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[Flaede]

or the [PRETENTIOUS_BASTARD] tag. So that he not only demands to have the best room, but demands that it contain all items made out of glass. When you can't make any. Or, if you can make glass, he demands adamantium.

[G-Flex]

Of course, the PRETENTIOUS_BASTARD would also require masterpiece-level engravings and statues, despite his personality saying he doesn't care much for art.

[Felblood]

This brings us to the second issue, that has crept in: Should an accountant, lost in the tundra, and forced to build a shelter from ice cubes, eventually gain enough construction skills to build elaborate bridges from ice?

No, he should freeze to death. The game gives you the ability to start with a mix of appropriate construction and frontier-survival skills. If you don't, and you embark to an inhospitable climate, you should fail.

 There's an epic tale of survival against the odds. Their chances of getting their improvised igloo built before they all die was the subject of the first question. They might should be slim, but they should at least get a chance. This question is about what happens after that, assuming at least one of them does survive.

This has less to do with the skills and talents of the dwarf in question being deficient, than the local level of technological advancement (zero, effectively) being insufficient to support his growth.

Given that we're talking about a small outpost of a larger civilization, and a culture of oral tradition, the "technology level" consists mostly of the skills and talents of the dwarves. This shouldn't be abstracted away.

No we're not. We're talking about seven guys, alone in the wilderness with no training or experience in the field of construction. Abandon, for just a moment, the story limitations imposed by the current mechanics, and envision the possibility.

Also, how do you know they have an oral tradition? Right now nobody actually teaches dwarves anything, even in cities, you have to figure everything out for yourself. Writing and hands-on apprenticeship are both potential explanations for where the knowledge comes from. It's lost in the abstraction.

A while back I proposed that an unskilled person shouldn't be able to start doing a job at all unless someone at the site has some minimum level of skill (probably the level above Novice). This represents the need for a trained dwarf to bring the knowledge, without actually tying up dwarves with teaching/apprenticeship jobs. It also makes the bazillion "Soap Maker" immigrants marginally more useful.

While reducing the thing to does/doesn't have the appropriate technology might be simpler in some respects, I think you're failing to grasp the distinction between the first and second question.

Your proposal severely cripples low immigration, multi-generation cities. If a city never gets a carpenter immigrant (which seems to be possible at any level of immigration), your proposal would make it impossible for them to figure out how to carve wood, even in a dozen generations. The lost accountants might never make finely filigreed cabinets, or elaborate suspension bridges (and they probably shouldn't, without help, or a least a book), but I should be able to throw together some huts or a hovel, but their descendants, twelve generations later, should be living in an ice castle (they're dwarves, you can't expect them to live in igloos).

You can say, "Just make some simple tasks doable without technology," but that fails to address the actual second question. How does a dwarf with no exposure, to the numerous advancements his art has undergone in the past two hundred years, grow into the most refined craftsdwarf in the world? How does a soldier become the best swordsdwarf the world has ever seen, by only sparring with guys from the same school?

[Pilsu]

Can't really argue that those 7 surviving would be some epic story. As is, they just grab a pick or whatever and do everything, just with reduced monetary value. Hardly epic

Yeah, they probably should die. On the other hand, any requirement for apprenticeship would require better immigration control, books where applicable and the ability to send someone out to gain the knowledge/invite a master over to teach or it'll break the game pretty hard


Being the best swordsman means just that. It doesn't make you perfect. Though I would think you'd need some notable kills and special training to reach elite status, let alone legendary. The line for elite could be drawn at Professional though, seems silly for part time troops to be called that

[Granite26]

Also, how do you know they have an oral tradition? Right now nobody actually teaches dwarves anything, even in cities, you have to figure everything out for yourself. Writing and hands-on apprenticeship are both potential explanations for where the knowledge comes from. It's lost in the abstraction.

Cultural transmission is evidenced by goblin kidnapees murdering each other.  It's just mores now, but could possibly encompass skills

[Felblood]

The goblin education system is completely absorbed in the abstraction. There's no way to say how much of what was taught to who and when, even in the less abstracted dwarven cities.

Seeing the actual educational systems fleshed out with writing or whatever is probably the only thing that will settle either of these questions.

--and yeah, surviving in the wilds is too easy right now, but even when it get's a proper treatment, it should still be possible. There's no point in fleshing out the mechanics, if all it does is make that scenario unplayable.

Think HFS. It shouldn't be easy, but you should be try to pull it off, if you're looking for that brand of challenge.

[LegoLord]

Can't really argue that those 7 surviving would be some epic story. As is, they just grab a pick or whatever and do everything, just with reduced monetary value. Hardly epic

Yeah, they probably should die.

There have been, in the real world, cases of individual people surviving on their own in tundras.  The Eskimos didn't die out a month after they started living in them, now did they?  Granted, they knew how to survive, but the starting seven dwarves should have the skills to survive where they are going anyway.

[Pilsu]

Digging and planting probably shouldn't need much in the way of tutelage if at all if that's what you're getting at

[G-Flex]

Of course, because caring for plants, especially crops, is not at all skilled and anyone can do it successfully. (Yes, that was sarcasm)

[Felblood]

If you disallow some labors to the untrained, but not others, that's a huge slap in the face of the people whose professions have just been labeled as anyone can do it jobs.

You should be able to make field expedient anythings (assuming whatever failure rate you deem appropriate is applied), but a trained professional should have an advantage over a guy who taught himself.

The art and science of farming is one of the most diverse and widespread ones in the world, but there is both art and science to it. I know I certainly wouldn't be able to grow food in a garden in the tundra. Hunting and gathering is probably a more realistic way of procuring food if you're lost, or shipwrecked, or whatever, though ambushing animals isn't easy. Not that it matters, since DF animals don't fear dwarves.

[Qmarx]

There are already some kinds of failure. When you cut a gem and get a regular gem instead of a large one, I figure that's because the gem cutter slipped and broke the thing into smithereens. And inferior goods of any kind are a type of failure...I imagine a low quality mug as lopsided and slightly leaky. Then you have miners that can destroy the rock they're mining instead of cutting it out.

Wait... we're supposed to *want* large gems?

I thought they were a side effect of failure.  "Oh, I couldn't get a jewelry-grade stone out of this piece, so I just left it in matrix".

If I have cut gems, I can get basically the same value, but with less hauling when I finally sell.

Similarly, I assume that gem cutting is just removing the areas with decent gems from the rest of the stone, so someone who wants to put a gem in something else can do so easily (since decorating/engraving has a quality modifier, while cut gems do not).  I wouldn't mind having a greater *quantity* of settable gems produced by a better jeweler, but even a novice can't screw up that bad when they have so much ore to work with.

Wurm Online is the epitome of failure as described in this thread.  Even if the action listed a completely accurate success rate, it will never feel like that success rate since failure is a strong motivator.  Even with some sort of fake skill value, there's still no sense of control over the outcome.

Oh, Wurm online.  How I love thee.  After all, it's perfectly realistic to spend 13 tries (I counted) to attach a mallet to a shaft (allegedly, a 33% chance of success).  Breaking BOTH when you fail, then getting informed "you need a mallet to finish your mallet" or "you need to polish your mallet with a pelt" once you finally have them put together. 
I heard that they recently addressed the displayed probability issue - apparently the display algorithm assumed the ingredients were always at maximum quality or something, which the one actually used did not.

[Pilsu]

And having actually farmed things before, I can tell from experience that yes, anyone can in fact do it. With little to no training. I was merely slower than a friend who could probably considered proficient

Sure, my crops wouldn't be anymore near as good as someone who's been doing it for years but that's already reflected

[Footkerchief]

And having actually farmed things before, I can tell from experience that yes, anyone can in fact do it. With little to no training. I was merely slower than a friend who could probably considered proficient

Sure, my crops wouldn't be anymore near as good as someone who's been doing it for years but that's already reflected

What crops were you planting, and at what time of year?  Were you using modern equipment and fertilizers?  Did you just pick a random plot of silty crap and try to plant in it, or did you know in advance what good farming soil looks like?

I'm skeptical of your claim that "anyone can in fact do it" mainly because agriculture is fairly new relative to the human species.  All of the anyones you know have, like you and me, had the basics of agriculture inculcated in them since birth.  If you plucked a hunter-gatherer out of 20,000 BC and communicated to him the idea that you can obtain a steady food source by pushing some small, hard, inedible, apparently useless things into the ground at the right time of year, he might not immediately grasp the concept.

[Pilsu]

Onions and carrots. We did everything by hand except the tilling itself

It's one of those professions you can plausibly get results from even if you've never done it before. And mind you, beginner crops in the game are already pretty poor

As for the earth, this place used to be seabed. It's about as bad as it'll get, mostly sand

[Footkerchief]

It's one of those professions you can plausibly get results from even if you've never done it before.

YOU can, because you've been raised in a culture in which agriculture is so fundamental that basic knowledge of it is taken for granted.  That doesn't mean that "anyone can in fact do it," especially when "anyone" is a dwarf a few minutes after the creation of the world itself.