Natural Disasters (Edited:7)

[Jevon]

Due to a recent dull patch in my intelligence, I placed a wind chime in my cabin, leading to a hellish wind-based grave where everything was destroyed, including me.

This put me in mind of natural disasters, such as earthquakes and tornados, and I got to thinking about random events.
These sort of natural disasters would be made much much less frequent around villages and claims, and so as to not "Pwn n00bz", avoid the start areas completely.

Earthquakes
Very rare, as would create (maybe) permanent changes to terrain.
Starts at one tile, moves in a straight line for X amount of tiles or until reaches water, edge of terrain, cliff etc.
More frequent in those dirt areas, and mountains
Completely destroy anything they directly hit, and cause tremor damage getting weaker as you get further away from the fissure.
Fissures could be explorable, could act like a random mine. (Could create caves in cliffs)
Edit: Could create primitive seismometers to detect areas of possible earthquakeyness (real word) and maybe a tool to calm the ground, using hearth magic or wilderness magic.

Tornados
Size, 2x2 tiles.
Much like normal wind, more frequent on hearth.
Move slower than wind, maybe at normal walk speed or a tad faster, moves erratically.
Causes constant damage on anything on the tile until it moves off, like strong wind in chimes.
Maybe add in another tier of stormchasing skill such as to create a (portable?) tool for catching and harvesting it.
Edit: Instead of just causing damage, could launch items/characters/containers/animals around depending on how strong it is.

Aliens
Edit: Pregnant males, green cows, crop circles, sore buttocks. That is all.

Whirlpools
Basically cause boats to move slower, and cause gradual damage to them.

Flood
Expands the river by X amount of tiles, would get more intense the further you were away from the main grid, so coastal claims wouldn't be massacred.
After the flood drains back into the natural river, would leave behind special plowed/fertile land.
Above, would increase soil/clay ql, and any crops planted on the area would have heightened ql.
Edit: Floods could be prevented in a way by building sandbag walls, for example 5 linen and 5 heaps of sand per wall. This would stop that tile and all behind it from being flooded.
Edit: Areas susceptible to flood could be gagued by building a precipitation meter, sort of like a dowsing rod.

Added: Volcano
Spawns on mountainous terrain, 5x5 tile (or larger) size.
Four states, dormant, active, extinct and plugged.

• Dormant: Has a normal chance of erupting, and after erupting it moves into the Active state.
• Active: High chance of erupting, after erupting 2-3 times moves into Extinct state.
• Extinct: Very low chance of erupting, can be explored like a cave. If it does erupt then moves into Dormant state.
• Plugged: Will never erupt again, volcano sprite/terrain would disappear and leave mountain behind.

If by some maaaagical coincidence, an earthquake hits a volcano, it will either erupt or go Extinct, due to lava pressure release into fissure.
Lava flows from the center tile of the volcano outwards in one direction only, doing big damage to anything it touches and making tiles to either side of it into dirt/clay flats (the brown terrain stuff). When the lava meets water, it stops and creates land one or two tiles into the river. When lava passes over terrain that isn't rock, it could turn it into rock or dirt. Lava would last a set amount of time depending on some factor(s) or could be random.
Lava would move very slowly, so it doesn't just tear through the land and wreak utter havoc.
Extinct volcanoes as stated can be explored like a mine, and will yield special metals and/or gemstones, but there is the chance of it erupting.
Extinct volcanoes can be filled in with boulders.
Volcanoes that erupt will 'launch' boulders in a set radius proportional to its size, and these will damage anything they land on.

Added: Danger Signs
Not so much a disaster, more of a way of telling people how dangerous an area is. Coupled with readings from the seismometer and precipitation meter this could alert newbies and 'The More Experienced' player alike. These could show up on the mini/local maps as exclaimation marks so people can easily find and read them.

In addition to this a proper digging system could be implemented, giving hearthlings the opportunity to dig out trenches and fill them with water to halt the lava movement, aswell as opening up other possibilities.

I might add more as I think of them, and criticise the hell out of this, please !

[sabinati]

wait, you actually died from the wind in your windchime?

[CG62]

Aliens
This, is a joke.

No, I imagine jorb would have a field day drawing what they would do to you...

[Jevon]

wait, you actually died from the wind in your windchime?

I slept next to it, the wind pinged around the cabin and just massacred me >:

[Jevon]

Feel free to suggest any ideas too :]!

[Peter]

Actually, I don't know why, but the aliens almost sounds like it would work.

I also like the idea of randomly-occurring new mine locations; it makes sense, since old mine locations eventually run dry.

Here's the thing, though; your ideas, while good, don't address how these can impact whole player groups. How can these natural disasters cause people to work together or against one another?

Thunderstorm:
in addition to rain, (which possibly makes it darker, even during the day), lightning stabs down randomly. Moving makes you slightly more likely to be hit, but if you go at a crawl you are pretty safe, since presumably you're hunching down. Metal armor makes you somewhat more likely to be hit; getting hit does some significant damage, but does not automatically kill you. If it strikes sand, it can create fused glass artifacts. It's not just hearthlings that can be hit; items that are hit take varying amounts of damage- an anvil might be thirty times more likely to be struck, but it would take no damage, while a loom would basically explode. A thunderstorm can stop battles and force everyone inside homes, which encourages conversation, and would cause towns to stow everything safely inside when it rains.

I like the flood idea, though I'd lower the cost of embankments; how about just soil walls that gradually wear away? Also, I don't know how well it would work from a technical perspective... maybe you could have "flooded grass" and "flooded forest" tiles...

Swarm: The bees are angry! A multiple-tile swarm of beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee(eee)s appears and chases hearthlings. They can't be harmed effectively with normal combat skills, but anyone can disperse it a tile at a time, and equally effectively; unlike normal combat, the weakest hearthling is just as strong as the strongest. The bee stings are a brief stunning effect. Also, someone with beekeeping can attempt to tame a tile of a swarm and gets a "tame bees" item that may either be worn (ok, maybe not) or can be used to improve the quality of a hive.
Alone, the hive will most likely stun you mercilessly until you pass out. With even a small group, they can be defeated; and with a well-coordinated town you might get a nice bonus!

[Jevon]

How can these natural disasters cause people to work together or against one another?

I see your point here, although the volcano idea could get people furiously digging while others bring water to fill the trenches, also relocating some items that unfortunately cant be protected in time.

[Froggeryz]

yes, I'd love to get my stuff destroyed instantly

and ofcourse we need more stupid things to die to

[Cain]

While all these suggestion may or may not make the game better, I have no doubt that they are all *incredibly* difficult to program, and as such don't really have any chance of being implemented. Plus balance issues would be a nightmare because the game world is persistent.

[sabinati]

let's leave the death and destruction to the players for the time being, eh?