Hello, my lovely crafters, and other citizens of Imperian!

The crafting rules are a minefield which can be difficult to learn. Most are written down, but even those that are present in help files may be somewhat out of date. This makes the process of crafting in Imperian needlessly painful. To help with this, the DESIGN TIP system was created along with the crafting revamp. Unfortunately, I haven't used this to its fullest, and many rules aren't codified (or are in obscure places). I'd like to correct that, so if you know of any rules that aren't present in the design tip system and go beyond the rules of basic grammar, please send me a message (or an email to crafters@imperian.com). If the rule exists in another help file, please direct me to the specific help file as well!

I come to you today with some additional design tips, to clarify some existing designing rules that may have been unclear. Many of these tips have been added over time in the last several months, but some are brand new as well. Most clarify already existing rules that weren't well explained. Our wonderful coders have added a few new commands as well! If you have ideas on how to make the design tip system better, please send them to me, or to our coders by emailing coders@imperian.com - this will forward it to all of our active coders.

Without further ado, the changes:
o Updated DESIGN TIP LAYOUTS to make the commodity-assigning rules clearer, and note when it is acceptable to have non-metal layouts.
o Renamed DESIGN TIP TABLES to TABLESANDCHAIRS.
o Created the SHARDS hint (which is in the BANNED category)
o Created the ZIPPERS hint (which is in the BANNED category).
o Created the WEARER hint (which is in the BANNED category). This reiterates an old rule that still exists.
o Because it deals with which materials are allowed, and which are banned, I've paradoxically added both "banned" and "allowed" categories to the TAILORING_MATERIALS tip.
o Using DESIGN TIP on its own will now show the syntax for DESIGN TIP commands.
o New syntax: DESIGN TIP CATEGORIES to view which categories currently exist.
o New syntax: DESIGN TIP SEARCH <search string> -- Lets you search for a tip containing a particular word or phrase.

Happy crafting!
Alend

Penned by my hand on the 1st of Halitus, in the year 150 AM.