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[Iadien]

"heh. Plants fixed (you believe us, right?) and some surprise fixes for today's update. Details and time coming soon."

Sure it is.

 

[nubbe]

Don't believe his lies

 

[Zalusithix]

20 actions limit, and yes, it's a godsend when using the smooth tool.

My only tip for using it is remember the one voxel buffer for any edge you want to smooth, (i.e. an extra, empty voxel in the selection tool for any surface you want to smooth) this also means that you can control which parts are smoothed by not having a buffer for any side you want to remain sharp.

Also, you have to make the most of smooth via using the selection tool and copy & pasting, sometimes you can only get what you are after by making something bigger along an axis than you need, and then selecting/copying/pasting the section of the result you want.

Undo is going to be my new best friend (even outside of the smooth tool). How much time I've wasted recreating crap that I inadvertently screwed up by doing tangentially related and only realized my error a few steps down the road when I changed my perspective. (Like, say, paste something into place and only realize I'm a voxel off later.)

As for the selection tool in regards to smoothing... Fool that I am, I was using the thing freehand all the time. It didn't occur to me that the selection tool could be used in conjunction with it due to the bounding box of the smoothing tool being non standard (different size, different grid placement). If the selection tool does impose limitations on what the tool can touch, then yeah, it'll make my life a lot easier on those "this axis and not the other" cases.

I think I'm going to be considerably more productive tonight lol.

 

[Iadien]

Patch notes:

• We found and fixed a number of issues that would allow props to spawn on your claim. If you have any left, you should now be able to delete them by using the selection volume and hitting the delete key (they should no longer respawn). This also shouldn’t happen on any newly placed claims moving forward.
• The 12 new materials should now ACTUALLY be available to build with. Sorry for the confusion, the data gnomes took a break and didn’t let us know.
• We have increased the availability of a Sapphire, Ruby, Obsidian and Alabaster and also made sure that they will spawn more often on the surface to make them easier to find. Happy hunting!
• Aquamarine and Iron/Aquamarine veins no longer appear on Tier 3 islands, please look for them on Tier 2 islands from now on.
• Fixed the color of rubies and sapphires in the world!
• We’ve also fixed a number of potential causes for the rollbacks some players have seen when servers come down. We’ll continue to monitor this and address any new issues that we find.

 

[Iadien]

Roadmap posted:

NOTE: There are some categories of things that we are not including in this roadmap. Stuff like new materials, new props, new biomes, new recipes and design tweaks will be rolling out continuously and aren’t part of any single milestone. You should expect to see those changes like that coming in all the time.

ALSO NOTE: The “Phases” we describe below have almost nothing to do with whether we’re calling the game Alpha, Closed Beta, or Open Beta. Those “label milestones” will be determined almost entirely by how comfortable we are letting new groups of people into the game. So (for example), Closed Beta might arrive in the middle of Phase Two. (Again, that’s just an example…not a plan.

And of course, everything you’re reading here is “time approximate”. We’re aiming at the timelines, but software development is…fraught with peril. It may take longer to get things done.

But as far as big stuff, here’s the list.

What is Phase One?

Phase One is what we’re working to accomplish in the following four weeks or so.

What’s the purpose of Phase One? It’s designed to do the following:

Let all you folks talk to each other easily. To form friends, groups, and above all to benefit from having other players around you.
To allow and support cooperative building.
To make building a better experience.
To make the world bigger.

That’s it. Doesn’t sound that ambitious does it? But it is a LOT of stuff coming your way in the next few weeks. Stuff that you may not even realize you’re missing until you see this list.

Phase One includes:
Better Communication

Claim Ratings : Bragging is fun. Getting comments and ratings from people that stop by your claim can also be fun. Having ratings lets us also add leaderboards and let the best of the creators in our community begin to surface. They’re also critical for our Player Studio presentation later on.
Chat: We’ll be improving chat with better channels, customized tabs, and more. Why? Because if you can’t communicate easily, you might as well be playing a single-player game.
----We’re also adding the ability to add links in chat so that you can designate a waypoint on the map and have it show up in chat for other people to click and see.
Key configs: Yes, you need to be able to customize your key mappings. Duh, right? It’s coming.
Voice over Internet : Yes, many folks use Teamspeak servers (or whatever is the flavor of the month). But not everyone has a server to join, and we’ve found that forcing people to use external voice servers often fragments the community severely. So that’s getting added also.

Socialization

Groups & Group Harvesting Bonus: Right now, when you harvest, it’s a race for those resources against other people. It’s almost a PvP-ish kind of feeling. We don’t want that. So the systems are changing so that it’s advantageous to group together when harvesting.
We’re also allowing groups so it’s easy to have a private chat channel and see each other on the map.
-----Friends: Self-explanatory, but you need a way to see who is online from the folks you know, as well as to be able to find their claims and see them on the map.
Twitch/Facebook/Twitter: Some of you will want to brag. Some of you want to stream. And to be honest, the more you folks do that, the bigger the game can become. So we’re trying to make it easy for you.

Moving around the world

In general, the dev team does not want to turn the game into “instant travel”. However, a large part of the game is oriented around being able to drop by and see someone’s claim and buildout. So we’re carefully adding some quick-travel options to make quick visits less onerous, but at the same time still encouraging exploration through the world so you get accidental discoveries as you go.

Plus, keep in mind that you’ll be digging deep now. Walking all the way back uphill to return to your claim may not be the joyous experience you think it might be.

It’s almost certain that most of these options will be somewhat limited in usage by requiring either crafting of an item or requiring a certain amount of time to expire before reuse.

Teleport to Claim
Teleport to Hub
Teleport to Friend

Better Building

Unified Tools : We have way too many different ways to rotate, translate, and scale things. There should be a single system across all tools so that you can manipulate them all in the same ways, and those ways should be intuitive and easy to use.
New Smoothing Tool : The current smoothing tool is very powerful. It’s also persnickety and it requires non-intuitive things like “air buffers” around a column to smooth it properly. We can make it better, so we’re doing that.
Claim Permissions: Building by yourself is fun. Building something grandiose with other players is even more so. Permissions allow you to cooperate together on your claims.

More Space

Caves : The surface world is cool, but it’s only the top layer of what we promised. So caves are coming. Lots of spaces to mine through and explore. Why add them now? Because the resource tiers are *supposed* to be spread down through the crust of the world, not segregated on separate islands and spawning on the surface. You’re not playing the intended game yet, and we need to move the game closer to the real end-goal now.
Attached Claims: You’ll first be able to add a new claim onto any existing one (whether to the side, above, or below). This will be the first time we let you have more space to build.
Additional Claims : After Attached Claims are working well, and we have more server hardware in place, we’ll also be letting you establish more claims in different locations. It’s coming!
Claim Upkeep : Empty and abandoned claims are not cool. So we’re introducing Upkeep which is basically a small amount of in-game coin you have to spend to keep your claim from being repossessed into the world and made available to other players. (NOTE: If you don’t pay your upkeep all you lose is your spot in the world. All your resources, props, crafted items, etc., are saved in your inventory and your buildout is templatized and saved for you.)

Phase Two

Phase Two is scheduled to be done the in the four weeks AFTER Phase One is complete. And it includes some really big systems that will have huge impact on the game.

NOTE: These systems are being developed during Phase One. You just won’t *see* them until Phase Two because they’re too big to finish and test before March.

Socialization

Guilds: Bigger than a friends list, but essentially fulfilling the same role on a bigger scale. But now with a cool title and a few other perks.
SOEMote: You knew it was coming! We’re adding this in now because Landmark is a beautiful stage for the folks that like to roleplay or machinma. SOEmote will be hugely useful for them. (And don’t forget the voice shifting tech so you don’t have to sound like you on VoiP!)
New Naming mechanism with account handle: Now you can be any name you want. No longer do we require unique names for your character. (No name reservations!)
Player Studio: You can finally submit your templates to the Player Studio (part of the overall Marketplace). This means that your creativity and work on your claims can be turned into real cash…if other players will buy your creations. This system is extremely interesting and will merit its own document soon because it’s heavy on socialization elements. It’s going to be fun.

Ley Lines & Movement

Think of these as mini-hubs on the Islands. They let you micro-jump between ley line positions, and then explore the area from that hub. (You still have to go to the main hub to transfer between islands and worlds.) There are several advantages to this, not all related to ease of travel. (For example: Real estate around these micro-hubs is more desirable, adding yet another type of claim to seek out.)
-----Ley Line use will require in-game coin or resources.
New movement methods: Methods of gliding, flying, etc. will be added to the game via items that you can craft and find.

Risk & Danger

Health: Yup…you can die now. But you can actually increase your health by finding increase items while adventuring through the world.
Death Penalty: Yes, death will have teeth. Try not to die.
Revive: Standing up after you fall down is always useful.
Graveyards: When you die, you’ll need a place to respawn unless you Revive.
BASIC combat: This is the first of many steps that will lead us to the eventual combat style we want. This first step is extremely basic as we prototype systems. But things will try to kill you.
Buffs: If you can die, there need to be ways to avoid that damage and death. You’ll be able to craft (or find) various mechanisms to make yourself tougher.

NOTE: For both combat and buffs, your combat abilities and defenses will all be tied to items and potions, so there will be much item and crafting progression involved in getting ready for those things. Future rollouts beyond this initial offering will make the whole system more robust and do so pretty rapidly.

New things to do

Plant harvesting: Expect great things. ‘Nuff said for now.
Tree harvesting revamp: Again…great…things. More details as we get closer.
Water: The likely progression of water coming into the game will be:
-----Oceans: These are static bodies of water surrounding the islands. When oceans show up, we can start doing interesting things with our coastlines and real estate choices will be a lot more interesting.
-----Lakes: Lakes are different than oceans because they can appear at many altitudes. They are still static bodies of water, but again, they add more desirable real estate choices for claims.
-----Running (dynamic) water: This is the piece that will come in last. This is the rivers and waterfalls that everyone wants. It adds more real estate choices, but it also creates a lot of gameplay as you folks can start diverting water to do all kinds of interesting things on your claims.
-----NOTE: The dynamic nature of water is a big system that still has a lot of R&D to overcome before we can be absolutely certain of when it will arrive. We’ll keep you informed as we progress.
Journal: There’s a lot to keep track of in this game. All the crafting choices, your resources, and we’re going to be adding a lot more achievements (see below). When we do that, you need a mechanism to keep it all straight and to help you organize what *you* want to do. The Journal is a cool interface designed to let you do just that.
Achievements: Achievements are the “quest-like” equivalent within Landmark. There’s a ton of things to collect and do in the world, and the achievements system allows you to be recognized for that effort, as well as hinting at what you can do to become more powerful or capable.
Salvage: Remember all those picks you discarded on your way to Rubicite and beyond? Well…you can reclaim part of those resources now. You can also “remake” a crafting result so that you don’t have to be quite as disappointed that your brand new axe you finally got to make is “Inferior”.
Treasure Chests: This is a generic term to represent loot and surprises that you can find as you explore through the caves system below ground.
Unlocking recipes: Right now, all recipes are available at crafting tables as soon as you make them. When this system goes into the game, you’ll need to find those recipes before you can make them at the crafting tables.
Claim Chests: More storage! Your vault is stuffed to the gills and you’re carrying as much as you can on your back. Time to make chests! You’ll be able to craft chests and store them on various claims as supplemental storage.

Phase Three – Everything after Phase Two

There are a LOT more systems to come after March. All the huge stuff like PvP, advanced combat, better AI, interesting physics features, plus a whole host of “possibles” and “must haves” that we’ll narrow in on as we get more of Phase 1 & 2 complete.

However, we’ll update the roadmap as we finish each of the Phases we list above, so you’ll always know what’s coming and when.

 

[Osiris]

Sounds good!

It's little things like the following that make me smile, their response to the valentines card someone made for them, and as promised, the color change is in the patch notes

"btw..players sent us a valentine this morning about sapphire and rubies. So we wrote one back. " - Dave Georgeson

 

[Zalusithix]

It's great to have a more clear idea of where they're headed with this, and when we'll begin to see the changes. I still think they're overly optimistic on how fast they'll be able to add everything into the game though.

 

[Trouble]

Can't wait for caves, and water, and caves being flooded by water.

Also, that Valentine card exchange is amazing.

Edit: I'm also impressed by how positive the community still is, especially considering everyone playing paid for that honor. I went to the Elder Scrolls Online beta forums last weekend and yikes.

 

[Robobandit]

I went to the Elder Scrolls Online beta forums last weekend and yikes.

This is an alpha. It has no release date and SOE is offering refunds for people that are fed up or unhappy with the game.

ESO is going to release on April 4th come hell or high water, so the issues people have now are likely to persist through launch.

I'm sure that's only one of the reasons for the difference in attitude, though.

 

[Osiris]

I am so glad that they added Stucco, my house was designed with it in mind before I knew it wasn't available, so happy!

Now I need an ebony/black wood to finish the look:

 

[Zalusithix]

Well I just effectively lost thousands of alabaster lol... Their "added" sandstone was indeed the previous alabaster tiles. Now they can be made with sand, and when picked up, my previously alabaster based sandstone is now sand.

I don't really care since it had no good use anyhow, but it's a bit odd they'd call them "new" still in the notes. Were they not aware they were already in the game?

 

[Osiris]

Ouch, costly!

I was kinda bummed at losing ALL my trees off the claim with the fix, I hoped to use some as decoration once I start landscaping the garden!

But still, better no trees than the few I had growing through the house

 

[Iadien]

Sapphire and rubies are all over the place now, yay.

 

[BoosterDuck]

So how long until Landmark launches?

 

[terrisus]

Caves and water are going to be so amazing. Can't wait for them.

 

[Iadien]

So how long until Landmark launches?

There is no launch date, but it's months away yet.

 

[Zalusithix]

Spent the night screwing around and seeing how many different types of strange columns I could make.

When I created this thing, I started thinking about hollowing out my claim and making a giant DNA strand using gems to color code the different components. Obviously I need sleep...

 

[Osiris]

Nice sculpture!

I spent the morning making a tool shed

 

[Iadien]

Decent ZAM interview: http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=33819

Are you ever going to have any limited-use recipes?

I don't know that we'll ever go that direction, but one of the things we are doing is limited-use crafting stations. You can only make certain things at certain crafting stations in the world. Some of them you'll find out in the world, and when you find it and you use it, that crafting station may only be able to make five things. There could be recipes on those so that [for example] you can make five dragon altars, or something like that.

We definitely like the various ideas for achievements in the game.

Those are going to be tied throughout the entire game. It's an interesting difference in how you [can] give rewards to players. We're talking about the achievement system being one of the primary ways of giving rewards. In a lot of games, achievements are really just a side thing you can do, and you might get a reward every once in a while. We're looking at it as a central theme to the game, so that's the way in which you're engaging with a lot of activities is via your achievements.

Do you think eventually we can have claims inside lava or water?

I would expect that over time we're going to open up claim zones to everything. Now, the only question would be... if lava kills you, well then... maybe not [there]. The idea of underground ones, or even ones that are partially underwater... who knows, maybe we'll add in something so that you can breathe underwater, and then we could let you have a completely underwater one. Once water is in, we'll see! It's all about building whatever you want. Some people want to build underwater, some people want to build underground, some want to build in the sky... whatever it is they want to do, we want to try and make as many of these things possible as we can through this game.

 

[Trouble]

They are letting the community vote on which concept for the pulverizer they go with.

https://forums.station.sony.com/eqn...he-pulverizer-new-harvesting-tool-vote.19261/

Go vote!

Spoiler

#3

 

[Zalusithix]

They are letting the community vote on which concept for the pulverizer they go with.

https://forums.station.sony.com/eqn...he-pulverizer-new-harvesting-tool-vote.19261/

Go vote!

Spoiler

#3

Voted, though I went with adding the bit from #2 to the base of #3.

 

[K.Sabot]

First indigo pick and I'm done.

 

[Vilam]

Been hard at work on building a corrupted temple the past couple of days... pics from end of 1st day and end of 2nd day. Still tons of work left to do on it!

 

[Iadien]

That looks great. Love the fear portal.

 

[Deleted member 10571]

Why do some things built in this look blocky as fuck, and stuff like that temple, the sphere and other things perfectly smooth?

Also, I hope the final MMO Next won't look as Minecraft-y as Landmark looks now :/

 

[terrisus]

Why do some things built in this look blocky as fuck, and stuff like that temple, the sphere and other things perfectly smooth?

Because some people smooth stuff/work on the details more than others.

And, EQ Next won't have any of this building stuff, that's just in Landmark.

 

[Iadien]

Why do some things built in this look blocky as fuck, and stuff like that temple, the sphere and other things perfectly smooth?

Also, I hope the final MMO Next won't look as Minecraft-y as Landmark looks now :/

A lot of time must be put in to make stuff look good. Basically. Also, some people are better at using the tools than others.

EQ Next won't have any of this building stuff, that's just in Landmark.

EQN will have building. We will be able to get claims in Next to build on, but they won't be easy to get. Also, I'm thinking some of the rallying calls may require actual building, but that's just an assumption/pipe dream.

 

[Trouble]

Been hard at work on building a corrupted temple the past couple of days... pics from end of 1st day and end of 2nd day. Still tons of work left to do on it!

Really impressive!

 

[nataku]

A lot of the blockyness comes down to the tools being pretty poor right now and really hard to use. If you go to the Voxel farm site and blog you'd see pretty much everything he has is far more advanced than what SOE has implemented into EQN Landmark right now. The smoothing tool, especially.

Hopefully things improve a great deal before EQNext. Personally, I think a lot of the buildings I"ve seen are really ugly because of the blockyness. There are a number of gems, but the tools need a dramatic improvement.

 

[Einbroch]

Curious to see how hardcore they get with rare materials. If materials are rare and hard to get to (monsters, know-how, etc), could supplier guilds pop up? Maybe guilds that have a contract with those that import items into the full game where they get the creations for free or at discounted prices? Could this be done in game?

They could really go crazy with this stuff if thy wanted.

 

[Zalusithix]

A lot of time must be put in to make stuff look good. Basically. Also, some people are better at using the tools than others.

This.

Using the smoothing tool is as much of an art form as it is science. If you want something to look correct with smoothed edges, be prepared to spend a lot of time on it. Sometimes you're basically forced to smooth alternate objects and then copy/paste the requisite parts into the piece you're trying to smooth to have it work. I've had pieces where the same technique on one end produced good results where on the other end instead of smoothing, it mangled the voxels to actually make to corner sharper. Copy and pasting from a good example of the corner on another piece ironed things out.

That and yes, there's all sorts of skill levels with the people in this game. Some people are complete and total amateurs (like myself), whereas others obviously come from art /architecture backgrounds and have skill with 3D modeling.

I mean, I've spent days mucking around in my basement changing things around making this:

In the same time period, others have built virtual castles.

 

[Toothless Spoon]

Been hard at work on building a corrupted temple the past couple of days... pics from end of 1st day and end of 2nd day. Still tons of work left to do on it!

Looks great - is that all marble?

 

[Iadien]

A lot of the blockyness comes down to the tools being pretty poor right now and really hard to use. If you go to the Voxel farm site and blog you'd see pretty much everything he has is far more advanced than what SOE has implemented into EQN Landmark right now. The smoothing tool, especially.

Hopefully things improve a great deal before EQNext. Personally, I think a lot of the buildings I"ve seen are really ugly because of the blockyness. There are a number of gems, but the tools need a dramatic improvement.

The EQN tools are being updated, specifically the smoothing tool will be much better soonish.

 

[nataku]

The EQN tools are being updated, specifically the smoothing tool will be much better soonish.

Yeah, I read about the smoothing tool. I'm just hoping it can get to the level that voxel farm has it at now.

I do hope the terrain gets updated soon, too. Some of the videos on the voxel farm blog look incredible and varied. They don't need the photo realistic look the videos have, I like the art style in EQN, but less of a stretched look would be nice.

 

[Osiris]

So, I've started learning sub-voxel modelling to reduce some of the blockiness of my house, specifically the windows frames, see what you think.

Old frame, standard voxels:

New frame, with sub-voxels:

It's a bit of a pain working with sub-voxels as you can't use the selection tool, you have to work one sub-voxel at a time, sometimes needing to do the same spot more than once to undo any auto-smoothing, but I think i prefer the result

 

[Iadien]

Yeah, I read about the smoothing tool. I'm just hoping it can get to the level that voxel farm has it at now.

I do hope the terrain gets updated soon, too. Some of the videos on the voxel farm blog look incredible and varied. They don't need the photo realistic look the videos have, I like the art style in EQN, but less of a stretched look would be nice.

SOE is working closely with the voxel farm guy, so I would assume a lot of stuff that he shows off will come in time, after the devs make it work for the forgelight engine that EQN uses, etc. We're supposed to be getting a jungle and snow biome soon, then lava after that I believe. Not sure if you have seen the video that shows off some of the biome concept art we can expect in EQN/L, if not check this out: http://youtu.be/mwLBsfG0qI8?t=1m45s As mentioned in the video, they are aiming for 5 different biomes at the start.

 

[Acosta]

I need a good tutorial, I have claimed a nice desert spot but I have no idea about what to do...

 

[Acosta]

Been hard at work on building a corrupted temple the past couple of days... pics from end of 1st day and end of 2nd day. Still tons of work left to do on it!

Jesus...

 

[terrisus]

Some people are complete and total amateurs (like myself)

That is absolutely amazing.
I couldn't even dream of making something like that.

 

[Acosta]

You know, I'm really excited about the potential of this game to become a world.

Sure, it's still potential, there is a long way to go, but I can see a glimpse of something really big hiding in this. Hopefully I am not wrong, MMO needs a good shakeup.

 

[Vilam]

Looks great - is that all marble?

It's entirely stucco... easy to build with because it uses dirt I'm going to go back and re-paint all the surfaces once I'm happy with the basic shape of everything.

BTW don't sell yourself short Zalusithix - that room looks great!

Here's one more pic of mine for the time being... that castle in the background draws a lot of visitors to my area, haha. It's also really fucking cool on the inside; it's nice having good neighbors.

 

[vilmer_]

You know, I'm really excited about the potential of this game to become a world.

Sure, it's still potential, there is a long way to go, but I can see a glimpse of something really big hiding in this. Hopefully I am not wrong, MMO needs a good shakeup.

So true. To me this game has more raw atmosphere in its first iteration of alpha than most MMO's do throughout their lifetime. There's just something about it...

Just imagine roaming the countrysides and finding small little towns and villages.

 

[Outdoor Miner]

Is this island concept only in for the early alpha/beta stages of the game? Are we eventually going to have each server be a massive world?

 

[Iadien]

Is this island concept only in for the early alpha/beta stages of the game? Are we eventually going to have each server be a massive world?

The way the current game is not how the final game will be. There will be different servers, but all of the different island tiers that you see now will not be there. The different tiers will soon be down in the earth (the earth goes a mile deep, the surface is 2 miles wide/long), instead of being spread out in different tiered islands. So, the tier 2 and 3 stuff will soon be deep down in the earth.

 

[Stuggernaut]

Just joined Alpha... staked my claim, played around with some of the tools.

Is there a good place for me to read up on the basics? Or is that pretty much the forums?

 

[Iadien]

Just joined Alpha... staked my claim, played around with some of the tools.

Is there a good place for me to read up on the basics? Or is that pretty much the forums?

I'm not sure if you just want building help, so here's a general beginner guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuzDJEkoI8k Here's one for basic building: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qler_H7dhQ8 He has some other nice guides if you check out his videos.

 

[MHWilliams]

Is this island concept only in for the early alpha/beta stages of the game? Are we eventually going to have each server be a massive world?

It seems like we'll be stuck on big islands forever, but eventually, each island will have coasts and whatnot.

 

[Zalusithix]

That is absolutely amazing.
I couldn't even dream of making something like that.

Thanks. I am happy with the way it turned out, but that's more a style thing than skill with the tools. Column thing aside, the railings are the only complex part. (Assembled in my castle's temporary build hanger, and then placed into the room afterwards.) The rest was just a matter of playing with inlays and texture choices until everything came together.

Now that I had the basement out of the way (aside from more props), I spent today focusing on some more basic structural build out. What was holes in the mountain yesterday is now a fine set of turrets!

Beginning of the entry room to said turrets:

Up the spiral staircase to the top of the turret:

Still more smoothing to do, windows to put in, tops to put on them, etc. Quite happy with the progress though. Especially since I had to create each one by hand. (Copy/paste was screwing up if I did anything but a small chunk of the tower.) I actually turned off voxel smoothing while putting in the stairs so I could easily see where to place every step. One set goes clockwise, and the other set goes counterclockwise. Suffice to say I never want to make another spiral staircase lol.

 

[acksman]

Is there a trick to getting a better pick than green? I would like to eventually start making items, but would like a pick that can keep up. Right now burning all my resources on making picks, hah.

 

[Trouble]

Is there a trick to getting a better pick than green? I would like to eventually start making items, but would like a pick that can keep up. Right now burning all my resources on making picks, hah.

People who bought the $100 tier get a crafting ring. Other than that, no, not that I'm aware of.