Bob sells lutes at 500 gold, which nearly anyone could get within an hour in Newton or even scholar gathering, so I don't think 5 months on the starter lute is unreasonably short. The Harbinger guild shop sells Bob's lutes for 1 gold (which means an older player ends up buying one for novices) and the Glomdoring novice shop sells them at 150 gold I think. Making the Portal lutes last longer would save us money, but beggars can't be choosers.

A public design already exists that is incredibly cheap for the warrior newbies.

Clubs #243

I really like the new changes for newbies, but perhaps the warrior weapon can last a bit longer. The aforementioned arguments are solid regarding blacksmith sales. Additionally, it saves blacksmiths and/or the guild gold too because oftentimes novices are not charged for initial weapons. Sure there are some cheap ones (like 243 in clubs), but it adds up over time.

Edit: Personally, given that newbies now have one of each vial, I'd prefer Bob to sell nothing other than packs and fishcakes. Everything else is a detriment to the newbie in the long run. They have the vials to get them started, but when they run out it's time for a minor immersion into economy and dealing with other players. I think it's a great transition to force. Not to mention the weapons there are an utter rip off.

The clubs are pretty weak as well. The Ebonguard novice weapons are one of two: We have "Massive Marble Battleaxe" and an "Elegant katana" or something of the sort. Lowest quality weapons of the type, very cheap, quite effective.

Edit: And yes, it does add up over time. To quite a considerable amount, actually.

Spiritsingers sell instruments (full) at around 10k to guildmembers only, and sell novice lutes at 100 gold per. Since novices don't have that kind of gold, it introduces them to getting money through pixies and, somewhat, the layout of the forest.

Edit: And, concerning Bob, I wouldn't buy weapons from him even if the world's fate rested on my obtaining a weapon and killing a weevil.

Yeah they're pretty weak, but do the job just fine. By increasing the free weapon's lifespan, I was suggesting that the extra coding effort to "tag" and approve certain weapons to have cheap comm costs could probably be spent more constructively elsewhere.

I have to disagree with doing the job just fine, unfortunately. A 2h weapon is far better for a novice than a one-hander-- one less thing for 'em to worry about. (That's why I like the Claymore idea, though it would probably be better as a katana-- weapon damage doesn't do much, but weapon speed does.)

I don't know much about the warriors and their weapons and all that, but it sounds like the lutes are fine as they are. The Harbingers and the Spiritsingers sell them at a low price to their novices, so they can get the gold to buy them before the lutes decay.

Same on you, Furien! I craft instruments for the Harbingers for free, as long as the bring me the comms

Well... consider this. Guilds buy the novice lutes from Bob, and then resell at a lower price for the novices, taking a loss. Wouldn't this suggest that the price at Bob would be better if it was lower? Though with the introduction of this newbie lute at 5-months-decay, they can easily get the 400 and buy a new one from him. Yes, it seems fine for Bards now.

Warriors, on the other hand, are a bit different in this regard.

I'm looking at more than just the ability to kill a rat/weevil. A 2h weapon may kill faster but it's easier to imagine going from 1h to 2h than the opposite. Essentially, they learn how to doubleswing/jab from the beginning, which tends to be a big question amongst warrior novices.

Speed weapon type would be much better, aye.

Edit: 1h to 2h, typo.

That's fine. Like I said, guilds should award them, not be given as an automatic gift from the Fates. Besides, isn't this type of thing you want to see through roleplaying in a guild? (Ah, young apprentice, you are ready to receive a true sword!)

Ooh that's a neat idea. Time to hold a contest! (for a design)

The claymore and lute actually last 10 months, I had simply forgotten to mention they last longer than the vials in my post. Also, the type of weapon (claymore v. katana) is irrelevant since the stats aren't random on the newbie claymore.

I'm not particularly a fan of the custom weapon idea that was put forth in this thread because I think that it's more encouragement for a newbie to try and earn/acquire that cooler weapon than to simply start off with a great sounding one. The idea isn't really to provide something the newbie will use forever so much as to make it so that a casual player can jump into playing Lusternia more easily and quickly, without needing to spend a bunch of time getting ready to play the game when they step through the Portal.

I'd just make the designs relevant to the guild, but still exclusive to newbies and obviously newbieish (So anyone using one would be identified as a newbie and new players would have an incentive to go after a proper sword).

For example:

So the vials last five months but weapons last ten? Super.

Awesome. Thank you for this, it is incredibly helpful!

I think 10 months for everything would be better. Some people play intensely, others only play a RL hour or two a day.

I think they're wonderful, especially now that I know the lutes are ten-month, not five-month as we originally thought. Any enterprising bard novice should be able to earn enough for a proper artisan instrument in ten months (I was a little dubious that they could in five).

I understand the reasons why only the primary skillset is automatically selected, but I wonder if it might not be possible to change the rule so that any skillset where you don't have a choice is chosen. It's great not having to teach the Chimes to choose Music, but we still have to teach them to choose Acrobatics, even though there's no alternative.

But even if that can't be done, I still love these changes and think they're definitely a positive step.

The swords should probably also be called either "A steel sword" or "A steel claymore" instead of "A steel claymore sword."

I think the complication here is that no guild will ever have a choice on their primary skillset, but guilds in the future may have choices regarding their secondary skillset. For instance, I'm rather certain that originally, warriors were going to be able to take acrobatics instead of atheletics, but in the end, it didn't work out. Thus, just because there is no choice at the moment does not mean there never will be one.

"A steel claymore sword" is very specific though. The problem with the ambiguity of "a steel claymore" is that it could be either a sword or a landmine. How is the poor novice to know which they are swinging around?