Maximum Foraging Capacity

[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.