Learning, unlearning and talents

[BSTRhino]

Can someone explain to me what's the difference between a skill and a talent? I saw it in the FAQ but I haven't come across any resources that I can remember on this topic.

Also, is there a cost associated with unlearning skills? Because otherwise you could change our skills whenever you felt like it, and that would make choosing skills not such a big decision?

[Graeme]

Alright. I'll first go over why Blizzard is allowing skills to be untrained, and retrained:

Blizzard has stated time and time again that they want a game that can be enjoyable for all types of players, whether they be a casual or a hardcore gamer. They want people to be able to create new characters, and choose a variety of tradeskills, without crippling their character severely.

Blizzard has seen that many MMO games look at tradeskills as a primary part of a character's development. The great people at Blizz also feel that this really puts many restraints on one's character, and how one can enjoy the game. People don't buy MMORPGs so they can spend countless hours learning how to farm, so they can get money to buy a weapon, so they can actually play the game. People buy MMORPGs to actually play the game, right off the bat. Thus, they have made tradeskills important if you want them to be, but also changeable, if you mess up in some respect.

Now, there isn't a lot of info on how you go about changing your skills, but as far as I know, there isn't a major-character-crippling event that accompanies untraining a skill. If I were to make an assumption, I would say that untraining a skill would cost money. As well, you'd have to repay the grand amount of money to retrain a new skill. Since we all know that money will be reasonably hard to come by (from kat's post stating that she was at level 18-19 after playing, and JUST got 1 gold), this should prevent people from quickly changing their character builds. In Blizz's eyes, trade skills shouldn't be a big decision.

Lastly, the difference between a trade skill and talent:
*I've never actually heard the term talent used for it, but I'd assume it's the same thing. A talent is a class-based skill. It would be the equivalent of a pickpocketing skill for a thief, or a faster casting skill for a mage. These skills are the important ones, and these skills are the untrainable ones. They will greatly affect your character!
*A trade skill is what I was talking about earlier. It isn't as important as the talents, but it still affects your character. These are the fun skills, like fishing and cooking and engineering.

Hey, speaking of engineering, did you guys know that you can get a mechanical pet if you go into engineering?

On-topic: Certain talents can be learned as trade skills for players of different classes. So yes, a Dwarven hunter can still learn how to shoot a bow and arrow, but it will never be as good as a Night Elf hunter is with the bow and arrow, or as good as a Dwarf is with a musket.

[Achelus]

Talents are the things like Fire Magic Mastery, Fire Resistance, Strength Increase. You get 10 pts per level below 10, and 15 above (I think).

The rank 1 of talents are 10 pts to get, and 15 around rank 2-3.

I'm going to post a bunch of screenshots with the talents and skill systems in them tonight, and you know where to find them since I'm not allowed to link to it ^_^.

[Graeme]

Groovy, I'll have to . . . *whisper* check it out ;).

Seriously though, I've been really anxious to get my hands on a few solid screenshots on the skill/tradeskill windows, and how it works, so this is excellent :).

[GeYadrON]

wow-forum tradeskill thread (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?FN=wow-tradeskills&T=114&P=1&ReplyCount=3#post114)
different skills have different cost at the various levels of expertise (apprentice, journeyman and expert)