As the owner of a private forging cartel which I one day hope to open up to the public, I'm working on creating designs that I feel will be marketable. I also use the cartel to create designs that I wish for personal use, for family and/or those nearest to me, though.

Now, I won't be presumptious and say that people will be clamouring to get instances of particular designs that I have created, since everybody has their own taste, and I have a particular theme for my personal items. However, when I envision certain items as being unique for just myself, it causes some problems.

Primarily, allowing general populace to hold membership in my cartel will mean that more people than I care to police will have potential access to these supposedly unique designs. If I were to have completely exclusive control over the membership, then I'm cutting my own throat by not having members who would pay to use my other designs. I could (theoretically, though I just tried it and it didn't work) trash the unique designs, but then if I lose the items somehow, I would have to pay and wait to resubmit the design, maybe having to wait until the next year if I happened to have used up my slots, before I can reforge another.

And really, collecting another 1 million gold to start another cartel specifically for personal designs is... a bit over the top .

So... after that long backstory, my idea is basically allowing permissions to be set for cartel designs.


For example:

100h, 100m ex-DESIGN 1034 SET PERMS GRIBBLE
You allow Gribble access to the design for a lightning-etched katana.


100h, 100m ex-DESIGN 1034 LIST PERMS
The following people may access the design for a lightning-etched katana:
Shinza
Gribble


100h, 100m ex-DESIGN 1034 REMOVE PERMS GRIBBLE
You remove Gribble's access to the design for a lightning-etched katana.

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As with manse permissions, this may extend to organisational classification...

100h, 100m ex-DESIGN 1034 SET PERMS PALADINS
You allow members of The Paladins access to the design for a lightning-etched katana.

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Or instead of organisational, just clan positions...

100h, 100m ex-DESIGN 1034 SET PERMS 1
You allow people in the position of Smiths of Tharedia access to the design for a lightning-etched katana.

(not sure about that one, syntax looks a bit iffy. Likely would be simpler to keep it organisational).

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This kind of thing would allow unique designs to be kept under wraps, and would also better allow for something like premium membership and stuff.


And that's it! If you've read this far, thanks


EDIT: Of course, this would be applicable to more than just forging cartels.

Nice idea.

PS- Can I join your cartel?

I love this idea.

This is something I was pondering myself, it would definitely give me more of an incentive to buy a private cartel

Heh. At the moment, I employ the "exclusive control" method of running my cartel. Maybe soon, though!

Each one of my cartels has a clanhelp restricted. We do private designs for people, and those are to never be made for anyone else. If we see a private design, we can ask who made it, and if it was someone other than the trademaster, for the intended person, we can kick out the offending person, and enemy them.

Also, my mace Tetra was a cartel design, and the charites had to delete it, because sierus kept making copies. Since the mace was very old and "unique", it wasn't really appropriate to have it as a design. Shell out 50cr, and the gods will make it custom.

I think that should answer both situations, though it was also be nice to have permissions for designs.

What, three isn't enough? (or more?)

I had thought of going down this road too. But I don't have any plans for a totally one-of-a-kind item like Tetra (sorry, I used the word "unique" a bit too loosely, my bad). An example are designs for field plate and full plate that I've done. They are intended for family members only, so the customisation thing is not really going to be feasible. Additionally, the whole stolen/dropped in Pool/accidental smelting thing for a non-custom item precludes the trashing of the design itself, since I'll then have to fork out 5k to submit the design and wait anywhere up to a week (worst case scenario) for it to be approved.

And I can just do without the hassle of dealing with shady people making these things behind my back, you know .

Only 4, need all metal broadsword designs.

Woo hoo! I'm "over the top" three times over! Guess Rhosyn was right when she said the one word to describe Exarius was "extremely".

Seriously, though: the setting permissions on individual cartel designs? I like it.

Just to make sure this post contributes to the thread... I would recommend that the permissions thing completely hide the existence of the designs from people without permission, as if the design didn't exist at all.