I think it's time Rare does something about bananas. We all know what I'm talking about. You're fighting skellies on a tiny atoll, or making that big money at a Fort of Fury and you're about to die. You need food. You don't want to swim back to the boat, because you can't let your crew think you're slacking.
You go through all the supply barrels in that location and what do you find? Cannonballs? Planks? Chainshot? Nothing to help you...but then you see that lone barrel tucked away amongst the weeds in the corner of the island/fort. You run to it, open it up, and with a sliver of health, you find...a banana. Maybe two or three. You don't NEED a banana or two or three. You need something that's going to give you that boost to hop back in and keep up the fight. You need a coconut (at least) or if you're lucky, a pineapple. There are no "good" foods to be had, though.
"So what do you propose as a solution?", you ask. Well, here is my proposition; a phasing out of bananas as a source of food in the game by way of a reporting system. Here's how it would work: You find bananas in a random barrel, you use the reporting system to let Rare know what island you found them on, which barrel they were in and the quantity of the bananas in the barrel. I understand that most of you will feel this protocol will be enough to accomplish the goal set forth, but it won't be enough. We will have to do more.
The second and more efficient means of getting bananas removed from the game is to stop using them. By utilizing that same reporting system, each player in the game will be encouraged to report any other players seen using/taking/storing bananas during a gameplay session. Each player reported will automatically recieve a penalty fee of 100,000 gold and a 30 minute brigging period. I feel that this would be enough of a deterrent to keep players from grabbing bananas on a stocking run for the ship willy nilly.
I know what most of you are going to say..."Bananas are a nod to Rare's ties to Donkey Kong...and Diddy Kong, too! They aren't going to get rid of that. It's too culturally important to their heritage as a video game studio!!!" I understand that point. I do; but there are much bigger things at play here than a shout out to a video game monkey that had little to no cultural signifigance to anyone.
This is something that Rare should have fixed LONG ago, but they didn't. Instead, what did they do? They glorified this potassium laced nuisance with a skeleton on Maurauder's Arch and a specifically marked barrel of them on Sanctuary Outpost. So now it's up to us, the players, to try and fix this mess that Rare has saddled us with.
TL;DR - Bananas are killing the game. Get rid of them.
