Update 7/25/11

I probably do not have any readers, so this is for posterity.

Woe has beset upon the Art team, and by team, I mean me... not that I am the team... I am just a narcissistic bastard.  So I had to re-install my OS, no biggy windows 7 keeps your files... sorta.  My tablet broke, now that's a biggy, and kept me out of action for a while.  So now I am back and here is what has happened.

The coders have loaded a bunch of items into the game, and a few more have been created.  Our very talented modeler Jack has produced another amazing shield and weaponry for us.

A few thoughts on the mod.  The look and feel should be a primary concern, upon examining the old version of the game I have a few thoughts.  The game is full of item bloat, now someone once said variety is the spice of life, but too much salt and pepper can kill you dead.  For example, I love axes, but there are about 15 of them in the game.  Do we need 15?  Can we use just three one handed and three two handed weapons, and maybe a ruby variant?  See functionally an ax is pretty simple, bonus vs shields, and the larger ones can even crush through blocks.  What varies between axes beyond that, well some are heavy, some are light, some are fast, some are slow, but functionally they are the same.  So why so many, well they look different, and some of them look plain old bad.

So lets talk faction specifics, so if we have 3 one handed and 3 two handed axes that is six axes, more than enough in my opinion.  If a faction is specific to axes then six should be more than enough to outfit an army, but chances are good that two or three factions could share them.  So axes 1 and 2 and 6 could belong to faction A and look specific to that group, and another faction may have another, and another faction the remaining.  So the fun of the game should be hunting these down, if we throw 15 axes in the shops and say go nuts, where is the challenge there.  Beyond that, who in the world is producing axes, the faction, maybe a minor faction might produce its own axes but chances are good minor factions are buying them from other stores, or looting them.

Not considering special weapons held by specialty spawns, knighthood orders, and kings that should leave roughly six variations of each type of weapon.  Let me try and list them here.

Ax/ 2 handed ax.
Sword/ 2 handed sword.
Spear/ 2 handed spear
Lances
Mace/ 2 handed mace (less)
War hammer/ 2 handed war hammer (less)
Long Bow/ Short Bow
Cross Bow

Throwing weapons, spears, daggers, axes.
  These could be reduced even greater by making their quality much higher and increasing their individuality.  Right now many of them are functionally the same.  Throw in some specials spread over unique sources might be nice, lets call it 7 total.

52 total weapons as a conservative guestamation... then throw in a bunch of extras, so what do I propose.
I would take one of each three section found in shops, so that if you want 6 spears for companions and whatnot you can find it.  To get the special aesthetic versions you should have to work for it and get in some fights.  That would mean any given sop can have up to 22 different items, not including ammunition.  Still a very nice selection right?  I sure think so.