And I think this thread demonstrates exactly why the city factions have so few "real" rewards.
Because if they're TOO nice, everyone screams they're being "forced" to grind the writs.
And if they're not nice enough, everyone who does get the faction is disappointed it's meaningless.
Faction, in my view, is just an option. If you want to work on it, you can work on it, and you should work on it because you want to and you enjoy it, not because you think you're going to "get" anything. In EQ1, as an earlier poster said, there weren't similar rewards for getting faction, at least early on. But people did it anyway. I personally had a dark elf and spent hours killing minotaurs in Steamfont to get non-KOS in Ak'Anon, and turning in explorer lockets in Kunark to get non-KOS in Cabilis. Did I get any reward for this? Nope. All I got to do was wander my dark elf self into Ak'Anon or Cabilis and freak out the newbies there who had never seen a dark elf before. I know an Iksar who actually went out and did so much faction work she became non-KOS in Droga, which was somewhat mind-boggling. We didn't do it because there was any reward; we did it because it was fun, it was something a bit different that not everybody else did, and/or it fit our vision for our character. Sometimes it's enjoyable to do something just because it's there, just because you can.
In EQ2 factions are a little different since they now give tangible rewards, but it's still a decision everybody makes for him or herself. This is a game, it's all about the fun, and if you're not having fun, why do it? Personally, I have 3 level 70+ crafters and none of them has ally faction with their tradeskill society, so I can't even make this mirror myself. I had more fun levelling up crafting in other ways than writs, so I'm only about amiable on my crafting characters. And I'm not particularly bothered about that either. I know plenty of crafters out there who did get to ally status, and if I want a mirror, I'll simply ask one of them to make it.
When deciding where the recipe for this device would be available, there were a lot of factors to take into consideration. Factors like whether it should be limited to just one class (carpenters would have been an obvious choice as it's a house item); whether the recipes should be obtained through a quest, or dropped from mobs like the shards, or a faction reward in Kunark, or on the City Merchants as a guild reward, or just sold to all by the normal essentials book vendors; what level crafters should have to be to make it; even what to call it and what it should look like in a home. We could also have just had mobs drop the finished mirror, or stuck it on a City Merchant or some adventure quest, and not involved crafters at all. In the end, we agreed that it would be a nice thing to give to crafters, and make a good reward for city tradeskill faction merchants to sell. Requiring ally faction to buy the recipe doesn't lock anybody out of having it, since you can just get someone else to make it for you. Adventurers who want it aren't being forced to tradeskill if they don't want to. Allowing all classes to make it widens the range of people available to make it, and the competition should keep prices realistic, while also not giving a perceived advantage to any one class. And making the component tradeable means that even if you can't adventure in those dungeons yourself yet, you can still get the device if you really want one, once they start entering the world in enough quantities to reach the brokers. (Edit to add: and making it from the city tradeskill societies means it's truly a tradeskill-earned reward; adding it to Kunark factions would allow adventurers to obtain it without ever doing a crafting writ.)
Not everybody will ever be happy with any decision of course, but I feel the decision to make it a tradeskilled item and an ally faction reward is a good solution. It makes the mirror available to anybody who wants it, without forcing anybody to either tradeskill or grind writs if they don't want to. It involves the crafters in the process, and gives them a utility to adventurers wanting the mirror, yet gives the recipe to enough people that adventurers will be able to find one who can make it without too much difficulty. And it gives a little bonus reward to people who do get the ally faction, without giving them anything truly overpowering that would in any way make crafters feel "forced" into grinding that faction. I suspect any other solution would see more people unhappy about it. But whether or not you agree with that, this is now how it is, and I hope the majority will enjoy it (or at least not be at all bothered by it).
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(DominoDev) Re:Words cannot even describe...
