CLOK BBS

It would be awesome if we could get the "western frontier/gaslamp" class in the game.

I'm thinking an Gunsmith/Engineers guild, where they can make steampunk contraptions and have gun style combat skills.

To be honest, fire arms were the big draw for me to come to the game. I was looking for the guild that would give specific abilities to gunmen...only thing I found was Mercs +50.

Why aren't there any gun skills? I like the engineer idea, I'd just call the guild "Gunsmiths". Just off the top of my head:
Quick Draw -lowers fire RT on small weapons.
Snipe - I think there is a skill like this for bows...is there for rifles?
Loader - Reduced RT on reloads
Butt stroke - close combat stun allowing for flanking or moving to avoid distance
Riding Accuracy

Etc.

Given a day to think I could probably give you ten or twelve skills easily emplemented.

Gun perks could be the creation of an M1 Grande type rifle with a 5 shot mag.
Shotguns for spread shot. Etc. it's funny to me that we have revolvers but are essentially working with single shot muskets and colonial era rifles instead of the pistol equivalent of the Wild West's bolt acton pump actions. Colonial is not steam punk. Maybe make those lesser rifles affordable to new players coming in like cheap melee weapons and then have them able to pick up better, strong weapons as you level.

If fire arms are gonna be a pain in the ass, shouldn't they be that much more awesome on the damage side?

Also, perhaps something the guild could make bullet casings for others as ammunition that doesn't require powder for loading, only available through your local gunsmith.


Suggested things to build:

All player Guns/crossbows crafting, Ammunition
Guild only gun crafting small magazine fed or even a bigger weapon, with added roundtime to carry, but belt fed with overheating...gatling style for those big invasions. You'd have to hop off and use smaller weapons while it cooled.
Mechanical toys and pets
Plows, Mechanical Saws, Fletching Razors, Switchblades, Crank-turn Drills, Magnifying glasses that aid in Gem-setting, Headlamps

To be honest, I think the game is lacking in the steampunk/clockwork department, bit I don't think this is the answer to it. I believe we need something added to bring the steampunk aspect into the game, but there are many more possibilities than these types of guns. What you describe makes me think of Call of Duty more than clockwork/wild west. But this is a good start. Maybe with a few tweaks, someone could come up with the missing themes the game needs to live up to its clockwork name.

Interesting take. I was thinking wild west.

I don't want to say that we will never have an Engineer's Guild or similar, but none of the ideas I've seen so far really fit into Arad all that well. Here's why:

Grum is the country where steampunk, clockwork, and steam in general makes its home. Even there, steampunk isn't the norm, but the exception (see the wiki article, I think it's in there). Because of this, there has been very little technological proliferation to the Lost Lands, given the quarantine that has been in place for years, and that it's a rather small part of Grum culture.

Oh awesome, I'll have to read that. Thanks Rith

Gonna chime in on a few things, and try to clear up the intended game setting.

Gruff wrote:it's funny to me that we have revolvers but are essentially working with single shot muskets and colonial era rifles instead of the pistol equivalent of the Wild West's bolt acton pump actions.

First of all, keep in mind we're on the CLOK technolgoy timeline, which may differ when compared to the real-world one. Also, keep in mind that these are flintlock revolvers - they're the first of their kind, still new stuff. Rifling hasn't even been discovered yet, we're still using muskets. My internet-search-fu isn't turning anything up for bolt action muskets, only rifles, so my conscience is okay. Also, if you type skill firearms it mentions firearms still being new technology, so I think it's safe to say we're not quite to the point of gatling guns yet.

Most importantly: It's by design intent that guns aren't big in CLOK. I really struggled with even putting in the basic guns, the single-shot flintlocks, and later put in revolvers and some of the long guns so that people who trained firearms could have more to say than that they had a skill devoted to a weapon type that was inferior in every way (limited ammo, limited powder, low damage potential). I'm happy with our current selection of firearms. Barring maybe some one-of-a-kind unique gun that shows up in an auction or something, you're not likely gonna see anything firearms-wise beyond what we've currently got. Sorry.

Well, except maybe a blunderbuss. Just because it's fun to say. Maybe. But probably not.

Colonial is not steam punk.

CLOK isn't supposed to be steampunk, although the nation of Grum has some steampunky elements (as Rithiel said, even in Grum this is somewhat rare, it isn't a huge mechanized supersteamutopia or anything). Clockwork was originally going to be a bit more prevalent in the player-accessable area of the world in the form of discoverable ruins and relics, but even then, it wasn't in the way of weaponry or mechs or power-suits or anything, but rather things like orreries, primitive single-purpose automata, large clock towers, pocketwatches, stuff like that. I wanted to work it into some architectural elements as well, but the way the history of this area of the world developed, that's not very believable in the Lost Lands anymore.

Perhaps it's some kind of weird hopeless idealism of mine, but I imagine that the CLOK world is at a point where there's relative peace, and the people making technological advances are all taken in by the wonders of clockwork technology and its applications in the, uh, "civilian" world I guess, while mostly eschewing thoughts about weaponization. Improbable? Maybe, but that's what I had in mind.

Plus, there's the whole thing where in the real world we still don't have powered personal armor or mechwalkers or anything, even though we're well beyond steam power. I do think that stuff is all conceptually cool, but it's never what I had in mind for CLOK. I don't think you (the original poster) were asking for steam armor and mechs and stuff, but many people have, or seem to have expected it, when they hear that the CLOK technology level (at its peak) is clockwork and steam.

Maybe make those lesser rifles affordable to new players coming in like cheap melee weapons and then have them able to pick up better, strong weapons as you level. If fire arms are gonna be a pain in the ass, shouldn't they be that much more awesome on the damage side?

Muskets and revolvers can dish some pretty impressive damage. As was pointed out somewhere else on the boards recently, the big problem with revolvers is that the damage tends to be spread out over multiple hit locations so it's harder to get a quick kill with them since it's harder to focus all the damage on a single vital hit location.

Also, perhaps something the guild could make bullet casings for others as ammunition that doesn't require powder for loading, only available through your local gunsmith.

Considering most of the firearm roundtime is from loading powder, this would be far too overpowered.

I know, I know. Negative Norman. I have had ideas and thoughts (and rough drafts!) for some type of engineering guild, but I keep running into the problem that it would be hard for me to justify its existence in the Lost Lands. To be honest, the game's setting has changed a fair amount since I first conceptualized CLOK. Sometimes it makes me kind of sad.

I don't think a guild focused around crafting (even if it's relatively niche) should have access to combat specific abilities.

That being said, I like the idea of a guild that focuses on mundane combat that make use of more technologically advanced weapons like crossbows and firearms. I submitted a proposal to the GMs, but chances are (like my pottery idea) that it's fairly low on the priority list since there's a large number of guilds already available, assuming it's something they would want to implement.

When I envisioned the guild it was a gunsmiths guild. So people that have weapon skills related to fire arms.

I could really care less about the crafting part outside of the fact that they should have weapons available to them that aren't to the rest of the player base, like most guilds.

I totally understand Rias and Rith's answers and reasoning. I also say to that Rias, that if you envisioned something before, and it makes you sad that it's not in the game, at the very least put it out there to us and let us have a go at how to work it in.

We're all in this because of the awesome job you guys have done so far and we only want to help make the game great. I'm not looking to make stuff incredibly over powered. I don't want that. Game balance is VERY important to me.

I'm just an Army guy, not call of duty, but the real thing, and I love westerns and movies about the frontier days and such and I would love to see a little more to that end.

I'm sure we could create a firearms related guild with real fire arm skills (since there is only one skill like that IG right now). I would love to be part of the think tank for it. Throw all the engineering supersuits and whatnot out the window. Not my intention at all.

I'm also wondering if you guys want us to be mapping certain areas, like are on the Wiki. I wouldn't mind helping with that either.

Call me Roland.

sorry if my references aren't verbatim but I have yet to figure out all the neat little tricks you guys got with the block quotes and stuff. but Gruff you say you want a gunsmith guild but you don't care about the crafting. so by that logic you don't want a gunsmith guild, you want a gunman guild. sounds like a question of semantics but it's not cause yes while in the wild west a lot of folks made their own cartridges you need to understand that what you are proposing is this.
bob joins the gunman guild with very low (50) firearms/gunsmithing skill or whatever.
bob starts making his own cartridges and is still clumbsy at it.
bob fires off a cartridge he created with his bad skill and blows up the chamber on his revolver and most of his hand, possibly causing massive blood loss and possibly death and now he doesn't have a weapon anymore.
With the still upcoming changes to death mechanics this could get horribly bad.
I do however fully agree that the idea behind the engineering guild should be posted or point me at it, perhaps some rp could be devised to implement it over time

last but not least, i think some civilian aspects of the clockwork have either been overlooked or haven't been focused on by the players. for example. there is that lovely steam wagon sitting right there in the middle of the road outside shadgard. I would very much like to see some of the things that can be made using the gears that you can forge. I'm just as guilty of not seeing everything as most so if i'm just missing something point me at it and i'll learn.I'd very much like to see the ability to make some of the things like the grinder for polishing gems, diamond edged bar cutters, and other various things that would presumeably use clockwork that we could make portable.

By the way, a lot of you guys joined us after the Spring Festival, which focused on Grum.

Don't worry, they'll probably make a reappearance next year.

xavier wrote:sorry if my references aren't verbatim but I have yet to figure out all the neat little tricks you guys got with the block quotes and stuff. but Gruff you say you want a gunsmith guild but you don't care about the crafting. so by that logic you don't want a gunsmith guild, you want a gunman guild. sounds like a question of semantics but it's not cause yes while in the wild west a lot of folks made their own cartridges you need to understand that what you are proposing is this.
bob joins the gunman guild with very low (50) firearms/gunsmithing skill or whatever.
bob starts making his own cartridges and is still clumbsy at it.
bob fires off a cartridge he created with his bad skill and blows up the chamber on his revolver and most of his hand, possibly causing massive blood loss and possibly death and now he doesn't have a weapon anymore.
With the still upcoming changes to death mechanics this could get horribly bad.
I do however fully agree that the idea behind the engineering guild should be posted or point me at it, perhaps some rp could be devised to implement it over time

last but not least, i think some civilian aspects of the clockwork have either been overlooked or haven't been focused on by the players. for example. there is that lovely steam wagon sitting right there in the middle of the road outside shadgard. I would very much like to see some of the things that can be made using the gears that you can forge. I'm just as guilty of not seeing everything as most so if i'm just missing something point me at it and i'll learn.I'd very much like to see the ability to make some of the things like the grinder for polishing gems, diamond edged bar cutters, and other various things that would presumeably use clockwork that we could make portable.

Dang it, used the window with my brothers account active.

I would love to see n00bBob blow his hand off. More work for the church! I think that is an awesome idea and should certain be added.

I chose gunsmith because I would like to see some stuff craftable later on, but for now I care about the combat skills. If the guild master or armory guy is the only qualified "smith" and that's where we get better than average weapons, so be it.

I'll be looking forward to Grum fest next year