| Re: Eureka! There's Frostwood in them thar hills
Eureka!, Part Two
Alternate title: How to improve resource availability for the average player, without flooding the market.
The fixes are easy and they can be flavorful and add texture and substance to the shards of the world gem. Unfortunately, I doubt this issue is high on the list of priorities.
Stream-of-consciousness on:
1) Add colored wood as loot to Dryads, Treefellows and Reapers. Alternatively, create monsters similar to Ore elementals for these creatures (A Bloodwood Reaper, an Oak Treefellow, etc). Ten logs or boards apiece, and it spices up the monster menu. Why do these beasts only have normal resources? You would think magical creatures tied to the forest would take a childlike delight in collecting shiny, colored wood. Paragon versions of these creatures should always have colored wood, at least, plus the chance to spawn bonus boards.
A more amusing implementation, but more difficult to code, would allow lumberjacks to harvest random colored wood each swing as they melee these creatures.
2) Add crafter quests. Oh no! Mayor McCleough’s daughter was killed by a Reaper [Paragon] in Ilshenar, and now he’s offering a 250-colored board commodity deed to anyone who brings back proof that they’ve killed ten of the foul, golden-hued monsters. Interestingly, the deed has a random chance of spawning a given rare board type. Boring, but effective.
Oh no! Little Suzie McCleough fell through a moongate! She’s lost somewhere in Ilshenar...scour the land until you find her and bring her safely home!
Oh no! The King of the Treefellows is trying to redeem his evil Reaper brethren, but he needs a sample of their sap…
3) Add a crafter tool. I envision a Talisman that constantly scans the resource grid and reports the type of wood and/or ore that the region will produce. I should be able to pick the resource, much like you can use context menus to choose Ore or Stone when mining. As I run around Sosaria, a tiny voice whispers, “Perhaps you will find Frostwood to the North.” “..to the Northeast” “…here.”
Alternatively, create a Prospector’s Tool for Lumberjacks.
4) Add a commodity trader in town. Allow boards to be exchanged at the same ratio for which they can be redeemed for points at the cooperative collection: 48 normal boards for one Frostwood board, as an example. As an alternative, make this the initial ratio and allow it to fluctuate based on player activity, in a manner similar to vendor prices.
~M |