[MUD-Dev] I Want to Forge Swords. [Another letter to game

[Madrona Tree]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sie Ming" <sieming at gatheringspot.com>
To: <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2001 4:39 PM
Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] I Want to Forge Swords. [Another letter to game

> I tend to agree with this.  I don't JUST want to bake bread.  I also
> want to see the rest of your game.  I don't know what a good way to
> do this and be fair about it would be.  You could have an artificial
> distinction between crafting and adventuring (and perhaps social)
> abilities.  Something along the lines of...

In Ackadia (UO-Emulator) we had three "GM" skills (100), three
"Master" skills (80), and unlimited tertiary skills, which were capped
at 40.  I ranted and raved and generally made myself a "pain in the
butt" (*wink* JF) until I got a Trade Skill Slot that was separate
from the other Adventuring Skill slots.

Anybody could have a trade skill if they wanted one, and it would not
count against your adventurer skills.  But you did not have to spend
the money ($ is how skills were raised) on a trade skill if you didn't
want to.  Course, everybody had a trade skill, cause money was pretty
easy to come by, and trade skills are fun.  If you wanted more than
one trade skill, however (say for instance mining *and* smithing), it
would cut into your adventurer slots.  Many smiths had 100 smithing
and 40 mining, and would buy ingots from Miner characters.

It was a pretty good way to handle it under the setup we had (but also
failed miserably on a sister-server which allowed multiple
characters), but I would prefer to see other muds go further.  Perhaps
something like:

  - Split Baking Bread into sub-categories, such as baking, cooking,
  camp-cooking.

  - Split Tailoring into tailoring leather, tailoring "utility
  clothes" and tailoring dress-up clothes.  If your game has colors,
  make Dying a skill (maybe it comes automatically with having enough
  of a tailoring skill?).

  - Split Smithing into weapons, armor, and utility-smithing (knives,
  wagon-wheels, what-have-you).

  - etc and so on.

So that if I wanted to become the Consummate Tailor, there would be a
whole bunch of separate skills I could learn... but if all I really
cared about was tailoring Utility Clothes, I'd just have to spend a
small amount of my alotted points on that particular skill, leaving a
bunch of other points available

To keep with my wagon-wheel example... smiths in the "Old West" likely
didn't know how to, and didn't care to know how to forge armor, but
they could make a mean wagon wheel.  Women who had no clue how to make
fancy ball dresses sure knew how to create clothing for their
families.

The problem with a lot of current craft skills is that they move
through these things as a progression...  Plain shirt --> long sleeved
shirt --> plain dress --> fancy dress --> leather ... without
recognizing that I might *just* want to be able to make leather armor
and that's *it*

Of course, the "item progression" way of dealing with trade skills
really sort of wrecks the economy, since I'm flooding the market with
10,000 fancy dresses in order to gain enough skill to make a leather
cap (as Sie Ming pointed out in the article).


I think this thread is the best one on this list in a long time.  :)


Madrona Tree.
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