Post by Wids on Aug 20, 2017 19:30:23 GMT -5
Stuff that I was recently discussing with JusticeDragon:
1) The lack of merchants that sell eggs. The townies keep talking about eggs and hinting at recipes that use eggs, but I have yet to find a merchant that sells eggs, nor have I found eggs among loot. JD pretty much agrees: Eggs aren't available.
2) There's a chicken pen right in the middle of Orlbar, yet we can't find any eggs.
3) Wheat is the only grain that seems to be worth anything (namely, a shot of XP for every ten Wheats you harvest). As far as I know, Barley and Rye are pretty much junk.
4) My own Real Life experience at raising chickens (for eight years and counting). Unless they're absolutely terrified of you (in which case, what the heck are you doing to your chickens?!?), chickens like to bunch up against the fence or crowd the gate whenever people show up at the chicken run, because chickens typically learn that "humans = food sources." Chickens love to eat. They love to eat a lot. And in my experience, it's pretty hard to enter the chicken run when the chickens are crowding and blocking the gate; you don't want to step on them, mash them with the gate or otherwise hurt them, right? So you distract them with food, the reason why they're crowding the gate in the first place. Chickens will eat practically anything: cracked corn, bird seed, leftover baked beans, moldy bread, even their own eggs...cooked, raw or rotten. Mine won't eat dill pickles or marshmallows for whatever reason, but that's about it. They're definitely not picky eaters. So you come up to the gate, you throw some of that food across the chicken run and the chickens all chase after it — clearing the gate in the process — so you're free to walk in, collect their eggs, replenish their food and water, change the pine shavings in their nesting boxes, catch the hen who's coming down with bumblefoot and give her her antibiotics, or do whatever else you came to do.
So what about a clickie somewhere around that chicken pen's fence? You click on the fence, and if you have a Wheat, a Barley or a Rye (or two, or three...), the clickie takes the required grains out of your inventory and gives you a chicken egg in return, representing the tasks of distracting the chickens with chicken feed so you can collect their eggs without them getting underfoot. Wanna collect more eggs? You have to keep them distracted for longer. And that means more chicken feed.
Perhaps the list of acceptable chicken food could even be expanded to all the fruits, veggies and raw meats that you harvest elsewhere. Every November 1st, I throw all my old pumpkins (typically carved into jack-o-lanterns) into the chicken run, along with any leftover pumpkin seeds. I've thrown wilted heads of lettuce, I've thrown half-eaten apples, I've thrown canteloupe rinds and watermelon rinds, I've thrown half-eaten rotisserie chickens, I've thrown pork chops that are about to go bad, I've thrown lunch meat that has gone bad, I've thrown live insects, I've thrown live mice...chickens don't care! They'll shred it and eat it all the same. Chickens are Mother Nature's in-sink garbage disposals.
So does this sound like a solution to our egg shortage?
