Every novice in a warrior guild comes out of the Portal of Fate with a steel claymore. And forgers can pump out 2 dozen swords in an hour. A shortage of weapons is not the problem-- the problem is that there is so little control over the stats you get.

Hrm, hopefully I can clarify for Zynna. As a temporary stop-gap, she's proposing that you get better fixed stats from a guild NPC until forging can be fixed.

We can simplify it even further, and just have those steel claymores have better stats without adding an extra step.

I don't care about the mechanics of how you fix it. I just wanted to clarify Zynna's post.

Would be neat if we had non-guild envoys who focused on trade, aetherspace, manses, and families!

Forging! Specifically:

Make weapon forging far more likely to put out weapons near 463 points
Make damage and precision into damage-per-second and wounds-per-second stats
Increase the effect of speed on balance time

The first is to make forgers cry less, the second and third so that a wider range of stats become desirable and forgers don't feel the need to forge for "perfection" quite so much.

I agree, there should be a skill in forging that just makes us the weapons with the stats we want.

P.S. People will still forge for perfection.

P.P.S. If the admin do work on forging, change the various formulas for damage/wounds/balance times, can those who have runed weapons get a free 'move your runes to new weapons' gesture? We could use it

I'd love that to but it's beyond Lusternia to implement as the nexus and flash clients are IRE-run. However, I have always wanted that!

(Didn't someone come up with a way to feed aetherspace feed into a separate window in some third party client like ZMUD?)

Those were called colossi!

Treant for MUSH does that with the regular map, capturing it and putting it into a separate GUI box, so it could probably be done on the coder's end for aetherspace. Maybe?

Thanks, that's exactly what I meant!

1) Forging. It just doesn't make RP sense to say to Warriors (and to a much lesser extent, Monks), "in order to be a decent combatant in this archetype, please sink hours upon hours of technically rule-breaking AFK forging into your weapons, or pay someone else to do the same, or to obey the rules, sit and stare at your screen autoforging for IRL days. Enjoy!" Here's a slightly radical idea, but what if weapon stats were done away with, and replaced with weapon "bonds", similar to how bard instruments work? After all, Artisans don't have to constantly make and deconstruct violins to get the best speed for bards. Just something to level the playing field for this class without hours of tedium that no other trade or class has to endure to break into the PK scene.

2) Aetherships/Collossi. I personally thought the spectacle of Weakenings was amazing. Giant robots and orbital bombardments going at it while ground forces do their thing...if only there were some way to make those battles less one-sided. I mentioned this before, but I think the problem might have been in the fact that they only happened in one org's "home" territory, so in every Weakening, they were either well-defended and boring, or dominated to the point of frustration. A system similar to village influence and Wildnodes, where orgs fought to control neutral territory would be interesting, especially if this took place IN Aetherspace.

3) Aetherspace. The big reason I don't use my ship for anything but flashpoints is that the mobs hit too hard and chase too far for any exploration to be feasible. Maybe if the aetherspace map itself were re-designed, with fewer choke points separating sections of it, it would be better off. The mobs also give too little gold and experience to make them at all worth hunting, especially when compared with things like influence, domoths, or Astral trains.

Ok, added a poll with the topics that would be doable. Just pick one!

1. Forging. Both in terms of Which Stats Matter and How Long It Takes for the RNG to Strike Gold.

2. Monk report. Been far, far too long since this has been in the work. Plus I want to see Clairsentience eventually.

3. The Great House system. Specifically, the Honour business: how it is gained, how it is lost, and the difficulty in 'displacing' Most Honourable House.

1. Shikari. (Hey, I'll take privs so I can induct people! Sojiro, Sidd and Synl want to join. )
2. Weapon Precision needs to have a real impact again, please!
3. Ascendant system.
4. Forging.

Oh man, before we get confused about what we want:

When we talk about forging, I mean the act of forging itself as well as making the stats from weapons matter more (precision, etc etc) so that warriors won't -need- to make perfection (but I'm sure people will want to) as well as help them get into combat faster.

I'm going to have to go with races, mainly because a number of them are still pretty lack-luster, and some just need some loving (Merians, Orclach, Dwarves, Krokani and Igasho are big ones).

This statement I second. Though I disagree with Everiine's statement that Lusternia wasn't ready for Bards and Monks...while I'd advise against adding any more archetypes for the time being, I thought Monks and Bards added a good deal. Though I first signed on after they were both added, so I may be talking out of my but anyway!

In short, I'm agreeing with the statements that combat needs to be more streamlined and...well, I'd say newbie-friendly but I'm afraid of how that might be interpreted. With so many afflictions and cures to remember it can be more than a bit overwhelming. And, to be blunt, I don't really want to pay extra money just to make my characters viable warriors further down the line. Not saying that's the case now...well, okay, maybe it is. I'm honestly not certain. But you get my point, hopefully - combat needs to be made into that old saying, "easy to learn, hard to master." Sure, it's a cliche phrase, but it's a good goal to aspire to.

And for the record, I think Estarra and the admins are doing a good job. I understand running an MMOG is sort of an impossible task, since you have to balance a unique artistic vision with player needs. But I'd say in light of the difficulty of pushing that boulder up that hill Estarra and the admins have put on a good show so far and will hopefully continue to do so. I know if I tried to run an MMOG myself I'd probably spontaneously combust or explode, depending on the mix of gases in my brain at the time of the first player complaint. So chins up, and hang in there!

You're forgetting that there are four separate weapon categories for the different specs. In order for that to work, you'd be pressuring the novices to take Pureblade (which is a terrible suggestion to make to a novice).

Monks and Bards did add a good deal, but the playerbase was (and still sort of is) too small for them. It's one of the biggest reasons (I think) Ackleberry, Hallifax and Gaudiguch aren't being released... There's just not enough players to man them.