Where did the term "trivial" come from?

[scarbrowed]

I've seen a few posts complaining about the EQ developers not knowing the meaning of trivial. My question is, where do you see the word trivial in EQ? When I perform a "trivial" combine, it says something like "You can no longer advance your skill from this combine." I don't think I've ever seen the word trivial in EQ at all in fact.

[Eumerin]

IIRC, Ultima Online uses it.

As Ultima Online was the first MMORPG to be an amazing success, many of the original players in Everquest came over from Ultima Online (UO). UO has a very different array of tradeskills, and tradeskilling is a legitimate career path in that game (as opposed to EQ where the primary focus is always killing stuff, with tradeskills as a bonus).

Unsurprisingly, the term 'trivial' was carried over by the original EQ players, many of whom came directly from UO. UO, of course, may have picked the term up from even earlier MMORPGs, but UO was the first MMORPG to be a blockbuster hit.

[Unmei]

I think that way back the heck when, around release, it used to say something like "This item is trivial to someone of your skill." or something to that effect. The message was eventually dubbed confusing, and changed to "you can no longer gain skill yadda yadda spend more money."

The term "trivial" stuck around though.

[Kytelae]

It said that up until fairly recently, when they first started doing some massive work on tradeskills.

[Farnyr]

Many of the terms we use in EQ have been brought over from other MMORPGs as well as the granddaddy of them all, D&D. So just remember next time you do a combine, that even the RNG has to do a skill check sometimes.

[eqNichola]

Re: Where did the term "trivial" come from?

When I perform a "trivial" combine, it says something like "You can no longer advance your skill from this combine." I don't think I've ever seen the word trivial in EQ at all in fact.

As mentioned, that message used to be something like 'This item was trivial for you to make!' (complete with annoying exclamation point), but was changed after pressure from folks pointing out that if it really was *trivial*, we wouldn't fail it 5% of the time. Unfortunately, rather than remove the 5% fail chance, they just changed the message

Just out of interest, I actually went looking at the oldest of my logs to see if I could date the change. I found the time when I maxed smithing at 175, scant days before fine plate was introduced Even then - September 2000 - the message was as it is now.

My earliest log of a trivial combine is August 28, 2000. The message then was as it is now, 'You can no longer advance your skill from making this item.' I *do* have a memory of seeing the 'trivial' message myself, which would put the change somewhere between May 6 (when I started playing EQ) and August 2000, but memory can play tricks on one.

I *also* remember once making a post on the old ezboard, saying "isn't it about time we changed our terminology", but that got nowhere :roll:

[Dunthor Warsmith]

I wish I'd started logging earlier ... I started EQ August 10, 2000, but I don't have a logged combine until October 21st ... and I'm already workong on Steel Boning, so I've definitely done some smithing (especially numerous trivial metal bits) before this.

My logs hold no references to the "trivial" statement, but it feels very familiar ... don't know if I've seen it in game, or just in answers to previous versions of this question

[Kytelae]

I have a ton of logs, but no way I'm gonna search them to find when the triv message vanished. lol!

[Kirstin Thornhill]

Went through my old logs, but I didn't start logging until very late 2001.

I did find this, which made me cry...

[Sun Dec 02 13:13:59 2001] XXXXXXXXX shouts, 'pc on arctic wyvern tunic'

[Sun Dec 02 13:14:02 2001] ZZZZZZZ says out of character, '9k or so on wyvern tunic'

[Farnyr]

Kytelae just open a log up, copy it into word, and then run a "Find", and search "Trivial", will make things go alot faster.

Arctic wyvern at 9k? Back in MY day, they didnt even have AW to skill up on. We skilled up on sewing newbies together and using them as shields, you know why? Because we didnt even have shields! We had to sew newbies together and use them as shields. Dag gum whipper snappers!

[Tweedledea]

/rofl Farnyr