Item Material Overhaul

[Qzzrbl]

Or you can (if you feel your weapon took a mighty blow):

>remove weapon
>junk weapon

You don't need to rely on code to reinforce your opinions, D-man

[Barzalene]

Since the beginning of time, the obsidian longsword has existed in the world of Zalanthas. There it is, being all beaituful, and shiny, and sharper than steel. It is glorious in its glossy polished luster, and fearsome in the hands of any T'zai Byn dwarf Trooper. Alas, it shouldn't exist. An obsidian sword IRL would shatter almost immediately upon impact with just about anything.

I give you exhibit A:

Real Life Obsidian Shortsword (more or less)


As you can see just by looking at this item, if you swung this like a sword and let it hit anything, it would shatter. Such is the nature of obsidian.

Not only would it shatter almost immediately upon impact on anything, it's not all beautiful, and shiny or glorious in its glossy polished luster.  Sad face!

[Desertman]

Yeah I got a little sidetracked by Nyr showing me shiny things. What am I a ferret?

Anyways my point wasn't that obsidian swords should act realistically, my point was that they shouldn't even exist, except maybe as ornamental artistic pieces that would have to be handled with extreme care when moved from one place to another. Certinaly never as weapons.

So while I could "junk" my sword, really, it shouldn't exist for me to even junk it.

They don't "shatter as much as I think they should", because they would shatter every time. I wasn't really asking for them to be coded in a way that they shatter realistically, I was hoping they would be reworked/rewritten as different items, since they are silly, and wouldn't actually exist.

[Reiloth]

I mean, I agree in theory. But that's a bit of a rabbit hole with a game with 20+ years of items, don't you think? It may have been easier if Arm 2 happened, because it would be a complete reset. But I can only imagine what unholy hell this would open for Staff.

Maybe...Gradually...Possibly? I suspend my disbelief daily in Armageddon for the sake of playability, and I think it's OK that there are obsidian swords. I mean, let's not mention "Sharp Wood Swords That Cut People".

[Desertman]

I mean, I agree in theory. But that's a bit of a rabbit hole with a game with 20+ years of items, don't you think? It may have been easier if Arm 2 happened, because it would be a complete reset. But I can only imagine what unholy hell this would open for Staff.

Maybe...Gradually...Possibly? I suspend my disbelief daily in Armageddon for the sake of playability, and I think it's OK that there are obsidian swords. I mean, let's not mention "Sharp Wood Swords That Cut People".

I did in my first post. Sharp wooden swords. The Devil.  

This would also apply to things like, wooden swords. You can't put a slashing edge on a piece of wood, at least not one so sharp as to realistically depict the kind of damage they do in game. Wooden swords were traditionally used to "NOT HURT" people in training. That was the only reason to make a sword out of wood. Why we try to make actual live combat weapons out of them in game completely escapes me.

I'm on board with suspending reality for every day gameplay when we don't have a real world basis from which to derive "reality" in a given situation. For example, no real world magickers, dragons, psions, etc...So when they pop up and do their thing, I assume that everything they are doing is realistic for the world of Zalanthas.

We have wood and obsidian IRL, so why are we giving it properties it doesn't have?

If it isn't going to act like wood or obsidian, why didn't we call it:

"Dorphok" - Dorphok is very much like RL wood, but it can hold a slashing edge and cut mofos.

"Orsplak" - This stone looks a lot like RL obsidian, and has a lot of the same properties, but it is MUCh more durable, to the point it kind of acts like steel does IRL.

If we just want to universally agree that wood and obsidian are nothing like RL wood and obsidian but we call them that...just because...I guess that is fine and I will play along with that, I'm just not sure that was the original intention, and I think we could do better than that.

[Fnord]

Dude, in my professional opinion as a defiler, using psionics, riding a giant trained giant lizard,while the 3 moons and sun are overhead, the obsidian weapons are just fine. 

[Wastrel]

lol

[Zul]

...that's a bit of a rabbit hole with a game with 20+ years of items, don't you think? It may have been easier if Arm 2 happened, because it would be a complete reset. But I can only imagine what unholy hell this would open for Staff.

Hasn't there been a history of things considered unrealistic being retconned? Mind you I don't have a particular dog in this fight, just wondering.

[Gimfalisette]

Hasn't there been a history of things considered unrealistic being retconned? Mind you I don't have a particular dog in this fight, just wondering.

I wouldn't say that most things that have been removed from the game in recent years was because they were "unrealistic." I'd say it was more about "unbalanced." And usually those changes have only affected a small portion of the playerbase. Whereas attempting to remove or change all the obsidian weapons in game would affect everyone, pretty much. I can't even imagine how much staff effort that would take. It just doesn't seem worth it to me.

[hatchets]

Perhaps maybe, instead of simply trying to destroy the obsidian weapons, introduce a special treatment of obsidian that is a southern practice, that makes it smoother, and sturdier. You know kinda like Isilt. I am all for fantasy concepts of treatments of stone and such that would improve it.

[FantasyWriter]

Perhaps maybe, instead of simply trying to destroy the obsidian weapons, introduce a special treatment of obsidian that is a southern practice, that makes it smoother, and sturdier. You know kinda like Isilt. I am all for fantasy concepts of treatments of stone and such that would improve it.

*cough* Magick *cough*

[Dalmeth]

I'm down with making things more realistic, but not because realism is necessarily a good thing.

Most of the items in the game come from a void where we have no idea how they were made.  This means consistent conflicts over what can be made and bad crafts that defy all notions of sensibility, but they're still valid suggestions because no one sits down and describes how things are made.

First and foremost would be a system of processing materials.  Nothing in nature is very useful as-is.  Even wood has to be left out to dry for a season until its internal humidity approaches the humidity of the air, to prevent warping during use.  This crap we do where we turn branches into bows and arrows is also ridiculous.  Straight lengths of wood typically come from saplings, as they tend to grow straight with less knots, uniform thickness, and consistent grain whereas branches simply do not.

Changing forage items from branches to saplings would be a major step toward realism, as it gives ample justification for those instances where we see plenty of trees but can't forage wood :  the area is barren, receding, and not enough new saplings are growing.

But we're not getting realistic with wood anytime soon.  Most of our crafts are based in forms that require the sawmills and machined processes of the modern day, but we can push toward something based in the tools we know characters will have.

A good start would be with chitin.  It's not much different from rawhide except for the fact it is generally harder and more brittle.  I've suggested before the ability to modify the hardness and flexibility via a process not much different from tanning to allow more color variety and different forms, but it's not too popular.  

That said, chitin swords are at least as unlikely to hold an edge as wooden, but I'll let you guys simmer on that one.  Because bone is also porous and wouldn't be near as useful as the way we use it in game.

But the message is here is materials processing.  It's the key to fleshing out crafting RP.  Not only will players know what they have to do, but it also allows for the quality gradients we seem to so desperately crave.  Just let certain factions have certain processes.

It's important to remember that iron dominates the modern age not because it is harder and stronger.  That was actually the main barrier to its use throughout early history.  The thing that brought iron to the forefront of civilization was stable societies capable of supplying the immense amounts of charcoal necessary for iron production.  This allowed societies to use a resource that was largely everywhere, more common than the copper and tin used to make bronze and more common than even obsidian, for a certainty.

[Zul]

I wouldn't say that most things that have been removed from the game in recent years was because they were "unrealistic." I'd say it was more about "unbalanced."

Are you sure about that? Were sandwiches and katana-like swords (or did they make a comeback? Having to rely on the person who got me into the game for this information) removed from the game because they were unbalanced?

Also, can we please not throw around words such as "most", "every", "many" or what have you? I never questioned the degree, but rather whether it ever happened.

...attempting to remove or change all the obsidian weapons in game would affect everyone, pretty much. I can't even imagine how much staff effort that would take. It just doesn't seem worth it to me.

I would assume staff would only need to change high-impact weapons such as axes and swords. Obsidian tipped spears or knives would likely not be affected as greatly since they are used for thrusting.

Kanks? Halflings? Sure, they were removed through natural (or magickal?) causes, but the same could be done with obsidian swords just as easily. Go into the database and increase the rate at which they shatter. Voila.

[LauraMars]

The thing is, there's hundreds upon hundreds of items made out of obsidian in the game.  If you narrow it down to weapons, there are STILL hundreds upon hundreds.  Locating, loading, and reviewing each one and judging it for realism, and then changing or removing it from every instance of spawning in the game and replacing it with a "more realistic" equivalent, is too much work for too little reward.  I'm sure if you come across an item that you think is particularly unrealistic looking, you can idea that it be looked at, and someone will get around to it eventually.

[Zul]

The thing is, there's hundreds upon hundreds of items made out of obsidian in the game.  If you narrow it down to weapons, there are STILL hundreds upon hundreds.

Reeeeeeeeaaaaaaallyyyyyy? Suffice it to say, hyperbole has won the day. 

[Lizzie]

The thing is, there's hundreds upon hundreds of items made out of obsidian in the game.  If you narrow it down to weapons, there are STILL hundreds upon hundreds.

Reeeeeeeeaaaaaaallyyyyyy? Suffice it to say, hyperbole has won the day. 

Reeeallly. Check a single apartment building for one of the more common weapon items in the various storage containers kept in the different apartment units in that building. Chances are, you'll come up with around a hundred.

Then check your -local- Salarr warehouse for the same item - you're likely to find several hundred.

We haven't even checked individual PCs or NPCs to see if they have any in their inventory yet, or checked the Kadian crafting hall, or the Kurac bunkrooms, or the noble guards' buildings and lockers yet.

That's a few hundred of just -one- specific weapon. Although Armageddon has strayed immensely from its original DIKU roots, it is still, at its root, a DIKU mud. It isn't a MOO. You can't just change the "parent item" and expect all its "children" to comply instantaneously with the change. You have to change each individual item's flag.

And sure you can create a mini-script to do that, but you still have to create the script, run a search for the specific item's sdesc, make sure that the resulting list contains ONLY the weapon you're looking for and NOT other items that share keywords, then apply the script. And of course there will be several items that have different keywords (such as custom-made crafting items) but were built off this particular weapon, and those won't show up in the list, and won't behave in the new way that it's needed to behave.

With MOO, all of those custom weapons come from the "parent" object - so it wouldn't matter what the keywords are. You just do a @flag on all items that descend from object #472, and every single item that was made using #472 as a template will change that flag.

Again though - this isn't a MOO, and the process isn't that simple.

[maxid]

That's not what he was saying, if you changed the shatterability of a weapon-type then all weapons listed as 'big obsidian sword' would break more often.  You don't need to change each individual one.

I'm not defending his point, just saying that you're making it sound even harder than it would be (and it would be difficult since there are probably at least 20-30 different types of obsidian swords in game.)

Also, in answer to your 'steel' question from a couple of days ago.  Gold had little to no common use until the electronic age, yet it was valued highly and rarely seen save for ornamentation on nobility and other prestigious types.  It didn't lose its value over the years, and stayed something of almost mystical importance.

[Zul]

That's not what he was saying...

Shhhhhhh

[LauraMars]

The thing is, there's hundreds upon hundreds of items made out of obsidian in the game.  If you narrow it down to weapons, there are STILL hundreds upon hundreds.

Reeeeeeeeaaaaaaallyyyyyy?

Yes.

[Adhira]

The thing is, there's hundreds upon hundreds of items made out of obsidian in the game.  If you narrow it down to weapons, there are STILL hundreds upon hundreds.

Reeeeeeeeaaaaaaallyyyyyy? Suffice it to say, hyperbole has won the day. 

I did a very rough and quick check of those with obsidian in the sdesc only, was around 700 items.  Extremely rough as there would be a lot of other things that did not come up in that search.  I believe when we removed kanks there were approximately 8 different types, and there were about 6 different sandwiches.

While the material type suggestion is perhaps one that could be feasible, at this point in time we're not particularly interested in altering all these items.  People have managed to believe that obsidian weapons can work for two decades, I think we can continue to do so.  The same goes for other item types.  That's a major rework of the fundamentals of how the game works and an incredible amount of work on top of already full plates.  There are a lot of other projects that I think will do a lot more to enhance the game that I'd rather see delivered first.

[Zul]

I did a very rough and quick check of those with obsidian in the sdesc only, was around 700 items.

Wow, that's a lot. What about for weapons, specifically swords of the slashing variety?

[Desertman]

I did a very rough and quick check of those with obsidian in the sdesc only, was around 700 items.  Extremely rough as there would be a lot of other things that did not come up in that search.  I believe when we removed kanks there were approximately 8 different types, and there were about 6 different sandwiches.

While the material type suggestion is perhaps one that could be feasible, at this point in time we're not particularly interested in altering all these items.  People have managed to believe that obsidian weapons can work for two decades, I think we can continue to do so.  The same goes for other item types.  That's a major rework of the fundamentals of how the game works and an incredible amount of work on top of already full plates.  There are a lot of other projects that I think will do a lot more to enhance the game that I'd rather see delivered first.

But, but...please?

[Nyr]

No problem!  We'll just delay the HRPT so we can focus our time on those pesky unrealistic weapons removed. 

[Zul]

No problem!  We'll just delay the HRPT so we can focus our time on those pesky unrealistic weapons removed. 

Can't tell if joking or trolling. 

[Nyr]

Joking.  We are not delaying the HRPT