Tiered Professions

Although I cannot officially release all the information about how professions are going to work. We have continued to design our profession system to allow a more tiered feel, to allow more meaningful progression. Basically the reason why we came up with this idea is to make it more realistic, obviously that is our goal with all of our concepts and decisions, and secondly to make every player's decision more meaningful.

Basic concept, as of now, is that the player is restricted to how much of a profession they have access to. We are splitting up professions in two categories; Skills (required to do an actual profession), and Lifestyle (a profession that a person can make a living off of). In the instance of a Smith (A Lifestyle profession) it requires the knowledge of the two Skill Professions Mining and Smelting.

First off Mining and Smelting are open to everyone, and the player has to seek out a person to learn those Skills, but learning how to mine or smelt does not require making a life decision yet, however to start the walk down Smithing...

A player can seek out a mentor smith to start his career. After finding a mentor the player has access to Rank 1 (Crude knowledge) Smithing, basically can make BASIC CRUDE objects, like a crude sword, or horse shoes. However the mentor might have more tasks related to running errands or gathering supplies over actual smithing, practice may be put on the player's own time.

After continuing the apprenticeship for a while the player moves to Rank 2 (less then average quality) Smithing, can make longswords, broadswords, and other slightly more complicated, but still very basic items. Your true potential starts to shine, but the smith may still require more errands or supplies over actual practice.

After proving themselves worthy to their mentor, he will continue training the player, at this time the player gains access to Rank 3 Smithing (Average to great quality), at this level they can make a variety of different weapons, and very complicated tools, more then basic items. The smith allows the player to be more hands on in this rank, alot less errands and supply runs, this is where the player starts to learn his teachers methods and patterns.

Every person's goal in a profession is to surpass those who are also in the business, so eventually the player will surpass or at least reach the limits of his mentor, and must either seek other training (tomes or written patterns or methods), or create their own methods and patterns, either way once the player finds the next step they have access to Rank 4 (exquisite to Master quality) Smithing. In this rank comes the Ornate, and gemmed swords that are seen in the hands of kings and used in official ceremonies. After the long and hard road to get to this rank, the players craft becomes the stuff of rumors and legends.

[On a side note, speaking of creating new patterns or methods, we are working on a system to allow the player to literally make their own unique items, as of now it is just in statistics, and not in graphics but we are working on further customization. Please do not quote me on that, this is subject to change and deletion.]

Back on topic, the player can have as many Skill Professions as they want, even if they do not corelate to the lifestyle they have chosen, if they have chosen one. However the Lifestyle professions are limited to one, these represent a person's choice that occupies so much of their time they have little time to dedicate to a different life choice on the same degree.

A player can forsake their chosen profession, once they have reached at least rank 3, although not recommended. Doing so the player loses the Ranks of 3 and 4, and instantly moves down to Rank 1, they do not have access to any methods and patterns they had access to prior, except those that are able to be accessed by Rank 1. At this time they can choose to go the ways of a different profession, they have to start over, meaning they would have to start working on the required skill professions and then seek out a mentor for the new profession.

Stay tuned for more updates