Is Foraging "Fun"?

[mmatto]

Having another higher foraging skill really helps, it is far from feeling handicapped. Higher skill level speed and rate works as espected but quality needs little bit work. Start with your native quality and when it is reached switch higher.

Foraging is far better in Ryzom than in other games I have tried (eve, wow).

[missylee]

Oh, i absolutely love harvesting...
Most of my time spent ig i harvest.

[alibasil]

For me, foraging is only fun when I do it with someone else

I totally agree with spriteh. Even though having a careplanner or being one can take away some of the skill in being a solo digger, there is nothing like being able to dig a ton of mats, chat away not even concentrating on the bars, and watch the radar for mob movements.

Having the CP makes it more fun for me, i didnt vote in the poll, but if there was an option saying "I enjoy it with/as a careplanner" i'd pick that one.

[asaseth]

Chat with guildies, chat in around or region, read the forums, web-comics, what ever. Yah, don't know what I would do w/o digging.

The bit about it not being fun any more though, that sounds like you are getting a bit burnt out. That is why I never dig the entire time I'm on. Dig for a couple of hours, hunt for a couple of hours, maybie spend some time healing or wandering or what ever. Keep a nice balance of things, so you don't wear your self out (or your gear). Never could understand how these people spend 8 to 10 hours doing one thing. After that amount of time, ANYthing would be a grind, even fun stuff.


Noh
Zorai
Infinity

[genod]

I find the only enjoyable thing bout foraging is the thinking about what I'm going to do with the materials once I'm finished. Even then just sitting alone with nothing but a wooden pick and a herd of noisy animals for company is hard going, so having some chatter going on and a good cd playing in the background is pretty much essential if I'm to be out digging for any length of time.

So I guess that puts me firmly in the no camp

[micrix]

Lakeland foraging is my highest skill. Although i care for a lot of my own craftingtrees i do sometimes also sell mats at the merchants. One day i would like to retire from crafting and only dig for the digging and selling itself.

The digging of the mats itself is not too much fun, but i think that foraging is the most complex system ingame. And that makes it interessting which is somehow fun for me.

I would say that only a digger is able to see the true face of Atys. I tend to say that digging in lakelands is very close to digging in the roots. Only that we dont get all the exe and sup mats I dont know the roots very well, but probably every DP digger will agree when i say that Atys is always in motion. A motion only known by diggers with the will to survive every dig they start.

The less romantic side of foraging are the machanics and the maps. They are far from perfect. Skills, focus and sources seem to me a bit "unbalanced" in the higher levels. Sources hold not enough mats and deplete sometimes to fast. Skills use too much focus. And there are bricks you hardly ever have enough focus to use them at all. Some locations of spots are nearly not reachable (not talking about the Loria TP here) At least not with my humble knowledge of the "motion"

Again it is that you get what you want to put in and again it is about how you play the game and how your way of playing is paying back to you.

[alyssah]

Foraging is dull, boring & mindnumbing. Having said that, the rewards are good and the methodology is at least as good as any other MMOG.

I think it would be more interesting if there were a greater variety of mats that produced visible differences in crafted items and a greater number of items. Like furniture & storage cabinets for the apartments, dyes for clothes and mats which could give special attributes to weps etc but had a very short lifespan eg. 10 or 20 points duration. Items for that special PvP or defences for outposts.

This isn't meant as criticism of Ryzom but a few ideas to stimulate creative crafting & foraging.

[kostika]

I am a forager. Its my highest skill and my primary function as a character. I don't craft so all my mats go to the guild or for sale. When I'm foraging I get to sit and chat with people which can be hard to do if you're fighting or casting magic.

Of all my skills, I think foraging is my most social.

[aylwyne]

I really like the idea of special crafting mats that can add special attributes to crafted items (colors, resistances, speed, etc.). I'd love to see some such items be added to the game. I don't think they should be added in just like other mats where there's certain spots where you can always find them. That wouldn't add anything exciting, it'd just become another mat to grind for.

Rather, I think the pops of these nodes could be somewhat random. Different lands could have different types of special mats that you had a chance of randomly finding.

I also think this could be extended to quartering.

I guess I miss having the chance of finding something special when hunting or harvesting. I know there's a lot of mixed feelings about special drops. I personally like the idea as long as you don't kill a rat and get a suit of armor I think it's possible to design a system of special items that keep within the realism and are distributed in such a way as to minimize camping.

[rrwfreak]

For me, foraging is only fun when I do it with someone else

Aye, I don't like foraging by my lonesome self, and by that, I mean with no one to talk too. I usually won't dig if no one is on to chat with, and if there isn't, and I'm wanting to dig, I usually bug the poor souls in the area and region. However, I'm with sprite, I do prefer to have at least one other there cp'ing or me cp'ing for them.