Schnuff: Somehow it reminds me of my all time favorite Ultima Online.
I loved playing one of my crafter.
I hope to read an update if KS is success (and later if they release it).
Yea, the crafting in UO was awesome. The whole economy was terrific (minus your standard MMO gold inflation), and I'm hopeful Richard Garriot's new RPG does as good of a job with its crafting system, as his recent RTX video tried to demonstrate.
I liked the idea of the fact you need to eat food in Balrum, just like in the old Ultimas you'd need torches, provisions, etc. to prepare for a lengthy trip into a dungeon/underworld. Knowing that you would have a finite amount of resources determined how long you could explore for gave the feeling of "embarking on an expedition" over just a "entering a dungeon". I'd wished games like Dragon Age (with the Deep Roads) had tried for that, since such "Underworlds" in games rarely feel like more than just a fancy dungeon.
The fact you need to eat food helps setup resource management when you're adventuring, and the fact Balrum lets you build a farm, and plant crops that you can harvest when you return from your adventures, providing resources for your next excursion, feels like a logical next step of that.