Silk

[valeria]

I think you mean, you want the game world to be consistent with YOUR expectations.  I'm fine with a game world in which IC prejudices mandate that commoners cannot wear silk, even if they could afford it, except under socially acceptable circumstances.  It makes sense that a society would have social stigmas and taboos, even if those are 'artificially' created.

You don't seem to grasp that the market for silk simply wouldn't exist, if those prejudices were real among the VNPC population. There'd be no incentive to produce or sell the silk, because no one but nobles or the especially favored could wear it.

There are plenty of nobles and exceptionally favored people in Allanak.  The fact that nobles and the especially favored wear it is the incentive to produce and sell silk.  You're catering to the upper class, and can expect that they will look on you favorably.  Furthermore...

Thus, the supply of silk would go down, and as such things must happen, its cost would inevitably go up.

I don't know where you're getting the idea that silk is cheap.  The representation of the virtual world is that 250 sid/month is a vast sum of money for the vast majority of people.  Is it to PCs?  No, because they don't really represent the virtual world... or we'd have a lot more beggars, slaves, and people dying of starvation.  We don't have representation of people that make 10-50 obsidian an month and would feel lucky to land a 250/sid a month job where they could afford one silk dress if they did nothing else with a year+ in wages, including forsaking purchasing food and water, solely to buy one article of silk.  The PC population does not reflect the game world.

There are some things that are unrealistic. Such as overhauling a whole database of items. There are other changes that are realistic, such as reducing the availability of raw silk, and changing silk's base value. Those changes, if they can be tweaked to make the game world more plausible, should be tweaked.

Of course some things are unrealistic.  It's a game.  It's not a real life simulator.  But in substance, I simply disagree with you that the problem is the price of silk.  I think the problem, if there is one, is the availability of wealth PC commoners.  So I disagree that changing the price of silk would fix any problem.

Why are bolts of silk even sold to commoners in the first place if it's so taboo?

It isn't taboo for commoners to touch silk, or to work with silk, it's only a social taboo for for them to wear it excessively when they don't have the social backing or ranking to do so.

But by all means, instead of actually engaging with the question, continue to make it about me.

It's not about you, it's about your style of argument, which is largely based on assumptions that I disagree with.  Your argument seems to be "If silk's cheap and available people should be able to treat it however they want."  Well, no.  That's against the game world documentation.

I feel like you're trying to turn this into the economy thread again, when (a) the PC population is not representative of the virtual economy, and (b) taboos and cultural mores sometimes clash with purely economic principles.  I simply think you're not willing to recognize or accept that, and are to a large extent ignoring the differences between the world that we see that is coded and virtual world.  But by all means, continue with your arguments from repetition and begging the question.  I'll still think you are wrong.

I don't think the solution to any silk-over-representation problem is to make silks more expensive.  I think a better solution is to to have more variety on the cheap end of clothing with more common materials.

[Barzalene]

Maybe this should be in the form of a request or something, but I had a thought that perhaps (and this might have been done already) as more commoner stuff is put into the game (I'm sure it's being mastercrafted pretty regularly) maybe some of those items should be making into the shopkeepers' inventories and sold in the shops. Maybe there should also be a faster turn around on those rotations. (I think they're automated, so it's not a huge endeavor.)

ps - that's a suggestion. Not a demand. Don't yell at me.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

GMH members could always stock their own shop if they wanted to, using 'offer silk #0' to their affiliated shop keeper. While staff could load those things up, using my method gives players something to do, and cleans the workshop out a bit. Styles could be further defined by PCs using this same method.

[Talia]

Maybe this should be in the form of a request or something, but I had a thought that perhaps (and this might have been done already) as more commoner stuff is put into the game (I'm sure it's being mastercrafted pretty regularly) maybe some of those items should be making into the shopkeepers' inventories and sold in the shops. Maybe there should also be a faster turn around on those rotations. (I think they're automated, so it's not a huge endeavor.)

ps - that's a suggestion. Not a demand. Don't yell at me.

I'm not going to yell at you but I will say that basically no-one is mastercrafting non-silk, non-armor wearables. Like...ever. No one "wastes" a mastercraft on those things. And by and large, mastercrafted stuff happens within the GMHs, usually on commission for a particular PC with money and power. So they are often unique things, and if not unique then not intended for sale to the public.

GMH members could always stock their own shop if they wanted to, using 'offer silk #0' to their affiliated shop keeper. While staff could load those things up, using my method gives players something to do, and cleans the workshop out a bit. Styles could be further defined by PCs using this same method.

This is a good idea!

[Clearsighted]

I don't think the solution to any silk-over-representation problem is to make silks more expensive.  I think a better solution is to to have more variety on the cheap end of clothing with more common materials.

Fair enough. I still think it's weird that the average veteran Byn trooper is wearing more sid on them than the average noble, but you made a reasonable case.

I still think silk, if it's as important as documentation suggests, would be realized more plausibly as a Kadian monopoly. And I do still think it's weird that a few raptor steaks can be bought for the same price as a silk shirt.

[Barzalene]

Maybe this should be in the form of a request or something, but I had a thought that perhaps (and this might have been done already) as more commoner stuff is put into the game (I'm sure it's being mastercrafted pretty regularly) maybe some of those items should be making into the shopkeepers' inventories and sold in the shops. Maybe there should also be a faster turn around on those rotations. (I think they're automated, so it's not a huge endeavor.)

ps - that's a suggestion. Not a demand. Don't yell at me.

I'm not going to yell at you but I will say that basically no-one is mastercrafting non-silk, non-armor wearables. Like...ever. No one "wastes" a mastercraft on those things. And by and large, mastercrafted stuff happens within the GMHs, usually on commission for a particular PC with money and power. So they are often unique things, and if not unique then not intended for sale to the public.

GMH members could always stock their own shop if they wanted to, using 'offer silk #0' to their affiliated shop keeper. While staff could load those things up, using my method gives players something to do, and cleans the workshop out a bit. Styles could be further defined by PCs using this same method.

This is a good idea!

My last merchant did every chance they got. At least four. And others working with her did as well. I figured that was more the norm than it is, I guess.

Venomz' is a good idea!

[Bast]

Well I mean realistically HALF the outfits on arm made in 'silk' would never be made in silk..You can not sew a tight anything in silk it would run at the seams . I sew, I'm super into cosplay I know this first hand from making the mistake of trying to make a corset in silk. Realistically we would have dozens of blends of silk, linen and cottons to play with. Embroidered prints and weaves ect.. I would love to see a few dozen other types of fabric offer offered. Or just 'a bolt of fabric' as an option to buy. Seriously though I always felt if your a noble and threatened by something some commoner is wear you just look really pathetic and piety. If a unclanned commoner is running around in silks they are likely going to be stained and ruined (consider them a bad rper  -I- do) and that might be a good time for a Templar to decide to fine them 'just because' obviously they have cash as they are running around in silks. Its just always seemed like a moronic thing to get fussy over. I don't even like putting the type of fabric in the desc of an object. Do you know what half the clothing you are wearing is made of unless you look at the tag? Likely not..

[John]

silk shouldn't account for 66%(made up figure) of the non-armor item database

Complaining about silk making up X percentage of items in the database is missing the point. Unless you want the staff to arbitrarily remove X% of silk items from the game, what you're really arguing for is there to be more variety for non-silk wearers. And I agree. It can be difficult to be a male character whose wanting to follow the latest trends because so many of the items are tailored for women. I'd love it if there were more variety for males and commoners in general, and staff have indicated it's something they'd like to fix. But I as mentioned right now priorities are on other projects.

[Tiktak]

Well I mean realistically HALF the outfits on arm made in 'silk' would never be made in silk..You can not sew a tight anything in silk it would run at the seams . I sew, I'm super into cosplay I know this first hand from making the mistake of trying to make a corset in silk. Realistically we would have dozens of blends of silk, linen and cottons to play with. Embroidered prints and weaves ect.. I would love to see a few dozen other types of fabric offer offered. Or just 'a bolt of fabric' as an option to buy. Seriously though I always felt if your a noble and threatened by something some commoner is wear you just look really pathetic and piety. If a unclanned commoner is running around in silks they are likely going to be stained and ruined (consider them a bad rper  -I- do) and that might be a good time for a Templar to decide to fine them 'just because' obviously they have cash as they are running around in silks. Its just always seemed like a moronic thing to get fussy over. I don't even like putting the type of fabric in the desc of an object. Do you know what half the clothing you are wearing is made of unless you look at the tag? Likely not..

Zalanthan silk is not the same as Real World silk. It comes from a wholly different source and is processed differently.

[Saellyn]

It comes from magic.

Like everything does.

[John]

Once upon a time Kadius would get it's wares changed on a (roughly) IG monthly basis to reflect the latest trends. Does this still happen?

[MeTekillot]

yea

[solera]

It now comes from spiders.

[bardlyone]

I'm with Clearsighted on this. If people shouldn't be wearing silk who aren't nobility or Kadians, they sure as shit shouldn't be able to buy and sew it all day long for 100 coins a length and a 12 coin pack of dye if you're feeling up for variety. Shit, that's 3 skins of water, or 2 scrab steaks. That is the opposite of expensive in in game survivability as a pc prices. Not only that, but it's NOT against documentation when the documentation doesn't say that it's forbidden but instead implies a grey area and gets explicit about it being forbidden in.... where?

My ideal solution would be to make noble signet rings visible over gloves. Boom, confusion fixed, if that was ever an actual problem.

Magickers and various undesirables, sure, shouldn't be wearing it. But you know they sell raggedy silk boots in the bazaar no one gives a shit if you wear for like 14 coins. Kinda shoots that inix in the foot imo.

[wizturbo]

Here's my two sids on the matter.    A non-noble who publicly wears more than a few traces of silk in Allanak is signalling that they're valued by the Nobility or the Templarate, and thus of a higher social status than most commoners.   Dressing in silks isn't the problem, but pretending to be of a higher social status than you are is a problem.  Commoners can buy and trade in silks, because there's no problem with them wearing silks in private, and no problem in them selling the goods to those who are permitted to wear them.  But, if they strut around in public dressed that way without good cause, they're essentially committing social fraud.

In my opinion, these are the non-nobles who are of a high enough social status to warrant wearing silks:

1.  Important commoners, to a single Highborn person.   Concubines, favorite slaves, or highly trusted Aides and Advisors.   

2.  Commoners who are important to entire Noble Houses or the Templarate, rather than a single person.   High ranking servants of the nobility or the Templarate, or any servant of VERY important people (Senior nobility, Red robes, etc.)

3.  Important family members of a Merchant House, or Kadian Merchants who deal in silks.  Many Merchant Houses still probably wouldn't wear silk, except on special occasions, because they don't deal in the staff. 

[ibusoe]

The thing about commoners and silks is that it's part of the culture that we have invented. I think it's something that staff has accepted but a bias that has come from the playerbase. Maybe it doesn't reflect the feelings of every player, but it does reflect how players think the world should work. (Kind of neat, even if you don't like the frowning on silk thing, that we have built a culture with rules that has become pretty sophisticated.)

And it shifts about. I remember when all the magickers were running around in silk dresses. I've seen aides publicly chastised for wearing too much. I've had Kadians dedicate a lot of their time to making non-silk items for the upper class Naki commoner.

Anyway. It kind of needed it's own thread.

I thank you for splitting this out, Barz and agree with you that it needed to be.  The funny thing is that I somewhat comically have the exact opposite impression that you do.  I could pretty much take what you said and replace every occurrence of "Commoner's shouldn't wear silk because" with "Commoners should wear silk because." 

I've spent a couple of hours meditating on this and I'm coming to the opinion that when two people disagree about a policy decision for the exact same reasons, it's probably simply a matter of personal preference that divides them.

My feeling is that you would prefer for commoners not to wear silk simply because you want to emphasize the differences in social stratum between the nobility and the commoners.  This is not an unreasonable way to feel.  My preference is to emphasize avenues for social mobility for people who are socially mobile.  Our preferences aren't mutually exclusive, unfortunately both of us can't have our feelings about silk expressed in the game at the same time.

What should become of the situation?  Either the status quot could be preserved, one side could get marginalized, or we could all reach a compromise.  I personally prefer compromises.

I'm going to suggest a compromise which I believe is workable, although it may not be the best compromise.  Possibly someone could come up with a better compromise, in fact I hope someone will.  Feel free to borrow or modify my idea if it seems helpful.

My recommendations are two-fold. 

First, I think the staff should arrange a Templar-sponsored crack down on silk in the game.  This shouldn't happen immediately.  People should be given a heads up.  There are few reasons that most of the victims of this crack-down wouldn't be NPC.  But the crack down should be enough to create the point to players, especially new players, that walking around in silk all the time isn't the new normal.  The crack down *should* be politically motivated, and on the surface shouldn't have anything to do with silk.  Commoners should feel some reservations about publicly wearing silk all of the time.

My second recommendation, and probably the more useful one, is that some of the docs should be modified to include the phrase:

...and a minority of the nobility has very strong cultural opinions about the wearing of silk, to the point that they will quietly feel that it is incorrect for commoners to wear silk under any circumstances.

And this is another thing that, if implemented, players should implement subtly.  Should your Fale Noble walk down the street, arresting people that wear silk?  In my opinion, no.  But imagine if your Fale Noble were interviewing a commoner who was a candidate for a lucrative contract.  Perhaps your opinion of this fellow were on the fence?  Of course you would choose to evaluate people on how they dress.  That's how the real world works as well.

[Desertman]

Silk is fine in the world. The way it is handled is fine. This is a non-issue in every way imaginable.

That's all I have for this thread.

[Hicksville Hoochie]

Here's my two sids on the matter.    A non-noble who publicly wears more than a few traces of silk in Allanak is signalling that they're valued by the Nobility or the Templarate, and thus of a higher social status than most commoners.   Dressing in silks isn't the problem, but pretending to be of a higher social status than you are is a problem.  Commoners can buy and trade in silks, because there's no problem with them wearing silks in private, and no problem in them selling the goods to those who are permitted to wear them.  But, if they strut around in public dressed that way without good cause, they're essentially committing social fraud.

In my opinion, these are the non-nobles who are of a high enough social status to warrant wearing silks:

1.  Important commoners, to a single Highborn person.   Concubines, favorite slaves, or highly trusted Aides and Advisors.   

2.  Commoners who are important to entire Noble Houses or the Templarate, rather than a single person.   High ranking servants of the nobility or the Templarate, or any servant of VERY important people (Senior nobility, Red robes, etc.)

3.  Important family members of a Merchant House, or Kadian Merchants who deal in silks.  Many Merchant Houses still probably wouldn't wear silk, except on special occasions, because they don't deal in the staff. 

+1

I don't personally see a problem with the way silk is sold in game at current. The way I've always seen it, is that if you're a commoner, and you want to wear silks, then you should reasonably expect that you might ruffle the feathers of someone who is, by blood, better than you.

I don't believe there to be any concrete pattern for it. One day, Lord Bipolar Borsail might be fine with you skipping along in your new silk dress. But the next day, he might decide that you think you're on his level by wearing such expensive and special fineries. As most things when it comes to the common dealing with the noble/templarate, you're taking your life/health/eyesight into your hands when you even choose to be in their line of sight.

Silk could make up 99% of the clothing market in Allanak, and the nobility/templarate could still decide they don't want any of the common blood wearing it, unless they deem it okay on a case-by-case basis. Allanak isn't a place in which anyone has any rights whatsoever to do anything, if someone of better blood says you can't.

When comparing it to armors as well - soldiers/hunters in Zalanthas are a part of a very risky, and dangerous profession, but also one in which some people simply -have- to do it to survive. The Houses/merchants who make and sell armor? They absolutely realize this, and CAN gouge people on the price of their wares, because they know people are going to pay to ensure they don't became scrablunch. Even with the armor the price of silks, it'd be no problem for a noble to buy a bunch of it - but it isn't something they outright -need-. (And most nobles wouldn't be caught dead wearing armor - that awkward, uncomfortable working person's stuff)

tldr; I think the silk situation is fine as is, wear it at your character's own risk.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

More middle class clothing would be great though, with cotton being the northern common garb, and sandcloth the southern common garb, and linen the upper commoner wear in both regions. Silk, in mass, is for nobles, and nobles' favored.

[Talia]

More middle class clothing would be great though, with cotton being the northern common garb, and sandcloth the southern common garb, and linen the upper commoner wear in both regions. Silk, in mass, is for nobles, and nobles' favored.

Did you know that sandcloth is not actually a type of cloth itself? Check "help sandcloth." Mind blown, right?

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I didn't,  actually. But then the question arises, what fabric actually originates in the South? Because ... I can't think of one. Sandcloth is the closest, woven from a mish-mash of fibers.

[Talia]

I didn't,  actually. But then the question arises, what fabric actually originates in the South? Because ... I can't think of one. Sandcloth is the closest, woven from a mish-mash of fibers.

Southern cloth is made of 100% pure handwavium.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Well, cotton isn't something Southerners typically wear, and sandcloth isn't something Northerners typically wear, day to day, so hush! Sandcloth is Southern!

[Jihelu]

Well, cotton isn't something Southerners typically wear, and sandcloth isn't something Northerners typically wear, day to day, so hush! Sandcloth is Southern!

Are you lying to me?
Whenever Tuluk-sama was still alive I saw a lot of Sandcloth.

[Bast]

I thought Silk in Arm came from Pymlithe blossoms...there are several items and descs around the game that say something to effect of 'woven from the purest Pymlithe silk'.