Weaponsmith Archive

I have a brawler and artisan on test center that I have been playing a lot lately -- mostly because as a Master Ranger/CH, Bognor is useless unless he can get a group. And I don't generally do pickup groups.

So my TC artisan made Novice Weaponsmith yesterday, and was going to makea sword for my brawler. After over 100 tries with top quality ingredients (including the core) the best one was still not as effective damage-wise as an artisan dagger. And the HAM costs were much worse. This means a novice weaponsmith is essentially useless and has to grind up quite a ways before they can make anything of value.

This, to me, is another example of SOE pandering to the grinders. I started following this game in late 2002 and had high hopes that it would not be just another grinding game with phat lewt and spawn camps, but that it would actually be fun to play all the way up. Something like UO was in the early days. But beginning with open beta they've been removing more and more of the things that make the game appealing to casual gamers or roleplayers (I fall into the latter category, not the former) and making it more of an achiever's game with the introduction of more phat lewt and boss mobs and "content" and now the crafting revamp.

Maybe it was inevitable -- I don't know. Maybe the achievers far outnumber folks like me and it is not worth it to SOE to keep my business. But I do know that I am currently paying for 3 accounts and I am rapidly coming to the point where that will end.

You can look at my 1000+ posts and see that I have been supportive of SOE and their grand experiment (dynamic spawn, player economy, etc) all along. So I am not normally one who complains. But the weaponsmith experience has been quite troubling for me.

Bog