Skill based game design without classes, does it work?
SWG's "usage xp" was a good idea that they didn't bother to implement well. Idea being that a crafter gets xp when something he crafts gets used, thereby encouraging crafters to make useful things and market them well so they can get more usage xp.
Another element to making crafting less grindy would be to make individual items more difficult to craft but yield proportionally more xp. If a crafter needs 1000 swords worth of xp to level, there will be more swords crafted than can ever be used unless you've got 1000 fighters per crafter. Just scale the crafting process appropriately for your actual population to balance supply and demand.
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Pets as Your Spirit Guides?
There have been many books written about animals and pets as spirit guides, many by Susan Chernak McElroy. Lately there seems to have been many more books of this genre coming out. Definitely animals teach us things no human ever could.
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What's your favorite holiday commercial right now?
I can't think of a single Christmas commercial I've seen this year! But my current fave commercial is the Sprint one where the runner's legs are running very fast while the rest of his body isn't - it cracks me up!
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Catlytic Converters Hard to Remove?
Hopefully the flanges are in good enough shape to undo. Yes, a sawzall or hacksaw will make quick work of it, even if only to cut the bolts on the flanges depending how bad they are. Wire up the rest and drive 'er to the shop open, it will be fun for a change!
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Why is it that animals don't look happy, are they just incapable of certain facial expressions?
Because no existing animal species in the world whatsoever has ever evolved the ability to make any kind of facial expression. Facial expressions don't actually exist, they're just hallucinations in the minds of some animals like a lot of humans.
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