Yay/Nay: Whaling in Naval Content?

For the record, I'm *WAY* against whaling in *real life*. It may have fit humanity in the past, but it's an out-dated and un-needed practice in the modern world. Perhaps an exception for some indigenous tribes - but only because they literally use so much of a whale.

In the game, though?

I think it could fit, for the time-period/technological level of Verra. With resettlement, we're not really looking at a highly-industrialized civilization, and the amount of whaling Verra's to-be population would do would realistically be sustainable, and probably culturally appropriate. Whale blubber and caviar sound like appropriate crafting ingredients for things like food processing/crafting. Maybe I'm wrong, though....

Maybe we could just have whale-like creatures and call them something else? Would it be sending the wrong message?

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CROW3

Only if there’s an achievement title with ‘blubber’ in it. I’m totally fine with whaling.

Could lead to interesting content like a giant kraken getting revenge for all the whaling and is now destroying ships and causing tidal waves etc etc. 🤪

tautau

This is a good idea @Tyranthraxus . Like you, I abhor real world whaling, but in the game, yeah. Perhaps like real world 1800's it would require a specialized and rather large ship, custom equipment like harpoons, and a large crew. A harpoon might be a pretty effective weapon against pirates, too.

Noaani

This is a really good idea, imo.

Whales could function as a kind of group oriented mob that takes some real effort to kill (an hour or so for a group of 8, perhaps), but when killed can be processed in to meat as a food component, blubber to render in to oil, baleen for making some clothing and maybe fishing line (perhaps just higher quality fishing line), bone for carving, tool making and perhaps even weapon making, ambergris as a potion ingredient, skin for - something, I'm sure.

I like it.

Azryil

I think whaling could be a really cool idea, especially if there is added danger of the whales damaging/destroying ships similar to whales in Atlas.

daveywavey

Would give an added incentive to take to the seas. I can imagine a boat-ful of players keeping their eyes on the horizon, watching for the first sign of a target.

Nerror

I would prefer if they dipped into ancient sea monsters for this one, instead of whales specifically. Firstly because they are way cooler to hunt and they fight back. Secondly, whaling quickly gets political, and it's an easily avoidable controversy by simply exchanging whales for sea monsters.

Let's get some of these guys, Verra style:

AidanKD

I back this! Would be nice to have different tiers for the fishing life skill. So basic fishing is your "land-based" fishing, i.e. fresh water or coastal fishing. Then you can have fishing spots only accessible by boats.

Investing or joining bigger fishing boats gives you access to larger/more sophisticated fishing equipment to access larger/different schools.

Ultimately for something like a whale, you could have a size-able fishing boat, maybe even as far as requiring groups where it's somewhat of a Fishing event with a more active involvement.

Another opportunity for pirates or opposition to try and disrupt your deep-sea fishing endeavours for their own gain.

CROW3

Looking at Nerror's post, mountains look like a smart place to hang out.

daveywavey

Nerror wrote: »

I would prefer if they dipped into ancient sea monsters for this one, instead of whales specifically. Firstly because they are way cooler to hunt and they fight back. Secondly, whaling quickly gets political, and it's an easily avoidable controversy by simply exchanging whales for sea monsters.

Let's get some of these guys, Verra style:

YES

daveywavey

Deep Sea Fishing now requires harpoons, nets, and an enormous Boss Battle

SeasonShepherd

I like the idea of deep sea fishing, not necessarily whale but maybe other versions of older spices & the option to tame some of them.

Happymeal2415

I like the idea of big sea monsters. Nerrors stuff looks good. Do that :P

Azherae

I'm against the whaling concept in general in most worlds that have magic, for many reasons.

Sea monsters are okay, as long as they aren't like the BDO implementation where technically you, as a character, never really 'fight' them.

Otherwise they're just BDO again. An easy target for people to fight over, and not even fight over in interesting ways. You have to make them either really strong, or relatively unrewarding, for this to not happen (BDO handles it by making them impossible to seriously damage with regular methods).

Also, whales are generally much more social entities anyway so unless they change that too, and Verran whales are loners for some reason...

SkylarckTheBotanist

I can't find my source.

But I believe they have said there are creatures which require multiple boats to capture/kill a single sea creature. This I think will add to it!

SeasonShepherd

You could only go deep sea fishing on big boats that can carry enough food and materials so you could survive the trip, pass stroms and monsters waves to discover new islands with new spices of everything from fruits to metal & tameable creatures and of course fish's & more dangerous sea creatures to resupply so you could go back or continue the search.

Geophysical Ninja

You might as well ask if you can just go dolphin hunting. Whaling is symbolic of a horrible tendency of humanity to disregard the ecological impact of our decisions. Other than in fiction where it is a critical plot point, promoting it in any way should be avoided. I'm not saying to avoid fishing or deep sea fishing. I'm saying why whales?

Honestly, I get the idea, but you have a magical fantasy realm and your thought is "I've got to kill some whales." This should be avoided simply because the lack of imagination.

Develop some interesting content that is unique. Pair that with a fishing mechanic.

If this game only allows me to fish for salmon or bass, I will personally light a candle for the designers' soul. That level of complete laziness must mean that the most boring demonic possession has neutered the creativity of a group that can invent a wretched raffles but can't seem to manage a fish other than salmon bc water stuff is hard.

Noaani

Azherae wrote: »

Also, whales are generally much more social entities anyway so unless they change that too, and Verran whales are loners for some reason...

Blue whales generally swim alone.

Geophysical Ninja wrote: »

You might as well ask if you can just go dolphin hunting. Whaling is symbolic of a horrible tendency of humanity to disregard the ecological impact of our decisions. Other than in fiction where it is a critical plot point, promoting it in any way should be avoided. I'm not saying to avoid fishing or deep sea fishing. I'm saying why whales?

That is entirely missing the point.

We all (other than Japan and Norway) consider whaling to be bad because it has been illegal for most of our lives.

It has been illegal for most of our lives because we hunted most whale species down to numbers that were too low.

The idea wasn't to ban whaling, it was to discourage hunting any endangered species. Attributing an emption to just whales is borderline hypocritical.

If you are against whaling in a game, then you should be against hunting any form of lion, tiger, bear, monkey or tuna. Just as whales have some species that are endangered (not all whales are endangered), each of these groups also has members that are endangered.

While it's great to say that you want more interesting stuff, there is nothing at all wrong with also having the familiar.

I mean, we already know we have horses, mules, foxes and turtles as mounts - but we also have more fantastical mounts like the bonestrider.

Sevarielone

Please use sea monsters and fantastic beats - NOT whales or dolphins. It’s not a good vibe and it’s a missed opportunity to be creative.

Ironhope

I'm against murder in real life but ganking is going to be my job in this game. I used to farm gold to hire people to run around with me ganking others in WoW Classic, will do it here.

This being said... ye, kinda feel bad when I got to kill tigers and wolves and stuff like that in games because I just love them so much in real life but at the end of the day it's a game.

I think you should have whales to kill as well as all sorts of sea monsters to kill as well.

CROW3

Got it: {Player name}, The Blubber Clubber.

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