Musings on an Automated Custom Crafting System

[FantasyWriter]

I kinda like how difficult it is to custom craft in Arm because of how important world consistency is. I know players have mentioned other games that have systems that let you craft custom objects, but I don't really play other MUDs.

In a perfect world, how would a more automated system work/function without losing world consistency?

 

[Inks]

Most automated systems I have seen use templates to pick from a wide selection of preset materials, weapon/armor types etc and words, but any RPIs I have ever seen use a customcraft system that requires staff overview, much like Arm.

In a perfect world the automated system would be overseen by a capable AI.

[FantasyWriter]

I am robbing a lot of this from what I recall about 2.arm d that there would be staff-created "a wooden bowl" object in they system.

>craft bowl

(Depending on what materials are available in your inventory or the room, you would get a list of materials you could craft from.)

You could make a wooden bowl from:
1. a large chunk of agafari.

>craft bowl agafari

(Depending on skill level, you would get the following options:)

From a large chunk of agafari, you could make:
1. A shoddy wooden bowl (value 1)
2. A simple wooden bowl (value 10)
3. A wooden bowl (value 20)
4. A well-crafted wooden bowl (value 50)
5. An exquisite wooden bowl (value 100)

(Higher levels allow for more options in the next step)

>craft bowl agafari 5

It would then prompt you through a list of choices (such as
Vine, forest, tribal_elf, tribal_human, geometric, flowing, runic, dunes, etc) (color/stain selection [requires proper dye objects]) (size) (tags such as liquid/solid only) possibly several steps, and outputs you a "desired outcome" sdesc and mdesc with something akin to AGH's old character generator.

You accept and begin crafting.

If you pass the craft check, you get what you asked for, crit pass: crafted a notch above what you asked for in value, failure: down a notch or two, crit fail, nothing.

This also all but eliminates getting nothing from your attempt @ journeyman level and above.

[CirclelessBard]

There's two different potential world consistency issues IMO, that can broadly be defined as:
1) Antisocial/trolling behavior with the system, e.g. crafting a rifle or a steel sword from a piece of bone. This can be handled in the same way that abuse of the "draw" command is handled, where staff take away the drawing as well as the draw command from the player. Take away the ability to use the auto craft system (at the very least), and undo any damage created by the initial craft.

2) Genuine misunderstandings of what would be appropriate in the world - like if a player creates a musical instrument or cooks a dish that has tenuous backing in the setting and its culture. I think that can be handled with a gentle conversation and simple retconning, or allowing the player the opportunity to readjust the item.

We're a pretty small and tight-knit community that (from what I can tell, at least) is generally well-behaved, so I suspect 99% of the world consistency issues that arise from custom-crafting would fall under category #2, where the worst thing that arises are minor creative differences between players and staff. I'd recommend that with an automated custom crafting system, staff are receptive to questions about new objects that might cross the line. In any case I think most players would generally create variations on things that already exist: new cloaks, new helmets, new swords, etc. and wouldn't veer into the impractical or impossible.

As for the system itself, one thing that is done by some other MUDs is you have the base craft that creates an item, which is then able to be modified by the player. For example, in Arx, you craft "silk clothing" which gives you an item to modify. However, Arx uses Evennia, where every object in the database is a unique instance of an item. This is pretty hard with Diku since all instances of an item reference a template from the database, which means all instances of an item always have the same sdesc, mdesc, value, and other basic traits. You'd essentially have to revamp how items work overall in order for something like that to work here.

However, I did recently post a potential Diku-friendly method on semi-automating custom crafting in another thread:

Although I've never seen the code used by Armageddon specifically, my hunch is that like base Diku, there are commands that enable item template creation and editing in the database, that are currently limited to staff. If the command for editing was available to players, but only for custom crafted items, then there could potentially be a new workflow for custom crafting:
1) Player submits the idea for the item. Assuming staff approve...
2) Staff create the base "new item" object. It has a database reference number R.
3) Staff give it to the player like a reimbursement when they are next online. They also set the player with a variable that says that they can edit item R in the database.
4) Now the player can use the item editing command, but only on item R.
5) The player saves the item, locking in the template for the item in the database and removing their ability to edit it further.

This would shift the building work to the player doing the custom craft. The staff would most likely still need to set up the craft itself in the file that holds the craft recipes, but this would heavily cut down on the amount of staff time used on custom crafts and probably allow the once-a-month restriction to be adjusted.

[Kavrick]

I just want to be able to cosmetically customize items like in Harshlands/Sindome, so when I make an item, I can put my own character's personal spin on it rather than it being me making someone else's custom craft. I don't care about custom stats or stuff, I just want to be able to express my character's creativity.

[Jihelu]

I remember playing some game where items were literally just RP props and tools and you could edit them however you want, but you had to manually add resources/cash to increase the value if you wanted it to be nicer looking cash wise. So you couldn't take a $20 pair of shoes and say it's a pair of new Jordans, everyone would see the value of it. You'd need to add in money to get the value up or you're just silly.

Not suggesting that sort of system but I remember really liking it because you could just turn anything into anything.

[Lizzie]

Everyone has different writing styles. There is no consistency among the playerbase. Just look at the PCs - their mdescs.  Assume that most of the ones you think are /bad/ had to go through an approval process. Either the staff missed something, or it's just not your taste.  Now imagine what objects would look like if there was no approval process at all.

My "standards" for creative writing are different from many. Some people prefer strict rules for grammar, some play fast and loose with commas, semi-colons and ellipses. My standards fall somewhere inbetween when it comes to building or writing descriptions for this game. It's based primarily on the original building rules, combined with stricter rules I abided with when I was head builder for a different game. Europeans spell things differently than Americans do.  Some players don't know the difference between their/there/they're or its/it's. The words would pass a spell-checker because they're spelled correctly. But they mean something entirely other than what they're being used for.

If everyone gets to put in their own custom descriptions there would be no consistency. There would be spelling errors, grammar errors, sentence structure that makes no sense, items with 30-40 lines all describing the angle of a single feather, and so on and so forth.  That's why all items added to the game have to be QC checked by staff. Even if they miss something - there's more consistency and a more even flow of creative input delivered to the reader's eye.

[Kavrick]

If everyone gets to put in their own custom descriptions there would be no consistency. There would be spelling errors, grammar errors, sentence structure that makes no sense, items with 30-40 lines all describing the angle of a single feather, and so on and so forth.  That's why all items added to the game have to be QC checked by staff. Even if they miss something - there's more consistency and a more even flow of creative input delivered to the reader's eye.

If other muds don't have issues with it, I don't really think this is a major concern. As you said, you can find m-descs with a huge variety of writing styles and honestly, even with 'QC' checked items that are in game, a lot of those items also can vary in styles and quality. And you could also limit it to 1 karma so mundanes have a reason to care about karma and new players don't go overboard with cosmetic customization.

I honestly think crafters being able to customize their own items would breath life into the playstyle. I shouldn't have to stress how underwhelming a single custom craft a month is, because this also means if a player wants a crafter to make them a custom item? Well they might also have to wait a month. Also, just something I want to point out, that I have pointed out previously: The new custom crafting system that requires you to make a good quality weapon before a very good and so on for 'specializing' actively discourages making more cosmetic items like jewellery and clothing, as every custom craft that's more for something flavorful, is a custom craft that's not increasing the quality of the weapons you can CC.

[Tailong]

Imagine people making this insanely elaborate item, beautifully written and described immaculately in every detail. Analyze (object): terrible quality.

That's what you would get cause people will go above and beyond. 'Other muds' still have regulations and parameters to keeps things uniform. You can only change certain fields. While that might be 'custom' the object is still the same.

You can polish a turd, but at the end of the day it's still a turd.

I think the way Arm does it is still the best way.  You get to do so much more, like pick the materials along with 'polishing the turd'. You even have to roleplay out making it. I think it's a good system. 

[Kavrick]

Imagine people making this insanely elaborate item, beautifully written and described immaculately in every detail. Analyze (object): terrible quality.

This would actually give a reason for the value skill. People can make counterfeits that look fancy but are actually shitty quality, this is a real thing in real life. I don't really see this as a problem but an IC mechanic that people can call others out on. "Hey I hired you to make me some nice quality clothing, I had a specialist look at this and it's actually garbage!"

Also, again I'd like to point out that other muds do custom items fine, if someone abuses the system, there are ways to report those players just as any player abusing any other mechanic. I don't really enjoy the perspective of "Someone might abuse it, so we're not allowed to have nice things." Not to paraphrase you, but it's what it feels like.

[Lizzie]

Imagine people making this insanely elaborate item, beautifully written and described immaculately in every detail. Analyze (object): terrible quality.

This would actually give a reason for the value skill. People can make counterfeits that look fancy but are actually shitty quality, this is a real thing in real life. I don't really see this as a problem but an IC mechanic that people can call others out on. "Hey I hired you to make me some nice quality clothing, I had a specialist look at this and it's actually garbage!"

Also, again I'd like to point out that other muds do custom items fine, if someone abuses the system, there are ways to report those players just as any player abusing any other mechanic. I don't really enjoy the perspective of "Someone might abuse it, so we're not allowed to have nice things." Not to paraphrase you, but it's what it feels like.

But according to the mdesc:

This djellabah has been meticulously sewn with expert stitching, cutting, and perfectly straight seams. The gloss of the silk indicates only the finest material has been used. The artistic embroidery of the jozhal sunning under the rays of suk-krath gives a flawless touch of whimsy in evenly-sewn spirals and geometric patterns surrounding it.

Value djellabah
It's utter crap and worth maybe 40 sids for scrap material

[Kavrick]

But according to the mdesc:

This djellabah has been meticulously sewn with expert stitching, cutting, and perfectly straight seams. The gloss of the silk indicates only the finest material has been used. The artistic embroidery of the jozhal sunning under the rays of suk-krath gives a flawless touch of whimsy in evenly-sewn spirals and geometric patterns surrounding it.

Value djellabah
It's utter crap and worth maybe 40 sids for scrap material

I brought up ages ago that clothworking recipes have always had awful value. A lot of the time you can't even make your money back from clothworking. And also, more of an issue with value than the concept of customization. The original example lets you reveal the bad quality of an item through assess, and you can use value to detect counterfeits of clan pieces too.

There are other ways to prevent this too, limit custom-descriptions to items you have your crafting skill for at master, which means quality should be achieveable either way if you're a master tailor or what-have-you. If we're talking about people faking materials, you can just make that against the rules, but also assess and analyze can reveal the true material and ingredients of an item. It kinda feels like people are looking for reasons to not give crafters freedom of expression if I'm going to be honest. This is a role-play enforced game, people are already expected to roleplay properly through their actions and emotes, this would also translate into customizing too. You don't see people crusading to remove emoting because 'someone might emote something they couldn't actually do'.

Edit: Also I want to quickly add, your example proves that even 'quality controlled' items that have been added into the game don't have consistency with their description and actual value.

[Tailong]

But according to the mdesc:

This djellabah has been meticulously sewn with expert stitching, cutting, and perfectly straight seams. The gloss of the silk indicates only the finest material has been used. The artistic embroidery of the jozhal sunning under the rays of suk-krath gives a flawless touch of whimsy in evenly-sewn spirals and geometric patterns surrounding it.

Value djellabah
It's utter crap and worth maybe 40 sids for scrap material

I brought up ages ago that clothworking recipes have always had awful value. A lot of the time you can't even make your money back from clothworking. And also, more of an issue with value than the concept of customization. The original example lets you reveal the bad quality of an item through assess, and you can use value to detect counterfeits of clan pieces too.

There are other ways to prevent this too, limit custom-descriptions to items you have your crafting skill for at master, which means quality should be achieveable either way if you're a master tailor or what-have-you. If we're talking about people faking materials, you can just make that against the rules, but also assess and analyze can reveal the true material and ingredients of an item. It kinda feels like people are looking for reasons to not give crafters freedom of expression if I'm going to be honest. This is a role-play enforced game, people are already expected to roleplay properly through their actions and emotes, this would also translate into customizing too. You don't see people crusading to remove emoting because 'someone might emote something they couldn't actually do'.

We actually do have in place rules that prevent people from using certain emotes. It's called metagaming and powergaming rules, and character limits.

No one is trying to prevent freedom of expression.  You have total access to CC's to do so if you play a character with access to CC's. People are more advocating for continued oversight.  I expect a certain degree to keep a semblance of continuity.

Express away. 

[Classclown]

I would be okay if there were generic items that you could buy from a shop, bone sword, linen shirt, and such, that could be customizable. I would not want someone to be able to customize my custom craft items.

ETA: You should have to pay sid if you want to upgrade from basic weapon/armor to higher tiers. Average, Above Average, Good, etc. Also, numbers would be random, within a range, so no weapon/armor piece has the exact same stats.

[Jihelu]

Would love to be able to tdesc items, only slightly related. I wanna put notches in my bone sword

[Brokkr]

How items save and thus what persists in different situations is sort of complicated.  This means re-skinning, while it can be done, is extremely prone to breaking, and even more dangerously, Staff inadvertently saving a reskinned item over the template.  This isn't something that can be handwaved away unfortunately.  Neither can overall quality control.  However, as some of you have experience we have opened that up over the years with things like scribble, tdescs and illustrations.

I am curious if something like a tdesc for objects would meet some of the needs expressed, as a compromise?  So a line or two at the end of the main desc to customize?  Would still have the same sdesc and object qualities. And make it so they couldn't write on a template.  I dunno, it is more a coder sort of thing of possibility.

[CirclelessBard]

The way other games manage quality control with player-created items/rooms/characters is approval after the fact. Either when the item is already in the game, or when it's in the database but not accessible to other players yet. If players were able to enter a building zone (moving into an OOC area in a similar manner to "change locdescs") and make their custom-crafted item, and all staff had to do was proofread it and add a craft (if approved), that would be a massive step up from where we're at now. This would also be in line with how many RP games manage custom items.

That being said, I also trust the playerbase enough to handle approval after the item is in the game just fine, though I don't have the same perspective on drawing that staff do. Was drawing particularly abused - did players break the rules in "help illustration" a lot? Or is it just a matter of wanting staff to have conversations with players before they rush headfirst into making things, so they don't make an anachronism?

[Lizzie]

That being said, I also trust the playerbase enough to handle approval after the item is in the game just fine, though I don't have the same perspective on drawing that staff do. Was drawing particularly abused - did players break the rules in "help illustration" a lot? Or is it just a matter of wanting staff to have conversations with players before they rush headfirst into making things, so they don't make an anachronism?

This is a great example for the question regarding customs.  Due to the nature of frame objects (they're containers) and illustrations (they're writings on paper objects), you can't see the illustration when you put artwork in a frame. Frames are also not permanent things, they can be picked up and moved from one place to another.

We'd get request to turn the art into a permanent thing in a frame on the wall.  Sounds like just a flag right? No. I had to create a new object - and for its main description, it'd be whatever the person wrote in the illustration. Then I could make a new frame object, make it "not moveable" and save it that way. If I saved just a clone of the old frame object and saved it, then the original frame object would become "not moveable" and so would every other frame object in the game.

The problem is in the description of the artwork. Some of these pieces of art are so lengthy and detailed, that the reader gets lost in the third or fourth sentence and stops reading entirely. Some are so long they go to a second page.  Some of them are flat out badly written. Some of them are narratives rather than descriptives.. "The woman in the background raises her hands, crying out into the night as though mourning for her lost children during the Copper War."  as opposed to "The hands of the woman in the background are raised up. Her eyes are glossed over and eyebrows are tilted down toward her nose, giving her a mournful expression."

So I'd basically have to completely rewrite the entire thing.  It's one thing when someone makes artwork for themselves or their "group" - their generation of PCs to see and enjoy. It's another matter entirely when placing something permanently into the game.  You can write however you wish, for something that can get lost, removed, stolen, destroyed ICly. But when it's something you intend to be in the game indefinitely, or can be reproduced (as in the case of custom crafting), then staff needs to make sure it is consistent with the current standards before it's made an "official" duplicatable or permanent object.

[Brokkr]

There are people who describe masterpieces with their novice/apprentice level drawing.

There are people that don't bother to follow rules they don't agree with, whether veteran player or newbie playing for the first time.

[Jihelu]

"-If unacceptable use is found the player may lose the ability to do illustrations which persists across all characters."

This is verbatim from the Illustration helpfile.

Presumably, if you act in good faith, staff would open up dialogue with you incase there is a mixmatch of expectations.

I've reached advanced draw several times, usually I start with shitpost art (Dick pics, stick figures) and eventually move up to solid attempts, usually these solid attempts are worded like 'There is an attempt at X, but it fails because X Y Z.' but with more detail.

It really wouldn't be hard to throw that caveat on a temp desc for items. You'd need different caveats though (Can people add 'art' to their weapon? Whats 'too fancy'? Etc.) though these questions aren't too hard.