The Uteen
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Post by The Uteen on Mar 16, 2016 16:28:03 GMT
- How does this interact with auto-evo?
Your description of this idea revolves around manual edits, yet an auto-evo option is a feature widely discussed as an eventual goal. Auto-evo would have to be restricted in a similar way, although I'm not sure of the specifics of how this would work. I imagine the civ's artificial selection would have to revolve around the organism editor (from an auto-evo Civ Stage player's perspective), since this is not a natural form of evolution. Incidentally, when do the time skips occur when using auto-evo? I think the idea of auto-evo could use some finalisation, if this hasn't been accounted for already, but that's a topic for another thread. Well the parameters would still exist, and without the player adding their own personal touches to the organism during the editor sessions, the CivAI would most likely decide which form of domestication the organism will take on it's own. Auto-evo would handle distribution of MP to the different parameters. I would imagine the time-jumps would occur at the same rate as they would if the player were in control. If, when breeding occurs, you get taken to the OE to make edits, a time skip makes a great deal of sense - otherwise, you wouldn't see the changes immediately, and there's a natural break in gameplay to allow it. But with auto-evo? Having breeding whisk the player into the future seems rather intrusive. I'd expect the default for auto-evo to be a kind of manual fast-forward, if at all possible, with the player's control moving to offspring upon breeding. But that aside, if auto-evo can be made to use the same parameters as the Organism Editor, then that would simplify things. It's something to bear in mind once we come to implement it. Some gameplay possiblities to consider (good and bad, and could be combined): - Gameplay while domesticated could be inherently fun, no changes needed.
- Disallow playing as a domesticated species if the civilisation is past a certain level of advancement.
- Allow the species as a whole to become domesticated, enabling its guaranteed survival, but the player is free to find a way to escape, as an individual.
- Minigame-style gameplay extentions while domesticated (yuck).
- Increased risk from other factors. (Disease, maybe? I'd have to check that.)
- Something I've not thought of.
- Initially sure, but I'm not sure how it could be fun later in the stage.
- Is that a game over/win for the player?
- The domesticated version of the players species could potentially be so far out of its element that it wouldn't stand a chance in the wilderness.
- Agreed
- The civ would take care of it
Disallowing playing as a domesticated species doesn't have to correspond to the game ending, and I'd rather avoid game-endings as a possibility (you can always take control of your closest relative, unless the planet blows up or something). I was thinking along the lines of preventing it in the first place, though how that would work is questionable: - Banning advanced civilisations from domesticating animals after a certain point? (A bit extreme)
- Maybe civilisations commit to wildlife preservation after a certain point, meaning the species cannot be domesticated as a whole?
- Maybe civilisations can't domesticate an entire species in the first place? (Thinking about it, this actually makes some sense, though favours the argument against adding domesticated gameplay)
So that might not be a great solution. ‘The domesticated version of the players species could potentially be so far out of its element that it wouldn't stand a chance in the wilderness.’ This could actually be seen as a positive point, presenting various options for gameplay. Take the easy route of staying in captivity? Escape, but try to stick around and steal food? Maybe escape and get captured by another farm or something? Or venture out into the wilderness to play the game with a handicap (hard mode). As for civilisations solving disease, my thinking was the general idea of risks induced by domestication itself. Animals held in large groups, densely packed, I would expect to be more prone to outbreaks of diseases. For later civilisations, with animals being shipped around the planet, this would be even more of an issue. I admit I'm having trouble thinking of other possibilities in this category. Increased dependance on the civilisation is a risk, since the civilisation could have problems of its own, which could trickle down to the player. Perhaps the mentality of other creatures of your species could change for the worse, through competition for the same food source (what farmers provide). For pets with territorial instincts, being stuck in a small city with others of the same species could be a nightmare. I'm not sure these are great ideas, but they're the best I can come up with. I like the idea of including domestication, but thinking about it in terms of gameplay, it's hard to find good justification. But then, even if it's interesting for about 5 minutes, that's still 5 minutes of interesting.
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The Uteen
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Post by The Uteen on Mar 15, 2016 22:28:55 GMT
Yea, but in the context of a plant "cluster" theyd just fill the same roles as builings do in city simulations. That's why it would make sense to allow control of multiple organisms in Strategy Mode, just like you'd control multiple cities with it later on. As for parasites or something, I think something in the Organism Editor to allow assuming temporary control of another organism would do.
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The Uteen
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Post by The Uteen on Mar 15, 2016 22:24:54 GMT
Good concept. Having the choice between domestication and evading is good. Nice job mentioning that the civ will be able to control your evolution, that's an important aspect of domestication. Here's some things to consider: - Domestication would mean your organism's evolution would be over much shorter time scales. Not only are your ‘MP’ limited due to the civ's artificial selection, but it would presumably be divided given the shorter timescales.
This leads be to wonder whether evolution over shorter timescales should be supported by the OE anyway. Thinking about this problem leads me to think MP spent in an edit (1 session in the editor) should be proportional to the time skipped when leaving the editor. Could the shorter time skips be a consequence of limited MP? - How does this interact with auto-evo?
Your description of this idea revolves around manual edits, yet an auto-evo option is a feature widely discussed as an eventual goal. Auto-evo would have to be restricted in a similar way, although I'm not sure of the specifics of how this would work. I imagine the civ's artificial selection would have to revolve around the organism editor (from an auto-evo Civ Stage player's perspective), since this is not a natural form of evolution. Incidentally, when do the time skips occur when using auto-evo? I think the idea of auto-evo could use some finalisation, if this hasn't been accounted for already, but that's a topic for another thread. - What do you do as a domesticated organism?
You've covered the specifics of how evolution works with domestication, but haven't mentioned what it would actually like to play, which is perhaps the most important factor in deciding whether this is a good feature for Thrive-the-game. For primitive civilisations, gameplay would be fairly similar, since they wouldn't provide as much protection, shelter, or food. But what about modern day civilisations? Actual gameplay could potentially end up way too easy if the civilisation has decent farming technology. Need water? You have it. Need food? You have it. Want to explore? Depending on how confined your field/pen/cage/house is, you can't. Some gameplay possiblities to consider (good and bad, and could be combined): - Gameplay while domesticated could be inherently fun, no changes needed.
- Disallow playing as a domesticated species if the civilisation is past a certain level of advancement.
- Allow the species as a whole to become domesticated, enabling its guaranteed survival, but the player is free to find a way to escape, as an individual.
- Minigame-style gameplay extentions while domesticated (yuck).
- Increased risk from other factors. (Disease, maybe? I'd have to check that.)
- Something I've not thought of.
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The Uteen
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Post by The Uteen on Mar 15, 2016 15:10:02 GMT
When this was discussed in the old forum, I think we decided on having images / English to indicate spoken ideas, and potentially symbols / English on houses & tech.
Creating any sort of alien language is really only an extra for once the core gameplay is complete, and since we'll be using stock phrases / gibberish (our AI wont be passing the turing test), it will just be a surface-level feature.
English voice acting would be out of place, alien sound effects would be doable.
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The Uteen
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Post by The Uteen on Mar 15, 2016 14:59:37 GMT
Apart from the inconsistent time jumps, this also has the potential to cause some problems for the player. They might enter the Organism Editor to further adapt to their rain forest environment and come back to find that the rain forests have been cut down entirely. Congratulations, you're extinct. So how do we avoid this problem? Easy. Make the rate of Civilized AI progression dependent on the player's progression. The way I see it, every trip to the editor jumps you forward a good million years or more. However if you just don't enter the editor, time will have no reason to skip forwards. You can play as the same organism for a looong time and nothing will change ( except after a while, civilizations could advance on a normal time scale. If you wait long enough, maybe they'll wipe themselves out, allowing you to evolve normally with no risk again). But what if the player wants to evolve anyway but still wants the civilization to stick around? Answer: They can be domesticated and subjected to artificial selection. The way it'd work is every once in a while, the Civ AI will attempt to interact with the player organism in a "friendly" ( i.e. not killing them outright. Capturing and feeding are options) manner. The player can choose to resist and remain wild and free of course, but if the player allows the Civ AI to interact with them, they can begin the process of domestication. When undergoing domestication the player is able to enter the organism editor and modify their organism without screwing up the time scale. This solves the problem of how to keep a civilisation around, when time-scales are different depending on the stage, very well. But the original problem you presented seems be the possibility of destructive civilisations rising in the million year time-jump after using the organism editor. I like the idea of domestication being allowed, but I'm a bit confused about how it solves this problem. Or are you suggesting domestication as a way to survive, if something like this did happen to the player? That would be a decent solution, with civilisations being a nearly unstoppable force, which mess with your gene pool but provide a guarantee of survival. Edit: If we want to get any further into this discussion, we should probably make a new thread, if there isn't one already.
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The Uteen
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Post by The Uteen on Mar 15, 2016 14:33:02 GMT
Unless there's been a major revolution recently, Strategy Mode still exists. You'd play as a single organism in Organism Mode, but would be able to take control of a group of them by entering Strategy Mode. See (on the old forum): thrivegame.canadaboard.net/f10-modesThis would allow you to control a population if wanted. Maybee, when playing as a plant (or stationary anmial, eg. sponge, so what?) you could have a different type of "herd" mode. So many plants live in symbiosis, and it is a commmon mistake to assume plants don't interact with their surroundings. Some trees like Oaks often live in symbiosis with colonies of fungus, and tomatoes "fertilise" themselves by killing off small insects who then decompose DIRECTELY OVER THEIR ROOTS(you know those fine hairs tomato plants have? Yea they are poisinous. Tomatoes are relenteless Killers ). This is true. Poison and such would be added as passive parts in the Organism Editor. The way I see it, my suggestion allows (perhaps unrealistic, but hopefully not too much to be a problem) control of long-term behaviour (growth-related Acquired Characteristics), while the design created in the Organism Editor determines what short-term responses are possible, either passively (poison, spines) or through user action (grasping, walking).
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The Uteen
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Hello
Mar 15, 2016 14:13:06 GMT
Post by The Uteen on Mar 15, 2016 14:13:06 GMT
Hi.
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The Uteen
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Post by The Uteen on Mar 14, 2016 21:44:52 GMT
You mean, making a tree of life? I think this has come up before, and the general answer was ‘why not?’. One detail, though: how many species does the game keep track of? Only those in the local biome? Or the entire planet's species? The local biome would be relatively limited in the number of species, which could impact the decision. The final decision should probably be left until the stage is nearer completion, or at least has a clear design. Um, tree of life is kinda the same thing, whilst not being the same... en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomic_rankThat'll teach me to post links without checking it's the right thing. Thanks for the correction.
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The Uteen
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Post by The Uteen on Mar 14, 2016 16:20:47 GMT
Maybe a way to circumvent the whole "Make other organisms evolve faster than you" would be to have ruins be naturally occurring structures in the game. When/If your species achieves sapience, they can send archaeologists to these ruins to scrounge around for any technology/history. Hell if we make underwater bases or sunken ships naturally occurring structures, even underwater civilizations can form! /s This could definitely work. Instead of simulating a species moving past your stage, since this would be an blink of evolutionary time, we could just say that they got extinct by the time you made one more generation, put a bunch of ruins, and give the player a natural disaster, such as 99% of all species dead and the oceans/air/land polluted. Being a species around during the rise of a civilisation could be fun in itself, though. There'd be environmental changes, forests being chopped down for wood. You'd be hunting farm animals, exploring cities, evading capture. One day you could even stow away / get put on a spaceship and end up on a completely different planet (and maybe thrive there if it's terraformed). Yes, being a civilisation should be achievable, but I see no reason to require being a civilisation for them to exist at all. There'd be a larger risk of your habitat being destroyed, so it could be reserved for higher difficulties, maybe implemented later on, but otherwise it would be awesome to experience civilisations from a creature's perspective. Maybe a way to circumvent the whole "Make other organisms evolve faster than you" would be to have ruins be naturally occurring structures in the game. Spore had spaceship ruins. Looked nice the first time, maybe, before you saw pretty much the same thing again every time. I think this sort of thing sound good in theory, maybe not so great in practice.
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The Uteen
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Post by The Uteen on Mar 14, 2016 11:36:39 GMT
You mean, making a tree of life taxonomic hierarchy? I think this has come up before, and the general answer was ‘why not?’. One detail, though: how many species does the game keep track of? Only those in the local biome? Or the entire planet's species? The local biome would be relatively limited in the number of species, which could impact the decision. The final decision should probably be left until the stage is nearer completion, or at least has a clear design. (Sorry about that )
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The Uteen
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Post by The Uteen on Mar 14, 2016 11:23:04 GMT
I feel like we had some plans on the old forums around the tech editor requiring fundamental materials, with physical properties (density, tensile strength, that sort of thing). Linking it into the organism editor is a cool idea. Helps unify the ideas, and familiarise the player with materials early on. Basic materials introduced as new body parts are added, and the player considers basic things like how strong their claws should be. Then when the tech editor comes into play, the set of materials is expanded, and the physical properties become more relevant. This would also make farming a much more direct benefit - the player would naturally think to farm something, once they realise it has a useful resource. Like a later-game compounds system!
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The Uteen
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Post by The Uteen on Mar 14, 2016 11:07:13 GMT
I like the idea of plant gameplay being RTS-like, based around growing efficiently and strategically distributing resources. One thing to bear in mind, though: We can't just have two separate gameplay styles for plants and animals, or we end up with edge cases (related: Sponges are animals). I think we should attempt to have gameplay which changes based on the organism, where possible. If the organism has fewer senses or moveable parts, the gameplay revolves more around growing efficiently.
Here's a concept for how this could work: All organisms have controls relating to distribution of resources and priorities for growth. These take effect of longish periods of time (days, maybe), so can't be used too heavily to respond to the immediate environment (such as predators). Usually, these could be set to some sensible defaults, or be automatically controlled (Civ players: like ‘Citizen Management’). Organisms with fewer moveable/actionable parts are more restricted in what they can do. However, good gameplay is still possible, since the player can start to control their organism using the ‘lower level’ controls mentioned above, and control growth manually. If the more plant-like organism has senses, the player can respond to their environment (in the longer-term) to a greater extent, with the drawback of fewer resources to work with, as a portion of them go towards the organs and neural systems dealing with the sense. These resources could be the compounds currently present in cell stage, one system for both photosynthesis and eaters of other organisms. A fully plant-like organism would have to senses to examine its environment. This, at first, seems restrictive in terms of gameplay. But, consider this: you can still get information about your environment. As you distribute resources around the organism, you can ‘see’ your enviroment in terms of its effect on your growth rate. Since you have no real senses, you have more resources to work with, and can afford to make more mistakes than if you had senses. The actual resource cost of senses should balance their benefit, making difficulty fairly even between modes. And here's the best part: these settings for distributing resources and controlling growth… They are not a new idea: they can be carried over from early multicellular. As the cell colony gets larger, the controls would need to become more abstract. By the time the game transitions to 3D, the player would already be familiar with this style of gameplay. The distributed resources, once processed in a photosynthesiser's leaves, or digested by an eater, would be the compounds currently present in cell stage. As you transition from 2D multicellular to 3D, this sort of gameplay would remain fundamentally unchanged, just with controls for the extra dimension. Which just leaves the simpler question of figuring out the details of early multicellular - obviously we want something better than sliders, so whatever we decide on will probably include a visual overlay of some sort, which could then be expanded to 3D for use with this idea.
Additional note (edit): The player would be encouraged to ignore this section if playing as an ‘eater’, since eating provides a lot more energy than photosynthesis. With a (pure) animal, the player's effort would be better spent gathering the food itself. If this still needed balancing to discourage use when not appropriate, one possibility is that we could make time spent in this mode be proportional to real-game-time. So, for example, time could pass at quarter speed in this mode, so it can be used when playing as a mobile organism, but leaves the player exposed to predators which could otherwise be avoided.
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The Uteen
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Post by The Uteen on Mar 12, 2016 21:51:53 GMT
That's a very comprehensive list of people. You think he's upset because his name was attached?
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The Uteen
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Post by The Uteen on Mar 12, 2016 21:22:53 GMT
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The Uteen
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Post by The Uteen on Mar 12, 2016 21:14:18 GMT
What would you guys say about including Sven in the credits? Personally, I think we should. There's no harm in it and hopefully it would quell some of his anger or at least make his view that we're stealing less valid. I mean, he must of done something worthy of credit. Sven made the post that was the inspiration for this whole idea [The original team] deserve an honorable mention in the credits I'd be for this.
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The Uteen
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Post by The Uteen on Mar 11, 2016 23:04:21 GMT
I remember we used to have an idea for, instead of making incremental edits, you could use the editor to make a goal organism - then, over however many generations of small changes is needed, your creature would evolve into that form.
So, you could use this, and revert to autoevo when your organism is close enough to the form you want.
Would this be the kind of thing you're asking about?
EDIT: regarding the main topic of this thread, ideas for auto-evo have varied from anything between completely random, to intelligently deciding what changes would be beneficial and making only those. If we had the time, we could probably make a slider for this behaviour - almost like a difficulty slider (random being more difficult).
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The Uteen
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Post by The Uteen on Mar 11, 2016 8:57:34 GMT
Thanks!
Smart pointers look pretty cool, I didn't realise this sort of thing had been added to the standard library. I'll have to take a look at some more modern code (I've been meaning to take a look at the Thrive code when I get some time).
One thing I find interesting about C++ is that there are no fixed reference-types and value-types, thanks to pointers. I'm sort of surprised no higher-level languages have this feature.
Using something like LUA to support modding is great.
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The Uteen
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Post by The Uteen on Mar 10, 2016 15:51:49 GMT
I always figured that the distinctions between stages as far as the player is concerned were going to be almost unnoticeable, so I never gave much thought to how weird the name aware is in reference to plants. I suppose if we're unhappy we could refer to it as complex multicellular, and then just sort of branch into aware? It's true that the naming probably wont matter much to the player; the issue lies more in organisation and documentation (such as where to post stuff in this forum). Ideally, the game would tend towards a sort of middle-ground between the two styles, depending on what locomotion & senses are available, to tailor gameplay to the type of organism. I share the feeling that this is a fairly low-priority issue for now, but am concerned it may become relevant when the game progresses a bit and we have to distinguish between these areas of the game. Better to discuss things before they become a problem. Calling it complex multicellular would be fine - I'm not sure we can get much better than prefix-multicellular naming, and complex is a simple enough prefix. Part of the problem is defining what ‘aware’ means: - Self-aware? But how does this affect gameplay? (I think this was the original definition, yet we don't seem to have much to justify it on the old forums)
- Being aware of one's environment? But then what is the lower bound? Does this extend to plants with automatic responses to touch?
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The Uteen
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Post by The Uteen on Mar 9, 2016 22:31:16 GMT
On the wayback machine when I try to access page 5 - 111 it doesn't load posts. Anyone knows how to fix this? Looks like the only captures are from after the time when the thread started showing only the poll, and no posts. If the page wasn't captured at the time, there's no way I know of to get it back. You can see the dates captures were made on the timeline at the top, so sometimes you might be able to jump back to an earlier capture, but it looks like there are no earlier ones for page 5, at least.
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The Uteen
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Post by The Uteen on Mar 9, 2016 22:23:02 GMT
Are there any lightweight game threads? All the ones I've looked at seem like full-on roleplaying. Is there just no demand? The threads here are really impressive, but must require a lot of effort. In my simple mind, ‘forum game’ means ‘let's count to 100’ or something.
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