Smithing Guide My way-

[Montenegro]

Well, in real life the best armor or weapon metals fall into two categories:  common, or uncommon.  Simply put, during the middle ages the best metal known to make armor and weapons out of was iron.  I was also more common than the materials for bronze (as far as I know.  At least, today that\'s the case).  It wasn\'t as if it were extra expensive or something for the ore, just really really really hard to make something consistently of good quality.  From what I\'ve read, the outcome was often a little random.  Perhaps something like that could be the case.  It would also be interesting if perhaps the better alloys required some hard to obtain thing to work, such as a really really hot fire that could only be produced with a special steam engine bellows, that only the undersea elves could produce, but since they had no use for it they never made any.... or something like that.  I just think that making the solution in such an uncreative fashion is really boring.  Maybe we should consider a certain weapon type as being unsmithable, rather than a particular alloy or metal.  For instance, maybe the deadliest weapon would be a bat\'leth (that klingon weapon) but no smiths could actually make one (because no-one knows the technique).   Id rather have that as a somewhat believable restriction than a purely artificial thing.  

Hey, maybe the best armor could be organic, like a very rare crustacean that could be attached to the skin and would then grow a protective living armor over your body.  That would definately be unsmithable AND would be very cool and unique.  Plus, it would only be usable by the person it grew on, and since the conditions for the initial growth might require something dangerous, it would never really proliferate much.  

[meket]

your ideas catch my interest. it would be a bunch beter if it was liek that. i just dont want the best weapon/armour to be made as easily as some other game made it so easy to make.

[Dumb Woob]

uhhh... \"Easy to make\" isn\'t what i would call over 2000 hours of gameplay...

[Montenegro]

I wonder why the Kran wouldn\'t use weapons or armor?  Surely a heavy mall would be more effective than their bare hands at fighting.  And Just think about how much metal they could carry.  Quarter inch thick steel plate would definately offer some protection.  What would be really cool is if you could eat rare minerals and grow your own weapons and armor, like turn one hand into something like a cestus, and the other into a maul.  And maybe they could grow some sort of external crystalline sheath for protection.  Anyway...

[Dumb Woob]

you\'ve got some crazy ideas monte...

[Montenegro]

MWAHAHAHAAHAH!


The voices in my head came up with those, not me!!  :evil:X(



...kidding...
.......____.................
....../ @@ \\...............
.......|--^-|...............
........\\__/.................
..............................
..............................

[Bill]

The Kran have natural \"Kran Armor\", an no one said they can\'t use weaponry.

And, from what I have heard, there will be more than \"Bronze, Iron, Steel etc.\" armor. Some will be made by the dwarves and have a certain look, some will be made by Demorians and have their certain look, etc. etc.

[Montenegro]

I could have sworn I say some of the mods saying something about there not being a total economic smith crunch because - in part at least - the kran wouldn\'t use any of it.  Dunno, I hope Im at least a little wrong.

[Montenegro]

since everyone is so interested in mining and smithing...again...

[alcapalis]

well i\'m not interested in mining and smithing..
i think that mining and smithing causes that there are lots of little loser characters (dont take that to hard, i just mean that they are weak) that are just making money and will miss all the adventuring fun!

[cmhitman]

hi i\'m cmhitman i think  mining would suck in this game period.

[Montenegro]

Please, only add to this thread if its ACTUALLY about mining/smithing.   That does not include the basically un-useful statement that you don\'t like it.  If you say that, you should state WHY.   This isn\'t a hard concept people, so lets give a try at being creative and constructive for a change.

[alcapalis]

i think that mining and smithing causes that there are lots of little loser characters (dont take that to hard, i just mean that they are weak) that are just making money and will miss all the adventuring fun!

Aint i stating why i dont like smithing and mining over there??
well.. anyways.. i explained it more detailed in another thread i think..  

[tygerwilde]

personally, I liked the way that they did it in DAoC, except for the no mining skill, I like being able to gather my own materials rather than having to buy them, I\'d like the ability even if the stuff I mined didn\'t have as high a quality as the stuff I bought...

anyway, say you were a weaponsmith, first you choose the weapon you\'re going to make, with a 0 skill, you choose the smallest weapon, a dagger... make the hilt, (failing, and likely losing some of your materials along the way) that takes like 30 seconds real time, then you make the blade, same as before, you probably lose some material, and it again, takes another 30 seconds, and then you have to put them together, which is another 30 seconds, after failures and the time it takes to make the components, it usually takes about 5 minute per weapon and you don\'t get a point in a skill every time you make one, so it could be a half hour before you can make the next weapon in the list, higher metals require more skill

the thing that balances trade weapons is the fact that it really does no good to sell a low lvl character a weapon that\'s high lvl, because 1. they don\'t have the money 2. they can\'t use it, all weapons are given a lvl, and if you\'re using a weapon that is beyond your lvl of experience, it doesn\'t do as much damage as it could.

after three weeks of constant gaming, I only had a 500 skill in WS and was only crafting mid lvl weapons

another big issue was that in order to craft seige weapons you have to have high skill in all areas of crafting, not just WS, which puts a lot of emphasis on the trade skills, lots of people invest time in them, since seige weapons can\'t be bought...


sorry, I talk about it in both past and present because it\'s still popular, but I quit playing it... too difficult to lvl solo in that one, they imbalanced some of the monsters around lvl 17 or so and you don\'t get nearly enough xp from the ones you can kill

[Jalix Amundus]

All but the rarest ores should be available at the smith\'s shop, the others you would have to go to difficult areas to find. Areas with dangerous monsters. You should be able to find and forge every kind of metal, otherwise the skills would become obsolete, and who would want to waste their time on a skill that is going to be useless in 5 hours, anyway?

There should be some original weapons and armors that can be obtained from quests, and it doesnt say what they are made from. Maybe there could be some metals that could be rarely obtained from difficult enemies or quests. And who says metals are the only things weapons and armor can be made of? What about leathers, skins, and scales? Each bit of material should have different qualities, say ranging from 1-100, randomly determined, perhaps with mining skills implemented into it somehow. So if you are really dedicated, and want to make the best possible equipment, you set aside all your best quality materials for one task. The lower quality materials would be less effective and durable, and couldnt hold as powerful of enchantments. It could go by weight, how much is needed to make each item. For example a longsword would use say 6 pounds of steel. But a suit of chainmail could easily take in the upwards of 75 or 100. Of course the ore that was mined would have to be purified, and a bunch of the metal would be lost by an inexperienced craftsman....yup....ok...there\'s my 2 cents on this topic for now...