Thoughts on Animals and possible purpose and if they should be added ideas

[Hayden Williams]

I wanna see the community thoughts on animals that would be cool to add but may be endangered irl and if they should and or shouldn’t be added to the game and the reasons why.

[Hayden Williams]

So one thing I think Minecraft lacks is animals like elephants or sharks or whales and things of that nature but I think vs could differentiate itself more from Minecraft by adding these animals along with others but still tell the people about them and also if let’s say an elephant is added make it give a lot of bones and fat and bush meat but don’t make it a needed thing to do and try not to incentivize it. Same with whales but make them give alot of fat but rare. I feel we could add these creatures but make it also so you learn about them a bit as well and try and make it less worth while to kill them compared to let’s say multiple rams or wolves.

[Silent Shadow]

I think people have wanted birds (beyond chickens) and fish as additional resources. Birds would offer a limited amount of feathers to find when exploring/gathering which would help to use bows and the flint arrows in the early game. Birds could also serve as another pest to nerf crops a bit. 

Fish would spice up the water biomes quite a bit, and fishing could be an alternative source of protein. For a minimum investment (some sticks and twine) you could get fish meat (but no bones or hides) which would not last as long as regular meat and its production would be limited by the player's time spent fishing unlike how animals and crops can grow on their own. 

I think a bear would be pretty cool addition, it would be the rare saw blade locust of the surface but would have a LOT of meat, bones, and hides. You might even stumble across them sleeping in caves during winter.

[Hayden Williams]

How about let’s say elephants and or whales hypothetically what are your thoughts on those if they were suggested to be added cause I know Minecraft won’t due to their reasoning be their endangered I believe but do you think vintage story could implement animals like that it would it be better to take after the reasoning of Minecraft?

[l33tmaan]

That reasoning is stupid. It's a game. Make them non-endangered in the game. I bet they were just being lazy and didn't want to code big animals.

[Soliton]

Thanks the topic.

Whether by intent, or coincidence, Vintage Story's (VS) climate and environmental model closely approximates the Holdridge Life Zone Classification Scheme (Figure 1).  As such it would be possible to use it to determine what animals could realistically be added to the game.  Taking a group of similarly titled zones (i.e. Desert or Rain Forest) you could create representative animals that follows the Trophic Pyramid (Figure 2):
1.    1 x Tertiary Consumer
2.    1-2 x Secondary Consumer(s)
3.    2-4 x Primary Consumers
4.    3-10 x Producers

Some of the Producers and Consumers could overlap multiple similar zones to lower the total number of new models (i.e. rabbits thrive in a great number of zones).

Moreover this could prove to be an interesting late game mechanic.  Tired of wolves?  Just disrupt their food web and they no longer spawn!  No Tertiary Consumer?  Consumers explode in population and destroy all the Producers!