Should all items be craftable?

[gfair]

Should all items in the game be made craftable, so anyone can make them, rather than buying only?

This could be one of the competitions held between houses for the most craftable items submitted per house.

[John]

Yes.

Currently there are items that can ONLY be crafted by people from a House. I think if person from House X teaches you how to craft item Y then you should be able to craft it without being from that House.

All IMO.

[Carnage]

Many items made by houses ARE craftable. They happen to be more complex than other ones, and therefore require something to aid you in their building. I'm not going to say anything more, since I think it would be too IC.

John: Most house crafters are NOT going to give away the house's secrets. Not only are these closely guarded secrets, the merchant could possibly be thrown out of the house, if not outright killed. These are secrets that the house thought they could share with that person, and that person alone. And face it, do you really want to piss off a house?

Second, most, if not all, of those tools that I spoke of that only the house can supply are used up. It'd be pretty futile to try and teach someone else, then, with your life at stake.

All in all, learning the recipes of a house is a very trusted position. It wouldn't surprise me if some houses hired spies to watch over certain people, or even set up decoys to try and see if they would sell the information. These elite group of people rewarded with the knowledge are going to be closely guarded, and most of them understand it.

[John]

Most house crafters are NOT going to give away the house's secrets. Not only are these closely guarded secrets, the merchant could possibly be thrown out of the house, if not outright killed.

I agree Carnage. But there are ALWAYS circumstances that will make someone want to/be forced to divulge House secrets, so IMO the code should support these instances. Also, what if someone managed to successfully leave a House? They will still remember how to create the items.

I'm talking about the exception to the rule here of course. MOST people won't give away House secrets.

[Carnage]

There's basically a bunch of IC and code reasons. Saying more than that would be getting too IC in my opinion, but suffice to say it's nothing worth getting upset about or trying to petition to change.

[X-D]

YES, And I hope the imms are working (however slowly, probly a lot of work) to this end.

And as an answer to some above posters, There are FAR FAR more noncraftable items in the game then there are craftable ones.

Don't believe me, get about 20k sid, buy averything you can for that amount and start analyzing.

[Anonymous]

YES, And I hope the imms are working (however slowly, probly a lot of work) to this end.

And as an answer to some above posters, There are FAR FAR more noncraftable items in the game then there are craftable ones.

Don't believe me, get about 20k sid, buy averything you can for that amount and start analyzing.

I may be wrong, but I believe that the staff would gladly welcome anyone who wanted to submit the crafting part of a currently non-craftable item, providing it was generic enough I imagine.  There are so many objects, I can see why there are many that cannot, as of yet, be crafted.

[Quirk]

All of us who have crafter characters, and keep running into items they ought to be able to craft but can't, have to do something about it if we want the situation fixed. I'd go so far as to recommend no new items be added without associated crafts, too; if you're submitting an item, a craft to go with it would be nice. If all the crafters submitted just one craft per week, most of the common uncraftable items would swiftly be fixed.

My main caveat is that I'm unsure about analyze. I believe it's meant to spit something back if the item is craftable but too hard for you to craft at your current skill level, as opposed to giving back a blank, but I've seen a few items I'm positive would be craftable which just returned a blank, and haven't ran into many that gave the message. Perhaps someone else who understands the workings of analyze could educate me on it. Obviously, if you couldn't tell whether an item was or was not craftable, this would make craft submission pointless/annoying to the imms.

*is off to search the archives for information on analyze*

Quirk

[Quirk]

If all the items which I draw a blank on are uncraftable, then we need to get some serious work underway. It's far more fun to buy items from a PC than from a shop, but as things stand PCs are stuck with a pretty limited subset of what's available in their local shops assuming easy access to all the materials they need (which isn't always the case). I don't mind it taking some time to pick up the skill necessary, it's more the question of whether the PC can ever gain a measure of equality with the NPC.

Quirk

[X-D]

A nul return (blank) is noncraftable, and you can ask the staff on that one, though I am pretty sure there is a thread somewhere that addresses the analyze issue and one of the staff stated that nul return is not craftable.

[Sanvean]

Feel free to submit combinations of things and what they should make - I'd rather make current stuff craftable than add new items, for the most part. Right now the main focus for items is working on making prices and weights consistent.

Some things you may want to take into account when submitting crafting ideas:

If you've ever played a merchant with value, you may be aware that value <item> often yields some info about what culture the item came from - it is possible to have some items that can only be crafted if you're in a specific clan.

Providing exact sdescs of the items means I don't have to go hunting through the database trying to figure out what you meant.

Be realistic. You cannot make, for example, a small rock into a massive statue. If you're unclear on the size of an item, take a look at it. If the description isn't sufficiently informative, feel free to typo it.

Be aware that people have time constraints, and their own agenda.

[gfair]

Howdy Sanvean,

With weight in mind, should the craftable item submission format be revized to include weight estimates, or is it easier for IMMs to lookup than for writers to estimate?

[Sanvean]

I would rather focus on making existing items craftable than add new items, unless they are intended to fill gaps in the existing items database.

[X-D]

Yes, existing items.....hope none of the staff look at my char/account oddly, Cause I'm analyzing and examining everything in sight, Which probobly looks less then ic, Glad they don't have echo's.

But far more important then new items IMO and more likley to get done since the item is already made.

[HaiWolfe]

Is there a complete list of all the crafting skills posted somehwere?  If so, I haven't been able to find one.  If the information's too IC, would it be okay if I left the "Skill" category in a crafting submission blank, or put in a guess?

Similar question for the "Ingredients" category--if I'm not sure what specific crafting ingredients exist in the game, can I just put in something vague, like "leather" or "bone"?

Is it possible to have more than one way of failing, depending on at which stage the crafter messed up, so that there are different possibilities for "What is left upon failure"?

[Sanvean]

Is there a complete list of all the crafting skills posted somehwere? If so, I haven't been able to find one. If the information's too IC, would it be okay if I left the "Skill" category in a crafting submission blank, or put in a guess?

I'll try to post a definitive one, but here, off the top of my head: armorcrafting, bandagemaking, basketweaving, bowmaking, clothworking, cooking, dying, fletchery, floristry, jewelrymaking, knifemaking, leatherworking, spearmaking, stoneworking, swordmaking, tanning, woodworking. It's also possible to attach crafting to other skills, such as brewing. Also fairly easy to add a new skill if there's a good reason for it.

Similar question for the "Ingredients" category--if I'm not sure what specific crafting ingredients exist in the game, can I just put in something vague, like "leather" or "bone"?

Yes, you can.  If it's particular to a spceific clan, please include that as well.

Is it possible to have more than one way of failing, depending on at which stage the crafter messed up, so that there are different possibilities for "What is left upon failure"?

Alas, no.[/quote]

[HaiWolfe]

Thanks, Sanvean!  I'm working on some crafting files for existing items.  
Would it be better to send them in a few at a time as I write them, or to wait and send in a whole bunch all it once?

[Sanvean]

Small batches are nice, because they seem a lot less daunting.

[Angela Christine]

I'll try to post a definitive one, but here, off the top of my head: armorcrafting, bandagemaking, basketweaving, bowmaking, clothworking, cooking, dying, fletchery, floristry, jewelrymaking, knifemaking, leatherworking, spearmaking, stoneworking, swordmaking, tanning, woodworking. It's also possible to attach crafting to other skills, such as brewing. Also fairly easy to add a new skill if there's a good reason for it.

Am I the only one who finds it frightening that Sanvean remembers things "off the top of her head" in alphabetical order?    :shock:   Anyway, the Craft helpfile lists a couple obscure ones that Sanvean left off.  It says:

See also:

skill_armor_making,
skill_bandagemaking,
skill_basketweaving,
skill_bowmaking,
skill_clothworking,
skill_component_crafting,
skill_cooking,
skill_dyeing,
skill_featherworking,
skill_fletchery,
skill_floristry,
skill_instrumentmaking,
skill_jewelrymaking,
skill_knifemaking,
skill_leatherworking,
skill_pickmaking,
skill_ropemaking,
skill_spearmaking,
skill_stonecrafting,
skill_sword_making,
skill_tanning,
skill_tentmaking,
skill_wagonmaking,
skill_woodworking [/list]
I thought armor_repair and perfume_making were crafting skills too, but I guess they aren't.  :shrug:  Armor_repair is a skill, but apparently not a crafting skill.  I could swear someone on the old GDB, maybe Priestess, claimed to have had the perfume making skill at one point, and that perfumes were very expensive to make (justifying the high cost of buying perfume from NPC shops) but perfume making doesn't have a helpfile at all.  Perhaps I just halucinated the whole thing?  Am I reduced to holding GDB discussions in my dreams?  I don't know.  It's kind of troubling, but not as troubling as people who remember things in alphabetical order.  :wink:

Angela Christine

[Kronus]

Reasonably on-topic, I've been toying with the idea of submitting a few craftable things (mainly because I have some things I /should/ be able to craft with, but can't), but I'm hesitant to do so because of the possibility that a similar item already exists. I'd hate to write up an entire file of, for example, a complete line of jozhal-wear, only to be told that there already is such a beast, and thanks for all the work and descriptions but... no.

Is there any way someone can submit a 'concept' list or something first, just to find out if there's actually an interest/need in the items proposed before going through all the tedious wordsmithing?

[Angela Christine]

Reasonably on-topic, I've been toying with the idea of submitting a few craftable things (mainly because I have some things I /should/ be able to craft with, but can't), but I'm hesitant to do so because of the possibility that a similar item already exists. I'd hate to write up an entire file of, for example, a complete line of jozhal-wear, only to be told that there already is such a beast, and thanks for all the work and descriptions but... no.

I don't know for sure, but I'd assume it would be possible for there to be more than one style of a certain kind of thing, like clothing or armor made from Jozhal.  Take red skirts, there are probably dozens of items in the database that would qualify as a "red" "skirt".  It might be a long crimson skirt, a ruby red silk half-slip, a faded and tattered red skirt, a short scarlet skirt, a wrap-around rust skirt, etc.  Go into the Kadian shops in 'nak and you might find in a given week that they have five blue silk dresses available, some long others short or knee-length, some with sleeves, half-sleeves and others sleeveless, one might be midnight blue while another is royal blue, cerulian blue or azure.   I've seen a variety of tembo armor, not just different colours but some vines worked into it to enhance it's camaflage potential.  

It's unlikely that you would independantly come up with something almost identical to what already exists.  Even if your Jozhal line was similar to some other Jozhal-based items, that wouldn't make one line superfluous.  I might prefer to mix and match the Kadian Jozhal leggings with your Jozhal vest and the Kuraci Jozhal cape rather than getting a "set" all from one merchant.  The only potential hitch I see is that the imm would have to check the database for similar items, and make sure the new, similar items are comperable in difficulty, materials needed, value, weight, protective value if it is an armor item, and so on.  Two very similar looking leather vests should have similar requirements and benefits.

According to the latest weekly update there are 16354 objects in the game, probably at least 10000 of them ought to be craftable using the existing crafts.  But players are unlikely to write up crafting submissions for all these existing objects, because most of them are not common.  The NPC kadian clothing shops cycle their inventory through the same couple hundred of itmes, the thousands of other cloathing items they are able to make have to be special ordered, so they are rarely seen.  If you've never seen an existing 3/4 length leather topcoat, then you can't offer sugestions on how to craft it.   And it isn't like you can ask Lord Fancypants to lend you his shirt for a moment so you can analyze it and try to copy the design.    You might see an NPC with a wooden spoon in his hand and think, "Hey a spoon!  That would be a great crafting item for woodworkers and toolmakers," but you will have to kill him to get the spoon out of his hand to analyze it, and that isn't the sort of thing most crafters are up to.

Angela Christine

[John]

Okay. So if I understand this right this is how the analyze skill works.

When I analyze an item that I have the skill to make (such as I analyze a sword and I have the sword making skill) it'll come up with a "you don't know how to craft this" IF it's a craftable item. If it isn't craftable then it'll come up with a blank. Correct?

What happens if I craft an item that I don't have the skill to craft (such as I craft a spear and I don't have the spear making skill)? Will i still get the "you don't know how to craft this" message?

[X-D]

You are correct, blank=not craftable, and if you do not have the skill, Well, I have gotten, "this style is unfamilier to you" type message, I assume this uses as skill I do not have.......

Now, a question to the staff, most melee weapons I have found are covered with the crafting skills of the subclass weaponscrafter, only one type of melee weapon have I found they cannot craft, This is blunt weapons And I have been wondering why that is, I mean they can make some nifty weapons but not a simple club or staff, What gives?

[Sanvean]

I thought armor_repair and perfume_making were crafting skills too, but I guess they aren't. :shrug: Armor_repair is a skill, but apparently not a crafting skill. I could swear someone on the old GDB, maybe Priestess, claimed to have had the perfume making skill at one point, and that perfumes were very expensive to make (justifying the high cost of buying perfume from NPC shops) but perfume making doesn't have a helpfile at all.

This is a product of high-level floristry.

You can fail on analyzing an item because:
    - it's not craftable
    - it's craftable only by a specific clan
    - it's craftable only by a skill you don't have.

We can add a blunt weapon making skill, but I'd like a better name than that. "Clubbery" is not an option either.

[Eternal]

First, the real suggestions:
Mace_crafting
Hammer_crafting


And the jokes:
Sap_crafting
Beat_stick_crafting