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Tradeskills Changed to ProfessionsFollow

#1 Sep 09 2004 at 8:29 PM Rating: Decent
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Horrid idea. You can read Tyren's post on worldofwarcraft.com. What do the other beta testers (not stress testers) think of the proposed change?


#2 Sep 09 2004 at 9:46 PM Rating: Decent
I actually think its a good idea because it makes the community have to work together more, even though herbalism, and minin should be turned into secondary skils. I dont think you should be able to take every tradeskill in the game but i also dont think you should have to be forced into using one for herbalims or mining.
#3 Sep 09 2004 at 11:33 PM Rating: Good
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Not a tester, but these are my thoughts.

I'm going to use UO as a base. In UO you can raise every crafting skill. Characters are created specifically to be nothing but a crafter.

This hurts the economy. Why? Because why go out and buy something when you can just make it yourself. The only stuff I bought from vendors in UO were magic items, anything else I could make myself.

This makes for a better economy. You need a blacksmith, you have to go find one now. People have to work together to create items now.

It should be the actual craft skills (blacksmith, leatherworker, etc..) limited to 2. The gathering skills (herbalism, skinning) limited to 1. And then the secondary skills.
#4 Sep 10 2004 at 12:02 AM Rating: Good
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469 posts
It's a good idea. Blizzard keeps moving this game in the right direction.
#5 Sep 10 2004 at 12:14 AM Rating: Decent
LOL read the Official boards, theres people threatening to quit if they dont change this back. apparently noone wants player interaction
#6 Sep 10 2004 at 12:55 AM Rating: Good
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469 posts
There's always stupid people saying stupid things everywhere on the intarweb. Take this post, for example.
#7 Sep 10 2004 at 2:26 AM Rating: Decent
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151 posts
The biggest problem with this is making the gathering skills professions. A tailor dosn't need a gathering skill, but smithing, engineering, leatherworking, and alchemy do. The two profession and one gathering idea appears to be a nice solution.

Depending on how this is implemented, it may not fix anything. If there are no level requirements for training and it's just monetary, you can just gather and send materials to an alt to make the finished product.

If they exclude gathering skills from the professions and put level caps on profession advancement, I think it'll be fine.



#8 Sep 10 2004 at 6:41 AM Rating: Decent
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I have to go out the door right now, so I'll explain later, but I think it's a very good thing, unlike most of my beta counterparts whose knee-jerk reaction was that "omg i cant do evrything! WTF?"
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#9 Sep 10 2004 at 6:48 AM Rating: Decent
Yeah, I am just a stress-test tester, however, I think it's a really good idea. Mostly for the balance of economy. Mostly for what everyone else said.

Also, it makes it more difficult to train in the profession you wish, due to, now you do not have skill points (SP) so, you need to PAY the trainer, I think this is very fair, I have seen people go to a trainer, learn the tradeskill, then make whatever they wanted to make with that tradeskill, then unlearn. For example, people would learn skinning, skin a bunch of low level stuff for cash, sell it, and move on to Brill (UD).
#10 Sep 10 2004 at 10:21 AM Rating: Decent
Yeah i think to fix this properly they should make herbalism and mining and skinning secondary skills while cooking needs to be a tradeskill. I dont understand why cooking was made a secondary.
#11 Sep 10 2004 at 11:50 AM Rating: Decent
This is a great thing that was changed because it now gives people a role in the game.
#12 Sep 10 2004 at 12:59 PM Rating: Decent
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451 posts
More interaction is a good thing, WoW already allows players to do so much on our own. I think that having more interaction in some parts of WoW, will only add to its longevity.

What would be the point of a totally soloable Mmorpg? A player could just pop in one of the hundreds of RPG's out there and do the same. Once again, Blizzard is making all the right moves.

I think all players will ultimately welcome this updated feature with open arms.
#13 Sep 10 2004 at 1:00 PM Rating: Good
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I like this change alot.

Say you're a blacksmith and want to make a Copper Dagger. One of the items required is light leather.

These are the different scenarios:

1) Your two professions are Blacksmith and Leatherworker. This means you need to buy all the materials (both smithy and leather) off someone else.

2) You're a smith with mining. This means you need to buy the light leather off a leather worker.

Either way you have to interact with a player, an NPC, the AH, or some other means in order to be able to craft.

This is a good thing anyway you look at it.






And for all those ******** and complaining, Blizzard should yank their authorization and give it to me.
#14 Sep 10 2004 at 2:53 PM Rating: Decent
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6,678 posts
The reasons I support the decision are:

1) It does not imho make sense for a player to be an expert blacksmith and an artisan alchemist. Those two trades are extremely unrelated, and if you are indeed a master of both, you will do nothing but spend your time in town perfecting those trades (and thus not being able to go out and get the materials yourself.)

2) It takes tradeskills off of skill points, which are earned from experience, which I have expressed rather vehemently on numerous occasions never made any sense.

3) There were too many people that did just gathering skills for the sake of ripping a profit on people who were actually doing the tradeskills. Meanwhile people producing things were losing at the expense of these gather-bots. Now, anyone who wants to be a decent leatherworker will be a skinner and probably supply themself. This will significantly drive down the cost of herbs, of ore, of cloth into much more reasonable levels. Enchanting, in particular, was being abused in this manner because disenchant was available to anyone with 15 skill points to spare.

4) It *may* give the option to people to be just tradeskillers. OTOH, I do NOT like the idea that people might just continue to gather on their main and use an alt to do all their production, so I hope Blizzard has more to the measures than what they're telling us.

5) There are quests that only show up for people with certain tradeskills. They are meant to be for people dedicated to that trade, not dedicated to doing and seeing everything. Players should have to make some choices on occasion, rather than just choosing to do everything if they have the time to invest.
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#15 Sep 10 2004 at 3:49 PM Rating: Decent
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151 posts
Bliz post:

"The trade skills have level requirements on them now, Apprentice requiring level 5, Journeyman level 10, Expert level 20 and Artisan level 35 (subject to change as we balance things). It should be less restrictive then it was with skill points limiting when a player could get a new tradeskill."

I don't think the levels are high enough, but at least they are making it level based. In the end however, this just makes people create alts to learn every trade skill rather than having it on one character. You can get an alt to level 20 quickly.

This doesn't address the gathering problem though.

Smithing - Mining
Engineering - Mining
Leather - Skinning
Alchemy - Herbalism
Tailoring - ???

The tailor can pick whichever 2nd profession they want. Cloth isn't gathered, but is dropped. This gives the tailor the ability to use a gathering skill for cash, while the others will be using their gathered materials. That's the only problem I see with it now that level requirements will be in place.

It's all speculation until we actually see the next phase. But, going by the posted info, I can make a main with mining and skinning. Make two alts, one with cloth and tailoring, other with smithing and engineering. It takes me three to four days to level a toon to twenty. So, within a month I can have enough cash on my main to train up and use four tradeskills to expert level.

I'm not bashing Bliz or the game, I love the game, just trying to explain how this really doesn't change much. You just need multiple toons instead of one. It also gives the tailor an advantage over the others.





Edited, Fri Sep 10 16:50:43 2004 by StumpyWSF
#16 Sep 10 2004 at 7:33 PM Rating: Good
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Tailoring is obviously meant to be paired with enchanting, which also does not require a gathering skill.
#17 Sep 10 2004 at 8:31 PM Rating: Decent
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Quote:
Tailoring - ???

The tailor can pick whichever 2nd profession they want. Cloth isn't gathered, but is dropped. This gives the tailor the ability to use a gathering skill for cash, while the others will be using their gathered materials. That's the only problem I see with it now that level requirements will be in place.



You have to farm cloth though; it's all random drops. I can go clear a camp of humanoid creatures and get no drops at all. Leather otoh, at least you are guaranteed at least leather scraps when you get done with the beast carcass. Also...some cloth items do require items from other tradeskills - notably, bags take leather.

All this really means is that a tailor can pick up basic level enchanting to disenchant things for a real enchanter. (or be one themself if they want to, after all nobody else is gonna do it.)
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Only the exceptions can be exceptional.
#18 Sep 10 2004 at 8:37 PM Rating: Decent
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Bind on create recipes are something else to consider. That means if you want the new recipes introduced in last patch, your warrior or paly will have to have smithing. If every tradeskill has these bind on create recipes, the class they are most benificial to will have to choose these tradeskills.

Azuarc, I realize cloth is farmed. That's the problem. Tailoring is the only tradeskill which doesn't have to choose a gathering skill as it's second profession if you want to make your own gear.

Again, none of this really bothers me as I am in a guild and am a hardcore gamer who will have mutliple toons anyway. I'm just thinking about the casual gamers, which is what Bliz said they were trying to focus on.

Edited, Fri Sep 10 21:47:34 2004 by StumpyWSF
#19 Sep 10 2004 at 9:13 PM Rating: Decent
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I copied this from the worldofwarcraft forums, as I felt it was well thought out. I know it's long, but it makes great points. And to be honest, how often do you come across a good post on those forums?



I apologize ahead of time; this is going to be a dissertation.

Up until this point you have done a brilliant job of catering to the high level player and the casual player. Most quests are able to be done solo and you get decent gear but nothing elite. If you’re a casual player who likes to quest and level you can’t expect much more out of the game as far as gear goes. The high end intense gamer expect more from the game i.e. instances, epic items, good blue items. With the proposed “professions” blurb on the web page you are taking three steps back.

Blizzard has addressed the wrong problem. The real problem is the economy. What would happen if the United States started printing dollar bills continuously with no regulation? Inflation, plain and simple, that is strait out of Econ 101. In the current state of the game there is no functional way to remove money from the game.

Current “make believe” money sinks:
- Gryphon flights (the 6 silver it takes to get to BRD hardly touches the amount of money I make in the instance.)
- Buying Food/Drink (haven’t bought food since about level 40-ish, ask a mage it is free)
- Buying spells (unless you re-train you only have to do that once)
- Mounts (again, once unless your crazy)
- Minimal supplies i.e. heavy silken thread, coal etc. (reflected into the sale price ultimately)
-Vials (the one and only thing I still do buy)
-Stamps and auction house deposits (LOL 30 copper for stamps)

Since the advent of the auction houses nobody in there right mind would buy equipment from a NPC. So the stores in the vast towns that you worked really hard to create have been reduced to a worn down path between the mail box, the auction house, the bank, and the occasionally trip to a trainer and the anvil/forge.

Back to the mindless money printing analogy; Every time a mob is slain in the entire world at the current level average of all players around 2-5 silver is added to the economy. Is it any surprise that the Staff of Jordan sold for 585 gold last week in the auction house? (congrats btw to who ever landed that). That 585 gold that somebody spent on that staff is now in some players backpack, and the economy remains inflated. Blizzard you need to find an effective way to take money BACK from the players, not limit the amount of trade skills one can have pretending that fixes the problem. Money in = money out = minimal inflation. Obviously a dead lock on this would be stagnant and hinder over all growth and progression of the game. In the current state of the economy the money just floats from rich player to rich player.

Possible “real” money sinks:
- Provide items in shops people really want to buy.
- Have a Gm or blizzard employee create “rare” around the level of quest strength items and put them on the auction house at competitive levels with the current economy. This was attempted with the “rare spawn” weapons in the mage district in SW but fizzled after about level 10. This at least sucks money out of the game for items that already exist in the game.
- Gaming houses, I read this on a thread the other day, and although it is not exactly PC for blizzard to promote gambling, they did put a race track in the middle of nowhere (why it is not used). The thread suggested texas hold em’ and black jack, this would never happen because I don’t think Blizzard would be able to live with themselves if little 12 year old Billy became a black jack addict and started maxing his parents credit cards because of WoW.
- THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS remember that blizzard
- Implement that coliseum arrange dueling tournaments with buy ins and allow the winner to wear “the champions tabard” for a week or something.

Limiting players “professions” will ultimately stop people from “paying to play” in retail. The casual gamer that pays to play for the most part only has time for one character. They don’t have time to have three separate mules to cover all the trade skills. In general even players that have “alts” have a primary character that they dump hours into and eventually money to blizzard. That primary player should be able to do multiple trades. Ultimately player will hit the cap in retail. If a level 60 player with decked out artifact items has the best gear in the game but is unable to combine herbs into a potions because of an arbitrary trade cap this wouldn’t make much sense. Trade skills are just that, if u put in the wrench time you deserve to be able to be a jack of all trades. Changing the name to “professions” is just a copout. Arbitrary caps in this game to urge people to cookie cut their characters into identical copies of each other. A player should be able to explore every aspect of this wonderful game on one character if they put in the wrench time.

Now for a brief plea on how this is devastating to already gimped “hybrid classes”. Warriors need blacksmithing cause they can wear armor (mage/priest tailoring etc.). Hybrids depend on a wider variety of abilities and trades cause as a race we are a jack of all trades and a master of none. Further more allowing every player to get back up first aid has really lowered the need for back up healers and forming well rounded groups (bad idea). Warrior/3 mages/ and a priest will now be able to farm the emperor in 15 minutes flat if all classes will have first aid.

This is a little more than my 2 coppers. I have read over 15 posts today on the same exact subject. I urge all concerned players to add to this post. All immature flames, and pointless rebuttals to please abstain.
They gave us the forums because they wanted us Beta testers to voice our opinions. Exercise your right to vote, though its not exactly a democracy. Thank you if you read the entire post.
#20 Sep 10 2004 at 9:45 PM Rating: Good
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I think the poster needs to play more MMORPGs to get an idea of how the economy in them works.
#21 Sep 10 2004 at 9:51 PM Rating: Decent
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151 posts
It would be more productive to list what you think is wrong and list your solution. Also, this isn't an MMO comparison. This is about the development of the economy in WoW, which unless you are a tester and have reached a high level you have not gotten a feel for.

Edited, Fri Sep 10 22:54:35 2004 by StumpyWSF
#22 Sep 10 2004 at 10:17 PM Rating: Decent
Actually limiting the amount of tradeskills is going to be good for the economy. it will cause more circulation of money which is never bad.
#23 Sep 10 2004 at 10:22 PM Rating: Decent
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151 posts
Arimer, the circulation of money is not an issue in the game. It circulates just fine, it doesn't disappear is the problem.
#24 Sep 10 2004 at 10:32 PM Rating: Decent
Well its very easy for them to raise the cost of mail, transportation, mounts, etc.
#25 Sep 10 2004 at 10:44 PM Rating: Good
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The two best ways to to take money out of a MMORPG economy:

1) Durability. Items have a durability rating. The more they are used, the more they wear. This means you need to go and buy new weapons and armor to replace the worn-out stuff.

2) Crafting failure. When you fail, you lose materials. So you need to go buy/gather more materials.
#26 Sep 10 2004 at 10:47 PM Rating: Decent
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151 posts
Be nice if raising those would work, but it won't. Not all classes need a mount. You can't raise the price of stamps so high that low level people can't use the mail. Same with transportaion.
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