Miscellaneous skills

There are at least a couple of other skills which could be made relevant in the game. One of these is Persuasion, if we actually had to persuade NPCs to do something. Another would be Reading, if we could increase our knowledge of the history, geography, flora, fauna, etc, by reading appropriate books in the game, building on a knowledge base that we could access like an encyclopedia. Another would be Riding, if we could have mounts that we could ride in combat, the skill would improve our ability to stay in the saddle, leap, etc. Sailing could also be a skill that allows you to know how to sail faster and keep from drifting.

I can imagine players competing with each other to win the loyalty of the locals in order to create a faction that places them in power. Persuasion could be raised by successfully getting NPCs to carry out your requests or otherwise persuading them to your way of thinking. How you dress, how you converse and what you offer them would all effect the outcome. Different approaches would have different effects, depending on the NPC.

Your skill in reading, and reading the appropriate tomes, could affect your skills in a number of ways. Your ability to find a good source of a resource, and your ability to harvest them to their full potential, could be affected by your reading. Your ability to plot out a course to another location could be affected by your reading. Your ability to find quest locations, people and items could also be affected by your reading. Some players could take the time and effort to become expert in one or more fields, and their expertise would positively impact the effectiveness in the group they are currently in. Books would not be cheap, such that would-be sages could be easily found actively studying in the libraries of the realm, to maintain their expertise.

 

Good ideas. I'm not sure there will be non combat skills other then crafting at this point. I can't recall to be honest.

 

I especially like the idea of persuading NPCs and using books as a means of gaining access to varying levels of knowledge in different types of lore. Our ability to comprehend higher levels of knowledge could be limited by overall reading skill level. Only time will tell if the devs consider such things.

 

I think Richard Garriott is more of a fan of allowing you to gain the knowledge yourself by ACTUALLY reading the books and trying to convince NPCs with your own knowledge (you know, by knowing the proper keywords) rather than having a automated skill check that makes everything look trivial just because you happened to spam-click every available book in the game.

I can't speak for him, of course, but that's the vibe I'm getting.