Craft Q&A

[Nysan]

System shock, isn't it? Trades are up in a hurricane of change. Well, trust old Gilain to help you out. Since this is such a drastic and huge change, the folks behind the curtain have given me permission to try and answer questions in this thread. If you want to know something about the new system, ask away. (Please nothing IC like where is xxx ore)

A few basics:

Trades changed: Mining, Smelting, Logging, Armorsmithing, Weaponsmithing, Woodworking, Leatherworking.

Mining: The witch is dead! Rooms are no longer set to a metal til reset. There be viens in dem dar hills! Viens that will be depleted and new viens spawns, possibly of different ore. All new ore now DISPLAYS quality as well. No more 20 question guessing.

Smelting: Much like Mining, quality shows! And new metal will smelt into ingots, not pieces.

Logging: Wood will now have qualities. Logging offers various qualities. Known wood merchants will only offer one quality of wood. Happy chopping.

Slicing/Tanning: Skins also have qualities.

Armor/weapons/leather/wood: All function under the new 'craft' system.

1. Before "construct"ing an item in these trades, you must have the appropriate raw material and a service fee, in coin, to cover tools and other expenses. Fees, much like raw materials (metal/wood) will vary depending on the difficulty of the item being made... i.e. scale mail costs less coin to make than say full plate. To see what things will cost, put all coin away and type the construct command out. Much like repair says "it costs XXX to do this, which you dont have", it will price check you.

2. Items now take "in-game" days/weeks to construct. A dagger takes a few days, a breastplate several weeks. This time only ticks while you are OFFLINE! Won't do a thing while you are killing gobbies in Howling Peaks. You also need to log out in the place you are constructing. You cannot work on projects if you are not in the room! Remember, this in in-game time, not RL weeks. It goes quick. (This also means leveling is faster).

3. After starting your construct command "construct weapon dagger ingot", type 'craft'. You'll see useful information. Every time you log in, with a project going, type 'craft' to see where you are. Did you make progress? Did you make a mistake and need to add metal/wood/money to continue the project? Always type "craft" on login to be sure. (These are all done through a skill check system). Should you need to add new materials, type 'craft continue' while in the proper room with the needed items in your inventory (room listed in 'craft').

4. Masterwork... Shiny, spiffy top quality item. Can only be made using the best of the best materials and costs more money/takes more time than their common relatives. Folks with trademarks will replace the masterwork portion of the item's name with their mark.

Ore types are now somewhat seperated by difficulty. No more mithril in Howling Peaks, it should be found in more hard-to-reach locations. Rumor has it, new types of metals have been surfacing around the realms as well. Happy mining!

Thats the basics. As I said, this is a Q&A for this new system. Got a question, post it and I will try my best to answer it as soon as possible.

[Nysan]

Few additions:

Type "construct armor" to see a short version of armorsmithing (and woodworking) armor craftables. Similar effect with "construct weapon" and weapon craftables.

Trade Focus: Helpfiles in the works, wait for it. For now, assume you need to train 1 rank for armor and 1 for weapon smithings, if you plan to take those trades. Seek an NPC that gave you the trade quest, they should have trade focus and will train you in the quested trade. Do not train more than 1 rank per trade...

[Athon]

When is this going live?

[Athon]

Oh, I see it's live now! Awesome!

One concern:

I am a GM smelter with fairly high strength and constitution. Why am I suddenly smelting a large number of low-grade ore of an easy metal?

[Brar]

It depends on the quality of the ore also, it already did before, but there were no way to know which ore was which quality

[Nysan]

If it is "pre change" ore, it will likely smelt to low-grade. Try mining fresh ore, should give a variety of ore qualities. Note, just because it is xxx quality ore does not mean it will smelt to xxx quality ingots.

[Athon]

Yes, I'm quite an established smith. I am also GM at mining.

In the past, the metal quality was always high if it was an easy metal. Now, even the easy metals are yielding me a higher supply of low-grade ingots than anything else. But it could be because I mined this ore before the change?

[Athon]

I'm really loving the new changes by the way!

One thing, though.

Is it still going to take the same amount of successes for mining/smelting to hit GM? The reason I bring this up is that because with the new changes, we might be seeing people GMing the smithing trades much quicker than mining/smelting. If it takes me a full-day of real-life time to construct 4 pieces of armour, it's going to take forever to come close to using the necessary ore/metal to hit GM with mining/smelting.

Note: I'm saying this as a regard to other players and the system in general.

[Nysan]

Some trades level faster than others, thats life. Smelting used to level much faster than mining. Appraise beat everything, hands down. Weapons usually beat out armor. Leveling speeds may be adjusted, after seeing any impacts shown in the playerbase. Journeymen miners with GM armorsmithing might be a bit off. If it more like Expert/Master miners with GM armorsmithing, eh not much to worry about. Personally, not quite sure this is a concern without seeing a few weeks past and see some numbers.

[Selveem]

Could "Trade Focus" be explained, please?

[Athon]

Could "Trade Focus" be explained, please?

I asked Gilain about it in-game. From what I understand, in order to be an armoursmith or weaponsmith, you have to train the feat for EACH one. So, if you wanted to do both, you'd have to train trade focus in armoursmithing and trade focus in weaponsmithing.

Don't hold me to it, I just believe that's how it works.

[Selveem]

I sincerely hope not. If that is true, let me make my case for why I would really find that a bitter pill to swallow:

A level 50 Dwarven Priest receives a total of 7 Feats (1 at start and 6 by level 48 [1 every 8 levels]) and a total of 27 stat points to place.

If one aspires to be a Master Smith as a Dwarven Priest with full teaching abilities (Scholar2), they must give up 6 of their 7 feats (Teacher, Teacher 2, Scholar, Scholar 2, Trade Focus: Weaponsmithing, Trade Focus: Armorsmithing) and expend 16 of the 27 stats just to meet the Scholar 2 feat requirements.

That leaves you a single feat and nine stats to place where you wish? That's rather painful; you've now made a dedicated artisan with little use beyond crafting.

[Brar]

Well, I think the 4 feat to teach is a bit hard.
But I don't think it is bad to have to make choice to be the best at one things and not all.
I would not really like to see everyone as the best in combat, the best in craft, the best in lore, ect...

You can be good at everything, but if you want to be the best then you have to focus and make decision to give up something in order to become better in a certain area.

It is a roleplay mud after all, so I don't have a problem with having to give up on being powerful in combat to be the best crafter/teacher.
And even without feat a level 50 is already powerful, I know one that never took any feat by lazyness and still have 7 stats points unsused for rp purpose and she can very well survive on her own...

I think we should stop trying to be the best in everything and wants everything for our character, to be a baker you have to give up on being a butcher. That is what specialization is about and specialization gives perfection, that is what is represented with feats in my eyes.

Brar, the guy who spent 9 years on Ultima Online playing a baker...

PS: It is not supposed to sounds harsh or aggressive or anything, I'm just the hardcore rp type as everyones knows. Feel free to insult, throw rotten tomatoes or tar and feather me if it makes anyone feel better (I would prefer honey and nuts than tar and feathers but well...)

[Selveem]

I'm not saying the best in everything, Brar. Please don't misunderstand my meaning.

I'm speaking the bare minimum requirements. You only have a single feat left and 9 stats to place. And, should anything like 'enchantments' come into place, that too will likely require a feat. Get what I mean?

[Lathlain]

The trade focus feats give you a natural +3 to your success roles on the chosen trade. You don't need it in order to be able to work a specific trade - it just drastically reduces the chance of a failure when checking for advancement on a project.

Worry not!

[Selveem]

Whew. Thanks for the help!

[Brar]

I'm not saying the best in everything, Brar. Please don't misunderstand my meaning.

I'm speaking the bare minimum requirements. You only have a single feat left and 9 stats to place. And, should anything like 'enchantments' come into place, that too will likely require a feat. Get what I mean?

Yes, I understand, I think the problem is the 4 feat to teach (but then you don't realy need 4, in fact scholar is enough to actually teach any skill, teacher is only a bonus), yet it is matter of choice of being the best teacher and the best crafter.
It you look at history, the best swordmakers had one, max two apprentices they would pass their knowledge upon. And it is lifetime apprenticeship most of the time.
And the best teachers are not usually the best in their craft but more likely they are very good at it, but fail to be the best.
Because the time teaching is less time practising, ect...

I would not even be upset if we say that we can only GM one trade in fact... but it may be a bit extreme again :p (I don't count gathering trades as they are a bit different). That would only lead to variety and choices to make for your character. And for me, it is such choice that define who your character is and makes you different than the guy next door

Brar who begins to take out the bulletproof glass cage for protection

[Nysan]

A few things.

1. Sorry about the trade focus confusion last night. I had a long day and just got off a long bug testing period on the system and I misinformed a few folks on them. As stated, they are not NEEDED to learn armorsmithing/weaponsmithing. They only have an impact on your success rates with craft in that trade, i.e. did you progress, did you mess up and need to add more materials, ect. Again, sorry for confusion. Though, I strongly recommend them for any serious crafter character. The part about 1 rank per trade is also still recommended.

2. Please keep questions in this thread related to the new crafting system. Teaching and any possible future feats/features are interesting discussion topics, but I would like to keep this thread easy to look over for crafters seeking information. No offense to anyone.

3. Me personally, I believe an artist should sacrifice for his work. Gilain's stats and feats are built around his main purpose, crafting... and some teaching abilities. Obviously this makes him a somewhat weaker fighter than a more combat driven character, though not completely crippled in a fight. You should not be able to be master of every aspect. Again, thats just me, not official FK policy.

4. There are no plans, currently, to restrict trade leveling. Anyone can GM every trade they can learn. Interesting idea, but nothing to worry about.

[Nysan]

1. Item difficulty should now impact leveling speeds, i.e. fullblade will benefit your trade level more than an arrowhead.

2. Arrowheads and Bullets are now streamlined into new system and updated to craft in larger amounts per craft rather than 1 or 2 pieces.

I think thats everything. Now, go play, experiment, and post questions/concerns.

[Nysan]

Oh, yes. Trademarks... future trademarks will be required to be 12 characters or less, or roughly 1-2 words (does not count color code, only viewable characters). Testing has shown current, longer trademarks to make names rather long, in general, and be a bit too much for certain line-limit restrictive systems, like telnet. Please keep this in mind, should you one day submit an application for a trademark.

Folks currently possessing trademarks, please decide on a suitable alternative that fits in the 12 character and under requirement. Someone will likely get in touch with you sometime you are online to make the adjustments. No rush, no priority... merely something to put on the old 'to-do' list.

Enjoy,