Thread: I demand info!

Right now, beta is restricted to Act 1 up to and including the Skeleton King scenario. A lot of the crafting info is still under lock & key. Currently the only crafting profession you can train in is Blacksmithing. You are not going to be able to casually level up your professions as you progress through the game, you will have to dedicate resources towards specifically leveling your craft.

Obviously the following information is subject to change:

As you kill monsters in dungeon crawls an item will occasionally drop called Page of Training. When you combine five of these pages you receive a Tome of Training. Upon visiting a crafting trainer you can turn in a Tome of Training into the said NPC for a specific amount of "XP" towards the next level in your craft in addition to being granted the ability to craft some new items. The amount of Tome of Training required to reach the next level varies. As you gain more levels in a profession you are promoted to Master / Grand Master etc. and the crafting areas even get nifty little cosmetical upgrades.

In terms of actually crafting items this is where it gets a little tricky. When you craft an item you receive a random value item. All the known craftable items are much like the "of the Windflurry" items you would find while doing the shuffle in WoW. These random items have various bonus stats from Bonus Gold Find (more gold drops for you) to Extra Experience. Needless to say if you're trying to craft an item with a desirable stat you could waste an absurd amount of resources crafting that perfect item.

To acquire the materials needed to craft items you will be disenchanting other items. Almost ANY item is disenchantable in the game, including vendor trash weapons and armor. This is why it's recommended at the moment in Beta to pick up every single weapon/armor you find and to make sure to destroy/open all of the chests and destructable items in the game to acquire these (the common crafting material they disenchant to is in incredible demand)

Sorry, this is all the info I really have at the moment at 6AM

I just got into the D3 beta a few days ago and I'm somewhat lost. I never played the other Diablo games, so I'm really not sure what to expect in this version. As a brave soldier, I'm forging on anyway and trying to learn as I go, but I'm a little overwhelmed because I can't tell what is genuinely NYI and what is my erroneous expectation about how this game should function. It appears that at least one other Consortium member is in D3 (Gazzuk?) so maybe you guys can help me get up to speed?

Right now (as already stated) there appears to be only one quest chain available and after you kill the Skeleton King everything resets. I've completed this content three times and gotten my Demon Hunter to level 12, but I'm not sure how to move forward. I unlocked the Blacksmith, but I'm not clear on exactly how the leveling process occurs for D3 crafting. So far the NPC just keeps asking for money and unlocking new recipes. Am I supposed to be making items to gain skill? I haven't even figured out how to see what my skill is other than the "Journeyman" tag on the main trainer window? So my questions:

How do I progress in Blacksmithing - just keep paying the trainer for new recipes or actually making items?

Should I keep leveling my toon on the Skeleton King content or is there something else I should do instead? Do I need to level up more?

Is it possible to unlock the other professions, if so how?

I've never seen one of these pages of training - do they drop in the Skeleton King content or is there some other way to get them?

You mention getting "XP" towards crafting but I'm not seeing that. I see that there is a progress bar, but it only appears to move when I pay the NPC for more recipes. It never moves when I make an item. Am I doing something wrong?

I am not able to salvage common items as Gazzuk mentions in his post. It was my understanding that that was taken out because of the whole Markco debacle?

I would love to help share info with folks not in beta, but I'm not sure how useful I would be at this stage. But if you have questions I'm happy to answer to the best of my ability

Kaliope

PS - Any insights you guys can share on the D3 auctions would also be appreciated, I'm struggling with that too!

Thank you Oli for confirming much of what I was already seeing At this point Blizzard wiped all our progress, so I'm having to start over now. Luckily this gives me an opportunity to fully document the information for my blog. I'm still not comfy with the Auction House, it feels like there's a ton of items up there and very few buyers. I can only assume this is due to more people crafting than buying. I have found that having to play through the Skeleton King content repeatedly reduces the number of items you need to fill in with crafted gear. I've made a few items for myself, but not much. Hopefully when Diablo goes live there will be less reason to repeat content in this manner (I hope?).

Still waiting to see a true goblin analysis on the Diablo situation. My forte is more in the crafting area and with most of them blocked, as well as the full leveling progression, that puts a major crimp in my ability to get a feel for the synergy between professions or even see how well a particular profession serves the average player. Clearly I'll have to play again after launch to figure that out =)

With beta 14 :
Crafting cost a lot more gold and compound, so it's not a good idea anymore to chain craft and salvage to obtain better material or rare gear

On your first toon :
you can make only one or two try and you run out of money.
I would advise to train the trainer, and only do a try on an empty slot or if it's a big upgrade.

Vendors upgrade the gear that they sell to your corresponding level, so don't forget to visit them from time to time with some money.

Originally Posted by Oligopoly

Do you have a link to his site? This wouldn't happen to be the same Zerohour in our Gold Cap Hall of Fame would it?

Ha, I was the one that suggested that Hall of Fame idea over there way back in summer 2009. (just so you know it's me, the one and only). Nebu's blog is at Expectnothing.com. He talks games, politics, and weird news over there.

I've been in Beta since early November and I admit, I've been bad about sharing the information here. And a good thing, too, because they've changed a ton.

All we have access to is the Blacksmith at this point, and right now you train that blacksmith with G O L D. Previously you had to put books together, which wasn't too hard. Apparently though people CBA to put some work into it so they removed that AND they removed the need for scraps in the crafting patterns. Now you're on the desperate search for blue and yellow items to salvage so you can craft items that carry random mods on them.

It's a great system, it's similar to the old Horadric cube recipe for gloves, jewelry, and rerolling rares. I always wanted them to expand those recipes but they never did. Now you have the option to roll gear and I'm fairly certain that at Hell level the blacksmith items will be in huge demand.

Since we don't have access to the gemcrafter just yet, we'll see when it's released.