Kill the Black Smith (in General)

since I got little response earlier to my reply involving this, I'm gonna put the idea back out and see what folks think...

With camping dead and gone, and the NCB and NUB making large chars possible. The only hurdle left is the $US problem, and I think the first step towards making this game less about how much money you can afford to flush, and more about fun. Kill the blacksmith, plain and simple. Now someone forging for 75% looks really attractive don't it. Elven gear will have to be figured out, but I think overall it could make a huge difference. Economic clans would be the place to be...

if you just want to put two or three points in at a time, its quite a big hassle to have to arrange a forging deal and make PR posts and deal with transfers, and so on and so on...

but - maybe people would start forging their own gear...?
nah. we are lazy.

Two problems with forging:

• When you get to high enough NW, items simply can't be forged, at least not without driving the forger insane from boredom.
• Forging takes time, but the blacksmith takes at most an hour or so. Sometimes you don't want to wait until you can find a forger willing to do the job.

Think of that though, you have a Fighting Clan and a Forging Clan, with members moving back and forth, it makes the clan system useful, increases interaction...I don't see a down side, We have auctions for a money sink already, what do we need the BS for?

I just love the idea of having to leave the arena to join an Economic clan (hopefully one that maintains a bonus), and with the help of your clan mates forge up your eq, as opposed to opening forums, looking for NUB #9421 selling for $US, wait...wait....wait. Open BS, insert soul, take slightly shinier weapon back to arena.

Mael: forgers making lots and lots of money can't afford to be bored, there will come a time when the amount of $$$ you need to be able to buy BA for a NCB char will be so high, you'll need to make that 90% of 30 mil for BA cost, even if it did take you a month.

I am almost 100% the BS will not be removed. It is a key part of the game, and anyways who wants to forge a leather armor to +5, and make say 2k profit. Also, there are many non-forgable items, im sure there is a reason for that. And, it would be a huge hassel and im sure the forgers would start charging closer to 100% anyways.

Last I heard, non-NUB forgers weren't making much money...

I don't care so much about the forgers getting bored, but I certainly wouldn't want to wait a month to have something forged. Besides, most NUB forgers don't have very good replacement items, and it's a pain to try to find and rent decent items.

For me, lets say I wish to upgrade my axbow from +110 to +115.

This would take about 3 million NW, which would take a forger about a week. I really do not wish to be without my weapon that long AND wait to find a forger, loan him the weapon and wait for it to come back.

If the BS is gone, I suspect most will play mages as upgrading weapons will be such the chore and you will be without them while being forged. Now you can say, "well then forge your own weapons".
That is not really an option since then the mages will be fighting tons more battles getting more MPR/DD levels.

I'd rather kill forging than Blacksmith. Killing the BS would be stupid.

Bah, add team forge (multiple forgers working on a single project, very simple) and problem solved, forging is now faster and more efficient. Ranger, I personally find that having to plan your upgrades make the game a little more fun. I think the level of interaction between players would go up drastically...

Like I said, if the BS is gone and you have to "plan" upgrades and be without your weapons or armor for a week, most players will be mages and tanks will be all but lost.

...which would give the few tanks a huge advantage, no? Those dedicated enough would simply make a mage killer strat and fly to the top...

but heck, what do I know.