I seem to have lost the original somewhere, but reposting the parts I remember to this topic.
The first thing is that there is no "main/sub guilds" where you can advance, this is a thing of its own, sort of like professional guilds are now.
Of course, there would be a guild where you can get levels up to some point, but requirements are strictly based on the skills/tecniques/combinations you master.
When one advances a level, he/she can purchase a new "tool" to learn or a "combo" to combine attacks or a technique to use tool aswell as an option to use the learned stuff
to different targets (head, torso, hands, feet etc etc).
So what makes this unique? Try learning double front knuckle punch to head when you get 1% of tool(knuckle)knowledge, 1% combination knowledge and 1% targetting knowledge in the tool/tech/combo.
After that, make use of it by killing monsters, learning more of the skills when finding new kind of monsters, maybe after a level or ten add a roundhouse kick to it... I mean man, this is a hell load of work for anyone.
Okay, to the numbers. According to my knowledge there are roughly 100 usable tools in human body (might be more in other races *gasp*). Similarly thinking there are perhaps another 100 targets to the tools in a (human) body.
It is obvious, that an effective combination in a battle can not last longer than the str/stamina/other attributes allow, hence trying to use too many techniques in a combination might probe lethal to a fighter. Normally I'd say up to ten, for a basic handshake is ALOT.
Ok, that sounds insane amount of work for even the simpliest of skills right? So, you can learn them by fighting unfamiliar opponents, pkilling other players... the (predefined) skill-challenge determines how much you get bonuses for it when fighting. You can also read books, examine scrolls, spy masters etc etc to get some more knowledge to the studies, maybe even speeding up an induvidual one.
And when we talk about the books... Would it rock to write your memoirs and pass your knowledge to your minions at ease? Well, some of it atleast, since no physical skill can be learned only from the books!
Then we come to weapons... There is a staff idea which would fit in to this nicely, (viewtopic.php?f=21&t=8402) though it is not said, it can not be extended to other eq and even further to blacksmith/tailor/something professions.
This idea will be continued later, if you happen to find the original (I do recall posting it to someone), please add it here. This is basically short and crappy explanation.