Suggestions for Character Learning and Leveling

I have only joined the community, but have been reading posts on various threads for about 3 hrs. So far I've noticed that many of the comarisons on how game play will evolve reference previous versions of Uo or Wow.
I'm going to reference Horizons (later renamed Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted)
One of the main draws for this game is among the ability to create your characters race you can become a dragon and through leveling and questing learn to fly.
Additional races include elf, dwarf, druid, satyr, dryad (fairy-like race), half-giant, dryad, fiend.
Another main draw is that at anytime you may choose to join an adventure or craft school or switch to already joined school (You can level all schools to 100). You can play this game forever for free but you are limited 1 Human character and no credit card is asked for.There are 21 craft schools, 2 of them are for drgons only, which give them the ability to build lairs on dragon plots. There are no restrictions or skill losses when switching schools, although leveling related schools such as miner=mining and blacksmith=smelting increase basic skills at higher rates, so it becomes a choice of which to level first because related schools have other skillsets as well as the basic ones mentioned above.
There are 29 adventure schools (non-dragons cannot join the dragon school dragons cannot join any other adventure school).
Adventure schools gain abilities and some of them transfer when joining or switching switching to certain other schools. For instance if you are in druid school and have Cloak of Thorns ability it will not transfer if you join Mage school, but will if you join Shaman school. There is an overall adventure rating which reduces some of your overall skills the more schools you join and level up, but I have found that it is negligable factor in the overall game play.
Ok, that's some of the background for suggestions I am about to make.
Since this game seems to be geared to single character play, I would suggest that the game have NPCs that teach skills instead of joining a school. It could possibly implement leveling by a combination of quest and purchases from npc and use of the skill. For instance if you went to a mage you could possibly learn to create spells as well as cast them.
Here is a link for Istaria school skills for adventure and craft.
http://istariareference.com/schools.asp
Thanx, Katscratch Fever

 

@Katscratch Fever

I can't tell if you're advertising for that game or not. I'd probably edit out what you bolded there because it does sound like a pitch.

Other than that, SotA isn't single player but can be played as such if the player chooses.

I do like the premise of having schools or trainers or an apprenticeship system. I'm a huge advocate for that especially when it comes to learning skills through questing, and the use of time and money sinks to learn skills.

I've made a proposal to the Devs before of doing just that with mundane skills that any character can learn (with the distribution of those trainers in different locales) and exceptional or legendary skills that can only be discovered through conversation, investigation, reading, and observation (for example, seeing an NPC pull off some stunning, unrecognized combat or magic skills during a seige event). The same could apply for crafting skills as well (noticing an unusual piece of armor or weaponry and enquiring about its origins/ maker). Coupled with learning is actually learning something about the skill in the form of lessons (hence the time sink) which would confer information such as strengths, weaknesses, history, item requirements (reagents), etc. Other than the time and gold sink attached to learning it allows for players to develop unique skill sets and allows for making information regarding legendary skills a commodity to be traded amongst players because of the cognitive steps required in acquiring these skills.

Unfortunately, I think they are sticking to skill trees because it works with the XP-Level Currency Exchange system (they don't call it that; I do) which is unfortunate because it's probably more simple and something with which everyday gamers are familiar.

 

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound like a pitch.
My thinking more in the sense of possiblity that someone who hadn't ever looked at that getting a free look might give them a chance to filter in some other suggestions from a perspective other than UO or Wow.

 

No worries at all; moderators can be a bit overzealous at times and I didn't want your thread to get messed with because your suggestion definitely has merit.