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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Realistic 'human' impact upon flora and fauna, and other thoughts.
ArchivedUser
Guest
Gathering for crafting normally involves:
-Find a resource.
-Hit a resource.
-Get random result.
The impact that this has upon the world is insignificant, all that happens is a spawn point for that material disappears for a while, then randomly (?) gets filled up again later.
What I'd love to see is the ability for player (s) to actually have to think about the results of their actions upon the world.
In real life :
If you cut down a tree, what happens next depends upon the type of tree. (I'll get into that shortly)
If you attack or disturb deer, they will stay away from that area for a while. (A corpse or fire will mean that most animals won't come near)
If you take out all of the animals food sources, they will migrate away in search of new sources.
If you have fields full of corn, and pull up all of the nearby 'weed crop' then the only seeds to take their place are going to be the corn, not a latent 'weed crop'.
If you cut down all the trees in the forest, the light that suddenly appears changes the environment enough to benefit different plant types on the forest floor.
I think that MMO's could benefit from a touch more real life in the gathering and resource spawning departments.
Ok, so what would I do then to fix it?
Well first give players options upon gathering-
- Find resource (ie a tree)
-Make a choice (For a tree:
a - Take it all. (If no one has done anything with it before, you'd only get firewood really, nothing of much benefit to high quality crafting)
b - Coppice it: Take off the top part of the tree, leaving the stump growing. After a bit of time, this will provide you with better quality wooden withies later down the line (better crafting material for bows, arrows etc)
c - Pollard it: Cut off any branches (for firewood) leaving the main tree growing, this is how the better quality timber has been produced for generations, as it provides tall straight strong planks.
After a certain time, all trees could revert back to a basic design, but for a set time period, managed woods would be definitely more useful to crafters.
All spawn points are assigned statistical possibilities based upon their neighbouring spawn points.
(And include farmland in those - loose pigs anyone?)
That way deer will be drawn to a lot of nearby trees, wild herbs to a more meadow like environments.
And if players get rid of all of the trees and plant bog standard crops, it'd be fabulous to see the wildlife numbers dropping off because they've nothing to live off of.
Or If players have killed all of the bears, any other bears would keep away and only slowly make a reappearance in that area. (yeah that's a random sentence, editing the surrounding comments removed all sense from it :D )
Yup, I'd love to see a world where crops and livestock could 'escape' - ok, so not meaning a player would lose out and suddenly find themselves a field of corn down, but so that other players could wander by and find it more likely to find themselves able to find corn growing wild that they could pick.
And diseases!
Can everything, please finally get infections and virus' in an mmo?
Wouldn't it be great to actually have a visible or audible signal that someone (or something) is sick?
If anything get's sick, could you please turn it funny colours.
Different colours = different illnesses /effects
So slightly purple hair is a cold, it's highly contagious, but just saps energy (run speed) and means you need to sleep it off or get a cure.
Neon purple hair is more serious, it's flu! You can't 'talk' properly, you're unable to move much, you need to sleep it off, eat chicken soup, stay warm and get a cure, doctors are need!
Red hair isn't very contagious, but affects your eyesight (and ability to see your screen or targeting skills)
That way you'd learn to avoid illnesses.
Wait, you've eaten something fresh off the tree without cooking it? There's a risk of food poisoning where you get negative buffs and a 'vomit' emote every three minutes!
I had thought of more ideas, but they've all run away from me right now, I'll be back when they return.
-Find a resource.
-Hit a resource.
-Get random result.
The impact that this has upon the world is insignificant, all that happens is a spawn point for that material disappears for a while, then randomly (?) gets filled up again later.
What I'd love to see is the ability for player (s) to actually have to think about the results of their actions upon the world.
In real life :
If you cut down a tree, what happens next depends upon the type of tree. (I'll get into that shortly)
If you attack or disturb deer, they will stay away from that area for a while. (A corpse or fire will mean that most animals won't come near)
If you take out all of the animals food sources, they will migrate away in search of new sources.
If you have fields full of corn, and pull up all of the nearby 'weed crop' then the only seeds to take their place are going to be the corn, not a latent 'weed crop'.
If you cut down all the trees in the forest, the light that suddenly appears changes the environment enough to benefit different plant types on the forest floor.
I think that MMO's could benefit from a touch more real life in the gathering and resource spawning departments.
Ok, so what would I do then to fix it?
Well first give players options upon gathering-
- Find resource (ie a tree)
-Make a choice (For a tree:
a - Take it all. (If no one has done anything with it before, you'd only get firewood really, nothing of much benefit to high quality crafting)
b - Coppice it: Take off the top part of the tree, leaving the stump growing. After a bit of time, this will provide you with better quality wooden withies later down the line (better crafting material for bows, arrows etc)
c - Pollard it: Cut off any branches (for firewood) leaving the main tree growing, this is how the better quality timber has been produced for generations, as it provides tall straight strong planks.
After a certain time, all trees could revert back to a basic design, but for a set time period, managed woods would be definitely more useful to crafters.
All spawn points are assigned statistical possibilities based upon their neighbouring spawn points.
(And include farmland in those - loose pigs anyone?)
That way deer will be drawn to a lot of nearby trees, wild herbs to a more meadow like environments.
And if players get rid of all of the trees and plant bog standard crops, it'd be fabulous to see the wildlife numbers dropping off because they've nothing to live off of.
Or If players have killed all of the bears, any other bears would keep away and only slowly make a reappearance in that area. (yeah that's a random sentence, editing the surrounding comments removed all sense from it :D )
Yup, I'd love to see a world where crops and livestock could 'escape' - ok, so not meaning a player would lose out and suddenly find themselves a field of corn down, but so that other players could wander by and find it more likely to find themselves able to find corn growing wild that they could pick.
And diseases!
Can everything, please finally get infections and virus' in an mmo?
Wouldn't it be great to actually have a visible or audible signal that someone (or something) is sick?
If anything get's sick, could you please turn it funny colours.
Different colours = different illnesses /effects
So slightly purple hair is a cold, it's highly contagious, but just saps energy (run speed) and means you need to sleep it off or get a cure.
Neon purple hair is more serious, it's flu! You can't 'talk' properly, you're unable to move much, you need to sleep it off, eat chicken soup, stay warm and get a cure, doctors are need!
Red hair isn't very contagious, but affects your eyesight (and ability to see your screen or targeting skills)
That way you'd learn to avoid illnesses.
Wait, you've eaten something fresh off the tree without cooking it? There's a risk of food poisoning where you get negative buffs and a 'vomit' emote every three minutes!
I had thought of more ideas, but they've all run away from me right now, I'll be back when they return.
0
Comments
"it’s a huge HUUUUUUUGGGE ask from a kickstarter mmo."
I just thought that adding odds to their spawn points wouldn't be too difficult, as unless the spawn points always stay the same resource they must have some script for what spawns anyway. Ie: copper/tin/iron etc etc
But yeah, I know nothing about writing stuff :) Maybe with the next mmo eh? :D
I too would like a drink/drugged mechanism where you lose control of your avatar and it becomes a partial NPC.
I would like to see a 100m sprint drinking game with thoroughly drunk people.
I would be laughing my arse off for days, at the ensuing calamity.
BUT...its ultimately a performance issue.
The more possibilities you add the more code branches and compound IF statements you need to write.
That coding can get really complex and unmanageable real quick.
And if that multi choice also becomes multilayered, you better employ Einstein to debug it.
I guess its a compromise between KISS and Depth.
You will need a crystal clear framework to ensure you dont end up lost.
I think there should be more to disease then sleeping it off. To me, it would be annoying if you randomly got a disease and it de-buffed you tell you slept or did another easy task. That said, it would be cool if they were rare, magical disease that you only contracted by doing certain "high level" tasks as some kind of consequence. It could be some ancient disease, possibly similar to the corruption. You had to do an "epic quest" that requires a lot of exploration to discover the cure.
Yep, I agree that disease resolution would be nicer if you have to do something more complicated.... "only tea made with a white feather found on a blue penguin in the desert can cure it" kind of thing.
I've got to say I doubt any of this could be done realistically, it was just something I thought I'd throw out there as a dreamy "what if..." kind of a thing :)
Interest induces immersion.
Its a good thing to have as long as you dont kill the game in the process.