"Preview" craft?

[Only He Stands There]

Ah, my first suggestion to my latest addiction.

Basically, I was wondering if there could be any way to 'look at' a craftable object before you make it? I'm not sure what kind of syntax, but for example:

Code Select Expand


>inv
an arrowhead of steel
a white feather
some kind of arrowshaft

>craft shaft feather steel
You could make a steel-headed, white-fletched arrow.

>preview shaft feather steel into a steel-headed, white-fletched arrow
 This arrow is made of a long, smoothed shaft of bone, fletched with white feathers and tipped with a long arrowhead of silvery-grey steel.


The reason I'd desire to be able to "look" at something before I craft it is because sometimes I don't know what exactly in Zalanthas I'm CRAFTING, while my character, obviously, does. When I'm making "an etched steel plate," how do I know what kind of etchings I'm going to emote? When I'm making "a long, jborak phiggledelm saber" and I don't know what half the words in the description mean, how do I emote any of it?

As it stands, I've been emoting the process after I finish the craft, if successful, and then once I've made it once I know. However, that first
time, I look like a spamcrafting jackass as I sit there and wait for the craft to finish so I know just what-the-hell to emote.

Just tossing this idea out there for consideration.

--OHST

[Larrath]

Yes.

[jstorrie]

Good idea.

[Cenghiz]

I remember when my char made a 'wrench' for the first time. I thought it was kind of wrench that is used to change tires. So I emoted my ass off, making an... archery wrench.
You try to make blackened xxx, so you put them on the grill, and the message says "You shape and dye the xxxs.", or you try to make a cone (as a utensil to pour from one container to another with ease) and you end up with a geometric cone.

This idea could work well.

[Bestatte]

Heh I am totally in favor of this. I think I might've idea'd it a kajillion months ago too. At one point I was so fed up with being the clueless (but talented) jeweler, my emotes started looking like this:

>The crafter girl starts doing something with a rock, but since she has no idea what it's supposed to look like when she's done, she hides her work so no one else can see exactly what she's doing.

I'm sure if a staffer was looking on, I would've gotten a few raised eyebrows. But hey - whatever floats my boat, I do a lot of strange things during solo-roleplay if I get bored enough

In fact, it's what prompted me to wonder, if I was gonna do a marathon mudsex session with a VNPC, do I need to ask the VNPC consent - and, should I wait for an answer?

[Jacques]

I like this idea as well, although I'm not sure how feasible it would end up being. Like anyone else who has played a crafter, I've wasted IC days working hard to craft "a small, cool-looking widget" only to find that it was actually a suppository for a bahamet. It'd be nice to know what you were making before you made it.

And Bestatte? For your VNPC question,  yes you should ask, but then you should way my PC to come help you out with that.  :wink:

[Cuusardo]

I've always just crafted the first item with some very vague emotes, looked at the item, and then went with more detailed emotes from there.

Or, I found one like it and looked at it before trying to craft the first one.  Once you've been around for a while, you start to learn what a lot of the craftable junk looks like.

[Bestatte]

I like this idea as well, although I'm not sure how feasible it would end up being. Like anyone else who has played a crafter, I've wasted IC days working hard to craft "a small, cool-looking widget" only to find that it was actually a suppository for a bahamet. It'd be nice to know what you were making before you made it.

And Bestatte? For your VNPC question,  yes you should ask, but then you should way my PC to come help you out with that.  :wink:

Thanks a heap, Jacques. You're playing that four-legged three-eyed ninja mutant warrior/mindbender with the single wing popping out of the horn on your head, right? Should be fun.

[Anonymous]

I've always just crafted the first item with some very vague emotes, looked at the item, and then went with more detailed emotes from there.

Me too.  It's easy enough to get around not knowing what an item will look like by just detailing how you imagine your character going about what they are doing but not getting detailed about what they are doing.

If we're going to make changes to anything I'd rather see characters of a sufficiently high enough crafting skill being able to 'view' an item in a merchant's inventory and have some idea that they can craft it.  It's pretty frustrating to buy something thinking your dude can craft it only to find out there are no recipes for it, or at least not any your character can pull off yet.

[Larrath]

If an item cannot be crafted and you feel that it should, just submit a crafting recipe for it.

As for being able to work around not being able to see the item that you're crafting, I say so what?  It's also possible to work around being able to only mount or dismount an animal without possibility to just lead it around.

This is still a good idea, and it can be very helpful.

> craft flour egg nuts kalan tregil
You can make a delicious pastry out of this.
...
You mix the nuts, fruit, eggs and water and make a pastry, and wave a tregil over it for good luck.

[Gimfalisette]

Necroing this thread to chime in with "I'd like to see this in-game too." Not only would it help with emoting what's to be made, but there are also some situations for a crafter when there are certain items that they *could* make which they *shouldn't* make. (When a crafter is employed by a certain organization and has been given instructions by their bosses for which categories of items not to make, e.g. "don't make anything with pockets.") But there's no way to tell which items on the list are the ones that should be avoided before you actually make them, and thus what happens is that resources are wasted and crafters are frustrated.

Plus, ICly, it doesn't make sense to be able to make something that the character can't visualize.

[Cenghiz]

As far as I remember, an imm mentioned that this addition is already in the to-do list.

[Halaster]

I actually have this very thing already on my to do list.  So.. someday soon.