Evolution in Gameplay

Seeing as there wont necessarily be a final version, I believe the game will be full of those kind of options. They will be left over from the Beta and Alpha stages.

Waap wrote:

To be completely honest, I'm not sure if I quite understood the above post, but it made me think of something.
With the behaviour editor, you could select what your species are attracted to in a mate. Correct?
If so, you would be able to influence your species' evolution by selecting what mutations would make your creature more attractive.
Example: Your Rhinoguys have shortish horns on their noses, but you think they would be awesomer with longer horns. You go into behaviour editor. Clickity click click click. Rhinoguy gets born. Just so happens to have a slightly larger horn. Rhinoguy grows up. Rhinoguy gets lots of rhinogirlfriends. Offspring has larger horns, too. Yay!!
Congratulations. This post will self-destruct in five... fou-
-Waap.

Sexual selection and natural selection will both be handled by auto-evo. However, sexual selection will be handled entirely through behavior editor, whereas matural selection depends on everything about the creature.

Two points:
1: There's a fancy evolution sim to toy around called simlife (from maxis even!), it is a bit old and you might have problems making it run on modern gear, however we have a lot of ideas tossed on it. The biggest problem is that it feels like a spreadsheet that moans "oooh-la-la" rather than a game.

2: Have we considered a pollination system similar to spore (but you get to pick which of your critters you wanna share, spore's biggest flaw) to populate other people's games when "stock" stuff is needed?

I think that spore's method of editing worked quite fine apart from the problem that it was blunt. You could go from a grub to an ostrich in one generation. I reckon everything on the critter going from size to number of limbs and lenght of spine and limbs ( so on) would need to be attached to some evolutionary "cost" so to emulate a progressive evolution. Of course this is way closer to intelligent (stupid) design rather than real evolution, but it is more fun. Most "darwin pool" games are fun to contemplate, but not to _play_ with...

Djohaal wrote:

Have we considered a pollination system similar to spore (but you get to pick which of your critters you wanna share, spore's biggest flaw) to populate other people's games when "stock" stuff is needed?

I think that spore's method of editing worked quite fine apart from the problem that it was blunt. You could go from a grub to an ostrich in one generation. I reckon everything on the critter going from size to number of limbs and lenght of spine and limbs ( so on) would need to be attached to some evolutionary "cost" so to emulate a progressive evolution. Of course this is way closer to intelligent (stupid) design rather than real evolution, but it is more fun. Most "darwin pool" games are fun to contemplate, but not to _play_ with...

Firstly, we are not having a 'Sporepedia'... We are going to have to manually post them somewhere to share them.
Secondly, we are not accessing the editor every generation, we are having 'automatic evolution' (AKA auto-evo) using random mutations each generation.
Thirdly, we are not going to have evolutionary cost, that is something we are hoping to avoid... Too Sporey.
Fourthly, we will have an editor, but it will not be accessible in-game, it will be a genetic manipulation godly research.
Fifthly, the godly researches are right at the top of the tech tree, meaning you wont access them normally in-game.
Sixthly, the tech tree is the tree of all possibly researches possible, organised into a tree, that you can begin when sentience is reached.
Seventhly, sentience is achieved by, having reached the brain capacity through auto-evo, is then developed by a number of very intelligent actions progressing along a hidden 'bar' to then 'unlock' sentience, and the tech tree.
Eighthly, I should stop numbering my sentences like this...

Has this tech tree already been made? Cause if it hasn't i'd be happy to make it if you all put the different techs you want in it in one place...

FrogEmpire wrote:

Has this tech tree already been made? Cause if it hasn't i'd be happy to make it if you all put the different techs you want in it in one place...

It's not done yet, but it's actively worked on (mainly by Alaska). You can participate too if you want.

I really like the idea that the player gets to pick a mate among several discretely different mutants in order to direct the evolution. This is a good interaction route with the game which is different from what spore did, and also interactive enough.
My main concern with evolution balancing is that we are at risk of making it feel more like a spreadsheet than a game that is actually fun to play with. El-fish allowed you to selectively breed your fishies, but it gets old quickly...

Djohaal wrote:
Have we considered a pollination system similar to spore (but you get to pick which of your critters you wanna share, spore's biggest flaw) to populate other people's games when "stock" stuff is needed?

I think that spore's method of editing worked quite fine apart from the problem that it was blunt. You could go from a grub to an ostrich in one generation. I reckon everything on the critter going from size to number of limbs and lenght of spine and limbs ( so on) would need to be attached to some evolutionary "cost" so to emulate a progressive evolution. Of course this is way closer to intelligent (stupid) design rather than real evolution, but it is more fun. Most "darwin pool" games are fun to contemplate, but not to _play_ with...


Firstly, we are not having a 'Sporepedia'... We are going to have to manually post them somewhere to share them.
Secondly, we are not accessing the editor every generation, we are having 'automatic evolution' (AKA auto-evo) using random mutations each generation.
Thirdly, we are not going to have evolutionary cost, that is something we are hoping to avoid... Too Sporey.
Fourthly, we will have an editor, but it will not be accessible in-game, it will be a genetic manipulation godly research.
Fifthly, the godly researches are right at the top of the tech tree, meaning you wont access them normally in-game.
Sixthly, the tech tree is the tree of all possibly researches possible, organised into a tree, that you can begin when sentience is reached.
Seventhly, sentience is achieved by, having reached the brain capacity through auto-evo, is then developed by a number of very intelligent actions progressing along a hidden 'bar' to then 'unlock' sentience, and the tech tree.
Eighthly, I should stop numbering my sentences like this...

No, auto-evo would result in all the terible things mentioned earlier. And no reason to avoid Spore because it is Spore, only because it is BAD, and evolutionary cost is. Not. Bad.

I may have missed some vital discussion, but didn't we decide to have the ability to direct-edit the organism each generation in addition to guided and computer controlled evolution as possible options.

Also, sentience is having sensation (i.e. anything above a jellyfish) and sapience is being self-aware (or some other definition of humans).

I see no reason why Auto-Evo would result in horrendous looking Organisms (unless poorly programmed or alien is considered ugly) given that the Organism could only survive if it was functional via natural selection.

GamerXA wrote:

I may have missed some vital discussion, but didn't we decide to have the ability to direct-edit the organism each generation in addition to guided and computer controlled evolution as possible options.

Also, sentience is having sensation (i.e. anything above a jellyfish) and sapience is being self-aware (or some other definition of humans).

I see no reason why Auto-Evo would result in horrendous looking Organisms (unless poorly programmed or alien is considered ugly) given that the Organism could only survive if it was functional via natural selection.

Ugly is visually painful. Horrendous is something that looks visually unlike what you expected. Neither means a THRIVE creature that is weak and cannot survive.

Nature in reality does not have a sense of beauty, yet the commonly converged (via evolution) organism body-shapes do not look visually unappealing. Disregarding this, in places on Earth, some natural organisms do look somewhat ugly and horrific.

Ultimately though, we may never be able to predict what an automated system such as this may create. The only way to truly settle such arguments would be through rigorous testing of such a system.

GamerXA wrote:

Nature in reality does not have a sense of beauty, yet the commonly converged (via evolution) organism body-shapes do not look visually unappealing. Disregarding this, in places on Earth, some natural organisms do look somewhat ugly and horrific.

Ultimately though, we may never be able to predict what an automated system such as this may create. The only way to truly settle such arguments would be through rigorous testing of such a system.

I know, but perhaps my complex system of text, quite unlike the common post of a barrage, was hard to understand. I don't care if it is "ugly", I care whether or not it looks like what I want!

BBC recently made a very good series about ecosystems, and the complex interactions between different species. I'm posting this here more for inspiration than anything in particular to aim for. Many of the interactions shown will be almost impossible for us to develop, but they may give us ideas. Besides that, this is the first good documentary I've ever seen which actually deals with ecosystems, communities, and evolution in this way.

You can (hopefully), see the episodes here on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YxrRsU8Dcs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9q5ax0IcxU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1rtZTbWFYs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5ot8JOEjJA

Deathbite42 wrote:

GamerXA wrote:

Nature in reality does not have a sense of beauty, yet the commonly converged (via evolution) organism body-shapes do not look visually unappealing. Disregarding this, in places on Earth, some natural organisms do look somewhat ugly and horrific.

Ultimately though, we may never be able to predict what an automated system such as this may create. The only way to truly settle such arguments would be through rigorous testing of such a system.

I know, but perhaps my complex system of text, quite unlike the common post of a barrage, was hard to understand. I don't care if it is "ugly", I care whether or not it looks like what I want!

You're not making decisions here, and your passive-aggressive attitude is going to get you banned. Auto-evo is confirmed, you will be able to direct-edit your organism when you are selected for mutation by the system.

@ seregon- I'll have to watch those.

~sciocont wrote:

Deathbite42 wrote:

GamerXA wrote:

Nature in reality does not have a sense of beauty, yet the commonly converged (via evolution) organism body-shapes do not look visually unappealing. Disregarding this, in places on Earth, some natural organisms do look somewhat ugly and horrific.

Ultimately though, we may never be able to predict what an automated system such as this may create. The only way to truly settle such arguments would be through rigorous testing of such a system.

I know, but perhaps my complex system of text, quite unlike the common post of a barrage, was hard to understand. I don't care if it is "ugly", I care whether or not it looks like what I want!

You're not making decisions here, and your passive-aggressive attitude is going to get you banned. Auto-evo is confirmed, you will be able to direct-edit your organism when you are selected for mutation by the system.

@ seregon- I'll have to watch those.

Sorry, but your species is harassing me.
Oh, I didn't quite understand direct-editing, I thought the mutations were randomly generated.

You will be able to choose between auto-evo and minor direct edits in the options.

What are the Options?

Deathbite42 wrote:

What are the Options?

They're options, accessible in the menu, which let you tweak the settings to suit your preferences...
We don't have a list, if that's what you mean.

The Uteen wrote:

Deathbite42 wrote:

What are the Options?

They're options, accessible in the menu, which let you tweak the settings to suit your preferences...
We don't have a list, if that's what you mean.

Can we make one?

Making an options list will probably be something to do once we have a working prototype with a fair bit of discussed functions and features. That way it would be easiest to come up with options as we would be doing so in a way other than pure speculation of how gameplay will work.

This is speculation?!

Well we don't exactly have much gameplay yet, so yes, practically everything on the forums is speculation on how game mechanics would work.

Oh, I can fix that soon.

How so?
We only have a cell prototype.
that's it.

Really? Can you show me?