Crafting, Metals, Alloys, and Order of training

[Nikodemus]

Carbon is a residue of life. Coal is formed by dead plants being crushed together under tons of earth. Yliakum has life (don't ask me how they got there in the first place ) so it definitely has carbon and I guess there has been life down there long enough for it also to have coal.

Especially that Yliakum as we know it is 800 years old? ;P You know, when Talad and Laanx came, they found small cave and teared everythigng around it to form Yliakum as we know it. Honestly i doubt that there was enought of life capable of creating carbon resource, which we mine for. And even if it was there, it probably literally vaporised under the influence of Talad and Laanx magic, when the cave grew a lot bigger, than it was.
You know, the process is taking probably thousands times more than 800 years
You still so definetly sure if your theory?

In Yliakum we had the resources for steel before those for other alloys were available. So you could argue that steel was discovered first

I hope you aren't misunderstanding technical difficulties of developing a game, with proper setting for that game?

[Zan]

I'm still very sure of my theory .. carbon is present in many forms from the moment there is life. Coal is a whole other matter, it takes thousands of years like you said. By the way are you certain Yliakum was made susceptible to life 800 years ago? All I know is that it's inhabitants started counting about 750 years back. But there was life on Yliakum before there were people.

And there's always "Magic!" for an explanation

As for the latter, no I'm not mixing up anything .. I'm giving a plausible explanation. Namely the difference in discovery time/availability of certain materials. History on PS doesn't have to go exactly how it went on earth. So regardless of development, any random order can be explained adequately if the settings just claim that it is a lot more abundent and discovered first.

By the way I'm not saying thing should stay the way they are, I'm just giving a possible way of explaining it if they stay like this. (or until they change)

[Nikodemus]

So, there were huge trees growing all around since the moment Yliakum was formed to the time people in Yliakum started counting a shared and one common time, of which we have 750 year now? In that time the trees managed to drown in a swamp after long hundred thousands of years turning into coal? ;P
Especially that the most probable place of a swampy terrain is at the bottom, where now mining is strictly forbidden btw ;P
Also keeping in mind that water errosion working activelly for hundred thousands of years would most likely take most of the material from the top to bottom, material, which we know as the levels ;P O yay, yeah the stalactite is going to fall /o\ /o\ Run for you lives!

I was also pretty sure it was dermorians wo brought the trees, but now when i reead the story, there is a chance it got changed over the long time of its existence on thbe main site, and additionally it looks that the dermorians never reached the Yliakum ;P The rest about the is speculation now.

I still fail to see how you can claim what you are.

[Zan]

Ah but it's easy ... what you do is take the scientific part of your brain, reduce the power supply to it with about 75% and then re-evaluate the whole thing. That's how I play this game as well.

I never claimed it was a 100% watertight schientifically sufficient theory, it can't be ... but seeing this is a fantasy game in a world where there are things like magic and huge radiating crystals instead of a sun, who really cares. If you want a different reason I can think of several more who don't even try to be semi-realistic:

1) Talad and Laanx magically conjured coal into the ground when they created Yliakum.
2) There are glyphs buried underneath the earth which turn stone into coal at certain places
3) The Azure sun's radiation accelerates the normal process of decay of plantlife, turning large trees into coal over a course of a few years.
4) Pick whatever tale you want, add in a sniff of magic or abnormal physical circumstances, shake and you have yourself a adequate reason fit for any fantasy world.

[Nikodemus]

lol yeah thats easy But would be much more fun if people go mining to stone labirynths. Not because i want it so much but because this would be natural consequence of living in a place like statalactite, strange to some resources. I was thinkig that the undergroud like ours shouldnt be really equal to all the other common worlds in other MMORPGS on planet surfaces wouldbe a little boring

[Zan]

Hmm .. That sure'd make the resource prices spike. The only place with good resources would be infested with dangerous critters. It could be interesting, large mining expeditions would be sent out by the government where temporary mining outposts are created in the Stone Labyrinths. They'd last only a few weeks/months before they are overrun or depleted. (Shouldn't be too hard to code a random mining outpost generator like that in the future)

[Farren Kutter]

I think you guys missed the point on the metal timeline... It was meant that Steel is harder to get than bronze And harder to work with.

[Nikodemus]

But if there would be no coal in Yliakum, wouldnt steel production become harder in general? ;P

[Zan]

We dwelled off topic a little, I admit

Whether steel is harder to get (and consequently work with) than bronze in Yliakum ... entirely depends on the Devs.

[Natrina]

 Shouldn't the order of training follow that which, in real life, is harder to produce by the methods the game possesses? I dislike the "let's follow a pre-historic" order, PlaneShift has the technology to produce steel and it's obviously something shared by all the smiths (read: common knowledge), so it makes little sense to make each individual go through a historical order just for the sake of it. Unless it would be a smith tradition, that would make it more acceptable, I guess.

 For now it is true that only steel is used, but that is because the only "industry" we have is weapon and shield making, war things. Unless somehow steel stock becomes the cheapest metal, which it shouldn't, other metals will eventually be used just because they're cheaper. Money is currently hugely wrong, as is the economy in general, everyone is ridiculously rich these days by setting standards (how many of us couldn't afford a healthy, well trained pterosaur? Most of us has enough for a small squad of them, though law would keep us from that). Fixing the economy to become something realistic will take a long time, but my point is: don't make them force us to use all the materials just because the current economy deems it useless. When the economy is fixed and most people won't be able to afford steel weapons as if they're bread, all the other materials will, likely, be used.

[Unnamed_Source]

Like metallurgy, Smiths should start out working with the simpler materials like tin or copper and graduating to working with steel. Then you will see more weapon choices, as there will always be more new smiths than masters.

Down grade the NPC  weapon drops to lesser base materials, like tin or copper and the occational bronze/brass. Let them keep there magical abilities but make sure that the magical incentives do not surpass the stats of a standard weapon of the next grade.

NPC weapon drops with a malus prefix or sufix should be discontinued and replaced with a weapon of the next lowest rank and/or make it so they need repair before they become useful/valuable. ie 0/50.

Have the standard weapons sold at the shops be made of the lowest grade material so there is an incentive to grow up from there.

After which have a weapon wipe, so everyone starts out on equal footing and there are no old weapons still roaming the world.

Some larger weapons should only be made of the higher materials. is no tin Claymores

[Nikodemus]

Down grade the NPC  weapon drops to lesser base materials, like tin or copper and the occational bronze/brass. Let them keep there magical abilities but make sure that the magical incentives do not surpass the stats of a standard weapon of the next grade.

NPC weapon drops with a malus prefix or sufix should be discontinued and replaced with a weapon of the next lowest rank and/or make it so they need repair before they become useful/valuable. ie 0/50.

The fact in PS you go hunting for gladiators for instance, is all wrong in the first place. Decreasing the loot or something along the lines won't really change a thing.
The whole philosophy of killing NPCs in PS has to change if we want to have economy and needs Natrina describes. It would have to be simply real.
It's where the plan of having OOC and IC activities coexist fails. we can have RP game or not RP game where people RP outside game mehanics. Because you can't enjoy PLers if you take out the mob spawning, which spawn just for the sake to being killed so they can respawn again and so the PLer can have a sack full of swords he can bring on the market
Another recent topic http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=29555.0 where that concept change would help

Hehe, someone could sey i'm going off topic, bit there are complex topics and simple this one  is complex if you look deeper.

[Jeraphon]

I'm on board with the idea of metal progression. We've discussed it before with our crafting guy. I definitely think it's a good idea, if for no other reason than to spread miners out. And of course, because it just makes sense that you can't start working with steel really quickly.

So please, keep up the good work discussing this. We ARE listening.

[bilbous]

One thing that needs to be considered is that while the settings say that Yliakum is inside a stalactite the general consistency of the minerals that it is made of belies that fact. Since stalactites are formed by the ongoing deposit of minerals held in solution of water drippings there isn't likely to be a deposit of iron here another of gold there, for example. What would likely happen is that there would be layers of a particular precipitate, in a manner similar to the growth rings of trees. Also the material would likely be homogeneous over a given space of time unless it happened that there was more than one path for the water to travel causing it to pick up different solutes.

From this I conclude that the term stalactite is used merely to indicate the conical shape of surrounding rock if it could be seen from the outside and not its origin or makeup. The type of mineral placement within the realm would appear to be more metamorphic or igneous in nature than sedimentary which is the basis of stalactites and stalagmites. Of course I am no expert.

With the inclusion of magic in the settings just about anything is possible.

[rtrentc]

I'm on board with the idea of metal progression. We've discussed it before with our crafting guy. I definitely think it's a good idea, if for no other reason than to spread miners out. And of course, because it just makes sense that you can't start working with steel really quickly.

So please, keep up the good work discussing this. We ARE listening.

If you are going to add in additional metals, how complex do you want the production of steel to be. At the moment all you are using is Iron and carbon, but you also have nickel, chromium, molybdiam and others as trace elements to make such steels as stainless steel. Also you have different levels of carbon infusion in steel as well. Personally I think having High carbon steel. Low Carbon steel and Stainless Steel would be enough.

From wikipedia. -- In metallurgy, stainless steel is defined as an iron-carbon alloy with a minimum of 10.5% chromium content.