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Messages - flibbo

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1
Thanks for the great clarity.

My next guess is the file name for the image in the task is to long causing a problem
Try shortening the file name;
Rename ww-furnshell_fin.png to something short(er)

then modify the line:
[TILEGFX:ww-furnshell_fin]

to contain the shorter name of the png file. Restart URW and try it.

Yep, that actually did it - renamed it to ww-f.png and now it's not crashing any more. Thanks a bunch.
Have any suggestion as to which name I should use?  ;D

2

I uninstalled, deleted the remaining folder, re-installed from steam, copied my save backup back, then re-downloaded BAC and installed - no success though, it still crashes.

 I'm fascinated, bored and would like to help.
Details: Running Steam version URW v3.63
Removed and reinstalled URW
Reinstalled BAC version ?
Copy back save folder
No other additions to game at this time.

Sorry I don't use BAC, can you tell BAC version and what menu and item is causing this?
Does it crash/freeze up when item is crafted / completed?
After reinstall can you do other things with the save eg; make other item(s) cut trees or pick up items without the game crashing?

Using the latest URW version on Steam and BAC version 125 for URW 3.63.7, as downloaded from this thread's OP. Running it an Linux, as I said above.
The crash happens on completion of the recipe, the time (around 6 hours) to make it passes without incident. When it's done it momentarily freezes and then I'm just back on the desktop.
I can do everything else without problems, only the furniture section spells trouble so far.

Edit: The item is the "Furniture Section" in the Carpentry crafting menu, accessing by numpad +

3
Did not reproduce

Using character Novrus using {Rock} only as a stand in to speed make some Sanded Boards then used the furniture section with the current recipe.
Weird. I got no idea then. Other than maybe the fact I'm running this on Linux?

4
Next debug:
Try a fresh download the BAC.
Eliminate any old recipe issue.


"Sanded Boards" are involved and those take a while but if we have to we can always switch the feeding parts recipes to just {Rock} to spawn enough for a test

I uninstalled, deleted the remaining folder, re-installed from steam, copied my save backup back, then re-downloaded BAC and installed - no success though, it still crashes.

5
@flibbo If you could try an isolation test without the encyclopedia that would confirm Privateer's theory.

I don't recall a recipe crashing the game. A failed recipe might come out with no graphic or wrong properties. I don't run the EE on my own game though it has my support and encouragement.

Still I'll go check.

I believe you selected the "furniture section" which is meant to just be a text placeholder not something to be built.

Nope... furniture section is an assembly of well prepared working as a middle step in large constructs. It leads to a few different big projects.

I have made those in my EE free game.

OK I removed the extended encyclopedia mod and tried again, but it still crashes on me. Not sure what else could be the cause if you say it works for you

6
Just noticed that crafting the "furniture section" under Carpentry causes a crash to desktop when finished. Tried it again, it's reproducible.
I just have BAC and the enhanced in-game encyclopedia mod installed.

7
First of all thanks for this mod (collection) Brygun.

I was a little stumped yesterday when I tried out the weaving. Still had some flax fibres lying around from caethan's (?) self-sufficiency mod which I used before this one and I used your weaving crafts from this mod on that - I don't think this should have broken anything, only the ingredients would have been different, your recipes shouldn't work any different.

Anyway, I spun some yarn, which gave me 15ft of flax yarn for each iteration of the recipe, then used those to make cloth, which yielded 0.5lbs of cloth per iteration. First thing that I noticed was that it disregards the length of the yarn completely, it accepts 1ft or 15ft of yarn (and ofc presumably all other lengths) and yields the same amount of cloth regardless. Also, even if assuming one is supposed to use the amount that one use of the spinning recipe yields (15ft), the processing yarn -> cloth still seems extremely generous. I'm no weaving expert, though I have actually used a loom IRL before, but it seems to me that 15ft of yarn would only give you a pretty small piece of cloth.
Next thing I did was use two units of this cloth (1lb) to make a bag - again, this seems very generous, so either these bags are really small (esp. considering that for example a tunic needs about 7lbs of cloth?) or my perception is way off somehow. I always thought of bags in this game to be bigger than that, like actual sacks full of grain / flour you'd see in a warehouse.

Could you perhaps clarify if the resource usage here is intended the way it is?

8
Suggestions / Re: Improved trading system
« on: August 09, 2019, 07:58:05 AM »
I will give you however, that you are being a bit disagreeable right now.
And I'm not the only one here, certain parts of your comment I referred to there were very condescending.

You can already select multiple items at once to offer before presenting it.  You don't get to see the reaction until after you present that offer, however.  Give a good reason why any user interface should allow you to see the reaction before you make your actual offer.  Is it time travel?  Mind reading powers?
I wasn't talking about the reaction, I was talking about modifications to the list you want to offer before you actually make that offer.

Yes, every time you add more items to the trade you are of course making a counter offer which deserves a reaction.  If you decide you've offered too much and you want to start over again, that too deserves a reaction.  I remember at one point these reactions would progressively get harsher and harsher as well as the villagers are supposed to have patience that would wear thin, but currently this only happens if you accidentally (or deliberately) attempt to leave with an unpaid for item in your inventory and the villagers demand payment.
Look, you are playing a computer game here where you are building and modifying lists of items and not every damn keystroke should or even could be interpreted as an actual action of your character in that game's setting, in this particular example certainly not every keystroke should mean you are actually making an offer - adding items to the trade doesn't necessarily mean actually making another offer. You need to be able to make a list, evaluate (yes, that means getting the items value or at least an estimate!) and then make the offer.

I'll put it this way.  If I have the supply, but I don't particularly like you, I don't have to supply you.  Even if I do supply you, I may do so more begrudgingly increasing the price.  This could happen due to circumstances entirely outside of your control.  For instance, maybe the village elder has interpreted signs of a bad omen and decides that trading is not a good idea right now, or perhaps a child has gone missing and the villagers would rather not trade with you until that child is found.  Or perhaps, maybe there was a raid (failed or otherwise) upon the village you are currently visiting, and the raiders happen to belong to your chosen culture.  While they may recognize that your not there to raid, they may still hold a grudge or resentment that just isn't fair.  I don't see why get woke go broke couldn't be a thing during the iron age of Finland.

These villages would either be temporarily or permanently worse for trade than other villages.
And yet again, you are talking about mood effects, you are making up all sorts of things like "child goes missing", "bad omen", "cultural effects"... Nothing of this has anything to do with supply and demand. Those are just yet more factors that are different you can stack on top of it. I'm sorry but no matter how much you would like to shoehorn "mood effects" into being part of the law of supply and demand, it will never make sense. Your understanding of what "supply and demand" actually means is way too broad.

When you are simulating demands that could exist within the game but don't track the metrics due to the extra resources it would take to do so.
In other words, if you want to introduce a fun new mechanic but you don't actually want to do it properly. Yeah, not a fan thank you. This game is actually not that complex, less so than many other games and certainly much less than the real world, so if you wanted to you could actually put a proper supply and demand system in place that tracks all necessary variables. It's mostly a matter of effort but it's not a priority right now...

More importantly, however is that while these people are NPC, they aren't supposed to act like NPC's.
That's completely subjective, the specifics of what it even means "to act like NPCs" varies from person to person but the discussion is moot because at the end of the day, no game can ever hope to accomplish this until we have much more advanced AI.

While items that exist may have an objective value, peoples interpretation of that value is still subjective to some degree.  (...)  They should be suffering from the same problem that you have at the very least.  They shouldn't act like they know perfectly what something is worth regardless of how good or bad of a trader they really are.  Sometimes they just get it wrong.  Sometimes they think they can get more from you than they really can or should.  Greed can play into this too you know.
This is what a haggling system would tackle... Supply and demand gives you the basis, then haggling for the individual skill...

Furthermore, the reason you would add a modest random element (something you seem to have missed btw)
(...)
(very small variation, not enough on it's own to potentially generate lots of wealth).
(...)
would be to add an element of uncertainty and challenge.  These changes would also pave the way to playing as a merchant if you wanted to do so.
Uncertainty sure, but there is nothing challenging about dice rolls. You're just at the mercy of random chance. Exactly how is this better than the ability to analyze the current market situation, as much as that is possible in this game, and make a well-founded decision based on that?

In practice, you got most of these values from playing characters and doing these trades in the game, probably across multiple characters.
Dear Lord, the whole reason I have written this little story is to illustrate that your character would get information like this from his tribe, his parents and teachers, the environment he grew up in because you don't play a wild child or a newborn baby. You are playing someone who is 16 years old, was raised in a Finnish tribe, starts with bonuses to certain skill that he was obviously taught so the idea that he would get information about at least the basics of what certain items are valued is really not too far-fetched.

Furthermore, no source is given for how he came to "know" what the value of a hunting knife or woodsman's axe would be worth other than he "heard" it.
He "heard" it. Sure. As in, the woodsmen and hunters of his tribe regularly traded for it, which on several occasions Timo must have witnessed. You know, because Timo was part of the tribe, he was taught things and generally paid attention to things.
Yes, obviously I as the player DO have the information about item values available (because I painstakingly compiled a list of them, since the game just gave me the finger) but that doesn't mean the character couldn't possibly know anything about it. It doesn't matter what the values as they are coded in the game are and why, not for the question of could my character tell or not - MY CHARACTER is not someone who grew up in the late 20th century civilization with computers, the internet, currency etc., HE is a 16 year old Finnish tribesman and contrary to what you believe
without real world experience
he DOES have real world experience, 16 years of it! 16 years he was raised in the tribe and back in those days you couldn't spend those 16 years sitting at home on your asses like we can today. You had to pitch in at a very early age and this guy, he probably learned how to track and hunt at an age where we wouldn't even have started school yet today. This is the kind of person you roll up every single time you start a new game. To think he has at least basic level information about values of items common in his culture is not far-fetched at all and no he doesn't need to be a merchant character for it. There is no way in hell an UrW character would have no clue about these things.

Even as presented, this would be a backstory that would tie into a potential bartering skill, and possible game start as a wandering merchant.  You have to give that story a second pass though at least.
No I don't. It's a game start for any possible character you could play in UrW and I explained my point of view as thoroughly as I could - if you still don't see my point even after I wrote up walls of text just for your benefit then we'll just have to agree to disagree.

They wouldn't.  That would only be an argument however for that information being obfuscated.  I take it that you wouldn't find it very fun however for every item to have it's weight listed in comparison to rocks and stones instead though.  Skills having listed percentages isn't necessary either, the bar is sufficient to demonstrate how much confidence your character has in his or her skills.  I wouldn't mind either change personally.
So wait, you want to overhaul the whole game now and change the way information is given to us? What about the whole skill penalty thing which you conveniently ignored? Do you actually have a problem with how it this is right now? You wan't to remove information about how our skills are affected by the various penalties? You don't want to give us information about our skill levels any more? Why the hell are you even playing the damn game? What do any of the other players have to say about this?
What if item value displays were already part of the game right now...? Somehow I don't think you would be someone doing any complaining.

edit: please also answer this part of my question:
Now, you tell me which one of those two scenarios (Timo or Floki) makes more sense and why.
thanks.

9
Suggestions / Re: Improved trading system
« on: August 08, 2019, 01:45:55 PM »
From what I can tell from this discussion, your problem seems largely to be due to the user interface.
Correct.

Perhaps it would help if you drew up something and posted it.  It would need only be functional and labelled with what you had in mind, and not particularly pretty.  I'm sure people would judge your idea based on merit and not the prettiness of your drawing so you could even do this up in mspaint or something if you felt like it.
I already made suggestions regarding the UI in the OP:
What I would like to see is a trading system similar like the ones in Gothic or Morrowind for example, they did both a very good job with that. It doesn't matter that those were AAA that didn't care much about realism like URW does, none of what I mentioned had anything to do with realism, it's purely interface convenience. We need something like a screen with three lists: your inventory, the village's (or other person's) inventory and the list of items that should change owners. At the bottom, show the current value balance - how many more items need to be offered by either side to make it fair, and an indication whether the trade will be accepted as is or not. Of course you need to be able to add or remove items at any time *without* being forced to start over from scratch and the values of items have to be listed somewhere.
and another one later:
If informing the player about values is out of the question for whatever reason, we need at least a trading screen that informs us about how far the current offer's value balance is off of a fair trade. Do it with a scale or thumbs up / down if you have to because you don't want numbers for some reason but convey it somehow. And please for the love of the spirits allow offers to be adjusted without having to start over every time. This alone would already go a long way to making it properly usable and fun.
I think this should give a pretty good picture. If you still want me to draw something I suppose I can do that too.

Lastly, the bit where villagers will accept a trade and not let you alter it without starting the trade again from scratch comes as a compromise between reality and what would be fun to deal with.
I don't claim to know what goes on in Sami's head but I really don't think that's the reason. It's probably more of a technical reason, like UI / code limitations (that need to be fixed ofc).

Normally in the real world if you over-promise or over-offer for something, people will get fixated on that offer and will stop being reasonable.  If you offer 40 dried bear cuts for something when 20 would suffice, no-one would be okay with your going, "Well, if you would take 40 cuts for it, then why not 35?  Why not 30?  Why not 25?".  People would get very angry, very quickly.  Obviously though, nobody wants to give away massive amounts of wealth either or save scum if their attempts fail either though.
Sure, but does every single modification to the list have to be interpreted as an offer? If you want to buy something expensive for several less expensive items that doesn't make any sense, your intention is to build up a list of items you are offering and then ask them if they agree not in between every single squirrel skin or whatever that you add. The fact that UrW forces you to make an offer after every modification is rooted in one of the big problems with its trading system - the UI simply doesn't have the capability to do it otherwise. If you have that information and a usable UI, you would move items over and then hit the "offer" button. I agree that on this button some kind of limit would probably make sense, but not before, and this would only become relevant when there is a haggling skill as well that would allow you to shift prices in your favor, and if that system had a degree of random chance involved like it did in Morrowind, offering over and over again would then be "pushing your luck" until you hopefully succeed. Not the best system but it's possible. Personally I'd rather not have a random element as you've probably guessed and in any case - haggling is another bonus feature that has already been mentioned... if there is no haggling, prices can't be shifted anyway so offering more than once is pointless.

The option to start the trade over from scratch is a compromise here instead.  Not a great one, but maybe you have an idea how this could be changed?
Like I said, also with the other suggestions I have already posted and re-quoted above, when the UI is done properly this isn't even necessary any more because then you can adjust your "items on trade" list at will before making an actual offer so if you overshoot the target you can simply remove an item from the list again. The fact that now, if you overshoot, you have to start over and re-create that last list (except for one or two items...) you used previously is one of the biggest flaws of the current system. It's incredibly tedious and annoying.

10
Suggestions / Re: Improved trading system
« on: August 08, 2019, 01:42:22 PM »
First, the mood of the villagers overall (moreso tied to reputation but if you read the responses it is represented as mood) already affects not only their willingness to trade with out outright, but a bad mood will increase the villagers valuation of their goods vrs your own, while a good mood makes them more generous (they value their goods less than yours slightly).
That's just the effect of your reputation on trading prices. Sure, you can say bad rep gives the villagers a "bad mood" when they see you but that's a rather flimsy way of putting it because mood usually refers to day-to-day fluctuations which is how I interpreted your original comment. If that's not what you meant then I misunderstood. The effect of your reputation however is an experience value of your previous interactions with that village, if you've been helpful to them then of course they will have a friendlier disposition than if you've been a dick, which makes sense to affect prices but like you said it already does so the discussion is moot. In any case, there is nothing random about it nor should there be, we're not talking about random mood swings but learned experience of the interaction between player and village, which the player has entirely under their control.

If you really thing traders being moody contradicts a supply and demand system then you haven't thought about it much.
Really? I mean.... really?! Even considering a potential misunderstanding between us, "moodiness" effects have nothing to do with a supply and demand system...

Furthermore, the random prices from village to village would simulate the demand portion of the supply and demand. Sometimes people just want certain items more than other, even of the same variety.  For example, the villagers in that area might want elk meat more than stag meat, or vice versa.  I don't see how this is contradictory.
Supply and demand is the fundamental law of economics, there is nothing random about it. Why would you try to remove one of the factors and randomize it? In this particular example, if a village is short on food but has a lot of mouths to feed, prices for food go up. If a village has a large stack of boards and not much use for them right now because there is no construction happening, prices of boards go down. If a village has only one particular kind of meat, prices for that meat go down, prices for other meat go up (also modified by the abundance of food overall). This can easily just be put on top of a system of fixed prices, because these are just multiplications with various modifiers and none of those are random. At what point does it make sense to randomize anything? Imagine you are playing in such a game, where the prices of items are governed by dice rolls... you are then of course just completely at the mercy of the dice when it comes to trading, if one price in a village is particularly bad, do you move on to the next and reroll? How often do you do this? Is the price fixed for one village forever or does it eventually reroll, if so with what interval? Is it even going to be rerolled for every potential transaction? Do you then wait for it to reroll or just accept whatever is offered? Don't you see that this removes any brain or skill on part of the player? You always just either accept whatever the dice gives you or try to improve, which would mean nothing more than re-trying. Did you ever go through the stat screen in the character creator and frantically re-roll your stats because you just weren't happy with any of the rolls? Now add this for trading as well, another huge frustration level coming from all the reroll attempts. If your goal is to frustrate the player to the point where they uninstall the game and never give it another look then this would be a great idea indeed. We need sensible, realistic mechanics, that actually require some thinking and can be adjusted to, not yet another altar to RNGesus. And the whole supply and demand thing has already been mentioned by others and I agreed it would be great to have IF we first get a solid base, a functioning and fun to use trading system, that this builds on (and of course, none of it is done randomly....).

While you may be discussing a trade with individual people, you are still trading with the group.  I'm sure the village elder, or somebody else who's worldly and experienced might have something to say about you trying to trade a few handmade clubs for a spear for instance.
Yes. What's your point? Obviously spears have a much higher value than clubs.

*sigh*

Well I'm sorry that my suggestion didn't add the magic bullet you seemed to be looking for, but sustainable changes happen in small increments.  The change I was focusing on was the lack of an item value being displayed to you.  I understand that this is annoying, and I agree that this is annoying specifically because these items do have exact values.

Similarly, you seem to be shooting down everybody else's suggestions for improvement and feedback as well, which is a quick way to doom an idea, and prevent it from gaining any traction.  Obviously if you disagree with somebody or something they've said in principle then you should let everybody know however.  But as an example, turning down the suggestion of a trade blanket because it doesn't mend the "fractured" trade system completely doesn't help your suggestion gain any momentum.
OK perhaps I didn't make myself clear enough there: I did think that your idea of getting to know the value of an item based on some skill (personally I think it would make more sense to call it "Appraisal" because "Bartering" refers to the actual act of the trade but whatever) is a good one. Obviously, this requires the display of item values in some fashion though, which is one of the big points I originally made so I would be all for that. With my criticism I was referring to the second part of that quote where you made another suggestion of how bartering should work in particular, but also to a lot of the other comments by other users that asked for features that IMO come on top of a sound foundation for a trading system that needs to be put in place first. So, while part of that criticism was directed at you, it was more of a general statement which I see now could have been misunderstood. I still wasn't attacking you personally but if this offended you somehow then I apologize.

What I explicitly will not apologize for however is calling an idea bad (and explaining why, which I believe I so far did every time, including the "trading blanket" thing you mentioned again) if I feel that is the case, which of course goes for your ideas too, and also not for trying to keep this discussion on point - that is, a good basis for a trading system. I appreciate every contribution to this discussion, including yours, and every time I have heard an idea I thought was good I have said so, not just when I think ideas are bad, but most of those good ideas were nice "bonuses" that should come after the massive issues with the current system have been fixed (by the way, this also goes for the whole appraisal thing which you are not the first to mention). A lot of people, including you, were putting the cart before the horse here. In fact, all of that stuff should be part of another thread. My goal with this thread was to address trading as horrible as it is right now and why, and give some suggestions about how to fix it.

However, you need to explain how somebody without the internet and without real world experience would know what these items are actually valued at, and yet you have not explained how this is possible.
"Without real world experience"? It's fair you ask for an explanation I suppose so I'm going to give it to you but I'll ignore that part because it just makes no sense. So, story time:

Let us consider a young man living in Finland in the early middle ages, some time between 800 and 1000 A.D. - let's call him Timo. Timo has just turned 16 years old, he is a young man - he may not have much experience yet but he is not a baby or a child either. In fact, back in those days people had to face the responsibilities of adulthood a lot sooner than people centuries or even millenia later might have to. It was common for people of his age or even younger to already be married and have children, although Timo himself is/has not. For all intents and purposes, Timo is an adult.

Timo, not being some kind of wild child, was of course raised by his parents and his tribe. He was taught a lot of things, including tracking, hunting, fishing, hideworking, some herbal medicine, getting a feeling for the weather and the seasons, how to know when not to walk on ice, how to best try to get out if you do fall through, some handcrafts like making staves and javelins and much more, including of course more mundane things like language and cultural customs common in the area. Timo was by no means a master in any of these trades of course but his tribe made sure he got a good start in life and he wasn't a lazy good-for-nothing either.

Timo has since left his home to travel the lands on his own. The particular reasons for him being on his own or his motivations, what he intends to accomplish, do not matter here. Timo decides at one point to go through his pack and create an inventory of what he has with him. He pulls out an item - it is a squirrel fur, decent quality, a very common item among the Finnish tribes. Timo remembers when some foreigners visited his village a few years back, they offered exotic items in return for furs, which are very much sought-after in the southern lands where the animals do not have such rich pelts like here in the north with its harsh climate. Timo listened to their stories, and as he understood, many other peoples use precious metals pressed into some sort of discs as the basic medium of exchange for trades. There is no such thing here in Finland though, he couldn't imagine why anyone would create such items that have no practical use at all. The closest thing to it however would be these squirrel furs like the one he is holding in his hand right now, as they are so common in Finland and their value is low enough but not too low to be used very widely in any sort of trades. Many values of other items are thus expressed as a certain number of squirrel furs.
[side note: "oravannahka" is Finnish for both "squirrel fur" and a colloquial term for "money" still used in Finland even today.]

He pulls out another item: an arrow, very standard make, a straight, thin piece of wood carved from a branch with some feathers at the back to stabilize flight and a head made of a sharp piece of rock, skillfully tied to the shaft with a cord. Another very common item among the Finnish tribes. He knows that an arrow and a squirrel fur are of the same value, as he has seen them exchanged 1:1 in trades many times when he was young.

The next item he examines is his hunting knife. A very useful tool but not as easy to come by because as he well knows in Finland iron-working is not yet as established as in other parts of the world, tools like this are therefore often brought in by foreign traders like the ones he just thought of earlier. The hunters and woodsmen of his tribe loved to use them and therefore traded for them, and so he knows that a price of about 20 squirrel furs would be fair for such an item. Of course, a particularly high quality version of a knife would command a higher price, 25 or even 30 skins would be fair for those.

Another very important tool in his pack was his woodsman's axe, and it was also so popular among his people that he knew its value to be the same as that of a hunting knife, meaning 20 squirrel skins for a decent quality version.

Then he pulls out his fishing rod - now this is another thing entirely. A fishing rod is so easy to make that its value is not high at all, in fact one squirrel skin would most likely even get you two fishing rods. This doesn't mean it is useless however, it's just that getting one of these is much easier than even hunting a simple, harmless animal like the squirrel and Timo has often witnessed the people of his village making these without much effort.

Speaking of skins and hunting - Timo thinks back to all the hunting trips the men of his village used to do, which were frequently celebrated upon a successful return. They brought back skins that could be used for clothing or trade and meat that would keep the village fed. He remembers, that a single pelt of an Elk, if it wasn't too beat up, was mentioned to be even a little more valuable than a decent hunting knife, or of about equal value than a high quality one - that is to say, around 25 squirrel pelts. One particular type of fur, the lynx fur, however, he remembers especially well because this was considered to be the most valuable type of fur you could obtain: it is worth the same as two full Elk furs and still almost twice as much as a bear fur, even though those furs are a lot bigger and heavier than just one lynx fur. This is because lynxes have such rich, thick and soft pelts that everybody would prefer them over the pelts of the other animals and they are also harder to find and hunt. The winter variant of this fur, if tanned by a skilled hideworker, would be considered one of the most valuable items one could ever hope to obtain, potentially worth more than one hundred of the small squirrel skins or four high quality hunting knives. The foreign traders would be more than willing to give you a high quality piece of jewelry made of a precious metal like silver for it - or perhaps two or three made of bronze. Returning with a lynx kill was always special cause for celebration in his village.

Now Timo may not know all the values of every single item he could ever hope to come across by heart, but his experience is already enough to make very well-founded estimates. If he were to collect some more experience, however, he would become even more confident about the value he owns and that people would not take advantage of him in trades. For now though, he just continued on his way.

See? No internet required and still a very plausible story for this setting. You can expand this with your idea of an appraisal skill but it's not stricly necessary because, like you said, sustainable changes should come in small increments. Do you disagree?

Now it's your turn: if I were to turn on UrW right now and load my character, then open up the inventory screen, it would look something like this: masterwork northern bow - 3 lbs, northern spear - 7 lbs, masterwork handaxe - 3 lbs, masterwork hunting knife - 2 lbs, 20 fine arrows - 2 lbs, all my clothing yadayada... a partially eaten dried elk cut, 0.7 lbs, a wooden bowl partially filled with elk stew, 3 lbs etc. etc. (forgive me if any of the values are off, i can't actually load the game right now)
Now I leave the inventory, take a look at the penalty screen to the right: it says "110.8" lbs or something like this, which gives me a penalty of 11%.
I open up my skill screen: among others, it says tracking: 83%, bow: 92%....
So let's see, my character knows at any point the exact, and I do mean the exact weight in pounds of all of his inventory combined down to its first decimal place. He knows the weight of individual items with less accuracy because for some reason those values arrive in his mind rounded to the first significant digit but it's still pretty accurate - and even if he wanted to know precisely, he could always just drop everything except that item and magically get the information because like I said, somehow he always knows the exact weight of his whole inventory down to the first decimal place. He knows that every kind of item, disregarding any use or wear/tear effects, always have the same weight. He knows that on a scale of 0 to 100 where 0 is completely unskilled and 100 is a grandmaster, his archery skill is currently exactly at 92, his tracking skill exactly at 83 and so on. He knows every time these values improve and he knows roughly at which values he started his journey when he was 16 years old. He also knows, that at his current condition due to the weight he is carrying his skills are reduced by exactly 11 points on that scale. He also knows, if he were to receive an injury due to a fight or even just some frostbite, that his skill would be reduced further and by how much exactly depending on the injury. He knows the exact effect of starvation on him currently, if he suffers from it at all, and how much it would reduce his skills further. He knows exactly how long he can do a particular job before his exhaustion reaches this mystical value of "100%", assuming he suffers no other penalties, and adjusted accordingly if he does, at which point he would be forced to take a break. He knows exactly, down to the minute, how long he needs to rest for his exhaustion to go back to zero. He also knows his body's current nutrition level at all times. Heck, he even always knows his speed in km/h (without decimal places) at every possible moment. His name is Floki Kaumolainen... he lives in Finland some time around 800 A.D... the fanciest tool he has ever seen was a heavy crossbow....

Now, you tell me which one of those two scenarios (Timo or Floki) makes more sense and why. Please tell me how someone without the internet, without precision scales or even crude scales for that matter, without any kind of measurement instruments at all would have access to this kind of information? And of course in particular, how in light of this and Timo's story earlier the idea of a simple display of trading values is so outrageous? And, seeing as how this seems to fall into your original question, "how would the character know item values", how do you suggest to remedy this obviously absurd flood of information we get? Are you going to uninstall the game because of this, I mean, this is obviously completely ridiculous...
Sorry for the sarcasm, I just can't resist here.

11
Suggestions / Re: But that villager died
« on: August 08, 2019, 10:15:17 AM »
I believe you can hire people you meet in the wilderness in principle (excluding Njerps, of course), but I also believe they usually decline.

You can, I did it once but obv. it's not very reliable.

12
Nice OK I see what you mean then, I didn't try this tactic myself yet (I learned to have a lot of respect for anything resembling combat in this game so I generally just GTFO...) Anyway, I don't think it's applicable to the robbers OP was talking about cause you'd have to hit each of them several times before they reach you.

13
UPDATE:
Okay, I tried it again. I think it's actually impossible to get away from robbers either by running or by sneaking. When I run, they seem to fall behind, and then suddenly they're caught up. When sneaking, they always know right where you're at.

Were robbers designed to be a foe that is impossible to get away from and nearly impossible to defeat?
No, it's perfectly possible to run away from them, I do it all the time. Does your character have shitty speed stat or do you carry too much? How fast are you exactly when you run?

As to your question, when you encounter robbers and are forced to zoom in there will be several of them standing at a medium distance, usually most if not all of them will be looking your way so sneaking will be impossible at that point. You've already been seen. I don't recall ever having a robber encounter where none of them had seen me yet, it happens with Njerps so I suppose it's theoretically possible but pretty damn unlikely given that robbers are never alone. If on the other hand you know where they are (approximately) already and are sneaking up on them from the next wilderness tile away, sneaking works like it always does. Which means, it depends on your skill, your penalty and your luck.

The working tactic against enemies is to walk, not run, away from threats by backing away. The enemies will eventually tire from running and move slower than your character does.
I don't see how that's a sound tactic unless you are dealing with an animal or the enemy hasn't seen you yet and you are sneaking away. If you are just walking and the enemy is running, it is pretty much guaranteed that they are faster than you. By the time you are enganged in combat backing away accomplishes nothing except getting you hit over and over again. Against robbers, you need to get away as fast as possible unless you are confident that you can beat them.

14
Suggestions / Re: But that villager died
« on: August 05, 2019, 11:33:47 AM »
I'm afraid time won't heal the villagers feelings in regards to non-returning companions, but this is not a bug either, it's just a way it is, and I'll move the thread at suggestions.

Adding mechanisms to tell the NPCs what really happened is tricky, and still even if the companions would die fairly I don't know if villagers still should always be like "He died when hunting with you? Ok, we don't mind that, here have a another hunting assistant, we wish him better luck than the previous. Hehe."   :D

This is something to tweak/ponder in the future, but there's not an easy way to find a good consensus.

Maybe going a little off topic from some people's points of view but I think this is related to the issue (personally I consider it an issue at least) that there is no "respawn" mechanic at all in the game - any NPC villager and even any buyable animal that dies is dead for good, they are never replaced even if your character lives for decades. I realize this is a large task but I think a respawning in some way or another is needed. It doesn't have to be a typical respawn the likes of WoW or other mainstream games of course where any dead creature is basically replaced right away, give it a really long time frame that you feel is appropriate. I never kill NPCs or domestic animals on purpose, every time it happens it's an accident and to always think about that they are never replaced is very harsh. Sometimes it's even completely out of your power, I had villages being attacked by bears and even bands of robbers seemingly out of nowhere, each time several villagers died and I knew that basically this village's population was culled forever, even if my character got to live for 100 years. Perhaps this can be combined with a proper aging system where village children actually grow up to be adults and new children can be born. Also migration of NPCs between different villages or between vilages and the wilds (how likely is it that the NPCs we see represent everyone that lives in Finland anyway?) would make for a credible reason for moving or creating new NPCs. As it is, in this regard UrW is very static right now, this is a little unfortunate and also gives rise to OP's issue.

What I am getting at is that companion deaths could be addressed at the same time and it would be appropriate to do that. I understand that simply hiring people only to kill them and take their stuff over and over again would be a very cheesy way of playing the game that probably shouldn't be allowed, although personally I never felt the need to play in such ways. But banning a new companion hire for all eternity from that village when one happens to die is pretty severe too. You could find a middle ground, like having to wait several years for the villagers to eventually "forget" and trust you again, tying it to some respawn event with a long timeframe happening or something like that. Or maybe have the character build up a kind of reputation with the village and its neighbours for hirable companions - you hire someone, everything goes well, you pay them and go your separate ways and your reputation goes up. The companion goes "missing" on the other hand or you refuse to pay - your rep goes down. Maybe somewhat forgivable the first time (with a hiring price hit?) but if it keeps happening the people will mistrust you and refuse to go with you. Combine it with a long-term "reputation decay" method (in both directions) and things should be fine.

15
Suggestions / Re: Improved trading system
« on: August 04, 2019, 02:56:01 PM »
There already exists in the game a mechanism that provides a pretty accurate system of valuation- that used by the Foreign Traders!

It is made very clear what they believe is a fair trade, i.e., 'x' number of those furs and 'y' number of those furs. If you've traded much with them, you'll also have noted their valuation sometimes is merely a starting point. That's because your available furs are insufficient in value for the trade items you desire..
What...? This is exactly the same system any other NPCs use too, except traders always want furs. So then you have values expressed in furs, great, but that doesn't change anything. Besides, when you ask the NPCs what they would accept they will tell you anything that would outweigh the value of the item, in the process they'll also choose things that are worth way more and thus highly inappropriate for the trade. Again, doesn't change anything about the problem.

Anyway, I'd suggest, if it is possible, that the player has something like a 'trade blanket' (an inventory section) upon which he'd lay out all that he desires to offer for trade, from which VILLAGERS could determine what items they consider a fair trade. That would also put an end to villagers saying they'd be happy to trade for the Masterwork items I'm wearing/using, never gonna happen!
So they would not choose masterwork quailty or other items that you want to keep any more, but other than that it would be exactly the same as it is now. Your "trading blanket" just happens to be your entire inventory and you can get the same effect you spoke of by simply dropping items you want to keep temporarily. Again, don't see the point.

Actually, one thing that would be nice would be a bartering skill itself that goes up over time as you trade, along with semi-randomized prices based on mood and regional scarcity (very small variation, not enough on it's own to potentially generate lots of wealth).
You speak partly of a supply/demand system - it's been mentioned before, I agree it would be great but only as the icing on the cake, the cake being a good basis for the trading system. A foundation that is actually properly usable and not so tedious. But also you mention "semi-randomized" prices? Based on "mood"? Absolutely not, please. It makes zero sense for item values to be random and also contradicts the supply/demand idea you yourself mentioned in the very same sentence. What would make sense, in addition to supply/demand, would maybe be a factoring in of bartering skills of *both* involved parties. So if the NPCs skill sucks, you could take advantage of him by shifting prices in your favor and vice versa.

Basically, the higher your bartering skill, the more likely the value of an item is to be known to you, and even if you don't know the value of the item, you get a ballpark estimate instead.

Then add to this, a limited number of chances (which you get more of as your bartering skill increases) to actually get a trade for an item to go though and you would eliminate more of the issue.  Probably not in the way that you would like though.
Sounds good, but again I think people misunderstand my point. Things like this are a good bonus on top of a simple but well fleshed out system that is actually enjoyable to use. The point of my OP was that this is not the case at all - as it is right now, trading is slow, tedious, inaccessible and the opposite of fun to use. It is the single biggest chore in the game and it won't be fixed by things like this. You cannot fix an open fracture by putting a band-aid on it.

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