BRAD: Read This Rant About the Brewing Skill Only If You're Bored
Desdinova
people who designed the Brewing skill don't know the first thing about
real brewing.
For example: "Barley" and "malt" as separate ingredients is
redundant. "Malt" is malted barley. There are different kinds of
malted barley, which Verant could have used to provide variety. But
except for unusual craft brews, there isn't a beer recipe that
requires just plain ol' unmalted barley. So saying that a recipe
requires malt and barley is just silly.
Another example: If you put water, malt, and yeast together
and let it sit for a while, you'll either get beer or you'll get
infected beer (or if you're really unlucky, you'll get sugar water
with dead or dormant yeast in it). The type of beer you get depends
mostly on the type of malt you use, the type of yeast you use, and any
"adjuncts" (i.e. other ingredients, such as fruit, different types of
malted barley, etc) you may choose to add. There are essentially two
types of beer: Ale and Lager. 90% of the beers in the world can be
classified into one of those two categories. So to say that one
recipe produces a "beer" while another recipe produces an "ale" is
even more silly. An "ale" is a "beer" (although a "beer" isn't
necessarily an "ale").
Yet another example: The brewing skill uses a "still". Beer
isn't distilled. Stills are used to make hard liquor. Distillation
is a chemical process. Beer is fermented. Fermentation is a
biological process. Beer is made in a fermenter, not a still.
Yet *another* example: The mead recipe in EQ calls for (IIRC)
water, yeast, and malt. Mead is water, yeast, and honey.
Yes, I know... I'm just being anal. And it RILLY doesn't
matter in the grand scheme of things. But it's a shame that Verant
didn't go to the trouble of doing some basic research into brewing.
I'm not asking that the brewing skill perfectly mimic brewing in real
life (especially since it takes at least 3 weeks for a batch to be
ready), but they could have made the recipes match real brewing a
little more closely. There are so many different beer recipes and
mead recipes that they could have used recipes and ingredients that
actually mimic real recipes *without* making the skill more expensive
or more complicated.
</rant>
Desdinova
Humble Erudite Conjurer of the 5th Circle
Innoruuk
Adar
wonder no one in the game could figure it out. Snake scales, water, and a
bottle, eh? Umm, guys, didn't you forget something when creating this drink-
like the alcohol? :-)
Desdinova <abu...@rcn.com> wrote in message
news:37860885....@news.rcn.com...
Numrennos
physical process (evaporation/condensation) and fermentation
is a chemical process carried out by biological organisms
the yeast and alcohol is technically their waste product.
**** Posted from RemarQ - http://www.remarq.com - Discussions Start Here (tm) ****
Numrennos
actually learn something from reading newsgroups rather than
listening to whining all of the time. Thanks for the good
info.
Desdinova
>Sorry, I am also being far too anal, but distillation is a
>physical process (evaporation/condensation)
Bah. The process of making booze is a substantially different
process than the process of making beer. So there. :)
>and fermentation
>is a chemical process carried out by biological organisms
>the yeast and alcohol is technically their waste product.
I wondered if anyone would be anal enough to make this distinction.
I considered putting a parenthetical comment along the lines of "(Yes, I
know that at some level it's a chemical process, but it's more convenient
to think of it as a biological process.)"
Of course, if you want to get RILLY RILLY anal about it, it's all
physics. A chemical reaction is, when you get right down to it, a bunch of
atoms and molecules bonding and de-bonding at the atomic level, and that's
just a physical reaction.
I, however, don't want to get that anal about it. It's a
biological process on the scale I care about, and that's enough for me. :)
Desdinova
Humble Erudite Conjurer of the 4th Circle
Innoruuk
John M Clancy
> didn't go to the trouble of doing some basic research into brewing.
Why? They didn't do any basic research into any other
trade skill. Why should brewing be any different?
If they based it on actual real world examples then the
skills would make sense and actually work. But like
the non-existent documentation for this game it is yet another
way to confuse players and prevent them from discovering
that most of the game is broken. 8) They just made it up
as they went along.