UnReal World forums
UnReal World => General Discussion => Topic started by: Sami on December 18, 2017, 09:28:04 PM
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Let's have a poll, just for the sake of poll.
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I went with the second from the top because I would like to see an overhaul of AI behavior before marriage, for example that NPCs can do almost everything you can with commands. Like giving orders to make food, build something, go hunting or fishing. And the need for them to eat every single day like the player, etc, etc. ;D ;D
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I just put a long post is a separate subject that probably should have gone here:
I have a few comments on the marriage poll and incorporating marriage into URW. Others can comment on the role-playing nature of an NPC spouse or the ability to have children and have a multi-generational URW experience. But I am reducing the arguments to two options for incorporating a NPC spouse: 1) the Resource Drain NPC Spouse, or 2) the Resource Generator NPC Spouse. These options might be considered over simplifications (they are mechanistically not mutually exclusive).
Option 1: The Resource Drain
For this option, a NPC spouse becomes a drain on player resources. First, the spouse must be wooed and courted with furs, tools, weapons, valuables, etc. In this option, a significant expenditure of player time is given to attract and then obtain a spouse. The "cost" of a spouse would then be proportional to the perceived "value" of that spouse. In this scenario, the spouse becomes a status symbol for the player through their ability to attract the "best". It could be even that the spouse gives the player increasingly difficult quests as they become more involved along the wooing path. Maybe there are differences between an in-culture marriage versus an out-of-culture marriage?
Second, after a marriage ceremony, the spouse must be provided for. In this option, the NPC spouse is a bystander that consumes the player's food, clothes, tools, and weapons (maybe also armor, cords, bandages, bowls, etc.). The player must spend time ensuring the spouse is sufficiently provided for so they stay committed to the marriage and alive. In this option, a NPC spouse likely functions like current NPC villagers. They wander around a specific location or follow the player around, but have limited utility.
The entire purpose of a resource drain NPC spouse is to add a monumental achievement to the URW experience. That is, the player can not only provide for them-self, but they can attract and maintain the NPC spouse as a status symbol. The resource drain NPC spouse then would "unlock" PALU's generational feature...
It can also be noted that there are probably very few people who play their characters for 17+ years so that they could have had "adult" offspring. This means you could potentially start a family, but any children would be unlikely to be adult when your character expires, so if a generational feature would be introduced it would probably have to be able to skip a number of years, which would require some kind of logic to advance the world (which should include repopulating village animal stocks, at the least, and probably replace some of all those villagers who died fighting robbers with your ex character as well).
Option 2: The Resource Generator
For this option, a NPC spouse would need to function differently than other villager or companion NPCs. The NPC spouse in this scenario would need to be a productive member to contribute to living in URW. For example, the resource generator NPC spouse would need to actually engage in meaningful labor around a settlement or while on a hunt. This means they would need to accept and execute commands that take advantage of skills. A resource generator NPC spouse is likely more accurate (they help contribute to life), but much more difficult to develop. This option could also lead to players gaming the system or to unexpected results (or danger to the NPC spouse) due to poorly issues commands and limitations of the AI.
A wooing process would need to take place. However, while a resource drain NPC spouse would be a status symbol, a resource generator NPC spouse would be valued to complement the player. For example, if a player is unskilled in something, woo a resource generator NPC spouse to compensate so they can perform those skills for you.
Once the courtship is completed, the resource generator NPC spouse would need to be functionally helpful to a player. For example, if a player provides the necessary items (tools, weapons, seeds, pots, cords, etc.) and key instructions (location of a field to prepare/tend, trap fence to monitor, materials to process, etc.), the resource generator NPC spouse could process through a que of instructions. For example, a resource generating NPC spouse could contribute to agriculture, hideworking, fishing, food preparation (smoking, salting, drying meat or making flatbread, stews, grinding flour, etc.), hunting, building, monitoring a trap fence, checking traps, making clothes, tools, or weapons, etc.. A resource generator NPC spouse would need to have skills that would affect their ability to perform all of these actions/functions.
The entire purpose of a resource generator NPC spouse would be to expand a players skills set, provide a companion in shared activities, and/or help reduce the tedium that can occur when surviving in URW (i.e. division of labor). I can imagine scenarios where the resource generator NPC spouse...
- prepares the soil, plants seeds, harvests crops, threshes for grain/seeds, grinds flour
- skins a carcass, cleans the skin, tans furs and leather
- butchers and smoke the meat or cooks any of the other food recipes
- prepares logs, blocks of wood, boards, etc.
- builds a wooden building or kota if the player outlines the walls and doors
- follows a circuit of traps, or a trap fence, to collect the trapped animals, reset the traps
- being sent out into a delineated geography and asked to harvest all the berries or herbs of a given type
- wanders a geographical area to actively hunt
- joins the player and sets traps in a designated place
- joins the player on an active hunt
- follows the player to a village to trade and carry items
- etc.
I've said too much...
Option 1 would be easier and provide for "end game" objectives.
Option 2 would require the player to spend a great deal of time managing the NPC spouse.
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As Mati256 I find it a nice thing, but quite a few other things would be higher up on the agenda.
caius made a nice argument regarding the spouse's behavior, but I don't think "trophy wives" were a thing at the time. I certainly have nothing against resources spent on wooing and general upkeep resource consumption as such, but I'd definitely expect the spouse to be useful (but I assume players could deliberately refrain from making use of the spouse's capabilities to create a trophy spouse).
As mentioned, a good spouse system would probably need to build on a number of other new mechanics, such as e.g. tasks requiring, or at least greatly simplified through, the use of two people (with the ability to use hired help for those jobs. However, the hermit play style shouldn't be sacrificed in the process).
Spouse and spouse family quests/demands could improve things, but that in itself would probably be built on a broader village relation framework where messengers would seek you out to make requests rather than wait for you to show up (and the spouse would presumably ask to see the relatives from time to time, for instance). Obviously, village requests would only happen if you're on sufficiently good terms with them, and possibly only after accepting some kind of status (again, to protect the loner play style).
What I think this boils down to is an aimed chaotic development process where systems supportive of the family goal might be given a slightly higher priority than those not leading towards that goal, resulting in such processes being worked on a little more frequently than others.
Turning your homestead into a single character village with a spouse NPC inhabitant no more reactive than current village NPCs wouldn't really achieve much, in my view (in fact, turning it into a "real" village through the recruiting of "settlers" would probably be less boring).
Obviously, the above are my opinions, and not any kind of objective truth.
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Nice post caius, the spouce should definitly be a resource generator but a resource drain at the same time. For example she could prepare two meals a day but she would eat two meals too. So you are consuming twice as many resources but you are not spending the time cooking.
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I too think that before marriage there is much AI that could/should be filled out.
For NPC's to take a more lively role in the game, imo they need to "act" more like players. Some being friendly, some devious, some trusting, some dishonest and some just down right evil.
NPC's could/should serve as better wealth sinks. Consuming received foods, "using" /removing traded items, or reselling items at a profit.
For bonding/marriage there needs to be some overarching danger/human drama/risk to NPC's;
You come home and a stranger has taken up with your spouse and cleaned you out.
A wild animal has attacked your spouse and you must care for them.
Your kid gets lost in the woods.
etc.
Possibly even look at enslavement vs bonding (if this is even historically correct).
This is a deep well topic ;)
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While I usually don't vote the middle choice in polls because the vote doesn't sway it one way or another, this time I did. Here is the reason: Sami has been developing the game very nicely for a quarter-century and I'm constantly impressed with each new version.
Implementing spouses sounds like a massive task that includes many other game developments, the biggest of which, IMHO, is an A.I. that can play like a complex bot in order to make a believable spouse. Because a spouse that behaves like village NPCs wouldn't really be worth it.
Keep up the good work with your own priorities, Sami :-)
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I had to vote the middle option as well, and for much the same reason as JEB Davis chose to vote that way. I would love to see spouses and eventual offspring in the future, and I agree that if it is to be implemented then it should come after some AI updates so that we don't have the old problem of "It's a nice car to look at, but it won't run without fuel!"
The work that has been done to this game (read:life-changing experience) over the years is wonderful, all of it being due to the dedication and passion that Sami and Erkka have for this work of theirs, and I am more than happy to simply sit back and watch it grow organically at their behest :D
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I should also add that I'm not fond of the idea of children. I haven't had any character lasting an amount of years that he could raise adult children, and doubt that many players have.
And I don't think that the excuse that now characters will last longer because the incentive of children has any validity.
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I like the idea of having a partner and children.
I think it would be a nice extra challenge to need to provide extra food, clothing etc for children.
I like the idea of being able to continue the game playing as your oldest son, once the father dies.
(Aging of characters would be interesting.)
Depending how well fed your children are affects their starting stats when they come of age, so keep their bellies full so they become strong and smart.
Its obviously a huge thing, not just a little tweak, but id love to be able to one day create my own village.
trading/buying weapons and armour for all the men. Setting tasks for each person.
Arranging groups of 2-3 men to go hunting. Give them weapons, and a few days worth of food. They go hunting and return a few days later with meat and unprocessed skins.
Have the boys go fishing - returns X fish per day.
the women can make clothing and smoke meat etc. Not automatically but something along the lines of handing a elk fur to a woman and having a "'what do you want me to to with this"'menu.
select - make cord.
Hand her a 100 cuts of elk - Please smoke this
A decent village would need alot of meat per day. Alot of clothing, alot of weapons, and many many many logs to build houses. You would have to scale up slowly.
The same way we hire assistants you could also offer a "'would you like to come stay in our village"' option.
"'im sorry, it doesnt look like you have room for me" (please build more houses)
Its fun to think about but i guess it kinda turns into AGE OF EMPIRES if you go too far down this path.
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When marriage is added, I would like gay marriage to be a thing too - or at least partnerships of some kind where two people would go off and live together and make a life together.
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I don't know if an AI to hand over all gameplay to is something good, so please make it generate more gameplay and more content as an addition to the gameplay.
I would not use my AI wife much and tell her to do this and do that, build that and so on.
I do that myself.
I'd like an AI that lives in the cottage and do things with their own initiative.
If she have skills for agriculture and we have seeds and tools in our cottage I want her to use them on her own, surprise me!! Be alive! Make own decisions and don't ask me about what to do.
Plant them seeds wherever she think is a good spot.
Tend to the animals whenever she think it's a good idea.
Start a fire and cut some firewood at will and so on.
Eat food.
Occasionally I can tell her to tan a hide or cook something up but she will reply that she will do it, or often she reply she are bussy with the other work and will only do it if she have time. (High chance the requested work don't get done by her any time soon, or at all.)
Don't be too predictable and boring, when I come home she is not there, she somewhere else hunting, fishing or whatever in the woods nearby or 7km away only to return to nightfall or the next day.
Often failed hunt or only a small animal so she don't carry the player.
When she comes home, make it possible to engage in some generated conversation about what shes been doing.
A little story about her hunting, fishing, or any activity, maybe it failed or was successful and what she brought home and that she bruised her leg when falling down from a slope tracking the wounded animal.
And make the AI consume as much food as the player, or even more. So it's not always an easy task to keep the family feed during the winter.
Also make possible problems that can happen, so everything is not always easy as long as we have food.
Make it possible she get wounded, sick and need help.
Make it possible shes get robbed and lose gear.
Make it possible she craft worthless bent arrows or ruin a hide while tanning.
Make her sink the punt in the river by accident.
Make her waste arrows and resources in a hunt without any gain.
Make the player feel, the pain, a marriage also brings along with all the goodies!
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@mosshobo yes! I want all of those things.
I am one of the players who remembers how marriage was implemented back in the day, before it was removed, and one thing i didnt like about it was the vending machine approach to getting a wife: if you put a lot of gifts in + put the right magic words in then eventually you get a wife. i would like it if sometimes an NPC approached me and tried to make me their spouse or sometimes I approached an NPC and no amount of gifts would work because they just weren't interested in me or sometimes it seemed to work for a while and then they changed their mind or found somebody else to be interested in or went off to marry a njerpez or whatever.
I want to sometimes ask my wife to do something and she says no or she says "I am in the middle of doing this other thing, can it wait?" or sometimes she asks me to do something. I want to take her with me to a village and have her point out some items she wants to buy or to say she wants to go on a trip to visit her family in Reemi do i want to come and then even if I don't then she says ok i'll be back in a month cya.
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I am a bit afraid it would turn the game community a bit weird as seen in different games that deal with such features such as stardew valley, rimworld... Maybe a mariage that does not say its name would be enough, lifetime companion? A way to hire both genders as companions would do the trick, a little love for all these village maiden that are useless as for now.
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I am a bit afraid it would turn the game community a bit weird as seen in different games that deal with such features such as stardew valley, rimworld... Maybe a mariage that does not say its name would be enough, lifetime companion? A way to hire both genders as companions would do the trick, a little love for all these village maiden that are useless as for now.
When are we getting our roguelike survival waifu-simulator game? ;)
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It seems alot of people aren't completely excited about the idea of marriage. However, I see it with a different view.
I base alot of my interest and fascination in this game, from my huge interest in Viking sagas and stories. As a Dane, I'm perhaps one of the few who still is interested in the old stories and development of how things and history went from being such an iconic age, to a modern Scandinavian society, with a lack of sense for the huge amount of history from our forefathers. I understand that the Unreal World is based in another Scandinavian country, with a different culture and history, but in my understanding there will be some overlap between Norse culture and Finnish in this time period.
One huge thing that stands out in the Sagas, is the immense hierachical nature of the Viking age, and the family ties that was a big part of the culture. Big Viking farms would often have a family that owned it, as well as "common" folk working there, along with their families, although they would not have the same status as the family who owned it. I can see this pattern in the Unreal World, where the small farms (Marked on the map as a single house, not a village), where it can seem like a family, but it could also be with common workers there, which would make for big and very closely knitted societies.
I completely agree, that having a marriage with the current AI-functions, wouldn't add much to the game, however I think the only thing that would really add to the Unreal Worlds lategame, would be of a social nature. My current character, who I use alot of time on, lives with huge amounts of food, based solely on a few fields of rye and big game he hunts. I have fought dozens of Njerpez warriors, I've arranged raids of Islander warriors to Njerpez lands and ransacked an entire Njerpez village. I live with plenty of bounty, furs and jewelry and food supplies for years, and here is what I see as the biggest "problem": What now? I remember someone suggested a challenge on the forum, about whether people could acquire the finest furs from all animals in the Unreal World. I can only see this, as a sign that people eventually get bored, once they get past the hard start, and before settling down, but once this has been done, the gameplay sorts of gets in a standstill in my opinion.
If one of the arguments for NOT implementing marriage, or having other common folk living in your settlement is that it is a resource drain, I honestly don't see the problem. Having a diet of various stews and grains is very easy to attend to, and if the AI would be able to help in the process of acquiring food, I don't see this as a problem. I understand if alot of players don't want to handle these "dilemmas" but having a settlement with a wife and some local folk around does not need to be a priority for everyone, but the option would be nice.
If I could describe an ideal lategame addition to Unreal World, it would the ability to have actual friends and wives. The whole idea of being able to transfer into your kids when you die, isn't in my opinion a priority. I would like to have a living farm though, with interactions between NPC's and between them and you. It would make for a much more immersive world, when you are not just the loner wandering alone in the woods trying to survive on your own, but instead being part of something. I am greatly pleased with the current quest system, which could be a big part of these interactions between NPC's in your settlement.
I hope this is not just gibberish, and I need to point out, that this is not at all a critique of the current game. I absolutely love and adore Unreal World, and I think my 800 hours of gameplay confirms that, and I think there has been alot of great updates lately. My only hope is just, that the future holds more changes to the lategame features of the game.
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I think phenixshenanigans may over estimate the commonality between the (pre) Viking Scandinavian culture and the Finnish culture. I would expect Scandianavians to have had more in common with the older Celtic culture, for instance, than with the Finnish one.
I have nothing against having a spouse being a resource drain of sorts (dogs are, currently), but I definitely do not like a development where it is ONLY a resource drain, without bringing something with it in the form of new interactions and perhaps shared labor.
An Iron Age trophy spouse is just plain boring.
I certainly agree that once you get past the two first years (or the first one, even) things get fairly easy (although you can still get killed through bad luck, carelessness, overconfidence, or a suicidal Nerp purge campaign).
Friends and family ties could add to the game, in particular at the later stages, but it might not be that easy to develop those to get a suitable balance between chores and interesting developments.
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I think phenixshenanigans may over estimate the commonality between the (pre) Viking Scandinavian culture and the Finnish culture. I would expect Scandianavians to have had more in common with the older Celtic culture, for instance, than with the Finnish one.
You are probably right - however, in the concrete example with having small close-knitted communities, I think it would be a fairly widespread cultural phenomenon, as there is strength in numbers. Having strong relations with others is just plain survival instincts, and therefore I think it would be a good addition in this game.
I have nothing against having a spouse being a resource drain of sorts (dogs are, currently), but I definitely do not like a development where it is ONLY a resource drain, without bringing something with it in the form of new interactions and perhaps shared labor.
An Iron Age trophy spouse is just plain boring.
I certainly agree that once you get past the two first years (or the first one, even) things get fairly easy (although you can still get killed through bad luck, carelessness, overconfidence, or a suicidal Nerp purge campaign).
Friends and family ties could add to the game, in particular at the later stages, but it might not be that easy to develop those to get a suitable balance between chores and interesting developments.
Completely agreed. Therefore I'd go so far as to say that I don't think marriage is the most important thing to add, but instead updating the AI to a point where social interaction will be more fulfilling. From there, the step to implementing marriage is probably easier to manage, and far more interesting.
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I agree with your agreement that social networks are probably the most important part, and a spouse then becomes a logical icing of that cake. I'd probably start with friends and settlement relations to then go on to apply those structures to a character biological family (that can be opted out of when generating the character), and then add the spouse last, as I'd expect a spouse to bring the family relations of that side into the equation, and if that groundwork has already been done it ought to be reasonably smooth and can focus on the stuff related to an actual family rather than the external networks.
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I was considering the idea of marriage and I wonder if the current quest mechanism would work as a way to code in the process?
There could be specific (but hidden to the player) requirements to be met (be known to the village for a certain amount of time, high reputation, fulfill x other quests, etc) and at some point a dialogue might pop up that says "You know, I hear Marti the Reemi maiden over there was hoping to settle down one of these days..." and then the player can choose whether or not to pursue further interactions with that NPC. The actual process could be a quest of sorts...talk to the NPC, NPC says you need to ask my father/mother, points you to another NPC, said parent sends you on a task to prove yourself, etc etc.
I don't know much about marriage in Iron Age Finland, but it could all be done in keeping with what we know about it historically, even the marriage ceremony itself could involve a ritual where objects are placed in a certain way/ritual words are said. It's great that we have a quest mechanism already in place that can do this.
As a female who largely plays female players, I would of course like the marriage process to be able to go in both directions.
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Really want it badly : ;D so we can protect someone from danger especially njerpezit. (And robbers)..
Have been waiting this for a long long time.Really I love this game ;D
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Like most I'd like for marriage, but npc AI is more important. That was the issue last time, it didn't feel really alive. I think development is pushing for animals right now, which I'm so hyped for.
I think that being able to have baby animals, wild and domestic and having animal breeding would dip our toes into developing families and children aging, well in animals atleast.
Also fingers crossed for gay marriage ;D!
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Prefer slavery better than marriage feature. At least I can sell the slave if he/she does not perform well. :P
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Prefer slavery better than marriage feature. At least I can sell the slave if he/she does not perform well. :P
I doubt there was much slavery in iron age Finland, as slavery implies a social structure both where some people are wealthy enough to have slaves, and there being labor to apply those slaves to.
Vikings crossed the thrall sea to Finland and the Baltic countries to catch thralls and secondary wives, but being the victims in not the same.
Regardless, the question was about marriage, not slavery, although I guess this can be considered an "other important features first" post for a feature that I doubt will be included.
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I doubt there was much slavery in iron age Finland, as slavery implies a social structure both where some people are wealthy enough to have slaves, and there being labor to apply those slaves to.
Vikings crossed the thrall sea to Finland and the Baltic countries to catch thralls and secondary wives, but being the victims in not the same.
Regardless, the question was about marriage, not slavery, although I guess this can be considered an "other important features first" post for a feature that I doubt will be included.
Thanks for your input. I do agree that full scale slavery does not seem to be practice in Iron age Finland.
As for capturing female for spouse, I do have succesfully lock up the last of Nperz Maiden. If she died, the entire Nperz cultural would be elimanated from the map. :'(
(https://i.imgur.com/8qOv3jc.jpg)
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I doubt there was much slavery in iron age Finland, as slavery implies a social structure both where some people are wealthy enough to have slaves, and there being labor to apply those slaves to.
Vikings crossed the thrall sea to Finland and the Baltic countries to catch thralls and secondary wives, but being the victims in not the same.
Regardless, the question was about marriage, not slavery, although I guess this can be considered an "other important features first" post for a feature that I doubt will be included.
Thanks for your input. I do agree that full scale slavery does not seem to be practice in Iron age Finland.
As for capturing female for spouse, I do have succesfully lock up the last of Nperz Maiden. If she died, the entire Nperz cultural would be elimanated from the map. :'(
(https://i.imgur.com/8qOv3jc.jpg)
Well, a Njerpez maiden *should* accept your character's "marriage proposal" and then slit his throat as soon as he went asleep. Unfortunately, I think they're too insane to be that calculating.
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I just put a long post is a separate subject that probably should have gone here:
I have a few comments on the marriage poll and incorporating marriage into URW. Others can comment on the role-playing nature of an NPC spouse or the ability to have children and have a multi-generational URW experience. But I am reducing the arguments to two options for incorporating a NPC spouse: 1) the Resource Drain NPC Spouse, or 2) the Resource Generator NPC Spouse. These options might be considered over simplifications (they are mechanistically not mutually exclusive).
Option 1: The Resource Drain
For this option, a NPC spouse becomes a drain on player resources. First, the spouse must be wooed and courted with furs, tools, weapons, valuables, etc. In this option, a significant expenditure of player time is given to attract and then obtain a spouse. The "cost" of a spouse would then be proportional to the perceived "value" of that spouse. In this scenario, the spouse becomes a status symbol for the player through their ability to attract the "best". It could be even that the spouse gives the player increasingly difficult quests as they become more involved along the wooing path. Maybe there are differences between an in-culture marriage versus an out-of-culture marriage?
Second, after a marriage ceremony, the spouse must be provided for. In this option, the NPC spouse is a bystander that consumes the player's food, clothes, tools, and weapons (maybe also armor, cords, bandages, bowls, etc.). The player must spend time ensuring the spouse is sufficiently provided for so they stay committed to the marriage and alive. In this option, a NPC spouse likely functions like current NPC villagers. They wander around a specific location or follow the player around, but have limited utility.
The entire purpose of a resource drain NPC spouse is to add a monumental achievement to the URW experience. That is, the player can not only provide for them-self, but they can attract and maintain the NPC spouse as a status symbol. The resource drain NPC spouse then would "unlock" PALU's generational feature...
It can also be noted that there are probably very few people who play their characters for 17+ years so that they could have had "adult" offspring. This means you could potentially start a family, but any children would be unlikely to be adult when your character expires, so if a generational feature would be introduced it would probably have to be able to skip a number of years, which would require some kind of logic to advance the world (which should include repopulating village animal stocks, at the least, and probably replace some of all those villagers who died fighting robbers with your ex character as well).
Option 2: The Resource Generator
For this option, a NPC spouse would need to function differently than other villager or companion NPCs. The NPC spouse in this scenario would need to be a productive member to contribute to living in URW. For example, the resource generator NPC spouse would need to actually engage in meaningful labor around a settlement or while on a hunt. This means they would need to accept and execute commands that take advantage of skills. A resource generator NPC spouse is likely more accurate (they help contribute to life), but much more difficult to develop. This option could also lead to players gaming the system or to unexpected results (or danger to the NPC spouse) due to poorly issues commands and limitations of the AI.
A wooing process would need to take place. However, while a resource drain NPC spouse would be a status symbol, a resource generator NPC spouse would be valued to complement the player. For example, if a player is unskilled in something, woo a resource generator NPC spouse to compensate so they can perform those skills for you.
Once the courtship is completed, the resource generator NPC spouse would need to be functionally helpful to a player. For example, if a player provides the necessary items (tools, weapons, seeds, pots, cords, etc.) and key instructions (location of a field to prepare/tend, trap fence to monitor, materials to process, etc.), the resource generator NPC spouse could process through a que of instructions. For example, a resource generating NPC spouse could contribute to agriculture, hideworking, fishing, food preparation (smoking, salting, drying meat or making flatbread, stews, grinding flour, etc.), hunting, building, monitoring a trap fence, checking traps, making clothes, tools, or weapons, etc.. A resource generator NPC spouse would need to have skills that would affect their ability to perform all of these actions/functions.
The entire purpose of a resource generator NPC spouse would be to expand a players skills set, provide a companion in shared activities, and/or help reduce the tedium that can occur when surviving in URW (i.e. division of labor). I can imagine scenarios where the resource generator NPC spouse...
- prepares the soil, plants seeds, harvests crops, threshes for grain/seeds, grinds flour
- skins a carcass, cleans the skin, tans furs and leather
- butchers and smoke the meat or cooks any of the other food recipes
- prepares logs, blocks of wood, boards, etc.
- builds a wooden building or kota if the player outlines the walls and doors
- follows a circuit of traps, or a trap fence, to collect the trapped animals, reset the traps
- being sent out into a delineated geography and asked to harvest all the berries or herbs of a given type
- wanders a geographical area to actively hunt
- joins the player and sets traps in a designated place
- joins the player on an active hunt
- follows the player to a village to trade and carry items
- etc.
I've said too much...
Option 1 would be easier and provide for "end game" objectives.
Option 2 would require the player to spend a great deal of time managing the NPC spouse.
how about both. your spouse can either be a partner, doing hard labour and helping you set up, and while pregnant/with child be a resource drain.
children/offspring will obviously be a resource drain, you could get them to gather branches or milk the cow, but no real use for them.
add to that aging, make old age matter by reducing stats such as eyesight, strength, endurance, speed. eventually you'll need your wife/kids to gather enough for everyone and combined with animal husbandry (wich would require you to farm food for the animals) promote a whole different lifestyle.
once dead, the option to continue as one of your children should be present, letting you chose to continue living as the family head and simply taking over as another character, or making you strike out on your own with a few random tools (a reason to have spares/doubles, eg: if you have 2 punts, give one of those punts to the player), setting the village you built with your first character as an npc village just like any other. except of course these are your siblings.
make villages repopulate as well, over time of course (a system where if a villager dies, a random couple in town gives birth), unless the village got completely wiped or has no more breeding pair. right now, every dead villager is permanent, eventually your save will be ruined, but a renewal system would prevent this.
i know it's all a lot of work, but how nice would it be to be able to relate to other npc's, see your character grow up from baby to adult, see the homesteads you've built grow into towns, even connect them with roads, build your own tribe!
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Being a bit late on the post I apologize for bringing it back from the dead, I think.
From my point of view, marriage would be a great asset for the game, but not before updating npc AI.
The finnish have a closely tied society back in the iron ages. That is, inside their own cultures, an stranger from another culture would be judged by their cultural background and situations that happened on the past, or you think your the first Kumolaiset to get to Driiik? Obviously no.
The Njerpez should need a completely new AI, launching raids into villages every now and then, adding in some quests. The Njerpez want slaves, that's about it, most of people are kept alive.
The villages structure have a sage and a chief, both with the same power within the village, being in favor with them should be really hard, as they are suspicious of outsiders, unknown people.
There should have been added diferent sets of AI codes to simulate various "personalities", not everyone is going to fight a 2,30m tall Kaumolaiset in full Iron set, HELL! no one will fight that! I wouldn't.
Since the Roman occupation of Finnland there's been documents discribing the peculiarities of the culture and "kings" of sorts, that means the very culture is well stabilished and have a strong sense of comunity.
Add in scouts on the cultural regions and maybe even some in the wild.
Let the world live without the PC interaction, let the kaumo go to driik to trade or whatever, let the village people travel around and let whole villages move to a new location based on water, and source of food,pelts(hunting game)
Family ties, make npcs to recognize who are their wife/husband, they should get offspring, they should eat, they should drink, they should freeze.
And last of all, a Family is not equal other, some have more influency, some have less.
And if you want to have some end game? Well, let the PC unite all finnish cultures togheter. But maybe, the Islanders will not like the Owl-tribe eh? xD
I know the text is big, I don't expect it all to be implemented but I'd like to see. Sorry for asking too much @Sami
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Great Idea but sounds complex to implement properly. I feel like quests need tweaking a bit first. It's utterly mysterious to me how you get a quest that gives you a new incantation and I know the game pretty well. Maybe give a higher chance of getting a spell recieving quest or have shamans give them for getting to know them well. They just seem almost impossible to come by as it is. Also, carpentry seems way too slow to improve compared to other skills. Not just mindlessly complaining, as I love this game and understand it must be time consuming to code with only one or two on the job. Keep up the great work.
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For me it would really complete the Unreal World experience to have a good reason to keep playing the game after the first winter. I support some sort of family-building or village-starting feature. Something that the game itself can do to add challenge without the player having to come up with his own handicaps and goals to stay entertained. Once you know how to survive, the game as is only caters to a very small niche who enjoy playing without end-game challenges.
To those saying NPC interactions and relationships to the character will need to be upgraded first. Yes that's important, but "improving the AI" will be a stepping stone to Marriage anyway. It can be done along the way.
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I haven't read all posts here but still please let me know: what will wife be used for in game? Will wife have own attributes and skills? She will need this if we order her to go cooking, hideworking etc.
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Sounds good, but the game world would have to be/feel more organic for it to be pulled off successfully, IMO. Social interactions, NPCs hunting and trading with each other, etc are probably more relevant for immersion than marriage at this point. Then it'll be easier to implement a semi-autonomous spouse/partner that fits the game world.
I believe a spouse should be like a companion who can do more things at your request but can also do their own things (like cooking something available when starving) on their own. This must be a pain to program, and to manage if you don't want them to eat stuff you're saving for later.
I would be willing to sacrifice "historical realism" and have it work similarly for both men and women. It's not a big deal, but maybe there would be different advantages: men/hunters usually have different skills than women/housewives. Which is more useful to you would depend on your character, I guess.
This would be hard to balance, though. On the other hand, if you don't protect your home your spouse could easily get killed, and it shouldn't be easy to replace at all.
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Adding a spouse is extremely important, and should be your next update.
Why? There is absolutely nothing else to do in the end game.
Sleep, eat, sleep, eat, is all about life amounts to in this game.
You should be careful how much of a drain on resources a spouse is, though.
It would be a tragedy for them to "use up" my masterwork resources.
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I doubt there was much slavery in iron age Finland, as slavery implies a social structure both where some people are wealthy enough to have slaves, and there being labor to apply those slaves to.
Vikings crossed the thrall sea to Finland and the Baltic countries to catch thralls and secondary wives, but being the victims in not the same.
Regardless, the question was about marriage, not slavery, although I guess this can be considered an "other important features first" post for a feature that I doubt will be included.
Thanks for your input. I do agree that full scale slavery does not seem to be practice in Iron age Finland.
As for capturing female for spouse, I do have succesfully lock up the last of Nperz Maiden. If she died, the entire Nperz cultural would be elimanated from the map. :'(
(https://i.imgur.com/8qOv3jc.jpg)
Where did you get a masterwork maul?
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Apologies for the necromancy, but I just thought of a simple way to implement the second part of multi-generational families...
A single new starting scenario, called 'Legacy' or something like that. Selecting it requires also selecting a previous character who (probably) died, while having one or more living children. (The save folder would obviously need to be kept).
The story is that, while the family has prospered in the meantime, as the child of a parent of some renown, you have chosen to honour that parent by striking off on your own at age 16 the way they did. Your starting bonus could consist of say 1-3 of that previous character's better items. The map would be randomly generated as normal, thus abstracting concerns about elapsed time.
[Edit: On the one hand, your buildings, the villages and terrain you know, etc. are all reset on starting the new character. On the other hand, with some luck/restarts, specific heirlooms could be passed down through multiple generations... assuming they all survive to have families of their own.]
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When will we have this please? After some simple math, the vast majority of the people in the world, not only playing Unreal World, wants this update and considers it very important. Even the forum poll is pretty clear: Very important, high priority. (3721.6%)
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When will we have this please?
Given content from recent update(s); adding companion tasks, adding companion 'effort' help etc. I'd guess the stage is being built and set.
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When will we have this please? After some simple math, the vast majority of the people in the world, not only playing Unreal World, wants this update and considers it very important. Even the forum poll is pretty clear: Very important, high priority. (3721.6%)
To me the polls result seems like the majority wants something else first. And putting together those who don't want it or don't have an opinion are still more numerous than the "very important" party.
But well, honestly, I don't know when. And that goes for many features.
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Sami- I'm already 70 years of age, so, if you do add marriage eventually but I've died of old age, it's a comfort to know that Steam will automatically update my game for me. On the downside...(hehehe)
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To me the polls result seems like the majority wants something else first. And putting together those who don't want it or don't have an opinion are still more numerous than the "very important" party.
But well, honestly, I don't know when. And that goes for many features.
Given the fact that the poll was made in 2017 and we are in 2020, now we can safely say that option 2, "Would be nice but I'd like to see some other big features given time first.", was already fulfilled, unless people think long term and "would be nice" means 2050. 48.6+21.4 = 70
But, who am I to argue, your wish is my command :P
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To me the polls result seems like the majority wants something else first. And putting together those who don't want it or don't have an opinion are still more numerous than the "very important" party.
But well, honestly, I don't know when. And that goes for many features.
Given the fact that the poll was made in 2017 and we are in 2020, now we can safely say that option 2, "Would be nice but I'd like to see some other big features given time first.", was already fulfilled, unless people think long term and "would be nice" means 2050. 48.6+21.4 = 70
That's good thinking in my opinion, but I'm afraid many, many, many players would say their big thing hasn't been featured yet. Well...
But, who am I to argue, your wish is my command :P
Hehe. We all gotta accept that considering everyone's gaming and developing experience the timetables are plain impossible and the workload neverending - and it only gets more tricky and complex the further we go. But still we stride.
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Hi Sami,
Been a long time.
I began to play again in the latest version and it's awesome how it has improved.
Regarding the development plans, in my opinion,
I think female old women and female children would be a good bump for inmersion and complete a bit more the realism of villages.
See childs playing could be a nice touch.
Maybe add a sparse breeding of animals, so you can get calfs.
If you got them penned be forced to gime them proper area for feeding,
Just a couple of ideas,
Awesome so far!
:D
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I like an idea of a marriage.
But only as symbolic addition to the game atmosphere. I dont see how it could be implemented with game mechanics and dont turn to boring micro managing - lots of spent time IRL but very few actions in the game.
This could result in one game year = one year IRL. ;D
For me symbolic inhabitant would be enough.
Simple technical solution would be help which reduces fatigue and work time for the task. But this will ruine the realistic atmosphere and turn wife into robotic helper. And I think feel and realism is more important than technical options in the game.
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Found out topic about companions so this already implemented. Now I dont see a necessary to add marriage additionaly.
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When marriage is added, I would like gay marriage to be a thing too - or at least partnerships of some kind where two people would go off and live together and make a life together.
With gay parades in the villages.
And pride month added to the calendar. ;D LOL
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Found out topic about companions so this already implemented. Now I dont see a necessary to add marriage additionaly.
My suggestion also would be not adding marriage as a lone standing feature, but having npc action and interaction becoming more complex. Like, making the world more alive with autonomously acting beeings, may they be animals or humans.
And at some point, any given individual would perhaps establish some kind of binding to the player's character.
Depending on your interactions, perhaps some simple differences in "npc personality" (like, "naive", "simple-hearted", "trusting", "unprejudiced" "neutral", "skeptical", "wary", "distrustful", "unapproachable"...)
that would automatically implement a kind of life partner/companion, neutral speaking, whatever you make of it.
It could be a woman/man you made gifts to for an exceedingly long time,
or an outcast hunter that you helped with an injury and becoming your friend,
a child you care of after having rescued it from a njerpez village raid
or an old man, who asks you for food and shelter, and gives back some teaching about wooden crafting, cooking, trapping, herbs, or just telling you some stories, because he has nothing else to give...
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For starters I'd love the marriage thing even just for the fact of having someone always with me, I don't really care if she would help me or not. Will liven up my cabin. Anything else comes as a bonus.
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I'd rather not see politics in the game. I play the game in part to escape politics and introducing 21st century SJW orthodoxy into a late stone age game would ruin most of its charm for me. So for that reason, I think introducing marriage is a bad idea.
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I think it's possible to add this feature without it becoming political. I'd like to second for the notion of more complex "bonding relationships" between characters as suggested by Dr. Hossa above. If the relationship isn't directly spelled out, then there's no need to be overly concerned with being PC, as people can fill in the gaps as they like with RP (isn't that what we do anyway?).
I also like the idea of PC's relationships with NPCs going beyond just the "marriage" definition. Maybe an old man comes to live with me and I roleplay it's my aging father. Or a child is an adopted orphan. Or a fellow woman is my sister or my cousin or my weaving apprentice...you get the idea.
Perhaps a feature could be added where if a young man and young woman (either one being the PC) live together for at least one game year, there's some percent chance a baby appears. If some players feel strongly against this, it could even be a toggle on/off option.
To be honest, for me personally it's less important to have the game be a marriage simulator than it is just to have some kind of more complex social interaction so my world feels less empty and lonely. Just the addition of villagers remembering and greeting me made a huge difference, having a complex companion option would be icing on the cake. Even before adding a marriage feature, I would adore it if we occasionally ran into village events like harvest festivals, solstice ceremonies, the weddings of the villagers themselves, etc. Or if the replies to "How's it going" gave more answers than "Fine" - perhaps things like "It's great, we just had a baby born" or "What terrible weather, the crops might fail!" (which could prompt extra gratitude if the PC gifts food) or "Where did you get your fancy axe (shirt/shoes/etc)?" or "I'm fine but you're looking hungry, have some bread!" if the PC is a tribesman/woman with a good relationship with the village and is starving.
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Since when marriage is something political? Let's leave out 2020 drama out of this, this is a game in another period of time. The elks should decide what to add, if they decide to add something, based on what happened then, aka history, not politics.
I personally definitely want somekind of marriage and even the possibility to have toddlers, even if they will never grow up. For an added challenge and for the fun of it. Since little cubs have been implemented in the game, why not have a few kids too.
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Since when marriage is something political? Let's leave out 2020 drama out of this, this is a game in another period of time. The elks should decide what to add, if they decide to add something, based on what happened then, aka history, not politics.
If they decide to do that they will be called nasty names. Most people who get called those nasty names capitulate to the people doing the name-calling. Rather than that happening, I'd rather see things remain as they are.
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If they decide to do that they will be called nasty names.
There is a simple solution for abusing people. It's called banning them. So if someone becomes like that, bye. I don't see why the rest of the people have to be punished because of a small minority of aggressive persons.
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If they decide to do that they will be called nasty names.
There is a simple solution for abusing people. It's called banning them. So if someone becomes like that, bye. I don't see why the rest of the people have to be punished because of a small minority of aggressive persons.
I think I get what Jonottawa is getting at. Social Justice Warriors. Essentially people that can leverage a ton of bad press and possibly get the game "cancelled" as far as the mainstream is concerned. Potentially anyway, but not necessarily.
If this did happen, I don't think such a campaign would be successful if Sami sticks to what is historically accurate and doesn't give in by apologizing for doing nothing wrong. Him and his team would also have to be careful not to fan the flames of outrage if this came to pass, but I think URW would get through the drama unscathed.
Marriage is on the development table, what form it will take, we don't know.
http://www.unrealworld.fi/urw_development.html
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Is it still an issue, if people play female player character who wishes to marry a strapping tribesman from nearby, or faraway, village?
Anyway, marriage already was in game in mid ‘00
It was pretty expensive to woo someone. I recall silver jewelry, and some fine hides, then a fine knife. Not sure where the goods went, I’m pretty sure the goods didn’t stay/come with them. Almost like backwards dowry.
@Roheline, the NPC were really chatty in the past. They got converted to more Finn-like communique though. Most of the NPC response lines when translated to Finnish is what you’d hear in Finland, today. “Mustn’t grumble” “ei voi valittaa” (alternate direct translation “can not complain”)
Finnish folks unless talking with immediate family, don’t do ‘small-talk’. It’s short, to-the-point-of-being-blunt/frank”.
No one uses similar phrase to “let me be frank with you:...” in Finland. It’s the default setting.
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Well Frank is also a peoples that founded France, name in relation to the Francsica type blade.
So yeah..
I could see a Finn not wanting to be thought of as a Frank ::) ;)
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I think there are at least two aspects of this,
1. Having and raising a family
This I think this needs to be in the game at a mechanical level anyway, because we're also talking about things like animal husbandry and wildlife having young. It would also be nice to see this for the NPCs; to see children in villages grow up and for them to bond with other village members and also have babies. So ultimately what we're talking about is implementing some life cycle system to the game, which would also apply to human NPCs, and then would also apply to the player. The player should be able to do it, simply because NPCs should be able to do it.
You would find a mate, divide responsibilities, and then I think like others have said, the only real way to manage the baby is for it to happen all of the sudden because there's no good mechanic for it. Perhaps a chance that the wife gets pregnant if you're sleeping in the same room, with the chances going up the more time you spend together, or depending on some emotional relationship between the two of you that is tracked by the game somehow (such as the game determining if you're angry with each other or in positive relations, though I'm not sure how exactly that would be tracked). Then the pregnancy would come to term and there would be a baby.
2. The ceremony
This would be not just finding a mate to bond with, but having some type of ritual to mark the occasion and seal the bond and officially make you married. Generally speaking, I think it would be nice to see things like village festivals and festivities in the game. I can't speak much to what went on in Iron Age Finland, so I'm just thinking of what might go on in a Medieval village, where you might have some festival decorations like wreaths and garlands, and feasts, and music, and singing and dancing. I've been looking at old shepherd's almanacs, and the winter months after the harvest are set aside as a kind of feasting period. Then by May again, you get allusions to festivals again with May wreaths and so on.
The point being that right now it seems that there's no real social life to villages. Like a lot of things in the game, it feels villages exist to be primarily instrumental to gameplay, which is not the wrong focus for the start. But things can be expanded to make villages feel as if they have a life of their own, and then bringing the same mechanics for NPCs to the player also makes sense here.
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Marriage would be a welcome addition to the game, but only if it's done without modern politics seeping through. I play the game to be immersed in Iron-age finnish culture and survival, not to be reminded about politics. Why on earth is it controversial to say that it is the norm for men and women to form relationships and become married in the first place? And why would it be considered controversial if it is traditionally implemented in a video game? Makes little sense to me.
As for children if they are ever added, I think the logical process would be to first implement animal husbandry (ie. aging from youth to adult). Obviously, I don't want to have the same speech options with my family as I do with local tribespeople, and preferably I think it would be a good idea for them to initiate conversations from time to time, or even ask for chores/tasks to be performed. I have no idea what we would talk about, but in such a survival game I'm sure there are many philosophical and spiritual ideas that may be talked about (solitude, respect for nature and so on).
I don't think many games actually nail down marriage well however, most of the time your spouse is just like another npc, or you are given a series of "quests" which develop your relationship, only to hit a brick wall at the end with your spouse reassuming their npc role.
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For starters I'd love the marriage thing even just for the fact of having someone always with me, I don't really care if she would help me or not. Will liven up my cabin. Anything else comes as a bonus.
That's like my real life...