by Real » Wed Sep 24, 2014 8:24 pm
Adroit hunting crafts keyed to specific zones of the forest and no seasonal variance.
Like, only Mirkwood-Deep, Mirkwood-Elven, Mirkwood-Valley or Cave and a different animal for Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn. It wouldn't necessarily have to be covered in all zones for all seasons but it would bring the hunters of the two spheres together to the various parts of the map to fight over hunting the best animals and promote another PVP dynamic.
Also, we could hunt really tough enemies without the worry of people spawning them near the town/mountain. Cave, maybe not so much but I imagine orc players would see a sudden powerful threat as a positive experience, maybe I'm wrong. Worst case, make a new one called Dark-Cave or Mirkwood-Cave or something random and go with that. Make the cost of entry high, give it a humongous timer and a tiny branch rate so only a very long-lived PC will know how to hunt the animals of legend and you have a high-end hunting craftset that can create a lot of RP with its crafts.
Make 'some strong-smelling bait' easy to acquire via NPC but cost a gold piece. Thus, the pelt of a great bear or dire wolf has extreme value and items produced from it should follow suit, if only in the sense of rarity (put nice variables and the wearers of white or finecolor leather armor will be content to pay any amount, trust me). If not that desc for the bait then another, it doesn't really matter but the expensive catalyst seems necessary to balance people only hunting these once they get to a high enough skill level.
One other way you could do it would be to tie in rare and difficult-to-acquire bait with high-end herbs in the foraging-herbalism subset. That way the coin is out of the equation and it's manageable by people with the right knowledge in forestry.
A few examples...
Hunting: challenge great-bear
Only Usable In: Cave
Usable During: Winter
Phase 1: 20 seconds
Phase 2: 20 seconds
Held or in Room (Consumed): the skinned carcass of a deer buck.
Held or in Room (Consumed): a carved, $woodcolor jar filled with blood, or a basic, stone jar, filled with blood.
Held or in Room (Consumed): some strong-smelling bait
Phase 3: 20 seconds
Produced: a carved, $woodcolor wooden quart jar or a basic stone jar.
Phase 4: 60 seconds Adroit Hunting skill required.
Phase 5: 0 seconds
Produced: a $largebody $predator bear with snow-white fur
OOC Delay Timer: 1440 RL Minutes
Hunting: challenge dire-wolf
Only Usable In: Mirkwood-Deep
Usable During: Summer
Phase 1: 20 seconds
Phase 2: 20 seconds
Held or in Room (Consumed): the corpse of a plump, grey-brown, orange-throated partridge.
Held or in Room (Consumed): some strong-smelling bait
Phase 4: 15 seconds Adroit Hunting skill required.
Phase 5: 15 seconds
Produced: a massive wolf with $finefurcolor fur and slavering fangs
Produced: a large, $predator wolf with $furcolor fur
Produced: a large, $predator wolf with $furcolor fur
Produced: a large, $predator wolf with $furcolor fur
Produced: a large, $predator wolf with $furcolor fur
Produced: a large, $predator wolf with $furcolor fur
Produced: a large, $predator wolf with $furcolor fur
OOC Delay Timer: 1440 RL Minutes
^ Because what is the point of partridges besides being excessively difficult to deal with
Hunting: track stag
Only Usable In: Mirkwood-Valley
Usable During: Autumn
Phase 1: 20 seconds
Phase 2: 20 seconds
Held or in Room (Consumed): 6 of a handful of white, pointed petals
Held (Reusable): a $antler rack of antlers.
Phase 4: 60 seconds Adroit Hunting skill required.
Phase 5: 0 seconds
Produced: a powerfully-built stag with $finefurcolor fur
OOC Delay Timer: 1440 RL Minutes
^ Maybe when butchered the stag meat fills you up more, who knows. Give it tons of hp and natural armor and buck AI so it's just the toughest traditional hunt possible. Definitely higher Hide though so they disappear quicker. This being the tradeoff against having to face a death squad of wolves or a superbear for these high-end hunting goods.
Everything gets smaller now the further that I go
Towards the mouth and the reunion of the known and the unknown
Consider yourself lucky if you think of it as home
You can move mountains with your misery if you don't