Introduction to Weaponsmithing cannot be completed due to a lack of bronze ingots (2024)

Member

My first task is to create a bronze sword, and the starter kit given to me contained two bronze ingots, which is enough to make the blade, but not the hilt, which needs another two. Here I am trying to learn the basics and I'm left in the lurch without the required supplies. And from the sounds of things there's no readily available source of ingots, you have to go out of your way to get them, and as a new player I have no clue how to do that. I'm wondering, is this the way it's supposed to be? Surely there should have been four ingots in the starter kit?

The Wise

It's a long time since I did those quests, but if I remember correctly there is also a prospector quest: you smelt/refine copper and tin ingots into bronze, which gives you the other 2 ingots you need.

Member

I'm a Historian though so I don't think I can do prospecting.

Newbie

I don't think you need to make a hilt, you just need to make the blade then you can make the sword

Member

I've been able to finish all the intro quests for the crafting without too much trouble. Everything you need is in the crates they give you, as long as you dont do what i've done a couple of times and use the supplies to make items they didnt ask for...

As you will learn, sometimes the crafting ingredients you need dont make complete sense. You can make a bronze sword with only the blade, and armor with only the bronze chains...etc etc. But generally speaking crafting in LOTRO is a lot more satisfying, useful and rewarding than most games offer.

Dont put off joining a guild when you first can though, that is where the crafting skills really show their worth. Good Luck!

Defender of the Hornburg

Originally Posted by Pharkus

I don't think you need to make a hilt, you just need to make the blade then you can make the sword

Correct. The Bronze Sword recipe only requires a Bronze Blade.

Just Starting Out

And BTW, being a Historian and thinking that weaponsmithing is going to be easy WITHOUT being able to farm your own mats is an understatment. Just get use to the fact that you are gonna need an alt that prospects, or awesome kinmates! Historian strengths are in pots (morale/power/oils), Books (minstril/chants/LM), and best of all Scrolls...oh yeah and dyes to pay for everything!

Member

For the record ...

a. my mistake was indeed assuming you'd need to make a hilt to complete a sword. I've been learning to stop thinking in real life terms and more in gameworld terms since my initial post
b. I switched from Historian to Armsman and haven't looked back. After a week I'm trying to sell my first crafted items. So much fun! The best part was asking the auction channel for a Polished Opal and getting a helpful response.

addendum: I've been away from MMOs for the last ten years but I find how LotRO encourages everyone to become a crafter really cool. Is this a fairly novel approach these days or do most new MMOs make crafting as accessible and rewarding as it is in this game?

Member

Originally Posted by Taigon

do most new MMOs make crafting as accessible and rewarding as it is in this game?

The last one I played was called Dekaron, about 3-ish years ago, and they didn't even have crafting. They have the game on a few hundred (I think, might be less) private servers, all of them run differently. But I tried 3 different versions and the closest I ever saw to crafting was the slots you can put in your weapons and armor to allow for gems to add power. I tried WoW, and I think they had a crafting system, but I didn't stay with it for long, so I don't remember.
But it doesn't really matter anyway, because this game is so much better than Cabal, WoW, 2moons, and every other game I've played that I can't see myself ever leaving.

Post Master

Originally Posted by Taigon

addendum: I've been away from MMOs for the last ten years but I find how LotRO encourages everyone to become a crafter really cool. Is this a fairly novel approach these days or do most new MMOs make crafting as accessible and rewarding as it is in this game?

Swtor makes crafting accessible and rewarding for everyone. You do not craft with your character. You have companions that do the crafting for you. You can hunt with one companion. The other companions can be crafting in real time. Gathering is easy. The companion that is with you does the gather in 3 seconds.

If you want to produce a lot of items that can take a long time, it is painful in Swtor because you can only order each companion to make a single unit.

Member

Guild Wars 2 makes crafting rather accessible as well. For one, resource gathering is not tied to anything; all you need is slot the three types of tools and you're ready for gathering. You'll need higher tier tools to gather higher tier materials however. Crafting itself is one- or two-step process where you may need to prepare some intermediate pieces before assembling the finished product. Finding most of the recipes you are not auto-granted is a matter of throwing prepared materials and intermediate pieces at the Discovery tab and seeing what will stick. There are some recipes on the karma merchants too.

Extra accessibility is provided by two features of the crafting window. For one, you are able to access your vault from one of the tabs, so you don't need to move anywhere if you've places some stuff aside in there. Second, there's a Collections tab, which is for stroring raw materials and processed materials. Each has its own slot, and can store up to 999 units. No vault space sacrificed to crafting materials, ever.