I-pod Shuffle For Arm

[Fnord]

How challenging would it be to change fixed mob/object loads into random ones? For example, instead of a "green plant", loading in the same place everytime, a table would be consulted like:

Green plant 50%
Blue plant 25%
Flowering green plant 10%
Flowering blue plant 10%
Rotten green plant 5%

Or in the case of mobs: Instead of the brown-skinned gith always loading in x/y, and then wandering around.

Brown-skinned gith 50%
Leather-skinned, one-eyed gith 25%
Lean, red-skinned gith 10%
The twisted, black gith youth 10%
The venerable gith female 4%
A purple polka-dotted gith 1%

To me, it's not that I want different "stats" for these things, so much as variety of appearences that would simulate a dynamic, changing world. Of course, some things would change a lot less than others, like trees can stay the same for years, but even those could be handled in a way.

Thick trunked baobab tree 90%
Healthy-looking, thick trunked baobab tree 5%
Dry-looking, thick trunked baobab tree 5%

Some things would have no randomness whatsoever, because they more or less stayed the same for whatever reasons. Thoughts?

[Yokunama]

It sounds interesting.
There might be a reason as to why the same color plant loads in one area or why that sexy gith always respawn at (x,y) to take you on. ~shrugs~

[HalflingWhore]

I like this idea. It would keep things changing up a bit so that from an OOC standpoint you don't always know what to expect.

[IntuitiveApathy]

I think this is a great idea.

I think predictability in the way mobs load/move/act lends an air of artificiality (and also for those inclined, ease or maybe even encouragement for 'twinking').

I don't know how much things can be changed, I remember way back when there was some on-going project to make mobs act more as part of an ecology rather than your usual timer-loaded mob.  I wonder if an element of randomness to the way mobs loaded was part of that?

Actually, I'd love to see even more randomness than what the OP was suggesting - stats, behaviour, loading times, even numbers of the mobs.. I suppose the only problem might be feasibility with coding.

Anyhow, for me the more random the better - I think it'd really give the sense that the world outside was alive and non-static, from day to day.

[Xygax]

Some places in the world already work like this, others may get enhanced to work like this eventually.  The amount of data required is significant, though, and there is still some code support to be done to make it as efficient as it ought to be.

-- X

[Angela Christine]

Plants respawning in the same place isn't totally unrealistic.  

When you "get plant" "get all plant" or even "break plant" your PC damages the plant, but she probably doesn't dig up the roots and stomp on them.  I imagine that plants in extremely arid conditions would need deep roots to tap into the ground water, so when you harvest a plant you probably are only getting the tip of the iceburg, and most of the plant is still alive underground.  Then it sends up new leaves and shoots, eventually growing back into harvestable condition.  It isn't that a certain kind of plant always grows in that spot, it is that the -same- plant always regrows there.

The plants also drop their seeds and pits near the mother plant, the apple seed never falls far from the tree.  So it is predictable that a plant will appear where other plants of the same kind have grown before.



I'm in favor of randomization, but I just can't help myself when there is an oportunity to explain why the way the code works might really be the way the world works.   :wink:


Angela Christine

[Delirium]

Yeah.

"Over there's that grove of apple trees, and there's that little patch of mint.."

[Maybe42or54]

For example, it is documented that the Ocotillo is a taproot system plant. The longest tap"Root" I have ever seen is 175 feet IRL.

[Fnord]

Some places in the world already work like this, others may get enhanced to work like this eventually.

Yes, and I think those are really cool. More, more!

I'm in favor of randomization, but I just can't help myself when there is an oportunity to explain why the way the code works might really be the way the world works.

Your example of fantasy logic was wonderful. I am a believer! However, it leaves me a in deep quandry over the randomness of foraging for food...