Forums » Crafting and Gathering

Tying cultural recipes to lore

    • 1785 posts
    February 20, 2018 1:30 PM PST

    Something that someone posted in another thread got me to thinking.  Other games have done racial or cultural crafting, where each race or culture might have its own look in the items that they could craft.  So for example you could go get elven-style armor, or dwarven-style armor, or ogre-style armor.

    But what if it were more nuanced than that?  What if each race didn't just have unique recipes, but somewhat unique specialties?

    For example, dwarves, being masters of metallurgy, excel at making heavy metal armor.  And perhaps one could argue that ogres, given their power-based society, might also be very good at heavy armor as well.  But the other races might choose to hone their talents in other ways.  Gnomes, for example, might excel at creating items and devices that conduct and store arcane energy.  Halflings, given their affinity to nature, might create wood and leather items of supreme quality.  The Archai, born of the elements as they are, might craft amazing items of stone.

    My proposal is rather than have "cultural recipes" mean that every culture gets variations on everything - instead, have those cultural recipes emphasize the unique lore and heritage of each race.  This could even extend to NPC races.  For example, you cant play a Ginto, but presumably their society excelled in certain forms of crafting.  With work and research, one could learn to duplicate those works.

    What does everyone else think?  Would this be a good thing, or would it lead to behavior like all alchemists starting as gnomes (as an example)?

    • 83 posts
    February 21, 2018 12:41 PM PST

    It would definitely lead to certain races being pidgeonholed into certain professions, I think. Balancing the cultural recipes that they already mentioned (like Dark Myr Glasswork) will be challenging enough, and the key existing balance point is the fact that anyone can become the Dark Myr's friends and learn the secrets of their racial glasswork. If you actually tie them to race and don't allow other races to learn them, it will bascially ruin the work they put into balancing them in the first place.

    • 68 posts
    May 28, 2018 6:59 PM PDT
    In EQ gnomes were the only race to have access to tinkering. And that was fine, they are gnomes, it's what they do. They were also the only race to have a trades skill all to themselves. Again, gno big deal. It was an advantage to playing a gnome. Not like you were playing them for their stats. Point is, EQ had balancing within the races and classes WITHOUT giving every class "class only" access to a trade skill (shamans), or race only like tinkering with gnomes.

    I've heard a lot of clamoring since rogues and rangers came out about every class having a class icon skill, as in a trade skill ish skill like those. Please God no. Be more creative than that. How about a warriors iconic ability being able to tank better than anyone else. The Defensive combat ability set them apart just fine. And they really didn't have anything, they couldn't solo past 30, one dimensional in groups. And that was ok. Point is, not every class and every race has to have the same KINDS of traits. It's ok to be unique.
    • 259 posts
    May 29, 2018 9:21 AM PDT

    Nephele said:

    Something that someone posted in another thread got me to thinking.  Other games have done racial or cultural crafting, where each race or culture might have its own look in the items that they could craft.  So for example you could go get elven-style armor, or dwarven-style armor, or ogre-style armor.

    But what if it were more nuanced than that?  What if each race didn't just have unique recipes, but somewhat unique specialties?

    For example, dwarves, being masters of metallurgy, excel at making heavy metal armor.  And perhaps one could argue that ogres, given their power-based society, might also be very good at heavy armor as well.  But the other races might choose to hone their talents in other ways.  Gnomes, for example, might excel at creating items and devices that conduct and store arcane energy.  Halflings, given their affinity to nature, might create wood and leather items of supreme quality.  The Archai, born of the elements as they are, might craft amazing items of stone.

    My proposal is rather than have "cultural recipes" mean that every culture gets variations on everything - instead, have those cultural recipes emphasize the unique lore and heritage of each race.  This could even extend to NPC races.  For example, you cant play a Ginto, but presumably their society excelled in certain forms of crafting.  With work and research, one could learn to duplicate those works.

    What does everyone else think?  Would this be a good thing, or would it lead to behavior like all alchemists starting as gnomes (as an example)?

    I find this to be a very interesting idea. I kind of like the idea of the racial armor looks. If the stats were the same as other racial armor stats, for heavy armor for example, it would be strictly cosmetic and not unbalancing. It would create a lot more variety but would also create a lot more work for the designers. A dwarf with a set of ogre plate armor would look cool.

    • 70 posts
    July 10, 2018 6:17 PM PDT

    dudimous said: In EQ gnomes were the only race to have access to tinkering. And that was fine, they are gnomes, it's what they do. They were also the only race to have a trades skill all to themselves. Again, gno big deal. It was an advantage to playing a gnome. Not like you were playing them for their stats. Point is, EQ had balancing within the races and classes WITHOUT giving every class "class only" access to a trade skill (shamans), or race only like tinkering with gnomes. I've heard a lot of clamoring since rogues and rangers came out about every class having a class icon skill, as in a trade skill ish skill like those. Please God no. Be more creative than that. How about a warriors iconic ability being able to tank better than anyone else. The Defensive combat ability set them apart just fine. And they really didn't have anything, they couldn't solo past 30, one dimensional in groups. And that was ok. Point is, not every class and every race has to have the same KINDS of traits. It's ok to be unique.

    Agree. One of the things I loved most about old EQ was that each class was unique. I also liked that each class was not the same height either. Troll and Barbarians were big, Humans were medium, and the small races as dark elves and gnomes and dwarfs, were short. And these there races had their own 'walk'. From a distance you could tell the races apart based on height and gait. 

    Armor was unique also. Melee went from cloth to leather to mail to armor to plate to epic armor. 'casters from cloth to silk to epic. You could guess a player level from a distance by the armour they wore, you would not see a newbie in plate - at least not at the beginning. After a few years and nurfing set in, different story.

    So yes, stay unique. And yes, tie the crafting to the race lore, to a point. Maybe allow a race to make a set of high level armor based on their epic quest that only they can wear. But perhaps let them learn an ability that they could use to embue all their armor with a specific buff perhaps.


    This post was edited by Graysilk at July 10, 2018 6:19 PM PDT
    • 70 posts
    July 10, 2018 6:48 PM PDT

    Shyin said:

    I find this to be a very interesting idea. I kind of like the idea of the racial armor looks. If the stats were the same as other racial armor stats, for heavy armor for example, it would be strictly cosmetic and not unbalancing. It would create a lot more variety but would also create a lot more work for the designers. A dwarf with a set of ogre plate armor would look cool.

    If the final launch finds the size of the races and the amounts of the weight they can carry a defining characteristic, that could be a problem. Could a dwarf even carry orgre plate?

    In old EQ, the races were divided into 3 sizes: small (ie dwarfs, gnomes, dark elf), medium (humans), big (ogre, barbarians etc). Each limited to the amount of weight they could carry. If overloaded, it physically slowed you down to the point your fighting ability was affected as was your speed.

    Example : my Dark Elf shadowknight, being small, could carry, if recall, 96 lbs. But, full mail for her was 92 lbs. While Im not positive if these weights are exact, they are close. All in all, I had about 4 lbs left and that badly limited my looting and in turn, my radius of hunting and raiding. I usually just took her hunting in full leather. But I did end up rolling a human sk, as she could carry plate-ended up being my main alt. My main ended up being a Tier'dal Necromancer, her armor weighted next to nothing, it was silk. And I discovered I loved being a caster, and I loved the lore of the dark elves.

    Just a note on the racial look. My human sk wearing leather, looked to be wearing a reddish brown leather chest and pants. My Teir dal wearing the same outfit, looked as though she was dressed in bright gold leather. 

    This was achieved by having 3 sets of recipes all sewing crafting could make. The small leather was made of cat skins I think. The medium armor of cat skins. The large armor of bear skins. So I crafted one set of full leather with cat skins, one with wolf.

    So many way to go. So many crafts to learn and uses to put them too. I liked old EQ's crafting. 

    • 768 posts
    July 20, 2018 1:15 AM PDT

    To start, it seems wise to keep cultural and class seperate when trying to discuss this. So I'll try and do just that.

    Cultural: Dwarfs could have their own recipes and thus appearances. For example a breastplate that gives 3STA and 3  STR. An ogre would make their own breastplate in the same material and have 3STA and 3 STR, but the difference would be the appearance of it. Personally, I would prefer to keep each race/culture to its own appearance. This would mean, if you know a dwarf as an ogre, you can't let have him make one for you and wear it as an Ogre. You could however pass it on to your other friend who's a dwarf or an alt dwarf. If you start mixing up appearance armour with the different races/cultures you're indeed losing the point of having different appearances all together. (Even if an Ogre in dwarven made armour would look stunning.) It's a price I'ld be willing to sacrifice, just to keep things making sense. I'm not a fan of being able to learn dwarvish recipes as an elf. Since in the end you'll lose the point of making those differentiations. If you like certain appearances, go play the race to fit. (just personal opinion ofc, no harm intended).

    Class: The dev's already did a good job of having restrictions there so that not all classes could wear all armour. For me that's good enough. Although I don't see why I'm traveling with a clothwearing paladin.. that seems a pitty and makes little sense to me. (with possible appearance armor in mind, I fear for streaking or fluffy tanks ingame :( )

    Progressive recipes/armour: It makes sense that you would not put a level 1 warrior in a fully plated outfit with shiny metal shield. So it would not surprise me to see a level requirement for certain pieces of equipment and thus recipes to match. I did not earn my shiny wizardstaff from day one, I learned to work a small wand and relic item first etc. This could very easely be implemented into the lore of different cultures. Some things are common, others are more secretive or require more devotion.


    This post was edited by Barin999 at July 20, 2018 1:18 AM PDT