Answers to some Clok revival FAQs

[Zeldryn]

Hi all!

We had a brief voice chat today talking about some of the frequently asked questions and concerns regarding the clok revival project. I've done my best to summarize the points discussed below in no particular order. If I missed anything, feel free to contribute or yell at me for forgetting. Also be mean to me for spelling badly.

Q: Regarding events-- what has changed, and what is different? Did everything in clok still happen?

A: Everything that happened happened to some degree. The blood cult shenanigans with keth, the harbinger attacks on Shadgard, the incidents with infested and the Concord, the burning of Spinner's creek, Caldwell's Reemergence, all of it. No major NPCs died, however. There were casualties-- lots of casualties, to be sure-- but everyone crucial to the machine kept it moving. None of the areas which were previously destroyed outright will be destroyed outright-- they will continue to exist in some form, either as ruins or something else. (But they won't be towns that are functioning, that's for sure!)

Q: What about events in Cogg? Do they apply to Clok now that it's back?

A: Little bit more of a gray area, here. Cogg and Clok are different beasts, despite their similarities. So-- though some similar version of events occurred, the big difference that's worth noting is the differences between the Dominion in Clok and the Dominion and Cogg. They became kind of different entities with their own identities. The Republic of Exiles still exists in some form, but now, the two entities never fought a big gigantic full on war against each other. The Dominion is much more like it's Clok counterpart-- they're small, but they're trying to expand their influence to some degree, they're spooky, they're mysterious, and for now, they've closed the curtains on their little slice of the lost lands and faded back into the background. We might hear from them again sometime in the future, we might not. We'll see.

The Republic-- at least, certain entities within it-- have likely done their own things and planned their own efforts to keep the Dominion off of their land and whatnot, but for all intents and purposes, there was no big ol' war that led to the fall of the Dominion.

The easiest way to explain this in short is to say clok is clok, cogg is cogg. We're doing our best to keep it that way, because people still play Cogg and want to keep playing Cogg.

Q: What about Haiban?

A: Haiban was destroyed by the Dunwyr as a result of miscellanious things that went on in character. Ask around about it, there are people who know some stuff. It's gone-- sorry. That said, any items that were in the vault there or homes there aren't gone indefinitely. Items are a work in process.

Q: Speaking of items, what about items in vaults and houses?

A: Work in process, do not fear! But if your house was in a destroyed hamlet, it's still going to be destroyed. Sorry. You can likely get some stuff out of it, though.

Q: Mounts?

A: Same for mounts. Work in process. Do not fear! This is the case for most things in this regard.

Q: What about Valeria? That was different in Cogg.

A: Valeria will be different in Clok, too. It'll be in the same general place, but the Cogg version of it is really fun, so Rias wants to get it, and it's new inhabitants, in there too. Everybody loves the liberi.

Q: What about places like Icewind?

A: Icewind is a go for sure.

Q: New Emberlight?

A: New Emberlight is more questionable because everyone's trying their best to keep everyone contained in one town. We don't want people living out there, or staying out there, or that kind of thing. It's meant to be a visitable location for short term stuff and so there's a port to explain some imports and other IC things. So there's a desire for it to be there, but there's some variables to consider.

Q: What about druidry?

A: So, there's a desire to hybridize. Rias doesn't want to get rid of Clok druidry, because he wants people to feel like their efforts and characters are still valid. He expressed this regard specifically in mention to the Udemi. Their druidry was always kind of specific to their own purposes, which is partially the reason why it's the way it is for them. But he also really likes the new druidry stuff. So, he expressed a desire to create a new druid-centric society that includes the more primal, dangerous, misunderstood aspects of druidry from Cogg for folks who want to druid for the sake of druiding. It's a work in process. But-- simply put, more druidry, not less.

Q: What about the library from Cogg?

A: That won't be returning, sorry. It's a Cogg specific thing that stands in for the elemancers. Elemancy is here, and they have the university.

Q: What about the lorekeepers?

A: This is a bit of a gray area because the organization was so small and focused. Rias wants folks who were a part of it to reach out and discuss more about it so he can form more of an opinion and get a better grasp on the sorts of things they did, what they were all about, what the players in it were like, etc. But based off what he knows and has heard so far he is on the fence about it because he feels as though it might conflict with the tone of the other druid focused stuff going on alongside it. But he also doesn't want to exclude anyone or minimize anyone's concepts or experiences. That's why he wants to talk. The general conclusion reached was that it will likely continue to exist, but no longer be joinable. In this way, people who are a part of it can keep being a part and doing their thing if they want, but if they want to shift somewhere else instead and leave it behind as a result of it's limited scope, that's fine, too.

Q: Harbingers? What're they going to look like? What about the guilds in general?

A: Again-- bit of a gray area here. But they're not going to be precisely the same as they were before. Really, this goes for all of the guilds. The guild initiation system will be more open and welcoming to everybody, and the societies themselves will be reworked to a certain extent to give them more purpose and identity. Short answer? Most of the guilds/societies will be very similar to what they were before, but different in specific ways.

Q: What about abilities, skills, levels, and the like?

A: No more skillpoint spending, no more bucket holding you back. Level might still be a thing to kind of gauge people's accumulation of skill, just as a sort of measuring tool. As for abilities, they're a work in process. A lot will be accessible on a general level, but divided into specific trees that are gated behind prereq abilities to make you pick and choose whether to specialize or be more general in utility. In essence, it's similar to the idea of the ability trees planned previously for Cogg, but based in the skill system of Clok without skill points and the like. Ability points will still be a thing though, and the total of those points will likely remain similar pending the finished result of the process.

Q: What's the status on farming?

A: Rias really likes the system he built for farming for Cogg, despite the frustrations he has with it at times. He's trying to figure out the best way to implement it in Clok. Fear not, farmers-- you will be farming. Not in as private of a space, not with as much hfreedom of storage, but your concerns are being heard, considered carefully, and he really wants to make it work and make everyone happy.

Q: Will the name and disguise systems return?

A: Maybe. There are things he likes and dislikes about it. For now, it's going to remain as it is-- we'll see about the future.

Q: Will the note system return?

A: Yes, probably with some common sense limitations, but yes.

Q: What about the friends system?

A: The data is still there for it, so probably yes, to a certain extent, eventually.

Q: Will cogg characters be transferred to clok?

A: No. They're seperate beasts, still. This wasn't done for clok players going into Cogg for the first time, it won't be done for Cogg players going into clok for the first time. It just wouldn't be fair. If you want to play your cogg character-- just play Cogg. Otherwise, you're free to create a similar concept like folks did moving from clok to cogg and play that character to your heart's content. Just know that they won't be getting items transferred or anything like that.

Q: When will new character creation be opening up?

A: In a few days, likely. Just gotta make sure there aren't any last hidden oddities in the system before it's fully opened.

Q: Who's the best character on Clok?

A: It's obviously Zeldryn. He's great. Trust me. I'm a locksmith. (Translation: It's probably Alila)

Q: Did you forget any questions and or answers?

A: Yeah, probably. This is your reminder to correct me if you remembered anything I forgot.

Thanks again for the time taken, and hope this helps put some thoughts to rest. Happy clokking!

[Frisbee]

Thank you very, very much! It takes a lot of effort, doing this, and it's appreciated.

Also, you forgot about "Kalimba Club." :P

[Zeldryn]

Thank you very, very much! It takes a lot of effort, doing this, and it's appreciated.

Also, you forgot about "Kalimba Club." :P

That lore is forbidden also thank you

[artus]

Thank you for the sumary! It's also refreshing to hear from everyone today, old faces and new faces alike.:)

[Rias]

Thanks, Zeldryn! The chat was a lot of fun. Sorry for getting a little sassy at times. I like to tease people I'm comfortable with, and in group settings like this sometimes I can end up teasing someone I'm not as familiar with and then I worry I've just made them uncomfortable.

One thing I intended to mention about guilds but the conversation got away from me and then I forgot: Monks and Templar will continue to be picky like they have been in the past, so interested parties and current members alike should be prepared to walk the walk and talk the talk!

Regarding Haiban, I haven't decided how exactly it was brought down yet, though it's highly likely the Dunwyr were at least involved if not completely responsible.

Yes, we need the Liberi in Valeria because we need Tiodor's Bar!

Regarding libraries, we'll probably end up with some in-town ones where people can study lore items and get extra info. (Corvus already has an impressive library, as a matter of fact!)

Yeah, we might have some form of levels, perhaps simply based on total amount of that character's skill points, solely for the purpose of determining the rate at which ability points are accrued. I never liked the side effect of generalized abilities making it so people could just choose a bunch of abilities right out of the gate. Doesn't give you the feeling of progression and earning them like the original guild ranks system did.

You put the wrong answer for the "Who's the best character in CLOK?" question. The real answer is Kent. (I'd better see you in-game at some point, Kent!)

Last but not least; I found my kalimba, so I can practice up in preparation to keep Kalimba Club alive! (Why isn't it "Kalimba Klub" instead, for an alliteration bonus?)

[Deborah]

Heya folks,
first, it has been a very nice voice chat, first time I manage to hold all that time due to my time zone issues!

Second thing, I'd like to say thanks for all the FAQ that have been posted. This helps a lot!


Another question, that yesterday didn't come to my mind, and came right now when I was reading about library. What about physickers? Do we have to go to the NPC who stitches you up / treats you? Or there will be sort of a guild that allows you to treat faster, suture, splint, and so on?

Thank you, again!
D. A.

[Rias]

Answers to some more questions I'm seeing!

Q: Will chat always be available in-game while logged into a character?
A: It's on while we get things set up, but once everything's a bit more settled chat will only be available when logged out or on third-party bridged platforms like Discord. You can have a second connection to the game that you use for chatting if you want to chat through the game itself but in a separate window. We don't need the stream of consciousness chatter constantly distracting from the game and making it a struggle to stay on-topic and in-character.

Q: What's the game's roleplay standard? RPE, RPI, something else?
A: CLOK is RPE (Roleplay-Enforced), meaning you can't break character in in-character environments (essentially 99% of the game). It is not RPI (Roleplay Intensive, I think that's supposed to mean?). I prefer to keep a more relaxed atmosphere when it comes to the RP scene, so we don't have anyone feeling uncomfortable or somehow "not good enough." This doesn't mean anyone who wants to go all in on the serious RP and flowery emotes can't do so, I just don't want there to be a feeling of exclusivity or elitism or that someone is somehow "lesser" because they "only use says and socials" or anything like that. We're here to have fun! On the flip side: please do try to take the setting seriously and keep deliberately-ironic/goofy concepts and RP to a minimum. This isn't a self-aware satire setting and if a character acts silly or like they're not taking a situation seriously, the world and its NPCs will as a result treat them as silly people who are not to be taken seriously.

Q: My legacy CLOK account password isn't working! Can you help?
A: Try the RECOVER command. It'll send a one-time-use recovery password to your email. Don't forget to use the PASSWORD command once you log in to set a new password that you'll remember!

Q: I can't remember my BBS password! Can you help?
A: Use the Forgot Password link on the page that you land at when your password doesn't work. It'll send you an email with instructions on how to take care of it. (This wasn't working at one point, but it is now!)

Q: How do I see the list of characters that are on my account?
A: In addition to it showing the list when you first log in, you can also use the ACCOUNT command at any time to see your account details and character list.

Q: Will you reconsider the shelving/alt-limit system?
A: No, but during this early stage it is possible for people to log in with shelved characters. Get reacquainted with that character roster you haven't seen in a few years!

Q: My stuff was in a town that isn't accessible anymore! Is my stuff gone?
A: No, possessions and bank account balances will be transferred to a bank account that your character has access to. Similarly, horses will go to a stables that your character has access to. This is a work in progress and there will be an announcement when people have access to all their imported stuff.

Q: I heard that storage options are going to be quite limited. What do I do with all my old stuff if it won't all fit?
A: Choose what to keep and what to sell or give away or toss. The initial import will be able to over-stuff storage containers, but you won't be able to put anything else into overstuffed storage containers, of course. To discourage simply leaving them overstuffed forever, we'll probably have something like a recurring fine for overstuffed containers.

Q: Are the hamlets of Keth, Emleth, and/or Westbrook coming back?
A: As ruins!

Q: Will New Emberlight be available here in CLOK?
A: Maybe. It would serve as a decent neutral ground point that isn't overly developed or politically active in the greater area, and provide a sea port so we can occasionally have ships arrive with merchants/visitors/etc. or even ferry players to special event areas on occasion. New Emberlight also has lore reasons to deliberately remain partially-ruined and undeveloped, which is to say: No, you cannot help them rebuild or spruce the town up. They have reasons to want it exactly the way it is, and no better!

Q: Is the COGG-style introduction/naming system going to be implemented in CLOK?
A: Probably not. There were things I liked about it and things I didn't. I like the simplicity of just seeing character names up front better overall, despite the shortcomings that way has. The disguise system actually masking names is still up in the air. It seemed to frequently encourage a feeling of entitlement to act with immunity to responsibility and consequence.

Q: Will private mines/farms/workshops/etc. be a thing?
A: Nope. I feel that these all discourage player interaction by reducing chances for people to chance across each other in public facilities that provide the same functionality, and that in turn damages the multiplayer and social aspect of the game. At worst, they encourage cliquey or exclusive behavior. On this subject: Old player mine entrances have been removed, save for a few that had some historical significance (these remaining mine entrances do not function as actual mines anymore however).

Q: What about player housing?
A: It'll be available in a limited capacity, and storage space within homes will also be limited. There will be a limit of one home per account (not per character).

Q: Are we getting physickers (specialists in conventional non-magical healing, buffs, etc.) or something like them?
A: Yep, eventually!

Q: Is Brotherhood of the Fist still going to be a thing?
A: Yep! If the rumors I've heard about 12-strike attacks in the past are true though, I'd expect that to be toned down. I believe it was already emphasized when the guild originally was implemented back in the day, but just to re-emphasize for new folks interested in this guild: Don't expect to be going unarmed toe-to-toe with exceptional beasts or foes in significant armor and wielding dedicated combat weapons. Per the official description of the guild since its inception: "The Brotherhood of the Fist is an elite group of brawlers, street fighters, and ruffians." These are not ascendant martial artists harnessing mystical powers to give them superhuman strength and reflexes or mountain-shattering mega-ton punches or ki blasts. Trying to punch a person in decent armor, or a powerful beast, is probably not going to go ideally. There's a reason tools such as weapons and armor were invented!

Q: Are the Church of Light guilds (Monks and Templar) going to ease up on the general behavioral standards and Edict of St.Vito and all that?
A: Nope!

Q: How can I comfortably play a Monk or Templar if I don't want to feel like I'm being constantly judged and constrained to a narrow lifestyle path?
A: It sounds like the Monk and Templar guilds aren't for you. Don't worry, there are plenty of other things to try!

Q: Will we be getting an increased ability point cap?
A: Unlikely, at least at this time. Maybe if the overall number of abilities is significantly increased. In any case, the whole point of the cap is to make people choose carefully how to spend their points and, ideally, result in a greater variety of characters and their capabilities instead of everyone just taking the same set of abilities and being more or less the same.

Q: Will access to the various crafting professions be re-evaluated to feel less "gated" and limited by ability points or other factors?
A: Sorry, no. How gated they are, and in what way, might be adjusted in some cases. In general though, I'm firmly in the camp of limiting any one character's overall variety of capability. I've never been fond of allowing a single character to be master of virtually every craft. Pick what you want to be good at, and let other characters have a chance to be good at the other stuff!

Q: Can I say my CLOK character is now the version I made of them in COGG instead of what they have been in CLOK?
A: No, CLOK history (including that of its player characters) is remaining generally unaltered. COGG is a separate game/timeline.

Q: Can I make changes to my character's guild/race/appearance/skills/history/etc. now that CLOK is back?
A: No, CLOK history (including that of its player characters) is remaining generally unaltered.

Q: Is COGG being shut down?
A: Not as long as there are a significant number of people playing and enjoying it.

Q: Can I transfser my COGG character to CLOK?
A: You can make a CLOK character based on your COGG character's concept, but it will essentially be restarting that character from scratch, same as what we said about people making COGG characters based on their CLOK ones.

Q: Will we be seeing some of the abilities from COGG in CLOK?
A: Yep!

[Squeak]

Q: My legacy CLOK account password isn't working! Can you help?
A: Try the RECOVER command. It'll send a one-time-use recovery password to your email. Don't forget to use the PASSWORD command once you log in to set a new password that you'll remember!

I do have a character from before the account system was in place in Clok (apparently). Is there a way to recover that character's password? If not, no worries, I can wait until open chargen.

Q: Is the COGG-style introduction/naming system going to be implemented in CLOK?
A: Probably not. There were things I liked about it and things I didn't. I like the simplicity of just seeing character names up front better overall, despite the shortcomings that way has. The disguise system actually masking names is still up in the air. It seemed to frequently encourage a feeling of entitlement to act with immunity to responsibility and consequence.

If not doing the disguised/naming thing, could there at least be a little blurb stating someone is disguised with a face covering, cowl, or something similar? I.e. Also here is Rocket_Propelled_Gnome (disguised, sitting, chin resting across folded arms on a tabletop) While I do my damndest in an RP setting to look at people's attires and act accordingly (especially in regards to wounds or similar), a little flag like that would make it easier to tell if they wanted to stay incognito.

Q: Is Brotherhood of the Fist still going to be a thing?
A: Yep! If the rumors I've heard about 12-strike attacks in the past are true though, I'd expect that to be toned down. I believe it was already emphasized when the guild originally was implemented back in the day, but just to re-emphasize for new folks interested in this guild: Don't expect to be going unarmed toe-to-toe with exceptional beasts or foes in significant armor and wielding dedicated combat weapons. Per the official description of the guild since its inception: "The Brotherhood of the Fist is an elite group of brawlers, street fighters, and ruffians." These are not ascendant martial artists harnessing mystical powers to give them superhuman strength and reflexes or mountain-shattering mega-ton punches or ki blasts. Trying to punch a person in decent armor, or a powerful beast, is probably not going to go ideally. There's a reason tools such as weapons and armor were invented!

I know next to nothing of this system in Clok, BUT will the inclusion of brawling weapons (the one's listed on the website - Brawling:
Caestus, Claw, Fist, Gauntlet, Katar, knuckledusters, and spike-knuckles) help with tackling more dangerous or armored foes, even if it's not as effective as a typical <insert death-dealing weapon here>? It's one of the things I'm looking forward to (and enjoyed in COGG), even if it's not particularly efficient.

[Zeldryn]

Thanks for the updates Rias.

Also: we do have a disguised tag, too. It works exactly as described above. Just so it’s known!

[Lysse]

I love the combat readout from Cogg, and I see that we still have that command on CLOK - any plans to use or expand that readout to be more in line with how CLOK calculates things? It'd be pretty neat to see a readout of all of my combat skill accuracies, honestly.

[Rias]

I know next to nothing of this system in Clok, BUT will the inclusion of brawling weapons (Caestus, Claw, Fist, Gauntlet, Katar, knuckledusters, and spike-knuckles) help with tackling more dangerous or armored foes, even if it's not as effective as a typical <insert death-dealing weapon here>?

Yep! There are some brawling weapon types that are supposed to be more exclusive to particular guilds (like the Dwaedn animal claws), but there should be plenty of common types available in the end to help brawling combat be a bit more effective in situations where relying on bare knuckle punches is going to be a particularly bad choice.

I love the combat readout from Cogg, and I see that we still have that command on CLOK - any plans to use or expand that readout to be more in line with how CLOK calculates things? It'd be pretty neat to see a readout of all of my combat skill accuracies, honestly.

Per today's changelogs:
- The COMBAT command will now display rolls based on the items held in the character's hands. The output will no longer include rolls not applicable to currently-held items (block roll without a shield, ranged roll without ranged weapon, parry roll with a weapon that cannot parry, etc). It will also attempt to report potential problems with the character's current situation, such as holding a weapon that requires two hands to use but not having a free off-hand to properly wield it with.
- To only see potential rolls info from the COMBAT command, one can now type: COMBAT ROLLS

Another thing that has come up is whether it's okay for newly-created characters to be assumed to already know other player characters in the game. The answer is yes, that should be fine, as long as the players behind the characters specifically agree to go with that situation. Don't just decide your character knows another character without OOCly discussing with and getting the approval of the other character's player first! Generally speaking, this means you should only do this with people you already know from past actual experiences, whether that be past MUD gaming here or elsewhere, or other IRL interactions not even related. Also please don't imply the new character's involvement with past in-game events that the new characters didn't actually take part in. Use common sense and keep it within reason is all! Don't go to the point where you have to start retconning or inventing major situations and interactions to make it work. And again, most importantly: Get the other player's OOC approval first! I get it. Sometimes I want to make a new character but want to hang out with the character of an IRL buddy, and I want to jump-start a bit and skip the whole "oh hello new person I just happened to stop and talk to, who are you, do you mind hanging out so we can establish the building blocks of a budding potential friendship" phase. Just don't overdo it!

[Zeldryn]

Hey-ho, pal-o. Fair winds'n all that.

It's ya' boy drawly shootyman, here to drop another quick summary of a voice chat with Rias last night. It was short and sweet-- real casual, but I wanted to toss some stuff out here for folks so everyone has an idea of what to expect moving forward in the future in regard to....

CRAFTING. Rias was in a crafty mood, so he's going to be prioritizing some crafting related things over the next few days. Here's a summary in no particular order of subjects discussed. My apologies for not spellchecking it, you should be happy I typed this much this morning-- I love you all!

NOTE: This conversation started while Rias was going through and checking on/fixing some craftmark related things. We started giggling about craftmarks, and the conversation turned to crafting itself.

This is going to be a bit of a hot conversation, I think. So I want to preface this by saying-- take the thoughts with a grain of salt, keep your mind open, and try to understand why the changes that are coming are coming.

Firstly, Rias wants to get some of the initial crafting things off of the ground so the crafty people can get to doing their thing again. This goes for repairs, crafting leather/metal/wooden/cloth goods, and the needed adjacencies that support those activities to make sure people have the ability again. I would also imagine this includes pottery and maybe some bushcrafty stuff? This is the kind of stuff you should expect to happen the fastest.

Q: What are the current developmental concerns related to the crafting skills?

A: In no particular order of importance or priority, these are the bullet points of what Rias is concerned with, and why he's implementing changes he will be making. Further explanation about the nature of the changes being considered will be answered in the next section.

1. LIMITING Jack of all trade craftspeople: Rias doesn't like the thought of one person being able to do all of the crafts. He wants to encourage specialization. This way, you don't run into situations where when you ask for a leatherworker, a blacksmith, a woodcarver, a tailor, a stone mason, and a weaver, it's not just that same person always answering saying, "Oh yeah, I do that too."

2. LIMITING HIGHER ITEM QUALITY: Rias wants to reduce the number of higher quality items that are floating around in the world. When everything's high grade and super fancy, nothing's high grade and super fancy-- it just becomes the average. He doesn't want to get rid of high grade super fancy stuff completely, just place additional limits on the production of said items to make it a more in-depth process that encourages more effort and involvement. In his mind, this is much preferrable to sitting at the anvil, churning out endless superior/master quality longswords after you've hit the right skill threshold for it.

3. INCREASING/DECREASING ITEM QUALITY: Rias wants to implement quality reduction to a certain capacity. DO NOT FREAK OUT. The idea is that over time-- higher quality items wear down and have to get brought back to craftspeople to have them polished back up to their previous state. Basically, it encourages the craftspeople to spend less time pumping out new items, and more time restoring and doing upkeep on items that have already been crafted.

4. CRAFSPERSON/ADVENTURER COOPERATION: He is also brainstorming ideas as to how he can encourage craftspeople to step out of their crafting nooks, team up with the more active explorers and adventurers who tear through the wilderness, and work together to create really nice items that all of them can enjoy!


Q: I don't like the idea of these changes. Why are they being made? Sometimes, I just want to not talk to anyone, log in, do my crafts, sell them to the market, and log off. Is there any way Rias might consider alternatives?

A: So, a couple things.

1. Rias is *always* willing to hear out alternatives, feedback, and thoughts on current/future mechanics and their implementation. He's the man. He's always putting the players first. Period.

2. He's willing to hear out those alternatives-- but a lot of the points mentioned above are hills he's willing to die on. The reason the limits and changes are being considered is because of complications that arose as a result of the previous system's flexibility. Those complications caused real issues for the game that were a headache to deal with from both a player power level standpoint, as well as the standpoint of lore and the nature of the lost lands. This says nothing of item bloat and storage issues that arose supporting these systems' flexibilities.

Examples of those problems are as follows, in no particular order, just for reference purposes

-Single individuals who were master artisans in every craft
-Aformentioned megamaster artisans choking out the competition of other more realistically specialized artisans
-An extreme oversupply of high quality items and materials as a result of the artisan grind
-Extremely underpriced items as a result of oversupply, making crafting less profitable overall
-Oversupply/underpricing of specifically powerful and advantageous items, eventually leading to outright abandonment of economic transaction. Artisans were literally just giving away master quality riversteel rapiers studded with precious jewels to brand new players.


Q: Alright, so, as of right now-- what is the plan in regard to making these changes happen?

A: The following is a list-- again, in no particular order-- of changes being considered specifically to address the concerns mentioned above without making the crafting experience any less engaging.

1. Crafting rolls: Gone will be the days of a guerenteed crafting result. You won't just be sitting there making fine quality buckles every time you hammer on the anvil. Just like every other skill, higher skill level will give you a greater likelihood of achieving that ideal result, but there's always going to be a chance that you fail your rolls and don't do as good as you think you're going to.

2. REPAIR CHANGES: Gone will be the days of being able to repair every type of item just because you have small amounts of skill in that specific craft. In order to repair something, you'll have to be able to successfully craft it. The better you are, the more easily you'll be able to repair it. But there'll always be the chance to damage it. That chance will just get smaller as your skill rises.

3. CONDITIONAL ITEM DAMAGE: In theory, the idea is that as items are damaged, specific components might get lost or damage that effect the way the item is used. For example-- you might get hit in the chest with a mace in combat, and get the message that a buckle split and flew off of your cuirass. You might take a certain penalty to armor use for that specific item until you bring it to an artisan and get a new buckle put on.

4. QUALITY DEGRADATION: If items are used for extended periods of time, after a certain number of repairs, the item will degrade in quality. It will also be possible for errors to be made in the crafting process via low rolls that can affect the quality of the item by the end.

5. QUALITY IMPROVEMENT AND RESTORATION: Don't fret-- if items are going to degrade with use, or potentially come out lesser than intended in the initial crafting process, artisans will be given the capacity to conditionally restore and improve these damaged/degraded goods to a more adequately useable and desireable state.

6. LIMITING CRAFTING WITH ABILITY POINTS: Much like combat and other activities in Clok, the crafting skills will be accompanied by a series of abilities that they'll have to pick and choose to make them more specialized craftspeople. Want to be a general leatherworker? That's okay-- but if you want to make leather armor, you have to take an ability for that. exotic leather armor like scale? That's another ability point. Ridgeleather? There's another. The same will apply to every craft in a similar capacity. This way, you have to pick and choose with your ability points how much you want to craft, and how good you want to be at just crafting as opposed to everything else around. But even the most dedicated artisan will never be able to do it all.


Q: What other neat crafting related things were discussed?

A: The big one was specific crafting facilities. A team of adventurers brings the best swordsmith in the land to the top of Blood Mountain to get access to a special resource that's only available there, or use a special forging facility there using the lava to create something super epic while the other players hold off the bad guys.

Other facilities discussed include specialized resource nodes, specific areas to improve item quality, or to give items special qualities, etc. etc.

Q: So what's the typical crafting process going to look like in this hypothetical system?

A: First-- you make all of your base component pieces. A sword blade, all of the pieces of the handle, etc. When you assemble all of those-- you're going to create average-fine quality items. Then, after you get that average/fine quality shortsword, you take it to a dedicated facility that you have limited access to-- say, for an hour a day-- to improve it's quality and give it additional effects that make it more advantageously useful or desireable. Then, you sell it off to whoever wants it. This creates an economy where artisans aren't just hammering away and making masterpieces all day every day. If they want to make a masterpiece-- they have to plan, they have to put in effort, they have to coordinate. They have to make it a process, instead of just putting it up to random chance. But random chance'll be a factor in certain regards still, too. Just not the only factor.


Q: Oh, hey-- also, as a random note. What about all that arcana stuff?

A: Heckturtle had a fantastic idea where maybe sorcerers and elemancers and other occult aligned folks could maybe take players to specific areas in the world-- like the artisans and their specific crafting locations-- -- and do some of the arcana stuff from cogg! Like your levitations and your distyrs and what have you. But this one's thoughts for later.

Q: Will you put whips back in the general store?

A: Maybe.


There may have been some other stuff discussed that was mentioned, or forgotten, or what have you. So I did the best I could.

I remind you to please, please, please take all of this with a grain of salt. Rias knows the changes being made aren't popular ones. He knows a lot of people are going to have concerns and curiosities in regard to how things are going to play out. But he and I urge you all to have faith and see how things go. If it ends up not working as intended, or sucking all the fun out of the process, we'll try again, and see if we can get it right. He really wants to get this right.

Thanks again for the time and patience reading. Happy clokking!

[Adresin]

Honestly, I love this. I do have questions, concerns and thoughts, but the general concept I have no issue with at all.

First off, is the plan to at least get basic crafting operational again for now and then add in all of these enhancements? I say this for two reasons. One is giving the non combative types, especially new chars who can't join guilds yet, something to do that actually fits their characters. Second, we're just so limited right now, needing to wait 24 hours for *any* repairs, no metal armor, extremely limited ways to make riln outside of combat, and many other issues that would be solved if the basic crafting could be done again.

With the limiting of repairs, which does make sense to me, and the lower rolls at lower skill levels, how do you foresee new up and coming crafters managing to break in? Will lower quality items from a bad roll at least be sellable at the market or reclaimable, somehow?

Since thread was so important on Cogg and we don't have farming yet, what's the plan for obtaining this, if it's still going to be as important for so many things?

I'm very glad to see this talked about and excited to see what comes of it.

[artus]

This really puts me at ease after my previous requesting trainers topic on the forum a few days ago. I loooooove the specialized facilities idea. Reminds me of that volcanic forge in a certain mud I also play that lets you reforge/enhance items. Imagine this in an epic fashion. It'll be a bit of a pain though if, say, said volcanic forge happens to be located right where basilisks roam and we have few basilisk hunters around. I can see the risk and reward type stuff, but I'd like difficulty ratio of areas considered as well for what can spawn where. As long as it's not mundane, I suppose it's fine, otherwise it'll be kind of demotivating because of how much of a chore it is to get to and stay in to get something/something done. Perhaps it's where templar secretly pound out sunsteel, who knows? But something like common steel and coal might not need basilisks to guard the coal pile. Just an idea though.

[auron]

I got a few questions.
1. For elementsers will they have any specialised attributes like if they were to pick gio mansy they would have better luck at finding gems or other ores?

2.how many elements can be learned, can a player learn more then two?

3. As an elementser, can we craft our own wand, and staff?

4. If we can make our own wands or staves, how do we pick the wood, and other things that go into creating them?

5. What happened to the university, will it be brought back?

6. Will the guild fees, also include room and board also food?

7. will we have a discount on supplies since we joined the gild?

[Lysse]

A hot take wrapped up in a suggestion for Rias with regards to crafting: the market shouldn't buy any crafted goods of Superior or above quality, except through consignment. This would help curb people's desire to smash out as many superior+ items as possible, and would make more IC sense since the amounts of riln that PCs work with is so wildly above average, that it wouldn't make sense for townsfolk in Shadgard to be buying superior quality or better swords/tools/etc.

[artus]

I have something to chime in on this though I'm not sure if it's really the case: let's say you can't sell anything superior and higher anymore. What if a 2500 swordsmith keeps making superior sword blade? Or does it mean every forgeable, unmodified, will come out as good as fine now? It might mean they make superior quality stuff relatively easy at that point and in this case, if their sword blade ends up superior a lot of times, it's not like they can control anymore what's sellable and what's not. It's their skills that control the outcome.

[Lysse]

I have something to chime in on this though I'm not sure if it's really the case: let's say you can't sell anything superior and higher anymore. What if a 2500 swordsmith keeps making superior sword blade? Or does it mean every forgeable, unmodified, will come out as good as fine now? It might mean they make superior quality stuff relatively easy at that point and in this case, if their sword blade ends up superior a lot of times, it's not like they can control anymore what's sellable and what's not. It's their skills that control the outcome.

If you have to use a dedicated facility to create an item at Superior quality (which is what the notes suggested - even an in-town facility to get to Superior on a limited basis would be good i think), then PCs would have total control over that cap.

If I'm mistaken in my assumption, then I'd like to see a way for crafters to speed up their crafting times at the cost of capping their quality.

[RememberNehima]

I'm pretty new and don't intend to play a crafter, so perhaps take my opinions with a grain of salt... but I think these changes all sound fantastic!

The only thing I disagree so far that I've heard is a suggestion on chat that PCs couldn't make legendary items. Now, I don't have a lot of strong opinions about it, but I do think it's just a tiny bit lame to bar a PC by virtue of being a PC. But certainly we don't want a flood of legendary items. So, perhaps a near-to-max crafter should only be able to make exactly one in their life, and it should require an investment of time and RP rather than simply entering a command. But I would like to see that fantasy play out in game.

I'm much more interested in this idea of arcana and sorcery hot spots. Might we see the return of the arcane etcher from Cogg along with glyphs and occult diagrams? A group of occultists gathering to etch and empower those shaol floating disc rings that were once discussed? Could this be a way for PCs to create minor enchanted items? Perhaps weapons and gems could likewise be etched?

An example of how such a thing might play out: a master pyromancer inscribes a glyph of sulif into a high quality ruby and a warrior can insert it into a socket on a sword previously etched with an occult diagram on its surface, thus completing the arcane 'circuit.' The glyph can then be willed to activate for a time by the wielder, making the sword burn and flare, but draining the warrior steadily as if they had an open pyromancy channel. Eventually, the gem will crack and disintegrate into dust, breaking the circuit once more until the gem is replaced, making no item truly permanently enchanted with the limited understanding occultists have gleaned thus far in the Lost Lands.

I dunno, just an idea.

[Southpaw]

In general I like these ideas about crafting. As a player who has very limited time to play I know for a fact I will never be that high-level of an artisan so I'm excited to see what some of you are able to make when everything is functioning.

That being said though, I hope that the NPC repair option will always be there. Often I'm only able to hop on for 30 minutes to an hour at a time and drop off my stuff for repairs then pick it up the next time I'm able to log in. I would certainly be frustrated if I spend 55 minutes out of the one hour I get to play repairing a buckle here and a lace there and a rivet on that thing. I don't always have time to coordinate things with other players but that issue is specifically mine. Very curious to see how this all plays out

[Delphine]

Q: Is the COGG-style introduction/naming system going to be implemented in CLOK?
A: Probably not. There were things I liked about it and things I didn't. I like the simplicity of just seeing character names up front better overall, despite the shortcomings that way has. The disguise system actually masking names is still up in the air. It seemed to frequently encourage a feeling of entitlement to act with immunity to responsibility and consequence.

Do you have any advice for quickly registering a character's short description in the absence of this feature, Rias? For example, if there's a potential stalking situation going on, right now we can see character names, but often time said characters leave the area even before look can be implemented. At times, I know I can try typing 'look <name>', only to be informed I'm misspelling the name by nothing happening. By the time I'm able to copy and arrow through the spelling, the person's gone. Or even if I do know how, the person leaves before looking is possible. In situations like this, how do you rp recognizing someone without the ability to give any details?

I loved Cogg's short description feature for that ability alone; you had an immediate idea of someone's appearance, and didn't just immediately see a name you might not be able to swiftly interact with, especially on a screen reader--we all use varying speeds there.

Thanks for any light you can shed on this! It's greatly appreciated.

[Rias]

Q: Is the plan to at least get basic crafting operational again for now and then add in all of these enhancements?
A: Yes, basic crafting first so crafters will actually have something to do, sooner rather than later. But some work still needs to be done on setting up prerequisites/limitations and means of skillgain, which is why even basic crafting is not implemented quite yet.

Q: With the limiting of repairs [...] and the lower rolls at lower skill levels, how do you foresee new up and coming crafters managing to break in? Will lower quality items from a bad roll at least be sellable at the market or reclaimable, somehow?
A: Different items will have different skill requirements. Lower skill level crafters will probably be spending more time crafting general crafting components which will have a low challenge and be craftable with a decent chance at average quality even when just starting out. They just won't be jumping straight into making swords and plate armor.

Q: Since thread [is so important] and we don't have farming yet, what's the plan for obtaining this?
A: There might be some basic thread for sale in NPC shops, kind of like how you can buy nails and rivets at the general store. Some more unique types could be obtained via foraging and skinning, and heck, maybe even some more docile wilderness critters that you can attempt to shear with a chance for the creature to get upset and give you a bite or a kick or something in the process. That'd be pretty great.

Q: It'll be a bit of a pain if, say, said volcanic forge happens to be located right where basilisks roam and we have few basilisk hunters around. I can see the risk and reward type stuff, but I'd like difficulty ratio of areas considered as well for what can spawn where. As long as it's not mundane, I suppose it's fine
A: Right, the special facilities would be for special crafting. No need to venture to a special facility in a dangerous place if you're just going to forge copper or iron or something. We already have the facilities in town for that!

Q: For [Elemancers] will they have any specialised attributes like if they were to pick [geomancy] they would have better luck at finding gems or other ores?
A: I think something like that could be a neat potential service geomancers could provide not only for themselves but for others, I'd just need to sort out the how and the why of it.

Q: how many elements can be learned, can a player learn more then two?
A: Elemancers can become a Master at one element, Journeyman at two (including the one that goes on to be mastered), and Apprentice in the remaining two. So all Elemancers can be at least Apprentice-level in all four elements, if they wish.

Q: As an [Elemancer], can we craft our own wand, and staff?
A: Maybe. I do think there's some risk to opening the idea up that these items can just be crafted by virtually any Elemancer, but it could possibly be at the end of some specialization ability path to keep it more rare. The idea of an Elemancer making their own wand or staff is cool, I'd just want it to remain something special and not a freebie that anyone can do.

Q: What happened to the university, will it be brought back?
A: It's still out there, and the Aero Lift has been restored to working condition! They only allow members of the University to use it though, and guild initiations aren't quite a thing again yet, so only legacy Elemancers have access at this time.

Q: Will the guild fees also include room and board also food?
A: Probably not. The fees cover the opportunity and expertise of learning to wield these phenomenal cosmic powers at this wondrous magic univeristy! I think including food and rooms would make it feel like all other guilds with fees should also provide the same thing, and I don't want that to be what guilds are all about. I think it would threaten the cohesiveness of existing communities by encouraging members to "live" at their individual guilds rather than in the central settlements designed to bring the playerbase together.

Q: will we have a discount on supplies since we joined the gild?
A: The University isn't selling to the public or anyone outside the guild, so I'm not sure I see a reason to establish a discount when there's only one customer group to begin with.

Q: hot take wrapped up in a suggestion for Rias with regards to crafting: the market shouldn't buy any crafted goods of Superior or above quality, except through consignment.
A: `batman_hmmm.gif`

Q: Let's say you can't sell anything superior and higher anymore. What if a 2500 swordsmith keeps making superior sword blade?
A: I want the crafting system to not just randomly churn out above-average items from the basic procedure. Instead, crafters would commonly produce at best average-quality items, and specifically decide which ones they want to spend their extra time and limited opportunities on in order to improve their quality further. This will also facilitate items occasionaly going down in quality through use and frequent repairs, because crafters can in turn improve their qualities back up. This helps crafters remain relevant as their services remain useful beyond the production of items: they also help maintain and even improve existing items, even ones they didn't personally make.

Q: The only thing I disagree so far that I've heard is a suggestion on chat that PCs couldn't make legendary items.
A: The way I'm envisioning it, it's less that it wouldn't be possible and more that I don't think "Legendary" should be the result of a player simply having good enough RNG luck during their crafting rolls. A planned and deliberate situation allowing for a PC to craft a legendary item at some point is a very cool concept that I'd love to see happen! I'd just want it to be a controlled situation rather than RNG luck. To me, the word "legendary" means something that is truly unique and exceptional, rather than just "really high quality". If I see two identical "legendary" items, neither seems very legendary due to the fact that there's another one just like it. To say nothing of the fact that if legendary quality is just a result of good RNG, we're eventually going to end up with so many of them that Legendary quality becomes the minimum acceptable quality by most people, and that again doesn't seem very "legendary". What can I say? Sometimes I'm a sucker for fancy words and semantics.

Q: Might we see the return of the arcane etcher from Cogg along with glyphs and occult diagrams?
A: Hopefully! I still really like the concept and lore behind the Etcher and I'd love to incorporate it somehow in the process of some of the more magical item enhancement potential of the crafting system. Your idea with the temporary gem enhancements is one that I really like!

Q: I hope that the NPC repair option will always be there.
A: Yeah, NPC repairs will stick around as a backup option, with their long repair time being intended to encourage people to go to PCs first whenever possible.

Q: Do you have any advice for quickly registering a character's short description? [...] often time said characters leave the area even before look can be implemented. [...] In situations like this, how do you rp recognizing someone without the ability to give any details?
A: You might just have be vague and wait until you do have an opportunity to LOOK at them. I suppose there could also be an option to toggle on short descs after coded names for those who want it, though that seems like it'd get pretty annoying to see all the time. Maybe just in the room occupants list? If you managed to see someone who is hidden doing something, at that point they should show up in the room occupants list for you (with the "hiding" tag), so a quick entry of the single letter "L" could get you their short desc in the room look output with such an option enabled. Or type "OCC" to see only the room occupants list without the other room look stuff. In fact: There, type "option PCShortDescs" to toggle the new option and see if that works for you. I'd recommend pairing it with the OccupantLists option enabled if you're not using a screenreader, so each character's entry shows on its own line rather than all bleeding together on the same line which can be difficult to parse with too much text.

[Adresin]

First, thank you for all of the answers, and I'm excited to see how this all goes! I love the idea of thread being available in a shop, even if it eventually shows up with farming too. One of the frustrations on cogg was someone who didn't have the ability to make thread not being able to find it anywhere, and it's such a basic component.

Love the risky shearing wild nonhostile creatures thing too!

I totally get that there's foundational stuff that needs to be worked out. It's just good to know that this is on the short term plan.

Since this is an FAQ thread, a few random questions.

I bugged this, but is it intentional that labels, and more recently now packages, vanished from the post office? Labeling was such a convenient thing and the command still exists.

Are there plans to allow new chars to get horses any time soon with the ability to train the riding skill? I know there's a lot still needing to be worked out, horse stats, what to do about warhorses etc, but even just the basic ability to ride through the wilderness would be great, particularly since foraging for food is so limited right now.

Finally, we're apparently limited to a week at a time for inn room rentals now, instead of a month? Well, okay, in fairness you could go way past a month before, something I thought was just text that hadn't been updated. But now it's a week? Given the lack of houses even for legacy chars, I'm curious the rationale behind this? It seems to penalize people who may need to be offline for a few days and I'm struggling to understand the reasoning.

Thanks as always for the answers and explanations. I can't speak for anyone else, but it definitely helps me, having some idea of what's going on.

[RememberNehima]

I'm glad you think the inscribed gem idea is neat! I'd definitely go down an arcane crafting ability path if one was available to make such things along with wands/gylphstones.

In the same vein as new players being able to purchase horses and train riding, might basic guild functionality get a look sometime after the crafting pass? I know there are a fair few like myself wanting to join the University. Being able to join and practice those basic skills would be nice in the meantime as ability trees get worked out.

[Squeak]

All right, as I promised on Discord this morning: Here's a list of the various tidbits that came up in Discord. Some have probably already been answered, but since I sleep during the day, you get to suffer through it all again with me. Granted, I may have missed a couple suggestions or concerns or thoughts, and if I did, my apologies. I went through the Discord log multiple times and tried to catch every one I could.

I do love the ideal of conditional damage and the idea that stuff if you use it will break eventually. Also, crafting rolls back the way they were is nice because I felt like I was actually making an effort to get that mastercraft piece even with my abilities. The rest of it though, I'm pretty skeptical about. If I have to get killed because I'm a terrible fighter just to craft something I could before, it isn't worth it even for the riln.

Honestly, a strange underground loom in a spider cave where you take a tailor to weave spidersilk could be a pretty awesome tailoring site thing.

idk, if its legendary, that usually means it has some specialized quality. Perhaps durability is that specialized quality andso it degrades very slowly and I mean like super slow or not at all. After all, degredation is for lesser quality stuff made with lesser skilled individuals.

see I was thinking of like a high mountaintop that has meteors fall on it on a rare basis where super rare metals are known to be found like sunsteel or celestium.

Anyhow! I digress - it would be neat if there were hidden places in the world, forges (Ala skyrim style) that could produce unusual effects on weapons crafted there. It doesn't even have to be something particularly useful ... perhaps the end result just a little sparkle to the blade. Or it could, like the Lunar weapons found in skyrim, have an additional effect, but ONLY when the right conditions are met.

I just like the idea of puzzle things. You stumble across an ancient forge in the middle of nowhere buried under tons of rock with only the slightest of gaps to access. There may or may not be a random mob generated to "guard" it. You read some vague journal, put some things together, and wait for the right time -Perhaps it's the shape and position of the moon. Or a certain constellation must be in the sky. Or the "enchantment" can only be used when producing a certain type of weapon, or when using a certain ore. Then you forge a weapon, getting fantastic rolls only to produce ...... "A scintillating (but only when the moon is full) steel shortsword" that may have additional emotes, assuming it's bared to the moonlight, that procs every so often.

should be if you can make it just an enchantment on weapons that might give them fire damage for a time but then melts away the weapon faster than usual, resulting in a little bit faster degradation.

I'd like to pose an addendum to this one: I really don't think the flames should degrade the weapon faster than normal, unless we're talking like lava temperature heat. If it's just a quick flash of fire, doing nominal amounts of damage, it's not going to really effect steel any. Copper and bronze, maybe. Instead, a downside of having fire flares is having a roll against the wielder's <Insert Skill Here>. Failure results in a quick stun, or temporary blindness - sort of like the eyegouge effect.

oh, rpg brought an interesting idea to the table now that we have something like random encounter system we can reuse. what if we can have something like extra, incredibly rare random resource node with a whole host of guards, like a forest train we randomly find?

Also adding to this one: Many, many years ago, I had coded in a system to another MUD that had something along these lines. It could have been more fleshed out, but what happened is people would occasionally find (as part of Ultra-Rare loot) chapbooks, journals, memos or notes, that needed study by various peoples of varying classes. Once these were studied, it triggered an event somewhere in the world - usually it would just pop up an item of some note wherever the journal or note said it would be.

Anyhow, if I missed anything or anyone's suggestions, I'm sorry folks! I'll do better next time, promise.

Adding this, because I almost forgot. Good ol' Benny, Heckturtle and I were pondering more inclusions to the loot table for more diversity. Talking about how there could be a list of adjectives, nouns, colors, and suffixes for a variety of common items not normally seen that the loot table randomly draws from should the rolls be sufficient. It could be anything from small pouches, satchels, misc drinking vessels to jewelry (non-esp and esp versions) and small weapons and armor (think daggers, knives, gloves and the like - lockboxes aren't terribly big, afterall). Food for thought!