View Postsupageek, on 19 April 2012 - 12:42 PM, said:
Ok. You base the profession on a slight amonut of skilll and balancing. Design knowledge, resource management, and active gameplay ability. This will make the profession an economic entity and provide a path for income. Provide an element of resource gathering and there will be a split between value on materials and laborers. Players that dont have the skills or the professeion will look to the carpenters to provide housing or guild halls or whatever they desire. There are also many options to deepen this skill.
I must admit I was hoping for more as I do think you have a reasonable basis for an idea. For example do you perceive the carpenter as being very much hands on and building a "house" plank by plank or more in stepped-back role as a supervisor of labourers who do the actual work or even alternatively utilising a seed (or similar device) to literally grow/magic the house into place. The design work and materials having been fed earlier into the creation of the "seed".
When it comes to design are you thinking in terms of something like a Sim's builder or another alternative such as a locked set of designs. How would you communicate ideas, pictures with prospective clients (other players), possibly the use of holographic displays or something else? I guess what I am saying is don't limit yourself into just thinking about the generics of such a profession. How would you want to play this profession if it was you? What would make it exciting for you?
Forgive my brevity, I wasn't sure how indepth you wanted me to go.
I see the Carpenter as a designer which would fulfill many player's desire for customization/personalization allowing them to create something that is truly their own. Desing could be handled with a set a basic geometric building blocks/shapes and, optionally, physics based gameplay. Complicated designs would naturally require some true knowledge and understanding of construction and would only require a minimal set of tools. Holographic displays or 3D models with navigable camera's would be the best way to communicate the designs with clients.
Separating the design and construction aspects of the profession could create two sets of professions within, those who are good at desing and the one that are good at construction, which I would leverage on a skill based minigame, maybe using time or precision as a dificulty factor. Using a realistic constructio mechanic allowing players to literally build a house nail by nail would not hurt. A force of labourers would not be a bad idea, allowing multiple players to assist in a job increasing speed and creating construction crews within the game itself.
To clarify, The appeal to me and I think many players would be the ability to take part in every aspect of this profession, from gathering materials, to designing to actually manufacturer the product piece by piece. Breaking these aspect down to the most basic level of it all would only add more value as long as it all made sense and wasn't overly complicated or tedious. For instance, I wouldn't want to have to separate a tree into planks one by one but I don't mind chopping it down and having it separate automatically.
As an aside, the ability to design for any profession would benefit the games immensely, allieviating the weight off the developer to constantly create new content for a game. Allowing professions like Carpentry, monster/wildlife breeding, blacksmithing, etc. and giving each of them the option to design leverages user-generated content to fuel the game and give players the power while preserving the fiction to a degree and creating am infinite amount of content. With the porper limitations and tools for players, the economy will build and regulate itself.
