Makers Mark -- (Dev) Replied

will there be a "makers mark" when creating items of exceptional quality?

 

I would like, "exceptional quality, made by Darkblade of the blacksmith guild"

 

One of the developers has mentioned a "makers mark", but so far it sounds like it is just an idea and not a certainty.

 

I do believe that there is a very high demand for the 'Makers Mark'. I think most players will want to have this, myself included.

I do have one reservation. I really do NOT want to see items with impossibly long names. It would be nice instead, to be able to examine items in the GUI and see a Makers Mark: Darkblade.

It would be even cooler also to have the option of choosing a mark that can be engraved on an item.. (which would take the form an overlayed texture) so you could actually see it.

It's probably beyond the scope of what's currently intended for the game if there was a way to design your own mark..or use a family or guild crest which is another idea I might contemplate.

 

Richard's obsession with in game content should lead to a great system for people to make special marks. I'd love to see this implemented and I think there is a pretty good chance we'll see it in the final product. If there are actual drawings/style associated with these maker's mark how do we ensure they are trademarked/copyrighted?

There are really 3 options in my opinion:
1 - open world only people's lack of time or effort is going to prevent them from copying a popular mark
2 - implement a wildly complex and inefficient (think minor changes) system for identifying duplicates
3 - law and order, virtually. one player files a grievance against the other and the ruling judges, the public, or even LB could determine if a violation has occurred and what the penalty should be.

 

I would imagine that a maker's mark would be tied to the character's name.

Having the option of not putting the mark on an item would be useful if a crafter wanted to be anonymous for some reason.

 

This is something I HIGHLY agree with and want! The makers mark was a symbol of the work and dedication you put into your character during the time of UO, once I hit my GrandMaster Blacksmith, hit the hammer to the sword and crit, it becomes my trademark. My name for all to admire, as they carry my weapon into battle. It was an awesome feeling when you jump on another character and months down the road are questing with someone or even lose a friend and they want you to loot them so they don't lose their stuff, and you pull out their weapon which has your name on it.

I also don't want long nonsense marks, keep it simple, your name or nickname. This is a huge thing for me and makes it more immersive as well.

 

Well you'll be happy to know we are getting the maker's mark except.. it will be an actual mark rather than your name.. it's a custom image you'll be able to upload (for a fee). It's going in along with custom crests. So you'll see it in-game ON the weapon or other crafted item as a texture overlay.. probably a bump map.

They still might display the maker's name if there's a mark on it.. just not sure how they plan to do that.

 

What would be great, is if at a certain level in both crafting, and in guild/township loyalty, a separate option was available to label the items differently. Such examples could be "crafted by PaxLair Armories" or "crafted by Wotan of PaxLair". (In these examples, Wotan is the character name, and PaxLair is the guild/township name).

 

The thought had occured me of having multiple maker's marks. Though in this case we're really talking a normal map overlay on an item. I'm not sure what they plan to do as a text display but having that option does sound pretty cool.

 

I just think some flavor text, like: 'Crafted by - DarkBlade'; would be good enough.

 

@Darkblade: Yes, a Makers Mark system will be in the game. It was one of the hallmarks of Ultima Online that we listed internally when initially discussing game features. I expect a simple system like many of you have mentioned initially with many great ideas already on how to expand the system.

We all like the idea of potentially using a image symbol along with text but many technical details need to be flushed out before we can commit to specifics. Giving crafters a choice of which mark to add is a great idea.

 

Thanks @B for always reading the threads and replying to us. I was hoping for this as well and am glad to see it is going to be a well planned part of the crafting game.

 

I just learned about this project/game tonight so I haven't been able to fully read all the details of what will be in game yet. I would like to see the ability to put a maker's mark on an item at lower skill levels. Assuming skills are based on a 0 to 100+ scale, the ability to apply a marker's mark to an item could at level 75 instead at 100. For example, A broadsword crafted by "Player name". However, at level 100 a customized marker's mark could be added. Example, "Custom item name" crafted by "Player name"). I also like the idea of a crafter's logo or symbol that can be physically placed on an item.

 

Each town and city (but not village) could have a unique 'baseline' Maker's Mark image, with an additional area for the imprint of the specific Guild/individual maker. A 'two-stamp' approach, the first stamp being for geographic origin, the second for artisanal creator.

Villages would, and should be required to use a second-tier stamp of 'their' town/city -- a messier, more complex sigil.

Additional (optional) elements could include quality delimiting marks (e.g. "proof" marks for particular levels of quality), and date marks. (Who wants the first Titian, even if it isn't as high a quality as his later work?)

 

Marks with dates.. that's a pretty interesting idea. It would certainly give a new level of depth to the item. It would need to be a game generate normal or diffuse map I should think.. either that or perhaps a lore skill could identify the date an item was made. I can just see a market for collecting crafted items made around a certain time.. as the older they are the more of those items disappear making them a rarity simply by the date they were made.

 

Ability to add a mark to your creations, using a "rune" generator in game. Think of say japeenese writing with the vast variety of images. Each person could have a rune like symbol they can assign to their character to put on their stuff. Perhaps when you hover over the makers mark it shows their name and maybe title and guild. The mark once created cant be duplicated EXCALTY.. its locked to that person. the hover over would tie to the creators account so if I made a sword, say a year ago.. and I was using a different tile and so forth, when you hover over it, it shows my current information, not my old.

Maybe even it provides a way for you to contact the maker (not just a "send message" but maybe the equivalent of say.. latitude and longitude of where my house or shop is), so that its a way for crafters to have more business find them. If you need RP justification for the extra abilities of the mark (im willing to toss it because this is something that is to cool, even without rp justification but if you REALLY need it), just consider the mark a magical rune. Maybe its an ability that crafting stations have so even if your not skilled in making a magical rune, your crafting stations have the ability to add them for you.

 

I don't like the magical rune thing.. I might craft something and put my mark on it but if I'm not a magic user than how can the mark be magical? What if I don't want to pay a magic user to make some special magical tool for me to put the mark on? No I think there's a better way.. a Lore skill. A well educated character could recognize the mark and know where that crafter is from.

I don't believe in free magical advertising.. but a crafter can always advertise perhaps by writing and distributing a book (or flyer) let's say. Or perhaps there's a registry of maker's marks you can research to discover a crafter's last known town of residence.

Probably one of the bigger challenges to actually putting a mark ON the object is properly mapping the image to appear in the right spot.. on every craftable that can receive the mark. It's one extra step for everything.. though it would be VERY cool. It makes etching runes that much trickier though and you'd have limited space to do it in.. and you'd have to have a way to be able to read those runes.. an extra UI element where you can zoom in and rotate an object to see the mark & runes clearly enough to read.

My understanding was the image based mark WAS going in but I guess that's still up in the air? In which case it'd work like custom family & guild crests.. you design it and pay to have it reviewed and put in-game which would be tied to your account so only you could use it.

 

Magic runes an rp justification example only. For people that need a justification, come up with your own individual one. Thats the beauty of RP and sandbox.. Not needing someone to say "this is why it works this way".

For something like this, because of the coolness factor and functionality i dont need an rp justification. For those that do.. You can say how and why it got there using any rp reason you want

 

@Bowen: Very good point about the UI/visual concerns.

A 'quick and dirty' solution is that each mark is a small squiggle within a known geometric (a dodecahedron, for old-timer D&D'ers, might be nice). Every mark. Until you activate the mark, i.e. bring it up to 'close focus', when the mark appears with the background set to the material on which it is (one background per class of material, iron, steel, cloth...okay, we can allow color changes). Thus each mark is only seen "face on up close" as a specific image, one view per mark.

Which matches, really, how marks are actually experienced. If you are an antiquarian, archeologist, historian, or collector, you will look at an object to see whether a mark is 'present'; and only if and when you find one, do you you bring that item up to close focus -- often times, having to further use a magnifying lens to focus in and get the 'pure image' of the mark.