Fun for Non-Combat Classes - What we want?

At the overwhelming request of fellow ZAM posters, I am copying the partial contents of a thread I created over on the ZAM boards titled: Fun for Non-Combat Classes - What do you want?

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The topic of what would make non-combat classes, particularly crafting, has been on my mind a lot lately.

This thread is not about what would "fix" crafting (assuming as some people believe, it is broken), or make it "better." Balancing crafting recipes, recipe levels, working more on the player economy, etc. are not really what I want to discuss. But rather gameplay and content that would make non-combat classes, as a whole, more enjoyable to play.

Many games have attempted to create crafting and gathering classes that are not merely "professions" that exist only to compliment the combat classes. It's obvious that the Final Fantasy XIV team had bold ambitions to make their own attempt. With each passing update, it seems that the failures that coincided with the launch have caused the development team to scrap many of their grand ideas that they half committed to. I'm not here to argue whether or not these changes are bad or good. But one thing that seems to be presently on the chopping block is crafting as a mode of play just as valid and supported as combat.

Many of you may be happy to see that potentially change. Many of us would not be happy. Whether or not it happens isn't really what this is about either. So with that introduction out of the way, the question I am raising with this thread is:

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What would make non-combat classes more enjoyable to you?

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My responses:

• Customization - Store Fronts and Workshops

  Give us workshops and store fronts! We're merchants and tradesmen, our progression is our business. Allow us to customize, construct, and purchase additions to our workshops and storefronts.

• We are not Adventurers

  Stop making us deliver things into the middle of nowhere! Let us send our retainers out on chocobo-back to make delivers, and receive the reward when they return. Let us hire NPC adventurers. Anything, really.

• Don't be Afraid of A-Symmetry

  Making each craft more unique won't hurt anyone, add something to spice it up. Make the gameplay for each craft more unique. We won't complain.

• We are Townspeople, and that's OK

  It's okay for a majority of our time to be spent in the city. It makes perfect sense. Just liven up the town, add more NPCs, make us interact with them more. Make them do more than just stand around. Add more things to do, and more details. It will only add to the immersion for combat players as well.

• Notorious... Merchants!?

  Why are NMs only for adventurers, and not for us too? Add Notorious Merchants, traders from far away lands that appear on occasion. By bartering (parley) with them, trading one material for another, we may succeed in striking a deal and receiving some rare and unique materials for special synthesis.

• What's Parley Again?

  First of all - make parley more fun. I don't care if you just make it bejeweled, just imagine you're trying to get people to buy it, and make it fun. Then - add in merchants, all around town, that come and go, and can be traded with. Perhaps I have an abundance of ore, and need leather. Yes, it's great to have a player-driven economy, but a lot of stuff gets thrown away or vendored. Strike a balance, and give crafters things to do other than sit in the market wards all day.

• Item Exodus - The NPC economy?

  There's lots of things to do as an adventurer that don't involve other players. Give crafters a few things to do too. Guild tasks are okay, albeit far too simple to be compelling. Have us repairing things around town, providing materials, make NPC supply chains that have supply and demand, and crafters can anticipate the NPC economy. (Balance! It creates a good item sink while allowing a sense of mastery for more players.)

• Raiding... the Kitchen?

  Give us a reason to play with other crafters beyond the "I need your straps for my armor, you need my buckles for your jackets." Group crafting is on the way? Super! Let's see on top of that, "dungeon" equivalents crop up for crafting. Instanced events, a team of chefs cater a noble's wedding? This should be far better SP than grinding. (Just as with combatants)

• Money, Money... Money!

  It's okay for us to have more of it than the average adventurer. Making money is our job. As long as the average adventurer can get by, and the treasure hunters are on par with us. It's difficult and unwieldy to make gil sinks for merchants. Instead, give us reasons to spend money on adventurers, and give them ways to sink that gil. To that end...

• Gambling

  This is self explanatory. Open the platinum mirage, the Colosseum, let us bet on matches, let us bet on chocobo races. What have you. Gambling isn't specific to us merchants, but if we have more money, we're more likely to gamble with it. On that note...

• Sponsored Adventurers!?

  As I said, give us reasons to give money to adventurers. Whether we're sponsoring a Colosseum team to take on some monsters or other adventurers (creating opportunities for others to bet!) or we're funding an expedition of adventurers into a raid or dungeon, giving them a chance to obtain gear, and us a chance to obtain rare materials. Gil sunk, but we're still making money if the expedition is successful.

• Notorious...Minerals?

  Okay, now I'm just being a bit silly. But the same idea applies to DoL as it does to DoH. Rare spawns shouldn't be limited to Adventurers. Exotic bushes, endangered trees, rare mineral nodes and legendary fish. The excitement of spotting one (visual distinction please!) and obtaining the rare resource, and the reward. No reason not to add this!

• Can't We All Just Get Along?

  Levequests, missions and public events that involve all two or more different disciplines. This is self explanatory, but special leves where gatherers are escorted by adventurers, when they gather enemies attack, adventurers must defend. Faster gatherers gather, faster they can move on? This is just one simple example, there are lots of opportunities here.

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Continued:

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[SIZE="5"]Workshops... Detailed! [/SIZE]
I mentioned workshops in my OP, to expand on that: provide a number of unique floor layouts for rooms, the room itself can be simple, so this shouldn't be terribly difficult, re-skinned for each nation. As we level, and can afford it, (charging on a curve per number of rooms) allow us to expand our workshop with additional rooms. These simple rooms can be customized largely by the placement and addition of a variety of furniture pieces and decorations.

• Storage is King!

  Right off the bat, the number one thing that players should be able to add to their workshop is additional storage. Both generic storage, as well as unique item storage. A box of rings to store large quantities of metal rings, a pantry to store spices, and what have you. Much like the Archer's quiver, these furniture pieces could have visual indications of how stocked they are, providing a cheaply implemented sense of immersion. More importantly, the player could cater each room of their workshop to the needs of a specific craft or type of synthesis. While in that room, players could directly access materials from each storage space during synthesis, and synthesizing any material compatible with a storage unit would drop it directly into the unit. Merely targeting the storage unit would allow the player to have direct access to add and remove items. This kind of functionality alone gives players enough reason to use their workshop for long haul synthesis sessions, which is what they should use it for. Our inventory is like an adventurer's action bar, we need more as we level.

• Tools of the Trade

  What smith's workshop would be complete without a forge, what weaver's without a loom? A craftsman is only as good as his tools, right? A sewing needle and a hammer comprise only a fraction of the tools each of these professions uses. We have crystal synthesis to abstract crafting, allowing us to carry around only these small tools with us. But when we are in our workshop, as the NPCs do in the guilds, let us make use of more tools! There's already loads of animations for using various tools in the guilds, and new animations are always in the works for combat classes, so it's not out of the question to toss some our way as well. Various types of tools can provide various benefits, some may allow us to mass produce simple materials more quickly, while others may be meant for improving success on finished items. Start simple, let us have common support whenever we use our basic workbench. As we rank up and can buy new upgrades to use, enhance the bonuses little by little.

• Tools need upgrades Too!

  Let us make additions and attachments to our tools, there's no need to constantly replace them. Each "workbench" (Using this as a generic term) could have a number of attachment slots, that increases as we rank up. Each attachment could provide a minor bonus, nothing too amazing that we never want to craft outside of our workshop again, but a lot of minor things and convenience features that give us a reason to craft there for long sessions of creating raw materials, or for creating very difficult and rare armors and weapons (etc.) Perhaps adding new bellows to our forge reduces the change of causing our fire element to go unstable, just simple bonuses that we'll be more than willing to shell out the gil to acquire.

• We can still Craft Elsewhere!

  The key with our workshop is convenience, we don't want a workshop to become such a boon that it feels wrong to try to craft anything beyond its walls. That said, as I mention above, if we're in for a long grinding session of churning out raw materials, or attempting to high-quality a particularly difficult item, it makes perfect sense that we'd want to do so from our own workshop. One great way to prevent "Oh my god I need to go back to my workshop to do this"-syndrome, is to provide a special item for crafters that reach higher ranks, we can attune the item to a certain room in our workshop, and once activated we will be able to gain all the bonuses of that room in the workshop for the next 30 minutes of synthesis. If we're stuck out in the field needing to make something, instead of feeling like it would be a waste to bother without our workshop, and either heading back at tremendous inconvenience, or waiting to make the item, we have this emergency method of gaining the bonuses we've spent our hard earned time and money accruing, even when we're not at home.

• Crafting Parties! Come on over!

  Nothing would rub me the wrong way more than having the chance to build a workshop and then not being able to invite others over to see it. It's a display of our wealth and hard work, and our friends should be able to not only see, but to benefit from it. Allow us to invite friends and party members into our workshops to use the facilities. This creates even more reason for crafters to befriend eachother, it should be possible, but absurdly expensive and time consuming to create and maintain a workshop for all of the crafting professions in one. On the other hand, merely befriending someone of another profession would be a great way to promote player interaction and crafting guilds. Using another person's workshop would of course have some drawbacks, (mostly related to storage) but it's a BYOM (bring your own materials) affair. Let us give out "workshop keys" so our good friends can access our workshops even when we're not around. Heck, perhaps we can even rent out workshop space for profit! Regardless, if my friend has a great weaving workshop and I have a great smithing workshop, we should be able to use eachother's shops, and gain many of the benefits of doing so. It wouldn't hurt to allow us to purchase and upgrade group crafting equipment, either!

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Some great ideas. I hope someone is reading this.

I love this thread and the ideas in it.

sound very interesting

I also like those ideas. +1

This was really well thought out. One of the hardest admissions for Yoshi-sama to admit early on in the letters, was that his predecessors had gotten a few of the game concepts completely wrong.

I feel terrible, in the current game design, for the players who chose hand at Character Creation. There's nothing to DO. Between the leve system's holes, and the lack of world content, they're glorified farmers. The overhaul to the system will take time, but many of the above ideas are intelligent, and even inspired.

Well done •KUPO•

I must say, I dreaded the wall of text when I clicked on this thread but you have some really good ideas there. I am not a crafter myself but I would most likely try it out a bit with these additions.

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•We are not Adventurers
Stop making us deliver things into the middle of nowhere! Let us send our retainers out on chocobo-back to make delivers, and receive the reward when they return. Let us hire NPC adventurers. Anything, really.

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For that, maybe there could be a posting board where crafters can put up delivery notice or adventurers can list themselves available for duty. The crafter could then hire the other player to go do his errand. They could kinda use the Leve interface but it would be player create : The crafter would choose the gil/item rewards upon completion.

So it would be kinda of a 2 step quest for the crafter. 1st accept the delivery "quest/leve" from the counter, deleguate the mission to the adventurer. The adventurer comes back to the crafter, gives the "receipt" to the crafter and gets the reward listed by the crafter. The crafter gives his quest back to the counter and gets his reward.

^^

Also, to be fair, maybe crafters and gatherers could start doing things like that on their own. Gatherers should shout for adventurers to come defend them while they gather around high level nodes, things like that, for a fee/hour. no?

Some of these ideas are pure gold... Adventurers guarding gatherers? Please!

You could take it even further; A dilapidated mine has just been acquired, a team of carpenters, miners and blacksmiths are needed to repair the structure, but it's infested with monsters, now you need a team of adventurers to accompany them!

Great ideas... I hope some of these see some use.

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Originally Posted by Ferth

Some of these ideas are pure gold... Adventurers guarding gatherers? Please!

You could take it even further; A dilapidated mine has just been acquired, a team of carpenters, miners and blacksmiths are needed to repair the structure, but it's infested with monsters, now you need a team of adventurers to accompany them!

Great ideas... I hope some of these see some use.

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DoM/W + DoH/L alliance raids ^^

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Originally Posted by Perrin_Aybarra

DoM/W + DoH/L alliance raids ^^

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Word.

/10char

I posted the following in the crafting thread a few days ago but it got lost in the discussion as the thread got spammed with people's thoughts. Basically, its linked to the OP's idea of "Workshops"


http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...765#post299765

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The player crafter should have been involved in the fine tuning of gear. For example, a crafter with tailoring training should have been able to choose what stitch pattern appeared on a shirt. Alternatively they could choose how long a shirt is or what cut it has at the neck and how low down it goes. A crafter with painting training could choose what type of stroke or design to use. An alchemist with training could have chosen to adapt their concuctions similar to say how spells and potions are adjusted in Elder Scrolls games - say I wanted a fire potion I could make one that was just a Fire1 spell or I could make one thats all shiny like a firework depending on the variables I adapt in the crafting process.

Crossclassing could have come into things after a class has made an item. If I was a Blacksmith and I made a marauder axe for example, let me go and find an alchemist who could apply an elemental or status potion so I can have a native enspell effect. Perhaps the effect would disappear when the condition goes to 0% and after repair an alchemist needs to be sought again (hey this is an MMO lets socialise!). As another example, let my blacksmith craft my axe, but then when it is made let me hand it to a leatherworker to attach a grip which would boost the accuracy by a few percent. Again as condition wears that grip wears so you are back to base accuracy.

Also, SE should have adjusted how crafting is done. In the field I wouldnt mind whipping out my crafting item as we do now, but back in the cities or hamlets I would have liked to be crafting my shirt on a mannequin so I can see the changes made by different parts and select the ones I want. Thats another issue, parts and stuff should have been customisable, say I want a cotton shirt with a cotton patch on the elbow, why not let me make a cotton shirt with a metal elbow if I wanted to. Sadly this comes down to a design fault with the game, instead of implementing gear in parts we only have the full item.

If crafting included fine tuning every stage, then everyone would love there being so many parts to play around with. It would have turned crafters into full on dedicated jobs (coz quite literally those who love crafting would literally do nothing else if there was that amount of customisation) and Tanaka's dream would have been realised possibly.

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With respect the idea of dungeons or of adventurers protecting gatherers, why not add a twist. Say, the battle group goes down a mine or dungeon but the walls cave in. The gatherers must find a way to clear the way. Miners can simply take out their pickaxe whereas others would need to detonate mines etc. This is all very general and straight off the top of my head thinking about assaults in FF11 (lebros caverns anyone lol) and WOTG mission with that scholar detonating mines i recall.



Regarding the actual mini-game for
a) gatherers - after a while, people tend to know what notch etc they need to use. Why not just build up automatic annotations on each notch as we discover things. It saves us having to look at third party websites. Include achievements for discovering all items etc.

b) the crafters - the minigame doesnt cut it. I would rather have some form of Sphere Grid even with different routes to take so that I can manipulate any aspect of the item I am trying to make. After that the touch up aspect could remain to try and HQ. For example, say I wanted to make a Lance with uber accuracy but allign it with Water or Piercing I would need to pick my routes along the grid to emphasie those aspects. On the other hand say I wanted to to make a set of armour for the tank alligned to Fire so he could take less damage from Tiamat (;-x) I could focus on that. Of course I have no idea what blocks the progression on the grid. It might take 5 minutes to craft something but I would feel I have directly manipulated the outcome.




Regarding Local Levequests - these should have a bearing on evolving the camp. Buildings/Tents should be erected and services offered. An inn, a chocobo pen, a garden, etc. Basically merge the hamlets idea into Camps. The Camps at the present time are really not immersive because they all look exactly the same. I would rather have come across smaller unique settlements like were put in the recent update. As an aside, allow for these constructed Camps to be raided by beastmen and garleans. Buildings can be damaged or destroyed, repaired or are built again when enough leves are processed. Camps should have the possibility to become as large as Hamlets. It seems absurd there is only one city and 2 hamlets in each region. I would love to come across Camps as big as say Owl's Nest in Coerthas. Allow more buildings to be erected and in turn add NPCs to the realm offering quests. Employ DoW/DoM support by making fully built up Camps housing an NPC who offers weaponskill quests or Trial of the Magian style quests for example. So basically, the DoW and DoM have an incentive to join in with protecting these settlements in the long term.



Implement specialisations based upon city and/or beastmen allegiances. What I mean by this, is that is say I wanted to be a heretical goldsmith, I could head down to the Amaljaa equivalent of the goldsmith guild and work my way up its ranks while at the same time being expelled from the Uldah goldsmith guild. Instead of making fancy pants jewellery for nobles in Uldah I could learn how to make enchanted jewellery from Almaljaa. Or perhaps the Amaljaa goldsmith can process a certain ore that an Uldah one cannot, and vice versa. Basically encourage specialisations. Everyone can be a rank 50 goldsmith, but only 50% can be alligned to Uldah. This would help diversify the markets. I'm surprised SE didnt do this with the books/training.



Implement recipe books, make it look like a book too, the UI is ugly :(
Let us customise the recipe books to our liking or needs. Implement achievements. Each crafted thing adds one recipe page!


Allow us to... Customise Recipes?....
From the ridiculous a) swapping metal for moko grass when making a Haubergeon lol,
to the more curious b) but what if I add a few raptor talons in my haubergeon recipe as well
or the more item mixing thing of past FF's c) What happens if I toss an Ether and Potion into this Orange Juice?.... Do I get an MegaElixir?
That would give crafting the sense of experimentation that the armoury system had initialy (before release who else was thinking hmmm if I boost my gladiator with x stat x element and x skill I can make an uber tank against a beast or a plantoid or a magic based mob etc etc)



There is so much potential in crafting and in this game, and I sincerely hope Yoshi-P isnt going to go the easy way out and just turn it into FF11's crafting system which is circa 2002.... This game needs a "world" not a Themepark.

+1 to the OP, the DoH idd need more love

Good ideas from OP.

Only things i don't agree is that i do consider DoH/L adventurers. But they could have a different role since they're not meant to engage in combat, like creating passageways, finding traps, holdind the torch...basically the role of all those dudes at Indiana Jones parties that weren't him =P

i endorse this thread and the idea. mixed party and notorious craft / tree / ore.

I like it, sounds awesome :D

More ideas:

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[SIZE="6"]The Garlean Invasion (Campaign)[/SIZE]
We know it's coming, and if it's not it ought to be. (there's nothing more dissatisfying than playing a game for years set entirely on "the brink of war") There's just loads to talk about here, fun possibilities and ideas, the obvious ones involve combat classes, but I'm going to instead look at the less obvious, non-combat focused content.

First things first, I'm going to base all of these ideas around the idea that these invasions would work in a way that's a cross between RIFT's Rift system, and FFXI's Campaign system. But most of these ideas could be applied regardless of what way they choose to tackle it. A mixture of small attacks and raids, with outpost control and less-frequent larger scale zone-wide invasions where Dreadnaughts are flying around and the music and lighting change, combined with a Campaign style ops.

Let's not let the combat players have all the fun!

• Resource Drive!
  This is a pretty obvious one, a la Campaign, resources should be integral to the war effort! We need a lot of transparency here though, it should be easy to see how the resources are distributed in any given area, what resources are needed, where they are needed etc. Disciples of the Land should be able to accept Ops at various locations to gather resources, which are then added to the total for the region. (For EXP and war credits) Possibly also allowing unwanted resources to be donated to the effort (as an alternative to being vendored.) When excess of certain resources are generated in one area, and needed in another, delivery OPs could be added, as well as convoy escort OPs for combat classes, that would, if successful, relocate those resources to wherever they are more needed.
  
• Processing Resources
  Materials are useless in their raw forms, so put disciplines of the hand to work processing them into ingots/plates/string/leather/nails etc. These ops are made available as raw materials become available. Raw materials and resource processing should occur without these ops being complete, but only at a minimal rate that is required for bare minimum functionality within the camps. Resource processing would be best if it occurred at specific locations, be it hamlets or outposts with crafting facilities.
  
• Industrial Centers
  As mentioned in the above note, it would be best to be wary of player distribution with the invasion content. Repairs are one thing, but it makes sense to have the processing of raw materials occur in a location with facilities. Ore processing ops for instanced offered in a larger outpost, camp or hamlet that has a refinery. Aside from a sense of believe-ability, it also accomplishes many other things. Prevents unnecessary amounts of running around (while a primary mechanic for DoL, this is not the case for DoH), provides key locations that are important to defend in the supply chain; adding depth, centralizes crafters; creating specific locations everyone acting as part of the war effort knows they can go to in order to get certain types of repairs. This is the option for the crafter that is focused on being part of the industrial machine, and mainly doing work in heavily populated areas.
  
• Field Repairs
  For those crafters that are more interested in a little travel and exploration, ops offered to head out into the field and make repairs on outposts and NPC equipment should be offered regularly as needed by the war effort. Various classes will have different leves, to repair very different types of things, but that a-symmetry is what will give each a unique feel for their role in the war effort. Culinarians for instance, would have tasks to go to various camps and cook on the spot, and feed the hungry soldiers, as there are obviously no culinarian repairs.
  
• Open the Way!
  Broken gates, destroyed bridges and rock-slides, as long as they never fully block off a path (but simply force players and NPCs to take longer routes) that require DoH and DoL presence to clear and repair, would be an excellent feature. The Garleans who would primarily drop troops off via airship would be less adversely affected by this, thus creating a very good reason for these missions to take high priority. Let miners do some blasting!
  
• Salvaging the Parts
  After a battle, there's always a need to salvage any equipment, parts or weapons that may have been left behind. Whether it's parts from a crashed Garlean airship or merely weapons taken from allied corpses. As grim as it may be, it's an op that has its place.
  
• Setting Traps
  Disciples of the Hand are often out and about the countryside, ops to set traps in key locations in order to thwart Garlean invasion would be the perfect opportunity for their trips through the land to contribute to the war efforts. These traps could be assembled by DoH at various locations and then transported and deployed by DoL during their gathering trips.
  
• Reconnaissance
  Keeping tabs on the movements and number of Garlean attacks and encampments is important to everyone, updating the map so players can see where they are needed, and head off enemy invasions. Though these sorts of missions needn't be explicitly for DoL players, they are non-combat missions that would work well for the class. Players should be able to accept and report on these OPs through an NPC linkpearl (this should be the case for many OPs, to prevent what happened in XI, where a player would see something happening in Campaign that they could help with, such as a beastman delivery, or recon mission, but would not because they'd receive no reward without the OP previously accepted.)
  
• To your Posts! Our role in Battle!
  When the fighting actually starts, there are roles that non-combatants would be more than apt to perform. Whether it's repairing battlements and cannons etc as needed, or setting traps, etc. There's more than a few ideas to come up with here.
  
• Let's work Together!
  There are various ideas in my previous posts that could be adapted to use within the context of a campaign style system, and many of these ideas could be adapted to promote simultaneous play between adventurers, gatherers and crafters. Whether it be gathering resources while adventurers protect from Garlean raids, parts of destroyed bridges being salvaged by gatherers while crafters repair it, or what have you, there are many opportunities here. Using a public quest style system to promote cross class play, would be the most un-invasive way of introducing it to the player base, and warming everyone up to the idea.

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Originally Posted by Perrin_Aybarra

I must say, I dreaded the wall of text when I clicked on this thread but you have some really good ideas there. I am not a crafter myself but I would most likely try it out a bit with these additions.



For that, maybe there could be a posting board where crafters can put up delivery notice or adventurers can list themselves available for duty. The crafter could then hire the other player to go do his errand. They could kinda use the Leve interface but it would be player create : The crafter would choose the gil/item rewards upon completion.

So it would be kinda of a 2 step quest for the crafter. 1st accept the delivery "quest/leve" from the counter, deleguate the mission to the adventurer. The adventurer comes back to the crafter, gives the "receipt" to the crafter and gets the reward listed by the crafter. The crafter gives his quest back to the counter and gets his reward.

^^

Also, to be fair, maybe crafters and gatherers could start doing things like that on their own. Gatherers should shout for adventurers to come defend them while they gather around high level nodes, things like that, for a fee/hour. no?

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what a great idea in many ways, incorporate it into the current leve system or maybe replace ??? so that adventures need to get sooo many of a certain item from a mob,for a crafter... could have alomst all drops be given to different appropiate levels and would mix up the current boring 3 or so we have a choice from... crafter gets what he needs, adventurer gets a sp bum for his quests and it all has a useful point in the game.

Great Thread. I hope to see this thread gain attention from the community and developers. Get some feedback on the subject. But I bet there isn't nearly enough drama on this thread to get the interest of the majority of posters. Seems like too many good threads get lost in the flood of pointless QQing before content release threads.

How about an adventure request board? someone posts what synth materials they want and a reward for that item. i know we already have the bazaar request thing but that only works if you have at least one of the item you are looking for and someone happens to see your character/retainer.

I'm talking about a single point in every town (probably the adventures guild) where everyone can see what items people are looking (without needing to already have one) or can search by item to see if someone is looking for an item they already have. people can then adventure and hunt for the items that will reward them quickly and give more than selling to npc

for the person who is seeking the material they would look through a list of materials of the same category and select the specific one they want. then are asked how many they are looking for and how much they will pay for each quality (nq to +3)

Hey guys, thumbs up all around for great suggestions!

I've just realized that this is actually the feedback & suggestions section for FORUM feedback, silly me!

As no admin or mod seems to be actively moving topics as they say they will in the sticky, I've done so myself. If you are particularly enamored with any idea you've posted here, please move it over to the new post. (Click on any of the text in this post.)

If you've just now read this post, head over there for the continued discussion!