I've thought for a very, very long time that some form of farming or gardening would be an interesting side game for EQ2. Something that allows us to spend some time and effort to make something....that we could probably out perform by just wandering around overland zones clicking on nodes. It really isn't the efficiency that would be the draw here, it would be the activity itself. Watching something that we "build" grow and mature to its final outcome would be satisfying it and of itself. Of course there would be a reward for doing so, but not something so great that everybody wants to do it. First I think this has to be split into at least 2 different basic activities. Farms can produce all manner of plants, including growing trees for harvest. Animals can also be raised in pens or fields for meat and leather. Unfortunately metals and gems can't be grown on anything other than using magic of some kind to create them. So I'd prefer to have mining as a separate mini-game. Farming (and mining) should require the player to either rent or outright purchase land. Since there are titles in the game why not make the size of farm dependent on title owned? Renting is a straight plat for 1 year of rent. Purchasing the property could either be plat + status and/or a market purchase. There would also be initial purchases of seed, livestock and building materials, plus hired labor that needs to be paid weekly (and can be laid off weekly). Initial construction of buildings, pens, fencing and land prep should be performed by the player + hired labor. Hired labor removes a number of "click" type activity that a player could perform themselves (if they are cheap). There should be a planning portion of each construction that the player must perform. Once the planning is finished the player needs to purchase materials needed for construction and can either grind out a lot of work orders or hire various qualities of NPCs to finish the project. Like lets say that each worker removes 10 combines from the 1000 combines needed to finish a barn. The player is given an option to hire 0-50 general laborers for a few copper each, 0-30 novice carpenters for a few silver each, 0-10 journeymen carpenters for a few gold each, and 0-10 master carpenters for a few plat each. Generally speaking farm activities should be planned around a 3 month cycle. For crops that represents a lot of labor in the first week to prep and plant, a small amount of labor to water, feed and weed the crops until the 3rd month where a lot of labor is needed to harvest. Seasonal plants should produce 1 kind of food ingredient + roots for the matching tier. For plants that last for several seasons the first season should produce no returns. After that the trees should require 2 months of minimal care and 1 month of harvest level care. The 2nd season might only provide 50%, with an additional 25% per season after that till it reaches 100% production. Some wood could be gathered during harvest season as well, but not a lot. If the lot is cleared it should produce a lot of wood. From an efficiency perspective clearing the lot every season would probably produce the most wood for time invested, but 3 seasons for money invested. For animals there would be continuous care needed per animal, which includes feed that could be paid in either coin or appropriate raw resources. On a per animal basis the decision could be made to slaughter each for meat and leather. A player should be able to get a rough estimate of how much they will get from each animal. Some minor problems with overcrowding and disease would probably be good. Diseased animals should be moved to their own pens to prevent the disease from spreading. While diseased the animal should experience negative growth until cured. Diseases should be magic resistant because magic is really common in EQ2. Ideally there should be various quality levels of workers that can be hired. Better workers produce better results. Either they reduce the chance of something bad happening, or give better results. Some workers should be easy to hire, like from a tradeskill representative NPC in each major city for the most common. Some should be quest rewards, and a few should be faction related. Being able to get crops should also be related to doing quests, or alternatively craft seeds from raw materials. Also some random events, both good and bad should happen. Maybe storms do some damage that needs to be fixed. Maybe wild animals eat some crops. Maybe collectables are unearthed, or one of the "weeds" turns out to be a rare plant (maybe even a potted plant?). Mining would be more of a gambling activity. The player purchases the mineral rights to a plot of land. Then the player gets to wander the land and chooses a spot to place his mine. He chooses what devices he wants his mine crew to use, and the workers that go into the crew. The gamble is how much material is in the area the mine is set up in? If it is a shallow deposit then the money spent on the machines and crew won't match the output. If it is a rich deposit then the crew might be there a long time....but the longer the operation continues the more problems there will be. Monsters and bandits can be attracted to long running mining operations. Say an increasing chance every week. Both can be handled by the crew but it has a chance of killing or injuring crew which will cause decreases in production. Guards can handle attacks better than the crew, but its a significant cost for no extra production. The crew will also slow in production the longer the job lasts. Say after 90 days the crew looses 10% production per week which can be offset by various activities to raise moral. The initial process of finding a mining location could use various gnomish made devices, with various costs. The more reliable the more expensive of course.
LOL>...Archeage ? I just think they need to figure a way to make player made items unique and valuable. (not something easily replaced by treasure loot). This would make even mundane tasks seem worth it.
