Some love for the arctic

[Thalius]

As the title suggests, I feel that the arctic areas need some love.  Not a whole lot up there except ice and snow and cold, with a sparse scattering of arctic foxes. All good so far.

A few additions would be fitting, and nice to have.  I'd suggest the following:

-Fur Seals.  These should be found around open water areas and yield furs suitable for arctic-worthy clothing. (Add furs to the game as an item for use in making extreme cold weather coats, fur boots, fur gloves, fur hats, etc). They should also yield large amounts of fat/oil and a good amount of meat.

-Leopard seals. Also found in the arctic close to water. They should be very rare.  Good source of hides as well as large amounts of fat and meat.  Also very dangerous, but slow on land.  Deadly if encountered in the water. Probably should be included when we get a lake/ocean update.

-Polar bears.  I feel these almost need to be a must-have.  The primary predator of the far north.  They should hunt players down over long distances and follow them over long distances as well once they aggro on the player.  They would be a great source of fat, meat, and large furs and hides.

-Arctic hares.  A rabbit that likes it cold.  I'd imagine they would show up more in the southern arctic zones where pine trees still show up from time to time.

And a fifth suggestion just for the fun of it-
-Walrus.  They would just be fun to have around making noise.

Humbly submitted for consideration...
~TH~

Edited February 28, 2021 by Thalius

[Hal13]

Tbh i don't think polar bears should actively hunt player characters (but on the other side that should be true for wolves too), the seraphs don't look like they'd be fatty enough for their taste hunting them would net to little energy in comparison to their normal prey. Other than bears and wolves, polar bears have no fear though.

Seals i think for the start a single type would suffice.

And the hares could just use the standard rabbit and the arctic fur texture could overwrite all rabbit fur texture for rabbits newly spawning in regions which have snowfall (oppossed to making it too complicated to implement winter fur).

Edited March 1, 2021 by Hal13

[caffeine9999]

Regardless of specific proposals I would love to see cold biomes improvements

[Thalius]

5 hours ago, Hal13 said:

Tbh i don't think polar bears should actively hunt player characters (but on the other side that should be true for wolves too), the seraphs don't look like they'd be fatty enough for their taste hunting them would net to little energy in comparison to their normal prey. Other than bears and wolves, polar bears have no fear though.

Seals i think for the start a single type would suffice.

I need to clarify what I meant by hunt players- You would have to get close enough for them to aggro on you first, after that, they would be hard to shake off your trail.  Polar bears in the north can track prey over very large distances, and if wolves hunt and eat us, there is enough meat on us to tempt a hungry polar bear.
I would think polar bears should be rare- much more rare than wolves. Finding one would be a big deal and reap great rewards in meat, fat and fur if you manage to take one down. Having one aggro on you would also be a pretty significant event that you should have to deal with.

Oh, and they should have the ability to climb multiple blocks worth of snow, making it harder to pit trap them and kill them with anything other than throwing spears or shooting them full of arrows.

As for the seals, I agree that initially there should only be the one type as suggested. Leopard seals should come later, when we get an ocean/lake update.

[Hal13]

19 hours ago, Thalius said:

Oh, and they should have the ability to climb multiple blocks worth of snow, making it harder to pit trap them and kill them with anything other than throwing spears or shooting them full of arrows.

i mean as polar bears are quite huge the standard measurements of being able to go up half its size rounded up with a minimum of 1 block should suffice, i mean standing up they reach about 3-4 meters... and on all 4 they are comparable in size with a medium tall human...

[RobinHood]

Nice suggestions.

I wrote somth for Permafrost soil

 

Edited April 29, 2021 by RobinHood

[Soliton]

Exploring the polar regions would be ideal for playing a nomadic lifestyle rather than the normal base building experience.  So what would be the unique qualities of living in a polar region?  How would someone maintain their fruit, vegetable, and grain nutritional levels?  How do you protect yourself from -50 deg C temperatures as well soaking rains?

As with the Inuit and S`ami indigenous peoples, meat becomes your primary food source.  The animals suggested are good if you are following a coastline, but what happens inland?  Maybe some form a cariboo would be reasonable.  Spawns should be rare and there should be a significant chance when any of the food animals spawn there is a good chance a pack of wolves or a bear also spawn.  Personally I want bears that are terrifying and require significant effort and ingenuity in order to kill.  I want bears that will come running when they smell blood from any loaded chunk.  And as were are talking polar bears, I want an animal that can either climb better than the player or can break soil, wood, and ice blocks to get to the player.

That being said, the cold is the primary danger.  Special clothing should be made by combining normal hides for the warmth and seal hides for the water protection.  Also larger items like tents should be available.  All these should be made with some form of specialized crafting. I would suggest salt water gathered in clay pots to be boiled into a brine as well as sinew in the place of thread and bone needles in order to sew.  Penalties for not having all the clothes items should be severe.   To mitigate some of this I wonder if it would be possible to have the player's Body Temperature Hardiness value slowly lowered reflect normal physiological acclimation?

While it is not possible to cultivate native plants for food in the Arctic, indigenous peoples have traditionally gathered foods such as: Berries (crowberry and cloudberry), Herbaceous plants (grasses and fireweed), Tubers and stems (as cached by voles in burrows), Roots (tuberous spring beauty and sweet vetch), and Seaweed.
 

[AngryRob]

What would be neat is if there was a special polar ruin, like an ice city, or frozen temple. Something like mountains of madness. Either give it a special resource, or place a dangerous boss there. The hypothermia risk would be a great barrier to keep out the unprepared. 

[Soliton]

Your suggestion for a special polar ruin would be an excellent reason to explore these regions and is reflected in both the Roadmap and Tyron's post "Choose your favorite theme for v1.15! Gasp!"

As opposed to the a nomadic lifestyle experience mentioned above it would be more of an expedition.  Right now the polar regions would be an excellent biome to host this idea as it would be easy to restrict food (much, much lower spawn rates for wild plants), the environment is inherently dangerous, and covers vast areas (Standard world size: 100,000 m in the Z direction and ~20,000 m in the X direction).  At a normal rate of movement (assuming sleeping at night and setting up an occasional hunting camp and scavenging for fire fuels) means it would be possible for the character to unsuccessfully explore for multiple in-game years before finding it.  

That would be enough to create game experiences in line with the great expeditions of history (ala Lewis and Clark).  I can see at least two new game mechanics necessary to give a more full experience.  The first being the capability to create mobile storage, whether this takes the form of a pack animal and/or some sort of sled/cart.  I think copygirl's excellent mod, CarryCapacity, is good start.  As normal there should be tradeoffs (i.e. increased storage for slower movement and higher hunger rates).  If pack animals are created (seriously the cow skulls in deserts had to come from somewhere) then they would also be subject to predation by wolves and bears, the cold, hunger, exhaustion, and possible drowning.  Expedition playstyles demand meticulous management of resources.

The second is that the current map mechanic is too powerful and just turning it off would be overly restrictive.  I wonder if a compromise can be struck?  I am thinking that chunks only fill in when two conditions are met.  One, they are in direct line of sight of a character who has surveying tools in their hands.   This could be another use of the plumb and level tool (to function as an inclinometer).  A telescope would be the second survey tool and would be required to meet the second condition.  Survey's start from a known point and daisy chain from them.  So the character would need to be in a position where a previous visible chunk would be, in turn, visible.  That was why mountain peaks were so important as they can be seen from greater distances thereby reducing the number of surveyed points necessary to extend a map.  

Obviously game balance is always important in these things, but to meet the standard of "an uncompromising wilderness survival sandbox game" sometimes the bar has to be set higher.
 

Edited May 1, 2021 by Soliton

[RobinHood]

maybe every zone should have a special thing / recource, Polar Ruine - special Jungle ruine and Special desert ruine too.
and some ruins should have also maybe some traps also, traps like in Indiana Jones Movies or RTCW ;)

 

spike trap: https://youtu.be/6ibMnlDTW3U?t=331

crushing walls and spikes hole: https://youtu.be/6ibMnlDTW3U?t=345

blade trap: https://youtu.be/6ibMnlDTW3U?t=377

 

[Soliton]

Two things, first, I am old.  So old that I am not exactly sure what most of the emoji things mean and used the cookie as an indication of reward for an idea that spurs further discussion.  Hopefully it is not actually an insult of some form.  On that topic, what does "Wolf Bait" even mean?

Second, adding to your comment about additional Ruins, I wonder if they should be on game claimed land?  That way you don't take your pickaxe and just burrow in to the center to avoid all the traps.  Taking that one step further, it would be cool if once you survived all the traps and got to the treasure (technically the "MacGuffin") the land claim would be forfeited and you could start mining all the specialty blocks

Edited May 3, 2021 by Soliton

[Thalius]

I'd love to see "biome" dependent ruins and other things show up as well. Something ancient and buried under mountains of snow and ice in the arctic would be a fun thing to very rarely encounter.  That would be a lot more love for the arctic, after the other things I first laid out find their way into the game.

I want to be able to live up there first, though, and in a way that is fitting to the environment- i.e. meat dependent diet, having to travel long distances to haul wood for fires, needing clothing made from seal hides and polar bear fur, etc.

As for other "biome" and zone dependent critters and ruins and such- I certainly expect that we will get those things in time.  And, on a personal note, I hope they nail the jungle climate areas. I live in the jungle.  It would be fun to see some of the native plants and wildlife I see most days be accurately ported into the game world.  I'll probably make a post about that one day, but in my server I first want to make a roadway into a jungle area and live there for a while and get a good feel for it before I suggest any additions.

Edited May 3, 2021 by Thalius

[Soliton]

On 4/9/2021 at 8:50 AM, Shaelin said:

Perhaps in addition to thirst, have heat sensitivity, too. Much as we do with cold sensitivity, have it mess with the screen - wavy lines, blurring, "seeing spots". Maybe and extreme consequence option which will result in fainting/death for hyper/hypothermia.

For Jungle/Desert biomes, I think Shaelin's observation about heat sensitivity would be a good feature to have before creating expedition mechanics or ruins.  When combined with the ability to slowly shift your character's Body Temperature Hardiness, depending on average temperature over time, part of the process of conducting an expedition would be just acclimating to that climate.  It does make you wonder if populations of server players would naturally split along median climate lines as going to the opposing one could be thought of a a sort of level-of-effort tax.

I really like your comment about setting up an encampment just outside of the ruin, delving should an arduous task and there is significant historical precedence for their creation.  Dealing with the constraints of temperature at the same time would make this an epic experience.

[l33tmaan]

1 hour ago, Soliton said:

On that topic, what does "Wolf Bait" even mean?

"Wolf Bait" is a friendly way of identifying new players. For example, if someone were to make a thread going "WTF how do I lit fire???", I would react with the Wolf Bait emoji and possibly answer their question if someone else hadn't already.
Or I guess it's a way of calling someone a noob. We were all noobs once...

[AngryRob]

6 hours ago, Soliton said:

For Jungle/Desert biomes, I think Shaelin's observation about heat sensitivity would be a good feature to have before creating expedition mechanics or ruins.  When combined with the ability to slowly shift your character's Body Temperature Hardiness, depending on average temperature over time, part of the process of conducting an expedition would be just acclimating to that climate.  It does make you wonder if populations of server players would naturally split along median climate lines as going to the opposing one could be thought of a a sort of level-of-effort tax.

I really like your comment about setting up an encampment just outside of the ruin, delving should an arduous task and there is significant historical precedence for their creation.  Dealing with the constraints of temperature at the same time would make this an epic experience.

Heat stroke should be a feature. I used to watch this youtuber play daggerfall, and i never realized just how many mechanics have been removed from the elder scrolls games. As it stands there are very few disadvantages to the hot biomes. The year round growing season makes up for the heat damage to crops. 

We do need more ruins. However i think i have stumbled on something, but need other testimony before making a conclusion: Surface ruins indicate the presence of translocators. Maybe this was something everyone else has known for a while and i am slow, maybe it's my seed, but i have noticed that if there is a surface ruin, then odds are there are translocators under ground. 

 

Also, what is the deal with some of those ruins? i found one where it was windows, and behind them were boney soil and bones. It looked like some sort of observation port for a corpse furnace or something. 

[RobinHood]

 okay, traps are not dangerous, if you can avoid them with pickaxe, maybe some ruines should have special material-material, and you can not use even pickaxe tier3 .... e.g. Dragon Stone (Fantasy Material).

I have also an other suggestion, what about a kind of a unique, very big ruine, but it appears only once in the whole Seedworld - a kind of a DARK TOWER, like in Stephen King "Dark Tower", you will found there the BossMonster, e.g. the Crimson King, thats not only Stephen King related, its also Lovecraft related - e.g. the Crimson King, like in this link: https://lovecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Crimson_King

and here
https://stephenking.fandom.com/wiki/The_Dark_Tower

 

Quote

The Dark Tower is a stone structure standing at the center of all worlds at the crosspoint of the Beams in the midst of a field of roses beyond the end of End-world.

SPOILERS - The next paragraph contains information relevant to the story. Specifically, the ending.

The Crimson King once conspired to topple the Tower and bring an end to all existence, but his plan was thwarted by Roland Deschain and Patrick Danville.  The interior of the Tower is infinitely larger than its exterior, including a spiral staircase that passes rooms, each of which contains a scene from Roland's life. The uppermost door bears the inscription ROLAND, and passing through that door leads the gunslinger ever back into his own past during his flight across the Mohaine Desert to repeat the cycle of his quest once more.

 

and in this special ruine, dark tower e.g., you will discovery also the reason of temporal storms

Edited May 4, 2021 by RobinHood