Food Processing!
INTRO
Hey all! I made a post on the Ashes subreddit a while ago and it was suggested I put it here for discussion so here we go. I made quite a few changes from my reddit post after discussing it with others on reddit. Due to the nature of this post being so long, I broke it up into sections to make skimming easier.
I am a fantasy nerd and foodie who has a homestead. I like to do things I experience in fantasy worlds in real life and one of the ways I do that is make mead, wildcrafted sodas and do other fermentation with the simplest methods possible (no obsessive sanitation or factory-raised yeast). Anyway, one of the things I often feel MMOs lack is a more immersive food system. What I have seen as a theme in MMOs is food is basically a vertical buff on a timer. There are specific recipes you use depending on your build. Because it is a vertical buff it is a requirement to compete in PvP and high tier PvE. What it ends up looking like is you make or buy a ton of the same thing and have to continually watch a timer and click on the food when the timer is out. It is always the same exact food that you get no matter where you are in the world. For me, it is a necessary inconvenience that isn’t fun. I totally understand that some people don’t mind that type of system but I think we are missing a great opportunity for deeper immersion.
Food plays a huge role in defining all cultures and AoC has the goal of unique, immersive regional cultures. Below is my idea for adding food preservation and a soft spoilage system. I say soft because my intention is not to suggest Ashes be a hardcore survival game. We have plenty of good survivals already, this spoilage system is simply to add more enjoyable complexity and encourage players to be more involved and immersed in each unique bioregion they visit.
FOOD PRESERVATION SYSTEM
Spoilage: Spoilage could be as simple as adding a timer to food when harvested. (I am no programmer or developer so I have no idea what this looks like on the back end.) When a player adds food to their inventory from its source, the timer starts. As I mentioned above, in a softer system these times would be longer so that they still add a little pressure to do something with the food while also not being too intense to derail the other things the player is currently doing. The spoilage system could be affected by weather and seasons too. Food will spoil faster in warm weather and much slower in cold weather. Timers could straight up stop in freezing weather.
For concerns about the production end of managing fresh food, the spoilage timer wouldn't have to start until the food is taken out of the pot or kitchen. That makes tavern kitchens even more practical. Player stalls could also make use of this system as street/market-side food stands. (I’m thinking Ramen Ichiraku from Naruto with a single bar with stools right off the street). The timer wouldn’t start until the food is placed in the customer’s inventory. So the chef could make the food in their kitchen whenever they want and store it there until purchased by a player.
Food Preservation: This system has potential for being its own processing profession or be incorporated into the artisan cooking profession. If it is its own processing profession, the profession could be called Food Processing and encompass other activities such as milling grains, grinding salt, juicing, etc.
There are four simple and ancient forms of food preservation I can think of that could become actual mechanics in the game giving more opportunities for other professions as well. These are salting, fermenting, smoking and drying. Food made with these methods would have their spoilage timers significantly slowed or stopped and last indefinitely but have weaker stat boosts with shorter buff timers. Cooked (fresh) food could spoil quickly while having bigger, longer-lasting boosts.
Salting: Combine salt with other ingredients to make a cured product. Example: Combine salt and meat and let it dry hang or sit in a salt barrel for a period of time until finished.
Fermenting: This is a very broad category but the mechanical structure would be similar to salting. Add the ingredients together (water, salt, veggies, honey, etc.) with the correct vessel and let it sit until finished. I have seen other people ask about brewing and the response was that it will be part of cooking. If fermentation was part of a food processing profession, it would go here. If you want to go even further you could have yeast strains or stir sticks like the ancient mead makers passed down through their families.
The fermentation process has sort of a reverse effect from weather because of the nature of what is happening. In warm weather, the time it takes for fermentation to finish is much shorter where if it is too cold, fermentation is extremely slow or just doesn’t happen at all.
Smoking: Add ingredients to a smoker, add wood/charcoal, light the fuel and let it sit until finished.
Drying: Add food to a dehydrator or out in the sun. (I’ve built a non-electric solar dehydrator that sits outside in the sun and dries food very efficiently.)
There could be an additional monitoring mechanic for each as you monitor these processes in real life or it could be as simple as “combine the ingredients and forget about them until finished.”
Preserved foods could be consumed or they could act as an ingredient in cooking recipes making them a niche item group. This would actually complement their acting as a way to trade regional foods to other areas. Maybe you have to go to a specific region for fresh yellow perch but you can find salted or smoked perch on the opposite side of the world from where it is fished. This would also get people excited to explore other regions. They may go to a market and find preserved meat from another part of the world and want to go to where it's from to get it fresh!
I could see both preserved and fresh foods as having a place in the game. Preserved foods would be something people could reliably keep in their inventory to always have on hand or use if they are going on long expeditions. If they only provide a small boost compared to cooked foods it would make them more unique and still not take the place of cooked foods. Cooked foods would obviously be preferred for the bigger boosts but they would (maybe?) be more expensive and require more intense time management.
WORLD, CULTURAL & ECONOMIC IMPACTS
Food spoilage would decrease the supply of food, and more specifically food that spoils faster, and so would encourage a more active economy where the different professions and artisan classes have additional reasons to interact and coordinate.
It could also create an additional economy and mechanic in food preservation.
Salting: Would create a demand for mining salt giving miners an additional resource to gather. This could also be a resource unique to certain regions too but not necessarily just mountains like a lot of mining typically is. There could be salt flats and even harvesting from saltwater processing.
Fermenting: A crafting profession could make fermentation vessels like jars and crocks.
Smoking/Drying: Carpenters could build smokers and dehydrators. You could even have enchanters enchant these things to be more efficient or not require fuel or sun.
Freeholds and taverns could be fitted with root cellars that are cool, dry places to store food and slow down spoilage timers. Enchanters could also add chilling enchantments on root cellars and “ice boxes” to be used like refrigerators and freezers.
It seems like taverns are meant to be a big part of AoC (thank you!). I have seen a lot of players interested in being innkeepers. Many people even want that to be their sole focus in the game which I think is incredibly exciting! A food preservation system could deepen the immersion by adding to the complexity of food and give tavern owners and chefs more unique mechanics to work with. Taverns would then naturally have plenty of preserved foods on hand at all times for both cooking recipes and for sale as added revenue.
Also, this system could increase the value of cooked foods, making taverns even more valuable and worth prioritizing protecting from NPC/monster attacks. Losing the only supply of greater food buffs during the defense of a node could be a noticeable blow to the defenders. As Intrepid released in their last update, monsters will target specific buildings while attacking settlements. I can imagine many monsters, or even most, would have reason to target food sources!
