Lineage, clade species, and tools for learning.

Oh, hi.
I was reading these posts, and thinking about the gameplay... I don't know where this would be better placed, the no specific thread thread, or here. I posted here to get some mixed answers to my quarrel, is all. I'm sorry.
What took me aback was the notice of a great amount of options given to those who reach the end of the game, yet you can only choose to be one species on the planet you build(luckily, you don't have to already have an awakened race to design it). I had always figured starting a game on a new planet, constructing itself from stardust, fusion, and intense star fire would start empty and barren, where no life exists. When you start at such an early part of the game, wouldn't it be impossible to predict what animal could be sentient(if there are living things at all on it) several thousand, or millions of years later? I mean, Rauisuchids were early, old-world predators that failed to compete with the bipedal predators developing in that Late Triassic. Now the living descendants are crocodilians, struggling to survive a world buzzing with the life of a sapient hive all around it. If the main objective is to grow smart quickly, dominate, and obtain the power to do whatever the Belgium you want, then the Crocodilian uprising on our sapient race would be probable, although we cannot picture that now.

Look, I'm just saying for a game about the wild structure of life, being apart of only one species without separating into other lineages desperately trying to be sapient is surprisingly limiting. Simply having the ability at the end of Awakening kinda takes the wild, and structure out of the wild structure of life. I'm not saying these God Tools shouldn't be an option, but who would want to play a completely illogical race that still thinks the galaxy revolves around their "creator", and therefore, themselves? That doesn't sound very wise, and God-like. That sounds like the primitive bays for attention of a wanty(worse than needy) child who wants to pretend to be God, or at least have all of the privileges of an infallible illogic. If you ask me, progress shouldn't be gained by having one un-cladeable, un-extinctable, infallible, illogical, omnipotent race pop up from a random wild animal species because it can perform trivial activities that do not at all develop its instincts, thinking skills, and overall ability to survive. I think the player him/herself should be the one required to learn to progress. The more you discover, compound-wise, behavior-wise, lineage-wise, planet development/rotation-wise, season-wise, and especially timeline/generation-wise, for any player will want billions of years on their planet, and dozens of generations of living things, dying and living, you and only you develop the understanding required to Thrive. It would certainly be funny to see what all you know, while the sapients still struggle with basic chemistry. Quick question: there can be more than one sapient race on a celestial orbiter(means planet, of course, but planet was derived from a Greek word to establish their many Gods), right?

I gotta be honest, some God Tools are kinda silly. It could be possible for a hyper-intelligent race to invent a mind-control cap, so why waste that ability by putting a specific button to do exactly what you're doing on your own planet, but to something different? If the player wants to explore something else, that option should be given as soon as soon as life is diverse enough. Imagine a thick, forest planet, heavily diverse. Instead of having an alien avatar from another planet come in to observe behavior with mind control(?), why not have an Aware stage tool you can use to get out of gameplay on one species to observe a completely different species, maybe on another continent?! Here's an example. Your predatory alien makes a kill by assistance of your skilled clicking abilities. After you move about the planet, the life continues to progress and move around you, giving you the option to view, discover, and learn several things at once! As the predator feeds on its kill after surveying the land for danger, you could watch the two carrion flyers duke it out above the scene, instead of playing one to assist it in combat. You could watch the whole untouched, undiscovered, prehistoric landscape from every angle like it's your own personal documentary. Imagine gaining knowledge of animals that aren't randomly selected, but rather developed on the planet without your supervision based upon a design principal you created to fit the planet. I don't think the Rancor, despite its obvious brutality, would be well-equpped to survive in prehistoric Brazil, 65 Mil. years ago. If you do plan on playing sapient, then this same camera/change organism function, I think, would be a perfectly fine accessible God Tool to program, and use as you explore other planets from a safe distance. I'm not saying have it replace the ever brilliant mind-control, I'm just saying it wouldn't be my thing to screw up an animals' day by making it do my bidding. I'd have to be a pretty self-important species to do that.

I know it might be too late for decisions on this, but I couldn't post this anywhere else. As a noob, I guess I'm not designated for making a comment on another thread. If this thread is unnecessary, then you can get rid of it, or close it out. These are just suggestions, of course, but I hope you take them into consideration. Frankly, this game idea, this is what I would... well, what I've always looked for in gameplay. For me, playability shouldn't be too limiting, especially on such an ambitious, brilliant concept, despite its difficulty. It all sounds so gorgeous, and I hope it turns out great.
I am K. I read and write, but I'm struggling to master the periodic table, as well as the baffling mathematic computer programming algorithms, so you'll want to look for someone else on arithmetic. I'm not exactly an email, blogging, Facebook-y type person.
I am a carnivore, yet not very competitive. I hope you think about my thoughts.

Karnivorous-K wrote:

Long post is long.

There is an observer mode (basically an option for starting a new save file or something) that allows you to sort of do just that. You might even be able to enter organism mode in there. And then there's sandbox mode, which...

... Well, I'm not too sure if it's available from the start, or if you can only play it on a save file you evolved a species on. Come to think of it, we could give the player the option to disable it on their save file if they find it ridiculous. That way, they'll be able to keep their species as an empire only, without fear of another race discovering ascention because the player didn't feel like doing it. Heck, we could give the player all the options of disabling certain things they feel to be unrealistic or unnecessary.

Anyway, we already have observer mode. If we could go into organism mode during it, there's your answer.

Welcome to Thrive Karnivorous-K!

Now, when I was reading your post, maybe it was just me but it became confusing at certain points. I will try to answer as best as I can, but it would be nice if you could summarize in a more concise format what you are saying.

Karnivorous-K wrote:

I was reading these posts, and thinking about the gameplay... I don't know where this would be better placed, the no specific thread thread, or here. I posted here to get some mixed answers to my quarrel, is all. I'm sorry. What took me aback was the notice of a great amount of options given to those who reach the end of the game, yet you can only choose to be one species on the planet you build(luckily, you don't have to already have an awakened race to design it). I had always figured starting a game on a new planet, constructing itself from stardust, fusion, and intense star fire would start empty and barren, where no life exists. When you start at such an early part of the game, wouldn't it be impossible to predict what animal could be sentient(if there are living things at all on it) several thousand, or millions of years later? I mean, Rauisuchids were early, old-world predators that failed to compete with the bipedal predators developing in that Late Triassic. Now the living descendants are crocodilians, struggling to survive a world buzzing with the life of a sapient hive all around it. If the main objective is to grow smart quickly, dominate, and obtain the power to do whatever the Belgium you want, then the Crocodilian uprising on our sapient race would be probable, although we cannot picture that now.

Initially, you won't even build the planet you start on, that will be something added in later.

Now, what you are worried about is not what Thrive is like. What you're describing is more like placing a bet on a species at the beginning and, without interfering, hoping that it becomes sapient. However, with Thrive you can interfere, so the chances of your species becoming sapient are MUCH higher then if it was truly random. Obviously, a player on easy and/or normal difficulty would have advantages over the AI. In easier difficulties, the "enemy" AI would have preset limitations, and even in normal difficulty a guiding human hand is more effective then an AI species. If a player wants a truly balances and painstakingly realistic playing field for their chances of survival/sapience, they would simply have to crank up the difficulty.

Karnivorous-K wrote:

Look, I'm just saying for a game about the wild structure of life, being apart of only one species without separating into other lineages desperately trying to be sapient is surprisingly limiting. Simply having the ability at the end of Awakening kinda takes the wild, and structure out of the wild structure of life. I'm not saying these God Tools shouldn't be an option, but who would want to play a completely illogical race that still thinks the galaxy revolves around their "creator", and therefore, themselves? That doesn't sound very wise, and God-like. That sounds like the primitive bays for attention of a wanty(worse than needy) child who wants to pretend to be God, or at least have all of the privileges of an infallible illogic. If you ask me, progress shouldn't be gained by having one un-cladeable, un-extinctable, infallible, illogical, omnipotent race pop up from a random wild animal species because it can perform trivial activities that do not at all develop its instincts, thinking skills, and overall ability to survive. I think the player him/herself should be the one required to learn to progress. The more you discover, compound-wise, behavior-wise, lineage-wise, planet
development/rotation-wise, season-wise, and especially timeline/generation-wise, for any player will want billions of years on their planet, and dozens of generations of living things, dying and living, you and only you develop the understanding required to Thrive. It would certainly be funny to see what all you know, while the sapients still struggle with basic chemistry. Quick question: there can be more than one sapient race on a celestial orbiter(means planet, of course, but planet was derived from a Greek word to establish their many Gods), right?

The whole goal of Thrive is to start as one species and lead them to domination. Switching between species would both be less fun and less fair, for our objectives. However, in Ascension stage I presume the player would be able to do such a thing, but clearly at the beginning their quest will be confined to only their species.

In the middle of your paragraph I don't really know what you are saying. It seems like you are criticizing achieving sapience and/or bashing religion.

The player will obviously learn more about the workings of the game themselves to progress, not only "level up" their organism.

So you don't use the word "planet" because it has the faintest association to religion? Seriously? (I apologize if it was a joke of some sort, but religion-bashing really grinds my gears.) The word itself doesn't even mean that. Here is the etymology:

Quote :

late Old English planete, from Old French planete (Modern French planète), from Late Latin planeta, from Greek planetes, from (asteres) planetai "wandering (stars)," from planasthai "to wander," of unknown origin, possibly from PIE *pele-(2) "flat, to spread" on notion of "spread out." So called because they have apparent motion, unlike the "fixed" stars. Originally including also the moon and sun; modern scientific sense of "world that orbits a star" is from 1630s.

Karnivorous-K wrote:

I gotta be honest, some God Tools are kinda silly. It could be possible for a hyper-intelligent race to invent a mind-control cap, so why waste that ability by putting a specific button to do exactly what you're doing on your own planet, but to something different? If the player wants to explore something else, that option should be given as soon as soon as life is diverse enough. Imagine a thick, forest planet, heavily diverse. Instead of having an alien avatar from another planet come in to observe behavior with mind control(?), why not have an Aware stage tool you can use to get out of gameplay on one species to observe a completely different species, maybe on another continent?! Here's an example. Your predatory alien makes a kill by assistance of your skilled clicking abilities. After you move about the planet, the life continues to progress and move around you, giving you the option to view, discover, and learn several things at once! As the predator feeds on its kill after surveying the land for danger, you could watch the two carrion flyers duke it out above the scene, instead of playing one to assist it in combat. You could watch the whole untouched, undiscovered, prehistoric landscape from every angle like it's your own personal documentary. Imagine gaining knowledge of animals that aren't randomly selected, but rather developed on the planet without your supervision
based upon a design principal you created to fit the planet. I don't think the Rancor, despite its obvious brutality, would be well-equpped to survive in prehistoric Brazil, 65 Mil. years ago. If you do plan on playing sapient, then this same camera/change organism function, I think, would be a perfectly fine accessible God Tool to program, and use as you explore other planets from a safe distance. I'm not saying have it replace the ever brilliant mind-control, I'm just saying it wouldn't be my thing to screw up an animals' day by making it do my bidding. I'd have to be a pretty self-important species to do that.

Again, the player will not be able to transcend above their own species until Ascension. Even within their species the player only ever controls one organism at a time, and stays as that organism until they reproduce (and become one of the children if they so desire) or die.

Observing the galaxy as a third party is available as Observer Mode.

By interfering, you mean changing, adapting, and evolving, right? If that is part of the gameplay, it wouldn't make sense to be only one species. If you evolve, you make subtle changes to yourself, making you a different species overtime that separates you from the species you once were. I always pictured in gameplay there would be a table accessible at any time that shows how your animal has progressed, as well as the clade species that you've separated from to see not only how you've changed, but how any clade species may break off with different adaptive abilities, and therefore become other species. Adaptive radiation, I think, should be considered as an implementation in gameplay.

True, a player does have an advantage over AI, but not if their species isn't developed for the specific difficult action, and the AI animal is. I always figured that gameplay as a beast would be as limiting as its physical attributes, and especially the animals' brain, which would be more implemented than your brain(gameplay-wise, of course). Say the animal you control has an AI of its own, which fits into its instincts, and adapted abilities, like reflex, scent, etc. Say an animal being played has a small sense capacity, but a high-thinking cranium adapted? Now imagine a gameplay animal with a high sense organ, but a low decision-making section. if you played these animals to your utmost control, their lineage-adaptive lines would be too similar(although the animal examples I'm using, birds and reptiles, were very much alike millions of years ago). Still, wouldn't it make more sense if the thinking beast(bird) waited, and thought in its own little way regardless of what you may want now, for the opportune moment(p.s. keep in mind bird brains are designed to think incredibly fast, with an astoundingly complex language, making their decisions quicker resolved than you think, unless, of course the animal developed does not have that trait), while the scent-driven beast(reptile) looks for an opportunity ASAP and rushes headlong into it, fueled by the desperate want to devour? What if you find yourself playing an animal that has better reflexes than you?
What if a fearsome predator were to ambush you, but your animal senses the attack faster than you? Before you can reach the slo-mo button, the cat is in the tree. True, you can control this movement if you, the player, are very wary, with your mouse clicker over slo-mo as often as ever, but what if you find these added game perks do not assist you if your animal has inferior senses, even more than yours? I personally think that's as fair as the law of the jungle can get, but is fair, nonetheless.

Also, sorry for distracting you with that planets nonsense. I didn't mean to get your two Nicks in a knot I was really wondering if a species grows sapient on a planet, while another does the same on a farther continent, wouldn't it be possible for these two(or more) cultures to eventually meet, and socialize? I also have a new question concerning transcendence. It certainly sounds interesting, but wouldn't it be more interesting to involve others of your own species(or maybe different ones) to join you in your transcendence, and therefore gain a higher understanding of universal workings as a constructive unit? Also, this should also imply that different philosophies would be founded during said transcendence, right?
I've also a question concerning the reproducing cycle. Wouldn't parental imprinting(at least on some species) be required to make your brood more successful? The option to be either the teacher, or the learner sounds like much fun, though I imagine it is perfectly optional. If it is, wouldn't the ability to absorb knowledge as an adult, then later instructing it to the children as the parent, be fundamental?

Thank you for clearing things up for me, the Nick. This game will be the beast with such an excellent strategist

Karnivorous-K wrote:

By interfering, you mean changing, adapting, and evolving, right? If that is part of the gameplay, it wouldn't make sense to be only one species. If you evolve, you make subtle changes to yourself, making you a different species overtime that separates you from the species you once were. I always pictured in gameplay there would be a table accessible at any time that shows how your animal has progressed, as well as the clade species that you've separated from to see not only how you've changed, but how any clade species may break off with different adaptive abilities, and therefore become other species. Adaptive radiation, I think, should be considered as an implementation in gameplay.

For the first part about interfering I'm not sure i understand you. Why should we be more than one species?

Karnivorous-K wrote:

By interfering, you mean changing, adapting, and evolving, right? If that is part of the gameplay, it wouldn't make sense to be only one species. If you evolve, you make subtle changes to yourself, making you a different species overtime that separates you from the species you once were. I always pictured in gameplay there would be a table accessible at any time that shows how your animal has progressed, as well as the clade species that you've separated from to see not only how you've changed, but how any clade species may break off with different adaptive abilities, and therefore become other species. Adaptive radiation, I think, should be considered as an implementation in gameplay.

By interfering, I mean literally playing as one of the organisms in that species. This is basic concept. The player then has their species evolve through automatically or directly each generation. However, like I said, you don't only play as a species, you play as an individual organism within that species. Adaptive Radiation has already been discussed, and since one plays as an individual and not a whole species, it does not hinder gameplay. The player can switch to other members of their species upon death or reproduction, but once the species splits they can only play as the one they were currently in. A table predicting all the future evolutionary steps of your species and related species is not only computer intensive and unrealistic, it is impossible.

It does make sense to play as one species. That is one of the most integral facets of the concept. Think of an RPG, the player plays as a single character within that RPG. Allowing the player to switch between characters in the RPG would make it no longer an RPG, since RPG stands for ROLE playing game.

Karnivorous-K wrote:

True, a player does have an advantage over AI, but not if their species isn't developed for the specific difficult action, and the AI animal is. I always figured that gameplay as a beast would be as limiting as its physical attributes, and especially the animals' brain, which would be more implemented than your brain(gameplay-wise, of course). Say the animal you control has an AI of its own, which fits into its instincts, and adapted abilities, like reflex, scent, etc. Say an animal being played has a small sense capacity, but a high-thinking cranium adapted? Now imagine a gameplay animal with a high sense organ, but a low decision-making section. if you played these animals to your
utmost control, their lineage-adaptive lines would be too similar(although the animal examples I'm using, birds and reptiles, were very much alike millions of years ago). Still, wouldn't it make more sense if the thinking beast(bird) waited, and thought in its own little way regardless of what you may want now, for the opportune moment(p.s. keep in mind bird brains are designed to think incredibly fast, with an astoundingly complex language, making their decisions quicker resolved than you think, unless, of course the animal developed does not have that trait), while the scent-driven beast(reptile) looks for an opportunity ASAP and rushes headlong into it, fueled by the desperate want to devour? What if you find yourself playing an animal that has better reflexes than you?
What if a fearsome predator were to ambush you, but your animal senses the attack faster than you? Before you can reach the slo-mo button, the cat is in the tree. True, you can control this movement if you, the player, are very wary, with your mouse clicker over slo-mo as often as ever, but what if you find these added game perks do not assist you if your animal has inferior senses, even more than yours? I personally think that's as fair as the law of the jungle can get, but is fair, nonetheless.

If the animal you are playing has better reflexes than you, you are not playing it. That is the whole definition of playing as a character in a game. We will obviously compensate for the restrictions on the player, such as highlighting colours for smell or possible indicating noise direction for sound, but to have your creature react or act in a way that wasnt ordained by the player takes the organism OUT of the player's control, and we would never want to do that. We are not going to give an AI to an organism a player is controlling, for the obvious reason that a player is controlling it and an AI isnt needed. The example you gave at the end, that is what I meant by cranking up the difficulty. The game on regular difficulties will not be so fast paced, and probably not even that much in higher difficulties too. Remember we are making a game here, not a simulation of the entire universe. Science, simplicity, and playability must all be taken into account equally. Too much realism is usually a bad thing for video games.

Karnivorous-K wrote:

Also, sorry for distracting you with that planets nonsense. I didn't mean to get your two Nicks in a knot
I was really wondering if a species grows sapient on a planet, while another does the same on a farther continent, wouldn't it be possible for these two(or more) cultures to eventually meet, and socialize? I also have a new question concerning transcendence. It certainly sounds interesting, but wouldn't it be more interesting to involve others of your own species(or maybe different ones) to join you in your transcendence, and therefore gain a higher understanding of universal workings as a constructive unit? Also, this should also imply that different philosophies would be founded during said transcendence, right?
I've also a question concerning the reproducing cycle. Wouldn't parental imprinting(at least on some species) be required to make your brood more successful? The option to be either the teacher, or the learner sounds like much fun, though I imagine it is perfectly optional. If it is, wouldn't the ability to absorb knowledge as an adult, then later instructing it to the children as the parent, be fundamental?

When I said transcendence, I meant the whole species ascending, not just one organism. You wouldn't even have the full organism mode in that stage anyways. Philosophy has nothing to do with it. It is basically the end game objective in which the player's species has attained so much technology that for all intents and purposed the player can enter "God Mode". Teaching offspring in the creature stage makes sense, and I'm not sure if it has been discussed much, but it doesnt really require much discussing. Spore tried to do it, and got a weak result, but I would imagine it would something of lower priority for the game development.

I meant that the family tree would show the past, not predict the future. Yeah, that would be impossible
If the brain does not affect gameplay in Aware, why implement it at all? That means the AI will behave the same for all other organisms, rather than their behavior and instinct working if all of their behavior is determined by a slider. They wouldn't need brains at all, either.
Quote: When I said transcendence, I meant the whole species ascending, not just one organism.
Quote: Again, the player will not be able to transcend above their own species until Ascension.

I don't think parental bonds should be as easy as being forced to stand in one place and click, even in the most limiting of programming, agreed, that's low. Animals that cooperate, communicate, and socialize with each other depend on teaching to be successful. If a cat is raised by cats, it imprints to be better at hunting. If a cat is raised by humans, it imprints to either be cuter, or control the people without their realizing If that isn't implemented, then sapient races would be impossible to implement. despite all the caring and compassion put into your nurturing section of the brain, you are still perfectly at liberty to devour your children as soon as they're born. Do you see what I'm saying, here?
The way an animals' brain is should drastically effect gameplay, in a newer, broader spectrum. Otherwise, why implement it? Compounds should be included, not just in the plants, the air, water, and the soil, but in every part of an animal. that's why hunting is implemented; to gain nutrients. I hope that this isn't too complex for you. If so, why make the organism editor design complex and realistic for animals of all sorts at all? Also, if we are only limited to human capabilities, reflexes, and senses in all game plays, why not just, you know... live?

Karnivorous-K wrote:

I meant that the family tree would show the past, not predict the future. Yeah, that would be impossible
If the brain does not affect gameplay in Aware, why implement it at all? That means the AI will behave the same for all other organisms, rather than their behavior and instinct working if all of their behavior is determined by a slider. They wouldn't need brains at all, either.
Quote: When I said transcendence, I meant the whole species ascending, not just one organism.
Quote: Again, the player will not be able to transcend above their own species until Ascension.

The brain affects things like the senses of the player, their progress towards Sapience, and other brain stuff. However, a foreign AI will not control the organism at the same time as the player. This is simple game mechanics.

I don't know why I said "above their own species" that time, I intended to say "transcend their species until Ascension".

Karnivorous-K wrote:

I
don't think parental bonds should be as easy as being forced to stand
in one place and click, even in the most limiting of programming,
agreed, that's low. Animals that cooperate, communicate, and socialize
with each other depend on teaching to be successful. If a cat is raised
by cats, it imprints to be better at hunting. If a cat is raised by
humans, it imprints to either be cuter, or control the people without
their realizing
If that isn't implemented, then sapient races would be impossible to
implement. despite all the caring and compassion put into your nurturing
section of the brain, you are still perfectly at liberty to devour your
children as soon as they're born. Do you see what I'm saying, here?
The
way an animals' brain is should drastically effect gameplay, in a
newer, broader spectrum. Otherwise, why implement it? Compounds should
be included, not just in the plants, the air, water, and the soil, but
in every part of an animal. that's why hunting is implemented; to gain
nutrients. I hope that this isn't too complex for you. If so, why make
the organism editor design complex and realistic for animals of all
sorts at all? Also, if we are only limited to human capabilities,
reflexes, and senses in all game plays, why not just, you know... live?

I never mentioned making it a point and click. I was saying its an interesting idea for the future but not a high priority for when that stage is first developed.

Compounds will be implemented within the animal too. Read up on it.