"Reagent" vs "Ingredient"

[BrianFreud]

I've been working on the wiki. I've built pages for masteries, spells, and reagents this past week or so. I'm moving into potions and peerless/SA ingreds next, which has led me to ask the following question. It's mostly semantics, but I'm kind of interested in those.

Skills - Stratics Community Wiki
Skill Masteries - Stratics Community Wiki
Reagent - Stratics Community Wiki

Are Peerless items "Reagents" or "Ingredients"? Same for SA and Eodon items. By definition, everything from Myrmidex Eggsacs and Blue Corn to Eggs, Fey Wings, and Dread Horn Mane would technically be a "reagent", but I see people calling them both "Peerless Reagents" and "Peerless Ingredients", and generally "SA Ingredients".

And if those are "reagents", what makes all more 'common' crafting ingredients, like ore, wood, or ingots, not reagents too? A rough definition of a real world "reagent" is 'a reagent is something added to a system to cause a chemical reaction, or added to test if a reaction occurs'. That "is this a 'base' material or a reactant?" difference seems about the only difference to me... but only if Peerless/SA/Eodon special crafting stuff is called a "reagent", not just a crafting "ingredient".

 

[Skalazar]

I'd say if its used to cast a spell of any kind its a reagent if not its an ingredient.

 

[Keith of Sonoma]

For what it's worth, I consider the peerless items to be ingredients.

 

[Tyrath]

Ingredients for the stuff used to make stuff so a reag could also be a ingredient

 

[BrianFreud]

I'd say if its used to cast a spell of any kind its a reagent if not its an ingredient.

Those are the easy ones, but what about, say, Silver Serpent Venom, Taint, Relic Fragments, Turquoise, or Spider Carapaces?

 

[MissEcho]

Reagents are for spell casting. The rest are crafting ingredients in my view. Silver serpent venom, taint, fragments, turquioiese, carapaces are all used in crafting to make items. You don't use any of them to cast a spell.

And yeah you could say reagents are used to craft spell scrolls so could technically then be called an ingredient, but spell scrolls are used to cast spells so much of a muchness. Reagents can be used to cast spells stand alone or crafted into scrolls to do the same thing.

 

[Keith of Sonoma]

Those are the easy ones, but what about, say, Silver Serpent Venom, Taint, Relic Fragments, Turquoise, or Spider Carapaces?

Ingredients as well.

 

[Tyrath]

Those are the easy ones, but what about, say, Silver Serpent Venom, Taint, Relic Fragments, Turquoise, or Spider Carapaces?

Well could just boil down to one catch all term RESOURCES

 

[GarthGrey]

I thought the others were called "materials" ?

 

[Kirthag]

Dictionary.com:

re·a·gent
rēˈājənt/
noun
plural noun: reagents

1. a substance or mixture for use in chemical analysis or other reactions.
   "this compound is a very sensitive reagent for copper"

In game, the items used for spells create a chemical reaction which alters the miasma that is the energy of magic. Depending upon the type and quantity of reagent used is how the energy for magic reacts.
Likewise in alchemy.
If an item, say yon silver serpent venom, causes a chemical reaction on another item, I would then call the venom a reagent.

Logic.

*edit*
Then again, you can rely on the Player Wiki over at UO.com and see what they call stuffs....

 

[BrianFreud]

Reagents are for spell casting. The rest are crafting ingredients in my view. Silver serpent venom, taint, fragments, turquioiese, carapaces are all used in crafting to make items. You don't use any of them to cast a spell.

And yeah you could say reagents are used to craft spell scrolls so could technically then be called an ingredient, but spell scrolls are used to cast spells so much of a muchness. Reagents can be used to cast spells stand alone or crafted into scrolls to do the same thing.

Well, a "reagent" is actually a RL concept. But even if we limit it to "spell-ingredient-thingies", that'd still involve alchemy ingreds and, as you say, scribe-related ingreds... At which point, we might as well call the equivalent special "adds property ___" items from other crafting skills "reagents" as well, if only for consistency's sake.

 

[MalagAste]

Far as I'm concerned "Reagents" are those items used in spells, Necromancy, Mysticism and Magery.... Spellweaving while it implies it's spells... doesn't use any reagents to speak of...

Ingredients are things used in crafting, imbuing, cooking and Alchemy and the like...

 

[Merus]

For UO purposes:

I would say that reagents would be anything that can be consumed directly through casting a spell.

Ingredients are anything combined with something else to create something.

Some reagents can also be ingredients.

 

[BrianFreud]

I'd think all reagents are ingredients, even if only of potions and spells. As I see it, ingredients break down into reagents, base materials, and other crafted/found items.