nope you gotta do quests. Look at single player quests as the time you can harvest herbs, mine, fish, etc... you don't want to waste everyone's time farming resources in multiplayer, that's prime huntin' time!
You guys are so far ahead of me. Man. I can't sit down and play long enough to feel like im progressing even. That jerk ass angler fish thing is giving me guff in sp and mp feels really whack with pickup groups.