I understand that this is a game of survival and oppression, and many players would enjoy getting the degradation of clothing and weapons being a feature.

I live a life of survival and oppression. About a third of my food this week came from scavenging the wilds, and every single one of my clothing items has been donated to me and is barely holding together.

For my part, the escapism I wanted from Arm was being able to fight that oppression, and implement many of my dreams or goals in a text world where I couldn't irl, like owning fancy things and having high quality stuff, being able to best the soldier instead of just getting caught, tried and thrown away.


I'm not looking forward to a future where everything degrades for the sake of degradation, but I do see the value in the economical ebb and flow of wear and tear on items, and those pc's able to fight that and repair those items.

However, if we are implementing something in the future that drops the hard deck of something's quality, the floor going from usable rags to rags that are so worn you can't even put them on your shoulders without another pc helping, I would like to raise the ceiling too.

Staff has seemingly raised the roof of a lot of ceilings in Arm, and I feel this is an important area to focus on too, when discussing crafting. I have knives and weapons (irl) that can be made better with fire-hardening, routine sharpening, and an adept hand at repair. I suggest that if we broaden degradation, we should also broaden enhancement too.

The image of mercenaries all sharpening their weapons to keen edges springs to my mind. Could whetstones be used by anyone to sharpen their swords and spear points? I know of times I've added padded and my own straps to protective clothing. Could scraps of cloth be used to enhance basic leather armor, adding some life or wear resistance to it?

Another thing I've always held as an important distinction between Arm and real life is lack of recorded history ig, certain laws never existing, leaving certain scams/ponzi schemes/crimes being something you could reinvent in the game with a unique twist.


To elaborate on that and make this second point of mine clearer, consider sawdust in meatloaf irl. It's technically illegal in the u.s., and while sawdust might be a legitimately valuable commodity in Zalanthas, other nontraditional items could be added to foodstuffs. Krentakh seasoning that makes whatever you just made still taste kind of good, like real good, mmmmm. Adding warspice to pepper sausages for that heat you can really FEEL. Sure, maybe they end up addictive, or maybe adding so much chalk to that bread makes it genuinely bad for your health or poisonous in large doses but relatively undetectable? I haven't brainstormed much on the idea of foodstuffs recently, but I think everyone who has been in the Byn and wished that their solo RP on using a whetstone actually had an effect on their sword, without needing to be lucky enough to have a specific crafter in your unit and online at the same time.

I hope I've illustrated my point. I'm not against improving/changing crafting, but where we lower a floor, I'd like us to also consider raising the roof, .

Quote from: Riev on Today at 05:34:05 PMJust remember, @Halaster ... degradation is fine until it actually affects ME, and I lose a combat scene/character because someone's razor-weapon destroyed my chestplate.

got it.  If account = riev's account { degradation *= 10}

Just remember, @Halaster ... degradation is fine until it actually affects ME, and I lose a combat scene/character because someone's razor-weapon destroyed my chestplate.

As a concept I'm 100% for item degradation, that is a staple in most survival games.  We're an RPI MUD with survival as one of our themes, so I would like to see it implemented... somehow.  We already have armor getting beat up in combat and needing repair, but as we all know that needs some love.  I wouldn't mind seeing the same for weapons, and some other items.

I think item/gear degradation would be an overall net positive for the game, for a few reasons.  One is that it would give crafters more reason to craft things, because as mentioned, typically once someone gets all their favorite armor and weapons, they don't really need anything else made.  Another is it would be a bit of a money sink, as for most (but not all) players, they know how to make a lot of money in the game.

If we did something more with this, it would be a pretty decent-sized project.  Good ideas for the future!

Outside of all the work done in this season, I admit that I WOULD like to see armor tackled SIMILARLY to the way weapons were.

Not that I want to know the gortok-skin vest is +2 better than the "cured" gortok-skin vest ... but there was a lot to the weapons change, for crafters. I spent a LOT of time learning, and trying to explain IC, all the different things that were put forth in the Salarri docs.


Honestly at this stage, I feel the "independent" crafters are code for "subguild tailor to make that sweet sweet coin" because crafters are back to being the old school Merchant class: Give them the stuff you hunted for and they'll give you coin. Customers don't need you to dye their items, they don't want you to custom-craft a "good" sword for them. I'm not saying I WON'T play a crafter this season, if only to get those sweet sweet Mordat-vibes, but they could use some love AT SOME POINT.

We have made the following changes to the Request Tool that are now live:


We have added character limits to some request, you should see a counter at the bottom as you type.  The following requests have these limits applied:

- Bug / Typo / Idea - 2500
- Character Report - Leader - 5000
- Clan Documentation Request - 2500
- Complaint or Appeal - 2500
- Email Change - 2500
- IP Sharing Notification - 2500
- Item Orders - 2500
- Join a Clan Forum - 2500
- Leave a Clan Forum - 2500
- Player Complaint - 5000
- Player Kudos - 2500
- Game Related | Question - 2500
- Clan Related | Question / Request - 2500
- Reimbursement - 2500
- Staff Complaint - 5000
- Staff Kudos - 2500
- Stat Change - 2500
- Storage - 2500
- Suggestion or Idea - 2500



The following categories have been added:

• Player Feedback (5000 characters) - When you want to get feedback to a player but it is doesn't rise to the level of complaint.
• Staff Feedback (5000 characters) - When you want to get feedback to staff but it is doesn't rise to the level of complaint.  Note that these will not go to the Player Committee
• Out-of-Character (OOC) Request (2500 characters) - for anything OOC that you need to talk with staff about in regards to your character.  This can be used to talk to staff about specific projects or goals your character is attempting.  It is the closest thing to replacing the Character Report, but is not intended for recurring check-ins.

The following categories have been removed.

• Ext. Subguild / Skill Bump Spec. App - We don't have extended subguilds anymore, and skill bumps are part of Special Applications.  There is no longer a need for 2 categories
• Character Report - Non-Leader/non-sponsored characters do not need to send in regular reports to staff.  If you want to keep up with what your character has been doing, we highly encourage you to use the bio command (see help biography).  If you are a non-leader/non-sponsored role and you need to communicate something with staff, just use other requests such as Question or Out-of-Character Request.  If you are playing a sponsored role who isn't a leader (such as a sorcerer), you will just go ahead and use the Character Report - Leader category.

Quote from: Norcal on Today at 12:36:43 PMWill GMH operations be limited to the Expansion Divisions and hunting for metal?  Will there still be room for artisans and crafter types to move into merchant positions?

If so, who will do the hiring?

GMH Operations are beginning play at launch with Expansion Division (House Salarr) and Mobile Operations (House Kurac). Both House Salarr and Kurac will hire crafters; they will start in those respective organizations, likely assisting with whatever tasks need doing. As they show more proclivity for crafting, they can be transferred to the Mercantile Branch.

From there, the Merchant Branch of each House can organically grow around player interest/interaction. A crafter can eventually become a Junior Merchant, a Merchant, and so on.

In this way, we are beginning play focused on the Agent Branch and politics and all that goes along with that; however, we are aware many players of the game enjoy crafting and the merchant side of things, so we are leaving that door open for people who want to engage with it.

Quote from: flurry on Today at 02:34:16 PMIf a player wants to be considered for a sponsored role but has a different special app in mind if the sponsored role app isn't selected, can they apply for both starting today? Or is there a different way you'd want them to proceed?

Yes.  Special Applications are good for 6 months, meaning once it's approved you don't have to start right away, you have up to 6 months to start it.

Quote from: Trevalyan on Today at 03:46:38 PMI think you're excessively worried about weapons getting to the same point in Seasons.

No, not really.  Rather I dislike the fact that even the crack dagger or ragtag armors you pick up off the floor will last forever, limiting the demands for anything but the absolute best and dimisnishing the need for crafter all together.

Conflict and war should be more expensive and I dont believe players are entitled to good or even decent gear without the right skills or a steady income.

I hate a strong dislike for things that needlessly complicate or increase the time and material demand on someone who is just trying to pretend they're making a cheap piece of <thing> here. I've seen people needlessly complicate to the point it's made something I really loved for a long time into something I'm indifferent to at best. (Crafting)

I miss when I didn't need to spend 2 RL hours finding pieces of shit or wood because that's common in the south for my character to make something barely more complicated than travel cakes without going to the Gaj cooking pits to sit where everyone and there brother goes. I remember using a torch and a creative ldesc to /roleplay out/ the things that are now locked into things iterated to be much more difficult than they reasonably would be IRL.

Please don't ask them to keep fixing crafting into shittier items that take more work. I want to not go from indifference to active dislike. No one's making you not go to a crafter. That's a choice on the part of the player. I'd love to see it be easier to actually get custom crafts in game myself. God knows I'm a -0- successfully implemented in 15 years of me playing this game. Something that didn't see someone micro critiquing like 'no use the word box' 'no, that's not a big enough loom' Charlie what? What big looms do we actually have that aren't special room tools for Kadius. I just... Please don't ask for things for people crafting to be changed. I can't imagine the direction which will make the role better. And people already complained so much about playing even a GMH merchant as if the role of a trader for one of her three biggest trade organizations in (IC) existence shouldn't - as a measure of common sense - one shouldn't be expected to spend a great deal of time doing that, like it was their actual job.

First to the point that they got special extra craft roles regardless of what their guild choice, now to the point they're looking for Agents but not Merchants for all the GMH roles. I loved the analyze change because it made crafting more egalitarian and fun and allowed people more ability to customize what they were making. But so many changes have been the exact opposite of that (as regards crafting and crafts specifically) - that the odds are that anything you spur people to change is going to make it more, not less, unenjoyable. Cool, another disposable 8242 tool that's going to work 5 times and be worthless. And the guy's gonna buy the items that come from it for now 10% less (to encourage PC PC interaction! don't sell to shops! spend your time hawking stuff that's not written super well in public like people enjoy a never ending Tupperware party). I just... I have a lot of optimism about a lot of things I've seen, but I've also seen a lot of things that didn't. And only a few times in a decade and a half have those been stuff that I've liked, with crafting. Where it has systematically changed to the point it went from one of my favorite things to do in game to... literally something that makes coin. (I admit part of my bitterness is my track record with attempts at making something new)