People spend even more credits on things with even less use; look at pretty much all of the trade-helping-artifacts. Especially the golden paintbrush.

Really, a lot of it is that people like their toys. They're nifty, sure. They do provide some bonus. They are far and away less of a bonus than you get from skillsets, or other artifacts though.

The one thing I would like to see, though, is an equalization of the benefit of trans trade items. This is less important than it was with skillflex since now everyone can benefit from multiple ones, but it doesn't make sense that some trans trade boosts can be completely kept when you leave the trade, some only partially, and some not at all.

The trans herbalism artifact could be a pill bottle with 300 pills in it, that last 24 hours each; benefit applied when you eat the pill!

(The bottle would have to not-decay though, and only expire when empty)

That would actually be kind of interesting, heh. But not likely to happen, I imagine.

Oddly enough, IRE was using pills before switching cures to herbs.

I just wants my master armor now, but looking forward to eventually getting other items, like maybe the magic tome.

I wouldn't even mind, now with skillflex, if the trade items decayed in cabinets and stock rooms. I don't really see the need, however. Those trade skill items are nothing compared to my other artifacts, some of which cost more than a skill and some less.

This is not now and has never been about haves and have-nots, nor how much money someone can (or cannot) spend on the game. I am not "jealous" that someone else might own five trans trade items, while I might not. I do not "begrudge" people these items, as I stressed at the very beginning of this thread.

My point (in the portion you quoted) was that, if everyone were suddenly only able to own one trans trade item, no one would not be at any kind of comparative disadvantage, no matter how small -- because everyone would be in the same boat. Combat balance would not change, and as you all keep mentioning, these trans trade items barely have an effect on that anyway, especially compared to even one or two decent artifacts (and I certainly don't begrudge people who've got a ton of those, or I never would have started playing an IRE game).

Now, my motivation for "suddenly one trans item" is not to "make things more fair" for people who don't have three or four trans trade items. I fully support everyone's right to blow thousands of dollars on the game. In fact, I encourage it. It is simply to illustrate that, were such a thing to happen, the universe would not implode.

I agree: Right now, I can buy a bunch of trans trade items, just like everyone else. That is fair and equitable, and not once have I stated otherwise. However, everyone being restricted to only one trans trade item is also fair and equitable. The problem is, everyone is used to six years of having as many as they please, so it seems they can barely even comprehend why I might like to see it restricted to one item.

I mean, I can see everyone else's side of the issue. Can you see mine?

You are free to imagine all sorts of malignant ulterior motives for me if you wish, but I think it's silly. There is no need to read between the lines: What you see is what you get. It really is about the principle of the thing, and I have already explained my reasons. That doesn't mean you have to agree with them, of course.

Felicia, Iron Realms has bills to pay. Selling perks is how it pays those bills. Naturally, it has to have limits, no one can buy the Great Rune Of Explode All Your Enemies Instantly. But the limits are what things they can sell to you that won't discourage other people from also buying things. That's it. Any other argument is futile. That ship sailed a long time ago. The chance to have multiple tradeskill-boost items has existed since open beta, and is a tiny, tiny speck on the scale of the other boosts people can and do buy. And those purchases are why you have a MUD to play in. So really, focus on actual unfairnesses. Otherwise you're just weakening your own voice by crying wolf.

Quite so, and I have readily acknowledged this from the beginning.



I have readily acknowledged this as well. However, I believe that the revenue generated by people spending lessons on trans trade items is also a tiny, tiny speck, which is why I personally disagree that "Iron Realms has bills to pay" is the all-encompassing justification for it, though people are determined to keep on hammering me with it.

The actual justification is that it's been officially permissible since the game's inception, which, once again, is something I have acknowledged, in the very first post of this thread.



This has never been about actual (or imagined) unfairness, as I stressed above. I suppose people are turning it into that, but I had no hand in it.

Also, I am not "crying wolf." That people can collect trans trade skill items like baseball cards is not imaginary, like the titular wolf -- it is very real. It exists, and my problem with it is that it cheapens the allure of the skills.

Now, as far as pure game mechanics are concerned, I don't have a problem with it at all. From a pure game mechanics perspective, they're like little mini-artifacts you burn lessons for. But my "problem," such as it were, has nothing to do with pure game mechanics, and everything to do with aesthetics, the principle of the thing and, to some extent, roleplaying value.

However, you are quite correct in that arguing about it at this point is futile.

I honestly doubt anything is going to change beacuase it means less credit purchases basically, but personally I'd rather see a strict can only use your current trade trans item, even if their benefits are only minor. Whenever people say something like "if they want to spend moeny for x, let them' to me that's just saying 'let people meta-game if they have money' and that makes me sad.

It's more of a challenge to meta-game without money.

That's exactly how I feel about it, actually.

In my mind, the fact that players may have three or four trans trade skill items without even practicing the profession breaks the fourth wall. It's not about combat prowess or real-life money, it's about an assortment of people who aren't Alchemists casually strolling around with Philosopher's Stones (if that is a bad example, simply insert the name of a different profession and trans trade item).

Is paying money a valid OOC justification for having a Philosopher's Stone? Oh, absolutely. But IC-wise, the money we donate and the discussions we have here are all behind the scenes. The end result is that someone's character has the item purely because they OOC wanted it, at least if they used the skill as a revolving door to obtain the item.

I'm not condemning people who do that, not in the least. You're fine people, as far as I know. I just find it disappointing that this one aspect of the skills system can be used as grab-bag, taking what you want and discarding the rest for OOC reasons, when it seems to me it would be better if the items were more special.

I think I am done here, as there is not much more to say at this point. The issue of decay circumvention has been broached, everyone understands why I dislike the collecting of trans trade items (though many do not agree), I understand why people want to collect them (though I do not agree with them, either), and in all likelihood, things will move forward pretty much as they have been.

Time to take a break and actually play the game, I think!

Could you explain your view of this somehow being "OOC", please? I can't help but view the above reasoning as extremely flawed.

Everyone and their mother knows, ICly, that when you "thoroughly study" X tradeskill, you get Y. So how is it "OOC" for someone to say "I want a set of Splendours. I will study Tailoring to this end." They trans it and get their splendours. They don't actually like to sew, they'd rather make jewelry. So they say "screw Tailoring" and go learn jewelry.

It is not "out of character" or "metagaming" for a character to know what they want and make an attempt to get it. Trans tradeskill items are not a mystery: every player is able to learn a tradeskill if they have the lessons/credits to do so. Any character can ask an alchemist "How did you get that nifty philosopher's stone?" and the other character will respond, "Oh, I have this because I mastered alchemy."

Purchasing credits, winning them via contests, or earning them via building/guiding simply facilitates the actual process in terms of speed, but is a complete red herring in terms of actual knowledge or desire for an item (or multiple items). You play your character - is it OOC if your character wants to be the Librarian because you the player think it would be fun? Or does the "split" between IC and OOC motivation only apply to specific bits of code?

Better solution: allow players to have multiple concurrent tradeskills - all of them available to their class. If need be, strip tradeskills from might comparisons. Or add two more trades for Highmagic.

From memory, master armour falls off when you forget forging - unless that's changed. (Or was that Knighthood?)

Edit: Knighthood it looks like. Nevermind!

Everyone says it's Knighthood, although I've never really been able to get trans forging with any character.

feelings in general:

Collecting multiple tradeskill items is fine.

I'd like to see them not be set nondecay in storerooms, and in the end this would lead to -more- credit/lesson purchases than with them nondecaying, so the 'bill to pay' thing doesn't really apply here. It'd be less credits overall to get it back, even. Which I'm good with.

I think it's perfectly acceptable for someone to have learned all the tradeskills and applied themselves at it enough to have as many tradeskill items as they can manage.

Knighthood, it should be, yeah.

Not should be, is.

Scared some of you for a brief moment, didn't I?

No.

I still have an issue-reply in my messages when I first asked for clarification on this way back when.

Fain 1, Eventru 0