PlaneShift
Gameplay => Wish list => Topic started by: Kuiper7986 on June 15, 2003, 07:03:07 pm
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I hope in the game there\'d be trees, plants, and Vegetation Wildlife. It\'s the little things that make a game great...
I was just wondering was it planned that all trees, plants, and vegetation wildlife can be used in some way or can only a certain type be used? In better terms, I can\'t just go up and pick up some grass and use it, I assume that wouldn\'t be logical, plus what the hell can you do with so much grass?
Is each area going to contain different vegetation. Like desert will have cactus type plants, forests will have more coniferous life, and underwater will have more aquatic vegetation. And would Sea Sponges be considered a plant or a fungus?
How would you collect the plants, can you pick the smaller plans with your hand, and use a bigger weapon to cut down big trees? Will any plants be edible raw for quick HP recovery? Will some plants be poisonous? Will herbs be only used for medicinal uses or will they also be used for cooking food. With the wood from trees most likely it would be used for building, furniture making, carpentry, and fletching right? When trees are cut down must they grow again or do they respawn quickly enough not to be noticed unless being watched.
Can wild vegetation be domesticated? Can wild vegetation be cultivated? Will there be fruits like, apples, bananas, oranges, etc...? Would there be roots like potatos, taro, carrots, radishes and peanuts? Would these fruits and roots need to be watered everyday? Would being a farmer to able to create steady income by supply and demand? Can you extract the color of certain plants and use them as dye? More questions later......
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Let\'s come up with some entirely new ideas.
I always like a banana peel. It would be interesting to have something like a watermelon that peels like a banana. You could make the thing grow like a cactus with spines and if you don\'t peel it right you take hit points.
Since we have a lot of different races some of them pretty peculiar you half to ask questions like what does a rock based life form eat. It can\'t be just rock because there\'s no energy in it. However their dietary needs would have to be quite different than ours. I doubt they could eat the same food. Maybe they eat a lot of root based food and don\'t wash it on purpose is to keep up the mineral content. Actually cooking the food maybe an absurd idea for them. It\'s possible that they also eat rock for the same reason we eat salt however it probably have to be the right kind of rock. They might not eat granite for the same reason we don\'t eat would.
We have one race that\'s totally carnivorous. They also might be opposed to cooking food. For them succulent means fresh.
There\'s also the category of fungus. After all that is what a mushroom is. There could be a wide range of edible fungus.
It would be cool to have trees that don\'t look anything like what were accustomed to. An underground environment could produce some pretty strange things.
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something i wanted to post quite a few times already, but was to lazy/busy to make a new thread myself: trees should be bigger (maybe not all, but still), and there should be some woods outside
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That would make a lot of sense. Since there\'s probably a lack of high winds underground the trees could get extremely large and not fall over. And if you subscribe to Darwin evolution taller trees would have an advantage. Some trees could be so incredibly large they could have a hollow dungeon inside of them. With a above ground Sunnyside and the below ground route side part. But they also could be an interesting place to live.
I like it.
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y not start a trend and have real grass, like, well this is a bad example but
(http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/news/04/24/vpc/tribes_screen001.jpg)
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I\'m not sure but wouldn\'t grass in that kind of detail pushed the polygon count to an unacceptably high level.
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ah you\'d think right? but ive been considering this, ill need to draw a diagram to explain it though, ill have to do it thursday because i have no exams then, but i have an idea that really should work but im not too sure howd impressive looking it would be.
Long grass patches like the one in the screeny should be relatively easy to do though and shouldnt be any kind of strain on comps running the game if im right, they are just strategically placed single dimensions of mostly transparent texture.
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Basically the old method of flat transparent polygons with grass textures is now obsolete. We plan to have grass, but it\'g gonna be realized using pixel shaders once the new CS renderer is complete. Pixel shaders offer several benefits, like in example the ability of dynamic grass (perturbed by players walking in it, or wind moving it).
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Originally posted by boonet
Basically the old method of flat transparent polygons with grass textures is now obsolete. We plan to have grass, but it\'g gonna be realized using pixel shaders once the new CS renderer is complete. Pixel shaders offer several benefits, like in example the ability of dynamic grass (perturbed by players walking in it, or wind moving it).
shway :D i shud get with the times :)
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boonet:
neat :D
we should also take into account that not everywhere grows the same grass/trees/undergrowth/bushes/etc. here\'s a few examples:
plane: tall grass, bushes, lonely tall trees
forests: in forests the undergrowth usually gets shorter (and softer), the thicker the forest is and the bigger the trees are, directly under the trees there\'s usually less undergrowth and usually more moss.
pine-forests: pine forests tend to have very little (rough grass leaves), but usually no undergrowth
also what i haven\'t seen in a (MMO)RPG yet is that the forest would also have dead trees, chopped or otherwise fallen
another factor would have to be the geographical position of the place ...for example: on a very high mountain you cannot imagine having a more then a few extra-rough bushes, pines and grass/flowers (think alps) ...although we could change that one, since we\'re not on the surface
well, IMO, it would be best to ask a biologist to say something more about it
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Originally posted by boonet
Basically the old method of flat transparent polygons with grass textures is now obsolete. We plan to have grass, but it\'g gonna be realized using pixel shaders once the new CS renderer is complete. Pixel shaders offer several benefits, like in example the ability of dynamic grass (perturbed by players walking in it, or wind moving it).
Wuh Boonet! that is really cool... 2bad I have forgotten what a Pixel Shader was ;).. But I\'ve never really enjoyed those flattes even in grafical masterpeices such as Asherons Call 2.
Dynamic is really good. The atmosfear is the most important for me in games and grass fields that moves in sync to trees with the right ambient track would be way cool.
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man pixel shaders ??????????????,, wowo you can handle this ?? ............................
you know for example in 3d mark 2001 the water scene with the man who was fishing...well it is a pixel shader water, so imagine !!!!!!!! and if you run the code creature bench the grass is also pixel shader just like described !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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sorry to burst the bubble, but this isn\'t really on topic, I didn\'t mean it to be about 3d grass and pixel shaders, it\'s more about herbs, plants, and vegetation in the gameplay.
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Yes back to trees and things.
Since in other threads they\'ve talked about having other areas that connect to the main area that we now play in we have an opportunity to change the plant life to be totally different in different areas. You can have areas that have only mushrooms in them. You can have an area where all the plants are colored blue. Every different area can be like its own little world.
A new concept for an area may be a tree that is so large that it\'s connected to the ceiling. You can enter an entrance in the base of it that can take you to a new area or passage on the top. Or you can go through a dungeon labyrinth in its root system. The tree itself is another labyrinth. Each branch acting like a room with encounters on the top of it.
This is one of the true beauty\'s of the concept of plain shift. The idea that you\'re not hemmed in with one concept working. Trees don\'t have to look like trees plants don\'t have to look like plants you can let your imagination run wild and it all works. The cool thing is to come up with ecosystems and plants that are totally weird and end up being a played elements in the game.
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i like the huge-tree idea ...i\'d looooooveeee to see that implemented ...an area that\'s completely made from one tree
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ditto for the huge tree idea.
Since we have a lot of different races some of them pretty peculiar you half to ask questions like what does a rock based life form eat. It can\'t be just rock because there\'s no energy in it.
Actually, you\'re not entirely correct. Our body is mainly carbon (actually it\'s mainly water, but we don\'t get a lot of our water from food), which is why we eat the stuff we eat. If you\'ve been paying attention in chemistry/biology then you\'ll know that all food is basicly carbon arranged in a different way. The Kran however are silicon based (check the race bit on the main site). Silicon is found in rocks. Guess what. Rocks are good to eat if you happen to be a rock yourself. Same way that we eat animals.
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OK for the sake of argument well say that rock bass life form doesn\'t just exist because of magic. That is, if magic went away entirely they could still exist.
There\'s more to eating than building body mass. There\'s the whole energy problem.
We eat carbon-based food that is based on plant life. It uses photosynthesis to change carbon dioxide into plant material. There is surprisingly little mineral content in a plant. When we eat the plant or animal that has eaten a plant we take the carbon and turn it back into carbon dioxide. This takes the material from a high-energy state into a low energy state. There\'s a surprising amount of energy stored in plant material. All you have to do is dry it out and burn it to find out how much.
Suppose a rock bass plant takes energy, say geothermal, and turns it into a material with a higher energy state. It would look just like rock but it really isn\'t. Then a rock-based animal eating the rock based plant converts it back to lower energy state in its metabolism. I still don\'t believe that just any old rock especially old rocks have hardly any energy at all that can be reduced to produce work.
Having just one rock based player character and no other rock based life makes no sense. You have something that complex appear out of nowhere isn\'t very plausible. Their most certainly would have to be in entire rock-based ecosystem probably an elaborate one. It would also be reasonable for the rock-based ecosystem to feed off plant based material for energy or just go the geothermal idea.
Anyway, it works if there is in a fair amount of energy input. Or a player character that\'s rock-based would only be active once a year or so. The rest of the time would have to be spent sleeping digesting low energy rock.
Coincidentally it\'s also quite fun to make up a ecosystems like that. Interesting brainstorming anyway.
That\'s my argument.
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All the plants and things could visibly regrow at phenomenal rates due to the lights from the crystal. You know, like that\'s just how things work...it\'s all the light....see...ok....I\'m just gonna shut up now...
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Rock based ecosystem.
I thought I?d give it a start. Readers may not agree with any part of this however if they write down why they don?t agree with it that?s the point of this. Just to get it started.
I thought I?d base my version of a rock based ecosystem of the life form called in extremophile. It?s a life form that list deep in the Earth. Under pressures and temperatures that are extreme. Thus the name. They don\'t live on photosynthesis of any type. Instead they synthesize energy that can be found in the rock. Or as many single cell life forms will split within a couple of days extremophiles can slow it down to once in 100,000 years. When conditions are right they can split as rapidly as anything else. They?re a neat life form to study, there is reason to believe that the Earth?s life started with these life forms. There are quite a few web sites on these life forms if you want to read further.
So the idea is that extremophiles are the basic building block of rock based life. They harvest the energy. However it is way to diffuse. So there?s an intermediate fungus style life form that harvest the extremophiles to build itself. It?s basically in the form of a root system. The roots go very deep into the planet to seek out its food. When it comes time for them to flower they produce a rock in an open space that other rock based life forms can eat. When the fruit is ready to eat it emits heat which is the reason why all rock based animal?s can see in the infrared spectrum. It is exceedingly high-energy food. The rock based animal moves around replanting spores after eating the fruit. This would also mean that all rock based life forms would have the ability to shut down for extended periods of time if need be. That probably look like any other fieldstone until they got up and walked around.
This doesn?t mean rock based life forms only eat rock based fungus. There could also be a rock based trap that eats things that trip into it. Another rock based carnivore will spring out at you from a wall. But the most evil one of all merely shoots a small thin spike into a carbon based animal that is really its young that slowly devours you over a long period of time. And cure disease doesn?t fix it. After all it?s only a rock.
That is the start of the idea. It has a lot more to go.
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Well, I was highly sceptical when I read about the rock ecosystem. I\'m still not entirely sure. Howerver after a bit of thought I\'ve realized it could fill a very big hole.
MINING!!!
In most games you have mines. Or ore bearing rock or something. In real life this would be mind and then the people would dig deeper/push off somewhere else. This could be quite frustrating in game (although it could also add depth to it), with new mines constantly having to be found.
This could all be sorted out by regrowing mines. Trees regrow, plants regrow. Why should miners be denied the advantages of lumberjacks and farmers. Regrowing mines make a miners life stable, as he doesn\'t constantly have to find new mines, but he still can\'t mine like crazy, because everything dies when you harvest it obsessivly (coughAmazoncough). It also gives a realistic explanation of the bottomless mines (well, realistic if you bend the rules a little.
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well, we started with trees and other vegetation ...now we\'re in mines? ...i think since we have live rocks walking along (kran!) we could also have rock and crystal plants, that\'d grow slower, but could live in the darkness (the crystal ones even produce light themselves) ...that would look great!!!
back to the large tree: i REALLY want to see it, so please someone say volunteer for it, or i\'ll do it ...it\'ll take me probably a year or so, since i\'m new to blender, but it\'d be made eventually ...or at least someone make a sketch/plan of it ...i\'m even worse at 2d art
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You could always base it on a redwood tree. They are truly massive tree.
http://search.gallery.yahoo.com/search/corbis?p=redwood
If you\'re looking for different kind of tree you can search through this.
http://www.wdt.qc.ca/FORMAT/Search.html
I think the best way to do this would be to get a camera find a tree and can\'t take a picture at every angle you can get. Rather than get a 2-D artists impression of tree base it on a real one. There\'s plenty of them around.
The best time to take pictures of trees is probably winter. Branch structure is really what you need.
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well the problem is that it wouldn\'t look like a normal tree ...large as a castle ...shaped as a hill, maybe a bit like a castle ...with braches reaching the ground, that would be the walls of this tree-castle ...branches thick with colourful leaves, so there would be ornaments with golden, silver and crystal leaves of different colours all over the place, sometimes forming pictures of a peaceful union between all the races, sometimes only older pictures from the past concerning the history of separate races ...maybe even different floors in it ...imagine having this tree in the middle of a great forest, but still to be seen from the near-bye mountain
the rooms with the race-history \"frescos\" would be meant as guest-rooms for people of those races, the \"peaceful union\" room(s) would be meant for meetings. of course you could walk freely all over the place, even sleep in any of the guest-rooms you like the most, it\'s just that ever race would probably like sleeping in the room that\'s the closest to them and their ways ...so every of those guest-rooms would have a few race-specific features, to make it more at home for the race sleeping/living in it (ex. stone floor and furniture in the dwarvern rooms)
...this would be a very big project to undertake ...so i\'d be glad of any help i can get ...because this\'ll take me years to complete!!! ...even with help
so now that i explained my idea/dream about it, i\'d love to have some people on the team, since making this a one-person project would be an illusion
all who are interested in helping go to this thread (http://www.planeshift3d.com/wbboard/thread.php?threadid=4386&boardid=15&styleid=3&page=1)
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I dont understand what u need help with? this just a fictional story thing for the storyside-rpg hook, or are you actually wanting to create it for use in planeshift?
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You could base it on a Banyan tree. This is a tree where it limbs dip to the ground and grow roots. They make beautiful picturesque arches. I saw several in Hawaii. You could make it so they\'re framed out to make homes. Using the basic tree for structure.
http://www.redbeet.com/pictures/banyan_tree
http://www.public.asu.edu/~dianeb/banyan.html
This will give you an idea what they look like. But the other component a really large tree in the center going straight up could be a different type of tree. They don\'t necessarily have to be the same one.
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I like the idea of those heat-based fungus-rocks . But i think those are more for caves and places without light.
For places with light i would prefer rock-based life on electricity. It will be more similar to normal life forms. There are plant-likes with a surface of solar cells. They use the electricity as energy source to build their structure. They would look a little like plants, but since rock isnt transparent they would only have one layer of sheets. Their fruits are like batteries, two pure metals in an electrolyte, a spore and rock around it.
The animal-like life would eat the whole fruit to get the metals and drink the electrolyte. Or they would suck the electricity out of the friut. They then use it to move and live.
The rock life would use piezo effects to move and as nerves they would have veins of pure metals.
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Cool concept! You\'re suggesting that rock plants be photovores.
One way to do it is the same way lichen works. It\'s the combination of fungus and algae that work in tandem. But in this case you would have one component be a solar cell the other component be a storage system. The advantage being that the storage system could be in one spot in a solar cell component could spread up walls around corners all over the place and ship the power back to the storage cell. Both systems need each other because at night a small trickle charge could be sent back through the solar cell to keep it alive. The storage system would also provide rock nutrient to the whole system. They could be farmed by rock creatures. They would know things like you\'re not supposed to take all the cells out or the whole system dies.
I lichen it!
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This is gonna be cool Probably.
But what if this happens:
A man walks into the deep forest and finds a mushroom. He finds it safe, when its poisonous.
Anyway, its cool. Flower gardens behind/in front of houses...its cool.
But if the limbs of the huge tree droop, then couldnt you walk up on them? If you could, then there could be tree houses.
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Originally posted by Skain
I dont understand what u need help with? this just a fictional story thing for the storyside-rpg hook, or are you actually wanting to create it for use in planeshift?
i want to create it, i like this idea so much, and i know it\'s so much work to do it, so the devs won\'t have time to make it, i\'ll have to get a very into it crew with which we\'ll make this \"tree-castle\" (=current codename), and in a year or so (hopefully that short!) we\'ll present it to the devs, and hope that they plant it in a beautiful place ...so, care to join?
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sure count me in, ill set up our own msg board later, n we can sort out who does what on it.
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Hmmm, remember the great mushrooms in Morrowind?
They would suit perfectly in this kind of environment.
(http://www.elderscrolls.com/images/art/xbox/mwind_web19B.jpg)
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Originally posted by Skain
sure count me in, ill set up our own msg board later, n we can sort out who does what on it.
i\'ve made a separate topic for it, but i agree that a separate forum would be even better ...and while we\'re at it, i\'ll send an email to the devs about the idea, maybe we\'ll get some of the devs to help us, that would be great :)
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Originally posted by Kuiper7986
How would you collect the plants, can you pick the smaller plans with your hand, and use a bigger weapon to cut down big trees? Will any plants be edible raw for quick HP recovery? Will some plants be poisonous? Will herbs be only used for medicinal uses or will they also be used for cooking food. With the wood from trees most likely it would be used for building, furniture making, carpentry, and fletching right? When trees are cut down must they grow again or do they respawn quickly enough not to be noticed unless being watched.
I like some of these ideas. In a MUD I used to play, you could forage for plants and such. It would be nice if you could forage for items and use those items to make elixirs and other items. I imagine you could pick up grass, fungus, flowers and the like by hand. With poisonous or hard materials, (ie wood, barbed plants), you would need a tool of some sorts, (ie hatchet or shears). Herbs could be used to enhance food, raise the cost and quality of it. You could even imbue it with minor magical properties, (healing, regen, etc). Poison always an element of dark intentions to the game. Watch for the knife at your back and all of that.
All around good idea.
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Herbs could also be used as components in particularly powerful spells.. like in d&d where you carry around a pouch for your spell components.. the components would then dissapear when used...
They wouldn\'t be used in combat spells, but in enchanting and summoning and such...
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Giant tree idea is awesome!
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I spent the day framing my brother?s garage under the baking sun. Got up in the morning with a sun low in the horizon and went home when it set. Around noon time it was overhead baking us. Driving home I realized the plain shift sun doesn?t move. It?s always in the same spot. This has got to affect the plant life. If there?s a shady wall nothing will grow on the other side but fungus. The light will never get to the other side because the sun won?t move around to hit it.
The lower branches of the tree will die because they don?t get sunlight. This is the tree?s way of conserving energy. It doesn?t make any sense to supports tree structure that isn?t gathering enough light to keep that part of the tree alive. The fact that the plain shift sun does not move in the sky would probably mean that trees only have branches and leaves on the side where the sun is unless it?s directly overhead.
So directly under the sun you would probably have trees that would be like an elm tree. There like a large umbrella. As you get further away and get a lower angle to the tree with respect to the sun you would probably see long spiky trees with leaves or needles only on one side. It might also mean farther yet in you might have a large number of vines that cling to hills where with their leaves pointed for the sun. The backside of the hill would be a rocky twilight without much in it.
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thats a pretty good idea - we wanted weird vegetation and he has hit on a good point - all the plants should be either leaning towards the crystal or only have leaves on one side...
good thought Fish
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Just to add,
Because we dont want to restrict our selves too much, i mean with all the plants leaning in the same direction to the cyrstal, leaves on one side etc,
some of the rock plant or other cyrstals could grow in place\'s the light does not reach and emit there own light, which in turn will let plants grow there as well. ;)
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well, since the crystal is in a giant cave, there could be a large amount of ambient (non-directional) light, reflected by the roof and walls near the crystal. This would eliminate much of the shadow, making things fairly \"normal\" on the first two levels
Still, there will probably be many areas in planeshift that are in permadark. Fungus, mold, and bare ground will rule here.. or perhaps there will be thermally active areas and some sort of vegetation living off that as well.
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dexlan why did you bring this thread back from the dead? its 5 months old? leave it be...
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Originally posted by whemyfield
dexlan why did you bring this thread back from the dead? its 5 months old? leave it be...
well, we\'re still waiting for CB ...so that might be called dead too ...don\'t see why someone should revive an old thread ...usually it\'s the other way around - we tell noobies to READ old threads, not to leave them be.