Quote:
Originally Posted by jamsen
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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.
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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.)