Do we need Temporal Storms?

[Watch-The-Skies]

They could always just add a world creation setting to customize how frequently villages spawn, with the lowest turning them off completely.

[Rufferto]

TL;DR: Yes.

[Mikel Monleón]

On 12/22/2020 at 9:01 AM, caffeine9999 said:

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I'm not sure I even want villages at all. I really enjoy that bittersweet atmosphere of solitude, of being lost in a big and old world, and more NPCs would break it.

They could keep villages rare. I feel like in would be an exciting reward to discover one if you've spent hours searching. 

[Stratagerm]

On 12/21/2020 at 8:50 PM, Mikel Monleón said:

Are you assuming that a village would be hostile?

Didn't you say that?

On 12/14/2020 at 6:54 AM, Mikel Monleón said:

Imagine if there were other tribes that could hunt you down, or even kingdoms that could pillage you.

 

[Mikel Monleón]

21 hours ago, Stratagerm said:

Didn't you say that?

I never imagined them like that. I would assume they would behave dynamically. Like maybe kingdoms could be gated, and if you pay a toll you would be protected by guards. In the wild it would be more lawless. 

I did elaborate on it further down the thread:

On 12/15/2020 at 9:10 PM, Mikel Monleón said:

 It would be cool to see it implemented well, with leatherworkers, blacksmiths, etc going about their day, leaving their village to scout and having an overall dynamic and somewhat unpredictable behavior. 

I'm just spitting out ideas, they could be all adjusted and refined for a smoother gameplay experience. I don't like the idea of just having a black and white "bad guy." I'd like to see more incentive. Like it would be interesting if you could be attacked by muggers in a village, but if it catches the line of sight of a guard then they would protect you.

I feel like dynamic villages could add another layer to the game that would fit well with what has already been developed. Think lockpicking, stealth mechanics, trading animals for coin, working as a blacksmith, more realistic swordsman mechanics.

[Hal13]

Did you notice drifters and all the other rust world monsters seem to not attack anything other than player characters? And the less sanity/temporal stability is left the fiercer they spawn? And that they only start spawning after the player character enters the world? And did you notice temporal storms only start to happen after the player character enters the world too? And they become stronger the longer the pc is on it?
Everything i've seen so far, hints to player characters somehow having left the past, known as rust world, and this past is trying to get them back where they belong, a collabsing somewhat hightech world, whose remains can be found in the new world you play in.

btw. just turning off temporal stability (can be done after world creation via /worldconfig temporalStability [false|true]) will prevent the storms from happening. and you can set the days after entering the world until monsters spawn to 9999 (maybe even more) via /worldconfig graceTimer [0-9999].

Concerning villages I think they can be nice to have, but it wouldn't make any sense if there are other seraph there (else the effects i mentioned above should have started before the player character enters the world), other people like the traders sure but no seraphs. And i don't think they should be big, i speculate temporal gears work on their people too (as the traders respawn) so they can live more or less indefinitely or at least do not die once and for all from violence or starvation etc, the traders seem to have aged though, therefore maybe they can die of old age? and they sure pack a punch, even without any weapon, there are no natural predators (heck not even several nightmare drifters would stand a chance) that really would match 3-4 of them, therefore i think villages would quite likely be more like 2-3 houses and maybe around half a dozen people at one place and at least 2-3 days of walking apart, close enough to know the people in the next place, far enough to not interfere too much.

Dynamic villages, especially big ones, wouldn't work unless every village (at least the ones a player character was near at least once) would constantly be loaded, else immersion will break rather quickly as ai stops working if the player character is too far away.

Edited December 29, 2020 by Hal13

[Mikel Monleón]

31 minutes ago, Hal13 said:

Dynamic villages, especially big ones, wouldn't work unless every village (at least the ones a player character was near at least once) would constantly be loaded, else immersion will break rather quickly as ai stops working if the player character is too far away.

Why can't they unload? I don't understand how it would break immersion, you wouldn't be able to see them anyway. 

[Mikel Monleón]

39 minutes ago, Hal13 said:

Dynamic villages, especially big ones, wouldn't work unless every village (at least the ones a player character was near at least once) would constantly be loaded, else immersion will break rather quickly as ai stops working if the player character is too far away.

Why can't they unload? I don't understand how it would break immersion, if they're outside the loading distance you wouldn't be able to see them anyway. 
 

39 minutes ago, Hal13 said:

And that they only start spawning after the player character enters the world? And did you notice temporal storms only start to happen after the player character enters the world too?

How can I notice the world before I enter it? I assumed temporal storms had been around for centuries, I thought they were responsible for the collapse of the previous civilization. 

Edited December 29, 2020 by Mikel Monleón

[Wave]

On 12/28/2020 at 6:09 PM, Mikel Monleón said:

How can I notice the world before I enter it? I assumed temporal storms had been around for centuries, I thought they were responsible for the collapse of the previous civilization. 

I think the implication of temporal stability mechanics is that they are local to the individual player. So, technically, only the drifters and regions of low temporal stability are present in the natural world without a player to interact with it. The temporal storms only seem to affect players - same with when your stability gets low, each player has their own stability level, and it's very apparent to other players when one player's stability is low. Thus there is a difference between being the one experiencing the effect, and not being subject to the effect.

[DrEngine]

Temporal stability / storms are ok. Keep them.

[Hal13]

On 12/29/2020 at 3:09 AM, Mikel Monleón said:

Why can't they unload? I don't understand how it would break immersion, if they're outside the loading distance you wouldn't be able to see them anyway. 
 

How can I notice the world before I enter it? I assumed temporal storms had been around for centuries, I thought they were responsible for the collapse of the previous civilization. 

You mean it wouldn't break immersion if you come back to a settlement to see them work on the same steps of building a house still? and the warparty still getting ready? And settlements only developing while you are there?

 

You don't notice it (if you don't read the things on the loading screen) but the inhabitants do, default settings are 5 days after the first seraph spawns in the world drifters and locusts will start spawning, and temporal storms seem new to the world or at least start to become more severe only after the first seraph enters the world. the original inhabitants would notice.

On the other side as the normal inhabitants are unaffected by these phenomenons it may be just something only seraphs experience.
But still when you compare a singleplayer world and a multiplayer world (of course only comparing defaults), in the first case you won't encounter neither temporal storm nor monsters for at least a few days, in the second you can encounter both the moment you join, therefore having NPC seraphs spawn in settlements makes no sense for me, and that's the reason too why i think lorewise these things are connected to seraphs entering this world, maybe they always followed and seraphs are kinda some harbingers of doom?

[Mikel Monleón]

 

23 hours ago, Wave said:

I think the implication of temporal stability mechanics is that they are local to the individual player. So, technically, only the drifters and regions of low temporal stability are present in the natural world without a player to interact with it. The temporal storms only seem to affect players - same with when your stability gets low, each player has their own stability level, and it's very apparent to other players when one player's stability is low. Thus there is a difference between being the one experiencing the effect, and not being subject to the effect.

That never occurred to me. That's an interesting perspective. I would like to see the developers elaborate more on that concept. 

13 hours ago, Hal13 said:

You mean it wouldn't break immersion if you come back to a settlement to see them work on the same steps of building a house still? and the warparty still getting ready? And settlements only developing while you are there?

Wow, I didn't think of having actual developing villages, that sounds very advance. Would love to see that though. 
I was thinking something closer to a skyrim version of the minecraft villages. They generate randomly somewhere around the world in certain stages of human civilization. It could be more basic, where they just have mindless scheduled tasks, and then "other villagers" just spawn naturally in the wild, maybe as hunters, mercenaries, pillagers, etc. But maybe keep the spawn rates rare and only close to villages so that the world still feels alone and empty. 


 

 

[Hal13]

Ah okay, you meant the lower end of dynamic villages, just some npcs having routines and others randomly spawning. Yeah that could work.

But having settlements in random different stages of civilisation wouldn't, I think,
Assuming the people are only slightly like humans (and looking at the variete of weapons and armor that's in the game and is requested and/or sold by traders it's quite likely), the technologically more advanced would just wipe out or enslave the ones behind. Having potentially a steam age village near a stone age settlement for example, there's just no way both wouldn't mix.
i think villages should be all around the same technology level shown by the trader carts (makes generating them easier too) and maybe some seemingly temporary camps, could work immersionwise.
Then about village generation, just placing them randomly as MC does may work for MC as they are in no way permanently placed and can be altered with ease. but I don't think it would work for VS. I guess in VS they'd be claimed like the trader carts are, therefore placements should make sense (as they are permanent structures) and therefore generating them randomly would get really complicated. for example a big settlement, nearly a small town, wouldn't make any sense somewhere in the nowhere (which is about anywhere in VS worlds) without any major roads or waterways that connect it to other settlements, especially if it's not surrounded by much farmland and therefore needs to get produce from elsewhere. these things are another reason why i think smaller settlements or rather homesteads would be better for VS, not only would generating them be easier, it's easier to make them appear to work believablely.

 

but we got way offtopic here.

[Mikel Monleón]

13 hours ago, Hal13 said:

Assuming the people are only slightly like humans (and looking at the variete of weapons and armor that's in the game and is requested and/or sold by traders it's quite likely), the technologically more advanced would just wipe out or enslave the ones behind. Having potentially a steam age village near a stone age settlement for example, there's just no way both wouldn't mix.

Well, that's not necessarily true. Depending on where you are geographically, we can see different stages of humanity in real life. Even now there are a lot of indigenous tribes that still exist. If you are aiming towards realism, I think it would make more sense to showcase the different stages. You could have flint based tribes, or bronze/pottery age villages, medieval steel based cities, separated by a large distance, and it would be more of a general average of what it used to be in the world during the medieval ages... to some degree. 
 

I also don't see why village generation would work for Minecraft, but not for Vintage Story. They already have randomly generated structures with the traders. It is definitely within their capability to make larger ones, and I don't see why it couldn't just be in the middle of nowhere like the traders. But look at medieval Spain. A lot of their castles are, pretty much, in the middle of nowhere, so I don't think it's that unbelievable. 

Either way, Vintage Story is a creative medium, it can take liberties to emphasize realism without actually being accurate.

Edited January 1, 2021 by Mikel Monleón

[Hal13]

Let's begin with your medieval spain argument: Every castle was at a strategic point, protecting a major town or a border, every town (and village) was at crossroads or rivers, neither was "in the middle of nowhere", that's true for any town and castle in europe over the middle ages.

Then the indigenous tribes you mentioned, they are far from civilisation, it's nearly impossible to get there without loads of expenses even today. through the age of colonization nobody got even close to them. And they are able to not adapt because we mostly don't force anyone anymore to do that, even try to preserve their culture, but that behavior only really changed only over the course of the last century, because we don't need slaves anymore workers became much cheaper over the course of industrialisation and the following time and we don't think christianity is superior anymore.

Next why are the villages in MC no problem but in VS they could be? i don't like to do it but i'll quote myself:

11 hours ago, Hal13 said:

Then about village generation, just placing them randomly as MC does may work for MC as they are in no way permanently placed and can be altered with ease. but I don't think it would work for VS. I guess in VS they'd be claimed like the trader carts are, therefore placements should make sense (as they are permanent structures) and therefore generating them randomly would get really complicated. for example a big settlement, nearly a small town, wouldn't make any sense somewhere in the nowhere (which is about anywhere in VS worlds) without any major roads or waterways that connect it to other settlements, especially if it's not surrounded by much farmland and therefore needs to get produce from elsewhere. these things are another reason why i think smaller settlements or rather homesteads would be better for VS, not only would generating them be easier, it's easier to make them appear to work believablely.

The traders are small structures, they are on their way to somewhere or living in a small cabin alone, less than about half what a single village house should be (and still bigger than any minecraft village house). small enough to not create massive problems when building and/or terraforming near and around them. You want steel based "cities", even without a way to feed all the people in them through the whole year, i imagine a city to be at least a few thousand blocks across, all of that area claimed by npcs and therefore not changeable by players. even a village only as big as a Minecraft village would create a similar problem, no beautifying and no terraforming. As stated, Minecraft villages are not meant to stay permanently unchanged (or at all), just a place to provide players with access to villagers.

 

And again, we are way offtopic now.

Edited January 1, 2021 by Hal13

[Mikel Monleón]

I feel like you are misinterpreting my point. Literally most castles in Spain were incredibly isolated. I agree that they were strategically placed to fend off potential invaders, but that doesn't mean they aren't in the middle of nowhere. I feel like you are just arguing nuances at this point.

On 12/31/2020 at 4:45 PM, Hal13 said:

Next why are the villages in MC no problem but in VS they could be? i don't like to do it but i'll quote myself:

That's kind of rude. I read what you said, I am just disagreeing, and my response was this: "Vintage Story is a creative medium, it can take liberties to emphasize realism without actually being accurate."

I don't think players will care if a village didn't spawn next to a riverbed or crossroads. 

I feel like you are placing arbitrary boundaries and restrictions to a hypothetical that doesn't exist, and could very much be worked on to create anything we can imagine and adjusted to be practically implemented. If a 1000 block medieval city is too big, then why not just make them smaller? What size would work then?
Do you really think there isn't any scenario in which generated medieval villages can work with Vintage Story?

Edited January 2, 2021 by Mikel Monleón

[Hal13]

13 hours ago, Mikel Monleón said:

That's kind of rude. I read what you said [..]

And ignoring everything i wrote how it could work isn't rude at all?

 

As i wrote, more than once, reducing the size of settlements to a minimum but having them rather close (a few days of walking, about 3 days of running straight) would work as there are indications that the people don't need to accumulate in big settlements and don't need to produce as much offspring as premodern humans. The smaller the settlement the less likely humans attack the next one, too little gain for the risks, therefore it would work having a steam age settlement next to a stone age settlement if they are just small enough. The smaller the settlement the less goods from elsewhere it needs, therefore it doesn't need to be connected by roads or waterways.

I'm arguing for small npc settlements, more like homesteads, at max half a dozen houses including such that house mechanisms like windmills. Settlements which are, including one or more fields and animal pens to feed the population, less than 100 blocks across. Settlements that do make sense, or at least are believable, when placed randomly. Settlements that are rather easily incorporated into player builds, as it is unlikely players can change them.
or i'm arguing for settlements to not being claimed by the npcs and therefore changeable by players. If i can change the settlement, then it only needs to provide some npcs and can be as ugly as the ones generated in minecraft (but looking on how detailed the traders are made, i doubt the devs would implement settlements like that).

I'm not arguing for not having settlements at all.

And yes VS is a creative medium, but that means players should be able to be creative not the devs having to do that work for them. you want a huge steelage or steamage city, build it, don't expect to stumble across one while exploring. that being said it would be nice to have mechanics for manually creating settlements and getting npcs to come and live there, even if it's only like in starbound.

Edited January 1, 2021 by Hal13

[Mikel Monleón]

13 hours ago, Hal13 said:

And ignoring everything i wrote how it could work isn't rude at all?

...I didn't ignore what you said. I wasn't mentioning the whole "Vintage story has creative freedom" just as an off topic side tangent. I quite clearly said I disagreed, and gave you that as my counter argument. From what I've read, you seem to think that my ideas wouldn't work at all, because it wouldn't follow your version of what's believable or practical. From what I interpreted having generated villages like in Minecraft wouldn't work for you. I think they would work perfectly.

But maybe I am misinterpreting what you are saying. We both clearly have different ideas of how villages would look like in this game. Frankly, I like your ideas, I think it would be awesome to have them in the game. Honestly, I just want any form of village, even if it's basic.

Edited January 2, 2021 by Mikel Monleón

[Hal13]

11 hours ago, Mikel Monleón said:

[...] But maybe I am misinterpreting what you are saying. [...]

That you do, if villages are implemented like they are in minecraft, meaning not claimed by the npcs just a convenient and somewhat believable way to get villagers. That would be totally okay with me, but looking at the trader i doubt they wouldn't be claimed, and therefore need more thought put into them, as the areas wouldn't be possible to be changed later by the player.

[Mikel Monleón]

9 hours ago, Hal13 said:

That you do, if villages are implemented like they are in minecraft, meaning not claimed by the npcs just a convenient and somewhat believable way to get villagers. That would be totally okay with me, but looking at the trader i doubt they wouldn't be claimed, and therefore need more thought put into them, as the areas wouldn't be possible to be changed later by the player.

Then maybe you're misinterpreting what I'm saying. I never specified they would be claimed or mentioned how big they would be. So again, I think you are indeed putting arbitrary limitations on the hypothetical that I imagined. 

[Hal13]

28 minutes ago, Mikel Monleón said:

Then maybe you're misinterpreting what I'm saying. I never specified they would be claimed or mentioned how big they would be. So again, I think you are indeed putting arbitrary limitations on the hypothetical that I imagined. 

If all npc structures, that are in the game right now, are claimed by the npcs (which is the case), it's not arbitrary to assume that new npc structures will be too, it's arbitrary not to assume that will be the case.

Yes, you did not mention any specifics on how big you imagine settlements to be, but you mentioned for example "medieval steel based cities" and the very definition of a city is that it's large. When we speak of cities we speak of centers of urbanization that define a large region, we're usually speaking of dozens of square kilometres/miles and millions of inhabitants, for medieval times still thousands of inhabitants over several square kilometres/miles. I even toned down that assumption to only more than 1000 blocks across. These 1000 blocks are indeed arbitrary but i thought they're a somewhat reasonable compromise between city and having to procedurally fill all that space ingame. On the other hand the default VS world is about double the surface of earth, i should have used an even higher number.

[Mikel Monleón]

On 1/2/2021 at 4:13 PM, Hal13 said:

If all npc structures, that are in the game right now, are claimed by the npcs (which is the case), it's not arbitrary to assume that new npc structures will be too, it's arbitrary not to assume that will be the case.

Yes, you did not mention any specifics on how big you imagine settlements to be, but you mentioned for example "medieval steel based cities" and the very definition of a city is that it's large. When we speak of cities we speak of centers of urbanization that define a large region, we're usually speaking of dozens of square kilometres/miles and millions of inhabitants, for medieval times still thousands of inhabitants over several square kilometres/miles. I even toned down that assumption to only more than 1000 blocks across. These 1000 blocks are indeed arbitrary but i thought they're a somewhat reasonable compromise between city and having to procedurally fill all that space ingame. On the other hand the default VS world is about double the surface of earth, i should have used an even higher number.

Putting limits and restrictions on an idea that I came up with is, by definition, "seemingly random and capricious." We're coming up with hypothetical concepts and making suggestions, so for all intents and purposes I can suggest to not have claimed villages. So what are you arguing here? That my imagination is wrong? (Honestly, I think claimed villages would't be a problem, just making a point.)

I imagined the medieval cities about slightly bigger than the Minecraft villages. So again... I believe that the game can take liberties to emphasize realism without actually being accurate. It doesn't have to be 1000 blocks to come across as a believable city. I feel like house design and basic infrastructure would be enough to convey that tone and separate them from more rural villages. The point I was making is I wanted to show that there are different stages of development throughout different settlements, I don't care how big they are. 

I feel like my point is not getting across to you at all. At this rate we're just going to be going around in circles indefinitely. 

 

Edited January 4, 2021 by Mikel Monleón

[Hal13]

19 hours ago, Mikel Monleón said:

Putting limits and restrictions on an idea that I came up with is, by definition, "seemingly random and capricious." We're coming up with hypothetical concepts and making suggestions, so for all intents and purposes I can suggest to not have claimed villages. So what are you arguing here? That my imagination is wrong? (Honestly, I think claimed villages would't be a problem, just making a point.)

I imagined the medieval cities about slightly bigger than the Minecraft villages. So again... I believe that the game can take liberties to emphasize realism without actually being accurate. It doesn't have to be 1000 blocks to come across as a believable city. I feel like house design and basic infrastructure would be enough to convey that tone and separate them from more rural villages. The point I was making is I wanted to show that there are different stages of development throughout different settlements, I don't care how big they are. 

I feel like my point is not getting across to you at all. At this rate we're just going to be going around in circles indefinitely.

Your imagination is not wrong, there is just no indication that the ideas would be implemented in that way. Other than that you just never gave any specifics to your ideas, nothing to work with developping it further, nothing which would others help seeing what you imagine.

Minecraft villages have no upper size limit (theoretically they can span over the whole world, the odds are nearly zero though that it'd generate that way) they are only never smaller than 64x64 (when it's only the gathering point and no other poi around, meaning no villagers either). Therefore saying you imagine medieval cities in VS slightly larger than that doesn't help, slightly larger than no upper limit still is no upper limit.

I have to say i feel my points are not coming through either, therefore: agree to disagree and go back to temporal storms again?

[Mikel Monleón]

58 minutes ago, Hal13 said:

I have to say i feel my points are not coming through either, therefore: agree to disagree and go back to temporal storms again?

Okay, haha.

We did go very off topic. Though I do think having an npc human/seraph element to the game, wether it's through villages or raids, would be a good alternative to temporal storms, the community seems to really want temporal storms, so I guess I just need to accept that. 

Hopefully when they develop it further it will change my opinion. I am curious to see what more they will add. I would like to see something that has a permanent affect on the world. Maybe if temporal storms changed trees, kind of like the petrification in don't starve together. 

I also think, and hear me out, what if instead of a gear, temporal instability was a gradual aspect that increased the further you traveled into an unstable area. Kind of like an increase in pressure when submerging with a submarine. I imagine the terrain warping and color shift to occur gradually the deeper you go, and perhaps there could be some sort of tool or mechanism to create stability in unstable places. 

I also think it would be cool if you could see a temporal storm arriving, with color shifts and warping in the distance (coming from one direction), and the deeper into the eye of the storm you go, the more warping and shifting and dangerous it becomes. 

[Hal13]

4 hours ago, Mikel Monleón said:

Hopefully when they develop it further it will change my opinion. I am curious to see what more they will add. I would like to see something that has a permanent affect on the world. Maybe if temporal storms changed trees, kind of like the petrification in don't starve together. 

I also think, and hear me out, what if instead of a gear, temporal instability was a gradual aspect that increased the further you traveled into an unstable area. Kind of like an increase in pressure when submerging with a submarine. I imagine the terrain warping and color shift to occur gradually the deeper you go, and perhaps there could be some sort of tool or mechanism to create stability in unstable places. 

I also think it would be cool if you could see a temporal storm arriving, with color shifts and warping in the distance (coming from one direction), and the deeper into the eye of the storm you go, the more warping and shifting and dangerous it becomes. 

I like the ideas, but i think it depends on where it will go to with the temporal stuff.

At this moment it seems only seraphs are effected and it could be a kind of collective madness only seraphs have, for anyone and anything else only relics are laying around and some gadgets still work somehow.
If at some point animals and npcs will be attacked by monsters, yes then i'm totally with you and i'd like to see changes in the environment eventually, maybe not permanent ones, only long lasting, some kind of 5th season maybe that isn't part of the cycle, else i see many turning the mechanics off as it affects the world on a too big scale and could make playing on multiplayer servers not fun (especially if you aren't on it from the start or have to take some time off).
Same with seeing the storm coming, if it's more or less only affecting the seraphs, i think there shouldn't be a direction the storm comes from, as they may always be the center of it forming, if it becomes an actual thing that's a hazard to anything, then i'd love to see the storm coming and animals, npcs and seraphs reacting on it.
But the idea of small scale permanent changes by players would be really nice, maybe making parts of the base completely stable, but the more you do it the more the area directly around could become more unstable to compensate it or you could make an area in your base really unstable, more or less create a rift to the rust world but the surrounding area gets more stable by that. maybe you could have to build some kind of temporal chrystaline latice thing for any of these effects? Even if it's all in the heads of seraphs, that could make for some interesting experience, think about building a safe room, and as you leave you get the message there is a heavy temporal storm around you, but you can't see anything of that from the inside, maybe you wouldn't be able to pass through again as the temporal differential is too big? You'd need to wait til the storms weakens or use temporal gears to become stable enough to pass.

I should play don't starve again, it has been years since i last did that,

Edited January 5, 2021 by Hal13