Organism-Mode Speed and the Gap between Evolutions

~sciocont wrote:

The reason for sleep being safe is that somebody will be pretty pissed if they wake up dead for no apparent reason.

Waking up in response to a crisis would be an easy solution to that. Creature awakens in danger, player takes control. Or, if the danger is much greater, and the player is disadvantaged to the point of being sleep-ambushed an insta-kill, then the player has no right to be pissed. It is their responsibility, as the player, to guide their creature in a way that ensures high fitness in nature. If they fail to take into account vulnerability during sleep, it isn't the games responsibility to turn on easy mode.

Just my opinion, of course, but there are natural methods in our world that creatures avoid dying in their sleep. Behaviorally, some creatures keep watch while others sleep, and this process works cyclically so all creatures in a group sleep. Biologically, some creatures only "Half" sleep for an allotted time and then switch to the other half, while still being able to view their surroundings. This method would need to be interpreted by the game as an automatic 'awareness' indicator while 'sleep' occurs, giving players a greater ability to avoid danger while sleeping.

In other words, what Poisson said. I personally see no issue with a system like this.

Zetal wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

The reason for sleep being safe is that somebody will be pretty pissed if they wake up dead for no apparent reason.

Waking up in response to a crisis would be an easy solution to that. Creature awakens in danger, player takes control. Or, if the danger is much greater, and the player is disadvantaged to the point of being sleep-ambushed an insta-kill, then the player has no right to be pissed. It is their responsibility, as the player, to guide their creature in a way that ensures high fitness in nature. If they fail to take into account vulnerability during sleep, it isn't the games responsibility to turn on easy mode.

Just my opinion, of course, but there are natural methods in our world that creatures avoid dying in their sleep. Behaviorally, some creatures keep watch while others sleep, and this process works cyclically so all creatures in a group sleep. Biologically, some creatures only "Half" sleep for an allotted time and then switch to the other half, while still being able to view their surroundings. This method would need to be interpreted by the game as an automatic 'awareness' indicator while 'sleep' occurs, giving players a greater ability to avoid danger while sleeping.

In other words, what Poisson said. I personally see no issue with a system like this.

Yes, you should be woken up when there is danger. as for the sleep modes, we discussed that in the circadian tab thread.

I think that 8 - 12 days for a year is far, far too short, especially if a day is only 10 minutes in length. At that rate, growth of creatures over time would be very visible, and leisurely players like myself would hardly have time to smell the roses before we're forced to meet objectives.

If anything, I think that we need to give players a little too much time to do things. I, for one, find it far more rewarding to slowly grow into a game and figure out it's mechanics over time than too immedietly have to rush to do things.

On another note, I feel that we really should make sure the player develops an emotional attachment to both their species and their world. I don't think progression at such a breakneck speed will provide this. In Spore, I couldn't have cared less for my Homeworld. When it came under attack, I would casually brush it off and continue messing around with landscaping tools. At the same time, one of the most emotional experiences I've had in gaming has been defending my home from a siege in Mount and Blade, or leaving my base in Minecraft. I want Thrive to sit among the latter.

And before I go, let me repeat something I heard: Space and Aware stages will likely be the longest.

Why? Seriously, why?

I understand that the microbial stages will almost by necessity have to be the shortest, I have no qualms with that, but why in Zarquon's Holy Name must society and industrial be glazed over again? I cannot begin to stress the importance of these periods in history, et igitur, in Thrive. They are the foundations of the player's style, culture, and identity. And, most importantly, they are quite literally the same exact stage as space, minus some technology.

I realize that t's short, but we need to consider evolution, which will take a hell of a lot of time. Also, for many animals in the game, there's really nothing you can do but eat and avoid being eaten. I think playing that for four or five hours a generation would get tiresome quickly, especially in early builds.
what would you suggest be the time for a generation?

~sciocont wrote:

I realize that t's short, but we need to consider evolution, which will take a hell of a lot of time. Also, for many animals in the game, there's really nothing you can do but eat and avoid being eaten. I think playing that for four or five hours a generation would get tiresome quickly, especially in early builds.
what would you suggest be the time for a generation?

What about other activities that the player could do during each generation. Such as interacting with others of their species, defending territory, hunting, running away, finding fresh pastures, scavenging, migration, climbing/swinging from trees, exploration of terrain (that would quite noticeably change between generations) and most importantly of all, directing their species' behaviour.

I agree that we would have to make drastic changes that would make gameplay somewhat exaggerated, but I think that we underestimate the amount of activity that each individual generation would include.

GamerXA wrote:

What about other activities that the player could do during each generation. Such as interacting with others of their species, defending territory, hunting, running away, finding fresh pastures, scavenging, migration, climbing/swinging from trees, exploration of terrain (that would quite noticeably change between generations) and most importantly of all, directing their species' behaviour.

I agree that we would have to make drastic changes that would make gameplay somewhat exaggerated, but I think that we underestimate the amount of activity that each individual generation would include.

QFT

In regards to timescale, I'd say give it a 15-30 day year, and tweak from there.

Tenebrarum wrote:

GamerXA wrote:

What about other activities that the player could do during each generation. Such as interacting with others of their species, defending territory, hunting, running away, finding fresh pastures, scavenging, migration, climbing/swinging from trees, exploration of terrain (that would quite noticeably change between generations) and most importantly of all, directing their species' behaviour.

I agree that we would have to make drastic changes that would make gameplay somewhat exaggerated, but I think that we underestimate the amount of activity that each individual generation would include.

QFT

In regards to timescale, I'd say give it a 15-30 day year, and tweak from there.

Some people who play this game will want to play the later stages more than the earlier. Sure, some people (myself included) wouldn't mind huge amounts of time for each generation, but it will piss other people off that want to get to sapience and have to play literally weeks to get there. With the 8-day timescale, the shortest time to play through the Organism Stage would likely be a week. That's huge already. Yes, I actually agree with you that I'd like the generations to be longer, but you have to think about how other people might like to play it, and reach a happy medium for everyone. I think the 8 day year is that medium.

Here's a way to make everyone happy. The player knows best how they want to play the game. So I say let them decide. Have an option in the settings for how long the player wants a year to last, with a slider with scio's 8-day year being the minimum, and Tenebrarum's 15-30 day year as the maximum. That way, people who want to play either way or in between can all be happy.

Another possibility is to have the player be able to jump right into Sapience with a 'Speed Evolution' function that rapidly generates believable terrain on a Planet and the inhabiting Species. Obviously this would be less accurate than playing through the Organism Phase.

The player could possibly decide whether they want a somewhat random Species to control (that the computer has generated). Or if they specify the Organism and have something like a backwards generation of the rest of the planet?

Tenebrarum wrote:

GamerXA wrote:

What about other activities that the player could do during each generation. Such as interacting with others of their species, defending territory, hunting, running away, finding fresh pastures, scavenging, migration, climbing/swinging from trees, exploration of terrain (that would quite noticeably change between generations) and most importantly of all, directing their species' behaviour.

I agree that we would have to make drastic changes that would make gameplay somewhat exaggerated, but I think that we underestimate the amount of activity that each individual generation would include.

QFT

In regards to timescale, I'd say give it a 15-30 day year, and tweak from there.

That will be part of gameplay, and is important, but for most animals, life is about eating.
Rex, how long would you want each day to be, in real time?

I retract my former statement. Go with what you feel would be best. We'll tweak from there.

What I had been concerned with, and previously unable to adequately communicate, is that developments and change occurs at increasing rapidity over time. We need to make sure the early stage aren't boring, but at the same time give ample time for political machinations and intrigue later on.

Tenebrarum wrote:

I retract my former statement. Go with what you feel would be best. We'll tweak from there.

What I had been concerned with, and previously unable to adequately communicate, is that developments and change occurs at increasing rapidity over time. We need to make sure the early stage aren't boring, but at the same time give ample time for political machinations and intrigue later on.

I'm glad we understand each other. As much as I respect your wish to create emotional ties and realistic gameplay, it's something that we need to overlook, at least at first, to get the game up and running.