Suggestion - herb gardens and a spice trade
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Since eating is mandatory in this game, one of the things that I have been thinking about is having herb gardens and a spice trade in this game. Especially effective high level cooking recipes could require herbs and spices, making them particularly desirable.
Herb definition - any plant with leaves, seeds, or flowers used for flavoring, food, medicine, or perfume.
Spice definition - an aromatic or pungent vegetable substance used to flavor food, e.g., cloves, pepper, or mace.
Herb Gardens – One of the things that I have always found very weird in MMO’s is that they have you gather herbs in the wild instead of planting herb gardens. LOTRO did this for example, and then let you farm on your private land, which seems completely backwards to me.
If herb gardens were included in Fractured, I would expect them to be on people’s private lots. One interesting thing to include would be “drying racks” which could be built in the gardens. Fresh herbs could be used after picking, but would decay rapidly. If dried on the drying racks, the dried herbs would last much longer.
Spices – One of the biggest inter-world trading materials could be spices, just as the spice trade was one of the most important trading routes in historical civilizations.
Spices would be gathered in the wild. Some examples could be:- Arboreus – something like cinnamon or cassia, which are made from tree bark, would be logically found on Arboreus.
- Syndesia – something like cardamom or black pepper, which are made from seeds, might be good for Syndesia.
- Tartaros – either extend the definition of “spice” to include non-plant based seasonings, such as powdered egg shells, or have hardy plants whose roots dig deep to survive. Spices are sometimes made of roots, like ginger or turmeric.
Would anyone else be interested in anything like herb gardens or a spice trade?
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They could also be used in alchemy/poison making. I imagine you'd need to gather the first samples in the wild to have them to plant privately (or buy them from someone who harvested in wild).
I have no doubt there would be people perfectly happy to harvest wild plants/seeds to sell to other players for use in recipes or to re-plant in a private garden.
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I think it's an interesting idea and one that I can't think of an equivalent in another game.
It would need to have a diminishing return based on supply and how easy or hard it was to grow and transport. Such as salt isn't nearly as valuable today as it was a couple hundred years ago when it wasn't available to everyone. I've read historical accounts where people would pay for goods/services with salt or pepper spices instead of cash and that wouldn't happen in today's market.
It will also depend on how intricate cooking recipes are in the game. If it's the typical generic recipe random meat + water + carrot = sandwich then spices and herbs are not going to play a big part of the economy.
I would think you would need to find the herb/spice or a deposit if it's mineral based in the wild before you could cultivate it. No one knows to grow carrots or berries in their own garden until they are found in nature and found to be edible. Or I guess if you come into the game after it's discovered you could buy seeds or seedlings from a supplier if you've gained the knowledge.
I could see more of a use in Alchemy in potions or poisons than in cooking. But again I think you would need to learn either from other people or finding it in nature first. Like figuring out that poisonous frogs can be used to spike arrows or darts.
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In general, I like this idea
I'mma git my cook on!
but there is an issue of "what does it do!?"
I would love to see...call it 8 herbs? and 6 spices? and how you use them in combination, and what foods you put them on, produces different effects. so, there is a certain level of mastery involved in cooking for effect. Like, food has a natural secondary nature that only appears when you season it.
as an example, if you add Rosemary to chicken by itself, you get chicken's normal effect, and chicken's hidden nature applies to the herb's effect (defense, let's say). If Rosemary affects ice/water, putting it on defensive chicken get's you a +1 to defense against ice/water damage for...5 minutes? - but if eaten with Rosemary and chili flakes (which gives speed), it gives you a +5% movement bonus for 5 minutes whenever you are hit by an ice/water effect any time you are hit with it for the next hour.
which looks confusing, but can be simplified in certain respects - chicken mostly does defensive stuff, Rosemary affects water damage, and chili flakes affect speed. eat just chicken with Chili flakes? +5% move when your hp is at less than half it's total, for 30 minutes.
If salad does status effects, rosemary salad gives immunity to being Frozen. Chili Flake+Rosemary Salad actually doubles your speed when Frozen - useful if you are in snowy areas, assuming you can stand the other problems that come from being Frozen.
Thyme affects martial skills, horse radish does fire, etc.
Cinnamon is a multiplier for the herb, salt doubles the base food effect, but makes it an effect over time - so eating becomes "regen," instead of "healing," for example - black pepper makes your "reflective" - chicken+Rosemary+pepper means you reflect 5% of all Ice damage back to the attacker, or Beef (attack)+horse radish+pepper gives you a damage boost equal to 5% of all the fire damage you've taken.and so on
now, clearly, that's a lot of work, and a lot of balance testing to be done, but it's what I'd love to see.
Some obvious limits - effects that share an ingredient overwrite each other - so you can't eat chicken+rosemary and chicken+horse radish to gain 2 elemental defenses, and you can't eat chicken+rosemary and salad+rosemary to protect against both damage and status effects from cold - you have to pick. You can add only 1 spice, and 1 herb, into each dish.
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Building on specifically the poison idea, it would be cool if one was able to add their own power into poisons, like an illusionist would be able to make a poison that can cause hallucinations.
Also, it would be fun if assassins would also be able to use poisons on their blades. It would make assassination more interesting, especially if the victim has to get an antidote from a healer or something in order to survive.
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To address what goes where - I'd put Chili Peppers in Tartaros, and salt. Bitter and harsh by themselves, but in high demand everywhere for their benefits.
Black Pepper in Synesia makes sense...not as hot as Tartaros, and ubiquitous. Cumin, as well?
Arboreus can take cinnamon, and nutmeg - both organic and tree "based"
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Oh man, I am LOVING these ideas!
@kellewic and @Ladyrowan I had also thought that you would have to find them in the wild first. However, I didn't want to throw out too many specific ideas because I wanted to see what people thought.
@kellewic I LOVE the idea of using them in alchemy/poison making. I hadn't even thought of that. Thanks for bringing it up!
@Ladyrowan I think it would have diminishing returns, especially on your own planet, but that might be a good reason to get it to the other planets' markets. Also, how about plants that can be used for either medicine or poison? Perhaps the most effective medicines' ingredients might be found in the most effective poisons, because the poison maker "corrupts" the life force in the plant.
@TheRippyOne I was thinking along the same lines, just not as detailed as you have there. The thing is, we HAVE to eat, so food with buffs will be more desirable than in other games. In LOTRO, for example, I would carry food around and always forget to use it, because the buff just wasn't that great or necessary. If herbs and spices add buffs in this game, they will be desirable because we have to eat food anyway.
As far as where stuff is located, I was thinking more along the lines of "Trees in Arboreus", "Other plants in Syndesia", (what plants if any in Tartaros?) when I made my suggestions. I LOVE your mention of salt. I hadn't even thought of that. Actually spices from Tartaros might need to be more along the lines of "powdered egg shells from a dangerous predatory bird", "ground bonemeal from a large, dangerous animal", etc. The devs have said that PVE will be tough and dangerous on Tartaros and that would fit right in.
@wolfkomodo46 Man, I LOVE those ideas! As I said earlier, how about the best poisons containing corrupted life force of plants from Arboreus? Gathering those plants would definitely provide one of the limited PVE goals that the devs want demons to have on Arboreus. Also, I think using poisons on blades should give you negative karma, so only evil characters and good/neutral characters wanting negative karma would use them.
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i like games. but i hate games that turn themselves into jobs. I'd hate to have to farm herbs, and other ingredients before making something.
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@jetah You have a good point there but if this gets implemented, I'm sure there would be an option to buy the herbs and spices from other players, so it won't be necessary to farm for them right?
And nice idea, I'd love to have herbs and spices to play around with. They'd be a cool addition!
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@Jetah Actually, I'd rather farm them than having to scrounge for them in the wild, which is what you have to do in LOTRO, for example.
@unicon That's exactly what I thought. People who want to have gardens would have them, then sell the herbs. Conversely, people who want to hunt for spices outside of town would do that, then sell the spices. Not every food would need herbs and spices, just the best foods. And thanks for the kind words!
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When economies are set up then everything should be for sale, and apothecaries will be no different. I would assume that only rare herbs and spices might be player controlled and the only place to grow them would be in contestable PvP areas.
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I believe one of the reasons devs usually spread these things around the world instead of allowing the farming of them is to promote exploration, and I feel like that element should still be present in Fractured in some way. Maybe finding wild herbs and spices should be the primary way to harvest seeds? Then that harvester can use those seeds in their own garden or sell them. For example: harvesting farmed herbs have a 20% chance to yield a seed, but wild herbs will have on average 5 seeds. This opens up a possibility of a seed market that relies on exploration.
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or i kill the trader or the person doing the gathering. the more mechanics in game the more things have to get done.
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@Mazikar @Target @Jetah I think I didn't make myself clear enough that herb gardens and spices would be quite different. Herb gardens would be in town and would probably originate from seeds harvested from the outside world (although maybe after the first planting, seeds could be harvested from the garden itself). Spices would always be found in the wild, and could not be cultivated domestically. Thus, spice hunting would always be a function of exploration.
This might work out well in the PVP worlds, because you wouldn't need a wagon to haul around to carry the spices in, since they are very light, thus making yourself less of a target.
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@needlehawk
i see.makes me wonder if we'll get some indoor garden, like spices, while also having outside gardens. It'd be neat to find seeds for any plant instead of directly harvesting the plant.
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I like this idea.
But make it so you have to harvest plants in the wild for a chance to get seeds. Or maybe even make it like certain plants will only have seeds in certain seasons.
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i like the idea, i think that as many more materials, we can find and use, the more the world will be immersive and interesting.
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Hmmm, a garden in cellar where one can grow some (illegal) herbs...
But if NPC guards catch you with those on your way to town market, they should attack you on sight.
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But culd we add any herbs or spice to a plate or something ? Each herbs/spice could have a different effect depending of what you add (a positive, as a negative effect). It could be fun to sell some poisoned food to others >:3
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@jetah just be sure to not eat the herbs when you devour the corpses of your enemies XD might be tastier, but you want to use them when you need them XD
