Okay, about tinkering AA

[Sobizzy]

I know that tinkering AA has been mentioned before, but as a professional puntball I am wondering if there has been any thought to tie it to a tinkering skill and so allow skilled folk to acquire the AA. ( also this keeps it on the minds of ogres, who forget stuff)

[Niami DenMother]

I know that tinkering AA has been mentioned before, but as a professional puntball I am wondering if there has been any thought to tie it to a tinkering skill and so allow skilled folk to acquire the AA. ( also this keeps it on the minds of ogres, who forget stuff)

My brain is pretzeling at this one. Are you suggesting that you earn an AA as you skill up in tinkering, as opposed to earning it via normal AA point earning (adventuring)? If so, I suspect that's a bad precedent*, that I doubt the current code can handle.

*Even if it could be done, there'd be a HUGE outcry from everyone who earned any tradeskill-related AA via adventuring in the past, demands to change over every tradeskill-related AA to be tied to the tradeskill, demands for AA refunds, etc.

That's one huge can of worms.

If I am misunderstanding, my apologies. Been "one of those weeks" times 20 over on the EQ2 side of things and my brain is sort of ... mush.

[Lothay]

Actually, he's just asking for a "Tinkering Mastery" AA.

SoE has stated previously (and no, I don't have a link) that there isn't a way to restrict/code an AA based on Race or to tie the availability of the AA to only those who have a skill in their current system.

In otherwords, A tinkering mastery AA doesn't exist 'cause it can't be coded by doing a set of database entries. It would require someone to open up the code that handles how AAs work and re-write it to support a Tinkering Mastery. Not likely to happen any time soon.

[Angelsyn]

But there is a way to add AAs to characters who do quests or what-have-you to get flags.

Unfortunately, in those cases you always seem to get the AA completed, rather than just the ability to put xp toward the AA.

Still, it wouldn't be too hard... Or heck, just throw the Tinkering Mastery AA onto everyone. Any non-Gnome who puts AA points into it deserves what they get.

[Twistagain]

How about a quest giver that:
1) Only talks to you if you are a gnome
2) Checks to see if you have X unspent AAs (and if you have any Tinkering Mastery AAs)
3) Offers you the Tinkering Mastery AA based on the result of #2
4) Deducts the proper amount of AAs from your unspent AAs.

This doesn't *sound* too difficult to code based on currently functioning ingame mechanics. There are checks already ingame that perform each of these routines...of course, merging them *COULD* be a pain. /shrug

Edit: When I say that it doesn't sound too difficult...I'm saying that as a professional coder. Also realize that this means that I am aware that, depending on how it was coded in the first place, it may be MUCH more difficult than it sounds.

[Liwsa]

Why not just add tinkering AA for everyone. Since only gnomes can do tinkering, common sense dictates that gnomes would be the only ones to actually buy the AA's.

[Twistagain]

Why not just add tinkering AA for everyone. Since only gnomes can do tinkering, common sense dictates that gnomes would be the only ones to actually buy the AA's.

Because common sense is not very common. What you would get is people that blow 18 AAs on it, unable to get any benefit, who will begin to rant and rave about how SOE screwed them with a bait-and-switch.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Yeah.

I want to do one. But I do not have an absolute promise that there will be one, ore an ETA even.

I ahve not even been able to get answers I need to even go further than thinking that I want to do one.

[Sobizzy]

an idea, maybe work, or maybe not

Some AA require a flag as in a cetain level or a certain previous AA. Since we don't want others to get tinkering mastery by accident ( or on purpose), create a preflag for tinkering, show one of the new trohies to a certain NPC and get the Preflag AA, signifying only that they are a tinker, then only those with that can spend AA on tinkering mastery.
No I don't mean a spendable AA other then it gets spent to claim the PC is a tinker and eligible for tinkering mastery. BYW thanks for all the effort.

[Twistagain]

Heh...that's not a bad idea. A prerequisite AA that's a freebie, quest AA given out ONLY to gnomes...and Tinkering Mastery only offered if you have that prereq AA.

Makes my idea seem MUCH more difficult code-wise. Lol.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Well.

Duh.

It is still probably going to be bundled with an expansion though. But I will talk to folks.