weapons are rare.

[Dalec]

Originally posted by SnowWolf
First off, I have to tip my hat to Whemy who has been arguing very intelligently in this post - a very pleasant surprise!

Next I have to say that I agree with him 100% - keeping the number of decent weapons in circulation down is critical to the idea of the PS experience system.

I won\'t repeat the finer points of this arguement because they\'re well known by anyone who knows their stuff.

Instead I present for your approval the following analogy...

In Hollywood MANY people are trying to make it big and score hot acting jobs, however, only a SMALL percent of these people ever make it to the point where they can consider it \"profitable\" - instead they take on small parts in addition to their normal jobs for the shear love of what they do, in the small hope that they\'ll one day get lucky. So when someone says, \"Is acting profitable?\" the answer is really no, save for the exceptional few who have the right mixture of talent and luck.

This is what I imagine the adventurer in PS to be like and this is why it is key to make good weapons hard to come by - everyone who tries their hand at adventuring cannot succeed (or at least succeed with ease) if it is too easy it is not fun for anyone - this is universally true.

Another note is that although peasants would have things like knives and axes they would be TREASURED items even though they were of little value. Losing a key tool like your ax or knife would be a major loss in medieval times and could even prove fatal.

As this sounds great and wonderful, in reality it is a terrible idea. I mean, you guys are willing to sacrifice everything for realism! That\'s just dumb! Who wants to play a video game where they are a farmer and their only weapon is a pitchfork. Who wants to play a game where only 5% of adventurers actually manage to aquire profit at adventuring. So while in theory your idea could be fun, no one wants to play a game where only a few people have swords and good equipment while the rest of us....farm.

[SnowWolf]

Ald\'Amun Dungeonrunner: Why? Didn\'t you read my post? People do it because of the excitement! The risk IS the reason. If everything comes easily then it isn\'t fun. The initial saving to come up with a decent weapon to go adventuring is half the fun - it\'s what drives you to keep playing. The best way to prove this statement is to consider the extremes - what would happen if you had infinite hp? The game would be borning because you could never die - I mean, you\'d learn to kill things faster, but there would never be any risk.


Dalec: Sorry about that, I should have explained my post better. I am all for screwing realism. I don\'t want to sacrafice fun for realism I promise. The point I tried to make is that IRL (where we all really live) there are a lot of examples of how the most ADDICTIVE things provide extremely desirable rewards with high risk and at low rates of success. Being an actor. Gambling. SOOO many others. It\'s the rush! I do agree that we have to balance things so everyone can have fun - this is why I said in () that everyone should be able to do it with enough work.

In summary, I don\'t think there should be a few adventurers with everyone else farming (realism) I think that to start out some people will farm or teach or have another job to support their nightly adventures. Of course some will play it safe and farm more, but you\'ll still get those few that blow it all adventuring and then have to drag their sorry butts back into town looking to get some quick cash for food and ale.

When considering real life I never try to suggest we make the game like real life - I only try to draw examples from real life that carry over into the game. You can\'t escape your pyschology! The key is to find out what makes things \"fun\" and then implement them into the game in their simplest form. The \"essence\" of fun if you will.

Sound better guys? If not continue arguing your points and I\'ll try to come up with a better response - just don\'t give up on us ok?

[Dalec]

That makes more sense. But I still feel that eliminates a lot of the \'freedom\' you are supposed to have in a MMORPG. What if I don\'t ever want to farm or teach? I should have to just so I can go slay a few monsters? Well, I am more of the person who would rather do it your way for roleplaying purposes, but I wouldn\'t want to feel pressured to have to hold down a job so I can do the fun stuff. As you can see, it becomes much to like RL for my tastes.

[Ald'Amun Dungeonrunner]

I don\'t want to work my butt off getting ready to go on my first adventure, I want to grab a few things and go...then work my butt off getting better stuff...Basic equipment should be common...IT\'S BASIC YOU MORONS! LEATHER! BWEEET!! KILLED A COW!!! I HAVE LEATHER ARMOR!!! WOW THAT WAS HARD!!! see what I\'m saying? getting powerful items is difficult...basic is easy...how are you supposed to get anything if you don\'t have anything? how are you supposed to make money without at least something to start out with? can I kill monsters armed to the teeth, when I have nothing? Probably not...you have to be able to have some equipment or you\'ll never get off the ground...*bashes head on desk and tries to get his mind off of this stupidity*

Edit:Sorry for being so argumentative today...I\'m probably ruffling a lot of feathers...

[Kixie]

Now lets get one thing straight. Weapons should be rare. Killing just about any normal animal should be VERY easy. A 5 year old with a stick can kill a rabit, possum, and a cow. They arent going to attack him so he cant really get hurt... Welll maybe not a cow, but if he had like a pocket knife he could. my point is, weapons should be very hard to obtain, but the balance should come with regular animals being very easy to kill, battles not as fast, and as far as the weapon mastering goes very quick. However getting stats like strength should take months of dedication and work to get to a somewhat high point. Thats how things work, thats how bodies and organic things work. IM not being a realism nazi, im saying this is how organic things work, you cant change all of biology in a game with swords and a medieval setting. If your gonna sacrifice one realistic aspect your going to have to change others. And another thing. There are TONS of unrealistic MMORPGs, why not build the first one? Seriously you act like im bad because i want a little realism. Maybe its because realism as far as most of the people in planeshift once, hasnt ever been tried, or completed. But your entitled to your opinion and i respect it, however at the same time you cant just bash mine.

[SnowWolf]

My feathers are in good working order I assure you, however name calling doesn\'t help your argument.

I agree that you should be able to start right off the bat - however the point of my previous threads was that one must balance the rewards with the risks involved.

To me freedom is very important in an RPG - however, what good is freedom if all of your choices have the same outcome? The fun comes from making risky decisions - if you want to start off quick and never have to work a job, there will have to be trade offs - in the end these trade offs, although appearing to just be a pain in the butt, will actually make everything worth it.

To re-examine the hollywood analogy - what we learned was that, even though the odds are against you, MANY real people still do it and enjoy themselves. When I refer to real life it\'s usually to underscore a pyschological concept that is applicable to gaming.

One concept is that the worth of something to a person is directly proportional to how hard it was to get, or the meaning attached to it.

To tie this into another thread where the realism argument came up - showing statistics as numbers - people say that we should keep numbers because people like watching their numerical stats - this is only partially true. The actual underlying concept here is that people like instant gratification - when they kill a monster they want to see that they\'ve accomplished something. This is shown IRL in the case of people who start to work out - most people quit working out before they can see the results of their training because the benefits, although immediate, aren\'t visible - people need to know that they\'re getting something for what they\'re doing....

To truely revolutionize the MMORPG community, we as the PS community need to identify and become familar with as many of these concepts as possible....

Thanks for reading!

[Deddarus]

heres a suggestion (i did mention it somewhere b4)

Monsters drop appropriate loot (dragons drop dragon hide etc)
monsters acquire items from players they kill and these items are added to the loot
all appropriate tools can be used as (poor) weapons (eg the farmers pitchfork, the miners pickaxe, the tanners knife etc)
weapons can be destroyed dependant on their quality

result

only smiths can make swords etc (except maybe rare magical swords etc... tho these could be crafted by extremely skilled mage/smith combos).. this ensures their valid role in society

weapons arent dropped left-right + centre... only dropped by creatures that have proven they can kill a player weilding the weapon

difficult monsters become legendary along with their \'horde\'

new players can get right into the action but if they break their tool they loose the income from their trade until they can get a new one

[ered gorgoroth]

may b a special task or adventure shuld b put in so that at the end anyone who goes through it should have the choise of chhosing between a weapon or tria.

[Dalec]

Originally posted by Deddarus
heres a suggestion (i did mention it somewhere b4)

Monsters drop appropriate loot (dragons drop dragon hide etc)
monsters acquire items from players they kill and these items are added to the loot
all appropriate tools can be used as (poor) weapons (eg the farmers pitchfork, the miners pickaxe, the tanners knife etc)
weapons can be destroyed dependant on their quality

result

only smiths can make swords etc (except maybe rare magical swords etc... tho these could be crafted by extremely skilled mage/smith combos).. this ensures their valid role in society

weapons arent dropped left-right + centre... only dropped by creatures that have proven they can kill a player weilding the weapon

difficult monsters become legendary along with their \'horde\'

new players can get right into the action but if they break their tool they loose the income from their trade until they can get a new one

Where is the logic in this? So what happens when there is a busy day and lots of groups = almost no deaths of players. That would mean no weapons. And I don\'t want to lose my weapon every time I die.

Whemy: I have never bashed your idea, I only used it as an example. I am saying that your idea of having less weapons would interfere with the fun of the game. There is no real advantage to having weapons be so rare. Of course you can make the pathetic argument, \"I don\'t want to be handed everything,\" but that is just stupid. In EQ weapons were fairly common, but even at lvl 53 (before the 65th lvl increase) I never had enough cash and was using weapons that were barely up to snuff with what I was fighting.

And what is this obsession with Midieval times? This is not a Midieval game last time I checked, the only similarities would possibly the economies and maybe architecture, but even those are different. People keep bringing up peasants in Midieval times. The fact is, your average peasant worked his entire life on a farm with not enough food and disease rampant. Anyone who argues can take a history class. I don\'t know about you guys, but I don\'t want to play a game as a peasant. Another example of how realism is getting in the way of fun.

[Deddarus]

Originally posted by Dalec

Where is the logic in this? So what happens when there is a busy day and lots of groups = almost no deaths of players. That would mean no weapons. And I don\'t want to lose my weapon every time I die.

Then get a weapon from a smith.... looting is not the only way of getting a weapon and to make it by far the easiest way you negate the whole purpose of having a smithing skill

as for loosing your weapon every time u die... u wouldnt... sometimes u\'d loose a bit of gold... sometimes u\'d loose something unimportant (eg a bandage or an empty bag).... without risk of loosing items (seems pvp aint gonna provide this risk from what i can tell) u end up with a server full of items... which leads to depreciation of item value... which leads to a crappy economy (believe me ive seen this happen)

plus.. if a group does go and kill the same creature spawn regularly then the loot they get will decrease, encouraging them to travel further afield... thus exploration is encouraged (ive seen servers where players only occupy about 10% of the map and the rest is left stagnant)

from what you have said u give the impression (rightly or wrongly) that you want the only reasonable way of acquiring a weapon to be through hunting.... regardless of where and how often

[sashok]

I am with whemy on this, and I will explain myself.  I somewhat recently played a game caled runesc***(you know waht I mean ), I\'m sure you all heard of it.  Well, in that game anyone, and I mean anyone can get top notch weapons just by asking(of course it\'s easier if you have a friend).  almost everyone is a smith and makes very good weapons.  They are all loaded with money and resources so it\'s nothing to them to make you a sword.  I LIKE REALISM.  I don\'t like working my ass off for a month to get gold, just to see a newb walking around with same sword I worked for.  The same goes for all smithing jobs.  Things have to be hard to find/make and expensive to buy.

I agree with all of you that initial items are necessary, they help out in the start.  There should be plenty of iron swords around for everyone.  But not the same goes for good weapons and armor.

In ancient japan there used to be 1 single smith that could make best swords in the whole smithing community.  Obviously only richest samurai could afford one of those.  Single sword took years to make.

Now, let\'s examine Runesc***(you know waht I mean ), and I\'m sure other mmorpgs are same in this.  The sword takes 5 minutes top to put together(if you have all resources).  Now, that\'s lame.  I propose that good swords should take a week to make(even when you found all the resources needed).  

By the way, same goes for armor, shields, magic items, etc.

Yes, I think there should be players that walk around with best swords/items while others do not.  The others can only drool looking at it.  I think it takes away the fun for the nondedicated players, but adds fun to dedicated players.  So in reality there should be a ratio of people who have top notch, unique swords to those who don\'t.

1 to 500 players should be able to obtain a sword/item like that.  That could take them years, but hey, we are talking about the best weapons here, not everyday weapons.

As for creeps dropping weapons, now that takes away all realism.  As for weapons lying around everywhere, same thing, it\'s just unheard of.  This IS mmorpg, and i\'m not saying CHANGE it\'s meaning.  I\'m just saying look at the ancient times of japan, europe and make some conclusions to yourself, this is rping after all.  I don\'t want to RP in a game that doesn\'t even resemble the ancient REAL world, but shows some unreal wonderland where items are all on floor, anyone can grab

[Deddarus]

nicely put

i\'d like to offer up a suggestion tho as an alternative to making 1 item take a week to make (as i think this may be considered tedious)

make weapons be crafted in parts and assembled

eg a sword
*Craft hilt (from a selection offering different levels of grip and defense for the user... ie crappy hilts = less effective parrying and dropped swords during fight)
*craft blade (from a selection offering different widths, styles etc ... ie broad blade = requires more str to swing)

this could also work for other weapons:

axe- handle, blade
arrow - feather, shaft, head
mace - handle, ball (spikey, not-spikey)
hammer - handle(length), head (pointy, flat, bumpy like a meat tenderiser)

u get the point

anyways.. what was i saying... oh yeah... each part could take a little while to craft then a further crafting time would be required to attatch them together.... thus to create a weapon will take a bit longer and have 3 or 4 fail chances

also.. this allows for more variety in crafted weapons

eg

craft +5 fire attack hilt
craft +5 energy drain blade
combine both
recieve +5F+5ED sword

[Xanaroth]

I think it is good to give smiths some more power by being the only option to get certain armor and weapons, but if you have to give them good money and items to create them for you, what makes you so sure that the smith will then return that verry rare weapon, instead of just keeping it for himself?

I would say that every1 can make weapons if you want that, or that you need a certain lvl to make weapons. like a smith lvl 10 but with his weapon crafting @ 20, could make the same stuff as a lvl 30 or 40 knight with no crafting. that way the smiths will have a bones of being able to make good weapons sooner, but doesn\'t press people to find a smith and hope he tis trustworty.

About time, in a starwars game the strongest weapon is the lightsaber. In one of these you have to make it yourself, others cant make it for you. You need normal and rare stuff, taking between 1 minute and several weeks to get 1 ingredient. Of course you need several ingrdients.
When you then have finally all ingredients you would have to make them useable, and then make the weapon. And that making would itself also cost hours/days/weeks. (with ofcourse being a smith lowers the time) .  Because the only way to get the strongest weapon is to make it yourself, it would become a quest as well.

No-one will be forced to trust smithers whom they dont know. Everyone can make everything. But the lvl you need to make something if you aint a smith, or the more time you will need when not being a smith, will make sure being a smith will still hold advantages.

everything above can be changed, it is just a simple tought that might bring up ideas that with a bit working could turn out good.

[Deddarus]

as for trusting a smith.. that applys to all trades.. and i reckon the devs wil prolly put in some kind of security system

eg

secure trading window (would require payment after item is complete)
NPC vendors/vendor stones (to sell items safely)
etc

[Kiva]

Don\'t you guys worry at all. As far as I have been informed, getting the best sword in the shop won\'t be easy. It WILL take several months of monster bashing to get the money for it. Then, of course, there will be the special/enchanted weapons which will, in a later version of PS, be dropped by the top-notch monsters who have acquired them eons ago, by killing legendary heros and such, or through quests, where some old mage sealed his sword in a magical stone, and only the right person could pull it out (I think we all know about that story ). But anyways, you can all be sure that swords are, and will be, precious items, however a scythe is a formidable weapon, it just isn\'t of the same quality. Your scythe chan get chopped to pieces if you accidently block with it, however it takes many upon many hits to fully break a sword, and make it unusable.

As for smithes making l33t special unique super duper d00d weapons +10... No. Those weapons aren\'t made any more, they were made before time was time, during the days where both Laanx and Talad ruled the world, and guided their people, and these items were magically enchanted to stay unbreakable, so if someone from the new days was to create a unique sword, he or she would need to be in close touch with the gods. No mortal should be able to craft a godly item.