Crafting so far in Guild Wars 2 seems to be a fairly basic system. You create the base component items, then place them in the final craft window and if your items can make something it lets you know. To me It feels like it’s unneeded clicking, the bane of crafters. Keep in mind that this is still beta and hopefully the system will get some major work before launch. If anything I’d suggest removing the two weapon component clicks into one item. Instead of making a dagger hilt and blade, how about just a stat-less dagger. Then take your dagger and the inscription to make the actual magic Dagger of Noob Slaying.

It would appear that the ArenaNet has spent more time doing something amazing, fantastic, borderline revolutionary with their resource gathering system. Recieving experience for harvesting is so simple of a concept that I can’t believe I haven’t seen it before. Often nodes are in out of the way places, either way players will be rewarded for their time. They didn’t stop there. The real breakthrough in fun is that no longer will you have to race those around you to nodes. Every player is able to harvest the same nodes. How much pvp has started over the rights of clicking a rock? Many players have switched from pve to pvp servers in games, solely based on not liking to share resources. Then there’s always that one prick who would ninja every node in a dungeon. That’s all loads of fun, right?

Even if you still loath harvesting, you will still be able to craft. The salvage system from Guild Wars original is also in the sequel. You kill big bad guys and they drop all kinds of shiny items. Now you get the option of selling the items to a vendor, player, or break it down into resources for crafting. Also you will receive salvage specific items which do stack, unlike weapons and armor. Salvage kits have various levels each providing higher returns in rare components and runes. In the original you used salvage kits to unlock runes. These runes would be used for any instant pvp character. I haven’t seen anything stating if this will also be true here. Although the pvp vendors did have a large list of runes, so who knows how you get access to all of them in launch.

As stated in the Yogscast video the limiting components will be the inscription items found only on mobs in the world. There seems to be a large variety in inscription items hopefully covering the wide range of stats players want. These items appear to be mob specific which while uncommon will allow players to farm them as needed. Most players would prefer spending the bulk of their time killing, opposed to clicking trees, rocks, or shrubberies.

The harvesting systems advancements may make up for the crafting systems dull rehash of what we’ve seen before. The non-inscription materials could very well end up being extremely abundant. Hopefully this will mean that players are not forced to go around a map fine tuning their route to maximize materials per hour. Maybe someone really finds harvesting to be amazing fun but I’m expecting this to be widely appreciated and probably copied in games to come.