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"Spirit of the forest, I presume"
Now that sort of a phrase may actually slip from your lips in the next version of the game as the Spirit of the Forest gets added to our small cast of otherworldly creatures. Reworked spells and many kind of spirit world additions has a major part in the galore of upcoming features, and manifestation and actual appearance of spirit of the forest is now featured and off my to-do list. Implementing a related quest (or two) is still required, but step by step the planned spirit world additions do gets wrapped up. As a necessary spin-off feature we also had to expand possible sacrifices to include not only foodstuff, but also valuables. See, offering silver has been traditionally very much linked to pleasing the certain spirits. And as the spells in the game now are actual collected old spells we had to add silver sacrifices if we wanted to add proper spells for "summoning" the spirit of the forest. (You may want to see post about the used "spellbooks" at old forums). You know, with this version it feels like our to-do things are proceeding really slow compared to the amount of work and energy put in. Seems like we're dealing with complex entities rather than simple isolated features. But there's the spirit of the forest now. He brought in so much more code and features than first assumed, but it all just had to be done. Let's not spoil too much about what the spirit of the forest can actually do for you, but we know he's an important spirit, watching over the forest and the animals. According to the folklore the spirit of the forest may sometimes tell you where the game is, if he's pleased with you. That, at least, is an actual feature now. And as a tidbit of our desired in-game perfection I gotta mention that these spirits often concentrate on only culturally important animals. Thus, the spirit of the forest can prioritize his observations differently for members of northern tribes than those of the western tribes. But now look at this fellow of one of the eastern tribes... He must have something right to hear this from..well...from the spirit of the forest, I presume. 
November 04, 2017, 05:28:15 PM |
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Suli the Hermit
I'm playtesting some changes to my self-sufficiency mod and thought I'd make a story out of it and see just how self-sufficient I can make myself. Suli Reemilainen went out for a walk north of Reemi territory one autumn and found himself robbed, beaten, and left with almost nothing. Vowing to forswear the company of men forever, he set out into the wilderness to make a living his own way. He begins by taking stock of himself: Without any great aptitude for any particular skill other than the bow, he has trained in trapping and tanning small game in his village, knows the basics of timbercraft and carpentry, and has of course some basic knowledge of sowing and reaping. Likely he can survive through the winter on small game, hoping to set up a small field next spring. His crafting knowledge gives him some hope of being able to forge some tools to make his life easier. Unfortunately, the robbers were not merciful; among other smaller cuts and bruises, they broke his shoulder and ribs quite badly (71% injury!). He found his broad knife nearby when he awoke, and the robbers must have been scared away while they stripped him, as all his clothes but his tunic remain, including a cloak and hood that should help him keep warm during the upcoming winter. Shuffling off, he hopes to find some water and herbs he can use to treat his injuries, along with some berries or roots to sustain him until he can set up some snares for game. As he walks towards the nearest river, a stag struts right in front of him, as if knowing he is unarmed and too weak to kill it. Suli eyes the stag hungrily until it is out of sight. Suli makes his way to the shores of a nearby lake. Goldeneye, mallards, and grouse call constantly, and he sees signs of foxes and ermines that hunt the birds here. The lake reeds along the shore offer the prospect of food for the next few weeks. Suli decides to rest here and recover from his injuries while gathering food for the winter. With the extent of his injuries, it takes him most of the day to erect a simple shelter to keep the rain off his back. He builds a small fire and roasts some of the roots he gathered, thinking of all the work he has to do and wincing whenever he moves from his broken bones. November 07, 2017, 10:29:26 PM |
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Leucism, etc.
There was a post on this on the old forums, about occasionally finding animals with some sort of pigmentation disorder like leucism, melanism. You would then be able to obtain a fur from them that would be very valuable. Thought I'd bring it up again after seeing a story about a white elk making news in Sweden  https://www.thelocal.se/20171114/swedes-rally-to-save-famous-white-elk-from-being-shot November 14, 2017, 10:22:05 PM |
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Primitive survival gear & strategies
Right now most people settle down and build a cabin or a series of cabins and hunting/fishing shacks, but I think it's possible to rebalance the game to make a more nomadic lifestyle more interesting to play by adding some traditional neolithic survival tools and techniques to the game. Fire pouch Primitive peoples found it much easier to keep an ember from their old fire and use it to kindle the next one than have to make a new one every time. There were a number of different strategies, such as enclosing a hot coal from a fire between two tightly-bound shells, but I think you could probably make this work fairly simply in URW by adding a [M]ake menu option to "extract embers" from either a hot fireplace or a burning fire into a container of some sort. It would work the same way food does, where it has a limited lifespan. Instead of "stale" you'd get a "dying" status: (dying) rough wooden bowl of embers, and then it just disappears when it goes completely cold. [A]pplying the embers would use them up, but give a very high chance (say, 95%) of starting a fire on the first try. Travois Carts, dogsleds, and other vehicles are probably very difficult to implement, but I think a travois would be somewhat easier, since you could just make it an animal that doesn't move on its own and just follows you around. Unlike pack animals, a travois can be easily crafted on the spot from a couple of slender trunks and some cord or rope to let you drag that elk carcass or Njerp raiding party loot back to your shelter for processing. Snowshoes I know this has been suggested many times before, but I wanted to put my weight behind it too. Walking in snow should be slow and tiring without snowshoes (which should have the opposite effect of making walking anywhere but snow slow and tiring so you can't just wear them 24/7 and forget about them). They should also have the benefit of making you less likely to fall through ice. Atlatl An atlatl is essentially just a stick with a cord or rope on it, and is used to sling javelins harder, faster, and more accurately (by causing them to spin) than being thrown by hand. When wielding an atlatl, you could use them to shoot javelins the way bows shoot arrows as implemented in the game right now. Throwing stick One step below a javelin, throwing sticks are super-easy to make from a simple branch, and while they have a pretty short range, they're reasonably accurate and can take down small game like birds and squirrels. They should fit somewhere between a rock and a javelin in terms of their accuracy and killing power. Funnel trap/fish weir This would be super-easy to implement, essentially just traps which can be placed at the edges of any large body of water the same way traps are currently placed on land. Funnel traps would be made from sticks and catch smaller fish, while fish weirs would be made from slender trunks and catch larger fish. Boiled grass If you're desperate, it's possible to boil fistfuls of ordinary grass for a few carbs and some critical micronutrients. I'd like to see it possible to harvest grass from any grassy land square. Without boiling the grass is indigestible, but if you have a pot and access to water, you can boil it for better-than-nothing nutrition. It should definitely not be capable of keeping you alive in the long term, but could be useful for grabbing a few urgently-needed calories while waiting for a fishing net to pay off rather than just waiting. Eating dirt Dirt contains a lot of spores, tiny animals (like springtails), bacteria, seeds, molds, and other biological detritus which can be extracted by your digestive system at the cost of, well, eating and pooping dirt. Some survival experts recommend eating dirt in an emergency situation when there's absolutely nothing else, and there's argument about whether primitive peoples used to do the same. Regardless, it would be a very last-ditch attempt to stave off starvation when there's absolutely nothing else to eat -- but it's there in limitless quantities and requires no tools whatsoever. Pine nuts The nuts from pine trees were a traditional staple of paleolithic Europe. They should be harvestable in the late fall as pine cones, then require some threshing to separate the nuts. The thing about pine nuts is they're mostly fat (they have more than twice the fat than the protein and carbohydrate content combined) and so are a good way of avoiding starvation without needing to eat meat, provided you can process enough of them. The reason pine nuts weren't generally sold commercially is because they're so small, and require so much effort to obtain, that they're not generally worth the labour. But if you have no other source of fat in your diet, they should be able to prevent starvation, which would make a huge difference to the game balance currently in place; it suddenly becomes possible to survive without hunting. Shrooms There are already psychedelic mushrooms in the game, but they have no practical use. There's a theory that what made Norse berserkers so fierce is that prior to battle they would drink a brew made from shrooms until they were stoned out of their brains, and then set loose on the battlefield literally feeling no pain and utterly psychotic with rage. I'd love to be able to brew some shroom tea before charging into a Njerp encampment wearing nothing but crazy, feeling no effects from exhaustion, pain, or fear. The game effect would be to remove all tiredness and exhaustion for the duration of the effects, but translate that into physical damage instead. So you'd be inexhaustible until the shrooms wore off, but cause physical strain to your body which might take days or weeks to heal. November 17, 2017, 10:38:42 PM |
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Spirits, spells, short movies, short of time, and the diminishing year
Today I came to a realization that the absolutely last thing to do for the upcoming version is to finalize the spirit of the forest related quest, and the many spells that were brought into existence because of this very spirit. The reality check came upon me shortly after browsing books for spells to receive bear hunting aids from the spirits when asleep. Shortly after thinking that dreams and premonitions would be now natural to feature with the other upcoming spell improvements. Shortly after noticing myself to follow a pattern where I add a new big to-do right after the existing list of to-dos before release grows down in size to a reasonable length. This has been a familiar and overly ambitious pattern in case of the version in development. Now as the end of the calendar year is drawing nearer and the holiday season approaches, it's better to start wrap things up for test builds and then consider how far a beta release possibility might be. There's also been this certain short movie occupying our time. A short movie we shot in autumn 2016, and which has been cooking slowly in post-production ever since. But now, ladies and gentlemen, I'm confirmed to say that a brand new Enormous Elk short movie will still be released this very year. Like the upcoming version, this short movie is also the most ambitious of them all. We had a short post about it at the old forums, with a coffee break pic from the filming location. Now let's repost it here. All in all, despite of breaks, all kinds of stuff is coming up. Peace and patience to all of you. 
November 20, 2017, 04:15:03 PM |
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Releases, anniversaries, sales, and season's archery greetings
Very exciting times are at hand... We've reached beta stage with the upcoming version 3.50. Test builds have been compiled and tested to some extent, and we are ready to move onto releasing the first 3.50 beta version. This will first take place on Steam, and for lifetimers at the forums - and is to be followed with the standalone release on the homepage later on. By the way, did you know that this year is 100th anniversary of Finland's independence? Doesn't matter if you didn't, but it's a big year for the country and it all culminates on 6th of December - for that is the independence day of Finland. On that very day we are celebrating Indie-dependence day for it's been 25 years of playable UnReal World releases. In other words, the game has been out there for 1/4 of its development nation's official existence. It's either an old game, or a young nation  We try to aim Steam/Lifetimer release of 3.50 beta to take place on 6th - the big indiedependency day. Because of the anniversary Steam has also agreed to grant a special sale period for a bunch of finnish games. Before the sale is going on we can't exactly say when it starts or ends, but you should know UnReal World is available for a little cheaper price. It's probably our biggest price cut ever to be seen, so if you want to celebrate with us or finally get that Steam copy, the opportunity is around the corner. And then, it's time fore season's archery greetings... Over the years people have regularly hinted that could I start up on somekind of bushcraft video channel or so. Now Erkka occasionally drops videos related on variety of trad. chores, and at Enormous Elk videos we sometimes cover trad.lifestyle as well, but to me the dearest thing to showcase and talk about would be archery. So I'm trying to establish traditional archery channel, hopefully getting it going next year. History and archery, crafts and shoots, books and bows and techniques, and all that. Channel draft is available for early subscriptions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LwjhvPSbB0 Now it's three night until the big indiedependency day. Stay tuned. December 03, 2017, 03:09:34 PM |
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Special Steam Sale & Special Greetings
A special sale for a bunch of finnish games on Steam has started. This is to celebrate the centenary of Finland's independence and will last until 8th of December. This 100th year of Finland's independence culminates on 6th of December, for that is our official independence day. During this anniversary period we are also celebrating the extraordinary Indie-dependence days for it's been 25 years of playable UnReal World releases. In other words, the game has been out there for 1/4 of its development nation's official existence. We celebrate with the sales, new video greetings and finally the release of 3.50 beta version on 6th. You can find your way on our Steam page here, and lifetimers also will find the new video greetings at the forums lifetime membership section. Otherwise we want to stay thanks, cheers, and respect to you all!  From left to right; Erkka (co-designer), and Sami (creator) shake hands for it's the special Indie-dependence day. 1/4 centenary of playable UnReal World releases, and full centenary of Finland's independence. December 05, 2017, 07:10:19 PM |
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Re: Stop and resume a task/craft?
No, you can't pause activities such as making a bow. However, some actions, like building walls etc. has the option to pause and resume work at a later time. That is marked by the green text you can see in the attached picture. December 12, 2017, 11:16:05 PM |
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Shooting snowballs
...meanwhile in Finland. It's been snowing, and I've been studying the art of archery, so I gotta share this yesterday's shot to remember: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNnxu6bbBJI December 17, 2017, 04:12:15 PM |
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Re: Adding marriage - poll about how you find its priority
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 December 19, 2017, 01:27:29 AM |
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