The_Wayward_Admiral
Spacefaring
The_Real_Slim_Shady
Atrox drew this awesome image of the Keldori!
Posts: 1,011
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Post by The_Wayward_Admiral on Nov 25, 2015 19:34:37 GMT
This is a thread based on an off-topic comment I briefly had in the Fungi/Mushrooms thread by elementalred . In reference to the development of the player organism (and I realize that this is quite a ways down the line), how real time would that be? Would the player spend hours having their lil' one burgeon into a fully fledged monster? Or would it be more like the cell stage with quick generations and more genetic strategizing than environmental play?
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Post by StealthStyleL on Nov 25, 2015 21:04:45 GMT
In my head, I think that the player should start from as young offspring. Every time they eat, they grow a bit until they reach full size when they can reproduce and carry on. This would prove that your species can survive and it also prevents the player from continually spamming the OE.
However, I don't know how long this would be though. I wouldn't say hours, that would get a bit tedious.
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Post by Atrox on Nov 25, 2015 23:31:45 GMT
Would that mean that you'd be somewhat required (or at least highly pressured by the nature of the game) to remain in packs as you grow if your species is a pack animal?
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Post by mitobox on Nov 26, 2015 0:55:25 GMT
As long as it's not like ARK: Survival Evolved's breeding mechanics (babies have to be hand fed for several IRL hours or they would die), sounds good.
I suggest that growth take the size of the adult as opposed to the baby into account. The big sauropod dinosaurs laid small eggs that hatched into small, mostly helpless young. So that's maybe 15 minutes of running from everything bigger than you with your fellow hatchlings (maybe dying several times in the process and respawning as one of your compatriots as they're rushing for cover). Then, when you're bigger, another 15 minutes not being scared of the smaller predators but still having the larger ones to worry about (with the added bonus being that you can't hide as well now), so joining a herd by this point is a must. That's just for big, egg-laying tree browsers.
Any thoughts on an arbitrary "skip" button?
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Post by Atrox on Nov 26, 2015 1:05:42 GMT
Spore used the infant stage of every new life to teach the player how to use new skills that they may have gained through the creature editor. But it became pretty pointless if you stopped adding or ran out of abilities to give your creature.
I think a skip option would be a good idea, but if a skip option is given then why even add the infantile stage? It became pretty pointless in Spore, so what would be the point of it in Thrive? Don't get me wrong I'd love to play as a baby cyclorotan (Well maybe not. They don't do much for 6 months after all), but what does that actually add to the game.
Speaking of which, what about if your creature actually doesn't do anything for the first few stages of life? Most insects tend to be motionless worm like things before they undergo metamorphosis. I can imagine playing as a tadpole in the pond would be fun, but I don't see the appeal in playing as larvae. What I'm trying to say is that I can see playing as an infant being fun for some play styles, but others... well not so much.
Perhaps for more sessile babies, you should play as the parent? But then what if it's sessile for the entire duration of its childhood? Do you ever get to play as the infant? All questions that must be considered in the respawn process.
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Post by elementalred on Nov 26, 2015 20:53:10 GMT
How about not playing the babies at all? We could play as their parents and take care of them or something... unless it might get boring after a while...
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Post by timetraveler22 on Nov 26, 2015 21:47:43 GMT
Why not skip the babies at all? If we live in a pack/pride/gaggle/school/murder/flock/herd ect., why not just use the others of your kind take care of your babies, while you go off on wonderful adventures?
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The_Wayward_Admiral
Spacefaring
The_Real_Slim_Shady
Atrox drew this awesome image of the Keldori!
Posts: 1,011
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Post by The_Wayward_Admiral on Nov 26, 2015 21:52:32 GMT
I personally wouldn't care much for the idea of playing as the small child, but I am of the mind that if you employ a k-strategy you should have to look after the infant for a time. Edit: So really this post just signifies that I agree with Atrox on all points, but still feel that an infancy should be acknowledged in some capacity.
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!Tilly!
Aware
i love scifi stuff but im too stupid to take part lel
Posts: 145
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Post by !Tilly! on Nov 27, 2015 13:19:58 GMT
I like the idea of reproducing and playing the parents until the babies grow up, and then being 'transferred' to one of your offspring once they reached maturity and then you could play the baby for a while.
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Post by Aquos on Nov 27, 2015 16:35:53 GMT
i think the player should be able to choose : do i play as the parent or the infant and like timetraveler22 said be able to choose if you take care of the baby or just be lazy and go travelling acros the land
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Post by Atrox on Nov 27, 2015 19:19:48 GMT
There should be penalties for not taking care of the kids. Perhaps a slight declination in your species' population?
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Post by mitobox on Nov 27, 2015 19:38:28 GMT
There should be penalties for not taking care of the kids. Perhaps a slight declination in your species' population? If "tends to offspring = true" in the behavior editor, then something more realistic, while still being a penalty, would be for the offspring to be assumed dead, thus not giving the player a chance to play as the child.
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Post by timetraveler22 on Nov 27, 2015 20:21:05 GMT
So, you're saying that if you are a species which ignores your offspring, then you have a harder chance of survival, while the species that takes care of it's young will become smarter and more of a successful type. This can be represented in Terror birds and Saber tooth cats. Terror birds were horribly amazing predators. Like, they were scary efficient a hunting. But were also solitary, which means that the female took care of their young, which means she left them to hunt. Which was an easy target for the cats. This loner behavior is then what eventually killed them off.
The Saber teeth cats weren't as powerful at hunting alone, but were more successful when in a group. The cats lived in prides and while a hunting party left to find food, others stayed to take care of their young. So, predators wouldn't try and snatch the cubs.
So, ingame, it would be harder to succeed as a solitary species that 'neglects' it's young rather than taking care of them which would be helpful? I see how that would go, but I'd like to explore rather than have to take care of babies.
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Post by timetraveler22 on Nov 27, 2015 20:27:49 GMT
On another note, but still related with Atrox's post, I've heard from my old language arts teacher(who was a nut) that in her ancient humanities class or whatever, was taught that in early human colonies, that mothers would've been the creators of language. As babies will make names of objects and stuff, which would catch on in between the family group and will eventually become the norm to say in the colony. So, having a colony can speed up the sentience progress since language can possibly grow when taking care of children and mimicking what they say. If you want to take this path, would be the easier choice to take to progress into the aware stage.
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Post by StealthStyleL on Dec 12, 2015 15:49:14 GMT
Ok, I see that many people here don’t like the idea of playing by growing up as an organism and I understand people’s reservations. They don’t want to have to play as a smaller, weaker version, they think it’ll be less fun or whatever. But I for one, am for it, and I just want to put forward my case. But first I want to explain how I think it will work. So, you create the adult creature in the OE. You exit and play as a young version (here’s where I hit a slight snag, but maybe someone will have an idea). The target is to grow to reach adult size so you’ll be able to reproduce. You have to survive and eat to grow. Simples.
Now here are the reasons I think it would be good:
1) It’ll add some variation into the game. Imagine, you’re a large carnivore, unperturbed by the inferior organisms that surround you. Then you reproduce, making your creature have some spikes on it’s tail. Then you get back to the game, finding yourself a small version of the organism you have just created. Now, the game is no longer dominated by you. You have to think about how to survive and it’s not the same whole process of being so powerful it’s crazy. Of course, you might not be a huge carnivore, but you get the picture of variation.
2) It’ll allow us to do things like larvae phases which I think would be really cool. I wrote some long thing on this before, which I was thinking of bringing back to have another look at.
3) Similarly, it will also add a challenge.
4) It’ll add to the realism by proving yours is a creature that can survive. To grow from a youngster into an adult, would take some ability to survive proving that your creature is able to do that. There’s to stop someone from creating some horrendous abnormality that really shouldn’t survive, but it can reproduce, so they keep spamming the OE and their horrendous creation evolves on.
5) It would be pretty unique. I don’t of many games that allow you to go from youngster to adult in this way. I’m not denying there are, but they must be quite few. The only game I’ve ever played like that was one called “Big Al” which was nothing like Thrive.
These are the reasons, for now. I might think of more later, who knows. I hope I’ve convinced you but I would be glad to hear your criticisms. Any thoughts?
P.S. Sorry about the length.
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The_Wayward_Admiral
Spacefaring
The_Real_Slim_Shady
Atrox drew this awesome image of the Keldori!
Posts: 1,011
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Post by The_Wayward_Admiral on Dec 12, 2015 15:55:35 GMT
StealthStyleL you have made a convert of me. I really like that idea, and the only thing I would add is this: I think that once the player grows up, they should be able to choose to play out their creature to its death or become one of the offspring (thus allowing for grow-until-mate play as well as rampaging-about-the-place play).
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!Tilly!
Aware
i love scifi stuff but im too stupid to take part lel
Posts: 145
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Post by !Tilly! on Dec 12, 2015 16:11:14 GMT
I agree entirely!!! Man, I would LOVE to play as a teeny tiny kit when my Sapient Foxes repopulate. Plus, imagine: you could have a really ugly species with cute babies (ie, frogs); a really cute/pretty species with ugly babies (ie, parrots); or you could just be all around ugly (ie, spiders).
Evolution is 90% of this game, but come on... Hilarity has to be found somewhere.
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Post by Atrox on Dec 12, 2015 16:25:07 GMT
All excellent points, StealthStyleL. I'm just curious to see what you have to say on the larval stages because I can't think of a way for playing as one. A caterpillar would be cool. Survive long enough to metamorphose, but for things like bees where they spend their childhood in a comb? Well I'm not sure if your long thing would cover this but I would love to give it a read. On your fourth point I had something to add onto it. We already know that there will be some system of population dynamics based on whether or not your species is evolutionarily fit or not. Perhaps how your species' population fluctuates depends on how you play the infant stage? As you, the player, are controlling the future of your species and its history, I think it'd be fitting for the infants survivability to play a factor in the survivability of your species. After all, if the infants die easily, how can your species continue its existence? All in all good points. Still would like to see the larval stage thing. I have been halfways converted EDIT: Also what would you say to certain actions taken during the infant stage affecting adult behaviors?
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Post by Moopli on Dec 12, 2015 16:28:40 GMT
After all, if the infants die easily, how can your species continue its existence? Mass production, make more!
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Post by Atrox on Dec 12, 2015 16:29:41 GMT
StealthStyleL you have made a convert of me. I really like that idea, and the only thing I would add is this: I think that once the player grows up, they should be able to choose to play out their creature to its death or become one of the offspring (thus allowing for grow-until-mate play as well as rampaging-about-the-place play). I think there are gonna be mating seasons that will notify you when its time to mate, but I don't think you have to either
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