• DigitalFlux
• August 10, 2010    5:34 PM

Crafting is usually an after-thought for many MMOs. For Epic Frontiers, it’s a large part of the gameplay experience.

Epic Frontiers has two tiers of crafting: Recipe-based crafting, and Generic crafting. Recipe-based crafting is exactly what the name says it is. Using recipes like many MMOs, you drag and drop your materials into the slots in the Crafting Panel and click the Create button and viola! You now have a new item.

It’s a simple system: A player obtains a recipe either from an NPC, as loot, or in other ways, and then obtains the items and/or materials needed. When all of the parts needed are in place, the player opens the Crafting Panel and drags and drops the materials into their appropriate slots, and then creates the items.

One feature not shown in the video is that of being able to also disassemble items. This allows for players to break down and modify certain items that allow it, repairing, upgrading and replacing parts from vehicles and weapons.

And as an equal partner in gameplay with combat and “soft skills”, crafting has its own set of skills which level upon successful use, like any other skill in the game. This allows for players to advance in skill level in the same way as a player who participates in combat to advance, and no combat is required in order to enjoy the game. We feel that this is something that many players have been waiting for, since most MMOs feel the need to relegate crafting to the back-seat of gameplay as a “secondary” profession or class and providing only combat archetypes for players to enjoy.

Epic Frontiers will supply players with the ability to make their own unique types of characters, whether that be a specialized blacksmith who never sees combat, a hybridized crafter/warrior, or a pure warrior who relies on the services of other players for the creation of gear.

And beyond the recipe-based crafting is another level that we call (uncreatively) “generic recipe” crafting. Generic recipes allow for parts made of various materials to be created. We all know that a sword consists of a hilt and a blade, and maybe a guard. But those components can be made of copper, iron, bronze, steel, wood, or even styrofoam (that bear you hit with it will just laugh at you though- before eating you). A generic recipe for a blade will allow you to provide virtually any material and make a blade from that. A generic recipe for a sword will then allow you to create a sword with a blade made from that material, and the crafting algorithm will compile stats for the item based on the materials and components.

There’s much more to the generic crafting than just that, but it requires a Part II of this article. Stay tuned…

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