A Practical Guide to Using the Forge

I've been playing around with the Forge, alot lol, and figured it might be useful to put together a basic guide for anyone trying to understand how to approach it.

The biggest thing to understand is that the Forge isn't a normal crafting system. You aren't just putting ingredients into a machine and getting a predetermined result. You're sacrificing items and creatures, giving the Forge an idea of what you're trying to create, and letting it judge what those sacrifices should become.

And there's one particularly important detail:

The Forge uses your entire character history when judging what you give it.

Exactly how much that influences the result, and what parts of your history it considers important, is something we're probably going to have to discover ourselves.

Make of that what you will.

Start with the purpose

Before throwing anything into the Forge, figure out what you actually want to make.

Don't start with:

"I have these items. What can I get?"

Start with:

"I want something that does X. What sacrifices would make sense for creating it?"

That difference seems pretty important.

Your character is part of the recipe

This is probably one of the stranger parts of the Forge.

The ingredients you put into it aren't the only information it has available.

Your character's entire history can be part of its decision.

That potentially means two players could make very similar sacrifices, ask for very similar things, and still receive different results because the sacrifices don't mean the same thing coming from different characters.

Your possessions, creatures, previous actions, wishes, accomplishments, roles, activity and history in the realm may all provide context for what you're asking the Forge to create.

So when you're designing something, don't only ask whether the ingredients make sense.

Ask whether the creation makes sense for your character.

The Forge knows who is standing in front of it.

Again...

Make of that what you will.

Make your sacrifices tell a story

Your sacrifices should have some kind of connection to what you're trying to create.

If you're trying to make something related to fire, for example, objects connected to heat, fuel, burning, or something from your own history involving fire would probably make more sense than simply dumping a pile of valuable but unrelated items into the Forge.

Think of each sacrifice as part of a sentence.

Together, they should explain what you're trying to make.

Value isn't everything

Don't assume:

More expensive items = more powerful result.

The Forge appears to care about much more than simple rarity or market value.

Giving up your last copy of something may mean considerably more than sacrificing one of fifty identical objects.

A common object with ten years of history attached to your character might also mean something very different from a rare object you acquired yesterday.

The important question isn't necessarily:

"How valuable is this?"

It's:

"How meaningful is it that this particular character is willing to give this up?"

Don't just feed it junk

Random junk might technically be a sacrifice, but that doesn't mean the Forge is going to consider it meaningful.

Before adding something, ask yourself:

Why is this ingredient part of the creation?

If you don't have a good answer, it probably doesn't belong there.

Creatures matter too

Creatures aren't necessarily just another form of currency.

Their type, age, level, experience, wins, rarity and importance to your collection could all contribute to what the sacrifice means.

A creature you've kept and developed for years is obviously a very different sacrifice from something you picked up specifically to throw into the Forge.

And because the Forge has access to your character history, it may actually be capable of recognizing that difference.

Be clear about what you're asking for

Explain what you're trying to create and what it's supposed to accomplish.

I think it's better to build around one strong concept rather than asking for an item that produces resources, summons creatures, teleports you, casts spells, makes coffee and conquers Necrovion before breakfast.

Give the Forge something coherent to interpret.

You aren't guaranteed what you asked for

Even if your sacrifices make perfect sense, the Forge doesn't necessarily have to give you exactly what you imagined.

It judges the offering.

It also judges that offering in the context of the character making it.

You might receive something weaker, stronger, symbolic, strange, useful in a completely different way, or something you weren't expecting at all.

That's part of the gamble.

Secret recipes

There are also specific combinations that can apparently produce predictable results.

One publicly revealed example is:

5 Aramors + an item representing 5 + your last gold

= 5 Pointed Star Gold Amulet

That example is more useful for demonstrating the idea than for the actual reward.

It means there may be other recipes hidden throughout MD.

Numbers, item descriptions, sets, symbols, creatures, locations and strangely specific bits of flavour text are probably worth paying attention to.

Something that looks meaningless today might turn out to be part of a Forge recipe later.

Be careful with irreplaceable items

This should probably go without saying, but:

Don't throw something historically important or completely irreplaceable into the Forge unless you're genuinely prepared to lose it.

You're not buying an item.

You're making a sacrifice.

If you're putting something ancient or unique into the Forge, there is no guarantee the result will be worth more to you than what you destroyed.

Learn from failed attempts

A bad result isn't necessarily useless.

Look at what you sacrificed, what you asked for, and what the Forge actually created.

Then look at your own character history and ask whether something there might explain the result.

Every successful or failed attempt potentially tells us a little more about how the Forge thinks.

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TL;DR

My basic approach would be:

1. Decide exactly what you want the item to accomplish.

2. Choose sacrifices that actually relate to that purpose.

3. Consider their personal and historical significance, not just their value.

4. Consider whether the item you're asking for actually fits your character's history.

5. Look for symbolic connections between the sacrifices.

6. Don't add meaningless filler.

7. Clearly explain what you're trying to create.

8. Accept that the Forge may interpret your offering differently.

9. Pay attention to the result and learn from it.

10. Keep an eye out for possible secret recipes.

Most importantly:

Don't treat the Forge like a vending machine.

It's closer to a crafting system, sacrifice altar, puzzle and wish system all rolled into one.

Instead of asking:

"What do I need to put into the Forge to get X?"

Try asking:

"What would my character have to sacrifice for creating X to actually make sense?"

Because apparently the Forge isn't just looking at what's on the anvil.

It's looking at you too.

Make of that what you will.

Edited 20 hours ago20 hr by Seigheart

"Don't just feed it junk" - I definitely agree, adding a wrong item may actually worsen the result. I think of it as trying to make an item of certain quality, and then you just throw mud into it so it becomes larger, but the general quality just drops..

i love this post, as i am fascinated with the forge process myself...

..so i will add more to the clues here. This is exactly the sort of place where info about such a thing should exist for those that digg, not in some friendly faq section for any morron to follow.

I am impressed, i agree to everything you wrote

here are my additions:

• Telling something through sacrifices not through words, is more difficult than it looks. it requires you to learn to look at things from a distance, but also with honesty. So your point 7, is not that easy, but essential. I would say that learning to communicate with the forge, is a way to create your own mirror.

• The item significance dictates what you actualy sacrifice. if you dump garbage the forge will know. If you add filler material, you trade quantity over quality. If you provide too litle, you are cheap. If you provide too much, you dilute the message.

• The sources of truth are respected and challenged. Your player tag/description, and the info contained by your items are not enlugh to dictate direction, but are enough to validate truth of the outcome.

• One person will create a completely different thing using same sacrifices than an other would. The forge will try to determine your wishes, and thats an understatement considering the amount of effort it puts into analyzing the available data

• The forge has inner conflict. Its by design so. I wouldnt want to go into the technical aspects too much, because it makes it less magical :) but just to give you a clue, its a swarm of adversarial debaters holding a passionate contradictory discussion about what you do and what you say, what you claim you wish and what your actions show you do, and several opposing perspectives trying to find your center, before it decides where to go from there. You could use this knowledge in interesting ways.

What the forge can't do, right now:

The forge cant create new functionality in md.. Actually it could do that, its the "level 2 forge" that i am using to create the custom items myself, but its not public and not automatically linked to the forging process. The forge can however under certain circumstances, recommend a dev intervention, and ask for custom or new functionality. It happend quite a few times already and it lead to very nice reusable features.

The forge cant tell how the person behind the screen truly is like... it can only work with what you manage to manifest in the realm. You could be the most amazing person in the world, but if your md character plays the role of an asshole, the forge will see only the asshole.

The forge tries to, but proved not to be capable of keeping value. You would normaly think that if you pay 100 value, you would get at least 50 value (imaginary value units). The forge could just give you 1000 or 1, and in some cases it does not understand properly what value in md means.. believe me i tried.. but probably i don't know it myself. The forge will however give you what you need, not what you think you need, nor what you pay for.. but what it gives you, is the result of finding gaps in your desires, so one way or an other, you do need it, even if you dont realise it imediatly.

i will conclude with that.. think what the forge tried to communicate to you when giving you that something, you might discover things about yourself.

its a very very complex process, and a masterpiece of current technology, using several AI engines from different providers with fine tuned abilities and tools designed on a system that was conceived to profile your insides, so its not a trivial vending machine, as Seigh mentioned already.