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In response to the OP:
Artificial Life Engine
Starr Long, the game's associate producer, explained in 1996:
Nearly everything in the world, from grass to goblins, has a purpose, and not just as cannon fodder either. The 'virtual ecology' affects nearly every aspect of the game world, from the very small to the very large. If the rabbit population suddenly drops (because some gung-ho adventurer was trying out his new mace) then wolves may have to find different food sources (e.g., deer). When the deer population drops as a result, the local dragon, unable to find the food he’s accustomed to, may head into a local village and attack. Since all of this happens automatically, it generates numerous adventure possibilities.
However, this feature never made it beyond the game's beta stage. As Richard Garriott explained:
We thought it was fantastic. We'd spent an enormous amount of time and effort on it. But what happened was all the players went in and just killed everything; so fast that the game couldn't spawn them fast enough to make the simulation even begin. And so, this thing that we'd spent all this time on, literally no-one ever noticed – ever – and we eventually just ripped it out of the game, you know, with some sadness.[11]
It's been attempted before (way back in 1996, at that). The question is whether you can build an expansive enough world that it will work. Ultima Online is the original sandbox MMO, and they didn't.
It's also worth pointing out that World of Warcraft has a very primitive version of this, where wolves and other red-named predator mobs will attack and kill any yellow-named critter mob nearby.
Crazy interesting!
I can see the problem, and I guess that will be the hardest thing to get a balance on. But we seen to be willing in these games to let the economies form without programmer intervention, perhaps we can do the same as above. Perhaps initially things will go out of whack but as things 'organically' progress some form of balance will occur? Mind you a few areas with HARD NPCs/Monsters should allow for the few protected areas. Maybe trading with the power Orc tribe will be far more healthy than attacking it? I would imagine a dragon is a powerful motivator not go some places?
If every time a party of PC's annoy the local dragon it strafes the village burning it to the ground I would think other PC's with vested interest in the town may be keen on a bit of the PvP interaction... :)
Hmmmm, now I'm thinking Druid - a PvP protecting nature Druid. I have high hopes for the game, however, what will sell and what I think would rock may differ greatly.
S.
Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah, I think the solution for viable ecosystems is making the world big enough (which I have doubts will occur because the "fun lovers" will demand they not have to travel far).
I have also been thinking druid...and fighting the "expansion of civilization" and the unchecked reaping of resources. Perhaps a guild...a Druidic Order...
WoW's version was all but pointless except for a very small amount of flavor involved, but it was something that was seen once and promptly ignored. As far as implementing something like UO's original idea, I wouldn't mind seeing it tried again. Maybe with a larger replenishing supply of rabbits. Maybe have the rabbits slowly dwindle down to nothing. And then start the chain from there.
I'm not any sort of programming wizard, but UO's failure for this system was 15 years ago. I'm willing to be there's some sort of solution possible now. Whether or not it would be easy to implement, or something that players would enjoy for that matter, is another thing entirely.
Quite frankly, I don't see this as anything but flavor to begin with. I really doubt that it will be core to the gameplay. But I was answering the OP where he said, "Are we at the level of computing power where the environment, and I'm thinking initially animals here, can have a life of their own? In a skill based game where blacksmith, and I guess skinner/tanner is a valid option, such game enhancements would really make PF Online stand out from the crowd."
UO attempted this fifteen years ago. The technology was at that point then. So maybe Goblinworks can 'tweak' it so that it works for PFO where it didn't for UO. Though, quite frankly, I don't think it's worth the effort.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well, if done correctly, it has many real effects in the world. Many humans on Earth today could not go hunt for meat or leather. Many of us do not even have access to trees IF we wanted (and knew how) to make something from wood. How would I learn to be a tanner with no access to leather? How would I make an axe handle without wood?
Personally, I think a world which forced trade routes from areas of high resource density to low would be cool. Likewise, I think reaping all of the resources from an area SHOULD effectively kill it. You do this, you spend the rest of eternity buying resources from those who limited themselves.
Religion and Resources....what else is there to fight for?
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Religion and Resources....what else is there to fight for?
World peace.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Though, quite frankly, I don't think it's worth the effort.
In part, it could serve as a vessel for forcing player migration to different areas at different times. If you're looking at certain animal skins as your primary source of leather, and that source suddenly runs out then you're forced to move. Or even if you want to talk about some form of mining area, let's say a cave, that has a super rare vein of mithral in it. Well, one guild locks down the area, builds up their little village/fort/whatever around it but then ends up strip mining it. Their flow of materials/income has now moved somewhere else and you have an opportunity (albeit a slightly manufactured one) to have a prime area pop up in a different location. People get to go searching for it and eventually take over or defend it.
It being worth the effort entirely depends on the implementation of it. If you're adding in something like what WoW has, then it is pretty pointless. Or even an unrefined and inevitably broken system like UO had. You need to plan around your player base in a situation like this. For PFO, since they have an exact idea of how many users they'll have at a given time, I think it's something that's at least possible if not ideal.
Goblinworks Founder
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Though, quite frankly, I don't think it's worth the effort.In part, it could serve as a vessel for forcing player migration to different areas at different times. If you're looking at certain animal skins as your primary source of leather, and that source suddenly runs out then you're forced to move. Or even if you want to talk about some form of mining area, let's say a cave, that has a super rare vein of mithral in it. Well, one guild locks down the area, builds up their little village/fort/whatever around it but then ends up strip mining it. Their flow of materials/income has now moved somewhere else and you have an opportunity (albeit a slightly manufactured one) to have a prime area pop up in a different location. People get to go searching for it and eventually take over or defend it.
I think this would be an ideal situation for the game. Assuming in your scenario, the guild that strip mines their mithril decide to pack up their bags and build somewhere else. What would be really brilliant is if some monsters took up residence in their absence. If left unchecked monsters could over populate a region also and players would be trying to keep the balance of fauna at a healthy level, while keeping the population of the monsters under control also.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's been attempted before (way back in 1996, at that). The question is whether you can build an expansive enough world that it will work. Ultima Online is the original sandbox MMO, and they didn't.
It's also worth pointing out that World of Warcraft has a very primitive version of this, where wolves and other red-named predator mobs will attack and kill any yellow-named critter mob nearby.
WoW's version was all but pointless except for a very small amount of flavor involved, but it was something that was seen once and promptly ignored. As far as implementing something like UO's original idea, I wouldn't mind seeing it tried again. Maybe with a larger replenishing supply of rabbits. Maybe have the rabbits slowly dwindle down to nothing. And then start the chain from there.
I'm not any sort of programming wizard, but UO's failure for this system was 15 years ago. I'm willing to be there's some sort of solution possible now. Whether or not it would be easy to implement, or something that players would enjoy for that matter, is another thing entirely.
Agreed, I could see it as fully plausible if spawn rates actually were based on how many things were in an area. IE if there are 2 rabbits in an area, then 1 rabbit an hour will spawn, when there are 5 rabbits, 2 will spawn an hour, etc... If rabbits get wiped out, no rabbits will spawn in the area unless taken from a different area. That would be a hugely different mechanic from WoW's standard of "this rabbit spawns here, and will re-spawn here 5 minutes after it is killed".
Now whether a server can actually handle such a concept or if that is just a whole ton of overhead for something that only 2% of the population would be interested in, I have no idea.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I must stress again that finite resources is not going to work. Diminishing resources down to a flat (and potentially to-the-red-line at that)supply rate would, meaning that a mine can only be worked for 5 out of every 6 months before it needs to be left alone by the players so that the nodes can respawn or PCs/NPCs can dig deeper after more Ore Veins.
Nobody wants to live in a strip-mined hole the size of Canada.
Likewise, Forests, herbs, animals and monsters can't be nominally wiped out.
Trees/Forests are a problem, because yes there will be dumb-bells out there who will go "LOL DRUIDS!" and just carve Trollfaces out of the forests, but overall the size of a Forest should not variate much. Being able to cut down a dozen trees is one thing, but players should also be given the option to plant new seedlings in the stumps. Potentially at higher levels, Players can seek out Alchemists or Druids and Nature Priests to make the seedlings grow into new trees faster.
That said, while on one hand forcing people to be aware that Time-intensive resources such as wood, stone and iron will not just spring-back might be cool, causing people to become extremely cautious with their materials, the whole "P#+! da Guards!" crowd would jump on it as a means of griefing and effectively cripple a region but completely wiping out the forests, filling the mines with rubble and traps and/or luring powerful monsters to the quarries to kill everything.
The flip side to this argument is to not require a suit of studded leather armor not require the decimation of an entire herd of mammoths to get the materials, ala WoW. A reasonable amount of materials for items, such as two steel ingots and a unit of wood to make a Steel Sword is a good option, whereas two adamantite ingots and a unit of duskwood to make an Adamantite Sword is preferable to the players being saddled with meaningless busytime professions with ludicrously high material costs.
Crafting should be challenging, like any aspect of the game, but not to the point you feel like putting your fist through the screen or have to spend more time trying to get twenty or thirty different bits of ore just to make one ingot.
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Goblin Squad Member
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total ecology is bad idea. there would be players going around stripping down places to the bone. just because they could.
at best, players should be able to affect respawn rate. harvest too much and respawn rate goes down. but never below minimum value. leave it alone and respawn rate slowly goes up over time.
example (all numbers for example only), area normally holds 100 deer. it respawns 10% of current deer per day, with minimum 1 respawned, up to maximum 100 deer in area.
kill 20 deer per day, and next day there will be 88 ((100-20)+10%). after 7 days all deer will be gone. at the 8th day, 1 deer will respawn. if area is left alone, deer population will slowly build up 1/day up to 20, then 2/day up to 30, etc, up to 100.
of course, there could be multiple factors where availability of one resource can affect respawn rate of other resource, but in all cases there should be preset minimum respawn rate and maximum available quantity.
I'm going to have to disagree on the resource rate purely for factor of three things.
1. Players are not going to be starting out at levels 10+, which means they are still limited to the labors of one person, barring Leadership and careful commoner manipulation, and a lack of extensive machinery. A single person could down a number of trees, or mine a finite amount of metal, or hunt a finite amount of game in their time period, but consider how much of said resource will be in an area at any given time.
2. While said antagonists would be trying to strip-mine/deforest/genocide an area for the lulz, the world would still be happening around them. I'm pretty sure the friendly neighborhood bears won't like having their lairs jacked with...along with the slew of other beasts that would be less than amused with the initial low-level PCs futzing about with the world in which they live.
3. People keep assuming there won't be stronger, faster, more powerful things out there that happen to like the forest just as it is. Or the mineral resources just where they are. Barring that, deities won't get involved necessarily, but their agents might have something to say about, say, Erastil's favored terrain being turned into scorched earth.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Something to think of with Ecosystems is the introduction of 'alien' life-forms. Think of Australia and the Cane Toads, imported to deal with the pests in the sugar-cane plantations, which ended up becoming one of the single biggest threats to the native ecosystem due to their poisonous defences, their massive spawning ability and their tendency to eat EVERYTHING in their path that can possibly fit down their throats, up to and including baby saltwater crocodiles in one extreme case.
What happens when the PCs drive a monster from one region to another? Does the monster just die out, or does it adapt and thrive, becoming and even greater threat to the PCs and the Surrounding Environment. A Hydra in the swamps is one thing, a Hydra that flees the PCs and swims into the river, which leads into the nearby village's fish-farm, is a disaster in progress. Hydra is relatively protected so long as none of the NPCs or PCs spot it, it can eat up all the fish-stock, removing a valuable food resource, and when recovered, there is a village right up the river-bank, just waiting to be Godzilla'd.
Flip-side to this argument, PCs accidentally lose a string of pack-carrying Horses in a region filled with interconnected valleys. A few in-game months later, there are herds of Mountain Horses roaming the region, pushing the native bighorn sheep and other herbivores out of their habitat and into extinction. PCs can hunt down and kill/capture the Horses, helping to restore the native populations somewhat, but if left alone the Mountain Horses now become the main prey of the Griffons and Gargoyles that live in the mountains.
Canny PCs might even go so far as to purposefully introduce 'alien' species primarily for this reason, to 'push out' a troublesome or hostile species, or even to play havoc with other players.
That would be awesome, and I can only hope that there's a non-resource-intensive way to make it happen.
The biggest possible problem I see for this is that there would have to be, for lack of a better term, sufficient NPC involvement to prevent such a thing, if only in the form of having non-player druids who do some measure of custodial work ot help prevent this, something along the lines of the equivalent in a themepark MMO of a 'rare spawn', so if someone wanted to go to such measures, they'd have to deal with the patrolling individual who is there to purposefully prevent such occurrences from happening.
That said, I actually would be pleased with the ability to discourage creatures into other areas, such as the aforementioned hydra example, purely because this means some quests could be resolved with a method that wasn't inherently lethal - someone with a more pacifistic bent could still end up fighting, but not being forced to kill, so that sufficiently inflicted pain over time will force things with the sense to flee to do so instead of inherently fighting to the death.
Plus, it would make for all manners of strange taming opportunities. Suddenly, a menagerie structure for purpose of quality of life improvement! Filled with all manners of things that people could catch and cage.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Lure a Gelatinous Cube into a pit and drop a steel lid down on top. Throw your garbage in and once a month, a few vials of Alchemist's Fire. No messy midden, no vermin coming to feed on your garbage, a handy surprise for somebody trying to sneak into 'that vault'.
'Herding' Prey animals such as Horse, Goat and Cattle into a player-made corral with food and water troughs can help ensure A) Players have ready access to food and crafting materials and B) Players can protect said animals from Creeps, NPCs and Rival/Douchebag Players.
Yes to luring/herding for purpose of keeping a private stock, not having to go out and about to refind/reacquire harvestable materials in the wild, when those materials are typically herded.
I see all these really neat ideas. I also see these ideas being totally abused by players. I have yet to see one that will work the way it is intended with a reasonable amount of programing time.
That being said, I do love these ideas. I just hope people don't get their hopes up. Dumb players must be kept in mind.
True enough! Like Ryan said, what happens when 50k gamers all try luring hydras towards towns? Chaos incarnate! Lamashtu would be pleased.
That mostly will depend on if those 50K players are the only ones, which is unlikely, and if that's all they've done. If 50K players are all trying to lure hydras, first off, where the hell did they find 50K hydras in the environs that would not support that many, for one, and for two, I'm certain that 5K players who have suitably built up the population, trained up guards, ensured those guards have access to potions and alchemical weapons, made sure to build a witch hut and a wizard toward, and have been adventuring enough to build up suitable gear and outfitted their guards and themselves, would be able to handle the hydras that didn't eat the 50K people and managed to somehow end up meandering towards civilization.
While there's an appeal and a justification for assuming that a random 50K worth of people will jump straight in and 'go directly for lulz do not pass go do not collect 200g', one should take into account the time and effort involved in first finding a hydra, and then enticing it towards a city, as I'm pretty sure that there are easier tasty tidbits than the wandering players and NPCs. I'm fairly certain some critters will respond to pain and attempt to flee, rather than charge in for death and glory.
In fact, it strikes me as being very likely that those attempting to do so will provide an in-universe analog for the term 'Darwin Award Recipient'.
In fact, it strikes me as being very likely that those attempting to do so will provide an in-universe analog for the term 'Darwin Award Recipient'.
This is something I would love to see play out!
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Goblin Squad Member
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Having a dynamic ecology could be a really nice feature for a sandbox style game. It's also one of those things that could be implimented in as limited or as extensive a fashion as desired.
The key is probably being able to balance depletion of resources with the player population....and also being able to expand the territory base (or starting with a large enough base) so that there is always "frontier" area available.
Note also that there is no reason why the Dev's can't monkey with or tweak the ecology if they see it's not giving them desirable results.
Remember just because the players exist in a sandbox game and should be able to effect the world around them doesn't mean that the players are would be the ONLY (or neccesarly even the most powefull) forces in the world with the capability to do so. Especialy considering a fantasy world where there are multiple dieties that can and will play an active role in the game world.
In fact, it strikes me as being very likely that those attempting to do so will provide an in-universe analog for the term 'Darwin Award Recipient'.This is something I would love to see play out!
If anything, this plus FRAPS (or an in-game tool to do the same, hint hint) will make for all the comedy gold you could ask for in an easy-to-dispense 'Let's Play!' format. PFO safaris would go just as people imagined many Nature Shows would proceed were it not for controls in place.
Having a dynamic ecology could be a really nice feature for a sandbox style game. It's also one of those things that could be implimented in as limited or as extensive a fashion as desired.
The key is probably being able to balance depletion of resources with the player population....and also being able to expand the territory base (or starting with a large enough base) so that there is always "frontier" area available.
Note also that there is no reason why the Dev's can't monkey with or tweak the ecology if they see it's not giving them desirable results.
Remember just because the players exist in a sandbox game and should be able to effect the world around them doesn't mean that the players are would be the ONLY (or neccesarly even the most powefull) forces in the world with the capability to do so. Especialy considering a fantasy world where there are multiple dieties that can and will play an active role in the game world.
Which paraphrases the point I was trying to make earlier perfectly, thank you very much. :)
Plus, as I recall, there's just enough of a sense of humor amongst the pantheon to where at least one or two of the gods could get away with doing something for the sake of personal amusement. Not to Greco-Roman levels of deitific malfeasance, mind, but they certainly could do something of an indirectly interventionist nature...or one of their many allies or underlings with sufficient power could do the same.
That mostly will depend on if those 50K players are the only ones, which is unlikely, and if that's all they've done. If 50K players are all trying to lure hydras, first off, where the hell did they find 50K hydras in the environs that would not support that many, for one, and for two, I'm certain that 5K players who have suitably built up the population, trained up guards, ensured those guards have access to potions and alchemical weapons, made sure to build a witch hut and a wizard toward, and have been adventuring enough to build up suitable gear and outfitted their guards and themselves, would be able to handle the hydras that didn't eat the 50K people and managed to somehow end up meandering towards civilization.
While there's an appeal and a justification for assuming that a random 50K worth of people will jump straight in and 'go directly for lulz do not pass go do not collect 200g', one should take into account the time and effort involved in first finding a hydra, and then enticing it towards a city, as I'm pretty sure that there are easier tasty tidbits than the wandering players and NPCs. I'm fairly certain some critters will respond to pain and attempt to flee, rather than charge in for death and glory.
In fact, it strikes me as being very likely that those attempting to do so will provide an in-universe analog for the term 'Darwin Award Recipient'.
You forget the one maxim that holds true across all MMOs...
If it can be done in game, no matter how silly or useless, once one player figures out how to do it, it will at one point or another be attempted en masse.
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That mostly will depend on if those 50K players are the only ones, which is unlikely, and if that's all they've done. If 50K players are all trying to lure hydras, first off, where the hell did they find 50K hydras in the environs that would not support that many, for one, and for two, I'm certain that 5K players who have suitably built up the population, trained up guards, ensured those guards have access to potions and alchemical weapons, made sure to build a witch hut and a wizard toward, and have been adventuring enough to build up suitable gear and outfitted their guards and themselves, would be able to handle the hydras that didn't eat the 50K people and managed to somehow end up meandering towards civilization.
While there's an appeal and a justification for assuming that a random 50K worth of people will jump straight in and 'go directly for lulz do not pass go do not collect 200g', one should take into account the time and effort involved in first finding a hydra, and then enticing it towards a city, as I'm pretty sure that there are easier tasty tidbits than the wandering players and NPCs. I'm fairly certain some critters will respond to pain and attempt to flee, rather than charge in for death and glory.
In fact, it strikes me as being very likely that those attempting to do so will provide an in-universe analog for the term 'Darwin Award Recipient'.
You forget the one maxim that holds true across all MMOs...
If it can be done in game, no matter how silly or useless, once one player figures out how to do it, it will at one point or another be attempted en masse.
The monkey ses/multitudes do factor isn't limited to MMOs - see YouTube (and to an extent, shows like Jackass) as a prime example.
The main preventative in cases such as this is to catch and correct incidents of Artificial Stupidity. Getting complex behaviors figured out will lead for many opportunities for this issue to arise, and hopefully just as many chances to fix it. Additionally, take into account the rarity of certain monsters and types across their favored ecosystems; given the size of, and corresponding quantities of resourced needed to be consumed by, our example hydra, it's unlikely there will ever be enough of them in a given area to play 'let's kite to the city!' and expect to get a substantial number of them. Additionally, the guards should notice who drags dangerous beasts to such safe havens, and there should be repercussions on the PC level. Just as importantly, there should be a reasonable expectation of break point of where aggro is held, unless you want things to follow all across the ends of the world map without that specific tenacity being a part of the creature in questions' modus operandi.
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So... Ideas for systems that avoid player driven extinction of creatures
1. Have them breed faster when their numbers are low
2. Have them migrate away from areas where they are being murdered
3. Have invisible intangible groups of mobs that breed slowly (so a species never goes "extinct".)
4. Have druids show up and spawn more "endangered" / extinct species
5. Have "evil" creatures spawn at "evil" temples
Any other ideas?