Greatest Crafter in the World

I grew up playing the Ultima series on my Commodore 64 and then on the PC. When UO came out, my mind was blown at what Lord British had created. Parallel to this my mind was filled with the writings of Tolkien and the rich fantasy world that he had set in motion for all of us to build upon. I set out to do what I had not been able to do in real life - become the greatest blacksmith who ever lived.

UO offered the first real glimpse into what that might entail but it never quite got to the promise I was hoping to reach. Surely the Master level would entail the creation of unique works of metal and weapons and armour of lore. Sadly, once EA got ahold of the content, they formulated it so that anything players created would be dwarfed by spawned items from monster encounters that were often hacked so badly that anyone who was truly interested in the RP content became disenfranchised with their prospects for fame. After all that griding to the Grand Master level, all I could do was purchase or win a runic hammer and hope for the best with each stroke of the hammer. Sadly, even the best fell short of the amazing properties that spawned items had imbued upon them.

This time, please Richard, make crafting something that players can become famous for. Let the weapons and armour my character produces become the things of legend so that I can put effort and time into projects that will produce greatness. Make it difficult, make the base materials difficult to obtain and difficult to work with so that skill will be required to work with them. But don't make it a one-shot deal where I either make the 1% roll or the item gets tossed. And please make player-crafte items comparable to the things that can spawn in treasure drops. Don't take that Grand Mastery that a player has worked at and spent their time on and make it second-best or worse. I want the elves in a distant land to pass a sword around one day and say, "Ferghus McGowan of Minoc crafted this sword. It took him three months to make it pefect and perfect it is. It has out-done any sword that our finest smiths can make. We must go and learn from him." That's the kind of experience I want from this game.

 

A good crafter must be the guarantor of quality. Perhaps there could be unique weapons crafted by Grandmaster smiths which would take a lot to achieve. These weapons would then be sold in a large smithing shop in a city and many players would buy it and everybody would assume that this guy is a real master. In other cities there could be other smith guilds.

What I did not like about the UO economy is that it destroys uniqueness of crafting if the playerbase is more than 50. What I mean is that once there is a decent amount of players playing certain craftsmen fail to be recognized as there could be numerous of them playing. If the shard population is small and there is like one GM smith on the whole shard, obviously he will be approached and credited a lot.

What I want from SotA economy is to divide the sphere of trade on the map. Such as a craftsman living in Yew can be well-known for his exceptional bows in the region, but somewhere in Skara, for instance, another guy would craft the bows of the same quality BUT he would have his own audience, his own customers and there would not be competition between the two. But if one of them decides to open another shop in the competitors city then of course it would create some sort of competition. There was never real competition in UO.

 

I do absolutely agree!

UO's system with Tagged items are great, but there was nothing really good with them. Many items found from monsters were quite a bit better, and i would like the idea to have 'Super' Quality items or so.

Looking forward to hearing more about this!

 

The only way a crafter can really be famous is if there is a way to differentiate crafters. If every crafter with X skill level is the same, then there is no way for anyone to be the greatest. Or, to look at it another way, after a certain amount of time every crafter will be the greatest, which amounts to the same thing.

My own thoughts on crafter differentiation is to let crafters specialize based on what they are making. It's more data to keep track of, but look at (a) what the crafter is making and (b) what they are making it out of and have them get better at those things. Of course, the colliery to that is that they have to get correspondingly worse at everything else (hey, you can't be the greatest at everything).

Of course, getting better might mean different things. It could mean that you fail at making it less often. It might mean that the ones you make are of a little higher quality. It could mean that it requires fewer bits of string to make them. It might mean that you make them more quickly (but if you think about it, that last one really isn't a good idea).

I've written more about those ideas and if you're interested you can read about them here <a href="http://laurenandlloyd.com/lloyd-stuff/i-want-to-bake-bread/">I Want to Bake Bread</a> and <a href="http://laurenandlloyd.com/lloyd-stuff/i-want-to-forge-swords/">I Want to Forge Swords</a>.

 

Things could be greatly customizable; dyeing armors and such; maybe different models or abilities for weapons that could be picked among crafting, along with naming weapons and different effects, ect. I've never played any other Ultima games; they where before my time, unfortunately, but I've played other MMOs and RPGs, and a highly customizable crafting system would be great for a change; instead of having the same gear as everyone else, or being stuck in a gear I don't like the look of, because it's the best for my "class" or play-style.
(Love the no class system also; really shakes up the current RPG regime.)

 

Your problem with grand master competition in UO was due to fast travel (recall/gating).
Eliminating that crutch will make it much better for your economic dreams to come true.

 

Wasn't it Ultima Online Age of Shadows that brought crafters back in parity with the best "found" items? I seem to recall having some very bad ass pieces.

 

Best crafting system I have found was SWG pre nge crafting system. A good crafter might take weeks or months to find the perfect materials and would spend hours making and remaking items until it has the stats they wanted, and they could customize to a degree if customer X wanted a faster weapon you could make it faster if they wanted a more dmging weapon you could do that. It got around which crafters made the best weapons which made the best armors, people would make a name for them selves. Never seen a system like it before or since. It truly allowed a dedicated and skilled crafter to excel and make a name for themselves.

 

Another thought came to mind in reading all of your excellent responses. In UO you could walk around and see the names of each PC above their heads easily identifying who they were. IIRC, weapons and armour and any craftable items really that were made by a GM got the name of the crafter attached to the item. What if instead of a name, players that reach GM (or equivalent) could design a mark like many crafters do. A 200x200 pixel mark would be sufficient space to create a unique logo that would identify the crafter. This would add some of that RP depth that Richard is talking about. I have some ideas from my character on UO about what I would design but I think this would add some problem-solving and mystique to the crafter at an even greater depth because the player who buys or comes into possession of an item would have to figure out the crafter from the mark. What do you guys think?

 

It's a cool idea; and I love the fact of being able to custom brand your weapon. And I do hope there are more then the "standard" weapons like maces; swords; axes, ect. I played morrowind and I loved running around with a giant crescent blade. Maybe higher tier weapons could require some sort of skill as a base line; like a high dexterity skill for daggers or rapiers; and a strength skill for maces and greatswords, knowing that there's no class specifics; it would be cool to be able to switch out to new weapons without having to change skill. Such as if you where using a greatsword; and wanted to try a mace; you could do that, and not have to increase your "blunt" or "mace" skill.

 

Chris did say something about adding a "makers mark" to weapon products. I don't know if this is something that is guaranteed to be in the game, or if it is just under consideration. Personally, I think it would be great to be able to brand your products.

 

I just listened to the Markee Dragon interview with Richard and things sound fabulous so far. I was thinking about the concept of unique items/weapons and the portrayal of unique weapons in Tolkien with the naming of some of them. This concept of truly unique items/weapons and perhaps eventually very skilled crafters who make such things could bring in an easy plot-line with something else Richard was talking about. What if a certain item or weapon was used against a large groups of monsters and that item/weapon dervied a name for itself in that battle? The crafter might become the object of disdain or revenge of those monsters and for those who are interested in the more dual experience of crafting and combat this could derive a really neat plot-line. The crafter might become wanted or even hunted for a reward. Players could either deliver the crafter or destroy the group of monsters who issued the price on his/her head to satisfy a quest. In this scenario the crafter might be kidknapped and it would be up to another player to rescue him/her and/or be up to the crafter to escape all doing this before some timer runs out on a local lord rescuing the crafter or paying off a ransom. What do you guys think?

 

I dont want my crafter to be kidnapped....

But yes I support the idea to craft something unique. It should be something that a crafter can be famous for.

Mate 1: I need a good broadsword.
Mate 2: I know of a great blacksmith named Dias Blackwing who crafts fine broadswords of vengeance. His shop can be found in the city of Vesper just by the sea side.

Something to that effect will be really really satisfying.

 

Add imbuing of attributes, not just by craft, but by deed. A weapon that has killed a great troll gets better at trolls. Kill plenty of trolls and the sword gets a name. Some old weapons will become legendary as they accrue attributes by deed and by glimmer.

 

That's fine for the wielder but how does the craftsman differentiate himself? Say, that at grandmaster you learn one of 20 special attributes. Work harder, get another one of those 20. But no one ever gets them all.

 

The problem is availability, these weapons need to be rare. perhaps having a reagent with a cool down kind of like moon cloth was in WoW.