Original style trade skill combines now enforced?

[jamsen]

There doesn't seem to be a message in the patch notes, but I was kind of curious as to why this was removed - I know it's not classic but there are a lot of items that aren't classic in this game; such as global ooc and auction channels, and the item lins; that people use all the time.

As someone who enjoys trade skills and who suffers RSI, I'm kind of annoyed that this was fixed, and didn't even rank a courtesy of a mention in the patch notes.

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by jamsen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

There doesn't seem to be a message in the patch notes, but I was kind of curious as to why this was removed - I know it's not classic but there are a lot of items that aren't classic in this game; such as global ooc and auction channels, and the item lins; that people use all the time.

As someone who enjoys trade skills and who suffers RSI, I'm kind of annoyed that this was fixed, and didn't even rank a courtesy of a mention in the patch notes.

I'm guessing you mean it making 1 item rather than 5 or 10?

You mean all the clicking? I know whatcha mean. Ever played Diablo I/II? There's a lot more clicking in that. Every mob you kill you have to click and you often will be killing dozens of mobs at once...

I try to use my keyboard in combination with my mouse to reduce the clicking. I know what you mean though. It seems like they could increase the tradeskill output by compensating in other places. For example, they could increase the delay between making items and have the delay correspond to the output amount. An alternative is to have the output amount correlate with price or difficulty to acquire instead of a timer. Or they could have mini-games or expansive combinations to make the items in order to ensure that players are kept busy and can make many items at once. Why would you do that? Well, it's boring to sit for 15 or 30 or 60 seconds waiting for the timer to refresh. I'd rather be doing something. A mini-game that can add a bonus to the output like +1 items or +1 quality or +1 durability, but they'd need to keep it interesting by updating it with new things (kind of like a card game where they make new cards to keep you thinking about new strategy).

Thing is, they're trying to emulate classic eq as best they can and that usually means adopting ideas that were not the greatest. We all can agree, and I can 100%, that eq back then was not a perfect game and had many shortcomings. And I'm not referring to matters of opinion even though I could make a good argument that more intelligent non-players with more personality would be an improvement. For example, my preference for immersion features like 1st person and suspension of disbelief (non-players that behave dynamically) are opinions. Things like how much you click to use the interface are not opinions because it's technical in nature. It's not healthy to make an interface that requires too much clicking. That can irreversibly harm fingers and hands and wrists over several decades of use. It's also not accessible by those with disabilities.

Ironically, there's more clicking on live eq servers than on this server in combat (more hotkeys on live).

There's also the problem of combinations being eaten up by default without exception. In other words, anything you combined in a tradeskill container in classic eq was eaten. I think a better system would have only eaten the items if they were tradeskill appropriate for that particular container. For example, a blacksmithing item used in a fletching container would not be eaten. Only tradeskill items used in fletching would be eaten. (I know that some people might not like a system that's so manual, but I actually prefer it that way because I like to keep track of what i've done on my own. For example, if i've tried combination X, I want the freedom to accidently try it again, fail, and then remember that I had already tried it. Many modern systems will record each and every action, and prevent accidental failure. I think that's overdoing it, but I know a lot of people like it that way. Even quests and tasks are recorded automatically and even when you talk with a non-player everything is bracketed and automatic - there's very little detective work. I like talking to non-players in MUDs - no brackets, lots of subjects to talk about. A good non-player will respond to potentially hundreds of topics you bring up. For example, the other day I spoke to non-players in qeynos and i don't remember a single one responding to "what do you think about qeynos," and I think that's sad because i've seen much better than this. Many mmorpgs take it once step further by giving non-players a symbol when they have a quest for you, and everything is automatic from that point forward. Very linear. And even live eq tells you what kind of non-player it's in brackets ([general merchant], [tradeskill tasks], [ranger guildmaster], etc). I'm so disgusted by it I've considered making my own non-player speech library using c++. But I doubt I'll ever get around to it. What's sad about many of these mmorpgs is that they're missing a good speech system. That part where you're a detective and can learn in a non-linear kind of way. Things are too directed from up above. I think it's the difference between reading a linear story and reading a choose your own adventure.)

[Azureblaze]

OP -

Guess ya missed this part in the patch notes :

# Secrets: Removed Autocombine and Favorites system from the server. You must use the experiment window.

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by jamsen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

There doesn't seem to be a message in the patch notes, but I was kind of curious as to why this was removed - I know it's not classic but there are a lot of items that aren't classic in this game; such as global ooc and auction channels, and the item lins; that people use all the time.

As someone who enjoys trade skills and who suffers RSI, I'm kind of annoyed that this was fixed, and didn't even rank a courtesy of a mention in the patch notes.

Items links are a good point, btw. I missed that in my first reply. In the backwards days, you had to say things like "Epic Sword 9/17 10str 6.5wt 15k".

I'm surprised live eq doesn't allow you to link a bag and have everything in the bag auto-linked kind of like a webpage. You need to keep in mind that one of hte reasons they added item linking was that items were getting very complex. Many stats were listed with an item and that made it impractical to list the stats manually. For example, instead of saying "Epic Sword 9/17 10str 6.5wt 15k" you would say "Epic Sword 9/17 4ac 10str 5dex 3sta 5mr 10dr 50dd stun 6.5wt 15k." That's not a great example, but the more stats there're, the more impractical it becomes. It might actually save more time in this kind of circumstance for people to meet in person and exchange the items so they can see them directly. Doing it manually also eats up lines in the chat window. And I'm not sure how much bandwidth that's, but I bet it would add up.

Sidenote: I actually am keeping a list of items in social hotkeys because I don't want to carry the items around with me when I adventure. This allows me to /shout my wares without encumbering me. I imagine that this method of doing it would become impractical in modern eq because items can have dozens of stats.

[BuzWeaver]

I'm a little torn on this issue as well. Granted I respect the fact that Project1999 is not a fee based game, so I remind myself of that as well as the dedication and hard work the developers put into the game for our enjoyment. I'm a consummate trade skiller myself and friends of mine who share the same love of the old style game are too. I'm trying to win them over to playing, however this seems to be a sticking point for at least one of them.

I'm guessing some luxuries are left in the game for the sake of continuity in the community. Linking items would save people the trouble of having to answer some of the basic questions about the item, for example can my <insert class> use this. The global chat can seem a bit like a news crawl/scroll at the bottom of the screen, however with a limited amount of players it would be easier to leave it global than having people meet in one zone for selling/trading/interacting, which I'm sure people wouldn't necessarily object to, however the lag might be an issue.

The friend I mentioned earlier came over Friday night and experienced his fill of walking down memory lane, by crafting with one of my characters. As much as he enjoyed it he couldn't help but comment on the excessive amount of clicking. This was a lot more pronounced when making tiny bits and I'll be making a lot of these for both Tailoring and Blacksmithing (not to mention the clicking to compile the materials in the respected stations/kits). I am glad that miss-combines and or incorrect materiel combination's don't get removed/eaten when incorrectly used.

I would imagine that these changes were not intended to discourage people from doing trade skills, but to perhaps leave a certain since of accomplishment for those who dedicate themselves to the craft. It would certainly not detract from my immersion if at some point the newer system is implemented, however I know this could discourage some people from participating in trade skills and having a thriving community of Trade Skillers really adds to the community of the game.

[jamsen]

Thanks for pointing out the patch message. I did do a search for various trade skill related terms, including combine, but that didn't point out.

Well, I won't be trade skilling any more as the repeated move-mouse-click process kills my wrist. Good luck for all you other trade skill junkies as I'm retiring my blacksmith hammer.

[Omnimorph]

I sort of liked the tradeskilling as it was (prior to patch). Admittedly it wasn't classic, but it's one of those things i thought was an improvement over how it was in classic, so to me it was fine to leave it.

But then it's not my server, so i'm not going to complain too much about it. Was it easier? sure... but then we all know just from looking at live that easier doesn't necessarily mean better [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Kantan]

You could autocombine from your inventory?

[Slayde]

So what I am coming to understand from this thread is people are unhappy because they have to click the mouse more? Really? That is pretty lame, unless you have some sort of disability hindering you from performing repeated mouse clicks. I mean how much effort is it really? you're barely moving at all. Also who said tradeskilling was supposed to be easy. Ever tried blacksmithing in real life? now that is hard! hehe.

But do as you wish, if you want to throw away your tradeskilling careers because of a few extra mouse clicks go right ahead. Leaves more potential customers for the real crafters.

[Zordana]

the good thing was, you could use your fletching/sewing/whatever kit as a bagback and didnt need to clear it up to do some crafting with the newer crafting GUI.. i miss it... now when i want to make arrows, i gotta clean up the friggn damn fletchin kit every damn time to make arrows which is really annoying..
i really dont like this "hey we want EVERYTHING classic" but well, i still love it here