Hunger

[tman]

So with the introduction of herbal remedies and alchemy, I think we no longer need food to be the primary way of healing.  It's unrealistic that foods would heal wounds anyway (something that has always bothered me in video games).

So I'd like to propose a new system, in which a hunger bar is added to player status.  This bar would slowly fill up over time, but would fill up more quickly during activities that decrease your stamina (running long distances, fighting, mining, etc.)  When the bar becomes about half full, players start to see a slight drop in stats.  As the hunger gets worse and worse, the stat penalty gets more and more severe.  If the bar fills up, the player should die of starvation, and respawn with the bar like half full.

Rather than instantly healing characters, food should decrease their hunger.  Basic food like apples and bread should decrease it a little, while more advanced cooked and baked items would greatly decrease it.

Potions and herbal remedies should be used for quick healing.  However in order to prevent foods from losing their value, cooked and baked items should also heal gradually over time (for example, 3 hp per second for a minute).

In terms of time, hunger should not be something that a character has to worry about all the time.  I'd say for a character that's just sitting down doing nothing, it should be 2-3 (in game) days before hunger sickness starts to set in, and another 2 more or so before death.  Characters who are exerting themselves fully (ie running/fighting/mining continuously) should probably feel the effects of hunger after about 1 day in game.

Overall I think this system adds a lot of realism to the game, and it gives cooking/baking skills another, more realistic purpose.

[Caraick]

We've tossed around the idea of a hunger bar before, I believe.  Though, it should be noted that food is definitely NOT the primary way that characters heal themselves.  Magic is just far more convenient if you're trying to get some health back (unless you're talking about eating gobs of crumbs whilst fighting).

[Aramara Meibi]

is someone here trying to resurrect Sangwa?

my only hope is that you are successful in doing so.

[Zalya]

After playing though multiple games with a hunger mechanic, I have found hunger in video games to be tedious at best, and just plain frustrating at worst. If planeshift where a survival game then it would come into play more, but adding hunger would just make people have to carry mountens of food on thm at all times. Instead of hunger debuffs it would be much better to have well fed buffs. It can be assume your charicter eats on a regular bases. Eating food should give bonuses to skill progression instead if any thing

[tman]

After playing though multiple games with a hunger mechanic, I have found hunger in video games to be tedious at best, and just plain frustrating at worst. If planeshift where a survival game then it would come into play more, but adding hunger would just make people have to carry mountens of food on thm at all times. Instead of hunger debuffs it would be much better to have well fed buffs. It can be assume your charicter eats on a regular bases. Eating food should give bonuses to skill progression instead if any thing

I suggested that it should take at least a full day in game (which is like 4-6 full hours in real life, I'm not sure of the actual conversion) for hunger sickness to take effect.  So, mountains of food wouldn't really be necessary unless you're planning on spending a long time wandering the wilderness, in which case your character should bring a bunch of food.  On the whole I think that if the rate of hunger accumulation is low enough this wouldn't cause any significant negative consequences, but would make the game more realistic.  Plus it would encourage everyone to stop by the local tavern every few days and maybe say hi.  And cooking would have a bigger role in the game.

I do see your point though, and if hunger isn't included I would like to see a "well fed" buff system.  Like a staus bar that is constantly decreasing and can only be filled by eating, and gives buffs to the player based on how full it is.

Overall I think my biggest complaint with the system now is the way food heals a person.  If food were changed to heal slowly over time and nothing else changed, I'd still be happy.

[Aramara Meibi]

there's now plenty of edibles to be found throughout the wilderness. being able to cook over a campfire would be helpful too

[Chessire]

[...]
Eating food should give bonuses to skill progression instead if any thing

+1 to that.
While I think that leaving your character starve for a long time should bear a penalty it would be best if players didn't have to eat just to keep their stats normal. Maybe something in between, being well fed granting bonuses to skills and stats while starvation causing a malus or death after a long time.
And while we are talking about this I'm going to add the amount of food created in the game right now is huge. A player creates hundreds of dishes daily just to train cooking, thus why no player ran taverns charge for food after all. Dishes that are not light enough to be carried in battle are made less often than others.
So if hunger or something similar is implemented we should take a look at balancing the quantity available versus the food needed and if possible keep things realistic, having 4 stacks of 65 carp delight after a regular cooking session is a bit much after all. Just 4 dishes would be more believable

[Pakarro]

The positive effect of a hunger/nutrition system would be a need for cooking. As it is now, people buy shields and weapons, but no food. That way it is just a fancy rp accessory, instead of a trade item. Pity.

(As always, this is not the whole truth, but one aspect...)

[Eonwind]

After playing though multiple games with a hunger mechanic, I have found hunger in video games to be tedious at best, and just plain frustrating at worst. If planeshift where a survival game then it would come into play more, but adding hunger would just make people have to carry mountens of food on thm at all times. Instead of hunger debuffs it would be much better to have well fed buffs. It can be assume your charicter eats on a regular bases. Eating food should give bonuses to skill progression instead if any thing

I feel much the same, forcing players to eat food is something I don't like too much, however I think food effects need to be reworked a bit to give them slightly different effects than potions and salves.

[Zalya]

I suggested that it should take at least a full day in game (which is like 4-6 full hours in real life, I'm not sure of the actual conversion) for hunger sickness to take effect.  So, mountains of food wouldn't really be necessary unless you're planning on spending a long time wandering the wilderness, in which case your character should bring a bunch of food.  On the whole I think that if the rate of hunger accumulation is low enough this wouldn't cause any significant negative consequences, but would make the game more realistic.  Plus it would encourage everyone to stop by the local tavern every few days and maybe say hi.  And cooking would have a bigger role in the game.

I love the idea of bringing more people to taverns, and getting some RP started that way, but I see problems with starvation. Partly because Planeshift is an online game, and Hunger would either go up, or just do nothing the more time you stay logged off. In the first situation, it would just get bothersome to log off for a weekend and come back to find yourself dead or dying. The second situation could work, but another thing to consider is how long RP's go. I've been in RP's that have taken hours, for something that ICly takes only a few minites. If there is an engaging plot going on ICly, with players who type long messeges, than having hunger play into that would decrease realism in the RP setting. If it where to happen, then I would hope to have the hunger level go up much slower, working on a RL time frame.

[tman]

I don't think hunger should go up while the player is logged off.

As for RPing, in that case characters are often just standing in a circle while the players type.  Since they aren't doing anything in which the character loses a lot of stamina, the rate of hunger would be much slower (2-3 in game days before hunger starts to take effect, another 2 days before death).  So assuming you have eaten recently before the start, you'd have essentially 16-24 hours to RP uninterrupted before you starve.  And if you're worried, you can just carry a couple food items with you and sneak a snack.

Another possibility is that instead of death, starvation just imposes severe stat penalties, up to a maximum of 50% or so.  That way RPers don't have to worry, since stats aren't taken into account while you're sitting in a circle typing.  So you can play out your RPs, then go get a meal after to get rid of the penalty.

[Talad]

All,
we discussed it internally and we don't think hunger/thrist is a good idea. We need food to have better buffs and more interesting effects, instead of make the char require to eat/drink regularly.