In EverQuest Next, should one character be able to learn all types of crafting?

Actually it depends on how they balance their monetization. If they balance their monetization properly against their gameplay, then you only pay 25 to 30 a month because you WANT TO, not because the game 'forces' you to do so to remain competitive. RIFT is a pretty good example on that front, where as TOR is a good example of how NOT to do it.

Also if they handle crafting mats the same way that Landmark is handling it, storage space is never going to be an issue. It's a separate storage area from your tools and equipment.

For crafting though, I really hope they use a system similar to what Final Fantasy: A Realm Reborn is doing. The old style of crafting is so old and boring. By turning crafting into actual classes with abilities that are used DURING the crafting process to effect the outcome of the crafting, you end up with some really interesting stuff. Further, it would mesh well with the currently planned class system by making them into classes themselves.

Imagine having it set up so that there's a blacksmith class. You have 8 abilities. As you craft a new sword, you use your abilities to advance the crafting progress. Depending on the order of the abilities used and what other mats you feed into the process at each step during the crafting bar, you change the possible outcome of the item you're crafting. You could just autocraft it and get the base product, or you can experiment with extra mats and the other blacksmith abilities to create something unique. Then it records that so you can run through it later. Add in a timer for each point in the crafting progress bar so that it'll automatically advance without input, but you have the chance to use your abilities to alter the finished product.

It'd be far more interesting than 'collect the materials, open the window, hit the craft button' that's been the staple of the MMO genre for so long.

shadowclasper................ I like adding good aspects of other mmos but I really don't like having a lot of toons. I normally stick with one toon and play it so I want to be able to craft whatever A I feel with that same toon. Some people like to have 10 to 15 alts im cool with that. I played eq for 11 years my Main was a Cleric I had one other toon a druid that I played.

One problem in all I found is storage.. I hate deleting stuff because I have no room .

Hopefully your right about the $ system.. boy I hope your right.

LOL I love and hate Gm events .. best one was in EQ 1 At Adviak town. Out in one of the Karanas .. yes the vast I mean vast plains area. All these BRIGHT weird colored advaiks were just kick our ***. I was like crap why are they so hard... Damn Gms.lol We teamed up kept a few busy and took them out one by one. A few we could not kill they stayed together.. so we ran lol. Was a hard fought battle . Died alot that day... was great fun.

I think they had death penalty off if a gm killed you.. but if you were almost dead and a regular Adviak respawed and killed you well that sucked. You could Loose your level making some items worthless on you and spells not work. I stared playing EQ 1 in 99 and played off and on for 11 years. Great fun. if they water this game down and make it crappy like all the other s out there that will suck.

I hate the stupid collect ones .. scavenger hunt stuff. but heck some love it.

To the first paragraph I normally agree with you. In many games I hate item degradation. However as they put it (I think in their video) it acts like a sink so the world doesn't become flooded with items and it benefits the overall economy of the game. As well as adds an element of risk. Fighting that boss without caring for your weapon and suddenly *clink* your weapon chips and then *clink clink....splash* it shatters...running is a valid option. Live to fight another day. (I'm also a permadeath player)

To The second paragraph I agree. Personally the only MMO monetary system that I've found and that I approve of is DDOs. In the game you can slowly, very slowly, earn in game currency to unlock more features in the game or pay for the currency and unlock the locations and dungeons and classes you desire, or pay a small subscription which gives you access to everything. It also gives you some amount of the currency each month where you can slowly permanently unlock everything (of course stacking with the in game currency you earn) Now where this can seem arduous you don't have to pay anything and sales are offered frequently so overtime you can get things relatively cheap. I ended up unlocking everything over the course of 7 years paying $100. Which says a lot in my opinion.. I enjoyed the game for 7 years before unlocking everything. Also this monetary system allows them to keep expanding and even incentivizes them to keep expanding.

This also acts in a way which reduces the number of bots in areas that must be paid for. It also gets a person invested in the game to where trolling is less appealing. I'm not saying that exact method is what they should choose, but it should illuminatea possible alternative to solely subscription based which started dying out for a reason.

I'm going to point something out.

SOE has a medium track record for 'pay to win' stuff. EQ2 as far as I can recall doesn't nickle and dime you. Planetside 2, unfortunately, is Pay-To-Win, despite their best efforts. The current in game store for landmark seems to be okay, almost entirely cosmetic with the ability to buy resources as well (but why would you want to? It's so easy to tech up at the moment).

But I will say this. We're going free to play. Rather than whining about FTP games and the model, we should be bringing forth constructive ideas on what should and shouldn't be monetized on. Look what's going on with wildstar. Massive support and ideas early on, and a very major divide in the community between FTP and Subscription model people. They chose to go subscription model. I'm betting that they'll have to switch over fast or die off.

And that's sad, because it's very hard to shoe horn in a FTP system into a game that's been designed for a subscription model. The only way to make FTP stores and such work is to develop your game specifically for it, to balance it like any other system. Guild Wars 2 got that. DDO got that. RIFT is one of the few examples of a game that successfully pulled off the whole switch almost entirely without a hiccup.

So can we please stop complaining about FTP? The game designers have already said they're going FTP and they've listed out their reasoning why, and as a fellow game developer, their reasoning is sound and seems to be free of the money gouging intent of many other FTP MMOs, the language they use is entirely different for one, and they've been up front about it from the start. That gives me some confidence they're not going to make this a PTW game.

Rather than complain about FTP, give constructive advice on what should, and what should not, be buyable through the store.

My personal voucher is that you shouldn't EVER be able to buy something that effects your stats from the store. Never. It must be cosmetic only.