Neverwinter Online crafting

Now that Neverwinter has begun its long-awaited open beta, it's time to look the game's final main feature; highlighted during the fourth closed beta weekend, the game's profession system is another example of Cryptic Studios craftsmanship at its finest.

Unlocked at level 10, the game's profession and crafting system is best compared to Star Trek Online's duty officer system. Crafting requires players to obtain "assets", items that depict and represent skilled laborers within a certain field, before they could get cracking. During CB4, the first selectable job for each profession rewarded the player with a single corresponding asset. Any other profession task then required the player to have at least one of that asset available.

Much like modern crafting systems, all players have to do is select what they want to make, make sure they have the mats, and wait – providing they had the asset(s) available for the job. As of CB4, profession tasks had a 100% chance of success with no natural chance of critical results. However, certain special or higher-level tasks would allow players to add optional assets such as crafting items or additional craftsmen, and they would presumably either improve the task's rewards or reduce the wait time on said task (the former is more likely – these additional assets were not available during CB4).

Currently the available professions are Leadership, Mailsmithing, Platesmithing, Leatherworking, and Tailoring. The latter four are, naturally, crafting skills that would allow players to make the pieces they needed to craft equipment, and then later allow them to craft said equipment pieces. Leadership, on the other hands, is unique in that it isn't used for crafting in any way. Rather, Leadership is a direct equivalent of STO's duty officer assignments – free EXP and loot for completing a task, meaning the ability to level up without progressing through the game. Bigger and better tasks within these professions will unlock as players complete tasks and gain EXP in the corresponding profession, however Neverwinter also employs the appearance of "rare" tasks that will appear randomly and offer bigger rewards than normal tasks.

While players will only be able to perform one profession task at a time to start, as of CB4 they were ultimately able to perform up to nine tasks at a time at max. These extra task slots can be unlocked by performing a certain number of things – such as leveling up or increasing profession levels.

Check out the video below to see professions in action!

Alongside professions, Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment have also released Neverwinter's Gateway during CB4. Much like STO's Gateway, the Neverwinter Gateway will allow players to check on their character while offline as well as do a bunch of other fun things, such as bid through the game's auction, send and receive in-game mail, and manage their guild. Most importantly, the Neverwinter Gateway contains full profession functionality, meaning that players will be able to take profession tasks and collect their rewards without having to be logged into the game at all.