New Magincia Gardening

[Emil Ispep]

Hey all. Not too important on mine or other peoples lists for sure, but for the few of us who have active Magincia gardens, the daily upkeep can become quite time consuming, resource heavy, and just plain annoying. In addition, if one were to take an extended leave from the game, the plants would be dead and gone upon returning. Kinda crappy since you can only plant one every 4 days... ie it has taken months to build up quite a respectable garden.

My proposal is to have a 'food sphere' added to the npc gardener menu; similar to the flake sphere for aquariums. Would act in the very same way, would feed and water the plant for 1 rl week, and no growth checks would happen.

Any constructive input would be welcome =).

 

[Amber Witch]

I'm glad you brought this idea to light. I know it would be a real benefit to keeping the garden going. I think the commitment of time keeps a lot of people from participating. Also the lack of resources generated surprises many. I've been maintaining the garden ever since it came into the game almost 2 years ago. In that time close to 50K potions have been used to maintain the plants. The issue of having to log in every day to maintain each plant is very problematic.

During the warm weather when I work 50-60 hours a week about the only thing I do in game is take care of the garden. After that I'm too tired to do anything else. When I travel, sometimes I'm on flights that can take up to 36 hours, I'll have to log in at an airport that has WiFi just to do plants. If I miss just one day it's rough on young plants. [Thinks of the "how do you know you've been playing UO too long?" thread.] I know it's my choice to do this but still....

I've never done the aquarium and have no clue how the fish flakes work. How would a similar system resolve the need for potions? You could make, say, fertilizer? and mix it with water? Apply that to a plant once a week?

If there were something such as what you suggest I'd be much more likely to continue to keep doing the garden. I enjoy doing it. But I'd enjoy doing it less too!

 

[sablestorm]

I got to reading this and my first thought was a combo turn-in system. First off, you have gardeners who can turn in items (much like spring cleaning) which will generate points which go towards the upkeep of their plants. The second half of the turn in system is alchemists donating greater potions in exchange for rewards. Perhaps there could be some mechanism where the more people gardening, the better reward tiers there are for the alchemists. My thinking is it helps the gardeners, but they still have to put a bit of work into it (hunting for donations, donating gold, whatever) while alchemists get a boost on the other side.

 

[Amber Witch]

Yeah, I keep dreaming about how cool it would be to utilize the new garden shed as a donation box for greater cures and greater poison. If someone had a ton of them, say from an idoc, they can drop it on the shed. How to get them out to use on the garden? No clue!

 

[Victim of Siege]

as long as it is just the Garden area where the Gardeners are. Otherwise some jerk would plant hedges and palm trees all over New Magincia to block movement

 

[G.v.P]

I haven't even been to New Mag in months, let alone use the garden. But sounds good to me.

I kind of wish aquariums didn't require upkeep at all so we could just keep them active, or maybe have an alternative way to upkeep them per gold charge or something. I always forget to refresh these type of things and my fish die, lol.

Sigh, I guess what I'm saying is I would pay for a permanent aquarium ;P...ala plant beds.

 

[Amber Witch]

as long as it is just the Garden area where the Gardeners are. Otherwise some jerk would plant hedges and palm trees all over New Magincia to block movement

There are numerous areas on Magincia where you can plant. I've planted two areas near my house on the east side of the island on Baja. There are spots along the pathways that can be planted as well as certain spots in the wooded areas. It's pretty much the same thing as running into a tree now.

 

[Cerwin Vega]

If u still have to take care of your plants everyday whats the benefits of planting in town? Just something to do?

 

[Victim of Siege]

There are numerous areas on Magincia where you can plant. I've planted two areas near my house on the east side of the island on Baja. There are spots along the pathways that can be planted as well as certain spots in the wooded areas. It's pretty much the same thing as running into a tree now.

yes but with this idea, it would make it easier for someone to abuse the ability. As it stands now, they would have to spend a lot of their day tending plants.


P.S. I like the idea of this, but I just see the ability to be abused. I brought it up so the Devs can consider this when thinking about it.

 

[Victim of Siege]

If u still have to take care of your plants everyday whats the benefits of planting in town? Just something to do?

not much, but when you "harvest it" it has your name, and the planted on/harvested on date.

 

[Plant Elemental]

As it stands now, you can't place plants that block movement adjacent to each other except for the public gardens.

But back to the OT, 4 days to grow one plant is a lot. Should be 1 plant per day.

Here's another idea: Once a plant reaches day 9 anywhere in New Mag, it should go into "mature" status, meaning that you don't have to water or use potions on the plant. You just need to double click on it once every 10 days to refresh it. Fail to do it, and the plant dies. This lets people who need a week off to take it without all of their hard work going to waste. It also makes sure that inactive players lose their plants if they don't play or care about their plants anymore.

I think New Magincia needs some love in general.

Why do we need so many vendor stalls? They occupy like half of the island. On most shards, a majority are unused and empty which is a complete eye sore. Why not move them up by the public gardens where there is just empty green land or the sandy area in the east where there is nothing? Why not have a couple more buildings? Like an EM headquarters or a community center where guilds and hunting parties can meet before heading out for a fight or several small npc vendor shacks, tents, and huts. Put some more docks on the north and east sides of the island.
It just seems to me that New Mag. was thrown together in a couple days. Then the devs added the vendor stalls to quickly fill up any empty space, almost like they lost interest in the island and it's really been ignored since. The island can be so much more. It just needs a little attention.

 

[CovenantX]

Hrmm, didn't even know you could still plant, plants in magincia, thought it was a temporary "event" thingy... interesting. =D

 

[Emil Ispep]

Some good ideas so far. I like the plant maturing, where all you would need to do is dbl click it to refresh after the plant hits 9 days.. maybe on the refresh timer, the plant would change a temporary color to indicate it needs to be refreshed or it will be lost?

Amber: the aquarium flake sphere is basically a tool that keeps your aquarium going for 1 rl week. Normally, you need to feed the fish, and (i think) put clean water into the tank. The flake sphere takes care of this.

I as well think that the rebuilding of Mag was thrown together too hastily. IMO old Magincia looked better than New Magincia.. the only nice addition is the ability to place housing and vendor stalls. (which are way too numerous). Id also like to see some of them removed, and additional npc buildings placed.

Well lets see some of those gardens! Heres mine so far:

It was started June 2nd 2012. I had one going months before then, but was away for 2 weeks, and yea.. all gone =/.

 

[Amber Witch]

Plant Elemental said: ↑

As it stands now, you can't place plants that block movement adjacent to each other except for the public gardens.​

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I think you can. If I had placed spider trees where the campions are planted movement would be blocked. Also note the date on the plant I've highlighted. I enjoy the fact that I've managed to not kill it off yet. It's my personal challenge to see how long I can keep it alive.

But back to the OT, 4 days to grow one plant is a lot. Should be 1 plant per day.

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I think it's time for this to happen too. We tend to do theme gardens such as Christmas, Valentines, Spring, Summer, Fall, Halloween etc. And when you have only 1, 2 or 3 people working together there are time issues when you can only plant 1 every 4th day. I think initially, before it was determined what the level of interest was and how it was going to be used, 1 every 4th day made sense. But now maybe it's time to make the change to every day.

Here's another idea: Once a plant reaches day 9 anywhere in New Mag, it should go into "mature" status, meaning that you don't have to water or use potions on the plant. You just need to double click on it once every 10 days to refresh it. Fail to do it, and the plant dies. This lets people who need a week off to take it without all of their hard work going to waste. It also makes sure that inactive players lose their plants if they don't play or care about their plants anymore.

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Where is the "like" button???
Another thing I've always dreamed about is adding an additional function to the NPC in the garden. Give the gardener the function of being the gardener. Pay it for a weeks worth of work and let it do the maintenance for you.

Our last EM, EM Godiva and our current EM, EM Crysania put holiday decorations in the public garden when they do their holiday decorations for public spaces.
Here is a photo from the recent Christmas garden where EM Crysania decorated for the Shards Holiday party.