Deteriorating Tools

[Solfius]

Part of a post to the Yahoo! boards ages ago:

----- Original Message -----
From: Solfius
To: cantr_ii@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, February 03, 2003 9:26 PM
Subject: Solfius' thoughts on...Buildings, deteriorating buildings, destroying buildings, water, deteriorating tools, and food storage.

Deteriorating Tools

Some tools made of lower quality materials, eg stone, should deteriorate quicker than tham others, eg steel. A stone hammer could deteriorate and become unusable after the equivilent of 2/3 buildings worth of work, whereas a steel hammer could do the equivelent of 10.

Tools of lower quality materials could also be less efficent.

A tool box could make tools last longer as they are being kept in a safe place rather than exposed to the elements in a pocket or something.

Just some ideas.
Looking forward to the constructive critisism.

Solfius

[Meh]

This would be neat. I imagine some of my characters are using trowels that are nearly twice as old as the chracter.

I remember reading someing about saws wearing complete out during house construction and/or in a season of use until the had "better" steel.

[Pirog]

A great idea.
Otherwise the game would be flooded with tools eventually.

This should apply to weapons, vehicles and shields to I think...

[Wim van de Griendt]

And there is no way we can really create a consumer market.
A good product is a product which is perfect, but only has a little flaw, it breaks down every so often. But because it has such nice features, people think they cannot do without it and have to buy a new one.

That is where we have gotten the disposable razorblades from, they use this guideline.

[swymir]

Things deteriorating and breaking is what will keep this game interesting. Because eventually the entire game will get flooded with everything and the people who do have everything no longer have a challenge. but if you have to keep making new things or repair the old things(don't see this happening to often with tools unless you can make other tools to fix the ones you have) then the game keeps it's challenge.

[Solfius]

I think for a while Jos was against this, but I think we have some really good reasons to persuade him with.

I hadn't thought of Wim's suggestion about the markets, I just thought tools should deteriorate [/b]

[DYip16]

Cool concepts... Will this deterioration only be applied if it is used? Prolly would make more sense cuz if there was a mass production of tools going on, they could just be stored for later use or something...

[Solfius]

depends on weather, I think things should deteriorate on the ground outside, to an extent on the groun inside, for totalt protection stick em in a tool box like an envelope.

[Pirog]

Yes, but actually using the stuff should be the main reson for it braking...not just time.

But the idea of tools lying on the outside wearing down is interesting and puts further motvation for people to build themselves a home and stop sleeping about on the streets

[Solfius]

yeah, use would be the primary factor for deterioration

[Meh]

And there is no way we can really create a consumer market.
A good product is a product which is perfect, but only has a little flaw, it breaks down every so often. But because it has such nice features, people think they cannot do without it and have to buy a new one.

That is where we have gotten the disposable razorblades from, they use this guideline.

"planned obsolesce" is the term for this.

[swampthing_bob]

Would cars and boats be applied to this as well?

[Meh]

I was just thinking "roadside assitance service" earlier today

[Missy]

I like this idea, but im not so sure they should have to be replaced. But maybe repaired? Perhaps one day your shield just quits working, you now have a project to do- "repair shield" so you repair it and then its back to full use again.

[Camino]

I'm in favour of a replacing theme however repairing it would be quite good as well because an item that was repaired because it was over-used wouldn't be as good as a brand new one, also you could have customised add-ons for a shield for example a wooden shield with strips of steel on it, you wouldn't be able to have a wooden shield covered in steel because then you might as well just have the steel shield but just have strips for style or as a mark of manufacture.