I think I'm going to have to take a good hard look at crafting in my mmo. I suppose being a pvp mmo crafting would already be exciting enough not knowing if you are going to die collecting resources, but I don't really want to stick with the click on a tree, get some wood game mechanic for lumberjacking, for instance, black smith and mining are other skills that frequently get tedious. I also hate that the amount of time mining is always way more than the amount of time smithing.

This is more suitable for the announcement forum.

If you have a minigame, then what if someone attacks you while doing the minigame?

If you want your game to be really combat focused, you could have gathering happen by fighting a guardian monster of whatever is being gathered.

Personaly, the best crafting system and ressources gathering that I've ever seen, was the one in the original version of Star Wars:Galaxy. You had to prospect for your ressources and the in game stores were provided by player crafted items, with many customisation depending on the skill of the crafter. Everquest 2 also had a nice crafting system, which amounted to a sub-game in itself.

The goal of crafting is managing your resources better than your competitors and out competing them. The developer is forced to create a game where item creation isn't free or a byproduct(requiring actual player focus, removing benefits from spamming items), and where item demand repeats(item damage and similar).

Play A lays claim on resource node "removing" it from the world(PvPer area). Player B Negotiates with AI VIA questing and similar for access to miners(lowering cost and cut). Player C buys the claims from Player A and B. Player C mines out the claim/miners as times goes on the miners cost more, the resource node produces less. Player C turns resources into items.

Player C is forced to choose what AI resource gathers he is to use, how to get a node. How long to maintain resources before finding new ones(new ones requiring new research and creation rather than repeating). And how these factors affect his sell ability compared to other crafters. Crafting should be about PvP without swords.