This from UO Stratics:

CatHat: The improvement of Crafting in general would be really fun - for the players and the Devs. After all when crafting weapons - there's a lot more things we can use in world to make for better variety of items and varying stats. We should be able to enhance weapons and items with just about anything.

(In reality if a blade is weak or has a bad edge its often not the steel used but the inferior quench and subsequent tempering involved. You can really improve blades if you know your stuff with little difficulty. In a world of magic stuff i would think this would apply even more so -heh)

I'm one of these artistic nuts who really fabricates blades and things in my own time in my workshop when i'm not doing computer based stuff. A good switch from sculpting as an alternative to digital stuff. LOL So i'm all for the enhancement of Crafting - believe me - I think if we start to use ideas that are first based in reality - and go out from there - it will be a very rohbust and exciting system.

I'd love to see it where the player might need things like rare monster bone, special woods, and leather hides for handles that can be inbued with properites to 'boost' or alter a weapon's stats or be needed to make a very rare weapon indeed. Blood, Fluids or fats from monsters could be used to do a quench to create a superior blade - (Proxy fat would make a great goop quech i bet.)

Heh - all this talk makes me wanna go home now - pick up my damascus titanium blade and get back to work on it. Heh - makes me glad its a Friday.

*Sighs* - oh well - one thing at a time here on the dev side. Have to wait too, just like you guys, for things to come up on the to do list. Sure hope i get to be on the strike team tasked to improve that system and make it more rohbust.

Player: Probably because when the "art guy" speaks he isn't being held to development promises. Hey, he's just the art guy!

Besides while the devs are squinting at code he's watching a spinning clock while something renders and posting from a 2nd computer.

Unless he's one of those devious art guys who created an animated spinning clock so he can take naps under his desk all day

CatHat: Man - lol - that post makes you sound about as jaded twards artists as my ExWife. Hmm - *peers at you suspeciously - checks for great cyclists legs - nope not her. LOL

No such thing here as 'just the art guy' on this production team. Real crazy multitasking going on here some days. The only thing spining is my head when i wind up getting stuck out in front on point on some tasks..

Hmm- almost forgot - Happy St.Patty's day to you all. Hope you all got your share of green beer before the bars closed and or the suns come up

Player: Oh, let's see...

1. Dirk (fencing, 1-hand): Double Strike, Bleed Attack
2. Sgian Dubh (fencing, 1-hand): Mortal Strike, Shadow Strike
3. Claymore (swords, 2-handed): Whirlwind Attack, Armor Ignore
4. Lochaber Axe (swords, 2-handed): Disarm, Dismount
5. Basket-hilt Broadsword (swords, 1-hand): Mortal Strike, Paralyze.

How do those sound?

CatHat: Well, when the wheel finally turns and it comes time for us to put more weapons into the game, you can bet i'll be trying to at least get a few of those in there. A proper dirk and sword combo would be good for fencers. And when it comes to claymores - well heey - a great claymore is to fantasy games, what milk is to cookies.

Player: There was even a musket and a crashed Kilrathi spaceship in Ultima 7

CatHat: Yeah - i'd dig even having a few Kilrathi survivors wandering about UO personally. But after glancing at my Sig, i suppose that's no suprise to anyone.

Muskets - lol - yeah we've spoken about those - "gee we have cannons but no muskets"- ack - talk about complications - lol. We're just going to pretend they haven't figured that one out yet, at least for now - lol. *beats back technology with a wizards staff with the furvor of an angry muppet.

Great thoughts. I shall cross my fingers, click my ruby slippers and hope.. or is that cross my fingers, twitch my nose and hope? Thanks for the glimmer this brings.

lol the more I see from CatHat, the more I like.

I think the keyword here is "a musket", not "muskets"... it's not like they were commonplace in any single-player Ultima game either, there was just the one special case. So no reason to make them available all over UO either.

Of course some special scenario/event character might wield the almighty "boomstick"...

new weapons would be cool but in the end their all just about the same y not make a new weapon class i dont know what u would call it but it would be both short distance and melee and u could have flails and other weapons that have some kind of a chain that give u a short reach.

well id like to see Crafters (not mules i put too much into him to be a mule) be far more important then they are. Yes Mondains allowed us to craft "artifact quality" items and i really do like the recipe system but i think having these items come out with random properties would have been better instead of set ones. when mondains first launched Pendant of the Magi i seen go for like 9 mill (what a genius) now you get em for 800k and price is only gonna drop more and more as they are made. With the doom arties they so random the good ones stll hold value. With this new Proficency System i really hope Crafters and runic kits become as important as they once were. Long before this Noob even played! Im so sick of hearing about what ive missed I want that Pre AOS shard pls!