some of our gatherables to have players have to open this thing up- and that's not to say that we players won't stumble on a nice load, or vein, or geode of gold, but most of the stuff that they would they would find to the world, unless they they look hard enough, would require them to crack that stone open. – Kory Rice

• Gathering requires the creation and use of tools.
• Surveying plays a key role in helping gatherers identify resources in particular locations.
• 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.
• Artisan gear will enable crafting of stronger items.
• Crafting times may vary between professions but the bulk of the time spent in the artisan system resides in the processing branch.
• The developers will be seeking testing feedback on the addition of a gameplay layer to crafting that determines the outcome based on the player's performance.
• It's unlikely that crafting materials to craft all pieces of equipment will be able to be sourced solely by farming open-world dungeons.

It's unlikely that organized parties will be able to get all of the materials they need to craft every piece of equipment from farming open world dungeons alone. – Cody Peterson

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
• Fishery
• 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.

• 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

Visuals

• 

  2018-02-18
• 

  2017-10-15

Community guides

• Ashes101 - The Artisan System - Processing

See also

• Gathering
• Crafting
• Resources
• Materials
• Artisan classes