Alright, just found this rather annoying. Alright, more like extremely annoying.

Why can't we cut up the new wood logs? We need SKILL to do that? I can understand the skill to obtain them, but cut them up?

And what is the skill range for each of the new logs? Cut to cut from logs to boards mind you.

Take in mind now, I'm not a crafter, never have been. Limped my way to what I need before they even brought along all the colored ore and what nots.

I heard that you must be GM carpentry to cut up the new logs into boards and since I had a GM carpenter before I hit GM lumberjacking, I really couldn't test this theory. However, my hubby plays on Legends and he was working up his lumber and carpentry at the same time. Somewhere around 97 carpentry he hit GM lumber and attempted to cut up frostwood logs and succeeded. He then tried all the colored wood as he found them and apparently found a bug in the process. At 98 carpentry he was able to cut all the colored wood into logs except Heartwood. As he continued to work carpentry, he continued to try cutting Heartwood into logs without success. That was the only wood that required him to be GM carpenter to cut into logs. Now this was several weeks ago and I don't know if this last patch changed it, but I do think that the new woods should work more like mining and smithing. Once you are able to chop the wood from the tree, an equal skill in carpentry should cut them into logs. You can chop oak at 65 lumberjacking, you should be able to cut it into logs at 65 carpentry.

Thanks.

That is a major thorn in my 'psyche'. I had to put Lumberjacking on my already full GM Carpenter, so I could cut the logs. I wanted my Fletcher to be able to go out and get her own wood, but in order to do that I would have to make her a GM Carpenter. I certainly don't need to take it away from the main crafter, since making some items leans on two skills.... Come on Devs... fix that. I mean.. ANY sawmill can cut wood into boards! It takes a craftsman to make nice things from it, but most craftsmen don't go out and log the wood and cut it into boards themselves!

I really dont like these requirements to have 2 unrelated skills for this. I never saw any tactical reason to have carpentry, It didnt do anything for me, well except to enhance some of the crappy wood armor out there. I dont personally care what color the chests my stuff is stored in, or if it has hp regen 2 on it. What I do if trying to enhance a bow or make one, just make it from the logs. Works the same..

I've always disliked the idea of an all-purpose "mule" crafter character. So in my book anything that makes it less easy to stack every crafting ability you need on one char is a good thing, makes for at least a subtle diversity.

As pointed out above you can still use the new woods without cutting them into boards so it's not something totally cutting you out of that aspect of the game. Just less convenient IF you feel you can't fit carpentry and lumberjacking on the same character.

I'd love it if they made it so you can't have both tailoring and blacksmith on one character, but that's just me :grin:

Adri, Why on earth would you not want people to have both smith and tailor on a character. Isn't that the great thing about UO? You are able to stack any skill you want with any character, enhancing the versatility or your characters.

As smithing and tailoring are pretty much the core crafting skills in terms of armor and weapons (or were, I guess fletching and carpentry have come into the picture too now with runics and wood armors etc), the ability to put both on one character along with a ton of other things like mining, tinkering, alchemy and so on facilitates what we have now: mule characters with all necessary crafting skills on each account, making most folks self-sufficient.

Self-sufficient means less interaction between players as less folks need anything from others as they can conduct their own crafting and repairs save for maybe the most top-end runic stuff. This leads to the death of actual professional crafters who hang out in towns offering their services.

Granted, the AoS item system did a lot more to kill crafters but everyone having their own all-around mule doesn't exactly help either.

Artificial restrictions like smithing and tailoring being mutually exclusive aren't in the spirit of the UO skill system of course, but I haven't come up with a better idea yet to curb the mule phenomenon... probably never will either.

There is a good deal of 'overlap' in the crafts. Many items require more than one skill to do them. For instance, you can't make a Loom, Spinning Wheel Bamboo Screens, Fishing Poles, Shoji Screens or the Beds (maybe some others but I forget) unless you also have some Tailoring... You have to have magery and carpentry to do the Pentagrams and Abbatoirs. No Musical Instruments without both Carpentry and Musicanship.... To Make Ovens and Flour Mills, you have to have both Carpentry and Tinkering.

The same overlap is true for Blacksmithing, you need both it and Carpentry to make several items. The issue might seem like it is that everyone has their own resident crafter, but not everyone does it. Many people just don't like doing crafts and would be buying repairs and goods, if what the Crafter could make was as good as what they are getting in LOOT. Why buy a go cart when you can have a Corvette!

I have an Elder Smith who is also a Master Tailor, GM Tinker, GM Carpenter, GM Lumberjack, GM Miner. As you can see the only thing I have space left for is enough magery to get me transported!

My Main Character is Legendary Tailor, GM Alchemist, GM Inscriptionist, GM Meditation, Master Mage, GM Chef and the rest is scraps!

I love crafting, and it burns me that it is not useful anymore. When I finally became a GM Smith, I was thrilled... two weeks later, they put in Power Scrolls and GM was third rate. Then the items we could make were undesirable, because they had nowhere near the goodies the Doom Loot had. In preparation for ML, knowing cooking would be getting a boost, I GMd a Chef. That lasted what.. two weeks? Ok.. I shut up.... I was caught off guard or I woulda passed this rant by. "Svp excusez-moi'

I'd think the reasoning behind forcing us to have carpentry to cut up logs is because you get more logs per chop than anything else, especially since they sped up the time it takes to chop.