Actual Evolving World

[ramlambmoo]

Well actually i didnt think monster breeding would be that hard to implement... obviously a good combat system is far preferable to this, but think about it, its a slow process.  You could write a script that would only have to be run every hour or even every 10 hours or so, and all it would have to say is if theres a certain number of animals / plants in an area then make x number of baby ones appear.  It isnt that complicated  programming required.  Obviously this wont happen very soon for the forum is for things you would like in the completed version, and i think this would be good if it could be reasonably implemented.

[Diamondcite]

Landscape changes probably won\'t be possible till crystal space evolves even more.

Monsters breeding sounds like fun. Just like hunting, but due to how fast people kill... there will need to be tons of monsters.
Though with the possible current design is might be easier to implement a monsters den, where a calculated number of monsters are suddenly spawned when the time has passed to replenish the dead monsters.

[sashok]

I see monster breeding following way, there\'s no need to implement that female monster comes to male monster, boom boom, no.  the easiest way is to record the lifetime of every monster and if the lifetime exeeds it\'s usual lifetime, the monster gets a little stronger, plus it has a baby.  the baby is spawned into safe monster place and starts walking to location of it\'s father/mother monster.  well it\'s an idea

[Seytra]

AFAIK, the server code loads the maps from a database or whatever. This means that the evolution code could load the same database, modify it, write it back to the DB, and then simply tell the server which part(s) it has changed and that need to be reloaded. The server then could do that and swap it instantly. This swap will not even be noticable to players because theywould be tiny. Tiny but constant. That means that you\'d be able to watch a tree grow, instead of the treew just popping up in front of you.

However, we need a way to stream the maps to the clients, instead of having them packaged with the client. Well, that essentially is an issue of available bandwidth, which means: future.
Currently it would be an option to have sudden and drastic, but infrequent changes, like trees popping out of the ground, and the new maps downloaded upon game start or something.

[Madouc]

Or you can put a major map update out there where \'seeds\' of trees would be planted, the client has a sub-routine wich tells how big the tree has grown at the rendering time.
That way you avoid trees (and other stuff) popping up out of nowhere.

Is there a system in CB that tells clients if a tree has been chopped down?

[Black_rose]

Originally posted by ramlambmoo
For example instead of there being a spawn point for monsters, and monsters randomly appearing, monsters only appear when two get happen to meet by chance and breed, with the result being a baby monster that has to grow before it becomes a big one...  And so say that the monster breeding gets out of hand,

umm isr that kid oriented to have monster porn?? ?(


i mean im not usually one to anti censoreship but this game will obviously have tons of little kids playing it, it would be rather funny to watch a dwarf couple (midget porn roflomsohfao) <-- if you are over 12 and u wanna know what that is msg me....


it would be ok if it did not have an animation....

[Ulf Kleppe]

They could set up the code to work only once a day, or at server downtimes. Stuff would change, but the changes would be more noticable.. It\'s not as if the game needs to be CONSTANTLY evolving, (i think too much processor time needed), just an occasional automated evolve would be cool. They could be kept on the same server, and only run 1-2 times a day.

[pedroozo]

well....this idea is great. it would be nice when you have been in some other map and come back to your house and your house is weeded and garden crouded with tiny ratbasterds that you step on and laugh! ok-ok that was too much but jeah, the idea of evolving is great!

[ZappaZ]

I have no idea about how the game is coded atm but i wanted to think aloud on the \"growing trees\" subject.

Lets say that from the beginning you have a small tree thats like 1 meter in height and after a set (+ random?) time (whatever is fitting for the game mechanics) you have the server change the model of the tree into a 1.5 meter one (the size is set but there is like 3 different models that it can randomly pick) and so on.

And after the tree has \"grown\" to something like 5 meters a new, small tree would spawn close to the old tree but not to close, not to close to other surrounding trees either.

This would simulate a growing forest and player made clearings would slowly grow back.

I don\'t know alot about programming, maybe this would kill the server?

[Nikolia]

what happens when all the players cutt down the trees?

[Frarda]

GMs would have to manually add a few again, and people would whine and complain until they did

[Seytra]

Players wouldn\'t be able to cut down all trees quickly enough. The times are greatly reduced for almost anything in PS, to be able to not require 24/7 gaming. Just think of the regeneration process. Take a couple of hits from a sword, and within some RL minutey, you\'re back to full health. It\'d take a lot longer IRL.
Therefore, trees would grow way faster than IRL, possibly they\'d be fully grown by 2 days RL time. Therefore, players would have a hard time and be very dedicated to be able to chop off all of them, and keep it that way.

Anyway, I think it wouldn\'t so much consume processor power, but memory (since every instance needs to have lots of attributes, the very reason why items decay when placed on the ground), and bandwidth, since all these attributes would need to be transferred to the clients, though this might be mitigatable by only transferring these attributes if the tree is accessed, and only to the respective client. Still, there\'d have to be a general number of attributes transferred: position and model ID. Theye are normally stored in the maps that are installed on the client, which wouldn\'t be possible if the trees are defined by the server, obviously. This would make PS require broadband connections, which would exclude a lot of players.

I would absolutely love a grass-growing server to be implemented, but it\'s just not yet feasible.

[SneakyBob]

Lol its like the matrix That would take a looooong time to do.

[confused]

Brilliant idea this, something to look forward to in the future. I give it maybe 5 years to see a fully dynamic evolving world.

As for chopping down a forest, it will be an impressive sight seeing a horde of players chopping down the trees as they move forward.