>
> 1. Have rare subskills taught by a few cities. One would have
> to travel to the city to learn the subskill.
>
Major disadvantage is the "size of world" disad, though more players, combined
with the resource limits, might help this somewhat. However, I prefer 2
> 2. Have the rare subskill taught by an artifact (an old book, say).
Which, combined with my idea for "randomly hiding artifacts," might just work.
(see below)
>The hard part is coming up with interesting, useful but rare skills, that
>players will like having, but which can be obscure enough so that it's
>okay if most players don't have them.
>
There are some good candidates for "Rare Skills," though. Gate Making
(ridiculous in both materials and arua, but there you go), or some other
interesting "lost" spells.
>I'd like to make some rare artifacts too.
Prehaps rare artifacts wouldn't so much be impossible to make as very
difficult, requireing material components from several parts of the world, and
prehaps a creature portion as well. Full or part time exploreres would find
such items long before the mages found out how to make them...a few unique
items wouldn't hurt eiter, of course.
>the size of the world is just so bloody huge... If I hid an artifact
>somewhere, no one would find it. That's why I was leaning towards letting
>players have a shot at creating all of the possible artifacts.
>
Prehaps each type of "special" location (graveyard, ruins, bog hill) would have
a table attaced to it, allowing certain items, some rare, some not, to be found
there on an off chance. After a number of explores (20?) there would be little
to no chance of finding anything there ever again (though the player might not
be informed of that), forcing those who would make interesting finds and
rediscovery of the ancient's range farther and farther afield, without limiting
exploration by the admitedly huge size of the game.
>My latest changes will inject a lot more money into the game.
>I'm worried that money will be devalued; there should be more things
>one can spend money on, or that one needs to spend money on.
>
Prehaps making the world more hazardous might help? There is currently little
reason, excepting other players, for merchants, etc, to hire guards and buy
weapons.