Let's do this

Okay then. I apologize for my prolonged absence, but you know how January is.

In any case, before we can finish the culture concept, I think that I in particular need to look at it's effect on gameplay.

I see culture as the basis from which all sentient actions are interpreted. Thus, psychology affects the kind of cultures that can exist, and then those cultures serve the way sentients view and interact with the world around them. Unfortunately though, this lacks a clean beginning point. Unlike evolution, where the process where the changes occur can be clearly marked and observed, culture pushes and pulls both directions: what I do affects my culture, and my culture affects what I do.

I think the easiest way to deal with this aspect is to use awakening stage as a jumping-off point. Awakening has really not been discussed AT ALL, and I think that it gives us the perfect opportunity to introduce the player to the more complex and open-ended goals of the following stages, while simultaneously drilling them for the information necessary to develop a culture and society that accurately reflects their playstyle. That last part is important if we want our player to be able to hand control of their nation over to the AI comfortably.

In a perfect world, I'd want to treat awakening as something of a story. The player should start it out with their species clumping together in small, semi-familial groups, which would provide an excellent backdrop on which we could examine the player's treatment of his comrades. This would be perfect, as it allows us to develop the culture at it's source: personal, individual interaction.

Barring that, we'd need to take a more backwards route to examining the player, regarding his overall playstyle and then match it up with the corresponding culture. This would be easy, but would also force awakening to be significantly more like society stage, to the point where it might be difficult to provide a nice, gentle and slow introduction to the new mechanics.

Once we make that decision we can finish developing awakening, and thus, culture as a whole.

I'm excited about this. Just remember that we will have to cut some corners.

~sciocont wrote:

I'm excited about this. Just remember that we will have to cut some corners.

Yes, I'm aware. We always cut corners. I'd be concerned if we didn't. But what are your thoughts on our options?

Tenebrarum wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

I'm excited about this. Just remember that we will have to cut some corners.

Yes, I'm aware. We always cut corners. I'd be concerned if we didn't. But what are your thoughts on our options?

Randomize wherever it's pertinent. Lots of sliders. Read up on human/chimpanzee/bonobo evolution. It's quite interesting. The primary reason that bonobos and chimps are so different behaviorally is due to habitat: specifically, the availability of food on the ground.

I would also like to see Aware stage take a family/pack/mob direction. This stage would very much be about the socialisation and organisation of what will become your tribe. We need to come up with as many ways as possible to change the default settings for the Nation Editor and the culture section within it using the interactions in this stage.

Basically, what Rex said, i agree with it.

Maybe we should try thinking of some things the player does that the game should look out for and keep in it's memory to decide some of these things?

This is awesome We are Making progress... I think we can finish the gameplay consept and then the game!

US_of_Alaska wrote:

I would also like to see Aware stage take a family/pack/mob direction. This stage would very much be about the socialisation and organisation of what will become your tribe. We need to come up with as many ways as possible to change the default settings for the Nation Editor and the culture section within it using the interactions in this stage.

Basically, what Rex said, i agree with it.

Maybe we should try thinking of some things the player does that the game should look out for and keep in it's memory to decide some of these things?

Yay!

Alrighty, I'm thinking that the stage itself should involve some very complex person to person interaction. We'd need that to help identify the corresponding culture. And yes, do you know what that means? Dialogue trees. Or more accurately, rudimentary communication trees. I know, it sounds silly, but it's arguably the easiest way to mark complex communication choices for the player, and track them to make a good overall picture.

Tenebrarum wrote:

US_of_Alaska wrote:

I would also like to see Aware stage take a family/pack/mob direction. This stage would very much be about the socialisation and organisation of what will become your tribe. We need to come up with as many ways as possible to change the default settings for the Nation Editor and the culture section within it using the interactions in this stage.

Basically, what Rex said, i agree with it.

Maybe we should try thinking of some things the player does that the game should look out for and keep in it's memory to decide some of these things?

Yay!

Alrighty, I'm thinking that the stage itself should involve some very complex person to person interaction. We'd need that to help identify the corresponding culture. And yes, do you know what that means? Dialogue trees. Or more accurately, rudimentary communication trees. I know, it sounds silly, but it's arguably the easiest way to mark complex communication choices for the player, and track them to make a good overall picture.

Interpersonal interaction is really neglected in games, and I think that this stage should be all about it. I'm definitely with you guys. The main purpose of aware stage should be building a language of some sort.

~sciocont wrote:

Interpersonal interaction is really neglected in games, and I think that this stage should be all about it. I'm definitely with you guys. The main purpose of aware stage should be building a language of some sort.

If at all possible, we should also establish things like body language, which is very important in cultural analysis.

If all goes well, this could provide us with a beautiful society+ organism mode gameplay model.

Tenebrarum wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

Interpersonal interaction is really neglected in games, and I think that this stage should be all about it. I'm definitely with you guys. The main purpose of aware stage should be building a language of some sort.

If at all possible, we should also establish things like body language, which is very important in cultural analysis.

If all goes well, this could provide us with a beautiful society+ organism mode gameplay model.

Right, so before we go starting to define gameplay, i think we should try to come up with all the things that we can think of that could affect the culture and language (verbal or otherwise) later down the track.

US_of_Alaska wrote:

Right, so before we go starting to define gameplay, i think we should try to come up with all the things that we can think of that could affect the culture and language (verbal or otherwise) later down the track.

I think those should be one and the same.

Well then, let's start coming up with some stuff. What are some ways a pre-language, pre-tribal species interact?

Rargh! I don't even know where to start. Do we talk about communication? Because other than alerting others to dangers, food, etc, i don't know how you'd use basic communication.

Hrm... Alerting seems to be the base one, mabye. Perhaps that would come first, and when used enough other options like "command" and "social" could become available. Social would be things like challenging the authority of the current leader of the pack, or trying to find a mate, or trying to change others' opinions of you.

Did any of that make sense at all?

US_of_Alaska wrote:

Well then, let's start coming up with some stuff. What are some ways a pre-language, pre-tribal species interact?

Rargh! I don't even know where to start. Do we talk about communication? Because other than alerting others to dangers, food, etc, i don't know how you'd use basic communication.

Hrm... Alerting seems to be the base one, mabye. Perhaps that would come first, and when used enough other options like "command" and "social" could become available. Social would be things like challenging the authority of the current leader of the pack, or trying to find a mate, or trying to change others' opinions of you.

Did any of that make sense at all?

Yup!

We also need to include things like gesture and physical contact.

Communication probably evolves primarily because of sexual selection, mating calls are the most basic form of communication. Sound is arguably the most efficient way of communicating, since it is omnidirectional and travels quickly. Chemical communication (smells, tastes) is really only very important or useful when animals are very close, or as something to leave behind if they are very far apart.

Communication must be dependent upon the organism's senses. It can only communicate within the realm of those senses.

Communication by changing colors could be possible. Also, insects like fireflies can communicate by flashing their lights during the mating process. I got these from an article I found that you might find useful, but I'm not allowed to post the link yet.

Reign Dance wrote:

Communication by changing colors could be possible. Also, insects like fireflies can communicate by flashing their lights during the mating process. I got these from an article I found that you might find useful, but I'm not allowed to post the link yet.

Visual communication can be very useful.