So what do you all think? I would love to have the ability to create my own unique sword/dagger and armor with equipment I collect throughout the game. My personal preference is you could learn "styles" (i.e. different blade style, hilt style, etc. etc. - each would have different +/-) and could use materials you mine/collect/harvest (whatever) throughout the game. Each material would have a bonus associated with it (silver, for instance, does more damage to undead/ghosts, but your swing speed might be a bit lower than with a different metal).

Same goes with armor. I'd love to be able to craft an assassin's outfit out of material I steal and/or hunt (skins dyed black, of course).

Just my preference. What do you all think?

And do you think there's *any* chance this could be included in the game?

My guess is they're going to go Warcraft style and just have pre-set recipes you can craft...but I'm going to keep my fingers crossed...

Why yes.
I actually have a very similar idea of how perfect item system should work.
I would enjoy making gear of my own.
Fable 3 tried to do something like that, but they screwed it up when they made that your weapon changes based on witch units you kill the most, witch is stupid in my opinion. :spotted owl:

personally I would love to be able to tinker with the stats of a weapon, naturally stats would be linked to get some balance, so say a weapon gets heavier and swings slower the more damage you give it, representing that you make the blade/mace head heavier to strike harder.

Great ideas! I would like to be able to adjust/ customize each part of my weapons/armour.

The 1st answer.

The thought of an armor or weapon "recipe" makes me laugh.

Hopefully, it feels alive and not spreadsheety, which is the reason their on edge about adding spellmaking. And not like, Go here for item B, then buy item A, you already have item C so now go to a bench and select recipe.

I was kind of hoping they'd use that fancy 3d view they're using to look at items...

I picture a full screen "crafting screen" - Have thumbnail sized pictures in a list (on half the screen) of different options for a "slot". For example: again - using "blade" of a sword - images of all the blades you've learned to make off to the side. When you select one it ads a 3-d image of a blade in the "new item" to be crafted area. You can select different materials which in your inventory which, of course, changes the color/look of the blade (as well as the stats). Same thing for hilt/crossguard, etc. etc.

I think it would be amazing if you could customize the way you make your armor, like have different types of each piece of armor. For example you could have different designs for each material on top of the quality of the material. For instance the super nice looking pauldron designs are only available to a master smith because it takes that kind of skill to craft them. However once a master smith you could make those pieces out of say rare fine hardened steel, or more common scrap steel. The latter would make a lower quality armor while the preceding material would make a nice suit of fine steel armor.

i'll attempt to draw a diagram of this for heavy armor pauldrons.

Design of Pauldron------>\--- Novice List---------> 0 < Smithing Skill
/ \---Apprentice List------> 24 < Smithing Skill
(Shape) / \---Journeyman List------>49 < Smithing Skill
/ \---Master List--------------->74 < Smithing Skill
Quality of Pauldron
\ /---Ebony------|\
(Texture) \ /---Steel---------| \
\ /---Iron------------| \------->Quality of material------>\---Fine
\ /---Daedric-------| / \---Good
Material It's made of------> /---Dwarven-------| / \---Ok
\---Poor

http://i865.photobucket.com/albums/ab216/asapp152/diagram.jpg


Basically the design you pick is how the mesh (shape) of the pauldron will look while the material and quality of said material will determine the look of the texture that is wrapped around the mesh. (color, detail). However different combinations will yield different results. For instance you you pick a design from the Novice list and use fine ebony to make it, then it will be good armor but even though you used fine ebony, the pauldron will be bland do to the pauldron's design. Therefore even though the textures applied to the pauldron are determined by the material and quality of that material, the higher grade the design the more intricate and nice looking the textures become. However it works both ways, Take and awesome master pauldron design and pair it with poor steel and it the textures will be comparable but slightly better than if you were to pair poor steel and a novice pauldron design.

Edit: dang, the forum screwed up my diagram and took out the long spaces

I would definitely prefer every part to be customizable, but I would be fine without only being able to create predefined items if there was a decent selection.