Ups and Downs of Living Together

[Blaze]

Currently, even the densest and most populated of towns are relatively cleanly, with the worst I've seen being baskets being left everywhere after someone builds them for LP. From what I heard of city life back then, hygiene was virtually non-existant, and since people generally disposed of garbage of all types by dumping it outside, it was near impossible to travel on foot without stepping into the feces of one species or another. Giant piles of filth eventually attracted rats of all sorts that spread disease and ruined food. Rats then spread diseases to animals as well as people, rabies turned regularly timid animals into dangerous ones, meaning they had to be dealt with or risk harm to the citizens.

Therefore, I suggest that densely populated areas should have to maintain their cleanliness or suffer the consequences of a filthy village, i.e. drop in productivity, disease, unhappiness, etc. I'm sure the rest of you can figure out what general messiness and dirty jobs should exist.

Also, it'd do the newer players some good to have weak animals also spawn in lower level areas. Namely, chickens, cows, cats, dogs, pigs, and sheep, so that new players can practice their combat skills (Supposing that the current LP system will get scrapped in favor of one requiring "hands on" experience - meaning making baskets and roasting meat will not teach you how to kill bears with your bare hands) and gather materials without having to grind massively. Their more dangerous counterparts: hawks, wolves, buffalo, mountain, lynxes (oh god), wild boars, and wild goats; would exist in wilder areas and give better quality materials (Assuming the item quality system works as planned).

More later, but this is generally how I see it.

[dasneik]

So I heard that heathlings leak poop.

Somehow I feel that getting rid of excess/extra materials should be rewarded with a little LP gain, if we were to encourage tidiness. No problem with the liftables/structures ([D]estroy) but that about items? (including shit, if they can be picked up) Maybe we should have an incinerator or something? As for disease, maybe some "disease clouds" that prevent SHP regen (or worse, SHP poison) would pop up occasionally around filthy areas.

[ArPharazon]

Were there plans for disease/poison in HH or am I confusing it with DF?

[Rift]

i dont recall anything official saying there "would" be poisoning ect... however, obviously by looking at curses/hexes and various spirits... obviously there will be some negative effects on hearthlings.. You could make something like unclean spirits come out of messes that you leave too long, or like if you keep your village untidy your house-spirits get upset and haunt you or something.

[Delamore]

"I don't live in a big city so punish those who work together"

[ArPharazon]

Actually he does, I think.

[Yolan]

Hmm. I dunno, the filthy squallor of cities first requires actual cities to make sense, right? I mean, 20 people does not make a city.

Until more building options are enabled to allow for dense living, plus more crafts + options for trade/sale, I don't see any real cities developing in this game.


More to the point... what is the point of this feature? I mean, 'realism' isn't really enough is it?

Quite frankly, H&H scares the loving bejeezus shite out of me when I think of the _work_ involved in playing on it. And really, I love it, its great, but do we need any more features that add on to that for no particular reason?

Sorry to take a dump on your idea, but....

[Junkfist2]

"I don't live in a big city so punish those who work together"

At the risk of being catty, pretty much this.

Right now this game needs more incentive for communal living, not less. The natural inclination for players in this game is to continually disperse so that we can all have our own private farmsteads with a nearby forest full of bears.

[Blaze]

I guess the bolding on the words "Densely" isn't visible enough, perhaps I should use size tags?

I suppose at this point, it doesn't really have much affect, for current towns it'll probably be like spring cleaning every week or so. It's more of a eventual thing once we get more people trickling in. It'll also act as a measure of a town's activity, so new players know which places should have people and which places they can inhabit; among less lawful uses of such knowledge. I'm pretty sure I submitted an idea for specialized towns and "town only" crafts/buildings, I suppose I'll need to dig it up.

Edit: On second thought, I think it'd be better if normal buildings generate only a small amount of "waste" and yet-to-be-implemented benefit-giving buildings generate more. That way, normal towns can function normally without having to do so much maintenance, and highly productive towns could do more, at the cost of having to clean up in order to maintain their boosted production level. Like in the "Civilization" series of games.

[Potjeh]

I think most of the waste management should be one-off labour investment, such as building a sewer. Some regular maintenance in exchange for increased production sounds good, though.