22.3 Design Guidelines
This is a guide to creating a new design using your crafting tradeskill. For approval guidelines, see HELP DESIGNAPPROVAL.
First, you'll need to create your design. See HELP <crafting skill> for a brief explaination of the process. You can also find more information about the new crafting system in HELP PAPERLESS CRAFTING. Below are some things you should consider when checking over your design, though.
Design specifics:
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Appearance:
Example: "a brown tunic"
- Note the lack of capitalization and punctuation. Begins with an article (usually 'a' or 'an'). An exception would be something like "black pants" or "flowing robes". This line should not be longer than seven (7) words unless it is less than 40 characters long. Hyphenated words count as however many words have been hyphenated, not as one.
Dropped:
Example: "A brown tunic lies here."
- Note the capitalized first letter and terminating punctuation. It should have a maximum length of one line, that is 80 characters in length and no more. The exception to this is furniture, where the dropped may exceed this by five characters if it contains the $(direction) tag.
Examined:
Example: "This is a plain brown tunic with utilitarian stitching. It is
quite drab, without any markings other than a few stains on the side."
- Capitalized and punctuated. A minimum of two lines is expected for all designs, please note that there might be a difference in wrap width. If the description of the examined is as short as the dropped, then there is cause for rejection. Other than that, there is no length limit to the examined descriptions. It is up to the designer, not the approver, on how detailed they want to be.
Attire:
Example: "canted at a rakish angle"
- Note that an attire description isn't required, but if one is provided it must follow certain rules. It must strictly be no longer than 40 characters and it must make a certain amount of sense when appended to the short_desc. For instance, the above example might be "a stylish hat, canted at a rakish angle" which is perfect! If you follow the 'verb <description>' formula, you won't run in any problems, but some leniency will be applied if you choose to deviate.
Pockets:
If you set an item to have pockets, it must be mentioned somewhere in the description.
WearLocation:
If an item is set to a unique location (such as a ring on the nose) then this must be made apparent within the design. If a cloak is worn 'fullbody' rather than 'shoulders,' one can assume that it is a large, sweeping cloak, rather than a simple cape.
Dyes:
You can use two dyes in any description, in any text-based field. In order to do so, use the tokens $(dye$), also $(dye1$), or $(dye2$). Use these tokens in place of 'color' such as red, or blue. Before being dyed, they will be replaced as 'gray,' so do a quick reading of all your designs, substituting $(dye$) for gray, and see if the descriptions make logical sense.
Special descriptions:
When describing taste, smell, eaten, removed and worn descriptions, the text should not be longer than three lines (240 characters).
Note that all patterns come with a "base commodity" requirement, which may not be appropriate for your unique design if you choose to add features to it. For example, a basic shoe requires leather and cloth. A basic shoe with a 'razor sharp' heel should have some sort of metal added to it, even if you do not specify metal - as a 'razor sharp' heel could not be accomplished with leather and cloth alone. In short, your design should be feasibly constructed with the components added to your pattern, even if you do not specifically refer to the components in the description.
Additionally, the inclusion of these base commodities does NOT require that you reference them in the design. Consider base commodities a "set cost" that may or may not be referred to in your design.
When you have finished, you can DESIGN <sketch> SUBMIT at any craft office. If you are successful, instructions to pick up your design will be sent to you by letter, else you will be made aware of the rejection. If you have a problem with a rejection, contact Becue or another Administrator, or file an issue - do NOT simply resubmit.
For more on design approval, see HELP DESIGNAPPROVAL.
To learn more of what you may or may not use as a reference for your chosen design, see HELP CRAFTINGREFERENCES. It shows a list of all equivalent nouns that are allowed to use for the separate designs.
See HELP PAPERLESS CRAFTING for more information about the new system.
For a more detailed discussion on commodities, see HELP CRAFTINGCOMMODITIES.
Other guidelines:
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- Aetolia is a PG13 game and as such, no items designed
solely for sexual purposes (for example, a dildo) are
to be crafted. Failure to follow this guideline may
result in your crafting privs being revoked.
- Is it the correct item type? With few exceptions, the
type must match the exact item you are making. You cannot
make a skirt from a dress, or a pipe from a vial.
- Some items may have numerous nouns which they can be
referred to as, for example books may also be tomes,
shortcoats may also be jackets. These are all listed
in HELP CRAFTING REFERENCES. If they can not be found
there, they can not be used.
- Extensive liberties should not be taken with designs,
and they should more or less be similar in shape of the
basic design. For example, you cannot make 'flower beds'
out of 'beds'. It should just be a bed.
- The base item type should be in the appearance, dropped,
and examined descriptions. With the exception of alternate
nouns as listed in HELP CRAFTING REFERENCES, this base
item type should not be altered, hyphenated, or obscured
by any means.
- Don't tell an observer how they feel or react to your
design. You can't know that they'll turn their head to
catch a glimpse of sparkles, or that they'll walk to
flash their ankles, or that it's so fiery it will burn
their tongue right off. NOTE! Words such as lovely,
beautiful, majestic, inferior, unsightly are seen as ways
to describe the item. If this is done without a way of
forcing opinions, by saying 'you think is lovely' or
'most beautiful you ever seen', the design should be ok.
- Don't assume how much light there will be, due to day or
night. The only safe assumption is that there is enough
light to see it by, and even that is iffy. Try to be
creative with light qualifiers - "when caught by light",
"seen under any light", et cetera.
- Natural color variations as they would exist (varying shades
of the opal gemstone, for instance) are permitted, even if
the only 'opal' you know of is a specific color. This is a
good example of a common sense judgment - realistically, it
would be improbable to find dozens of variations of each item
in the game world.
- Body jewelry is permitted, provided they match the base item
type of the pattern (an earring stud can be an eyebrow stud).
- In jewelcraft and cooking, list the exact components you're
adding: if you have a heavy silver chain, it's probably
more than one silver in the making as a base component,
if you have a cake with mixed fruits, it's going to have
more than a single fruit ingredient.
- If you're going to claim a design is for a guild, house,
city, or other organization, make sure you describe in the
examined why it is. If you want it to be a cloak with the
symbol of Arion, describe the symbol of Arion. If it bears
the crest of House Nebre'seir, describe the crest.
- Don't use fantastic ingredients you couldn't possibly
gather or use, such as glowing cloth, pulsing gems, et cetera.
You can only use mortal-made or obtained ingredients with
the few exceptions of extremely rare items.
- If it was magical or glowing before, anything like that,
it will lose those properties on being added to a design
it is hard to keep when working with such materials. Living
things are forbidden from appearing in any design.
- All designs should be in English, or an established game
language (Kalsu, Illumine, etc.). There is a 50 character
limit to words embroidered/etched/carved/et cetera into
items. These words MUST be in double quotation marks.
- Occasionally, there may be a conflict over whether a
design is appropriate. In this instance, the creator of
the design should message Becue, and do not re-submit the
design. If Becue agrees with the creator, She will manually
approve the design for the creator.
- Do NOT ask people to approve your designs. While it is
acceptable to ask others to check the queue, perhaps, doing
this is extremely unfair to other crafters. This is strictly
frowned upon. Pushing designs forcibly through the queue to
avoid rejections can and will be punished.
- This is a guideline, not a hard set of rules. The final
say is always with Becue and the crafting gnomes on matters,
so take it to them if you have questions or are unsure.
- All crafts, no matter the skillset, must contain the structural stability for their purpose - including a realistic expectation of how long said construction should last. This means you cannot make a dress out of meat, or a statue out of whipped cream, or a shield out of glass.
- Numbers should be spelled out by their word, and not alphanumeric symbol.
Rulings and Permissions
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In general, don't use modern terms or designs. No t-shirts, jeans, zippers, velcro, miniskirts, stilettos, and other such modern terms.
By previous ruling, the following are acceptable: fluorescent colour, sweetheart neckline, turtleneck, halter neckline, shot glass, silk screening
If you are uncertain, bring it up with Becue and a ruling will be made.
See also: HELP DESIGN APPROVAL, HELP GRAMMAR
