Difference between revisions of "Artisan"

Revision as of 14:02, 24 September 2010

The Artisans are special kinds of merchant NPCs, introduced in Diablo III. They provide quest information, as well as numerous essential services such as crafting, item repairs, socketing and unsocketing, item enchanting, and much more.

There are three Artisans, the Jeweler, Blacksmith, and Mystic, all of whom travel with the Caravan and are available to the player in each act of the game. Artisans were introduced in August 2010, and are succinctly explained in the Artisan Video, narrated by Jay Wilson.

Overview

Concept art of the Artisan Blacksmith.

Artisans are basically super-vendors, buying and selling items, as well as providing all of the crafting services. They have other special features as well; they can be upgraded, which improves their skills, adds to the crafting recipes they offer, and even improves the appearance of their wagons.

Crafting is their biggest special skill. This form of item creation requires a recipe, materials, and gold, which the Artisan will craft into a new item with some pre-set and some random properties. This is essentially an upgrade over how crafting worked in Diablo II, and it varies from crafting in most RPGs since the outcome is not entirely predictable; the random properties can roll as a wide variety of modifers, potentially yielding a fantastic item, or a piece of junk, from the same recipe. Numerous attempts at most recipes are to be expected before a great item is fashioned.

When first encountered, the Artisans seem like any other NPCs. They have problems that must be solved as quests. Only once the Artisans have been impressed by the hero's skill will they join the Caravan and travel with you, offering quest and story information, as well as their talents and abilities, for a price.

Artisans can also specialize in various types of crafting. The mechanics of this aren't yet known, but Jay Wilson described the blacksmith learning to make all sorts of axes, or swords, if he specialized in those item types. This would show up in the design of his shoppe, too, with more of that type of weapon on display.

Specializing doesn't take away from the Artisan's other recipe skills though. They can still make all types of items, and can learn to specialize in multiple types of items. Presumably this would just require a lot of crafting, as the Artisans learn through experience.

The Three Artisans

There are three Artisans in Diablo III. Each of these NPCs will be encountered during the course of the gameplay, and once their quest is completed they will join up with the Caravan and travel with the player for the rest of the game. See their individual pages for many more details.

The Blacksmith

Haedrig Eamon, the Blacksmith is the only Artisan yet named. He is the first one encountered, early in Act One, and he gives the player the Salvage Cube, which is used throughout the game to break down items into materials for crafting.

Special Abilities: Repairs, Socketing.
Crafting Specialties: Weapons, Armor.

The Mystic

The Mystic has not yet been named, but it's widely rumored that she might be Adria, returned in Diablo III. Her talents involve creating magical objects.

Special Abilities: Enchanting Items.
Crafting Specialties: Magical Weapons, Runestones, Charms, Potions, Scrolls.

Jeweler

The Jeweler is also unnamed, so far. He is said to be a greedy, avaricious fellow, who accompanies the player out of a desire for riches. He deals in gems and crafting jewelry.

Special Abilities: Un-socketing Gems, Gem Upgrades
Crafting Specialties: Rings, Amulets, and Gems.

Training

Three levels of the Blacksmith's wagon.

Artisans can be trained to higher levels, gaining a new title and improved wagon appearance each time. The maximum level is five (until the expansion?), and with each level the artisans learn new recipes to craft.

Training is not free; it costs increasing amounts of gold and materials, but players will always want to train up their Artisans, since this enables them to create higher quality items from better recipes.

Specialization

In addition to being trained up, Artisans can be specialized in creating various item types. Jay Wilson spoke on this from Gamescom, in August 2010.[1]

Jay Wilson: After you’ve max leveled your Artisan, you can specialize them in areas. They’re not exclusive, if you want to just make axes, you don't omit the ability to make swords or armor. Each path is its own time and resource commitment. And you can specialize in item types that you like the best.

Another comment on the same issue: [2]

Moreover, you can specialize the three Artisans. The Blacksmith, for instance, can specialize in the crafting of axes. Then you will mostly see axes lying at his stall. Those specializations will not exclude other ways, however. If you are completely specialized in the crafting of axes, you can still try to make the Artisan learn another specialization, by gathering the right recipes and resources.

How specialization will work for the Mystic and Jeweler isn't yet known; perhaps the jeweler will know hundreds of recipes for rings and amulets, but will show more recipes for jewelry with good bonuses for melee combat, or spell-casting, or whatever your character desires?

Development

Artisans were revealed during GamesCom 2010, in Germany. No information has yet been released about their evolution during the game's earlier development.

Media

A Blacksmith has set up shop in this camp.
The Blacksmith started making a bit of coin.
THE LOOT! THE WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL LOOT!

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 The Artisans are special kinds of merchant [[NPCs]], introduced in Diablo III. They provide quest information, as well as numerous essential services such as [[crafting]], item [[repair]]s, [[socketing]] and unsocketing, item [[enchant]]ing, and much more.
-There are three Artisans, the [[Jeweler]], [[Blacksmith]], and [[Mystic]], all of whom travel with the [[Caravan]], and all of whom are available to the player in each act of the game. Artisans were introduced in August 2010, and are succinctly explained in the [[Artisan Video]], narrated by Jay Wilson.
+There are three Artisans, the [[Jeweler]], [[Blacksmith]], and [[Mystic]], all of whom travel with the [[Caravan]] and are available to the player in each act of the game. Artisans were introduced in August 2010, and are succinctly explained in the [[Artisan Video]], narrated by Jay Wilson.
 ==Overview==
 [[File:Npc-artisan-blacksmith1s.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Concept art of the Artisan [[Blacksmith]].]]
-Artisans are basically vendors, they provide the same function other vendors provide but with unique abilities and a possibility to be upgraded over time which will have a visual effect on the Artisan and his shop, check the gallery at the bottom of the page to see the transition.
+Artisans are basically super-vendors, buying and selling items, as well as providing all of the crafting services. They have other special features as well; they can be upgraded, which improves their skills, adds to the crafting [[recipes]] they offer, and even improves the appearance of their wagons.
-They can Buy and Sell Equipment, however, there are different types of Artisans, and each one has its own unique set of abilities. All Artisans can [[Crafting|Craft]] items for the player, provided they provide supplies and gold. Crafted items are standard, some are magic and some are rare magic items, But every crafted item has 1 or more random properties attached to it, that are finalized upon being crafted. Artisans will have recipes for crafting, but Unique recipes can be found in Sanctuary, from monsters and other sources.
+[[Crafting]] is their biggest special skill. This form of item creation requires a recipe, [[materials]], and [[gold]], which the Artisan will craft into a new item with some pre-set and some [[random properties]].  This is essentially an upgrade over how crafting worked in Diablo II, and it varies from crafting in most RPGs since the outcome is not entirely predictable; the random properties can roll as a wide variety of [[modifer]]s, potentially yielding a fantastic item, or a piece of junk, from the same recipe.  Numerous attempts at most recipes are to be expected before a great item is fashioned.
-Artisans are found throughout [[Sanctuary]] and are inaccessible to the player until he earns their trust by completing a quest or some other currently unknown way. Only then will an Artisan become accessible. After an Artisan is fully trained, he can be specialized in different areas of Expertise. For example if you love to use Axes, you can specialize the Blacksmith Artisan into Axes, meaning they will have more Axes for Selling and Crafting. The player's commitment to a specialization on an Artisan is not permanent, every specialization requires its own time and crafting material required and do not cancel each other out.
+When first encountered, the Artisans seem like any other [[NPCs]].  They have problems that must be solved as [[quests]]. Only once the Artisans have been impressed by the hero's skill will they join the [[Caravan]] and travel with you, offering quest and story information, as well as their talents and abilities, for a price.
+Artisans can also specialize in various types of crafting. The mechanics of this aren't yet known, but Jay Wilson described the [[blacksmith]] learning to make all sorts of axes, or swords, if he specialized in those item types. This would show up in the design of his shoppe, too, with more of that type of weapon on display.
-==Types of Artisans==
+Specializing doesn't take away from the Artisan's other recipe skills though. They can still make all types of items, and can learn to specialize in multiple types of items. Presumably this would just require a lot of crafting, as the Artisans learn through experience.
-There are three Artisans in Diablo III. Each of these NPCs will be encountered during the course of the gameplay, and once their quest is completed they will join up with the [[Caravan]] and travel with the player for the rest of the game.
-===[[Haedrig Eamon|Blacksmith]]===
-*Abilities: Shop, Craft, Training
-*Special Abilities: Creating Sockets in Armor and Shields (Only), Repairing
-*Speciality: Weapons, Armor
-===[[Mystic]]===
+==The Three Artisans==
-*Abilities: Shop, Craft, Training
-*Special Abilities: Enchanting Items, Identifying Items
+There are three Artisans in Diablo III. Each of these NPCs will be encountered during the course of the gameplay, and once their quest is completed they will join up with the [[Caravan]] and travel with the player for the rest of the game.  See their individual pages for many more details.
-*Speciality: Magic Equipment, Runes/Charms/Potions/Scrolls
+===The Blacksmith===
+[[Haedrig Eamon]], the [[Blacksmith]] is the only Artisan yet named. He is the first one encountered, early in Act One, and he gives the player the [[Salvage Cube]], which is used throughout the game to break down items into [[materials]] for crafting.
+*Special Abilities: [[Repair]]s, [[Socket]]ing.
+*Crafting Specialties: [[Weapons]], [[Armor]].
+===The Mystic===
+The [[Mystic]] has not yet been named, but it's widely rumored that she might be [[Adria]], returned in Diablo III. Her talents involve creating magical objects.
+*Special Abilities: [[Enchant]]ing Items.
+*Crafting Specialties: Magical Weapons, [[Runestones]], [[Charms]], [[Potions]], [[Scrolls]].
+===Jeweler===
+The [[Jeweler]] is also unnamed, so far. He is said to be a greedy, avaricious fellow, who accompanies the player out of a desire for riches. He deals in [[gems]] and crafting jewelry.
+*Special Abilities: Un-socketing Gems, Gem Upgrades
+*Crafting Specialties: [[Rings]], [[Amulets]], and Gems.
-===[[Jeweler]]===
-*Abilities: Shop, Craft, Training
-*Special Abilities: Un-socketing Items, Gem Splicing (Combining Gems to improve quality)
-*Speciality: Jewelery, Gems
 ==Training==
@@ Line 38: / Line 47: @@
 Artisans can be trained to higher levels, gaining a new title and improved wagon appearance each time.  The maximum level is five (until the expansion?), and with each level the artisans learn new recipes to craft.
-Training is not free; it costs increasing amounts of gold and materials, but players will always want to train up their Artisans, since this enables them to create higher level items from better recipes.
+Training is not free; it costs increasing amounts of gold and materials, but players will always want to train up their Artisans, since this enables them to create higher quality items from better recipes.