Architect Archive

(Hi folks. Reposting this here after posting it on the General Board. I actually haven't dug through the Arch boards in a little while, so if someone suggested this already, /kick me in the jimmies.)

I just had this idea flash before my green bulbous eyes, nestled squishingly within my pudgy purple face, while reading the DEV response to a thread about Tailor decay and crafting decay in general.

I am a master architect, for the time being, as I've found I'll have to choose between a dying profession or a useful combat class very soon, due to a lack of remaining skill points. As such, I am quite familiar with the architect class, and the question of decay on our items (and now the tailor class). I have a potential solution that would take a bit of work from certain departments at SOE, but would probably make them some very happy customers.

Ready?

Here it comes...

Schematic Style Shifts

That's right.. there's been talk of new plants and new furniture and new colors and new house styles with the architects for some time. There's been (I'm sure) much of the same talk amongst Tailors. I don't know the tailor profession well, but I do know that there are a great deal of furnishings that are *in the game* but not craftable.

What if once every few weeks, schematics shifted? What if now your "Potted Tree, Style 1" schematic turned into a "Potted Tree, Style 2" schematic on your datapad? The latter is uncraftable, though I've seen it around town and in some random wilderness locations.

For architects, schematics could be related as the tree above, where any given architect has one "Potted Tree" schematic available at any given time, but every 10? days, the schematic shifts to a new random one (random per player, so I might be able to make "Potted Tree, Style 3", while Shazia can make only the "Potted Tree, Master Thread Hijacker Style". Players might be looking all over the place to get their hands on a "Large Naboo House, Emperor Edition", that only a handful of architects can make at any given time.

Conversely, Tailors could be set such that some of their items are 'always' items, while a number of them become 'seasonal'. That's right.. long, full robes are out this season, and it's time for some female Mon-Cal love! Stay tuned, because those of us with our finger on the pulse of fashion expect a major shift in military dress code in the coming weeks.

I think you get the idea. It's a good way to add content that sometimes already exists (furniture that exists, but has no schematic, and will be using the same schematic as an existing piece), without just dumping new schematics onto people all at once. I think it has the potential to add a little bit of excitement and a different flavor of mild frustration to some of the crafting classes. If you give someone 10 new schematics, it won't be long until they take them for granted and want still more. If you switch them out, I think it'll take longer for people to feel unloved =)

Thoughts? Comments?