Horticulture bods

[Lhawk]

Horticulture bods might be handed out from any farmer with resources to gather such as 26 blue seeds or 10 pots filled with regular dirt then maybe another with fertile dirt; harder bods might be to bring 10 snake plants or 15 water plants etc. the really hard ones would be for delivering the specific cross breeds such as century plants, small palms, ponytail palms etc the plants that do not come as standard in the game. Rewards might be plantable, harvesting type seeds of rare plants like roses, gardenias, orchids. bonsai, camelias, etc. and for the harder ones bee hive deeds, hive tools, poion kegs etc let's hear your thoughts/suggestions!

[indigowulf]

LOL Id offer suggestions but you already included all mine from the chat in game. So.. *waves flag of support*

[Cestre]

I don't think hive deeds are really great rewards for these, considering the length of time required to fill the harder bods, like actual plants (since hive deeds are pretty inexpensive and available in game).

Maybe rare plants as deco, or rare colored seeds (as you mentioned).

[Kaervas]

I'm not sure about whether these are obtainable in other ways, but the following would be fitting as higher-end horticulture BOD rewards:

Mutant seeds which grow into less mundane looking plants. I feel the shape of the plants is more important than just extra hues. For the most part the available plants lack any feel that they were grown in a world where magic is rampant and "here be dragons" and all that.

Bogling Statuette
Bog Thing Statuette (this one is awesome)
Reaper Statuette
Dryad Statuette
Treefellow Statuette (also very fitting)
I'd add the corpser to the list but it doesn't look very plantlike in its UO2D incarnation.

Stuff that would be varying amounts more work to implement:
Large planting trough/deed to a cultivation patch - Can be used to grow larger plants like small/medium trees, which take longer to grow but yield a customized tree. Prune it like bonsai or graft multiple branches onto it and get a multiple-fruit-bearing tree, or just let it grow naturally. I feel that there would be a pretty decent market for these considering the price of the yard wand's trees. This is kinda like how you only learn how to make Bio-Engineered Clones after you've done enough taming BODs to get the book and tool (assuming you don't just buy them).
Eternal sprinkler - A sprinkler that never needs refilling, takes one of the repetitive aspects out of the whole process.
Greenhouse deed - Can be placed on a suitably large, flat, unobstructed portion of your house. Must be on the roof or otherwise open to the sun's glare. Plants locked down inside get a growth bonus.
Topiary shears - To be used in conjunction with the following, more common reward:
Topiary bush seeds - Reliably grows a one-tile block of topiary bush. It can be obtained in-game already but requires some cross breeding and/or rare seeds (I can't remember which). Use the shears on the bush to choose from a selection of designs. Add more flair to your garden with a topiary statue of you or your favourite pet!

etc etc etc.
Plants aren't really my forte so I'm drawing a blank at more stuff, but that should be enough for a start.
Don't make the BODs just reward kegs or beehive stuff which can be obtained already, something flashy is better. I feel that BODs are pretty tedious stuff (especially with the RNG of obtaining any specific small BOD to fill your large BOD), so it's better if the items you get from them are flavorful and most of all unobtainable anywhere else, giving some incentive to do them.

Oh, bonus points if there's a quest added in the deepest depths of a misty forest, one that only puissant horticulturalists can even hope to complete...
"We want... a shrubbery!"

[Crawdad]

I've been thinking about this a lot since Lady Hawk mentioned it in game. I like the ideas presented so far. Here are some ideas that I've had on it:

Deed setup:

Small deeds for 10, 15, 20 of any one type of plant of any one type of color (sound familiar?)
LBOD's for All colors of any one plant type
These could be separated out as all regular color LBOD, all bright color LBOD, all colors including black and white LBOD.
and/or all plants in a certain generation of one color.
Higher end ones could include black, white and special colors from the plant quest.
Could also have bod's for the tokuno plants that you grow from special seeds. Bonsai plants etc.

Stuff already available for possible rewards:
Seed chest
Sprinklers
Thorns, orange petals, etc.

Custom rewards:
Polination Keys - allow you to charge them with a mature plant (which would then disappear) and use to pollinate your plant with desired plant/color combo. Could also extract the plant if so desired.
Plant house - like tool house, but stores plants in decorative mode (would help store them to fill bod's at a later date).
Runic horticulture tool - you could apply to a seed and if successful could get a change in plant type or color - rarely white, black and quest color. Seed may be destroyed if failed.
Bogling and Bog thing statuettes could let you click them and make you appear as that monster.
Horticulture knife - use on bogling to get an extra seed and possibly spawn a paragon bogling - on bog thing for poss. paragon bog thing.
Plant cloner - lets you target a plant growing anywhere in UO and make a deed (if successful) that lets you place that plant in a pot. (Would need a guide that let's you see what is possible - or leave it to be discovered.)
Resurrection postions - let's you get a plant back from twigs.
Deeds that you can use to target a bogling or bog thing and make them pets.
Total restore potions - make a plant with any problem - even dying - regain full health.
Invisibility Cloak - (rationale for a plant reward - Gilley (sp?) suit is used for camophlage and has plants stuck in it to help you disappear).
Plant foods that you can eat and temporarily boost your stats. (special pears and apples)

That's probably enough for now :')

Crawdad

[Crawdad]

BTW, the decorative plant storage houses could also be set up like the BOD books so they could be put on a vendor with pricing to sell individual plants.

[Skyla]

This all sounds really cool, love the ideas! Unfortunately they're not taking any feature requests anymore (see here), so my guess is it won't happen.

[Kaervas]

If the plant cloner was ever implemented I'd jump for joy, it sounds amazingly cool, doubly so if hard-to-find locations in the world were seeded with exotic/majestic/wacky plants.

[Lhawk]

Skyla, normally this would be true but fortunately for us Colibri asked me to post and gather info because he thinks its an intriquing project and he was in the mood to code} I have no idea when we will get it but I bet the more interesting we make our suggestions the faster he will need to "create" ( you know these creative types) they get an idea and run wild with it} so put on your magic hat and make some awesome suggestions!!

[Skyla]

Oh yay, that's good to hear! This is definitely something I'd be interested in, sounds like a lot of fun!

[Lhawk]

If you would be interested in seeing an expansion of the horticulture area of the game with bods to earn rewards please let us know by signing in and saying yes youre interested

[Lhawk]

I guess I am a true tree hugger by nature haha pun intended. Along with the horticulture ideas I would love to see some ideas it would be great to hear suggestions that might enhance more of the druid mentality.. nature pet rewards, tree of lfe, etc

[mennolly]

That's an interesting thought I wonder if run.uo has something like that already coded I would vote for it. Also bee sprinklers I kill them by the hive full.

[Chyna]

okay so i told this wonderful little florist that even if i have no ideas of my own i would join everyone else on my knees BEGGING Coli to impliment something like this

i love the whole idea of horticulture bods, i have been into the whole flower growing system since OSI brought it out oh so very long ago, was one of the first few, before it became one of the first many, to decorate my entire house in black and white flowers and the idea of bods just has me going YAYAYAYAYA!!!! ~rock on~

if there is no other bod i ever play with and only get to play with one (and btw i love bods, ~sticks tongue out at certain warrior~) this would be the top of my list... great ideas for rewards, great ideas for things to collect, all in all it is amazingly awesome!

~ CW ~

[Crawdad]

Glad to hear all the excitement for this concept.

I would suggest that the logical NPC to give out these BOD's would be the Alchemist. The skill of alchemy is the only one that is needed for growing plants. And, the level ob BOD could be limited by the Alchy skill similar to the way the other BOD's work.

Also, in reflection, the Clone tool would be hard to implement in a general sense I think. However, it should be easy to make a museum with the types of plants that are available to clone and then have the tool either work in that museum or in other areas.