There's a storm a common', yeh better get indoors!

[Satansfish]

I was just thinking that it sure would be awesome if sandstorms were(rightly) something to fear. Sand, whipping about at fifty plus miles per hour, flaying the very skin from your bones, forcing people to shelter wherever they can find it. People horribly scarred from being out too far in the plains or the desert during one... I think it would be great. What do you think?  :twisted:

[Forest Junkie]

Let it be roleplayed. I don't feel the storms are freaking hurricanes. They wouldn't be so bad as to actually tear the flesh of one. Besides, most desert people are very well geared up.

[Satansfish]

"Terrible, biting winds" doesn't sound like a gentle breeze to me. Keep in mind I'm not saying for every sandstorm, no matter the level. Only the worst and the most harsh. Something that would happen once an IRL month, perhaps.

[Pungee]

I think it should be dependant on the clothing you're wearing. If I'm wearing a full rig of desert gear, I shouldn't be taking damage.

[My 2 sids]

I think it should be dependant on the clothing you're wearing. If I'm wearing a full rig of desert gear, I shouldn't be taking damage.

This would be exellent to get people to really start thinking about clothing more.

[Ghost]

Yes, it is a very good idea.  And it will distinguish the ciy clothing to desert clothing.

But I guess it is a hard way to code it.

[jmordetsky]

Storms are already dangerous enough by their effect on your visibility and stamina.

When you can only see one tick, your a coin toss away from 0 vis, and who knows whats a bit further then 1 tick.

I say leave it as is, and if you want the risk then go for it.

[Pungee]

Im all for realism during the horrible storms, which I've seen a few of but only a few, as for the rest of them I'm a fan of leaving things the way they are because it's not easy when you can't see a thing. If you live out in the wild and live hand to mouth, a week long storm already means you could starve to death. Let's not add vicious flesh eating damage to that

[Vox]

Perhaps if one was standing in the middle of a harsh storm wearing nothing but a loincloth they would suffer wind and sand burn to their flesh. As it is most every humanoid without scales wears clothing which includes hooded cloaks or dusters . Layers of clothing and a hood would allow one to weather even the harshest of storms without taking physical damage, especially if a facial covering is employed. I wouldn't mind seeing more stamina taken off for having to travel through a storm however... but if more penalties other than total blindness are going to be incurred I'd prefer sandstorms to be more realistic in that they last only a few IC hours rather than a few IC weeks. Either that or make the winds work on a seasonal-style cycle. The worst of the storms would come during 'the stormy season' which would be neat if it were like the second month or something of each year... Whereas sandstorms are infrequent to nonexistence during the other months.

My vote would be for a stormy season. One in which everyone is aware that travel during the second month of the year is tentative at best. Fairly stormy at the beginning, blindingly so towards the end. To make things even more complicated, perhaps points north of the shield wall recieve different winds and have their storms during the first month...

Thoughts?

[Delirium]

Perhaps if one was standing in the middle of a harsh storm wearing nothing but a loincloth they would suffer wind and sand burn to their flesh. As it is most every humanoid without scales wears clothing which includes hooded cloaks or dusters . Layers of clothing and a hood would allow one to weather even the harshest of storms without taking physical damage, especially if a facial covering is employed. I wouldn't mind seeing more stamina taken off for having to travel through a storm however... but if more penalties other than total blindness are going to be incurred I'd prefer sandstorms to be more realistic in that they last only a few IC hours rather than a few IC weeks. Either that or make the winds work on a seasonal-style cycle. The worst of the storms would come during 'the stormy season' which would be neat if it were like the second month or something of each year... Whereas sandstorms are infrequent to nonexistence during the other months.

My vote would be for a stormy season. One in which everyone is aware that travel during the second month of the year is tentative at best. Fairly stormy at the beginning, blindingly so towards the end. To make things even more complicated, perhaps points north of the shield wall recieve different winds and have their storms during the first month...

Thoughts?

Two thumbs up from me.

[jmordetsky]

Perhaps if one was standing in the middle of a harsh storm wearing nothing but a loincloth they would suffer wind and sand burn to their flesh. As it is most every humanoid without scales wears clothing which includes hooded cloaks or dusters .

Yea...Also, what would be really cool is seeing more criminals punished with banishment, where you were stripped to a loincloth and forced outside the gates. Better have friends...

[Pungee]

Heh, I've actually BEEN banished before. It sucks. Hehe.

[Delirium]

Banishment is LOTS of fun to RP.

I had it happen to one PC.. she's still one of my favorites as far as reminscing about all the crazy things and awesome plots that happened during her lifetime.

[Pungee]

Oh yeah, fun for you. Sucks for your character. Nothing like suddenly having no home to make your character get a little bit loopy.

[Gilvar]

Sadly storms are WAY too underplayed, but coded affects will just make more people angry. I think a better step is to make people realize HOW HORRIBLE these storms are. 100 mile per hour winds spitting gritty, rock like sand at you sometimes. Someone said they are not hurricanes? Yeah, a hurricane is probably not as bad as some of these storms.

When a storm of sand is so bad that you CAN'T SEE when you step outside, that's bad. Picture one of those snow storms where you can't see three feet in front of you, couple that with stronger winds, and instead of fluffy snow replace it with nails. Sand would be everywhere. In your eyes, nose, mouth, ears, etc. When its described as "A screaming gale", think loud. Morrowind people probably have a vague hint at the storms and the sounds.

Anyways, yes they are bad, very bad. Coded afffects are not a great step in this case though, because its not a realized thing yet. When people realize how bad they are and still dismiss them, then coded affects come in.

[Pungee]

This thread is probably going to head in the direction of playability vs realism so I might as well help it along. With as many sand storms as there are on Zalanthas... Literally the game would become next to unplayable in many areas. You'd spend most of your time in taverns, tents or back rooms because there just wouldnt be a way you could go anywhere without getting ripped to shreds by the sand in the code. So would it be more realistic to code in damage and other effects to sand storms? Yup. Would it make the game any more fun? Nope, not to me. Fun points would definitely be deducted because if I want to do something, waiting around for six hours to do it is not pleasant.

[Satansfish]

Not to repeat myself, but I've noticed that alot of you are saying that the high rate of storms would make this idea unworkable. So, once again... This would be something that, imho, should come into play only during the worst of storms. As in storms that happen rarely. I think a coded affect like this would -force- recognition of the viciousness of the sandstorms. For some people it's difficult to play something out that doesn't move your character forward, but holds them back(Me being one of them), but when the situation is forced upon you, you have no choice. Keep in mind that the code, almost as much as the players and admin staff, is responsible for the level of RP that we find here. I just woke up, so I wont make any examples. One other thing I'll touch on before blowing... Yes, the majority of hunters wear protective clothing. However, a mere hood isn't going to stop winds gusting over a hundred miles per hours, carrying sand and(as pointed out before) sometimes pieces of gravel, from scoring your face. There are -quite a few- hunters out there that aren't properly equipped and who also dont bother to roleplay out the damage caused by the sand. When terrible, biting winds are whipping about you and you're wearing a cuirass, bracers and leggings you're going to do alot more than duck your head against the wind. Ciao.

[Oxidised Lizard]

It's a good idea in principle, but I really don't think timed damage would work.  If you got off your kank, wrapped your clothes round you tight, and then hunched over, sticking your head down in your lap, you would not die.  With timed damage, you would probably die before you could reach any shelter.  However, I think movement damage is more viable, if it only took off a relatively small amount of health each room.  
:|

[Twilight]

Even in an incredibly harsh storm, you are going to be able to get on the lee side of something like a tree, rock, inside a shallow depression, behind your dead kank...and it is going to protect you.  You might dehydrate and die that way, or not be able to see where you are going for several days and die from starvation, but those are already in.  If you have sufficient food/water, it should be hard to die, because it is hard to die.

[gfair]

I'm totally in agreement with what Gilvar has said - people hardly ever recognize just how powerful storms are, and play as such even less, I'm probably guilty of it myself just as many others are, based on observation.

The worst coded storms are Gale-force sandstorms. By definition, that is 90Mph winds, and sand. 90Mph will knock you down, blind any beast you have with you, and does pose a serious threat to your life. And yet I've seen people take entire groups out and merely complain about how windy it was.

The two weather concerns of Zalanthans are the wind and the blowing sand which the wind drives. The wind can sometimes reach up to 90 miles per hour (roughly 150 km/h in real life), building into enormous gales across the flat wastes.

The notion that only people in a loincloth should suffer damage, if sandstorm damage was to be considered, is crazy - sand grains are not spears, they're small, tiny things that get into everything, they will hit every exposed bit of flesh you have if you face into the wind. If you know cold, then you know sandstorms - cold like the East Coast of North America gets is something you have to bundle up everything for. You expose your nose, you can get frostbite. Your ears - frostbite. A hood without a thick facewrap and bone sunslits will be worthless if you turn into the wind, it will flip your hood right off, knock you down probably, put your unprotected beast's eyes in severe pain, probably make it run off, while you are left to fend for yourself in a storm where you can't see your hand in front of your face.

If anyone has seen the movie Castaway, the danger is somewhat equivalent to when Tom Hanks goes out and gets knocked down by the wave, tossed a distance, and ends up getting jabbed by a piece of coral. Getting knocked down in a gale probably poses a risk of knocking your head against a rock (hopefully it isn't a protruding growth of obsidian, because then it really would be like Tom's character's injury in Castaway: sharp and pointy, versus flat and blunt)

Nobody would ever, in their right mind, go out in a gale in our world where we have far more technology, they would certainly never do it in Zalanthas, and were there to be damage suffered by severe sandstorms, a sandstorm gale is a prime candidate for severe risk of danger to your life, not just minor exfoliating thanks to the sand.

So I would urge everyone to use the 'weather' command, and when you see either a gale, or the wind value less than that, harsh winds I think it is, I urge you to reconsider moving around outside, especially with a riding beast.

[Trenidor]

I love this idea, and with a simple code I talked about earlier..... (Dig Code)

Let me explain:

In Arabia, where sandstorms can come so quickly that they're over you and you in less than a minute, there are three ways to survive depending on the type of storm:

1. Wear a facewrap that will cover your eyes and all your openings.

2. Dig a hole and burry yourself with a space for air.

3. Take cover in a structure (building, cave, whatever works)

Now, those everyday storms that we get, you'd probably only need covering clothing, only problem is that if you're out with your kank, you'd want something to cover their eyes and ears.

You could literaly drown in sand if you don't because the sand will enter your nose, ears, mouth, eyes and any other openings you have. It'll enter your lungs and fill up the space till you drown.

Now, the next step you could use is dig a hole, you have to work quickly, and often times I'm sure those arabians don't care about their horse at that point, you leave gap for air, placing your cloak on the ground and creating an air bubble, then filling the top with sand, you then have a place to stay till the storm is over.

And finnally, if you love your kank to death (cuz sometimes it -will- be your death)  then you can run infront of the storm and outrun it to a village or abandoned cave.

I'd Really Like to see this implimented, there's a reason why zalanthans are tougher than Earthans, this is one of the reasons. Zalanthans are faced with a harsher climate than Earthlings; Not just the blazing hot sun, or the extreemly tough creatures, nor the lack of water, those are just a few of the troubles they should have the same things as in real life middle east, and there should be harsher degrees of it. It's only logical that Zalanthans would be tougher than Earthlings, if they were faced with the same difficulties as well as tougher ones.

[Vega]

I'm not sure if this or isn't in place, I'm not too sure about it myself as I don't recall.

When there's going to be a sandstorm, the winds could pick up to drastic proportions. I'm not sure but I think I remember seeing this one time when there was a sandstorm and the weather was fine. There weren't any winds. A sandstorm, I'd assume would have winds and given how severe it was, I rather expected high winds. If high winds are predicative of sandstorms, it would provide an interesting RP opportunity. In my mind anyways.

[jhunter]

The -only- way I think some sort of code like this should be put in is if it is also coded so you can see a storm before you ride into it...otherwise, no fucking way.

As it is...you cannot see that it is storming until you actually enter it and cannot tell that one is coming before your in it...I think this needs to be dealt with before some sort of damage thing is ever added.

[Crazy Hakhim]

I like the idea a lot, and I think I agree with most everything people posted here -
You shouldn't take damage from EVERY strom, though some storms should, and would, I think, damage you. And I'm not talking about smothering you or making you stumble, but more about the High speed hard grains of sand cutting you up sort of damage.
A-la dune Coriolis storms.

[Trenidor]

[Opps, double post]

[Trenidor]

I'm not sure if this or isn't in place, I'm not too sure about it myself as I don't recall.

When there's going to be a sandstorm, the winds could pick up to drastic proportions. I'm not sure but I think I remember seeing this one time when there was a sandstorm and the weather was fine. There weren't any winds. A sandstorm, I'd assume would have winds and given how severe it was, I rather expected high winds. If high winds are predicative of sandstorms, it would provide an interesting RP opportunity. In my mind anyways.

Reminds me of the summer dust devils that pick up 20 ft in the air, and the wind is barely going.

The -only- way I think some sort of code like this should be put in is if it is also coded so you can see a storm before you ride into it...otherwise, no fucking way.

As it is...you cannot see that it is storming until you actually enter it and cannot tell that one is coming before your in it...I think this needs to be dealt with before some sort of damage thing is ever added.

I agree some...
Perhaps there could be a pre-code if you were out in the middle of nowhere, a simple line like: "Far off, a sandstorm begins picking up, heading your way."

[crymerci]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't weather conditions and suitable clothing covered by the variables in MV?

[Trenidor]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't weather conditions and suitable clothing covered by the variables in MV?

No, MVs don't hurt your HPs :wink:  

[Tamarin]

I think two things should happen:

1) During the worst of storms, walking around is the same as walking through darkness.  Its random.  Unless you're a ranger or a d-elf, or using magick or something.

2) If an IMM sees you doing it, they should send baddies after you.

[grog]

I think two things should happen:

1) During the worst of storms, walking around is the same as walking through darkness.  Its random.  Unless you're a ranger or a d-elf, or using magick or something.

This was already a factor in the game before.  Unless I was smoking some spice, I seem to remember discussions about hell storms on the old message board.