Fallacy of Gathering. :(

[Prince Caspian]

One of the things I tend to do with my cook/alchy/poison mule is to go to the Skara fields and collect cotton, which I then spin into thread. Then I drop it into my crafter chest. Over the years I got a few thousand spools from doing this.

The other day I had 30k burning a hole in my pocket and I went to the tailor and figured this time I'd buy the thread off the vendor.

I got like a thousand or so. It made me realize that I could accomplish in an hour or four of whacking wisps with my ninja what it took me like 3 years to gather and clicking on the spinning wheel.

But the odd thing is, I still love the resource gathering. Why? It's a hallmark of Ultima. Seriously -- one of the trademarks of Ultima (other than the isometric view) has always been the ability to get caught up in the resource cycle of the living world where the game was taking place. You could always reap wheat, and then make bread, in the Ultima games.

That may not mean much to you young'uns who grew up in a time when insane levels of detail became a matter of course, but to me, it was pretty awesome -- a departure from the "you WILL do the adventure in this game environment and nothing else" style of most RPGs (another reason I detested EverQuest and its virtually non-interactive environment).

In short, I have discovered that gathering resources in UO and processing them is inefficient compared to just buying off vendors.

Am I still gonna do it? You betcha.

 

[DevilsOwn]

it's relaxing and I'll always end up with something to show for it, which for me is not always the case when doing a champ or something ... unless you count the deathrobes

 

[Petra Fyde]

If it's any comfort to you, harvesting cotton or shearing sheep, spinning and weaving is the only way to get cloth on Siege.
It's one of the things I like about the shard, that and figuring out ways to do things with a crafter that I'd normally just switch to another character for. It tests my ingenuity.

 

[Adora]

One of the things I tend to do with my cook/alchy/poison mule is to go to the Skara fields and collect cotton, which I then spin into thread. Then I drop it into my crafter chest. Over the years I got a few thousand spools from doing this.

The other day I had 30k burning a hole in my pocket and I went to the tailor and figured this time I'd buy the thread off the vendor.

I got like a thousand or so. It made me realize that I could accomplish in an hour or four of whacking wisps with my ninja what it took me like 3 years to gather and clicking on the spinning wheel.

But the odd thing is, I still love the resource gathering. Why? It's a hallmark of Ultima. Seriously -- one of the trademarks of Ultima (other than the isometric view) has always been the ability to get caught up in the resource cycle of the living world where the game was taking place. You could always reap wheat, and then make bread, in the Ultima games.

That may not mean much to you young'uns who grew up in a time when insane levels of detail became a matter of course, but to me, it was pretty awesome -- a departure from the "you WILL do the adventure in this game environment and nothing else" style of most RPGs (another reason I detested EverQuest and its virtually non-interactive environment).

In short, I have discovered that gathering resources in UO and processing them is inefficient compared to just buying off vendors.

Am I still gonna do it? You betcha.

Great post - I love gathering resources, even though I know I could get 10 times as much more quickly by hacking and slashing.

 

[Adora]

If it's any comfort to you, harvesting cotton or shearing sheep, spinning and weaving is the only way to get cloth on Siege.
It's one of the things I like about the shard, that and figuring out ways to do things with a crafter that I'd normally just switch to another character for. It tests my ingenuity.

I just started on Siege and am finding that out. Much better gameplay experience, IMHO.

 

[Silly Seadog]

Arrr, me gots a huge stack o' wool in me house. Me also grabs all the spools o' thread and the tinker parts off o' ratmen cause me hates 'em goin' ta waste!

 

[Stupid Miner]

One of the things I tend to do with my cook/alchy/poison mule is to go to the Skara fields and collect cotton, which I then spin into thread. Then I drop it into my crafter chest. Over the years I got a few thousand spools from doing this.

...

Am I still gonna do it? You betcha.

No reason not to.

Most people have a strange assumption that having more gold is better than having less. Or to relate it to this case: spending time in UO doing "x" is inherently better than spending time gathering resources.

They fail to view the issue from a broader perspective, an example of which would be: "The reason you play UO is to enjoy yourself."
By this perspective: if you prefer resource gathering over monster bashing, then resource gathering, for you, is better use of time than monster bashing.

So keep doing what you love, and if anyone criticizes you for it, you can be assured by the fact that they're judging you from a near-sighted perspective, and their conclusions are invalid. (or to put it plainly: they're idiots )

 

[sayler04]

That's really a great observation!

the thing that drew me to ultima (the OLD ones, not even the online version) was the incredibly interactive environment. There arent many people anymroe who take time to stop and harvest the cotton, so to speak, but it realy is a surprisingly relaxing passtime.

Still, though, I'd love to seesome enhancement to resource gathering added to the game. Particularly, I'd love it if there was a farming system in which you could grow large amounts of crops, like gardening on a large scale, and yield resources like cotton and nightshade and wheat.

 

[MalagAste]

I would love to do farming ingame and have it be somehow more profitable than hack and slash....

I've always enjoyed the depth of UO over so many other games. It is just wonderful the level of thought that was put into the game... from shearing sheep to gathering cotton... cutting wheat and making flour... Milking cows.... something I still enjoy doing with my empty pitchers.

 

[Gheed]

In short, I have discovered that gathering resources in UO and processing them is inefficient compared to just buying off vendors.

Am I still gonna do it? You betcha.

Good post. It is inefficient to an extent. If your goal is making boatloads of gold then yes it is very inefficient. It's hard for me to put in words. But these days I measure the "efficiency" of my actions by the fun I am having.

I have always enjoyed gathering resources and was happy to have alternative methods to npc purchase. But gathering resources can become tedious. And after they are gathered they still must be processed and stocked.

Now to me a good merchant is one that is easy to browse, priced sensibly and always stocked. You are selling reliability and trust. So you really have to find a comfortable medium from gathering to end product. Something that doesn't take all of your time to maintain. You have to leave yourself time to do other things in game like friends, guilds and events. If all you do is craft, you will get burnt out on it and not enjoy it anymore. If you do not enjoy your craft, ultimately it doesnt matter how much you make. You'll stop doing it. Because games are supposed to be fun yes?

So back to something related your original point. This in part is what made me furious about the mining/LJ change. As far as that is concerned, RNG spawn made gathering resources much more of a grind. The small time, honest crafter was all but destroyed. As for cotton and wool, I have a all sheep farms and cotton fields marked. If I bounce between tram and fel I can actually farm quite a bit. I am still trying to get into the large cotton field by the city of the dead (t2a). And I do wonder why the cotton fields in SA can't be harvested. It looks like they made most everything static to cut down on lag a bit. If think the devs should add a few more resources to make cloth from and undo the rng ore/lumber spawns.

 

[Prince Caspian]

Now to me a good merchant is one that is easy to browse, priced sensibly and always stocked. You are selling reliability and trust. So you really have to find a comfortable medium from gathering to end product. Something that doesn't take all of your time to maintain.

I have a Silver Vendor in Luna, and I can't keep him storcked. He sells out regularly. I think most of that has to do with the fact that I reliably restock him, and deal with only that product.

The only problem is -- I detest farming silver. It's easy, it's just so boring. But in UO it's the only way I've found to reliably make a lot of money with a vendor, and still keep my beloved rare trinkets.

 

[Kariny]

Somehow it's almost soothing to gather wool, regs, cotton.

Also, it's a great way to hoard! I don't hoard stuff IRL but I think I get that out of my system ingame.

 

[Gheed]

I have a Silver Vendor in Luna, and I can't keep him storcked. He sells out regularly. I think most of that has to do with the fact that I reliably restock him, and deal with only that product.

The only problem is -- I detest farming silver. It's easy, it's just so boring. But in UO it's the only way I've found to reliably make a lot of money with a vendor, and still keep my beloved rare trinkets.

And that is ultamitely what all resource gathering becomes: Boring. At first I bet you were delighted to find the niche and profit from it. But while there really isn't any way to make farming it more enjoyable, there could be some better vendor tools to cut your time in the process.

I have always wanted to save a vendor config. For example: You sold 5 piles of 100 silver for 50k per pile (I don't know what silver sells for). If you could stock that vendor as you like then save the config. Then from that point forward all you had to do was drop a pile of silver on it and it would divide, place and price the item exactly how your saved config was built. So your vendor sold 2/5 piles. You have a stack of 1047 silver and droped it on the vendor. The vendor would subtract 200 silver, return the 847 balance to your pack, divide the 200 silver into two 100 silver piles, price them at 50k each and place them in the exact position in the vendor's pack as the other two piles that sold used to be.

This would cut alot of time in maintaining your stock. Imagine how much easier it would be to keep up a reagent or potion vendor.

How long have you had the silver vendor? How much longer do you think you will keep it?

 

[JC the Builder]

Ten years ago 30,000 gold was a lot of gold. Today it is 5 minutes of killing monsters. NPC prices have never been adjusted to keep up with inflation. Multiply whatever thread costs by 100 and that should probably be the new price.

 

[MadMageMagnus]

I have 2200 bolts of cloth , thats 110,000 pieces of cloth
: correction :

2200 regular bolts of cloth
450 bright white bolts of cloth(actually 2 bolts and 22500 pieces) from erm.. well *cough*
all gathered and made by hand using sheep

now thinking back.. i with i had collected the mutton too...
i wonder how big that pile woulve been..

 

[Jhym]

Well, hoarding is a hallmark of UO too.

We have been tweaked many times over the years, such that we now never know what may become important or valuable a year or two down the road.

I keep somewhat expecting them to make all "raw ribs" become individual cuts of meat and the ribs become rare because of it. Or birds for that matter.

I tend to gather things that are sitting there unless I'm overweight. So I'll be on my way to somewhere, notice a cotton patch and end up harvesting it. Or some birds will get in the way of certain spells or creatures and I'll end up with feathers.

I take the boards off reapers, along with the reagents from them and the undead. Considering the gold on the creature can usually BUY the items, I have no idea why I do it anymore.

I gave up trying to understand my behaviours long ago. It's like when tailoring was much simpler... I'd be out with guildmates hunting and I'd take all the leather on my Bard and make gloves and caps to sell later. Once I was asked why, my character just said, "It's relaxing".

 

[Jesara]

I tend to gather things that are sitting there unless I'm overweight.

Absolutely! I'm glad to hear others confess to these behaviors. I can hardly pass a sheep in real life without wanting to sheer it. Sometimes I justify that gathering is relaxing, other times that its fun, yet other times that I like being self-supporting, and sometimes I admit I'm just anal about looting all I can. Whatever the reason, it's part of what makes UO work for me.

 

[T'Challa]

We have been tweaked many times over the years, such that we now never know what may become important or valuable a year or two down the road.

I had been hoarding gems on Siege for over 5 years before the SA expansion was ever announced. Vendors on Siege don't buy gems, so everyone thought I was nuts.

I am now @ 119.1 imbuing and never bought a single gem

 

[Maplestone]

I find there's a certain point where I realize I'm hopelessly behind the powergamers, drop out of the game economy and just wander around playing. Sometimes I sheer sheep, sometimes I gather reagents off the ground ... but then I turn around and buy fertile dirt and bone in Ter Mur.

 

[Sarsmi]

I do what I enjoy doing, sometimes that coincides with making gold and sometimes it doesn't.

 

[Fink]

By this perspective: if you prefer resource gathering over monster bashing, then resource gathering, for you, is better use of time than monster bashing.

I think a lot of people forget this and it works from any angle. It strikes me as odd that someone would train up a "mule" just so they don't have to buy a 50gp repair contract or.. gott forbid.. interact with someone else to have their stuff fixed. If they have no interest in crafts, they shouldn't waste their time and resources. Stick with what you like and leave everything else to those who like that stuff.

 

[Blesh]

When I played UO, one of my guild mates had a huge pile of wool she gathered in a chest in her house. I used to go and spin it for her when I had insomnia. It always helped put me to sleep.

I fell asleep with a mouse in my hand and a laptop on my lap, but I fell asleep!

I miss doing that.... I always had a gathering addiction too. I remember having well over 1,000 primitive fetish.

Matter of fact, when I married Sorcon Gartius in game, one gift I got from a collection of people in TMC was a stack of 60,000 hams. Because, ya know, when I created food I ALWAYS made ham, then started keeping it. Before I knew it, it became a personal goal to collect 60,000.


Good times, good times.