Will my gear wear out? Can I repair it?

Armor and weapons will take damage as they are used. Repairing will be available for those that have chosen to take such crafting skills.

Is a building instantly built or will we have to build them?

You will build them. Each building will have a set number of 3D models built to represent each stage of its construction. Some will have more than others.
Within each stage of construction, crafters will have to go to various points on the structure and complete multiple crafting tasks (carpentry, stone laying, etc.). Once enough of these tasks are complete, the structure will change models to the next more complete version. This process continues until the structure is complete.

Building structures will take a considerable amount of time and resources. It's not an endeavor to be taken lightly.

Generally speaking, how does crafting work?

At a high level view, crafting in ToA will require you to gather your resources and follow a preset steps for making an item. Some steps will let you be completely hands-off while others will demand more of your attention (gotta stir the soup every few minutes). For example, turning ore into ingots won't really require you to be there as the ore is smelted by the smelting forge, but pounding out a metal rod into a semblance of a sword will require you to be there and engaged with the process the whole time.

During these steps there will be opportunities for you to apply skill techniques you've learned for the skill. Using the sword creation example above, you could choose to apply your tempering technique during a particular step to give the final product more durability. By doing so, you are purposely pouring more skill into the item (in hopes of a higher quality final product) which in turn makes the skill check harder. In essence, you get to determine if you want to make a basic version of an item or a more advanced, higher quality version.

What is 'cooperative crafting'?

Cooperative crafting is when you work with other crafters of your skill to complete an item that is of the utmost highest quality -- a masterwork item. In order to do so you'll need to have multiple crafters specialized in the different techniques to apply said techniques throughout the item creation process

Continuing the sword example, you'll need to bring in three smiths, one that has maximum technique points in forming, one with maximum technique points in tempering and yet another smith with maximum technique points in balancing. The first smith will apply his forming technique and (assuming he succeeds at his skill check) the sword is given the best properties allowed via forming. He then passes it to the tempering specialist to do the same, and so on with the balancing specialist. The sword will have traded hands many times, thus cooperative crafting.

Why can't I make a masterwork item by myself?

We want to encourage a sense of community with the crafters of ToA and we feel this is one way to do that. Beyond that, we want the highest of quality items to require something more than just getting to "max level". This also help to create demand for specific niches within a skill. Maybe you want your guards to have the best armor and weapons they can get but you're short a tempering specialist so you put the word out and a fellow player steps in to fill the bill.

Will items have minimum skill point requirements before I can even attempt to craft it?

No. Even the newest of crafters can have a chance to make an item, albeit near impossible. That doesn't take techniques into play as you must have points in your desired technique(s) before you can apply them throughout the creation process.

What are techniques?

Techniques are different aspects of a skill. For example the smithing skill will have forming, tempering and balancing techniques. A smith that focus on bettering herself in tempering will craft items that are far more durable than smiths without the tempering technique.

You will receive a technique point every so often as you gain in a skill. You may place these technique points in any technique of the skill you gained in.

Will items be bound on pickup/creation to characters or accounts?

I can most assuredly tell you that binding, especially binding on pickups, will not be in TOA, not if I have anything to say about it. Stupidest development decision ever imo, especially when it comes to crafting the items. Nothing says frustration more than making an item you thought you could use and/or send along to an alt, only to find out that item is soulbound (bopu) to you and worthless to the crafting character due to hard coded armor type restrictions.

Will toxins be available, perhaps as a trade skill?

If not at launch, there will always be innovations you can unlock.

About race perks and crafting for different races

Should we introduce human-like races such as elves and dwarves, we'll give them a perk or two based on their race but we won't go crazy with it by any stretch. Instead it will be handled organically. How? For one, races won't be able to swap clothing and armor. A human won't be able to hand his chain leggings to a dwarf and have it fit him. This alone will require settlements that want to house multiple races to support their armor and clothing requirements. Add different dietary needs that must be met and this only further discourages (organically) settlements from becoming melting pots of races. We won't stop them, but it'll cost ya if you do it.

Your blacksmith will have to build both sets of armor, meaning he'll have to make and stock more inventory. In a human only settlement, he could make sure he has one set of male chain and one set of female chain for sale at any time and be good to go. If dwarves start to be commonplace in the settlement, now he has to stock those armor sets as well. Later on, elves show up and .... you get the idea.

Add to that, armor, like most items, won't be "click click create" making it taxing to keep up with a broader demand.

No race will be allowed to wear any piece of armor of any other race, no matter how close in build they may be.

What happens when you drop an item to the floor?

As it stands right now (but could change at any nano-second) it will drop to the ground like you'd expect. However, it might be represented by a generic 3d asset such as a sack. This way we don't have to make a 3d model for everything/anything that can be dropped.

Multiple container sizes and types could be employed.

Will innovations be lost forever when the last person knowing them dies?

As to an innovation disappearing forever -- if we deem a lost innovation is needed in the world we will turn it on again but it will not be the case with every innovation.

Plus, if you think about it, lost innovations are how rares will be organically created.

It depends on the innovation. Some innovations will be added back to the innovation pool to be discovered by another character, while others are slated to be somewhat wide spread (think technology advancement) where they may be discovered several times by multiple characters who will then have first crack at them. We still have some final details to work out in the system so there may be some changes in the future but for the most part that is how it will work.

About inheritance and what happens to items on perma death

Smak: "Of course material things should not poof just because someone permadied, nor should their body, at least till decay takes hold. But these things should be planned out for in a will, or decided on by whoever or whatever community comes into posession of the items on your death."

Hmmm. I kinda like this idea. A temporary timer on a corpse's items identifying the owner of said items. This could allow for the idea of returning someone's gear for a reward or other settlement perks should the settlement be within timer distance. Of course, those that want the gear for themselves (greedy bastards!) will simply let the timer expire before attempting to do anything with the items. I'll bring this idea up.

How will the inventory function?

The inventory is going to be pretty straightforward, the typical one square per item sort of thing. But we will only give you so many squares and everyting will have a weight, so you will basically be dealing with volume and weight at the same time.

Your inventory will account for weight and volume. How it's displayed is still up in the air. It'll either be a grid where every item takes up a square (WoW) or a sortable list (Oblivion).

There will be both a weight and volume limit, probably represented by two bars within the inventory UI somewhere.

Will your inventory be visible to the outdoor world or exposed to other players in any way?

If you mean that when you equip a backpack it will be shown to the world, the answer right now to that is no. But if you mean can other people see into your inventory, then yes, via skill.

Will it be possible to somehow secure a stash completely without ever worrying about someone breaking into it?

Your best bet for a secure container would be a treasury within a settlement. A treasury will be run by the settlement and it can charge you a rental fee for your vault. That's up to the settlement ruler, to set that pricing and how much they want to offer in terms of space. But treasuries are actually going to be very hard to take down.

Buildings can only be destroyed by siege weapons, they can't be chewed away by melee combat or a bunch of arrows or anything crazy like that. That breaks the realism bubble a bit, but for sake of gameplay, we're okay with that.

So the best bet is to get yourself a treasury built at the settlement you're in. And you don't need to be a citizen to rent a space in the treasury either. So store your stuff there. It can't be looted either, thieves can't steal from your personal space there. The only way to get to the items within is to destroy the treasury.

It probably goes without saying, but treasuries are going to be one of the strongest buildings. They're like real world banks, built like vaults.

How will siege weaponry be crafted?

In parts. You'll have to individually build each part and then assemble those parts, on station. As it stands right now, our catapults don't have wheels.

What type of weaponry do you have planned for launch?

All your typical weaponry of medieval times; swords, axes, maces, pole arms, daggers, throwing weapons, crossbows, bows.

Will we have clothes that have the same colour as the environment?

You see, that's the problem. Because of budget, we're going to make everything in hot pink. ;)
I'm kidding, yeah, your colours will certainly be able to be hued in various different shades.

Will there be a diverse amount of crafting ingredients found in the world? And items pertaining to medicines and poisons?

Yes, almost everything you'll find for your crafting stuff will be out in the world. Medicine and poisons, yes, there's going to be stuff for those. We don't have a lot planned as far as poison goes right now, it is in the design in a very simple format, but we want to really kind of go bonkers with the poison. Different effects and that sort of stuff. The majority of the ingredients will be plant based. But almost all of it you will be able to find out in the world, be it flora or fauna.

Will we be able to upgrade weapons to improve their stats?

Upgrade, no. But weapons will certainly come in different qualities. But they're not going to have the effect that you may have come to expect from other MMO's, where it makes your damage ten-fold. It'll let you do a little bit more damage or make you a little quicker, that sort of thing. We're looking at weapon quality improvements.

Loestri: They'll be minor improvements. We're not going to have the magical "+10".

What are your ideas regarding the effects of poison in the game?

Regarding the effects of poison -- I lean more towards non-traditional methods that other games don't seem to use. I don't like how poisons are treated as instant DOTs on the targets hit points. *yawn*

How about when inflicted it slowly drains your movement rate over time (and not two seconds) down to a minimum based on the strength of the poison? Or being poisoned causes your character to get tunnel vision, which can be done with a simple shader?

If I have it my way (and I will) poisons will never simply sap hit points over time. *yawn* You can expect poisons to be far more creative than that.

Are different foodstuffs going to give us different bonuses?

I don't believe there will be too many different advantages to different foods at launch. By eating food when you are hungry you will avoid certain penalties, but there won't be much in the case of "increased" health regeneration from foods. That being said there may be properties of specific foods to counter affects such as disease or poison but that probably won't be a factor until post launch of the game. Still so much to do yet and so little time!

Will we be able to apply a makers mark to crafted items?

You will be able to leave a maker's mark on an item you craft yourself or help craft.

If I craft slowly, will I make a higher quality item?

The slower you go in a crafting step the higher your chances will be of making the item at a higher quality. You sacrifice time for possible quality.

Can I continue crafting an item even if it's quality is turning out to be really low?

You can continue to make an item even if it's at 1% quality. Your choice. The final quality of an item will be the average of all qualities it was assigned throughout its steps. In that sense, yes you could raise the quality of an item as it moves through the steps.

Can you fail crafting at any of the steps? And what happens then?

You can outright fail during any step. If that happens, the half crafted item and any resources you added during that step are destroyed.

If a crafted item is partially complete, can anyone pick it up and continue with it?

An item that is partially complete (for example the sword that was 60% sharpened) can be picked up by someone else and continued where the other person left off (at 60% in the sword example).

Will low-skilled players be able to craft any item?

Some items will be tougher to craft than others meaning low skilled crafters won't be able to make certain items no matter how many times they attempt it. We're purposely not telling you what you can and cannot craft given your current skill. Experimentation is the name of the game.

Will anyone be able to use large tools like forges?

Large stationary tools like forges will have the permission system applied to them meaning the owner can determine who can use their tools.

Is there going to be a master/apprentice system in the game?

There isn't really a master/apprentice system in place at this time. That doesn't mean a highly skilled crafter couldn't take an apprentice under his wing by allowing them to use his shop and tools and in return the master gets to keep whatever the apprentice makes.

Can we buy/sell items that aren't related to any NPC merchant/trade?

Just about every item will be related to an NPC merchant. For those that aren't, you'll have to find a PC that is selling or buying.

Will male and female armor sets interchangeable?

There will be male and female sets of armor and they won't be interchangeable.

We are allowing the same armor to fit both genders. The armor itself will be generic in nature (no bikini armor, large cod pieces, etc.) and will scale according to the model allowing it to fit properly. I know some will be disheartened by the lack of crafting diversity this might present. Take heart and keep the faith. We have some ideas that will allow even more diversity that will come post-launch. For example, we've always toyed with the idea of custom-fit armor and we're happy to see many others are interested as well. Roughly speaking, anyone could wear someones custom-fit armor but only the person it was made for would receive the benefit(s).

Will innovations become common knowledge, available to all, at some point?

When an innovation has been propagated to a certain percentage of a server's population, the innovation will move from manual propagation to "common knowledge", in which it will be given to all characters on that server. This shift to common knowledge will be restricted to the server the innovation is on and have no impact on any other servers.

About item durability, wear and decay

Ok I want to minimize the wrath of Brax so I will keep this short and simple. Item degradation is in the game. Items will in fact wear out (read durability loss until zero) to the point where they are no longer useful. At least some items such as armor and weapons can be repaired by craftsman but will suffer a durability hit, how much will be dependent upon the craftsman's skills. Items of low or zero durability can be "salvaged" for a percentage of resources that make up the item. In the case of metal armors and weapons, they can be smelted down to recover the metal for creating new items. Items made from breakable resources such as stone or wood cannot be recycled (unless deconstructed or salvaged), however metals and glass can be.

As far as items being looted from players by bandits or creatures (yes some creatures like shinies too!), they can be sold to merchant NPCs if the crafter has instructed them to do so and be smelted down as well to increase skills. Items will also decay from the world if left on the ground for a certain period of time unattended. Well that pretty much wraps it up.