Maximum Foraging Capacity

[Synthesis]

Every room should have a maximum number of forageable items from each foraging subtype.  Once that number is reached, items from that foraging subtype will no longer be available in that room (until the next reboot).

Unique rooms could have larger maximums, but still...once the maximum is reached...tough shit.

[Desertman]

I don't see what it would add to the game other than people rushing out at every reboot to forage the "good spots" as quickly as possible in the first 24 hours and then for the next 6 days until the next reboot not foraging because they have "cleaned out the good spots".

[Synthesis]

Scarcity-induced conflict

Scarcity-induced search for new foraging locations

Scarcity-induced subguild choice reconsiderations

Scarcity-induced clan choice reconsiderations

There, that's 4 things it could add to the game, for starters.

[Alesan]

I don't see what it would add to the game other than people rushing out at every reboot to forage the "good spots" as quickly as possible in the first 24 hours and then for the next 6 days until the next reboot not foraging because they have "cleaned out the good spots".

I have never liked, in any game, a construct where things only reset when the game reboots. I can't make sense of it in shops, I'll never be able to make sense of it in a vast field of salt.

The dirty, sweat-stained salt grebber says in sirihish,
   "I can't salt anymore for the next six weeks. There's no more salt in the salt flats."

[Delirium]

Don't make it reboot-based and this has my axe. A gradual timer, sure.

But everything left on the ground or junked in that room should return to the forage-ables database.

Otherwise you run into silly problems where you're in a vast desert and there's no sandstone.

[Lizzie]

Scarcity-induced conflict

Scarcity-induced search for new foraging locations

Scarcity-induced subguild choice reconsiderations

Scarcity-induced clan choice reconsiderations

There, that's 4 things it could add to the game, for starters.

It wouldn't result in that though. The situation with the NPC merchants results in little more than OOC frustration and annoyance. You're just suggesting a new source of OOC frustration and annoyance. People only have "x" number of hours to play every week. Most of us don't want to spend most of the time trying to find the one spot among hundreds that hasn't been foraged yet - and then have to log out because our play-time is up for the day.

[Desertman]

Scarcity-induced conflict

Scarcity-induced search for new foraging locations

Scarcity-induced subguild choice reconsiderations

Scarcity-induced clan choice reconsiderations

There, that's 4 things it could add to the game, for starters.

I think it would just result in people picking all of the same things they always pick and just doing the 24 hour rush. But, it might work out exactly the way you envision. Who knows.

[Lizzie]

Don't make it reboot-based and this has my axe. A gradual timer, sure.

But everything left on the ground or junked in that room should return to the forage-ables database.

Otherwise you run into silly problems where you're in a vast desert and there's no sandstone.

The second sentence I agree with. After some period of time, things left on the ground should be absorbed back into oblivion by the code.

[Synthesis]

Don't make it reboot-based and this has my axe. A gradual timer, sure.

But everything left on the ground or junked in that room should return to the forage-ables database.

Otherwise you run into silly problems where you're in a vast desert and there's no sandstone.

Well, there's literally no way the playerbase could exhaust the "forage stone" option of the entire desert during a single uptime.

Might you have to move farther than 1 room from the gate? Yes.  That's kind of the point.

[Desertman]

The real question is, "Why is it magically reappearing in the area after every reboot?".

Is there a sandstone tree out there growing sandstone I don't know about?

"Hey, you want to go forage sandstone together?".

"Sorry man, it's been two weeks since....well...you know...so it's already all gone. Let's wait five more weeks.".

I have seen areas in game where the natural resources in question have been wiped out by staff and the descriptions have been changed to reflect that due to certain areas being harvested heavily.

It seems they have this well in hand.

[Synthesis]

I don't see what it would add to the game other than people rushing out at every reboot to forage the "good spots" as quickly as possible in the first 24 hours and then for the next 6 days until the next reboot not foraging because they have "cleaned out the good spots".

I have never liked, in any game, a construct where things only reset when the game reboots. I can't make sense of it in shops, I'll never be able to make sense of it in a vast field of salt.

The dirty, sweat-stained salt grebber says in sirihish,
   "I can't salt anymore for the next six weeks. There's no more salt in the salt flats."

Again, hyperbolic example.  There is no way the playerbase would exhaust the salt flats.

Y'all just don't want to go farther into the flats, because it's somewhat more dangerous.  Aaaand that's the point.

[Synthesis]

The anti-reboot argument is just a red herring.

The entire game is based around this reboot mechanic, so that's why I picked it...because it doesn't require any additional code.

If they want to code a slow-steady regen that persists across reboots, that's fine with me.

[Desertman]

Why not just make the squares where you get everything that is useful only in dangerous areas?

If the point is to make it dangerous to do stuff and make people go farther, then why even have the closer "safer spots".

Otherwise, you just result in the 24 hour rush to the "safe spots" and then everyone just doesn't do it for 6 days.

[Marauder Moe]

Meh.  It's not like the edge of the flats aren't dangerous.  Also, recent changes have already incentivized people to go deeper in.

[Synthesis]

Why not just make the squares where you get everything that is useful only in dangerous areas?

If the point is to make it dangerous to do stuff and make people go farther, then why even have the closer "safer spots".

Otherwise, you just result in the 24 hour rush to the "safe spots" and then everyone just doesn't do it for 6 days.

Because the point is to make it incrementally more dangerous as you get more desperate, not to be maximally dangerous from the outset.

[Synthesis]

Meh.  It's not like the edge of the flats aren't dangerous.  Also, recent changes have already incentivized people to go deeper in.

I didn't say they weren't.  I said they were less.

[valeria]

Given how vast a single outdoors room usually is, I don't really see it.

[Synthesis]

Scarcity-induced conflict

Scarcity-induced search for new foraging locations

Scarcity-induced subguild choice reconsiderations

Scarcity-induced clan choice reconsiderations

There, that's 4 things it could add to the game, for starters.

It wouldn't result in that though. The situation with the NPC merchants results in little more than OOC frustration and annoyance. You're just suggesting a new source of OOC frustration and annoyance. People only have "x" number of hours to play every week. Most of us don't want to spend most of the time trying to find the one spot among hundreds that hasn't been foraged yet - and then have to log out because our play-time is up for the day.

Then don't pick a class that requires a substantial amount of foraging for common items in order to survive, or go straight to the less-frequented spots so you don't have to deal with slogging through the barren areas.

[Synthesis]

Given how vast a single outdoors room usually is, I don't really see it.

The fact that a room is vast has no bearing on the amount of useful shit in the area.

Barren implies a distinctly low resource:area ratio.

[Desertman]

Yeah, staff has already reflected in several rooms where resources have run out, but it took a very long time due to the size of the rooms and reflecting that realism. They also have new tools in game as of just recently that let them adjust the forageable contents of rooms much more easily.

I have to go with, "It's fine. Working as intended and already covered.".

[Synthesis]

Yeah, staff has already reflected in several rooms where resources have run out, but it took a very long time due to the size of the rooms and reflecting that realism. They also have new tools in game as of just recently that let them adjust the forageable contents of rooms much more easily.

I have to go with, "It's fine. Working as intended and already covered.".

Intended doesn't necessarily equal optimal.

Hence the code idea forum.

[Kismetic]

I really like this idea if you change "until the next reboot" to "until never".  Of course, the numbers would have to be very large, but with the real possibility of running out, therefore leading to the desired result.  And once resources begin to deplete, I think we'd have something very interesting on our hands.

[Synthesis]

I really like this idea if you change "until the next reboot" to "until never".  Of course, the numbers would have to be very large, but with the real possibility of running out, therefore leading to the desired result.  And once resources begin to deplete, I think we'd have something very interesting on our hands.

"Never" might work for things like artifacts, stone, spice, and salt.  Not so much for food, wood, and kindling.

But yeah...maybe.  I feel like the reboot mechanism works better than absolute depletion, because the maximums would have to be so high under an absolute depletion mechanic that it wouldn't really have any noticeable effect on player behavior over the short term.  Even over the long term, I think the effect of absolute depletion might be detrimental to the way the game is enjoyed, because eventually GMHs and other clans would catch on and capture resource-rich points, leaving nothing for indies...

...which -could- be perceived as somewhat of a positive if you're very hardcore about power structures within the game, but I think the presumption has been for a very long time that indie PCs are okay and useful, and shouldn't be put-upon -too- much.

Also, absolute depletion doesn't account for the fact that there's a) no way to craft large objects of a material into smaller objects of a material (eg. turning an obsidian longsword into an obsidian shortsword); b) and objects within the game code disappear absolutely, so there's a constant "object leak."

[Narf]

I think this is a good idea to exercise with rarer items. Gemstones particularly.

Myself, I'd just set things like sandstone, salt and small rocks to infinity and assume there aren't enough people to make a dent.

[Synthesis]

I think this is a good idea to exercise with rarer items. Gemstones particularly.

Myself, I'd just set things like sandstone, salt and small rocks to infinity and assume there aren't enough people to make a dent.

Maybe, but that's a more complicated thing to code...you have to figure out what's rare and what's not, keep a running tally on how many of those particular objects have been found and kept, etc. etc.

Simpler just to say, well...turd gemstones are already set at 1% find rate, and there's a 100-stone foraging capacity in this room...so the expected turd gemstone get-rate is going to be 1 per reboot.

[Narf]

I think this is a good idea to exercise with rarer items. Gemstones particularly.

Myself, I'd just set things like sandstone, salt and small rocks to infinity and assume there aren't enough people to make a dent.

Maybe, but that's a more complicated thing to code...you have to figure out what's rare and what's not, keep a running tally on how many of those particular objects have been found and kept, etc. etc.

Simpler just to say, well...turd gemstones are already set at 1% find rate, and there's a 100-stone foraging capacity in this room...so the expected turd gemstone get-rate is going to be 1 per reboot.

If they have an ability to set frequency of given objects manually, then I imagine the best way to code it would be an automated system that drops a given item's frequency to zero.

As for deciding what's rare, they already did that when the decided item's frequency. They'd just need to decide a cutoff rate (everything with a find rate less than 1% will henceforth be deemed rare!) and apply the code only to that.

[Narf]

I really like this idea if you change "until the next reboot" to "until never".  Of course, the numbers would have to be very large, but with the real possibility of running out, therefore leading to the desired result.  And once resources begin to deplete, I think we'd have something very interesting on our hands.

But yeah...maybe.  I feel like the reboot mechanism works better than absolute depletion, because the maximums would have to be so high under an absolute depletion mechanic that it wouldn't really have any noticeable effect on player behavior over the short term.  Even over the long term, I think the effect of absolute depletion might be detrimental to the way the game is enjoyed, because eventually GMHs and other clans would catch on and capture resource-rich points, leaving nothing for indies...

Given the way the code works, it'd probably be desert elves that actually got all the good spots. Random run-by murderizing is just so much a more feasible means of holding territory in this game than actually stationing NPC guards.

[Synthesis]

I really like this idea if you change "until the next reboot" to "until never".  Of course, the numbers would have to be very large, but with the real possibility of running out, therefore leading to the desired result.  And once resources begin to deplete, I think we'd have something very interesting on our hands.

But yeah...maybe.  I feel like the reboot mechanism works better than absolute depletion, because the maximums would have to be so high under an absolute depletion mechanic that it wouldn't really have any noticeable effect on player behavior over the short term.  Even over the long term, I think the effect of absolute depletion might be detrimental to the way the game is enjoyed, because eventually GMHs and other clans would catch on and capture resource-rich points, leaving nothing for indies...

Given the way the code works, it'd probably be desert elves that actually got all the good spots. Random run-by murderizing is just so much a more feasible means of holding territory in this game than actually stationing NPC guards.

*shrug* That's all an aside deriving from an aside.

As to your other point...I wouldn't want to limit it to only "rare" items, because it would dramatically reduce the impact of the change.  I.e. not everyone is looking for rare items, so it would disproportionately affect those who rely on those more uncommon things.

[Kismetic]

re:  Synth

But if the goal is to create conflict, I think this idea is pretty rad.  Especially ...

I think this is a good idea to exercise with rarer items. Gemstones particularly.

Myself, I'd just set things like sandstone, salt and small rocks to infinity and assume there aren't enough people to make a dent.

[X-D]

Let us assume that an outdoor room is 1 square mile.

So, that is 27,878,400 Square feet.....

So A football field is 57,000 square feet...

So, You are saying that you want the game to represent a few people hunting about, without heavy equipment to exhaust the resources of 489 football fields?

Assuming that a forage attempt covers a 20x20 area, That would mean you only need 69,900 forage attempts to cover one square mile....

[Synthesis]

Let us assume that an outdoor room is 1 square mile.

So, that is 27,878,400 Square feet.....

So A football field is 57,000 square feet...

So, You are saying that you want the game to represent a few people hunting about, without heavy equipment to exhaust the resources of 489 football fields?

489 football fields of sun-scorched, defiled, dying planet?

Or we can bring the VNPC population into this, which I don't think would work out well in the players' favor.

[X-D]

Go ahead, How many VNPCs are out foraging EACH and EVERY square mile?

Take the Nak population, Now, we know that most people stay inside the walls because the Highlord protects and outside the walls is evil. But, lets see, let us say 1% of the population are grebbers, Something like what, 3,000 of them then? 5,000?
Either way, Nak has like 20 rooms directly against the walls. Going just one room farther out makes it 44 rooms, at 70k forage attempts each, So, each and every one of the grebbers would have to do 880 forage attempts in Each and every room.  Call it 38k total. Now, the forage timer is  what, 10 seconds?  So, only 1,075 hours each...Real time. Changing over to Zalanthan time, that is only like 10 weeks.....

As to the "sun-scorched dying planet" Well, I would think it makes finding rocks a bit easier and less likely to run out since that is all there is.
Besides, Even if such a thing was put in, Then there would have to be an echo or something. And how silly would it be to type "forage rocks" And get the "picked clean of rocks echo"
Look
This is a rocky area, there are rocks, rocks and more rocks, Rocks as far as the eye can see, and when there are no rocks, there are rocks, Oh and sand.

[RogueGunslinger]

That entirely depends on the item you're foraging and the area you're in.

[Kismetic]

Let us assume that an outdoor room is 1 square mile.

So, that is 27,878,400 Square feet.....

So A football field is 57,000 square feet...

So, You are saying that you want the game to represent a few people hunting about, without heavy equipment to exhaust the resources of 489 football fields?

Assuming that a forage attempt covers a 20x20 area, That would mean you only need 69,900 forage attempts to cover one square mile....

Given that in the past, it's been said the Known is equivalent to Ohio in size (220x220 miles), I'd say this is a fairly accurate assessment of room size.  On a harsh world like Zalanthas, does it seem plausible that, over thousands of years, the populace has managed to exhaust its resources?  I think so, yes.  Because we're not talking about a few people, we're talking about city-states, and rival merchant houses, and independents, over a grand scale, for a very long period of time.  How long could a harsh desert world sustain that?

I think competing over resources is an amazing idea, and accounting for the scope and scale of it makes me believe it even more.

[Desertman]

I just don't see this creating conflict. It is going to create a rush to get to the good spots after every reboot, but you aren't going to have people killing other people for their bags of rocks/salt/food.

The people who would kill you for your bags of rocks are the same people who would kill you right now for the stuff that is in your backpack. They don't need this incentive, and this incentive wouldn't matter to them or make any difference to them. If they would attack you for your crappy foraged items, they are the same types would ALREADY be attacking you for your better stuff you have right now.

It won't have the desired affect.

Moving on from that, you absolutely are not going to see wide-scale conflict from the major powers come into play over this. As discussed in other threads, those powers are never going to fight each other over anything, because they don't have to and don't want to.

So who is this going to really make get involved in more conflict? Not a soul.

[Asanadas]

That's like saying the mining companies in West Virginia have exhausted all of the mountains away in their search for coal.

This idea is silly. From what I've read, there was already an attempt at scarcity around animals, and it fell through because Armageddon is a fantasy game. There's no need for this sort of arbitration, and I seriously doubt the current codebase can handle it.

[Synthesis]

I just don't see this creating conflict. It is going to create a rush to get to the good spots after every reboot, but you aren't going to have people killing other people for their bags of rocks/salt/food.

The people who would kill you for your bags of rocks are the same people who would kill you right now for the stuff that is in your backpack. They don't need this incentive, and this incentive wouldn't matter to them or make any difference to them.

It won't have the desired affect.

Moving on from that, you absolutely are not going to see wide-scale conflict from the major powers comes into play over this. As discussed in other threads, those powers are never going to fight each other over anything, because they don't have to and don't want to.

So who is this going to really make get involved in more conflict? Not a soul.

Conflict can be so much more than beating someone over the head with a stick for a bag of rocks.

[Desertman]

I just don't see this creating conflict. It is going to create a rush to get to the good spots after every reboot, but you aren't going to have people killing other people for their bags of rocks/salt/food.

The people who would kill you for your bags of rocks are the same people who would kill you right now for the stuff that is in your backpack. They don't need this incentive, and this incentive wouldn't matter to them or make any difference to them.

It won't have the desired affect.

Moving on from that, you absolutely are not going to see wide-scale conflict from the major powers comes into play over this. As discussed in other threads, those powers are never going to fight each other over anything, because they don't have to and don't want to.

So who is this going to really make get involved in more conflict? Not a soul.

Conflict can be so much more than beating someone over the head with a stick for a bag of rocks.

If they were going to get involved in meaningful political conflict with you over something, or economic warfare, they would be doing that already. They don't need less rocks to do that and it won't make a difference.

[Kismetic]

That's like saying the mining companies in West Virginia have exhausted all of the mountains away in their search for coal.

This idea is silly. From what I've read, there was already an attempt at scarcity around animals, and it fell through because Armageddon is a fantasy game. There's no need for this sort of arbitration, and I seriously doubt the current codebase can handle it.

I don't think West Virginia and Zalanthas are analogous in any useful sense, other than being roughly similar in size.  Back to the discussion, though, I was still rambling on about rooms with finite resources.  Derp

[X-D]

Kis, Last I checked, the actual state of ohio had between 16 MILLION and 18 MIllion people, Living in 4 major cities, Some of which are greater in population then all of zalanthus.

Eh, just sorta pointing out that...well, such a land area is simply massive. in every way.  People have been living in smaller areas for many thousands of years, Take Italy, And still, the rocks and other resources exist...shrug.

Point being, and others have made it, At least 3 of the things you can forage for, are essentially unlimited givin what the world is made of and the scope of the rooms. Rocks, Salt, Wood...Although, Staff have altered at least one of those types of rooms here and there to show that it was over harvested....and that took many many game years.

Now, as to the other 2 forage types, Artifacts and food...Food is a wide range and so...It can be placed with the other 3. Artifacts...Now that is one that it would not bother me to be limited in almost every room you can forage them in, And easy enough to explain. Artifact areas are small, easily picked over, Hey, you gotta wait till the wind unburies more of them.

Problem is, the number of people that even forage for them is so low as to make it rather pointless to the OP....shrug.

[Synthesis]

I just don't see this creating conflict. It is going to create a rush to get to the good spots after every reboot, but you aren't going to have people killing other people for their bags of rocks/salt/food.

The people who would kill you for your bags of rocks are the same people who would kill you right now for the stuff that is in your backpack. They don't need this incentive, and this incentive wouldn't matter to them or make any difference to them.

It won't have the desired affect.

Moving on from that, you absolutely are not going to see wide-scale conflict from the major powers comes into play over this. As discussed in other threads, those powers are never going to fight each other over anything, because they don't have to and don't want to.

So who is this going to really make get involved in more conflict? Not a soul.

Conflict can be so much more than beating someone over the head with a stick for a bag of rocks.

If they were going to get involved in meaningful political conflict with you over something, or economic warfare, they would be doing that already. They don't need less rocks to do that and it won't make a difference.

We could take that argument down the reductio ad absurdum path and wonder why there is any conflict in the game, at all.  Suffice it to say, I think there is some level of scarcity at which people will in fact be like, "Fuck this motherfucker taking -my- motherfucking rocks."

[Asanadas]

I'm sure they've run out of rocks in the cradle of civilization. I mean, there's been millions of people foraging there for thousands of years.

[Synthesis]

Kis, Last I checked, the actual state of ohio had between 16 MILLION and 18 MIllion people, Living in 4 major cities, Some of which are greater in population then all of zalanthus.

Eh, just sorta pointing out that...well, such a land area is simply massive. in every way.  People have been living in smaller areas for many thousands of years, Take Italy, And still, the rocks and other resources exist...shrug.

Let's just stop talking about rocks, because EVERYONE should be assuming that stones (particularly sandstone and granite, if we're limiting to subtypes) will be in relatively infinite supply.  More valuable stones, maybe not so much.

Usable salts? Maybe not so much.

Artifacts? Most definitely not.

Food? No.

Wood and kindling? Maybe not so much.

Spice? No.

Also, this "area size" argument conveniently ignores specialty rooms that most definitely are not huge, and most definitely should not have infinite supplies of whatever.

[Desertman]

I just don't see this creating conflict. It is going to create a rush to get to the good spots after every reboot, but you aren't going to have people killing other people for their bags of rocks/salt/food.

The people who would kill you for your bags of rocks are the same people who would kill you right now for the stuff that is in your backpack. They don't need this incentive, and this incentive wouldn't matter to them or make any difference to them.

It won't have the desired affect.

Moving on from that, you absolutely are not going to see wide-scale conflict from the major powers comes into play over this. As discussed in other threads, those powers are never going to fight each other over anything, because they don't have to and don't want to.

So who is this going to really make get involved in more conflict? Not a soul.

Conflict can be so much more than beating someone over the head with a stick for a bag of rocks.

If they were going to get involved in meaningful political conflict with you over something, or economic warfare, they would be doing that already. They don't need less rocks to do that and it won't make a difference.

We could take that argument down the reductio ad absurdum path and wonder why there is any conflict in the game, at all.  Suffice it to say, I think there is some level of scarcity at which people will in fact be like, "Fuck this motherfucker taking -my- motherfucking rocks."

I think there is too. I just also think the people who would do that, are the same ones who are already doing that regularly for other reasons that they already have.

I think they "would" kill people for the bags or rocks. I just don't think it will make them kill them any more. It will give those people a different reason to do what they would already do anyways.

I don't think that is a bad thing. I just think it's a not needed thing.

I also think it's a, "It doesn't hurt anything.", thing too. So, if some staffer wants to take time to do it, more power to them I suppose.

[Kismetic]

Eh, just sorta pointing out that...well, such a land area is simply massive. in every way.  People have been living in smaller areas for many thousands of years, Take Italy, And still, the rocks and other resources exist...shrug.

Yeah, in the end, it's a trivial thing.  If we're more focused on items that are rare, like gemstones, simply having them found at a lower percentage chance would seem to work (and likely already works this way).  In my mind, I'm thinking of something to the tune of merchant houses leaning on indies who forage ad infinitum because those resources don't "grow on trees", to borrow from Desertman, but ...  that's not really how the game works, and if it did, placing a trivial piece of code probably wouldn't make that happen.

As to Synth's idea, I like the spirit of it, but I genuinely hate these 'mad dashes at reboot' metagame tactics.

[X-D]

Well, I got to that in a post edit...but here.

Rocks, Right, not running out of rocks.

Usable salt...No, point on that is, unlike rocks, by desc, all the usable salts are tiny, So, the search area for each is also smaller, IE, more can fit in less area.

Food, Again No, areas that support food forage are just as large and the number of food types means you are not simply digging for roots....Even if I was to concede some sort of limit, it would be to high to matter.

Artifacts, Yes, limited and low, would not bother me as it makes sense as I explained in above post.

Spice, Meh, I do not care on that one at all.

Wood, Nah, see above post.

Now, I would not mind seeing forage timers changed dependant on forage type and even how many people foraging or have been foraging in a set amount of time...that would at least make some sense.

[Desertman]

I absolutely want to see "rare" gemstones become a lot more rare in game.

As it stands....diamonds aren't rare at all, or rubies, or emeralds. Seeing them is at best a shrug moment. (Which includes things made out of them.)

[Delirium]

I think that's more the fault of people who are willing to forage ad nauseam than the code itself.

[Desertman]

I think that's more the fault of people who are willing to forage ad nauseam than the code itself.

I've never seen anyone do it differently. Everyone pretty much seems to do it the same way unless I've just been missing those rare "better than me" foragers all of these years.

[Delirium]

There's a difference between foraging for an afternoon, and foraging for three in-game days (or 270 minutes, or 4.5 hours).

Or maybe you're playing someone with a very high forage skill.

I'm okay with higher frequency of valuable gems at those levels, but yeah, the solution to this is to just drop the frequency of "rare" gems.

[Desertman]

There's a difference between foraging for an afternoon, and foraging for three in-game days (or 270 minutes, or 4.5 hours).

Or maybe you're playing someone with a very high forage skill.

I'm okay with higher frequency of valuable gems at those levels, but yeah, the solution to this is to just drop the frequency of "rare" gems.

Agreed.

[Kismetic]

And other supposedly rare stuff, too.  If we make the rare truly rare, then we have something valuable and worth fighting (sic:  killing)  for. 

[manonfire]

The game doesn't make sense, better shut this shit down.

[Kismetic]

Nah, bro, I'll shut you down.  COME AT ME BRO

[Desertman]

It looks like we have a dance off in the works.

[AdamBlue]

This is a silly idea that doesn't make any sense.

Oh no, I'm in the middle of the woods, and this area is out-foraged of wood!
Oh no, I'm in the middle of the salt flats, BUT THERE IS NO MORE SALT?
Oh no, I'm in the middle of a farm, BUT WE'RE OUT OF FOOD STUFF TO FIND!!!

Y'all wanna make conflict, this ain't the way to do it. It would just make it more of a hassle.

[Kismetic]

It looks like we have a dance off in the works.

I love a good dance off, but if he starts twerking, I'm outtie

[Desertman]

(Also, new avatar ahahahh)

[roughneck]

I do think that foraging should be harder. I don't know if the op suggestion is the perfect way to go, but making things a little more hard to get and more rare wouldn't be a bad thing.

I think making valuable resources more confine, more limited and their location easily identifiable, we would get more conflict.

Like, if you could only get salt reliably in one spot and it was limited, sure you'd have a race, but you'd also risk having a scrap with that competing grebber with a sword who doesn't care that you got there first. Then you might hire guards, or bring your friends for protection. You might have something worth killing or raiding over. As it is, raiders don't make sense because grebbing is too easy and lucrative.

[RogueGunslinger]

This is a silly idea that doesn't make any sense.

Oh no, I'm in the middle of the woods, and this area is out-foraged of wood!
Oh no, I'm in the middle of the salt flats, BUT THERE IS NO MORE SALT?
Oh no, I'm in the middle of a farm, BUT WE'RE OUT OF FOOD STUFF TO FIND!!!

Y'all wanna make conflict, this ain't the way to do it. It would just make it more of a hassle.

Anything can look silly or make no sense if your frame it in the most ridiculous way possible.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

[Eyeball]

This is a silly idea that doesn't make any sense.

Oh no, I'm in the middle of the woods, and this area is out-foraged of wood!
Oh no, I'm in the middle of the salt flats, BUT THERE IS NO MORE SALT?
Oh no, I'm in the middle of a farm, BUT WE'RE OUT OF FOOD STUFF TO FIND!!!

Y'all wanna make conflict, this ain't the way to do it. It would just make it more of a hassle.

Anything can look silly or make no sense if your frame it in the most ridiculous way possible.

And yet these are valid examples of what would happen if room limits were implemented.

Grebbing needs to be at least profitable enough to pay for water and food over the time spent. If it's turned into a crap shoot, only those with resources (e.g. in clans) will be able to greb.

Killing grebbers isn't "conflict" in my opinion either, we don't really need the continuous slaughter of new characters trying to start out.

[RogueGunslinger]

This is a silly idea that doesn't make any sense.

Oh no, I'm in the middle of the woods, and this area is out-foraged of wood!
Oh no, I'm in the middle of the salt flats, BUT THERE IS NO MORE SALT?
Oh no, I'm in the middle of a farm, BUT WE'RE OUT OF FOOD STUFF TO FIND!!!

Y'all wanna make conflict, this ain't the way to do it. It would just make it more of a hassle.

Anything can look silly or make no sense if your frame it in the most ridiculous way possible.

And yet these are valid examples of what would happen if room limits were implemented.

If they were implemented as a blanket-code with no variation for item types, and no accounting of the enviornment. But that would be silly and ridiculous.

[Eyeball]

This is a silly idea that doesn't make any sense.

Oh no, I'm in the middle of the woods, and this area is out-foraged of wood!
Oh no, I'm in the middle of the salt flats, BUT THERE IS NO MORE SALT?
Oh no, I'm in the middle of a farm, BUT WE'RE OUT OF FOOD STUFF TO FIND!!!

Y'all wanna make conflict, this ain't the way to do it. It would just make it more of a hassle.

Anything can look silly or make no sense if your frame it in the most ridiculous way possible.

And yet these are valid examples of what would happen if room limits were implemented.

If they were implemented as a blanket-code with no variation for item types, and no accounting of the enviornment. But that would be silly and ridiculous.

If you think the staff is going to go through tens of thousands of rooms and set values individually, I have a bridge to sell you.

[RogueGunslinger]

Ok? You're doing that thing where you're framing it in the most ridiculous way possible again. 

Perhaps they only have to set the value for the item foraged?  ">set sapphires to 3 spawns in [scoria plains]" Who knows, I'm not a coder. The point is you're looking for the hardest possible way to go about things in order to make the idea seem ridiculous.

[Asanadas]

I don't have to be a coder to tell you that's not the way the system is set up right now.

It would take a new module in order to arbitrarily dictate the amount of sapphires (or whatever) "within" a zone, instead of setting it as a percentage rate chance.

[RogueGunslinger]

Of course that's not the way it's set up, this is the code suggestions forum. A new module isn't the same as painstakingly altering every single room in the game. That ass beside the point that he was immediately jumping to the first and worst possible problem to declare the whole idea stupid.

[Eyeball]

Of course that's not the way it's set up, this is the code suggestions forum. A new module isn't the same as painstakingly altering every single room in the game. That ass beside the point that he was immediately jumping to the first and worst possible problem to declare the whole idea stupid.

So outline how you'd do it. Tell us how you'd set it up so that it made sense for every room and at the same time required minimal effort.

[Synthesis]

Of course that's not the way it's set up, this is the code suggestions forum. A new module isn't the same as painstakingly altering every single room in the game. That ass beside the point that he was immediately jumping to the first and worst possible problem to declare the whole idea stupid.

So outline how you'd do it. Tell us how you'd set it up so that it made sense for every room and at the same time required minimal effort.

You write a script that sets the appropriate settings for every room with a particular set of characteristics.  E.g. for every room flagged "outdoors" and "plains-type forage" within the "grasslands zone," you set the "max food forage" variable to 200.

After the script runs, you go through the unique rooms (of which there are relatively few per zone, that aren't within a city) and set them manually.

After that, you let the player idea and bug reports come in for FUBAR rooms, and fix them as needed.

[Kalai]

Not sure incentive to gather up everything useful in a single room and make it useless for anyone who happens to get there after them is ... all that helpful. Much as I'd like foraged goods to have value, I'd rather it not come at the expense of trying to hoard rooms, or digging at a depleted room for the specific resources I'm after uselessly / obliviously, or ...

Going back to what Lizzie tends to push on the shop idea IIRC ... perhaps we could implement this per character? Reset based on needing to find new and productive territory in a large area, meanwhile getting only the nigh-inexhaustible items.

Acknowledged this wouldn't encourage conflict over resource spots, necessarily ... but the conflict the original concept encourages does not sound fun to me. *ponders

[solera]

In reality, I don't think you are going to deplete sapphires in acres of a gravel site without mining equipment.

[Chettaman]

I have been thinking this for years. I remember writing i down once to post, but totally lost the thing I wrote it on with a few other of my ideas. ... anyway. I also want to say, though that reboots are totally destroying the economy. Players are selling things for the store NPCs to sell but during the reboot they don't sell any of that crap. Unfortunately they /don't/ seem to get any of the money they used to buy that crap with back either. - back on topic.

in general: true. nothing will explain how powerful a reboot is to regrowing things, but no one seems to complain when they have scrab legs to sell in the market. So like plants, I suggest we make foragable items. Or heck. Sand storms will replenish them maybe like random silt in red storm, pushing the stuff around. Maybe foraging should require tools. Tools that break often. Increasing the need for tool makers! Because I want to say, picking up stones is cool. But using a pick to break that blocky bastard off is way cooler. Using a shovel to dig in the scalding sand (much less likely to break) is way cooler

salting:
The idea of a room losing its ability to spit out salt. Any and all salt foraged. You go out, not only does your crazy ass go out to touch sand that has been hot /all/ day without protective gloves, most like (if you stay to salt past early morning). Not only have you been digging there all day. You've been digging there for two days. Three days. Four weeks. A year. The same exact place. While I'm sure, everyone agrees making things un-forageable in a room forever is extreme, it's realistic. Not only is it realistic, but it adds something to the game. Desperation and anxiety. Right now...
you go out. move one room from the pillar and start digging. Your friends come. You smile and welcome them to join you. Some guy you've never met comes. You smile and welcome them to join you or you sneer or whatever. Everyone present laughs and jokes and sooner or later become completely silent because you've exhausted topics to talk about and you still need to fill this bag full of salt. But if the situation was more dire and forced you to search in other locations...
You go out. Move one room from the pillar and start digging only to find out you can't find any more salt here. Your friends come and that's good. You're going to want to be close to someone who might share your haul in a dangerous place... because you need to find a different room. You smile and welcome them to join you, albeit now you may make less money. Some guy you've never met comes. You don't know him. You're already splitting profits, you're already frightened that someone/something could kill you being out of your safety zone. (danger zone). You react accordingly. You invite him, because there's plenty of salt in this room probably... but what about the next day. It'll be empty. You'll have to go to a potentially more dangerous place. You react as you see fit. Everyone present laughs and jokes and sooner or later become completely silent because you've exhausted topics to talk about and you still need to fill this bag full of salt - all the while wary of the increased amount of danger there is here in the danger zone.

"It would make things more of a hassle."
Exactly the point. Already you're feeling the effects and we're only talking about it. You would be the person who would /want/ to defend your safety! The best locations! It all should belong to you because you want it to be easy and you don't want to get eaten by a mek and no one can take that away from you!!

Foraging for stones:
Dood you totally go out and dig for rocks on the ...uh you know the place I'm talking about outside of allanak. How do you even do that, honestly without a hacker other than you just find pieces of stones laying around. At any rate, it would indeed be more annoying and more dangerous to get closer to spider territory.
Uhm... that place with the obsidian. Yeah, you know the place. Again. You're just picking up rocks. Take a hacker next time! It'll make sense then how you can be in the same place picking things up.
So in general finding stones really shouldn't be that hard... It'd still be nice to see some mining instead of just picking stuff up.

Foraging for wood:
We all know where you go to pick up branches! =3= We all know... And it's not really /that/ dangerous. ... but still. It'd be nice to hassle you if not make everyone else who goes to the same exact spot hassle you too or at least make them uncomfortable for having to go around or through you to get their spoils.

foraging for artifacts:
Oh yeah. You'll be put in some danger alright. And the people who want this stuff... will definately protect their booty.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

... I actually like the deposit idea. Obsidian sold to the office can only be found from a deposit. It's a pain in the ass to break down well, and the source can run out temporarily. I think it spawns at a good rate too.

Examples:

Scrub Plains [N, E, S, W]
   Rolling scrublands stretch out here, their hardpacked surface etched
by the ravages of the sand-laden wind which blows constantly, combing the
long plains grasses into tangled drifts of color.  Sparse sands blow through
the tall pech grass and the shorter tufts of gesra grass, whose pale
lavender blades are scattered through the brown and green lattices created
by the pech.  Dispersed through the rolling waves of grasses are the narrow,
rattling stalks of another plant, each stalk tipped with traces of white
blossoms.  Small softwood trees stand among the grasses, none more than a
human's height, their branches covered with dull green leaves.
   The scrubs stretch out towards the horizon in all directions from here.
   One particular softwood tree here would be a good specimen for a lumberjack.

The Baobab Grove [N, E, S, W]
   Here stands a small grove of gnarled baobab trees.  Surrounding the
majestic, ancient-appearing trees are small loreshi shrubs and stemwoods.
The baobab trees have thin needlelike purple leaves that burst out into a
large canopy atop the deep grey bark trunk. 
   The thick gnarled trees continue in all directions.
   A massive baobab tree, larger than some of the others, rises here.
   There appears to be a variety of good branches lying here.

Scoria Plains [N, E, S, W]
   Chunks of hardened scoria compose the rough ground beneath your feet,
giving the area an uneven, though flat, surface.  Few landmarks mar the
surface of this desolate wasteland.  Occasionally, a cruel finger of rock
just vertically from the ground, or patches of pitted rock reveal man-sized
holes that lead into sand-filled pits.  Though the ground is rough beneath
your feet, it seems relatively flat, not rising or falling beyond the shapes
of the rocks.  Some of the porous stones are hollow and crunchy, while
others are jagged and solid, which makes walking a treacherous affair.
   A tell-tale glitter peppers the treacherous terrain in this vicinity.

Sand Flats [N, E, S, W]
   To the east lie the mountainous dunes of sands which comprise the Red
Desert, hidden away behind a massive ridge of hard sands.  Above and
beyond the ridge is visible a dull red corona, the Fury's Eye storm which
rages constantly across those sands.  To the west, the white line of the
North Road runs north and south along the upper cliff of the Shield Wall.
   To the south, shimmering white in the heat, lies the endless expanse
known as the salt flats.
   A purplish stain breaks up the dirty white scape here.

[Kalai]

Conflict-producing hassle would be interesting, but expect it to be more like 'the shopkeeper is full' hassle ...   Unless the replenishing is much faster than a reboot or even a day (removing much of the point ... edit: unless deposits seem well-balanced for that) there's nothing you can actively do about someone grebbing 'your spot' at 3 in your morning? That doesn't help with conflict, most players can't station NPC battalions or so forth.

Being able to increase your capacity to find things / get resources from things using tools I do like, having incentive to explore I do like. Conflict/cooperation being an interesting choice at the 'immediately accessible resources level' is also neat, it is the impact on those with differing playtimes that kept the original idea from resonating.

I enjoy gathering resources, and having more skilled grebbing involve increasing degrees of fun, skill, investment, and exploration rather than 'pick up more stuff until it happens to be the right stuff' is something I can get behind if done right. Done wrong - i.e. in a way that makes gathering resources less fun - is not something I will get behind, because, well, I enjoy gathering resources.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I always found deposits, of either obsidian or spice, the two sorts in the game, to be available, if you look far enough. And that's sort of the idea, I think ... forcing the grebber to range.

I wouldn't do deposits for ranger food. I'd probably do it for everything else.

[Kalai]

^ edited post where maybe should have posted a new one, but now I forget which parts were an edit. Ranging is fun and deposits seem neat.

[Chettaman]

A much cooler idea, Venomz. This is why we keep you around, man.

[valeria]

Honestly, I think if the forage delay was just increased somewhat it would help solve a lot of the spam-salting spam-grabbing problems.

... does anybody else watch Prospectors?  How long it takes them to find a bit of aquamarine?  Zalanthas is like the complete opposite, where it doesn't take much time at all to find a lot of things, especially precious stones and salt, but the value is a lot lower.

[Kalai]

Trouble is that would make the tedious parts even more tedious. Having it simply take longer to get what you are after when already having to discard 3/5 things and happening to be looking for 2 things that don't share a keyword ... yeah no. Increasing scarcity should not come at the expense of fun. In concept, depletion can make matters more fun for the grebber, both for potentially making their haul more valuable (to players, specifically) and for having to explore and face new risks. Longer timers don't do that.

[Eyeball]

Honestly, I think if the forage delay was just increased somewhat it would help solve a lot of the spam-salting spam-grabbing problems.

... does anybody else watch Prospectors?  How long it takes them to find a bit of aquamarine?  Zalanthas is like the complete opposite, where it doesn't take much time at all to find a lot of things, especially precious stones and salt, but the value is a lot lower.

The delay makes one vulnerable enough as it is without extending it. I'd rather that the frequency of success be lowered than that.

[Synthesis]

Honestly, I think if the forage delay was just increased somewhat it would help solve a lot of the spam-salting spam-grabbing problems.

... does anybody else watch Prospectors?  How long it takes them to find a bit of aquamarine?  Zalanthas is like the complete opposite, where it doesn't take much time at all to find a lot of things, especially precious stones and salt, but the value is a lot lower.

The delay makes one vulnerable enough as it is without extending it. I'd rather that the frequency of success be lowered than that.

The pre-delay doesn't make you more vulnerable.  The post-delay does.  But the post-delay could remain the same, while extending the pre-delay.

I think additional delays aren't really the best solution though...like other people have said, it just increases nuisance factor without really adding anything else.

[John]

... I actually like the deposit idea. Obsidian sold to the office can only be found from a deposit. It's a pain in the ass to break down well, and the source can run out temporarily. I think it spawns at a good rate too.

I think obsidian depsoits are a good counter example to this thread. There is a finite resource for obsidian* that regens over time. Originally when it was first introduced there were battles over the deposits (minimal actual deaths as far as I know). Then over time it stopped. Now if we could identify the reasons for this (perhaps it was due to salt being introduced as a limitless resource) then that would point at ways to get it back. However it could simply be thatplayer's desires changed and now there's just less fighting. As has been pointed out, raiders were once common and aren't anymore. I think we need to look at why there's less overt conflict before we start trying to change variables that may, or may not, have major changes to how the game works. Although if the obsidian depsoit code could be easily adapted to incorporate a version of the ideas in this thread, that would suggest that the cost of doing this is rather low and so there's little reason not to give this a chance.

Personally I think the ability to restrict certain foragables to certain rooms (instead of zones or however it was done) already addresses one of the problems (people moving 1 room from the city and then foraging for high vlauable goods. It ensures the risk is commensurate with the reward. Although it doesn't (necessarily) address the conflict aim of this proposal.

* At least in certain forms.

[Lizzie]

Raiders were once common because there were once staff-supported raider clans. Raiding was an actual plot-driving function of the game. It is no longer an actual plot-driving function of the game. Now, being an independent raider, or even one with a couple of buddies working with you, it nothing more than "see random hunter. Kill him for his shit. Sit on his stuff for a RL week, then sell it all off at scattered NPC merchants around the game-world. Rinse, repeat.

The raider clans that existed previously had depth. And staff support, for some of them. The raiders now lack that depth and support. That's why raiders are uncommon now.

Obsidian mining is still lucrative, but it seems like every apartment has a few dozen shards and pieces of the stuff on a shelf somewhere and every GMH has bins and crates full of it. There's a glut on the market.

I once played a character who managed to forage for diamonds and rubies. I brought them to Kadius, and how much did they offer to pay me for them? NOTHING. They didn't want them. So I was stuck with -very- valueable gems, that I pawned off at the nearest NPC merchant whenever they could afford to pay for them (which was maybe one stone per RL week, if that).

Foraging for roots/food: again - apartments, bins, filled with tubers, roots, etc. etc. etc. Many of them roasted. Like someone did that just so they could boost their cooking skill, and let the crap food stockpile instead of junking it all and RPing that they're giving it to the homeless or sending a care package to their mother or throwing it in the Gaj to watch the free-for-all that ensues.

The system isn't broken. The play is broken. Players are not even trying to play in a believable way. Fixing the code will result in players finding new ways of breaking their play.

[Chettaman]

She's right. She's absolutely right.
A change like this in the code is just another way to force us to roleplay, which I like, but at the same time.

[Armaddict]

Raiders were once common because there were once staff-supported raider clans. Raiding was an actual plot-driving function of the game. It is no longer an actual plot-driving function of the game. Now, being an independent raider, or even one with a couple of buddies working with you, it nothing more than "see random hunter. Kill him for his shit. Sit on his stuff for a RL week, then sell it all off at scattered NPC merchants around the game-world. Rinse, repeat.

The raider clans that existed previously had depth. And staff support, for some of them. The raiders now lack that depth and support. That's why raiders are uncommon now.

...I don't know where you got this idea.  Vast majority of 'raids' I've suffered out in the wilds have been from independent, single-man attacks.  By far.

More than anything else, the big change has been that everyone trusts each other more.  I've said it before...the 'I'd like to go hunting with you' proposition was, once upon a time, code for 'I want to kill you out in the sands' for a good period of time.  People were either alone or in a clan.

Edited:  Was only really responding to one part of your post, but quoted all of it.

[FantasyWriter]

Why do people get pissy when someone who roles up a different character concept than they did makes more money?

[Hope]

Why do people get pissy when someone who roles up a different character concept than they did makes more money?

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

Originally when it was first introduced there were battles over the deposits (minimal actual deaths as far as I know).

Holy shit that's funny.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I think it's great. More deposit like objects would do a couple of things to me ... one, visibly illustrate scarcity, and two, change the narrative for using tools. For instance, I hate the way you chop trees. You don't know what sort of wood you're getting. Same with foraging for branches, although I'm alright with foraging for those. Trees, though? Deposits, dammit. Same for true gems, more valuable salt, etc.