Properly managing the item economy is a vital part of maintaining the long term viability of crafting. The only game to do this that I know of to date is Eve. They brought in an economist to help design their system, and they keep him on to maintain it. I don't think that VRI needs to go that far, but it would pay off long term to follow their lead in making design decisions to manage the item economy. I have high hopes for the proposed alter sacrifice system that has been discussed.
I loved the crafting system in VG. For me to see, crafting "should' (as always, just my opinion) play an essential role in any MMO. it is, or can be, a quite enjoyable pastime while your friends/guild mates are more or less offline. In my view though, crafting is closely tied into how the devs setup a system of gathering the materials needed. Going to an area to harvest something and discover that the veins in that area are rich as are the mobs of whom (if you arnt careful) can kill you if you come alone. Group activities such as gathering mats or killing a mob to get an essential piece of a recipe, can be a very good incentive to promote social behavior in a group oriented game.
Velmeir.
I agree, The example of the Coldain prayer shawl was a good item to craft up, and was even good at various stages. What I would like to see is a crafting system that follows you along and allows you to increase, naturally.
What I mean is this:
Compared to EQ, remember the Mixxy's delacasies cook books? they were in shops in newbie zones (at least in Toxx) they usually needed about 3 ingredients, and also paired a 2 ingredient beverage that mentioned it would go well with the meal. The ingredients were those a player would have already seen dropping off of the low level monsters. I would like to see those recipies have a secret benefit, not immediately obvious if combined. For instance, Most of the things you would hunt in Toxx were spiderlings, snakes (moss and thistle) Maybe a fire beetle or a skunk or rat. The kobolds and skellies were too hard.
So one recipe would be take a rat ear, fire beetle eye, rat pelt to make a ratty taco, combined with bog juice- made with a snake egg and skunk scent gland- makes for a delicious lunch! ( I think the food dishes can be funny or humorous names) and this food and beverage, if eaten together, would provide say a +1 poison resist- but you wouldn't see it, you would just be hunting along, maybe make a taco and juice, and find the spiderlings and snakes were bad, but not as bad as before. Like where two would kill you if one added, with the lunch you would just be barely alive.
and you would get some skill ups in baking and brewing maybe, but small. Likewise as you went on, in different areas there would be monster parts that would be on the loot table, and some would be good for making recipies for that area.
Likewise, maybe some more exotic recipies would need things from those same newbie areas, giving the older player an opportunity to go back, help some newbies, gather the indredients, or WITH A TRIVIAL LOOT CODE, pay the newbies for the items if they are not on a merchant. Like a Solusek A paiyayia (sp?) needs rat tacos, south ro guacomole, west karana corn chips, runny-eye picante salsa (ha ha, get it?), north freeport shrimp(fresh from the docks, of course), Fellwithe flounder, and Eruds crossing lobster, combined in a whatever with a lava salts (in sol A) to make the payayia with +10 to fire plus something else like disease resist (you know how pepper was used to preserve meat in real life to keep worms out? that kind of thing)
and the same with other stuff. For a caster, smithing was not even a thought but being able to polish a rusty weapon with a sparhening stone, and make it worth a tad more to a merchant or slightly better pet weapon? was neat!