Weaponsmith Archive

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FalloutSBM wrote:

Woot, I feel like an everquest crafter now. I CAN craft weapons, but why bother when **edit** that drops is better. Hell, I might as well just go complete combat and sell looted weapons instead of made ones.

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Yeah, my thoughts as well.

This is my sad story (sad as in pathetic, not as in sorrowful): When I took up WS I didn't want to mass produce guns and sell them on a vendor. There were already at least a dozen established MWS doing that. I wanted to make the best hand-crafted unique weapons possible, such that people would seek me out. Well I quickly realized that the difference in quality between one MWS and another (assuming the same materials) is very minor. I stuck with it, though,because there were still ways to make uniquely exquisite weapons (weapon enhancingdrops, slicing, skill tapes to get extra experimentation points, etc.).

When I read the posts about politicians and player-cities on test, I was seriously tempted to give up WS and go politician instead (when it comes out in, hopefull, a few weeks). Politician would be a new class, I wouldn't have to compete with established masters and I could still interact with other players. Sounds cool.

Then I saw Kill Bill last weekend. Aside from what you might think about the gratuitious violence of the movie (which I really like, btw), the scene where The Bride goes to Okinawa to find a retired master swordmaker, Hantori Hanzo, blew me away. When they showed the wall where he keeps his custom-crafted swords (most of them were katanas, I assume), I thought "I want to be Hantori Hanzo" (yeah, I know it's a lame dream, but hey we each have fun in our way ). So I rededicated myself to weaponcrafting andI'm working onsmuggler so I could do my own slicing.

My idea was that each weapon would be uniquely hand-crafted (I'd still use factory sub-components, of course), pre-sliced (taking only the best), uniquely named and that I would only sell to characters who have mastered a combat profession (and I would only sell them weapons appropriate for the professions they have mastered). I would charge a ridiculous amount of money, but I figured that I wouldn't just be selling a weapon, but a role-playing experience as well.

Would something like this have really worked out in SWG? Maybe, maybe not, but I thought I'd give it a try. Only now, with uber-weapons, I'll never be able to do this because no matter how good the materials I use, or how many experimentation points I have, or how gooda slice is, I can never make a weapon that is even close to these uber-weapons...not even by half.

I don't think the wait-and-see approach is viable for this issue. If we wait, the problem will get worse and then it will be too late to fix it properly. It needs to be stopped now.

Slim Vargo, Corbantis