Dropkick Murphys and MMORPG

Today I spent a lazy morning fishing Rocktails in RuneScape with video from Sandman here.  I even made three avatar pics from it they can use.

That's one of the things I like about RS, you can play it while working on something else.  Though, I don't like what RuneScape 3 has turned into.  It's become too accessible, over-easy and lacks challenge.  However, they have introduced an interesting thing in it called 'Bonds', which you can get with in-game money to let you exchange them for 14 days free membership.

Since I have a very high-level character with access to high-level resources, it's easy for me to make gold pieces not only to fund my own membership, but to have spare enough to double the price.  Luckily, although RS3 is boring to me now, I also get access to Old School RS 2007, which is much more challenging and fun!  Though takes a while to start from fresh again.  I was happily ranging Big Chompy Birds last night. haha

I also worked on getting my farming plants in my long-term hobby MMORPG project.  These now grow over a number of stages, depleting water & nutrients in the field and sometimes wilting from lack of and for the ripe plants/flowers & fruits you can harvest a variety of different things.  This is something I think more games need - variety and depth.

So, from growing potato tubers, you can get tiny through to (rarely) big potatoes, with better ones the higher your farm level gets.  Plus, you have a rare chance at getting a tuber to let you plant more.  Also, I've tied it in with giving some worms too sometimes which can be used for fishing certain fish types in the game, along with a rod & hook.

Then I plan on having different fertilisers giving different Nitrogen, Phosphorous & Calcium proportions (from decomposed collected plants like Nettles/Comfrey & Fish bones - gutting fish).  These are used to rebalance the soil and I've added 13 soil types too(gravelly to heavy clay) that different plants will grow better or worse in and affect how the take up of nutrients based on the water amount in the field.  Eventually I want to tie in a cloud and weather system to add rain water and dry soils up making you need to think carefully where to plant and how often to water.  Too much and you could waterlog the plants and make them sick.

All-in-all, I'm enjoying adding many diverse things now.  I've got over 4000 objects, which I've started moving into 3D as you can see from the trees and furniture.  I'm planning on making (nearly) everything from resources, so that players can fix and improve buildings and fences (blocking monsters from damaging buildings in the future).

It's a lot of work and balancing, but I do it and also play RS on another screen, so it keeps going and I keep making gps to buy bonds to get free game time in the background. :)