Hello Arcadia,
I played on the other servers for a number of years on and of the biggest reasons was the crafting system on there was helpful. At certain points it was the best stuff you could use to get into the hard instances and then it became a way to generate stats. Through it's up and downs it was fun to produce items to help generate gold (an item here that clearly isn't needed in high demand). When I started playing this server I was exciting to bust out blacksmith, armor craft, tailoring, and gathering skills. Then after a couple of weeks I realized how much it was going to be a waste of time. The game is stream lined to cap rather quickly and get involved getting ready for endgame material. The current crafting system other than alchemy and cooking is basically not there.
After thinking about this situation for the past week I realize there is no easy way to fix this problem. One of the great things about this server is it has the ability to right the wrongs of the other server. I do have a few ideas for this lost crafting skills and while they are rough I want to put them out there to hopefully start generating a solid idea or two to make gear and weapons great again.
1. Allow these crafting skills to make special skins for both the community and their guilds they belong to.
2. Allow gear skills to make accessories for hybrid classes and special guild buffs when players on the raid all have that special piece. For example an earring that has a bonus, if all six players are wearing these specific rings, the group has 10% damage reduction take from bosses in dungeons. For gear example cloth with physical attack and healing bonus; a leather, chain and plate magic attack. Magical damage daggers and hammers with and without healing bonus. vice versa for magic damaging weapons that instead do physical damage.
3. Make pet and mount armor or skin armor.
While I know it outside the box a bit, this is what a server does, fixes playing issues that others servers pass up. Why shouldn't a Priest/Rogue not wield dual magic damage healing hammers? Why shouldn't magic damaging tank be able to wear tank gear? And there are countless hybrid combos out there that have been ignored for far too long. Give a Scout/Mage magical attack skills and then don't give them the weapons or gear to make it a viable class. If not whole gear, at least four piece sets of Head, chest, shoulders and feet.
I'm going to be 100% honest, the only thing stopping me from getting a lifetime membership is the crafting system. It's a huge part of what I enjoy in the game.
I don't think we need all of those suggestions however something needs to be done about the crafting system and look forward to hearing about other ideadss