Quote Originally Posted by fflhktsn View Post

A combat character on the otherhand, needs to do all of his skill leveling far from any safe zone, animals are so hard to come by that other players are the better route. However if a death penalty that removes stats and skills is implimented, it puts all of the risk of the game on the combat characters.
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as you know i disagree with most of your op but the above you are forgetting that currently there are only 4 types of animals but in the not so distant future there will be more eventually i believe for a total of 40 if i remember correctly. you are also assuming that the crafters will not venture out, i don't see that as being the case there is not one place you can place your totem and get everything you need especially once the scrap piles are depleted. besides you know what they say about assumptions :P