Functionality for item upgrading is in the game. Right now only two test subjects have the power, and there are onyl a few choices of upgrades to do on weapons. This will expand as time goes on and I decide how to implement things fully.
I want to make this extremely rare, so very few people have the ability. (Maybe 1 in 20 or so.) The trick will be coming up with a quest that only 1 in 20 people care to complete or can complete, that does not involve me manually picking people. Hopefully I will think of something new.
Right now, here is how item tinkering works.
1. To do it, you need to have learned the skill. At this time, there is no way to learn the skill, so only those two people I annointed testers can upgrade weapons.
2. The person who has the skill equips the weapon that he or she wants to upgrade (so the weapon must either be an initiate weapon, or a weapon of his or her profession). The person then hits USE on whatever upgrade they want performed. The item is upgraded, and made non-upgradeable in the future.
3. Some items cannot be upgraded, including some weapons made of animal body parts, and a few quest weapons. One problem with the system currently is that many items which are NOT upgradeable, WOULD be upgradeable if you bought them now. For instance, a transparent alloy axe bought in the store now could be upgraded, but any that were in existence before I put in the programming today could not be upgraded. This will lead to some confusion, but there is really no way for me to fix this. At least not until Cory returns, because he always thinks of some crazy plan.