I would like to address this topic, as it comes up every so often.

Very few people like crafting in games more than I. You might have noted it in
the guilds I played/coded eq for, as well as the areas I've coded. There are
lots of games, such as the insanely good Skyrim and the classic (now
remastered) FFX, in which you can make eq as good as, or even better than, the
best available from monsters and quests (with the right skills and materials
of course). So nobody would be happier than myself to add an eq-crafting
system in which such results were possible.

But I don't think it belongs in this game. BatMUD has always been first and
foremost about drinking large quantities of vod*cough* about killing our many
monsters and taking their +max eq. As the years have come and gone, various
tweaks to that system (such as names on eq) have been added to the list. And
there are the newbie enchanters now as well, giving players something baseline
to start their adventures with if they're willing to get their hands dirty.
But highbies especially have a different task. Once you get that second guild
maxxed out, you should be thinking "ok, buying eq from another player is a
valid move, but at some point I want named items for the damage reduction and
bonus stats. where can I find the best?"

There is something to be said about taking a bunch of random crap, smashing it
to bits, trying to combine the bits and hoping to get a +con/+physres ring to
pop out of the shards. That thing is "random". It works well in game systems
like Diablo, even after the expansion pack, where stats on eq are all over the
place and +max eq is still pretty rare. It works well in FFX if you can't do
that one stupid chocobo race under 0.00 DAMN YOU CHICKENHORSE! But it's just
not the same here. Our top-end eq is rarely THAT random. You want a deftank
ring? You know who has one. You know who has the BEST. Go get it. Don't grind
Black King every day for a week and roll 1dmerchant+5 and hope for the best.

Trust me, when I was a mortal, I would have loved such a system myself, and we
kind of had one until Dethwishh flooded the mar*cough* but in the end, every
game has its own systems of eq-obtaining based on its own factors (single vs.
multiplayer, skill/guild levels, etc). Making good, even top-end stuff in
various games is a common practice, and who knows, some HIGHLY-RESTRICTED
variant might even exist someday. But not in the generic "sack 10 random
unrelated items to hope for the +max custom stats you want" way. That's just
not us.

Shinarae "enchanting/smithing/alchemy 100" Lluminus