Wild Idea..../grin

[Strokker]

I know Paper and other mediums drop in game but how about a new subtrade.

Papermakeing or parchment makeing.

Paper - Basic

Rice

Water Flask

Spider Silk Filter

I just come up short of the container to make it in, however we do make liquids in our Spell Research container.

And the triv...erm...excuse me Difficulty could be ramped up from mid to high to very high range...Just a mind warp for me tonight folks.

What do yall think?

[Liwsa]

The problem with that is the paper/parchments is what limits how fast spells can be made. You are by allowing that bottle neck to be bypassed allowing spells to be made at an unlimited quanity.

It "may" not be such a big deal now as a lot of folks have already maxed research however when the research skill was increased to 300 there was a major bottle neck trying to get enough parchments to skill up on.

[Strokker]

True but just think of how it would work on the market...heh. People charge an arm and leg for spells that others can go out and get free or with a little work I however am not proposing this mind you I just would like more avenues to skill up and more avenues to work on trades. Afterall those drops should have to come from somewhere are the mindless mobs better than we? I think not we are after tradeskillers and we should be able to take raw components and make something wonderful from it.

I know it probably wont happen, but hey I can dream can't I?

[apprw]

It seems reasonable to me to be able to make paper.

But, the kind of paper that can be used for spells?
Maybe it has to be magical or something to hold spells?
Maybe it requires another type of component to make it that way, something that is not so easy to get?

I myself, do not have 300 research. I am very short of paper.

[Eanelder]

Are you talking PAPER as in lvl 71-75 spells? or are you talking about STATIONARY ... the generic material on which spells of any level are written on?

Making PAPER might not be an issue considering people are going to have 2 years to farm the stuff anyways, the the rank 1 versions of the spells they make are already on vendors. Papers of all varietyes are selling for < 10PP a piece now on my server.

[olhoss]

Vellum could be made from animal skins as well.

Actually i think the idea of being able to craft these components is a good one. To those that say it would make getting the spells way easy or would flood the market, I would ask...so what? Who cares if people have an easy time getting their spells? Is it really so horrible that players at all levels of the game (meaning casual vs. hard core raider) are able to have the same spells?

Spell casters already have the issue of getting gear and focuses (like melee) in addition to needing their spells. Why make it that much tougher? I like what they did in TSS where the basic spells are available to anyone and upgrades are available from drops. However, the inconsistency of some of the drops has hosed some people (clerics and mages) but they were on the right track there.

Now, when spells go up to 80, who cares if everything up to 70 is easy to make? Who cares if the 71-75 rank II or even rank III are easy to attain?

To be honest, in a shrinking player base, anything that helps people get to the level (75 for now) at which they are able to group with me or which makes them viable to be a guildmate is a good thing.

[Vorton]

I don't think player made base scrolls for spell research will ever fly. For the simple reason that EQ has always mandated that the spells must be dropped themselves or made from dropped components. This is done to limit the number coming into the game, since SOE wants the players to work for things so that the players feel a sense of accomplishment when the do achieve something. That keeps people playing and therefore paying. If they were to allow the base scrolls to be made then there would be a second dropped component needed and the rarity would end up the same for the parchments after all the drop balancing was done.

Now if your goal is to get more chances to skill up then you might try and sweet talk, cajole, or just plain bribe the devs into making a way to take a scroll of a spell that is currently researchable and clean it off to reuse the parchment from it. I would think such a combine might be more difficult to ensure that the best path isn't to buy a bunch of cheap spells in the bazaar and clean them. I would guess that the combine would either have a high innate failure rate or require multiple cleanings with the proper parchment solution to raise the cost. After all these aren't the blank parchments that have just been blown around and gotten dirty but spells that have been given the full force of the researchers skill involving magical inks, arcane treatments, and spilled beer if most researchers I know made them.

I think that might make it into the game since the overall cost would be higher than the current system of getting parchments and it wouldn't result in an increase in the number of spells coming into the game.

[olhoss]

Except what does it matter if #1 the number of spells in the game is enough to supply everyone with his/her spells and #2 whether those spells enter the game through being farmed or from being made?

Farming drops is not the only sense of accomplishment. MAKING items also has a sense of accomplishment, which anyone who hangs around this board could tell you.

To be honest, I think it would be better to make the tradeskills so many have worked so hard to master had MORE use in the game, particularly where it can eliminate some of the bottleneck (the drop rates) that lead to end products (spells) being outrageously expensive in the bazaar, which serves to prevent people from acquiring their spells unless they have a lot of plat, which leads to plat farming etc etc etc.

[Wyvernwill]

Except what does it matter if #1 the number of spells in the game is enough to supply everyone with his/her spells and #2 whether those spells enter the game through being farmed or from being made?

Farming drops is not the only sense of accomplishment. MAKING items also has a sense of accomplishment, which anyone who hangs around this board could tell you.

To be honest, I think it would be better to make the tradeskills so many have worked so hard to master had MORE use in the game, particularly where it can eliminate some of the bottleneck (the drop rates) that lead to end products (spells) being outrageously expensive in the bazaar, which serves to prevent people from acquiring their spells unless they have a lot of plat, which leads to plat farming etc etc etc.

A good chunk of spells are researched, and a good deal are still selling for a "outrageous" prices. Take RGC, entirely farmable. You can even get it from LDoN camps, or through one grouping the Rhags in Ssra. Still costs a ton however... atleast in some people's eyes.

To some people, a researcher selling GoD spells at 7k each is ripping people off. Or 70 spells for 20k. Some think that's far too much and way too expensive... but my question is... Is it really?

To me, 100k is a cheap item. I spent almost 1.5mpp twinking a none FV alt out with OoW augs, DoN augs, etc. To me, even 100k is almost trivial and I never have bought or sold plat online.

Cheap, Expensive, Overpriced... are all relative terms to one's own fortune.

As for spells like Mage Summon Spells, 75 group RK2 spells... they are sold for what people are willing to buy for.

[olhoss]

for the most part I agree with you...to you this is no issue but how is it for most people?

I make spells cheaper than anyone on my server (you give me the components, the click is free).

RGC sells for so much specifically because what I am talking about...Rhags is always camped, page 22 is not a common drop, and it is used for a lot of spells. Now what happens if page 22 drops from a lot more mobs and a lot more often? What happens to the price of 70 spells when the sooty fine runic are common? There are other dynamics (like skill up rates) but there are alternatives like making paper crafted but not vellum. Or the combine creating something called a Crafted Fine Runic Vellum which is coded with a times zero multiplier to the skill up chance so you can make the spell but can't get cheap skill ups...or making the components for the paper somewhat expensive (like Aqua Regia) so you can make them but it is not necessarily cheap. (Which, again, wipes out the overpriced market for the components).

[Wyvernwill]

FRV are already fairly common, hunt TBS especially. Considering I average 3-4 a night in Thalasius missions, I don't consider them all that rare. Certainly more common than Smudged Runic Parchments were in DoDh/PoR.

There's a finite number of spell books and a finite number of people needing spells. Beyond that, you run into the situation that sometimes the people selling the Sooty Fine Runic Vellums for 8k ignore the fact that the spells sell for 7k at most... researcher takes a hit unless using Barter or farming for themself.

RGCs words are not common because no one is specifically hunting them. When I started to build money for research, that's what I did. I managed to make five copies of RGC from that.

While I see your theory, it wipes out the entire spell market as well. People like me, and I know of atleast one other vendor, would mass produce and sell at prices that would eventually sink to the point of cutting the throats out of everyone trying to skill up research. Being able to create parchments/papers that offer a 0% skill up chance hurts those under max and makes life extremely easy to those at max skill (afterall, who cares about skill ups at that point?)

The current system works, and works extremely well. I've been turning a nice profit with fair prices in the bazaar since DoDh went live.

Your assertation that you make the cheapest spells on the server might be true, but I don't even require people give me the drops as long as I consider the person a friend.

As for the question about the general populace's plat in bank number... I really don't care. Some are rich, some are flat broke and there's a lot in the middle. I don't change a price from 7500 to 75000 because someone has 10mpp in the bank, just as I don't change a price from 7500 to 750 because that's all that someone has.

[olhoss]

If making paper thus making the spells more readily available ruins the market price..good. And as far as farming pg. 22, I pointed out why this one was rare. Maybe you are one of those people lucky enough to get it to drop IF you can get the camps where it drops. I am saying make it easier to get, keep the trivial on the spells where they are so that it doesn't have anything to do with market price and all to do with having the skill to make it.

The reason for the 0 skill up tag is only so that the ability to get the skill doesn't change just because the components are more available.

p.s. I have probably given away more spells than anyone but the test server as well.