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[Zurai]

Even if it was in truth a short sword, with blade and all, it would STILL use wood for the hilt. It's not made at a forge, so the hilt cannot be metal, and a stone hilt would completely unbalance the weapon.

[Aquillion]

quote:Originally posted by Gangsta Spanksta:
<STRONG>The point is that it still isn't a short sword.  Also, another problem is that producing a obsidian short sword requires one piece of obsidian and *no* wood.  If it really is that weapon the wiki article is pointing to, then it would be mostly wood, with a few pieces of obsidian embeded in it.  Also, not requiring any wood for construction is misleading.  If it were to require wood, I would have made the connection, instead of assuming a valid possibility that the dwarves carved out a sword from obsidian.</STRONG>

It requires wood.  Or at least, it did in the previous versions; I haven't checked recently.  Maybe you just missed the dwarves dragging the wood over to make it?

[BurnedToast]

It's an obsidian short sword because it does slashing damage. Regardless of how it might be used, it seems sort of ridiculous to me to have a weapon named 'club' or 'war hammer' or 'mace' do slashing damage.

And does it really matter anyway? You use wood to make it no matter what it's called, so that's why you can't trade it to the elves.

[Sean Mirrsen]

The macahu... mahuca...  macauhu... ...  let's just call it macaquehilt - is in fact a sword-type thing, despite it actually being a club lined with obsidian splinters, but as far as skills go, it would be more correct to make it use the axe skill.
The dwarves quite probably posess more advanced ways of carving stone, so they can get large solid blades of obsidian, even though they still need wood for the hilt of the sword, because obsidian itself is a lot more like glass, so a sword made of it would quite frequently shatter. Since it is no longer a club, because it deals slashing damage, and not exactly a sword you can stab with, it is more like an axe than anything.

[Gangsta Spanksta]

quote:Originally posted by Red Jackard:
<STRONG>Where shortsword is a generic name for a weapon that anyone can understand, macuahuitl is a very specific Mesoamerican weapon name that no one would understand without looking it up?

PS. Where do you get the horse beheading broadswords from? Dwarves cannot wield weapons that large, hence the 'short' part of the name.

[ December 03, 2007: Message edited by: Red Jackard ]</STRONG>

a short sword is a sword of a certain length.  A Macuahuitl is less a short sword than a crossbow is a long bow.  Anyway, if the Dwarf Fortress weapon we are talking about really is a Macuahuitl than that's the only word that really describes it, since a Macuahuitl is *not* a short sword.  As for the broadsword reference and beheading of a horse, didn't you read the wikipedia article?  That's is from an account given by a Spaniard.  The article goes on to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of using a Macuahuitl, one of the disadvantages I believe is that you use it more like a club.

[Gangsta Spanksta]

quote:Originally posted by Poil:
<STRONG>Why not just call them obsidian clubs then?</STRONG>

because that is not accurate either.  It is a wooden club with razor sharp pieces of obsidian embeded into it.  What's really wrong here, if that is the weapon DF is trying to emulate, is that the weapon is more wood than obsidian.  Why doesn't the craftshop require wood then?

[Metal Chao]

It is a sword made of obsidian.
Granted, obsidian is a rock, but it's a weird rock.
It wouldn't be hard to make it sharp like metal and use it to slice things.

As rock is heavy there's no point making the whole thing out of it, and obsidian is valuable too, so you use wood.

If you just gave them the blade they'd be happy.
Or, they wouldn't because they'd only be getting half a sword, but they'd take it.

[Red Jackard]

quote:Originally posted by Gangsta Spanksta:
<STRONG>Anyway, if the Dwarf Fortress weapon we are talking about really is a Macuahuitl than that's the only word that really describes it, since a Macuahuitl is *not* a short sword.</STRONG>

Well then, since the DF weapon is labeled as a shortsword, it must not be a macuahuitl!

So we can drop this.

Seriously though, is it that much of an incredible leap to suppose that dwarves might make a smaller, more comfortable version of that type of weapon, and then name it whatever the hell they want to name it?

[ December 03, 2007: Message edited by: Red Jackard ]

[Gangsta Spanksta]

quote:Originally posted by BurnedToast:
<STRONG>It's an obsidian short sword because it does slashing damage. Regardless of how it might be used, it seems sort of ridiculous to me to have a weapon named 'club' or 'war hammer' or 'mace' do slashing damage.

And does it really matter anyway? You use wood to make it no matter what it's called, so that's why you can't trade it to the elves.</STRONG>

That's why you would use the real world name that properly defines it.  A short sword defines a weapon type, just as the other word does.  The only difference is that one word is in english, and the other word is native american.  Look at D&D, they have katanas now as a weapon type.  The point is: there is not another word that defines what the weapon is as perfectly.

[Chariot]

quote:Originally posted by Gangsta Spanksta:
<STRONG>
Why doesn't the craftshop require wood then?</STRONG>

it does, i even just checked. it requires 1 piece of obsidian and 1 log

[Nekojin]

Move to strike "rock short swords" from the game, because there's too damn much bickering about them. All agreed, say AYE.

[Metal Chao]

Nay!

If people can't be bothered to read that it requires one log for the hilt, which is stated ingame, it's their own fault that elves siege them to death.

[Klokjammer]

I agree, there is absolutely no reason remove an element of the game just for the sake of being noob friendly.  After a while, players stop being noobs,  and besides such a change would be slap in the face to all veteran players (Think of the effects of "New Coke" in the 1980s, this was an effort to get the Pepsi drinkers on their side, but it angered all their current customers).

[Align]

I thought they were strips of obsidian jammed into a solid wood hilt, with an edge knocked off to achieve beyond-razor-sharpness.

[Metal Chao]

quote:Originally posted by Align:
<STRONG>I thought they were strips of obsidian jammed into a solid wood hilt, with an edge knocked off to achieve beyond-razor-sharpness.</STRONG>

They are