Hoshiqua wrote:Well, it's not like iron is that rare, there is plenty in every server block, like Bobik said. SO yes, mine owners will have a significant advantage, but don't forget that most of the villages will possess a mine, and if they don't, well, yes, they will have to trade.
Also, think a bit about it
if someone wants to create a village and be the blacksmith, he will surely already have the skills. I mean, once the map will be reasonably populated, people won't just go and try to make their own community, not without experience. So, I conclude that players who want to be blacksmith will have already gotten to a village with a mine at some point, so the problem is solved.
"Not that rare", says the guy who happened to randomly discover a surface vein
One thing I want to emphasize is that mining stone would give about 10% the experience of mining iron ore; NOT a substitute for actively trying to find real ore.
The idea comes from the fact that in most continents, players will need to dig deep shafts to access the majority of the ore. But what if they dig, and don't find anything? They spend the first 1-2 weeks of their gaming experience looking a vein and hit nothing, and still have nothing to show for it!
At the very least, these players would be able to resort to harvesting their local accessible resources to trade for iron mined far away, and actually USE IT.
Let me give another example: Granite and Marble. As far as I know, mining Granite doesn't actually give any experience, but is still a valuable commodity that could be traded for iron. Even if Stone doesn't give mining experience, I believe that other rarer natural resources should to allow for
meaningful trade of resources.