A perhaps radical Farming Suggestion

[Zeldryn]

It is once again that time.

If we've come to learn anything about this community, it's that a significant portion of it really digs the farming and animal husbandry systems that were previously in place in clok, and in cogg.

Another distinct and sizeable part of our community enjoys wilderness exploration, and making a life in the wilderness best they can.

And, of course, there's no small amount of individuals of a.. Shall we say.. Violent disposition who live within the borders of the quarantine, making their way on blood and steel.

What if.. We could combine.. ALL OF THESE THINGS?

Back in old Clok, we didn't have animal husbandry, but we did have farming. You could create a farm anywhere out in the wilderness, as long as the wilderness environment of that room facilitated tilling a field and growing crops. A lot of people enjoyed this. They got used to having different farm plots for different times of the year to deal with the changing weather, people paired together to maintain and oversee their farms, and tried to be at least a little secretive about their locations so their crops wouldn't be stolen when they weren't there, they'd share the work, caravan it all back to town, so on, and so forth. It was neat. It had it's issues-- but it was neat. The biggest issue it caused, really, was that there were farm plots all over the place after a while that were either going unused or just felt weird to see in so many places in a quarantine zone.

The solution to these problems was cogg's version of the system. Private player farms. Depending on what level your skill was-- you could pay rent on a predesignated portion of land, accessible within Shadgard, till plots of farmland to grow crops, and build structures to house and maintain various types of animals for sources of thread, for milk, and a few other products that I'm sure i'm not remembering.

This also caused it's fair share of problems. People started using them as private meeting spots, as you had to give individuals permission to access your farm. It also caused a lot of server bloat-- a ton of animals got created, and a ton of crops got created, and it ended up being so much a lot of the time that the market couldn't handle the excess. These are a few among many many other issues that arose as a result of that particular take on the system.

The proposition I assert in following is, though, perhaps a bit radical, one that may in fact be able to solve a great deal of the problems created within those systems.

Now-- the beginning of this explanation will make you say, "NO.". But I beg you- hear me out until the end. THINK ABOUT IT, at the very least. Give me a solid counter-argument.

I propose that any wilderness room that is in the plains, or hills environment that is unwooded and lacking significant foliage cover be capable of use for farming, both crops and animals. Given that, I believe they should be capable of housing temporary structures to facilitate that purpose. Temporary is the word. I make this proposition given the following realities:

-One can only create a farm in a wilderness room designated as the plains, or as the hills. Plains would be a bit bigger, but less safe. Hills would provide more likelihood of safety, with less space as a result. All the better if there has to be water access.

-No farm can exist within 5 adjacent rooms in any direction to another farm

-There is a hard upper limit to how many structures/farm plots can be used in a single room. No more dozens and dozens of sheep and chickens, or hilariously inappropriate amount of structures or crops. I'm talking *small farms* here. Tight, concentrated operations.

-We can't dig wells. We can dig a reservoir for storing water, but can't dig water access.

-Every single one of these structures decays and degrades over time, requiring active upkeep.

-None of these rooms, farms, structures, crops, etc. Are ever private. They are always 100% public and accessible by anyone that comes across them.

-All of the structures/crops/etc. can be destroyed by other players/entities who come across them at any given time.


Q: So what does this actually accomplish?

A1: People like farming, and people like the products that farming creates. It was a satisfying activity, a satisfying grind, and creates useable materials, particularly rimeveil and wool. Farming will also be, in large part, I imagine, a core part of the cooking system. The same applies to animal husbandry.

A2: All of this stuff is already coded in. It's just sitting there, and we're scratching our heads trying to decide what to do with it. Nobody thinks it isn't fun, it just has some problems that we needed to rectify before we could figure out what to do with it. Less code labor is good.

Q2: How is this actually different from the previous systems, and why is it different in a good way?

A: Previously, the problems were that there were crop farms all over in random parts of the wilderness, and that private farms, when isolated to shadgard, became *too* isolated, and created *too* many resources to be efficient economically.

A2: By remaining completely open at all times, this solves the problem of the farms becoming too isolated. Nobody can just hide away there, never to be interrupted, farming, selling things, and going home, and never RPing at all. Hypothetically speaking, anyone can track down and find your farm at any time, so long as they know that it exists. Even if they don't, they could still just bump into it.

A3: It becomes more efficient economically. The plots offered per wilderness room can be tightly regulated, making people really prioritize what they want to do-- have a few animals, or a few crops. No more than a few in either case. In this way, people suddenly won't be taking care of dozens and dozens and dozens of sheep, or growing dozens and dozens and dozens of rimeveil bushes.

A4: By making sure these structures/plots are damageable/destructable, and wear down over time, If the players, or the staff, at any time feel like the farming situation is getting out of control... They can simply.. Go in, burn it all down, and call it a day. Whether players, bandits, nethrim, infested, or, most importantly, our good pals, The Dunwyr.

Q3: Let's talk about A4 a little more. Why is that a good idea?

A: It reinforces the theme. The lost lands is a rough and tumble dangerous place, and the land inside Shadgard is tightly controlled. Food, space, and useable land comes at a distinct premium. If people want to risk farming or herding, they're running the risk of having to do it in a land that has infestation, nether, canim, and organizations like the Dunwyr who are absolutely *not* okay with humanity destroying nature in service of supplying the cities with more of their filthy commodities. If they don't take the risk-- they have to deal with what meager supplies shadgard is willing to offer them in exchange for labor on it's tightly-controlled fields. (Tasks that reward the grind with thread, milk, crops, etc.)

A2: It creates great RP. People have to plan out how to build up their farms, what to produce there, and how to get all of the valuables back to town and sold, given they are actually successful. On top of that, they have to figure out how to keep it protected, where to build and develop, and how long to stay there, lest someone horrifying hsoes up to ruin their day, kill all of their animals, burn their crops, and eat them. It requires multiple specialized skillsets, involves multiple groups of people, potentially multiple guilds when they're ready, and is all around a great back and forth loop to prop up continuous RP.

A3: It gives the factions a reason to compete over land, compete with each other, and compete for resources in addition to those which already exist. It's another way to make the factions distinct from each other, as well, as they may have different crop and animal availability, and might have an interest in raiding one another to gain access to the other town's specific things. Speaking of raids-- it gives our Dunwyr and potentially our new druid guild something to do to, uh, get stuff from cities in the event that they want to be savage wilderness people. Why go to town? Wait for the townies to bring it out, kill them, and take it. Or rob them when they're sleeping and leave it out for you.


Q4: Is a free for all farming system in the wilderness really a good idea for the community? Can the server really handle this hypothetical if it couldn't handle the bloat before?

A: In this alpha period of testing, considerations, and throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, now is the perfect time to see, and find out. Our community is ridiculously strong, and ridiculously friendly. It's well known for it. I'm confident that any issues that could arise from the destruction of farms or CVC revolving around wilderness development/this sort of thing would remain IC, and that it would foster a lot of great opportunity for RP on top of it. Both posetive and peaceful, negative and conflict-heavy, and in between.

A2: At any given time, literally any time, the staff can get bored and start burning/pillaging someone's farm because lol lost lands sorry bro. Whether bandits, infested, nethrim, canim, or some other unfortunate party-- it should never be taken for granted that these structures and crops will be there again if you leave and return. That's the risk you run being a farmer in the quarantine.

A3: If the server can't handle it, or there are too many farms, or people go overboard, and it looks like a bad idea for any number of reasons-- we can always pull the plug, remember the experience and why it was bad, and go back to the drawing board, no harm, no issue. It's why we're testing, after all. I'm admittedly worried about the potential number of farms that could float out there-- but as long as they can't be adjacent to one another, they are capable of being destroyed, they degrade, can only exist on certain kinds of wilderness tiles with certain levels of plantlife present... It should all hypothetically balance out. Especially if the GMs have the ability to roll in and Dunwyr it up/turn it into an infested farm instead.



I've pretty much spelled out my thoughts on this as well as I can. It was a random thought, and i'm certainly interested in any feedback. I wanna' know what folks think, and hear any potential alternatives you might have in mind other than what I've got. These systems'll never get finished or moving toward that endpoint if we don't offer suggestions, feedback, and potential ideas. So-- now's the time!

Tell me with a straight face that this doesn't sound AMAZING though. It sounds amazing for farmers, it sounds amazing for builders, it sounds amazing for eco-terrorists, and it sounds amazing for sellswords who want to get craftspeople out and the world and paying them to do things on their behalf, like skinning, protecting their land, escorting their caravan, etc.

Eager to hear what ya'll think.

[Lysse]

I'd probably have a bit of fun with something like this!

The biggest issue I have though is twofold. Firstly, that overexaggerated escalation is a pretty commonplace reaction to any kind of slight on most of the RP MUDs I've played throughout my life. It's a common tactic used by people to discourage conflict, especially when taking the second issue into account. Which is, people have an unfortunate tendency to take IC conflict personally, on an OOC level, and not infrequently will take an attack on anything they see as "theirs" as a personal attack. Both of this are related, and as a result I imagine that Staff would have to keep a close eye on any conflict that arises from these farms - and that's a great way for staff to burn out, having to resolve reports of griefing, cheating, metagaming, etc. etc., all because of some virtual farm plots.

So I'm not gonna say "this is a bad idea, and we shouldn't do it", because I do think in a perfect world, something like this would be pretty great! It's a very cool idea, with lots of merit. I just worry about the player-culture ramifications.

[Zeldryn]

I appreciate this concern, as well, and it's my biggest one too. This kind of thing wouldn't be fun if it got so out of control that it needed constant oversight, and burnout in those kind of circumstances is real.

Good variable to consider in addition to the above, for sure. Thank you as always.

[Rias]

There's a lot of stuff in here that sounds like what I'm going for with faction-capturable sites and such! I don't think farming in particular is suited for it though.

- It promotes the idea of building/settling the wilderness, which is something we're trying to go the opposite way on. Even if designed to be deliberately temporary, I can see people still taking it as a step toward settling the wilderness and somehow establishing a more permanent new outpost, which I don't want to be even dangling the mistaken possibility of.

- The proposed ideas are specified as temporary and destroyable which is good from my perspective, but I'm confident that there will be many (most) farmers who get very attached to their little farms they've built and worked on out there, and will then get very upset when the farms are inevitably lost. Losing one's personal farm is a lot harder than losing temporary control over a world faction capturable point, for instance. Even if the GMs literally randomly roll some dice to decide which farm gets attacked next by infested or Dunwyr or what have you, there's going to be the very real risk of the owner of the attacked farm feeling personally and unfairly targeted.

- It makes the farming experience essentially open to CvC and theft/vandalism/griefy-type-shenanigans at any time. In my experience, I've observed that the majority of players strongly interested in farming are decidedly *not* interested in CvC and conflict of this kind.

- Even if not private and restricted-access, open-access wilderness farms with structures and such still present the opportunity for people to establish their own isolated preferred socializing spots out away from the rest of the playerbase, rather than sticking around town where most activities are based. And again, leads to people getting attached to the places they've worked to build up and establish, and then getting upset when they're lost.

[Alaia]

It sounds really good, though Lysse's concerns are also valid. We like to think our community is mature and able not to do this, but it only takes one bad one! I'd love it, though.

[Lysse]

There's a lot of stuff in here that sounds like what I'm going for with faction-capturable sites and such! I don't think farming in particular is suited for it though.

I do think it might be cool if there was some kind of faction-capturable area for farming though - maybe a valley that's particularly fertile, or mild (so on and so forth) so that there's a benefit to anyone that farms there, intended to be a sort of "Faction communal farming site" that a particular town shares custody with the residents over. Possibly even places that only really specific plants and animals could be reared, for special material purposes (high morale food, potions by physickers, that sort of thing). Keep the bulk of the farming/ranching in town, however that ends up falling, but have some Cool/Improved farming/ranching options for the town that can keep it best protected.

[xavier]

In addition to Lysse's idea of a fertile valley that is faction capturable. The only other thing I'd like to specifically point out is the potential to incorporate the old construction craft. Back then it was mostly only good for stuff like furniture and mine supports as I remember. It would be pretty cool if it could be expanded to include an entire building system and construction projects. Especially if it were made so that more than one person could participate inm the building process . I figure the math for end result quality might be a bit of a pain, but I can see this going so far as a person creating a construction company and them being hired on the regular to put up the fences, barns, and what not plus maintaining them. This of course wouldn't be all they are used for. You could also incorporate this into the homes and allow for annual maintenance being needed. Shadgard and Corvus plus any future towns could also have higher tier contracted activities that give various benefits or something that help incorporate the construction workers too. Just spit balling here.