Woodsing?

[Virisin]

Does lumberjacking have an exponential decrease in tradepoint rewards or token rewards Riley?

[Riley]

The number of logs required to turn in increases by 1 each time for the same lousy 10 TP's and 150K experience.  So that's the basis of why I'm saying that people have real reason to go out lumber jacking.  And apparently you can't cut down magical trees at least ancient oaks  but can cut down petrified trees.  So really trees are protected atm.

[Virisin]

Yeah exponential decreases are silly, lumberjacking should give something like 2TP per log and be standard, maybe even 3TP per log.

[Virisin]

It would be interesting to send someone to farm for 1 hour, lumberjack for 1 hour, and then someone doing actual trading in places like Egypt/Punt and seeing what the relative rewards are.. Farmers should really be able to get at least 100 trade points in an hour, lumberjackers should be able to get about 200-300 trade points an hour, and people doing actual stuff should be able to get anywhere from 400-1000 an hour depending on the difficulty of the stuff they're doing.

[Tor]

Farming for Trade Points

Farming the eight fields north of Olde Yorke and then following the trading steps to maximize the value of the crops I raised 12 Trade points and 9000 coins in approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes.

After over 2 hours since I harvested a crop, I cannot grow another. It will go through all the steps, but about harvest time, "The crop is burned black, useless and dead!" From the help files I expect this to continue for me until the mud is rebooted.

Wow that is surprisingly little for farming. But it IS the easiest way to get tradepoints. Try lumberjacking.

It isn't up to me to disprove every outrageous claim made. It has now been about 9 hours since harvested first crop and the crops still fail at the last step.

Farming the in the area of Sutter's Fort produces similar results, so less than 12 TP per hour for farming, and then can't be repeated until reboot.

Riley seems to have covered the lumber jacking question.

Many of the items that can be traded for trade points, if you know where, seem to only pop once per reboot, and others after a repopulate of the area, which can be a few hours.

I don't find trade points as easy and quick to obtain as indicated in Virisin's posts.

[Virisin]

I know I can get many hundred in an hour or so from some more exploration style trading, which seems fair. I do agree that lumberjacking and farming are a bit worthless now though.

[Jaros]

100tp/hr can be done if you know your way around but farming and lumberjacking sound like a gross waste of time.

[Molly]

Once per reboot seemed a fair delay back in the times when the mud crashed relatively often.
Now that it can stay up for days it seems a bit long to wait.
I'd like a simple way to reset repeatable chores once per RL day instead, but that would probably need some... ahem... coding.

Perhaps a scheduled, automatic reboot at a fixed time once per day (performed at low tide) would be an idea? That would also stop the memory clogging, which slows down the mud when it has been up for a week. It should be all automated, with built-in global warnings starting some minutes before, to avoid people having stuff on the ground during the reboot.

Let's not forget however that farming and gardening are simple and totally riskless chores, designed for newbies, and that they were majorly abused in the past, by players with triggers. Which is why the reward was lowered.

If we raise the reward to a level where you guys think it's worth the time, it may lead to people not finding it 'worth the time' to gather TPs in the 'more exploration style' that Viri is talking about, since players always seems to choose the quickest path. Would that make the game more fun?

Also farming, gardening and lumberjacking are meant to be part of the Crafting feature, which regrettably never was completed. The crops and logs are potential raw material for various crafts, which would the yield a lot more TPs. I'd much rather spend the building effort on finishing crafts, than just raising the initial reward.

There should be a significant different in the reward for a task that needs no player effort whatsoever, and another that involves knowledge and maybe also some risk. Perhaps the difference is too big now, but if we change it, I don't want to have to change it back in some months time, because you guys complain about it beeing too easy.

So are you really sure you want me to do this? Balancing is always a delicate thing.

[Virisin]

You're on the ball as per usual Molly. I would hate to see lumberjacking and farming become increasingly botted again as people take advantage of an easy way of gaining tradepoints and hence experience, so I think the best option would be as you said - making it so you could do it once a day at least.

Basically I think someone should do some testing so the schemes weigh up roughly as follows:

Farming - the easiest: 10ish per farm, seeing as there's about 10 farms that could be up to 100tp / day.
Gardening - never did it so unsure.
Lumberjacking - 1tp / log, unsure how many trees there are in the world but surely max 100tp / day, as long as they regrow.

[Tor]

I was not advocating any changes, merely expressing my thoughts on the ease or difficulty of obtaining trade points and their relative value. This discussion of trade points started, to my knowledge, in reference to the cost of the new detect high setting being raised from 15 to 1000 TP.

I, along with some of the other players I have conferred with, am happy with the game as it is. I began playing the game because of the rich variety of the zones and choose to play it within the confines of the game rather than complain that this or that is not to my liking. I chose my character's race, accepting its inherent qualities, because it was what I wanted my character to be, rather than how it could could fare at melee or magic and what equipment it could use.

Much discussion and effort have been expended on making the game more newbie friendly, giving them more movement points, etc. I'm definitely in favor of retaining new players, but there was already the ability for them to convey gold for movement points, unless this had been removed. Gaining gold was made much more difficult for them by changes pushed for in the past, when many mobs quit carrying any. At that same time the cost, in gold, for learning skills was increased, making it harder to train up new ones. The loss of skills not used regularly was implemented and then, apparently removed later. All of these changes were said to make the game more interesting, provide balance and improve the games economy. Unless we are sure the changes will have the desired affect, let's not further impinge on the people who work so hard for the game.

The last time there was so much talk of major changes to the game, I began to not play, instead of voicing my opinions. This time I choose to not sit silent.

[Jaros]

Sorry Tor but that strikes me as a selfish attitude.  If you're happy with the game as it is because you like the world and pretending to be an elf or whatever that's fine, that approach works regardless of mechanics.

However: I, along with some of the other players I have conferred with, think the gameplay is shit, which is a shame because we would like to enjoy it just as much as you clearly do.

[Tor]

Jaros, I'm sorry you feel the expression of my opinions is selfishness. I fail to understand how my suggestion of prudence is selfish, while one promoting changes isn't.

My statement that I was not advocating any changes, was in response to Molly's question of, “So are you really sure you want me to do this? Balancing is always a delicate thing.” It was not meant as being in opposition to change per se. I merely intended to say that we should, in my opinion, be sure the changes made will have the desired effects before expending resources to implement them. I am not opposed to changes that improve the experience of game play for the majority and/or increase the retention of players, long time or new. I mentioned some changes that were done in the past only as they did not seem to do either.

I, for one, would like to see input from more players in these forums. I know that there are players that want much about the game changed, and others that don't want anything changed in it.

It seems that we have lost the original idea of this thread. Let's see if we can get it back on track.

[Molly]

Let's leave the discussion about whether changes to the gameplay are generally good or bad to another thread,  and stick to the original theme in this one, shall we?

So, the original question was whether or not implementing woodsing is worth the effort.
This lead to another question, why people no longer lumberjack, and from that to what would be a reasonable  reward for simple, repetitive tasks, like farming, gardening and lumberjacking.
Thanks to Riley, Tor and Virisin, for providing input.

The main problem with lumberjacking seems to be the exponential decrease, and with farming and gardening the once per reboot flag, which if possible should be replaced with a once per RL day restriction.

Lumberjacking works a bit different than the rest, so I'll deal with that in a later post.
Here is how farming and gardening are set up presently:

FARMING
There are 8 fields, each yields a different crop; wheat, rye, oats, corn, peas, hops and flax.
You have to go through 4-5 steps in each field; plough, sow/plant, harrow/hoe, harvest, thresh.
The process for each field takes about 5 minutes, plus an extra minute for developing, which means around 45 minutes effective time for all 8 fields.
Each field can however only be worked once per reboot presently.


Present rewards
1. Undeveloped Products
- All 8 crops except flax can be sold directly to the Grocer
- The standard price is 1000 coins/sack
- Peas are also worth 2000 coins in the Bell and Bush

2. Developed products (1 step)
- All 4 types of grain can be developed 1 step (ground to meal)
- Barley and Hops can also be brewed to beer
- Corn can also be distilled to corn brandy
- Potatoes can also be developed 1 step (distilled)
- The flour is worth 3-4000 coins
- The beer, potato spirit and corn brandy are all worth 2 TP each
- Peas cannot be developed, but is the main ingredient in one of the recipies in the Cooking feature, which is about to be implemented
- Wheat and rye flour are also used for Cooking (2 resp 1 recipe each).

(Cooking will have much larger rewards, because you need to collect many different ingredients apart from the farming and gardening products. Each dish will be worth something like 1-2 silver tokens).

3. Higher Developed products (2-3 steps)
- Flax can be developed 3 steps (retted to fibres, then spun to thread and woven to cloth)
- The fibres cannot be sold directly, just developed to thread.
- The thread is worth 2 TP in Silk and Satin
- The cloth is worth 4 TP  in Silk and Satin

GARDENING
Gardening is similar, but a bit more interactive, there are several weeds and garden pests that will diminish or even totally destroy your crop if you don't get rid of them in time.
It also takes considerably longer time, around 25-30 minutes per plot = ca 4 hours for all 8 plots.
(There are several random elements in the timing for gardenong, so it's harder to make an exact estimate).
The products should consequently be worth quite a bit more, even though they cannot be developed.

All the garden crops are also used in the upcoming Cooking feature.

Present reward
There are 8 garden crops; leek, onion, parsnip, turnip, spinach, beans, cauliflower and carrots.
A full crop in each plot, (normally 8 of each kind), is worth 2 TP at the greengrocer.
Beans are different, you can either turn in 30 beanpods for 2 TP,
or shell the pods and turn in 80 beans for the same price. (Each pod contains 2-6 beans)

CHANGING THE REWARDS
I agree that the present rewards seem a bit too low and could probably be raised to quite a bit.
Since what seems to count to people is the time, the extra rewards for developing the products shouldn't be too high, it takes less than a minute to run to an extra mob. Still there should be a reward for doing the extra effort.

Virisin suggested a total 100 TP a day for doing 10 farm fields.

Translating this into 8 fields and differently developed products, my suggestion would be;
- 8 TP for all undeveloped farm products
- 10 TP for farm products developed 1 step
- 12 TP for farm products developed 2 steps
- 14 TP for farm products developed 3 steps

That would give a total of 8+60+14 = 82 TP/day for doing all 8 fields and developing everything as far as possible.

Using the same time reconning, gardening should yield at least 40 TP per product, (320 TP/day for all 8 plots), since it both takes longer time and is considerably harder to get a full crop with gardening - it's actually quite difficult until you've figured out the trick.

It seems nobody really tested Gardening lately. It would be helpful if some of you would try, to find out if you get to the same conclusion as me about the effective time.

I would also like some more input about the reward suggestions from those of you that are active in the mud and Forum. To me 10 TP seems a bit high for 5 minute's 'work', especially if we change the time restriction to once per RL day instead of once/reboot.

This change can probably be done pretty easily by modifying the scripts.

CHANGING THE TIME RESTRICTION

My scripting is a bit rusty after a summer of inactivity, so I'd like one of our scripting gurus to see if I've got the formula right:

Normally for a once/reboot check we use this loop:
context %actor.id%
if !%done%           *<action to be done ONCE per reboot>
 eval done 1
 global done
endif
context 0

When the Mud reboots the done flags disappears from all mobs, rooms and objects.

Removing the done flag should however also be possible to do with a wait check.
There are 3600x24 = 86400 seconds on a RL day.
This leads us to the following loop:

context %actor.id%
if !%done%           *<action to be done ONCE per reboot>
 eval done 1
 global done
 wait 86400 s        *<remove the flag after 24 hours>
 eval done 0
 global done
endif
context 0

Before I go ahead and change all the loops, I'd like a confirmation from one of our scripting gurus that this will work.
(Thotter, Once, Fizban, Diandra, that means you)

[Prometheus]

To Molly's first post about the rebooting the mud. I try my best to reboot the mud at least once a week. I can't always do it at the same time. The only issue with an automated reboot is that someone might pop on and might cause issues. But then again maybe someone who is better at scripting might find a way around this.

Prometheus

[Molly]

Unfortunately once a week is way too long for features like farming and gardening, it should really be possible to do these once a day.

Unfortunately Once also tells me that the delay I put on the script won't work. Once the wait is running it will stop any other player from using the feature, not just the player that first triggered the script. Apparently 'context %actor_id%' isn't working the way I thought it did.

So, unless someone can figure out a script that actually works, I'm afraid we are back to a coding effort.
What we need is either a once-per-day option in the DG_scripts code, or an automated once-per-day reboot, because I wouldn't put the task of rebooting manually once a day on anyone.

I've seen automated reboots on many other muds, so I'm sure it can be done.