Topic: A few ideas after playing quite a lot:  (Read 5939 times)


Odieman

« on: May 10, 2020, 05:35:21 PM »
Hello folks.  I have a few suggestions that I think would be nice.  Keep in mind, everything herein is my opinion, and I'm welcome to criticism as long as it's constructive.  At the end of the day, developers develop at their own discretion.  If all of these suggestions never make it into the game in any form, I won't be upset or any worse for wear.  Cheers.


  • More modular modding support
I get it, this is so generalized that it's probably been suggested before in various ways, but the skinny of it is this:  A lot of mods struggle to accomplish what they are going for because a lot of the game is locked behind C (Or C++) and the build process.  Every item and every use and attribute of that item should, more or less, be plaintext.  Some examples would be things like more types of trees, more types of animals, tools, etc.

  • "Vehicles"
I'm not suggesting the addition of a pearl-white Volvo 240 but a nice travois or "Purilaat" would be nice.  I think something like this should have a weight limit of maybe 1 tree, you could load an animal on here and bring it back to your camp.  It would be unwieldy, so you couldn't put it on a punt or raft.  It also fits within the time frame of the game, I'd say.

  • A "[CRUTCH]" tag
You've just lost the use of one of your legs (or both!) and this slows you down or stops you from using your legs completely.  Having weapons or tools with a [CRUTCH] tag allows you to walk as long as they are equipped.  Maybe even an efficiency on the tag, for example a "[CRUTCH] = 10" for a completely efficient crutch tool, such as a staff, or "[CRUTCH] = 6" for something like a spear or Javelin.  Maybe a staff is "[CRUTCH] = 9" and a separate tool can be made, an actual crutch, which has "[CRUTCH] = 10".  Less efficient crutches make it harder to stand if your wound is too severe and incur a speed penalty.

Not having any wounds at all and having a "[CRUTCH]" weapon equipped could make it so weight burdens carry a lesser % penalty or exertion is lowered.  These exist in real life, hiking poles for example.  People who walk with spears generally do use it as a crutch even if the amount of weight they put on it is insignificant.  I challenge you to try and scale even a small incline while holding a pole in both hands, as if you're ready to attack or something.  It's much more difficult and less intuitive than using it as an improvised hiking pole.

  • Smoke
Smoke!  I can use my sauna as a smokehouse, which kind of defeats the purpose.  You wouldn't want to stand in a smokehouse, and fish wouldn't get preserved in a sauna.  My idea is, just a simple 'smoke' tile that fills up and dissipates whenever there is no roof above the tile.  My idea is that it would be an animal or NPC of some sort, pathfinding towards the exit.  If it doesn't have the ability to open doors, it would just 'walk around' in the area.  I think the challenging bit would be to make them work with food.  You'd probably have to make it so smoked food just requires the 'smoke tile' to pass over it, or maybe the smoke 'npc' goes over to raw food and 'eats' it, leaving behind smoked food of the type it ate.

  • Cultural Traits
One thing that currently exists is that certain cultures get a minor boost to a few skills.  The biggest boon to picking certain cultures is their starting weapons and skills.  I think it'd be interesting if they also had some specific traits, like maybe the Seal-Tribe gets a 10-15% skill bonus to skinning seals, or Reemiläiset take a 30% less penalty when using awkward tools for house building.  Initial customization might be fun to get a better idea of who your character is, especially if you do a full random character.  This idea can be expanded to certain negatives too.

  • Long term projects
In Dwarf Fortress, people have accomplished 'everything'.  As an open ended game, you have to keep yourself entertained by coming up with 'megaprojects'.  Things like a huge farm field, or a cabin so large you could house an entire village under its one roof.  It would be nice if things like this could exist in the current game.  Maybe a shrine made of 10 bear skulls, or a way to create your own 'village' that attracts settlers (and thieves!) and 'retire' once certain conditions are met.  As there is no endgame, it wouldn't hurt to give major optional goals and objectives.  Things that would take between 2-3 winters.


Anyway, thanks for reading my suggestions.  Happy trapping, and remember where you left your raft :).

JP_Finn

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« Reply #1 on: May 10, 2020, 11:04:01 PM »
Both travois and smoke are in the dev.plans.
 I love the crutch suggestion.
For mega projects, we sadly can’t dig deeper than a one pit....to the  !!fun!!
It wouldn’t be  thematically appropriate here anyway.

There’s suggestions for inward corner for log structures and plank/board interior walls already, so that could open up building 1km x 1km log fortress. (Just 10x10 wilderness map areas... keep you busy few years. Only 12,000 trees to fell for perimeter walls  some extra for shutters, door, floor&ceiling etc. bonus points for having 2, even 3 villages... inside your cabin)

Odieman

« Reply #2 on: May 11, 2020, 12:22:47 AM »
Ah, cheers.  I'm struggling to find the dev plans, but then again I'm the type to lose my raft anyway.  Gonna do a dig, I'm sure google:unrealworld.fi will be the tool I need  8).

I'm glad crutch hasn't been suggested before, to me it seems like the easiest to implement.

And as for megaprojects, I think more interaction with the world as it is would be thematically appropriate, however that is.  Building a large boat over the course of a few winters and sailing with the Driik to far lands as a sort of 'end screen', or establishing your own cultural village seem very end-game to me, things that realistically could happen.  Anything that is long lasting and effects the world, not just you the player.

PALU

« Reply #3 on: May 11, 2020, 01:07:17 AM »
UrW is based on historical realities (with actual folklore added), so smoking in a sauna would most definitely be a thing (and I believe you can buy "sauna smoked" ham nowadays in some places in the world). Obviously, you wouldn't direct the smoke inwards when using the sauna for its "real" purpose.

In terms of "mega projects" my previous character was almost finished building a "palisade" around the homestead (at the world tile border, as auto zooming in got wonky when outside of it. It was an ordinary wall, technically, of course. It did help that various woodsmen had cut down a huge number of trees in the vicinity, so I didn't have to cut that many myself.

Remembering where you left your raft: use overworld markers...

JP_Finn

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« Reply #4 on: May 11, 2020, 04:25:16 PM »
Dev.plans on unrealworld.fi homepage : Development

JP_Finn

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« Reply #5 on: May 11, 2020, 05:38:28 PM »
I went through the OP initially very quick, and hopped over most of the text in Smoke section.
There’s spotting smoke suggestion by Dungeon Smash and Sami did respond to it on the marathon.

I also suggested changes to smoking and smoke, room heat loss here

As for smoking in sauna, that’s been done for as long as family tradition is recalled. Maybe best way to cook pork, even better than bacon from belly: ylikypsä (beyond done) 4days (3 nights) in heated up smoke sauna. The old school, no chimney ones like we have in-game.
And no, sauna isn’t used for bathing during smoking. But smoking shouldn’t take 2+ weeks either.

Sami

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« Reply #6 on: January 05, 2021, 06:04:44 PM »
I have a few suggestions that I think would be nice.  Keep in mind, everything herein is my opinion, and I'm welcome to criticism as long as it's constructive.  At the end of the day, developers develop at their own discretion.

It's always far better to pinpoint one crisp suggestion or idea than to provide list of things. Also, having the suggestion title to clearly say what it is about helps us all.
But here we go:

Quote
More modular modding support

I get it, this is so generalized that it's probably been suggested before in various ways, but the skinny of it is this:  A lot of mods struggle to accomplish what they are going for because a lot of the game is locked behind C (Or C++) and the build process.  Every item and every use and attribute of that item should, more or less, be plaintext.  Some examples would be things like more types of trees, more types of animals, tools, etc.

Modding is very simple and limited yes, but I've said it many times over the years that my intention is to develop a game rather than game creating or modding syntax. There are games that have very detailed modding possibilities, and everything is free to edit, but these have been often started up with the modding in mind. UnReal World was never designed for modding in mind, and the few possibilities we have are only quite recent additions. (Heck, even the concept of everything should made editable by the developer is somewhat recent player approach within the lifetime of the game.)
The syntax will likely grow over time but it's enchanced fore mostly based on the game's need, and the possibilities then follow. Heavily moddable game development is a different game development genre in my opinion, and I have never had strong to lead such project.

Quote
"Vehicles"

I'm not suggesting the addition of a pearl-white Volvo 240 but a nice travois or "Purilaat" would be nice.

Yep. This sort of traditional means of transport are planned.

Quote
A "[CRUTCH]" tag

You've just lost the use of one of your legs (or both!) and this slows you down or stops you from using your legs completely.  Having weapons or tools with a [CRUTCH] tag allows you to walk as long as they are equipped.

Yep. Crutches, or the kind, have been suggested before and it's something that we could think of adding indeed. Not considered high priority, though, so maybe some day when time allows.

Quote
Smoke

Smoke!  I can use my sauna as a smokehouse, which kind of defeats the purpose.  You wouldn't want to stand in a smokehouse, and fish wouldn't get preserved in a sauna.  My idea is, just a simple 'smoke' tile that fills up and dissipates whenever there is no roof above the tile.

This would nice, but it would be also something that most players wouldn't fancy if we stay historically accurate. There are no chimneys in the cottages either, so every time you heat up the fireplaces you really want to stay outside. You'd be spending lots of time outdoors during the wintertime. We would kind of like to make it that demanding and accurate, but it wouldn't necessarily be fun addition at all. We'll postpone this, once again, for future consideration.

Quote
    Cultural Traits

One thing that currently exists is that certain cultures get a minor boost to a few skills.  The biggest boon to picking certain cultures is their starting weapons and skills.  I think it'd be interesting if they also had some specific traits, like maybe the Seal-Tribe gets a 10-15% skill bonus to skinning seals, or Reemiläiset take a 30% less penalty when using awkward tools for house building. 

In general all that would be beneficial although the level of detail, where the culture background shows, would need to be considered. There's some cultural knowledge already for example regarding plants, but it could extend basically to all the sectors of the game world. Spells, diet etc. NPCs in the village follow culturally specific things with their game animals, for example, but currently players aren't really mentioned of their background.

Quote
    Long term projects

In Dwarf Fortress, people have accomplished 'everything'.  As an open ended game, you have to keep yourself entertained by coming up with 'megaprojects'.  Things like a huge farm field, or a cabin so large you could house an entire village under its one roof.  It would be nice if things like this could exist in the current game.  Maybe a shrine made of 10 bear skulls, or a way to create your own 'village' that attracts settlers (and thieves!) and 'retire' once certain conditions are met.  As there is no endgame, it wouldn't hurt to give major optional goals and objectives.  Things that would take between 2-3 winters.

Yep. This is something to consider endlessly. Big topic, in all the open world games. End-game comes sooner or later, even after all the possible major goals and objectives are reached.
- Sami | UnReal World creator