What is your overarching vision of the game?

[Pythagoras]

Check out what I've written here:
http://members.xoom.com/pythagras/co...inosuggest.htm

Anyone have any ideas?
[This message has been edited by Pythagoras (edited January 25, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Pythagoras (edited January 26, 2000).]

[Pythagoras]

Anyone else have any idea how they want the basic mechanics to work?

[NoviceCEO]

Maybe...
I didn't have time to read it last night, but it seemed to be a good post.. But who cares anyway? You've deleted the whole post! How am I going to give any ideas now?

[Pythagoras]

Sorry, I took it down because I was thinking of using some of the ideas myself, but its here now, free to be picked at .

[NoviceCEO]

Ill take a look at it and reply soon... but first Ill print it... its a long text and I get tired when reading too much english in the comp.
if only ie had a preview print option...

[NoviceCEO]

(before starting, in many parts of the message I have used the word 'adoption'. I'm not sure if it has the meaning I thought it had, but the meaning - I meant - for adoption is: to evolve in order to fit to a particular environment or situation)

K man, I've just read it. And my impression is: you've got a brilliant text in that page. I really do believe that Sid Meier wrote a similar text to yours in the very early stage of the game development. I'll see if I can point some ideas...

I think about starting the game like you do. You would have the option of getting a (or some) specific species and then you would be able to develop from that. You could even have an option of 30 initial species and have the option to choose 5 among those according to your mood. About the "evolution bonus", I really don't think you should work that way. I think the evolution should go almost in its whole by itself. I mean, you wouldn't tell to your dino "Go learn how to swim", but you would gradually move to lakes and try to adopt his life to a lake. Then, as the time goes by, he would reach a perfect adoption to that environment. His temperature and skin would be adopted to live most of the time in the water, he would have already learned to feed in the water and now that he spends all the time in the water he would start to learn how to swim close distances (elephants do that, you know) until he is a great swimmer. It's just an example, but evolution was that way, butin the reverse process, when the animals started leaving the water to live on the ground.

I think now you know how I would like evolution to happen (oooops, I just jumped to the third chapter.. hhe). About the ecology, when you say that the balance between veggies (I call herbivorous that way) and carnivorous would be the point, you are absolutely right. I think that one of the goals (but not the kind of goal that when you reach the game ends) would be finding the most abundant food supplies or being the first to found one. The key point to your success in the game would be adopting your dino to leave in an environment where is the best "Food Quantity/Amount of Dino's eating that same food". For example (a veggie one), there is a huge amount of food deep in the Forest, but there are many carnivorous dinos there, when there is a reasonable number of food near the rivers, but a well-adopted dino would be much less vulnerable there.

About the "mean temperature", it's a simple way to define the huge mechanics in animal's adoption to a certain temperature. Dino's blood temperature wasn't constant, therefore the dino's adoption to a certain environment in its "Metabolism" (is that the word in English). In a place that the temperature is high, the dinos would have to rest a lot, so that their body temperature doesn't go so high, whereas in cold places, the dinos would prefer to be in constant exposion to the sun (when possible) or in constant movement. Maybe they would have to "sleep" during the winter.

An experience that I would like to comment. Early this month, I went to my grandmother's house. It's a city that seems not to have "evolved" with the times. The cities' main activity is agriculture and "cown's raising". There I am able to in contact with the nature a little more than I can be here in my city. Two things are worth a note. I saw too small lizards there (about 1,10m, including their tale) and the nicest thing about them is exactly their tale. It's a really nice evolution, as the big tale is a nice attacking weapon and it also servers as a food supply (like our tummy when we're fat.. hehe). The other thing is a small flying bug that procriates in the rivers there. That thing is a plague. They're everywhere and they keep "biting" you, and when you're hurt, it really itches and you'll be scratching yourself for some minutes. What is the nicest thing about the is their agressiveness. If you sit down for a while, they'll try to attack you. Most of the bugs will run away if you try to slap them, but that one won't. It keeps fly around you to find the perfect place for an attack. I was there and I thought, it would be nice if in the Dino's game I could control my dino's aggressiveness. Say, raptor would be very agressive. They would attack in groups and they're fearless. I wish you can get any idea from this boring paragraph.

About the warmth line you refer to, I think you're talking about what we call "Equador" (in English it should be 'Equator' maybe). The fact is that line can change in a very rare situation. A big meteor passing by too close, for example, can affect with its gravity the Earth axis (Equador) and change it. One more thing. In our current geography, the 'warmth line' changes during year. That's why Rio and Caribbean cities and Florida are so hot in summer. In the summer, that line goes a little up to North (or down to South) and the Sun's rays go straight to those cities, instead of the Equador.

I think the Weather should have a significant impact in the game. Basically, because it also changes the trees and plants on a certain place. If your dinosaur is moving to a Forest, around a Lake or to the desert should have a massive impact on your dino's evolution (or death..hehe).

About the innates defense to ward of herbivores, remembers that while some plants have poison and barks, others have fruits to attract animals. But anyway, I don't know if there were already fruits when the dinos lived.

To discuss the Objects of the Game (and when the game ends), we should first discuss one thing: will the game be scenario based or will it happen in a huge global game of evolution. In the second case, it's much harder to give an objective. But we could have plenty of scenario based games, designed for single and multiplayer games. Some examples: "the first player to develop a dino with the ability to fly wins the game", "take off your dinos before the volcanoes eruption and survive for 50 years" or my favorite "desimate your opponents (other players in the game) veggies. The last player to remain with veggies in the game wins".

I think I'll post a topic now conerning the Time Mechanics. I hope I was able to put my ideas on the paper well enough and that you have been able to get any idea from it. My apologies for the poor grammar.
novice

[NoviceCEO]

C'mon, no ideas?

[Pythagoras]

Thnx for the thoughts NoviceCEO, I'll get back to 'em after I get this homework done.

[NoviceCEO]

Thank you. Take your time.

[Dienstag]

In terms of overarching vision of the game, I must say I'm kinda at a loss. Most of my game-playing experience is with Civ II, so I'm having a little trouble seeing how this Dinosaurs game is gonna work.

Some of my concerns:

-Identity: In Civ II we can play as the Germans, or the Russians, for example. What happens in Dinosaurs? Do we control a herd (or numerous herds) of a single species that slowly evolves? Am I the theoretical "leader of the pack"? If I'm personally in control of more than one species, that seems somewhat unrealistic. Also, does any other player have the same species I do, or is evolution totally divergent?

-Motivation: what is the ultimate goal of the game? World conquest was impossible for any single species of dinosaur, unless you count a "team victory" of suppressing mammals. Any decent Dinosaurs game will include an asteriod impact, and that should be be immensely difficult to survive, and the only motivation to do this will be to say that you did, and things are going to be miserable for a while anyway. I think Pythagoras already mentioned the unlikelyhood of the dinosaurs sending a spaceship to Alpha Centauri. There are more possibilities but I just don't see a really compelling and realistic goal for this game (maybe it should be to be in the best evolutionary position for the sequil: Sid Meier's Birds ).

-Fun: In terms of strategy, Dinosaurs sounds pretty one dimensional. "Find food...don't be food." Allowing guided evolution would increase gameplay at the expense of realism, but besides food, evolution, and the avoidance of the occasional disaster, that's pretty much it for this game. No cities, no trade, no diplomacy, no research, (I'm guessing no throne room, either), no wonders of the world, and so on... Don't get me wrong I think dinosaurs are cool and was fascinated by them as a little kid, but I don't see how they can make a fun (and especially replayable) strategy game. If you've "won" as both herbivores and carnivores, how many more times do you think you're gonna play this game?

I know this doesn't really offer much in the way of new ideas, but that's the best I can do right now. I hope somehow I'm looking at this all wrong, and I'll be pleasantly surprised when the game comes out. I'd be really interested hearing what anyone else has to say.

(final thought: No matter what, velociraptors should kick butt.)
[This message has been edited by Dienstag (edited February 11, 2000).]

[NoviceCEO]

Thanks for the comments Dienstag.

It's all very hard for us to try to predict how will the game be.

"-Motivation: what is the ultimate goal of the game? World conquest was impossible for any single species of dinosaur, unless you count a "team victory" of suppressing mammals. Any decent Dinosaurs game will include an asteriod impact, and that should be be immensely difficult to survive, and the only motivation to do this will be to say that you did, and things are going to be miserable for a while anyway. "

Think of the Sim serires. Sim City and now the just released "The Sims". What's the point of Sim City? What's so fun about getting a bunch of roads and blocks, just to see your city grow? Anyway, damn it's fun.

"I think Pythagoras already mentioned the unlikelyhood of the dinosaurs sending a spaceship to Alpha Centauri. There are more possibilities but I just don't see a really compelling and realistic goal for this game."

You told me you have some experience with CivII. But tell me, where is the reality in Civ2? Being a leader that never dies? An imortal emperor? Having units that are 800 hundreds year old and can still move? And, controlling a Civ like that? Are you God or what?

"-Fun: In terms of strategy, Dinosaurs sounds pretty one dimensional. "Find food...don't be food.""

Some games were sucessful with similar objectives, as in Quake's "kill everything, don't let 'em kill ya". But anyway, I hope they take a different path in Dino than in Quake.

novice

[MidKnight Lament]

quote: Originally posted by NoviceCEO on 02-13-2000 12:01 PM Some games were sucessful with similar objectives, as in Quake's "kill everything, don't let 'em kill ya". But anyway, I hope they take a different path in Dino than in Quake. novice

don't we all...?

[Graag]

Well I wrote it all out, but since Pythagoras thinks his idea is too good for a public forum, I do to. I also point out that I wrote what I wrote before reading anything about Dinos, anything at all. My entire knowldege of dinos was it's title.

This is a link to it.


Graag

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You should never smoke in pyjamas, you could start a fire and burn your face
[This message has been edited by Graag (edited February 17, 2000).]

[Graag]

I've now read your ideas, Pythagoras, and they're good. Not too dissimilar to mine, really. My main reservation or critisism of your view of the game is that it is too based on SMAC. Having never played SMAC I am not tainted by it, and, reading through your webpage I think your idea is too reliant on very artifical SMAC based concepts. Still, a damn good plan.

Graag

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You should never smoke in pyjamas, you could start a fire and burn your face

[Patriqvium]

I found your article some hours ago, and I's like to tell that those victory conditions sound very good. Hopefully they will enter the final game even in some form!