So it came to me in a dream... what about upgradable equipment. Let me explain, what if we had equipment, armor and weapons come to mind first, that one could improve via already existing skills like armory and weaponry. I think it would add a whole other facet to the game if you could find items that had let us say 'room for improvement'. Think about it we will use a breast plate for an example. You get this item when you are little and it does 2 stop body and some ac. As you grow you could improve it adding stops and ac. It could be level based, only certain items could be improved. Perhaps you would need to find additional material with which to improve said item. Perhaps based upon what type of material you have your improvements could be greater or lesser. For instance it starts out as a boiled leather breastplate, you get some steel scraps. Later on you affix the scraps to the breastplate and now you have a steel plated leather breastplate. Eventually you add some adamantium spikes, and gems for decorations. Perhaps better material does more to improve your items. You get the idea, could work for weapons as well. I assume where there is an anvil there is also a forge? you could rework the weapons to higher craft. what craft would depend upon your class, mastery of skills, and level. Maybe spell casting classes, could acquire a new skill to also be able to do this, or perhaps they could imbue weapons and armor with spells they already have, thus increasing there value. I just think that this idea might add some new dimensions to an already great game. Instead of always looking for that next big piece of eq you are biding your time, practicing your skills, looking for material, purchasing material, trading for improvements on your eq. Could be really interesting, i think. In my mind i think it would be easy to balnce this not being uber rare and impossible to improve anyting above a stop and some ac or one craft higher on weapons but also not taking an average crafted weapon and making it fruity, or a little gauntlets and making it do 15 stop hands or anything, but a middle ground. I have no idea what kind of alterations would have to be made to code on this one, just wanted to throw this out and get some feedback see what everybody else thinks about this. So umm ya let me know.

I really dig the idea of 'upgradeable' items such as weapons and armor. What I also like is the ability to basically create your own, using some skills, some tools and some materials.

There's a literal ton of code that I'm writing and almost as many new toys to play with that I hope everyone will enjoy (I have a feeling they will be well received,) but it will have to wait until the DLDS before the full extent of it is exposed

What I will say is part of your idea lines up directly with one of mine that I'm working on now, but your input adds some more polish to it. I really dig the idea, and if you (or anyone else!) can think of any more refinements we can make to it to make it as wicked as we possibly can, by all means let us know! Distant Lands is a game made for the players, so naturally the game should include some of your ideas

Awesome idea, keep 'em coming!

I think I have something I could add to this. We could feasibly use scrolls... Think of it like a +1 +2, et cetera from D&D. Using the scroll on the item of the appropriate type (we could have different scrolls for different item types) would give the item the respective bonus. One scroll would only be able to be used per item, so properties couldn't stack.

For example, you have a mithril longsword. You use this enhancement scroll (I would think mages and warriors would be able to tell the size of enhancement by examining the scroll) on the sword. The scroll was a +1, so the sword receives bonuses to it's attributes in the form of +1 damage and +1 hitroll.

And for armor, a +1 scroll would enchance it's stops by +1. Say you have a robe that does +1 stop all. By using the scroll on it, it'd then become a +2 all robe. Et cetera.

We could also incoperate a spell into the game to remove enchantments of this sort from the armor so a better one could be put upon it.

How to get the scrolls? Well, we could introduce a new shop in Turien to sell/buy the scrolls, or he could just do it himself (much like the blacksmiths and the "fix" code) for a substantial price. The scrolls could be a rare random load aswell.