Topic

How can we make community gardens work better?

Community gardens is such a lovely idea in theory, but in practice the gardens are often picked and not replanted, and I've seen a lot of frustration over this both in chats and notes left on the ground in the gardens (which range from polite "Try to replant!" reminders to "Why is everyone in these gardens such a jerk!?" rants).

It seems to me that the absolute genius of Glitch is that it makes it more profitable to work together than against each other.  You can see this all over the place, from the bonus rocks when you mine with someone, to the random kindness objects.  But that mechanism is missing from community gardens: the game doesn't reward you more for being nice, so many people (understandably) choose to forgo the time and expense of replanting.

I figure a brainstorming session is in order: what kind of mechanics could make community gardens a truly communal activity?  I have a few ideas, but I bet there's way better ones out there.  What do you think?

My ideas:
- you could get bonus imagination for planting in a garden that is not your own
- badges for planting in other people's gardens (similar to the Bowser badge for replacing other players' fuel cells)

Posted 5 months ago by WaxandFeathers Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • That's the thing, you already get imagination and occasional prizes for working a garden, right through planting.  Anybody who just harvests and leaves is doing a total disservice to themselves!  Except, that it is time consuming.  The rewards of working a garden do not always outweigh the time and key-presses it takes to do so, even when it's your own garden.
    Posted 5 months ago by Carl Projectorinski Subscriber! | Permalink
  • How about down-scaling the number of drops we get from harvesting and up-scaling the number we get from clearing and planting? For those of us who do all the actions the total outcome would be no different but it might encouage others to do more.
    Posted 5 months ago by Captain Daisy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • at least in the clearing of the garden we should find seeds might get more people to atleast clean the plots.
    Posted 5 months ago by satarell Subscriber! | Permalink
  • what Carl says about rewards being in place for planting is true but too many people don't look beyond the immediate gain of the "free stuff"  that they can see since the drops for clearing, planting & watering are hidden.  there are also 6 badges for increasing numbers of crops & herbs planted, which ought to serve as another incentive to replant.  i have to disagree with the drawback of spending time doing the job since everything takes time, whether is is gardening, cooking, mining, whatever.  if time is money, then you are getting what you pay for - more work=more rewards. 

    all I can predict is that people who don't understand the "genius" of the game and view it as a race to get the most "stuff" will move on to something else.  maybe the new tutorial will make it clearer to new players that a little kindness starts a chain reaction that grows as it spreads.  

    finally, if all else fails, a gnome reminding people that the butler is now "taking names" and a if certain name shows up every time a garden is left unplanted then that person might find him/herself blocked from that street.  
    Posted 5 months ago by armi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Perhaps if there were guidelines posted (like note poles) in the community gardens.
    When I first started playing, I had no seeds for herbs. So I harvested, kept half the plants, shucked the other half and planted them. I met amazing people who gave me seeds which helped. if there was too many of one plant I sometimes left the plants lying beside the beds. Now, I would plant them so others could reap the benefits of harvesting. I always bring some seeds with me to plant or give away. I still go to the gardens just to clear and water and wind up with various "bonus" drops. But like good manners & community spirit, I don't think it can be enforced. Some people are just "jerks".
    Posted 5 months ago by Patricia Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think community gardens are working just fine.   I spent the last month working on my Überculturalist badge by visiting all the community herb gardens on a daily basis.   There were very few cases where I had to clean up before planting.    In the few situations where I did have to hoe, I usually got a few music blocks out of it.   I wasn't worried about how many herbs I could harvest because the badge is for planting.  I probably didn't get much back from my planting but I was able to get the badge in a relatively short space of time despite that I have no herb gardens on my home streets.   I logged in maybe once every earth day and hit up all the gardens (including the community gardens in the towers).  Often they were already planted but rarely did I see a mess left behind.
    Posted 5 months ago by Treesa Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I did try to focus on planting purple flowers simply because they grow faster.  I wasn't planning on coming back in a few hours to harvest (too time consuming) but at least I wasn't monopolizing the plots by planting yellow flowers.  The limited amount of space in the gardens seems more of an issue to me than the issue of leaving a mess behind.
    Posted 5 months ago by Treesa Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I try to plant variety: different plants mature at different times, so there's less of a chance that one person will be able to come by and take everything without replanting.  More likely that different people will come by and find different little goodies.

    I joined the herb garden route expecting the worst, but I've actually had a good experience!  Sometimes I come home and my gardens are completely empty, but more often they are getting replanted.
    Posted 5 months ago by Miss Portinari Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I don't see that much can be done about gardens on home streets, but TS could conceivably up the quality of the random drops from the actual community gardens to make it really worthwhile to hoe, water and replant
    Posted 5 months ago by chilirlw Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Whilst I would never personally harvest a public garden without replanting I have to say that for me the time it takes IS a drawback, or at least it was until I got the upgrades for watering and hoeing time - they make all the difference.

    Before I got those I would frequently pass by gardens full of harvestable stuff just because I simply didn't have the game time to tend them. In fact I even used to regularly ignore my own private gardens full of stuff! The fact is that It was much quicker to harvest pigs and more interesting to wander... so I do think that's a factor.
    Posted 5 months ago by geekybird Subscriber! | Permalink
  • One problem I often see (not really on the Crop Route itself), but I often run across streets with crop gardens, and no piggies! I always replant if I can, but I rarely carry around crop seeds (I rely on the piggies). I have actually gone out of my way to donate piggies to a few of these streets, but it just seems like common sense to have at least one piggy if you're gonna have a crop garden. *rant over* ;)
    Posted 5 months ago by Chazerei Subscriber! | Permalink
  • For me, I've noticed that some activities take more processing power per keystroke than others, and gardening is one that is a high drain on my computer (possibly because it is so easy to go from one patch to the next so quickly, that they add up, even with a time delay enforced -- I don't know).  I still love to garden, but barely.  My point is that different people experience this differently, and have patience for some things and not others, and since gardening seems right on the edge for me I can relate (at least a little) to those who just harvest and move on.

    Oh yeah, and the process of getting seeds from pigs, while awesome, also adds another cumbersome layer to the whole thing, even when the pigs are present!  Of course, for some of us, that extra layer gives us variety.

    Either way, I still think it's rude to not at least rake and water the beds.
    Posted 5 months ago by Carl Projectorinski Subscriber! | Permalink