[MUD-Dev] re: Crafting Systems - preventing recipe decomposition?

[Damion Schubert]

>From Sie Ming:

> Then we found out that LOTS of the players who were doing alchemy
> in UO were really really really against any system where the
> ingredients were not all the same for everyone.  Maybe they didn't
> get the safe guard against the problems with some folks getting
> easy recipes to advanced potions, and maybe it was just different
> from what they were used to.  I don't know, but I thought I would
> mention it.

Part of the appeal of both Alchemy systems as well as the Ultima
series is that there is an internally consistent sense of physics.
For example, sulfurous ash results in spells causing fire and
destruction.  Learning and sharing that lore, while not enforcing
rarity in of its own rite, was definitely part of the appeal, and
helped to make Ultima seem like an internally logical place.

It would seem like a tactic that might fit the Ultima universe
better might be one where the reagents mixed the same, but different
players were better or worse at making the same potions.  I.e. a
player who was attuned to fire could make better firebombs than a
player who was attuned to water, and that was an invisible variable
that was attached to a player at character creation, so the only way
to learn was to experiment.

We played around with ideas like this on UO2, but hit multiple
roadblocks.  It seemed like it still created a system that was too
unpredictable, and also it did bizarre things to the in-game alchemy
market, where players who want to buy a fire bomb potion want to
know exactly how powerful it is and whether or not they can depend
on it when they purchase it.

--d

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