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The crafting system in WoW is very different from what I’ve come to know and … err … What I’ve come to know in DAoC. Crafting in DAoC is basically a huge time & money sink until you get to a fairly high skill level. I know that it was a true pain to level my Spellcrafter up..and I only ever got him to 400 skill or so. Lots of money thrown down the drain, lots of time spent standing around an Alchemy Table, and all I ever got out of all that effort was a few low-powered gems I could use on alts – nothing anybody else would be willing to actually pay for.
World of WarCraft does things slightly differently. First off, you do not buy any of your primary materials from a vendor. No going to the crafting vendor and buying 100 steel bars to make someone some armor. All primary materials come from the game world. There are several “harvesting” tradeskills that allow you to harvest materials from the world around you. Herbalism allows you to collect plants and herbs for use in Alchemy and Enchanting. Fishing allows you to catch food that can sometimes be eaten raw, or can be prepared with the Cooking skill. Mining allows you to harvest various minerals and metals from the ground, for use in Blacksmithing. And Skinning allows you to skin the corpses of dead animals to gather leather, which is used in Leatherworking. All of these “harvesting” tradeskills allow you to, quite basically, create money from nothing. A couple hours spent fishing or gathering herbs will get you a pile of materials that can be sold to an NPC merchant, or to another player – either of which will get you more money that you started out with.
Additionally, tradeskills become useful far more quickly in WoW than they did in DAoC. With a measly skill of 75 in both Cooking and Fishing (which took very little effort) I am able to catch and prepare foods that my level 15 characters cannot yet use. I can, however, sell them to earn myself money.
However, unlike DAoC, crafting does not operate outside of the normal XP grind. In DAoC it was possible to roll up a new character and devote all your time to crafting, excluding all combat, and wind up with a very low level master craftsman. This simply cannot happen in WoW. In order to craft anything in WoW, you need the recipe. Recipes can be purchased off NPC’s, bought from other players, or found on monsters in the game world. Aside from one or two beginner recipes, you do not automatically learn how to build anything. This means that you will need to spend some time hunting for recipes.
Also, tradeskills are purchased using Skill Points, which must be earned. I believe the formula at the time of this writing is 1 Skill Point for every 600 Experience Points earned. While this formula may be just plain incorrect, or may change before retail, the basic idea is that you will need to go out and earn XP in order to advance your tradeskills.