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Best harvesting system?
CistaCista
Member Posts: 26
Hi, I am arrived at a stage where I want to find the game with the best harvesting system since I like to explore and harvest, especially plants. Let me try and explain exactly what I am looking for.
I liked the harvesting in WoW because each plant species was immediately identifiable. I don't want each node to be a generic "shrub" or generic "ore" and then you get some random item from a loot table. But WoW had that portion right, unfortunately WoW is heavily zoned so you can only get the more interesting plants if you are high level, and there aren't any especially rare plants I believe?
I looked at Everquest 2 videos today and I like how it looks, very well done, unfortunately the shrubs and ores come in generic nodes.
So my ideal harvesting system is like this:
1) plant species identifiable before harvesting
2) very special/rare plants to be found
3) more or less open world that I can explore even if I am not max level.
The one game I found that gets these things absolutely right is Mortal Online, I loved exploring it for awile but that game has too many other problems, so I am done there.
Can you recommend me other games that get at least 2 of my 3 criteria right?
Or, which is your favorite game for harvesting?
Comments
hmm. for those criteria, maybe Ryzom or Fallen Earth?
Thanks !
I used to play Fallen Earth and I was actually considering starting that one up again too.
I was in Ryzom just 2 days ago! I went throught the starter zone, but I didn't see anything harvestable plants/shrubs/ore there at all, only the green goo stuff?
I do remember tracking migrating herds of wildlife which I thought was cool.
try dragon's prophet
theres about 350 different crafting materials and it's only game i know where crafting actually matters(best items ingame can be gained only thru crafting).
you can gather plants/wood/ores around the map, you can kill monsters to extract meat/leather/cloth/gems. you can extract gears for crafting materials, you can send dragon to gather materials for you.
so theres 7 types of materials that change every 10 levels(plants, wood, ores, meat, leather, cloth. gems(white/green/blue materials and more green that you can craft from other materials, haven't seen diff color materials yet)
you can find recipes from monsters or extracting gears/potions, can craft them all don't have to chose only one craft from 10 like other games(game have weaponsmith, armorsmith, alchemy, chef, tinkerer, carpenter), you can have higher lvl crafting than your actual level.
its not open world, but u can tame flying dragon and travel to different zones (in housing area can find any level crafting materials)
farming materials have chance to get blue materials for blue recipes, but they are not really rare
difference in trees/ores/plants are small but noticable if play longer.
Perfect world game also have material harvesting (lots of diff plants, wood, coal, ore, metal and from monsters - glue,leather, thread, oil). Open world, dont have special mats to harvest(only boss drops in instances) and i found it boring. also not able to craft or gather higher lvl materials so open world wouldn't give you anything
and crafting doesn't rly have a point in game, can ask some1 else to craft items/potions for you.
i would say best harvesting systems i know has AC2 and ryzom, but neither is not quite what you want, because no "nods" are actually visible - you have to find them using skills.
(best mining for me has wurm online
)
I really like Vendetta Online's harvesting system, which can be broken down into 2 parts (mining and scavenging). There are some unique things about each that I personally haven't seen another MMO do.
Mining
Equip a mining beam, fly close to a rock, target, and pull the trigger. You'll begin harvesting ore canisters based on the rock's mineral content %s. Certain asteroids containing particular minerals have certain appearances (1). Here's the really unique thing: mining generates heat. The hotter an asteroid becomes, the more slowly you'll extract ore. Different kinds of mining beams generate different amounts of heat, and different types of asteroids distribute this heat differently. If an asteroid is more massive, for example, it will heat up much more slowly, but it will also cool down more slowly. If an asteroid is made of a certain type of material, it will radiate heat more efficiently than another asteroid of the same mass.
This leads to all sorts of interesting mining tactics, such as scanning an asteroid belt for groups of asteroids containing a common mineral, moving around from place to place, setting certain target temperatures to mine at, etc. I've seen conflict erupt over territory and simple things like "Hey, who mined my favorite asteroid up to 500 Kelvin???"
Essentially, this means that different resource areas have different extractability profiles; an asteroid may contain a high percentage of extremely rare ore (2), but if it is not very massive and radiates heat very quickly, what does that do to its player-value? This kind of asteroid would have a totally different profile than one that contains a very low percentage of the same rare ore and is very massive.
Overall, it's a very peaceful but active career... although it can be violent or deadly in certain instances. One word I would use to sum it up would be: memorable.
I also like the fact that Vendetta uses all the ore types in manufacturing; therefore you're not just reaping ore to sell on the dynamic market (unless this is your goal): you're gathering resources that can be used to build major player-owned capship (and, in the future, station) components.
Scavenging
NPC AI will often mine ore, and will collect this ore into the hold of the ship that has been mining. This leads to an alternative way to collect premium ore: destroy the ships that are mining it.* Certain types of "Hive" ships will also drop certain components or weaponry that are very useful (in the video I linked to the player is using a weapon that can only be scavenged from "Arklan" Guardians, which inhabit a very particular part of space). This gives an incentive to players to explore (3) and operate in corners of space that perhaps might appear to have little value to other players.
The Hives will also expand and contract based on the pressures various players place on them: this can lead to interesting "culling of the herds" that take place over time, with some valuable areas of space remaining largely unaffected and others changing dramatically through various periods.
Hope this helps.
* the Hive ships the player is targeting in the video I linked to are serving as staging depots for the mined ore before transport to the local Hive Queen. Other AI ships can be seen in the video, moving from asteroid to asteroid as the ore is gathered.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
Thanks for all the great input everybody
Update:
I am now playing Wurm Online, and I am totally in love with this game, which I wouldn't have thought at all!
Re. herbing, unfortunately they blew it by not having the herbs actually visible in the landscape, you just rightclick any tile you happen to be standing on grrrrumble. And also the herbs you find are drawn from a generic loot table, doesn't matter what part of the world you are in ... another grumble. Finally, nobody is interested in buying any herbs, since at most they can be used for cooking food... and any herb will do.
Herbs suck in this game.
There is however 14 different TREE species to cut down, and the wood from each has different strengths. For bowyery willow is the best tree, and there are not many of them, for fletching arrows it is cedar and maple I think that are the best. For other purposes oak is the best tree, and oak is considered the most valuable overall. There is a very intricate system deciding which trees grow where, they take a long time to mature, and they also outcompete each other on the ecological level. And of course people run around chopping the best of them down.
So I am considering a career as a selective tree harvester!