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Wolves Of Eden (Early WIP)

Discussion in 'Works In Progress - Archive' started by LatitudeClear, Jan 19, 2014.

  1. LatitudeClear

    LatitudeClear

    Joined:
    Sep 10, 2013
    Posts:
    19
    Hello everyone,

    This is meant to be my first original project that is not a carbon copy of tetris or something. Armed with some basic knowledge of C#, 3D modeling, enough experience with failed attempts at turn based grid system to know that I don't want to try and make one, and a few awesome plugins such as Playmaker, Daikon Forge GUI, and SQLite I'd like to try and put something together that is at least original and eschews combat as the basic principle while still being able to have equipment, crafting, stats, and conflict.

    The concept stage has been challenging in how in an effort to compensate for a lack of combat in which my whole childhood gaming experiences were based, it's left me with a big mess of pieces that aren't fitting together properly.

    Original idea was wolves, player starts as two young rejected runts who seek to start out their own Den, gather resources, and expand to become a big pack that controls the countryside.

    "Wolves" might be changed, as my hukies reminded me that they have two primary goals in life; kill stuff and sleep. And destroy the Iphone I left on the floor purchased brand new yesterday. Perhaps a humanoid-ish Griffon species, replacing the body of a lion with that of a wolf, to keep a similiar theme. There are other reasons for that but will get to it later.

    The main elements here are Generations and the passing of Time:

    4 Major Seasons that influence the success of breeding and hunting. Putting an emphasis on certain activities at one time or another.

    Family Structure; Each individual has inherent qualities, personality, genetic disposition. Things like strength, perception, intelligence, aggression, weaknesses to disease, phobias (Doesn't like water. Scared of birds. Nightmare's of Cat clowns.)

    These traits along with mental and physical health can be improved and aided with equipment and nutrition but only to a certain degree.

    Raw materials can go bad over time, metals/minerals are often stolen, pups are eaten by sneaky predators, adults can get sick and die, elders pass from age, equipment degrades with use, political ties erode - everything suffers atrophy, the true progress is in the pack's bloodline.

    Pups will inherent traits from their parents. At the age of adolescence many of the less desirable can be traded away to other packs(at a cost) or you can trade for desirable adolescents to help keep genetic diversify and certain traits that you don't have access too.

    Other Concepts;

    Loyalty - Aggression is good for strong defenders but the overly alpha types may challenge the pack for control, meaning they breed and pass on genes that you might not of wanted (such as pups becoming increasingly aggressive.)

    Wisdom - When adults become too old to actively go out with the pack they are retired to the Den. In worst case they are a drain on fickle resources but their experience to train new pups is very valuable.

    Maidens - Females that stay home to guard the Den, chase off predators, protect the puppies and elderly.

    Mothers (raising puppies or expectant) - Need help from Maidens to care for puppies and give Maidens experience if they breed later on. Too many Maidens can become a threat to the Den, as if they have vendettes may kill a mother, puppies, or elderly.

    Vendette's - Every individual in the pack holds friendships and hostilities. In the active pack this might cause one to refuse to help another, two wolves on patrol meet's a hostile bear - one leaves the other behind - increasing it's chance to be killed or fail an escape. These relationships get passed on through the bloodlines. They can become deeply entrenched if left unchecked.

    Genetic Variaty - Mating outside the pack gives a bonus to the quality of pups, Inbreeding causes negative statuses. Player probably won't get direct control over who breeds with who but can only influence the decision.

    Politics - Elders have a knack for negotiating with other tribes. Will be more than meeting the AI's demand in return for a reward but give/take relationship based on bartering skills, history, and maybe contested resources.

    Terrain - A wide range of resources such as different kinds of animal meat, fish, plants, herbs, etc - never will everything be available. Other tribes will often take control of areas and player will have to choose what's worth defending. A terrain can become exhausted, drastically limiting the benefits. Maybe it regenerates once a year, and challenging other tribes is expensive so player is motivated to hold the land they have and extract the resources carefully.

    Extreme Weather - Snow storms, Floods, Hurricanes, Forest Fires, Locusts, Raging disease; Things that challenge the Den at unexpected times.

    Flow Of Gameplay: Divided into "Days";

    Phase 01; (Twilight) At the Den it's decided who will stay home, who will go out with the pack, and where they will go.
    Phase 02; (Daytime)Travels to the location; Members have "energy/endurance" which dictates how many actions can be taken.

    Patroling an area often deals with fending of intruders(other wolves), chasing away threats (Bears), clearing away traps (snakes, bee nests, falling off cliff, or drowning in a riptide.) putting the individual at risk for injury, trauma, illness, or death(rarely; losing a member is a big fail.) But the more well patrolled an area is the less energy is expended for the other activities.

    Other activities such as foraging (resources that later can become highly nutrition, medicines, etc.) and digging (Minning; metals that become equipment, valuables, artifacts, tablets containing wisdom.) Both activities require the perception to identify resources, then the skill to carefully extract them. Available equipment strongly influences this.

    Endgame - Instead of creating a difficulty curve involving external influences instead the real challenge will be keeping the pack together as it expands, from tearing apart from the inside, scarce resources, or stagnation (inbreeding. Common problem in the real world.)

    Throughout these activities there is always the chance an invader can show up, or sneaky scavanger can steal something valuable (Cat Ninjas.)

    So it looks like there's a lot to this concept but I've avoided the more technical aspects and really most of it is stats that can go into a SQL sheet (will migrate over to NoSQL when I get better educated on it.) But in the mean time have to get the basics of this system in place, and create some balance to the mechanics.

    If you have any pointers, suggestion, or criticism I'd love to hear it! Thank you.
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Jan 19, 2014
  2. gridside

    gridside

    Joined:
    Jul 26, 2013
    Posts:
    97
    Looks really interesting.. Good luck!
     
  3. LatitudeClear

    LatitudeClear

    Joined:
    Sep 10, 2013
    Posts:
    19
    Thanks, I think I need to start with the basic systems, get them balanced before adding anything more esoterical.

    Right now I've got a single "wolf" in the adult stage; select, equip, then assign him to an "area". From there he has to juggle patrolling the area to keep away hostile elements, forage, dig - while balancing time and energy.

    When considering the "pack"/team, it seems clear they are meant to specialize for a specific role due to breeding/personality/equipment, but they should be forced to do other roles otherwise there'd be no strategy.

    Like in traditional rpg games you've got the tank, healer, fighter but it's not like the tank actually takes all the damage while the fighter never worries about getting hit and the healer only casts healing spells never to attack or get hit at all.
     
  4. HolBol

    HolBol

    Joined:
    Feb 9, 2010
    Posts:
    2,887
    I'm liking the font. What's it called?
     
  5. LatitudeClear

    LatitudeClear

    Joined:
    Sep 10, 2013
    Posts:
    19
    $Foraging.jpg $TierSystem.jpg

    The font came with the Daikon Forge GUI pack. "Forgotten Futurist";

    All the artwork, background, font, and GUI is a place holder right now while I try to bring everything together, those will be last on the list.

    I've got it so that you can switch between active team members with their own time/stamina/ stats bars.

    You can forage in the woods based on the difficulty of the area, luck, and perception
    Each activity (Forage, Hunting, Patrol, and Minning takes -1 hour and -20 stamina.)

    Forage is one of 3 chances of (The Hills Were Full Of Life) -50% to difficulty, (It looked Promising...) 0% added to difficulty, (It was barren...) +50% difficulty, then (I got distracted...) (-50% to perception), (My eyes were sharp!) +50% to perception, or (I searched diligently) is 0% added.

    If perception is higher than difficulty then "an area was found"; if not then the difficulty is saved to the player's Database (now you can switch to another active player and still have it.) And next time the character searches they will continue searching based on the previous difficulty.

    If the Perception check succeeded then next is the Intelligence check which dictates if the barrel of items will be Tier -2, Tier -1, Tier 0, Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4, or Tier 5. The tier you can achieved (or get unlucky on) depends on the amount of skill points you have, each point increases your favor to the higher tiers.

    Again there is a "Unlucky" roll, "Normal", and "Lucky' which would be like "It turned out to be a poisonous snake" (tier -2), "it was already rotten" (tier -1), "garbage but might be useful..." (tier 0).

    FINALLY is the Strength roll.

    This is where I'm at currently. The idea is that:

    Perception = Chance to find a spot.
    Intelligence = How good the basket of items in the spot is.
    Strength = How many can be recovered and how quickly

    From here I would probably copy paste the intelligence tier system to be a sliding scale on # of items + Difficulty in extracting them.


    I could then copy the whole Perc/Int/ Str to the Hunting, Mining, Patroling for the sake of simplicity;

    or maybe have each action have a primary/secondary/complimentary skill.

    Such as

    Foraging: INT/PER/STR (per to find the spot. Str to recover quicker, but INT will dominate by the quality of item being superior.)
    Minning: STR/INT/PER (per to find the spot. Int will help not damage items, but STR will be the difference between braking deeper underground or being forced to stop)

    And so on.

    After deciding which way to go, the next part to tackle, I'd like to add a "morale/pack mentality" meaning an especially perceptive wolf can find a good spot, then ask another with high INT and STR to recover the items. But this is a skill upon itself with a chance of failure and diminshing returns of efficiency.

    Also if a weak wolf (low strength) finds themselves in trouble they might be able to get a strong one to take the challenge, if it fails then weak wolf might die, or get permanently injured.
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2014