Being as this is Fallout, and the world is in complete shambles, I would like to see a deep scavenging system in a future Fallout MMO. It could be tiered, and tied into quests as well.

In the starter/safer areas of the game, you might get an quest to go to the outskirts of town and try to find some scrap pieces of metal with a small reward and being allowed to keep some of that scrap for yourself. Then you might asked to go out a little further for something harder to find. And then a little further...until you've learned the system pretty well.

And it can be a mix of spawned and static scavenge locations. The spawned locations disappear after being picked clean (think like a pile of metal or wood or a small vehicle) and then respawn nearby after a while, so there are general areas you know are good to look for certain scrap. The static locations could be larger vehicles and buildings, which require a good bit longer to scavenge, but offer the possibility of finding multiple things and more complete items (instead of scrap metal, you get a steel door to use for your own housing or old weapons that can be repaired, etc). The time required to scavenge a building can be lowered if you have a team! Instead of scavenging for 10 minutes by yourself, 4 people can scavenge for 2.5 minutes while 1-2 others keep a lookout (if you're scavenging in a dangerous area) with the ability to stop scavenging immediately to deal with any threats. After the scavenge of a static location is finished, it will be set on a timer before it can be scavenged again...with the larger locations having longer timers.

I would like it so you don't have to wait for the entire scavenge action to complete. If you go to scavenge a building hoping to find something specific and get on your way, then you should be able to stop once you've found that (meaning you see what you're getting in real-time instead of waiting for the whole 10 minutes to find out what you got).

And lastly, it will can be skill-based. Think of it this way, the newb who just came to town and doesn't know much about the world isn't going to be know what he/she will be looking for for certain things. That comes with experience, plain and simple.

Like the idea...science character can find a robot and fix it - sell it...keep it...or loot it for pats...same for the cars..etc...

It could be random created areas or fixed ones...but as for cooldown time I hate that...because you will anyway loose a lot time searching the building, traveling, selling and bla bla seen it in Fonline you need to dig for 2 weeks to get anywhere and bang you're dead at the beginning....it would be better in my opinion that as you loot that building...you see nothing...but other new players first time on that location with a quest can loot...similar to WOW...

Anyway somehow when I read your topic it looks fun to go digging in a team...shorter time 2.5 min...I could accept that...static areas like car junkyard...nuclear power plant...maybe as you loot some computers there is a bar going across the screen (like installing a program on PC) until your character extracts the parts...so extract this, extract that..there goes your 2.5 min...or 10 min... Its better to live 3 days as a Lion, then spend the rest of your life as a hyena!

I think if you only get the chance to loot a static location once, and then never find anything there again, that could create dead areas. For example, if a lot of people know about the car junkyard 5 miles northeast of town, then go and scavenge, they have no reason to go back if they can never loot it again.

If instead you have a cooldown, then you might go back if you know you could find more stuff that you need. It would also help to produce conflict (a centerpiece for Fallout) if another group of players wants to be the next to scavenge. Or if they are waiting for someone to come around to scavenge again, kill them, and take what they scavenged instead of doing it themselves.

But that is also the reason that there needs to be both small respawning 'nodes' and also larger static locations. No one is going to camp a single node, but they might set up a group and camp a larger location to scavenge or wait to scavenge or fight to keep people away before they scavenge or...whatever! I think it opens the door for some dynamic play, imo.

And to balance out the fact that people would probably gank someone or a team who is out just for scavenging, just don't make the game full-loot PvP, but that's a whole other topic.

Instead of having Battlegrounds, Fallout could have "Scavenge Grounds", just instance a map with about 20 evenly matched players and scatter different valuables through out the map. The players will have to scour the map looking for the goods and then bring each item back to a respective "Safe Point" before they can pick up another item. Certain items will have a random bonus value will encourage PVP action, while others will have a half value but allow you to carry 3 items before having to return to the "Safe Point". Additionally certain items will require different skills to access, like to get an altenator out of a car, you need a repair skill of 75 and a toolbox. If you are killed in the Scavenge Grounds, you drop whatever items you have scavenged since your last visit to the safe point.

Scav Teams:
Rather than be a complete Free-for-All, I think the mechanic for getting to the Scavenge Grounds should entail joining up with a Scav Team. You tell your pip-boy you are looking for work as a Scav, the server auto-sorts the teams, you get a pop up message saying the Scavenge Ground is about to start, and you get a little cut-sequence or animation of a Jeep pulling up with you getting in to go to the Scavenge Ground. The Jeep becomes your Safe Point for the Scavenge Ground, and the people in that jeep are your team. Instead of just having 2 teams in the Scavenge Ground, you can have up to 5.

Tactics:
You can either try to avoid confrontation while gathering supplies, or actively kill other teams in order to give your own team an advantage. But if team A just camps team B, then teams C,D, and E gathers all the loot,which causes team A to still be a losing team.

Suggestions, Comments, Alterations to this idea are always welcome

Scavege ground sounds fun as hell im not going to lie. I think teams should be broken down according to faction.

Slavers, NCR Rangers, BOS, Vault City, Enclave, and of course the Religious Atomic Church.

That makes it pretty much a 6 sided death mach based on the faction of the characters.

Slavers <---> NCR Rangers
BOS <----> Enclave
Vault City <---> Anyone not human
Atomic Church <---> Everyone

Or there can be scavenger groups that are not even remotely related to those factions. but that means you can have a Slaver standing right next to a ranger on the field. I dont know about you but that seems a little out of place.

My heart definitely lies with a more open-world system and to that, I would prefer not instancing scavenge locations. But I also know that that type of game model for MMOs has definitely been waning, so instancing something like this might not be a bad idea as well. There are PROs and CONs for both, and here are a few I can think of.

Open-World PROs:
1. More realism
2. More chances for dynamic play, not knowing what you'll be getting every time when you 'head out there' to scavenge.
3. Chance for clans/guilds/groups to claim ownership of certain 'deep' sites that are far from safer 'civilized' locations (newbish zones).
Open-world CONs:
1. A good chance there would be wasted space.
2. Harder to get a group organized with nothing more than knowing where to go and when to meet. (ie. no well-defined objectives like in a mini-game)
3. Definitely a chance for gank-squads and other types of griefing that some players may absolutely hate.

Instanced PROs:
1. Simpler, with goals easily defined each time you play. (scavenge as much as you can and try to prevent the other team to scavenge)
2. More-easily accessible, especially if there is an instance queue implemented with the system.
3. Would encourage more PvP, which is always a good thing in my book.
Instanced CONs:
1. Less realism, in the effect that it would feel more like a 'mini-game' and not just 'part of the game'.
2. More repetitive if made to be like an FPS multiplayer mode.
3. Winning and getting what you want, I think, would have less of a that 'achivement' feel.

Those were just a few thoughts on that subject. If something like this was in FOOL, in either fashion, it would be a plus.

Open world, Please!

I do like the idea of instance sauaging grounds though. It could be like a dungeon instance or a battleground. Perhaps an old vault that has been attacked by raiders and we get to go in and see what is left. You could have doors on both side of the mountain that it is under cover entries for both teams?

scavenging is bases on your Mechanics skill:
you stumble upon a car wreck. with a Mechanics of 20 you will find "scrap metal" "unknown motor parts" and the like. unusable, or even worst, impossible to salvage.
with a Mechanics of 50, you find named car parts, and its value, much more usefull.