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Staff Topic

An Experiment: Posting an Internal Design Proposal

I've always been curious about posting a detailed description of some change we are merely considering in order to get advanced feedback on it (and, to ward of some of the "Why didn't you tell us!?!?!" in the case that we actually do implement it).

So, with that in mind, here's an internal design proposal document titled Food Freshness & Quality which I made over the weekend. It's unexpurgated (excepting removal of links to other documents or images that you wouldn't be able to get to) and it was written for an internal audience so some of the terminology might be weird.

To be totally clear: this is just a something we are considering. We may do it and we may not do it. Your feedback is welcome (but we still may do it even if lots of people say they hate it and we still might not do it even if lots of people say they love it). It is one of dozens of specs, some of which are for things that we are in the middle of implementing and some of which we might never do. Like I said, just an experiment!

Posted 17 months ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • I really appreciate you sharing with us testers these potential ideas--it's what I generally love about beta testing/game development in general, however, like many have voiced, I really am opposed to the idea of having food that we've wasted so much time/energy gathering deteriorate while we're not online especially.

    We play games to escape reality (or procrastinate a bit) and we'd like it to be as enjoyable as possible... The last thing I want is to throw out spoiled food in my in-game fridge, when I probably do that more often than not IRL, lol.

    Also, as a newbie, I've already found it rather difficult to stabilize mood/energy, so this would just compound the negative game play experiences one might have in the beginning especially.
    Posted 17 months ago by Eden Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I don't like this idea at all.  I like that I can just play the game at leisure and I don't have to worry about things going bad.  That is why I have quit playing all the blasted facebook games where crops went bad, constant begging etc.  

    I want to play Glitch cause I want to play not cause I have to play.
    Posted 17 months ago by Cabinwood Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I don't like this at all...don't want this game to become a chore...that is why I stopped playing those Facebook games and came to this one.
    Posted 17 months ago by GarthBnut Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Alas, I can't decide whether I like the idea or not!

    I am generally extremely fond of items turning into other items (e.g. shaking butterfly milk to get cheese) and I wouldn't mind time changing them instead of me clicking. But the outcome should be positive (and as different from RL as possible!).
    As many have said before in this thread, I wouldn't like the idea of feeling forced to play in order to keep the food fresh and edible.

    If rotten food could be used for more than just composting to make fertilizer I would like the idea of foodfreshness a lot more. Maybe Rube could trade rare and special items for extremely rotten food. Or if you add a butterfly egg to a pile of rotten fruit a different colour caterpillar will hatch from it.

    If food quality is decreased over time let it not be a punishment but an opportunity to have even more fun!
    Posted 17 months ago by Mina Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I feel the same as the last couple of people. I just want to eat for energy. Not having to worry about  whether I need to eat it now or not, as it's going off. Plus If I have to trek to get berries to help the top up energy/freshness of my food. Is the energy I use getting the berries negating the energy I lost on the food in the first place? Plus if the food goes off  all you will do it only make it when you need to eat it then and there. 
    Posted 17 months ago by Misha Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks for sharing upcoming ideas...
    I think it could make the game more challenging, which could be fun, and I especially like the composting idea. That might offset the whole "where's the guano and how hard is it to harvest?" issue. Farmers could sell fertilizer. Maybe make that something that you can't get at vendors. I recently left farming for mining, because I wanted more quoins. Farmers do have more cashflow problems. I hope food won't spoil while I'm out of the game. Also will crafted goods:sauces, cheese plates, omelettes,  beverages, seasoned eggs and beans stay fresh, or as fresh as their original ingredients? I think they should. Will eggs and cherries go bad? How about bubbles? Are we just talking about crops? A banana is made from cherries, isn't it? is it a crafted good?
    Posted 17 months ago by sakmet Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Sounds like it would turn into a chore for me to play if our food is going to go bad in our bags.Not fun at all !
    Posted 17 months ago by Tilly Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think this idea should be extended to animals and plants. Players could get regular reminders like "Your pig is aging. It won't be around much longer". Then you would get messages like "Your pig is now elderly. It forgets things and sometimes it smells bad." And after that you would be told "Your pig has died. Everything dies. One day you will be all alone." Then you'd have to buy a special shovel to bury the pig's corpse.

    This would help add realism to the game and remind us that not everything can be fun.
    Posted 17 months ago by Tanga Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Tanga 
    that's is just ridicules, sorry but it is. Who on earth would you want to play a game that teaches you things are not always fun. I only need to go out the house for half a hour to figur that one out !
    Posted 17 months ago by Misha Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think the concern for new players is definitely a valid one.  What about if food freshness/spoilage only came into play after learning a certain skillset, "Culinary Connoisseur" or something like that.  The skillset would allow you to harvest super fresh items (and thus get extra benefits from food you harvest) but also would result in items spoiling.  This way, new players don't have to worry about food spoiling, but more advanced players can decide to make it a part of their gameplay and receive the benefits of super fresh foods and perhaps other bonuses.  Paired with cooking skills, players with this skill could make "fresher" versions of various recipes which provide more nourishment and perhaps some mood boosts.

    Also I think it would be interesting for there to be some more varied uses for foods at various levels of spoilage.  Fermentation to create various beverages for example, grain > beer, berries > wine, etc.  And perhaps rotten food could become a very powerful fertilizer, so when you "lose" food all is not lost.  Maybe feeding funky foods to pigs could also have interesting effects, resulting in more seeds produced, or something like that.  I like the idea of a compost bin or something you could throw food in to improve the growth of your garden.

    I think one of Glitch's strong points is that "death" in this game is fun and entertaining.  I'd like to see something similar with food spoilage.  Add it to the game because it does add some richness and dimension to the gameplay, BUT make it fun even when you "lose" some food to spoilage, maybe even give some incentives to let food spoil every now and then.
    Posted 17 months ago by KittenKat Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Misha I think Tanga is being sarcastic. The "one day you will be all alone" kinda gives it away.
    Posted 17 months ago by Victoria Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thank you Stoot for the opportunity to give feedback on this.   Although I love this game, and plan to play as much as possible, real life sometimes gets in the way. I feel somewhat negative about coming into the game and finding spoiled/rotten items, seems too much like real life, and not FUN.  On the other hand the degrade rates seem fair, and I love the fridge idea.  I would have to see the impact on energy use to garden/cook vs spoilage.  One good thing, this may curb my tendency to hoard.
     There certainly is a good deal of food for thought here and  I have enjoyed reading all the opinions!

    +1 for Tiiberries Morticia :)
    Posted 17 months ago by welshcorgi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • All in all, my concern here will be impact. What kind of impact would food/drink degradation have on the overall gameplay? Specifically, I will address Stoot's effects and rationale, adding possible scenarios that may occur.

    make the cooking skills more valuable (since cooking/processing increases quality/freshness, giving an energy bonus)

    Others have highlighted concerns over auctions and I echo this since it will be quite disheartening for me to put something up only to have it degrade and not sell. While the food will be above fresh for about 8 hours (24 quality/3 per hour online), would we have the option to set the auction timers? I really do not want to spend time micromanaging the auction so that food will not spoil. Another key concern that I have is with the stack changes. I assume this will be automatically calculated for me because I do not want to spend time on stats in my spare time. This brings me to Stoot’s next point.

    require that food resources move more quickly through the ecosystem

    What would moving food quickly through the ecosystem do for gameplay? To me, it would seem stressful and increase the speed of gameplay rather than promote the Zen-ness that I love about Glitch. Given the stack feature, will this not mean that people will sell the cheapest food to make in order to maximize profit? If all I need is a bunch of maxfresh food to refresh my stack’s quality, there might be the unintended consequence of auctions being flooded with… I don’t know … meat? Would this not mean that animal husbandry will be more valuable than cooking? (Edit to add: Okay so meat starts at 75, but you get the point)

    create an opportunity to make better versions of existing tools and potentially interesting upgrade paths

    Of all the rationale, this to me seems the most compelling. If I can have skills or tools that allow me to halt the degradation of my food, then I might switch my skill-learning strategies around. For instance, if I can create a fridge from Engineering II to counteract the effects of decay or create snazzy tools - Tinkering 5 will not seem like a dud.

    create a need for upgraded storage

    As noted above, having skills that can augment storage can be useful. If these skills can augment bags, it will be pretty interesting too.

    create a larger possibility space of strategies where players can make interesting decisions about food

    I think this is a big change to gameplay. This change will require a lot of testing and feedback so that you can see the effects on overall gameplay. Changing the nature of food at this point will impact other skills and possibly prices of items, and I imagine people will have to adjust their gameplay.

    give a rationale for a new fundamental resource (powerberries)

    In terms of value, could powerberries be absurdly valuable such that individuals could corner the market? Balancing this will be tricky to say the least.

    give new life (and more longevity) to existing items by making them less same old, same old

    I’m honestly not sure about this. There are certainly pros and cons to the idea, but to reiterate, this seems to be a fundamental change to one’s gameplay on the whole. Regardless, micromanaging every aspect of the game is not going to be enjoyable, and knowing this will decrease my interest and enjoyment, which could mean less play time or maybe not play altogether. Afterall, it was never fun to micromanage crops in FV. Yes, the 8m daily active users prove me wrong but there is also -900k weekly “growth” (allfacebook.com).

    tl;dr - The suggested changes will require extended testing to ascertain impact on overall game play
    Posted 17 months ago by Anty-pants Subscriber! | Permalink
  • PHEW well that's ok then lol :)
    Posted 17 months ago by Misha Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Bravo AntyPants for the detailed and very interesting reply!  Hitting the nail on the head really in respect of the potential for micro management.  Don't think I want to have to contend with this in my fun time!
    Posted 17 months ago by ♥joby♥ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Nice summary, AntyPants!

    I can see where perishable food would discourage hoarding. Is the game economy oversupplied with people holding mass quantities of food? 

    For simple survival, I'm imagining this affects middle-level players the most.  At start, you're eating food as fast as you can get it.  Once you've passed a certain skill point, you can get food fairly easily - mining/sell/buy, RHK, farm, whatever your choice.  Spoilage potential is an inconvenience, but manageable because one has resources.

    The auctions issue is a real puzzler here. 
    Posted 17 months ago by Lelu Subscriber! | Permalink
  • An interesting and logical idea.  I would like to test it.  I wonder what the reaction would be when i dump near rotten food in a shrine.  I like the idea of a refrigerator.  I don't like the idea of items in my cupboard spoiling or of anything in or out of inventory spoiling between tests.  Spoilage should stop when the game closes and begin again when it opens.  I don't mind some spoilage while I am offline after the game is 24/7 though that would be a hardship for people who work full time and/or have families that they do love to spend time with.  If we can purchase refrigerators I hope that they can hold as much as my cabinet.
    Posted 17 months ago by Brib Annie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I have to put in my two cents here... There seems to be the idea that new players must be coddled, given gift bags to start.. We need to be tough... learn by doing and without someone holding your hand. This dumbing down is what has resulted in kids today who don't even know how to blow their own noses.. Make the game tough... Give us a challenge... We who face dementia need a stimulus, not a candy coated baby game.
    Posted 17 months ago by napabeth Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I would like to propose a food item that could be crafted only with ingredients that are past peak to kinda funky: the MRE, meal ready to eat. MRE's would convey the same or nearly the same energy boost as a fresh product, but would result in a mild to medium mood loss.
    I like this better than less nutritious awesome stews coming from off peak resources...I think the best foods should only be makeable with peak fresh stuff.

    Making jerky out of past peak foods only would be cool too, and leathers. Crazy stuff like spinach jerky or whorteberry leather.

    This would also give more options to folks who don't have or want to have houses/fridges.
    Posted 17 months ago by Nanookie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ok, well I love the idea of a workable fridge, however, my how much I love said fridge would depend on A) Can I put big bags into it? ie full big bags of milk, or meat, B) How big the said fridge is. C) Can I have more one fridge? The spoilage thing doesn't overly concern me because I will be here most of the time, but can see others points in not being good, I would hate to see it compared to FV. But I do like the idea of new things to collect and craft.
    So I guess until when or if its implented, its all just a big bag of wonderment, either way i'll give it go :)
    Posted 17 months ago by ~Annie~ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • First off... the freshest (greenest) bananas should be a lower quality, then ripen, THEN start to degrade! ;)

    My immediate concern is for those of us who stockpile things like bubbles, spice, meat, milk and cherries. It takes a LONG time to collect enough of these things to be able to bring them to projects and share, and if my first cherries are starting to rot when I start whipping up those 100 Cloudberry Smoothies for a new street... it's going to be pretty frustrating.

    Also, how would mailing/auctions work?

    My gut reaction is that, while it sounds like it could add an interesting dimension to the game, the biggest effect would be frustration and an increased sense of scarcity that isn't in the game now... I'm able to whip up a half-dozen stacks of things like Juicy Carpaccios and dole them out to struggling lower-level players as I move around during the day, and it makes me feel great. I'd be kind of a douche if I dumped a bunch of rotting snacks on a newbie. Maybe I'm just kind of a Pollyanna, but anything that ultimately decreases generosity feels wrong to me.

    And thanks so much for including us in this phase... it's VERY cool to get a sneak peek into the TS idea process!
    Posted 17 months ago by Lilith Subscriber! | Permalink
  • After having slept on the idea, I realized I really don't like it (and of course I was joking about changing my mind to follow my friends). One concern is that if everything is timed, some of us with OCD will start writing down when they bought/ made food to know when to use it before it goes bad. Of course, that could just be me. questions like "did I buy that chili on Friday or Saturday?". this is assuming we're talking RL time, not game hours, which would def confuse some people. I'm feeling more and more like what people have already said: it feels like work and too much like RL.
    Posted 17 months ago by bored no more Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I like this idea :) It saves bag space and a better way to organize the food/drinks I have now, but may not need right away.
    Posted 17 months ago by Demaria Subscriber! | Permalink
  • HA! Nanookie, we should be able to feed kinda funky food to the pigs too.
    And I literally LOLed when I read the description 'Kinda Funky'. 
    Posted 17 months ago by Lelu Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Nice, napabeth, tough love...
    But yes, the game will be boring if not challenging... 
    It does, however seem that the gardening career path is taking more hits than some of the others....
    Posted 17 months ago by sakmet Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 @ Nanookie's idea for a recipe that requires "kinda funky" ingredients :)
    Posted 17 months ago by Victoria Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I don't think cherries should spoil, they are part of the base resources...they are like elements, or something. Stuff made from them, sure, but they themselves deserve a kind of platonic purity and imperviousness.
    Posted 17 months ago by Nanookie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Some great points (both pro and con) already been made here. These additions to gameplay would surely change our aspect to gardening and cooking, perhaps putting our little glitchy brains into to overload. Would selling food stuffs on auction require a sell by date on them or would the items remain at the peak of freshness while on sale. I would hate to chase down a fellow player because he sold me a rotten banana and demand my currents back. As in RL I have to clean out my fridge, now I may have to clean my glitchy fridge and wonder what was in that bowl of green gray matter lost in the back, just saying...this could get interisting.
    Posted 17 months ago by miskey Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Let me eat my moldy food!

    The more I read, the more it sounds like Farmville. I hate it. Give me a way to be creative, not tied to the rate of rot.
    Posted 17 months ago by 1padme Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 Nanookie on the cherries ;-)  Maybe this is a way to go, for all the basic foods. 
    Posted 17 months ago by ♥joby♥ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • And again, I agree with Nanookie! I like to cook, so I carry a lot of "base ingredients" with me. Meat, butterfly milk, cherries, allspice, vegetables from my garden. So that I can make any dish anytime I want and only have to make the needed spices and fruits on the spot. Only prepared dishes and changed fruit should spoil.

    This strongly reminds me of The Sims though...
    Posted 17 months ago by Victoria Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ladies and GentleGlitches, I give you lutefisk.
    Posted 17 months ago by Lelu Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Just had another thought regarding this degrade/decay business: if food/plants/herbs degrade and decay,it would mean that we would have to stop and prepare food more often,but in smaller amounts,that means either lugging around food prep tools everywhere you go,or frequent trips 'home' to restock.Storage is very limited when out and about,plus you need space to put the things you find/earn along the way (such as rocks and gems when mining)so you really don't want to lug around fruitchangers,pots,pans,blenders etc... the alternative would be frequent trips 'home',which means a lot of time walking,riding the sub,or teleporting...!
    Posted 17 months ago by ~Scilly~ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @ Lelu, ROFLMBO!!! Thanks for the laugh! =)
    Posted 17 months ago by ~Scilly~ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Haha, Lelu - my family is Scandinavian... and even WE won't eat lutefisk.
    Posted 17 months ago by jasbo Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I have tried lutefisk.  I "ran, very fast, far, far away."  I may be doing the same in Glitch.
    Posted 17 months ago by 1padme Subscriber! | Permalink
  • ROFLMBO, thanks Lelu; the write up just hit the right humorous spot with me! ;-)
    Posted 17 months ago by ♥joby♥ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Korean chimchi comes to mind if you want a good use for rotten vegetables....It is an acquired taste like 1000 year old Chinese fermented duck eggs with the duck inside. 
    Posted 17 months ago by napabeth Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 Nanookie re: base foods

    @miskey: The thought of clearing out my Glitch fridge rings too true to life and makes me cringe

    @SG5: Indeed, I lug all my tools all over the place as it is. Could we just have supreme tool(s) that you can craft ala LotRo? The key idea is to have several tools (grill/pan/board) into one that you can create. Makes Tinkering 5 very useful.
    Posted 17 months ago by Anty-pants Subscriber! | Permalink
  • maybe if the "deep freeze" stopped decay completely i'd be ok with this. That way I could logoff and come back and still have food in storage. Spoiled food should be able to be combined with guano to make double the fertilizer. gives us something to do with bad food and lightens the gardeners load. maybe in combination with a compost pile. I think a composting skill would fit in with glitch very well.
    Posted 17 months ago by Tarod Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If I wanted to play Farmville, I'd join Facebook.

    Really.  If the real world interferes with my lower-priority on-line gaming experience, then the longer I'm away, the lower the probability that I'll come back.  Who wants a house full of rotten food??

    I'm fine with the option to put everything in stasis when you leave the game, and flip the switch on again when you log back in.  But if I thought I was coming back to a bunch of useless items, I probably wouldn't bother. 

    I'm also OK  with the alternative to keep the basic harvested items (cherries, allspice, grain, meat, eggs, bubbles, etc) in the 100% state, and have the crafted items degenerate while you are gone.  But not so much as the on/off switch. 

    I resent games that are deliberately designed to punish me (by taking away value from my previous efforts) if I don't spend as much time in the game as the developers think I should.   Their definition of "optimal" frequently clashes with the struggles and problems that I contend with off line. I don't need my  'fun' to be as much of a struggle as my real life. 
    Posted 17 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • More food for thought:

    It would be nice if totally rotten food had good value for something else. What if engineers had an extremely high interest in rotten food, for example? Or if rotten food was the main ingredient for laying ground in new streets? Well, you get the idea.
    Posted 17 months ago by Ximenez Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I resent games that are deliberately designed to punish me (by taking away value from my previous efforts) if I don't spend as much time in the game as the developers think I should.

    This! For once I completely agree with WindBorn.

    I stopped playing several social games when I realised that I had to log in frequently just to keep my stuff from rotting. If Glitch goes this way, either I'll never do any gardening/cooking and buy only enough food for the day that I'm logged in, or I'll lose interest in the game.
    Posted 17 months ago by Fussycat Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree with WindBorn and the conclusion of Fussycat.
    Posted 17 months ago by Aero Subscriber! | Permalink
  • To be honest the whole thing seems totally unnecessary. Sometimes I do not eat food for weeks because I have a lot of food because I was going to go mining but got distracted and never went back.

    It just seems like a part of the game where I will leave for a few days, open my bag and cringe because something rotted in my bag. If I want to clean out rotting food I wait till the summer and clear lockers not video games.

    However the idea of Rooks degrading things by their presence would be a neat alternative. The longer you stay in Rooked land the more deterioration.

    Thank you for showing us all this though.
    Posted 17 months ago by Ani Laurel Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I like the idea of food decaying, but agree that the base ingredients should maybe be the exception. I, like many others, like cooking in the game, and tend to just make what I need when I need it. Besides, if your food is about to rot and you don't need to eat it, just donate it to a shrine!
    Posted 17 months ago by Centaurea Subscriber! | Permalink
  • My only concern with this idea (which I do really like!) is that it trains players for traditional capital-F video game Farming and penalizes them for little-glitchen-f farming.

    It's kind of a cognitive thing, too; players may not realize their strategies are changing, but they'll change behaviors to avoid "punishment."

    I don't know if that makes sense. Let me try to explain. Among players who are counting currants, every food is now a hot potato. If a player has a valuable amount of raw/mid/made food material in their inventory, that game dynamic will tell them to stop engaging with the world and start running home.

    At that point, every quest, request and conversation costs money. So players who like cooking will be guided toward a task-based mindset rather than an exploration-based mindset. You won't want to go through a mysterious door, because this food is most valuable with a +33% buff, and who knows where that door will take you? You might not be able to get home on time. There are powerberries, so nothing is gone forever, but I don't think using powerberries will be completely painless.

    I'm trying to think of ways to keep the freshness dynamic, which is cool, while mitigating the "run home" aspect.
    Posted 17 months ago by Pomegrandy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I understand that things in real life age over time, but one thing I like about Glitch is it's not 100% true to real life. Having food age makes it closer to real, which is good in some ways and bad in others. I tend to think of this more as a bad change (or proposed change anyway). Here's why:

    * The things I hate most in real life are the "chores" like cleaning, checking dates on old food...
    * Worrying more about my food rotting ends up hurting. Sometimes I need breaks from my computer; now I'll feel worried about taking them.
    * Preparing food in advance of a long trip ends up hurting.
    * Makes projects requiring food immensely harder if you can't have some storage of basic food (cherries, meat, eggs, milk) for any real length of time.
    * What's next? Dying animals? Pretty soon I have no desire to come back to the game after any extended period because everything will be dead.

    I'd also comment that this proposal is extremely complex. It's hard to know what's going to spoil and when it's going to spoil when there's so many variables (the freshness of food to start; how many times you've used a tool to convert food; where you leave the food; use of powerberries; etc).

    For what it's worth, at the end, there's a list of expected effects and rationale. I obviously don't see the entire Glitch picture of where you're headed, but other than the third item, I'm not sure that any of those effects (or rationale) are useful. For example, powerberries sound great, but are they really needed?

    (Side note: If powerberries are only available in Ix and replace the spice plants, please please please allow other regions to grow spice plants.)
    Posted 17 months ago by ss Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 TiiBerries. In rl, teaberries are a red minty candy used in dessert making so i love this name.
    +1 Tanga. Hilarious. Nice user name...lol.

    When i first started playing, i didnt get into it right away. Addiction grew over time. If i had found off putting items, i wouldnt have stayed around.

    I played a challenging RTS for a year before coming to Glitch so i am used to losing things like 300,000 soldiers because they ate up all my food resources, lost loyalty (mood), took my gold (currants) and abandoned my city, leaving it to be pillaged by an evil neighbor who then stole it and renamed it something snarky. And it sucked and was depressing in rl even tho it was just a game. Returning to rotten food is no different.

    I dont want to see anything even close to any real life or real time strategy here. For me, Glitch is a happy artsy sandbox where i control how and when and where i play inside its world. I would love more things like in game journals and art skills, items unique to Glitch, not more of the same old recycled ideas from other games. At any point, should any part of this game dictate a need to go do some activity i am not interested in at that moment, its a fail imo.
    Posted 17 months ago by Dagnabbit Rabbit Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I also agree with WindBorn/Fussycat, but only tentatively — this definitely needs some play testing before it goes live; it would completely change the way we value food, and thereby the way we play. 

    Also, just to expand on the ecology issue: these "powerberries" are apparently only going to be in Ix.  This would be fine if there weren't already two other crops competing for Ix's ecological resources (spice trees and gas trees) that can't be planted elsewhere (and don't tell me spice trees can be planted down in MudLand so issue resolved, good luck finding any patches to plant them in).  Putting what would likely be an insanely valuable resource into the Ix-ian mix is going to cause massive shortages of at least one of these other vital resources.  Not cool, especially if the value of items for cooking is going to skyrocket.  Measures should be taken to ease the competitive pressures on gas or spice plants beforehand, whether it's increasing the number of patches in Shimla/Jeth/Chakra, increasing the habitat availability of one of the species, etc.
    Posted 17 months ago by Jannisary Subscriber! | Permalink