Hey hey!
Thought I'd poke my head in and offer a wave. I've tried to keep up with the forums here, but I admit to falling behind. Glad to see and hear from familiar names still. This post will touch on a couple topics so I look forward to seeing the tangled mess of replies it generates. :-)
First, let me reiterate that the reasons for me not playing the current version of Layo are entirely my own. I just needed to find a PW where there were more people on during my playtimes to RP with. I've seen the following question in this and other forums, "If you've left, why do you keep visiting the forums?"
It was a few recent postings here that finally answered this question for myself: It's the community. The web is such a fleeting medium for relationships but when you've invested so much of yourself through your ingame personas, as well as shared the thoughts and creativity of others, a feeling of belonging and connection develops. Though the ingame world of Layonara began to not fit so well for me, that doesn't mean that my respect for the creators, supporters, and players of it has diminished. I hope you don't mind my continuing to visit.
I'm not going to advertise which PW I am on as I don't think that is appropriate. However, I wanted to tell you about the crafting system. It is soooo nice!
I was never a CNR person. I didn't like the constant gathering, the jack-of-all-trades feel, and the churning of lower difficulty items to gain "experience." It just didn't feel like it added any RP or character depth but was rather something to do to keep oneself busy. Clearly many do enjoy it judging by the tradeskill rankings.
This other PW has a CNR system that works roughly like this: Every character level you get two points to apply towards any of the eight crafting skills (forging, carpentry, etc.). You get no bonuses for STR, CHA, etc. You do not gain crafting skill by making more items. You do not get character XP by creating items.
What ends up happening is that it is very difficult to be a jack-of-all-trades crafter. If you spread your points out, you're not very good in anything. If you specialize in a single craft, you will need to rely on others for components. Things kind of settle out so that crafting becomes more about RP and specific to your character's story rather than "busy work."
Next, you only have a limited number of crafting points to apply towards making things in a given ingame day. For example, a set of full plate armor may take 30 points but you only have 12 per day to use towards making it. (There are DCs to beat for making the initial object as well as succeeding at working towards its completion.) This means that you have to budget your crafting. No more can you grind out fifteen iron daggers in a few minutes. In fact, there'd be no reason to make fifteen iron daggers unless you had a PC buyer of them. (The NPC merchants don't purchase them.)
This also helps with the ingame economy. The crafting menus tell you the price of an object you are making. Since no one really "dumps" stuff since nothing is overproduced, the pricing is very stable. Persistent stores help with selling.
For me it's a fantastic RP crafting system. Even cooking is a tradeskill unto itself (they make healing kit meals) with rich RP.
Anyway, I'll be keeping my eye out for Chongo's update. Can't wait to hear more about the non-NWN version of Layo too.
~PnP
