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Announce News Post #2253

The Tradeskill Revamp is Live!

Written by: Eusto, the Resurgent
Date: Tuesday, February 5th, 2013
Addressed to: Everyone


Ladies and gentlefolk:

The Tradeskill Revamp is now live. I'll be moving through the process of manually bringing certain things up to date, but the bulk of the conversion has taken place. You will find that a number of things have changed dramatically. This is quite a large code conversion, so there's a lot to learn.

My next announce post will be a Quick Start guide for those of you who have crafted before and need to be brought up to date with commands and functionality. Below is a brief list of overall changes to complement that guide.

General
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- "Paper" designs (molds, casts, patterns, sketches, etc.) have been completely eliminated. All of your designs still exist in their original form. DESIGN LIST will show you your designs. PATTERN LIST will show you craftable patterns. Patterns are the basic item type for designs. When you want to make pants, you find a Tailoring pattern for pants and create a design based on that. More info in next post.
- When in doubt, type DESIGN alone to see a list of all possible commands.
- To ease situations in which one might lose access to another's design, many Writs of Creation have been spawned as part of the conversion process. Writs allow someone to craft designs owned by another person. DESIGN LEARN <writ> to gain access to a design through a Writ. The Writ will be consumed in the process.
- Paperless designs will now expire every 180 RL days unless refreshed. DESIGN REFRESHALL will refresh all designs in danger of expiry.
- Tomes of the Crafter have been eliminated. Anything in that Tome has been preserved (meaning that it will never decay), and each Tome owner has been credited for the empty spots in his or her Tome(s) as free preservations for the future. From this point forward, Preservations cost 2cr apiece.
- Individual Tradeskill Offices (Metalworking shop, Tailoring shop, etc.) have been eliminated. Important items from each have been condensed into the main Tradeskill office in each city (where you buy your permits). General trade offices are now open in Khandava, Celidon, Ithaqua and Caanae.
- It is no longer necessary to visit a Tradeskill office to submit or pickup designs. Design pickup is eliminated altogether, as are pickup costs.
- I've added a "can_be_lit" option to patterns. Certain designs (such as lanterns) will now have the option of custom lighting messages and lit dropped descriptions.

Vialbelts
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- Vialbelts have been released! A vialbelt pattern is available in Tailoring and generic vialbelts are for sale in each city and council's general store.
- Vialbelts are a neat way to eliminate the need to carry hundreds of vials. You fill them with your elixirs, salves and toxins (both thick and thin) and any time you empty a vial, it gets automatically refilled. Pretty neat! HELP VIALBELT for more information.
- As a result, the decay time of vials has been dramatically shortened.

Artistry
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- The creation of journals, tomes, books, letters and scrolls is now considered part of the Artistry tradeskill, granting it all the benefits of this Revamp.
- Those items now use normal commodities for crafting rather than paper.
- As a result, the JOURNAL verb has been removed. We'll be appointing a few Mortal craft approvers to handle Artistry approvals.

Libations
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- Libations have been integrated into the Design system and the FORMULA command has been removed.
- There is only one Libations pattern: BREW (#352). Use it for all your Libations needs.
- Libations now uses the highest-level commodities (Fruitliqueur, herballiqueur, flavouredliqueur). These have been added to the Commodity system. Trade ministers! You may wish to produce these commodities (based on the 'crop' resource). They will be offered for sale temporarily in the Tradeskill office.
- Fermenting, Distilling, and Cooperage have been disabled in the pursuit of simplicity. Cooperage will be replaced in the near future.
- The BREW command has been eliminated. DESIGN <des> BREW <potstill> has replaced it. Keep the commodities in your inventory (not in the potstill) and don't drop the still itself.

Shops and Shopkeeping
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- Crafter's shelves have been reworked. It is no longer necessary to put anything in them. ADD <design> TO <shelf> to do so. A Shelfholder will be created and placed on the shelf. There is no need to interact with this shelfholder in any way. Any items on Crafter's shelves before the conversion are there now in their proper form.
- Libations bars have also been reworked. Designs are added in the same way that regular Craft items are. Kegs are now unremovable, automatically-created items that handle refills and brewing for you. They need not be purchased. *** PLEASE price your libations refills at the 5-sip pricepoint. *** Kegs hold a large number of sips and refill/charge commodities only when emptied.
- Take a peek at DESIGN SHELVED, which will show you where your designs are on Craftshelves.

There is no way for me to adequately summarize everything that has changed in this, which is easily one of the largest modifications of crucial code and data that Imperian has ever experienced. Please use this post, the following Announce post and the related helpfiles to guide you as you explore the new options and functionality. Naturally, if those resources are not enough, I'm here to help.

Eusto

Penned by my hand on the 3rd of Ferinus, in the year 10 AM.


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