Additions to the Lugaru 2: Health Meter

[Zantalos]

It's not only industrial waste that makes some small rivers bad. But who cares? It's a rabbit. They eat their own shit. So...

That's really funny Nuky! I know, it's immature, but I find it extremely entertaining. Eat there own.. ha ha!

Do I look like I'm joking?

Yeah, I remember when I had a ton of rabbits, you could hand feed them their own feces and they'd eat it like candy apples.
"and I heard the boys locker room was covered in feces"
"what are feces?"
"Baby rats"
"ahhh, how cute!"
Turner slays a bunch of wolves with his newly forged wrist sword, only to walk over to some nearby bushes and crap in his own hand, suspiciously chowing down on it.
Yeah, I think i'd find that a bit odd. I think there's a rule that once you learn communication skills and walk on two legs, something keeps you from doing that. Then again monkeys drink their own pee, no, it must have to do something with clothes. So as long as Turner is intuned to civilization, he will not try do such bizarre things.

You know going to the bathroom doesn't sound that bad after all...
They could do some pretty cool effects if Turner really has to go to the bathroom. Maybe so much that he'd blow out his kidneys if he held it in, ouch (poor grampa simpson).

[GaGrin]

*blinks*

That does (sort of) bring up the topic of needs. I believe its been stated that some sort of basic needs will be present in the game - namely eating, drinking and sleeping if I remember correctly.

I am an advocate both very for and against this kind of implementation.

Do it well, integrate it into the system as a lowlevel and consistant goal and we will always have something to drive us forward even without immediate danger. Its a very nice driving tool.

Make it too overwhelming and the entire game focus can shift too far.

I suppose in my mind these basic needs should have minor effects at first and take a long time before any one of them becomes crippling. My main concern is that if there are heavy penalties then we will be forced to spend most of the game simply trying to achieve our needs without a real hope of doing anything else.

Ungrounded I suppose, but a worry none the less.

So how is this ontopic? Well, needs do effect health - and this is where I see the major use of food, drink and sleep coming in.

General health or stamina is going to recover over time we can assume. The speed of recovery could (I may even say should) be based on our state of well-being IE wether or not we are hungry, thirsty or tired.

The worse our state of well-being, the longer it will take to recover - with the extreme end being we actually LOSE health/stamina and become more and more feeble. This should take a long time. People can go for a very long time without food, and only need a very small amount of water to survive for weeks provided they can get a basic amount of sleep.

Most of this can be communicated with mood sliders I would imagine - the exhaustion caused by all of these could be a slider in itself (If I understand the system as it was described) and this can be supplemented with idle animations and when each gets extreme some kind of hud message or sound effect.

Lack of sleep and fatigue could be signified with stretching and yawning, hunger with holding one's stomach and hearing it growl. Not sure about thirst, but I'm sure some body can think of something.

The only other thing I have to say is that if this is integrated into the game as a mechanic of any sort - consider making the AI react to it. If they are able to think in terms of not only how they themselves are, but the condition of their opponents, or notice ways to exploit the situation by say stealing food or attacking when the enemy is tired, then you have another tool for making the world seem that bit more believable.

That said this level of NPC action/reaction may well upset the town structure or narratives you want in place and so (aside from being a nightmare to implement in the first place) might actually be totally out of place.

An interesting idea at least, I hope.

[David]

Food and water will probably only be an issue when you travel to areas where they are not readily available, such as the middle of a desert; Turner can forage for himself while travelling. In town, eating will have more of a social role, in that you can talk to everyone else. Resting will be important, but you will usually only have to do it manually if you want to recover from injuries or wait for something. If someone is hunting you, then they will definitely wait until you are distracted or asleep before attacking.

[GaGrin]

Thankyou for the reply that answers alot of questions I had about how you saw this working.

Can I take it to mean that there will be 'downtime' for long journeys and the like or simply an assumed amount of eating and such?

By downtime I mean something similar to the quicktravel option in oblivion or the red dots on the map in the original Lugaru. Time has passed but we ignore most of it as nothing interesting happened.

[Nuky]

Even if traveling back and forth may take a long time and is a hassle, I'd rather prefer that than this kind of "teleportation".

[Zantalos]

This is kinda off-topic but, have you guys ever played one the Betrayal in Antara or /Krondor games? They sort of implemented food and sleep into one catagory. You travel along the field and the more you move, the more time passes, eventually you have to stop and rest. For however long you sleep, you consume a steady amount of food and you health and energy slowly begins to regenerate. Not having food will starve your party.

Now this is just one way a game had used food, and unlike current games such as Oblivion, food wasn't just a factor that you never really needed.

These games were really old RPGs by Dynamix (sierra-online), back in 1993 and 1997.
This method works out really well, but it's not as cool as what's being planned already since it's too... "old school" like (consuming a certain amount of food per mile that you fast travel). Something like this would only work if you consider using fast-travel as part of gameplay, it seems however that alot of people didn't like Oblivion's "teleport" move.

[Colicedus]

hey. you guys have been busy. i missed all the talk. oh well.

but something important. how will you use these things like water? are they under a hot key? or are they in an inventory. there could be many ways you could do an inventory. the Game Crusaders of Might and magic had two simple systems. you could press i for the Game pause and inventory Screen pop up, or you could hold down button "x" (a it was in game) and the mouse pops up, there is a menu on the side that allows you to quickly get Health potions. you're Hammer of wacky, the Mullet of Kings ETC.

or is it automatic? dose he just automatically grab his cooking gear and cook up a meal. that could have bugs if you can cook, and its automatic (EG: you hear Turners Guts Turn and he then grabs a pot and puts food in it and puts it over a Stove, During a Fight!

i can understand him taking small sips of water ( Vodka or Carrot Tea if he is wealthy) from a flask keeping his thirst stable and munching on a Head of cabbage or some small dry fruit. but i think there should also be the capability of making a campfire and there should be learning of Recipes. they do nothing but ad Vary to you're cooking, or maybe you can make "Grandmas Chicken Soup" (in an old ladies voice: I heard that, you have a Chest cold) if you are crook.

just a Out of the blue thought. and by the way. may i ask David, Social roles? are you giving the NPCs the capability of Chatting and what not. or is this going to be in Multi-player games, you walk around as a Rabbit Dude and talk when you look for a game?

[zip]

Who are you and what have you done with Colicedus

[Albab]

Wow, once again, actually legible. wholly carps.

[Renegade_Turner]

Yeah, wow, let's keep bringing it up because it's that funny. I could laugh at this joke at least ten times over. Wait, it HAS come up ten times over.

[David]

just a Out of the blue thought. and by the way. may i ask David, Social roles? are you giving the NPCs the capability of Chatting and what not. or is this going to be in Multi-player games, you walk around as a Rabbit Dude and talk when you look for a game?

Some kind of multiplayer is planned, and the NPC's will be much more important in Lugaru 2 than in Lugaru 1; you will be able to talk with them and interact with them in more interesting ways, and food gatherings are a good way to meet them.

[Wumpus]

Since someone mentioned Oblivion's travel system up above, I thought to ask as well.

I've heard Jeff I believe say that L2 will feature an overhead map, Fallout style but 3d and real time. So my question is this. Will it function like Fallout, in that there are only set areas to explore, (the cities and towns) and the map is just traversing around unless you get attacked, or find a special location?

OR will it be like oblivion where you can fast travel, or physcially walk there as you like?

Just curious, and not sure if this is decided. Any info would be welcome!

[David]

Probably more like Fallout in this respect because unlike Oblivion the L2 world is full-scale; it would take weeks or months to walk across the entire map.

[Nuky]

luckily a day passes fast. ... don't it?
How's the time system?
ie 2 hours for a day to pass?

[Sage]

I'm not sure, but I almost have a feeling he meant weeks in real-time... which would be insane.