This is actually something I posted in reply to a druid's cry for help making plat. A friend told me that I should post it for people who might be new to foraging.
So, a bit of information about foraging. You can forage once every 100 seconds. If you hot key forage and /autoinventory to one of your movement buttons, you can get your skill up very quickly.
If you can not get the /autoinventory macro to work for you, just open your inventory with the "i" key and click on the big black section in the middle. This will automatically put your foraged items in the first available slot (and stack them, too).
As your skill increases, you will forage items more often. Also, you will forage "rare" items more often. Vegetables are not rare. Tufts of dire wolf fur are pretty rare. No matter what, you can not forage more often than once every 100 seconds. At 200 skill, I forage something just about every time.
Forage is your friend. You can sell foraged items in bazaar for lots of money.
1. Misty Thicket- you can forage misty acorns (which are also ground spawns), and sell them for about 150p in the bazaar.
2. West Commonlands- you can forage plains roots which I sell for 30p in bazaar.
3. Plane of Innovation (when you're older)- you can forage clockwork grease which sells for about 100p each in bazaar.
4. Everfrost Adventures- you can forage lemming fur which sells for about 175p in bazaar.
5. Jaggedpine Forest- you can forage plant shoot which I sell for 20p in bazaar.
6. Mistmoore Adventures- you can forage 2 things here: spider silks (5p in bazaar) and gargoyle granite (45p in bazaar)
7. Dreadlands- Honey Berry which I sell in bazaar for 15p each.
8. Greater Faydark- Cinnamon sticks and morning dew will sell for about 5p in the bazaar.
9. Eastern Wastes- Tuft of dire wolf fur (halfling cultural tailoring) will go for about 30p in bazaar. Branch of sylvan oak will go for 5p or so.
10. Kael Drakkel- Tuft of dire wolf fur
11. Stonebrunt Mountains- Bamboo Shoots and Kejekan Palm Fruits will sell pretty well as they are for the Wakizashi of the Frozen Skies quest (nice weapon for un-twinked rangers).
12. Plane of Justice- Justice Fruit and Bread crumbs sell very well. I don't know how much they sell for because my friend uses them all.
13. Takish-Hiz- Sand Verbena and Geodes sell for about 50p each in the bazaar.
If you have room/time sell all your foraged junk- pod of water (used to make water flasks), fishing grubs (brewing- fetid essence), black roots (brewing- forgot the recipe), vegetables (lots of brewing recipes), fruit (brewing), berries (brewing), and just about anything else that can be used in tradeskills in the bazaar for 1p. Or, you could work your brewing skill for next to nothing, and offer your services as a brewer for plat.
-If you have the time, get a foraging machete. It has +10pct foraging mod. You just have to forage dawnflower seeds (dsp), letalis zenith vine (mons letalis), twilight orchid (twilight sea), and a red sands cactus (scarlet desert). You then go to Katta Castellum (succor once you get in) and turn these in to tobala honeyjar (druid GM). This quest is called the rare plants quest (and for good reason). The first time I did this quest, my ranger had 90-something foraging skill. I spent three solid days foraging. The mobs in each zone are particularly nasty if you're a low level. The safest way to Katta is to have a druid port you to Twilight Sea, and then levitate over the water to Katta. The machete is a lore item, but you could sell machete kits for several hundred plat on the auction channel.
I sell my foraging machete for 500-2kpp when i get strapped for cash.
More information on foraging:
To my knowledge, your toon's level is not a factor in what you can forage-- only your foraging skill. However, I believe foraging is capped for each level, so your level may have an effect in that way. I could be wrong.
You will not forage more often in the middle of the zone than at the zone line. It has been said that you can forage ground spawns which would make it seem that you forage an item more often if it is on the ground where you are. I don't believe it to be true.
It is quite possible that you are more likely to get a Pod of water when it is raining, but I would have never guessed.
If you are getting the same item over and over, I would guess that's because it is a common item.
You will not forage while auto attack is on.
I haven't used the /autoinventory in a long time, because my friend scared me by telling me it was a bot/cheat when I was a young ranger on Venril Sathir. I believe you have to type /doability # in the first line, then /pause 10 in line two, and then /autoinventory. # should be the number block that forage is set to in the actions tab. Now I know it is not a bot or a cheat, but I've gotten used to putting items in my big black box :p
54 halfling druid of Karana on Brell
Blitzwolf Thunderpaw is my name, but my friends know me as the craziest druid in Norrath.
Edited, Tue Apr 20 02:46:56 2004 by SolarFire
Edited, Wed Apr 21 15:01:36 2004 by SolarFire