Game Development: Civilization Census

[jorb]

We've been developing tonight, and here's what's new.

New System: The game now keeps dynamic track of ingame civilization levels by means of what we call the Census System. This means that the old creature levels, determined by simple distance from the Ring of Brodgar, are now retired. Three things increase the civilization level of an area: Hearth Fires, Houses (1/20 as much as a Hearth Fire) and The Ring of Brodgar itself (Worth 50 Hearth Fires). This means that, as an area gets more civilized, through the building of houses and hearth fires, creatures in it will become progressively less dangerous.

Creatures now also display the nearest approximation of their level, in their avatar, in roman numerals.

Here is a newly generated worldmap, which includes all recent road projects and the like (please note that it lacks ridges, and that the textures look like crap): http://www.havenandhearth.com/portal/re ... exture.png (I am insanely impressed by the impact you guys have had on the map)

...and here is that same map with a danger overlay based on official civilization census number 0: http://www.havenandhearth.com/portal/res/map-danger.png

You will note that, for example, the tristate area Laketown/Clayshire/Leperbunny Commune now spawns level one foxes, and that creatures down in Bottleneck are now at around level two/three.

The census is updated once every IRL hour.

Update: A high industrial alignment should now yield more wrought iron when processing blooms. (2/3 with max industry, zero at max nature)

Fun Trivia: Before this update, the server had been running without interruption for 36 hours, a new record since we started getting users.

With this new system in place, I think I can promise that the next update will be a lot more fun in terms of stuff to do. Also, I'd like to remind everyone that it is still possible to vote for us.

Happy civilizing!

[Malicus]

Hrm, does this mean that the pink area is now where bears start appearing?

[jorb]

That would be accurate. Using a bow is cheating, though.

[Ferinex]

This is interesting. Very interesting indeed. :D

[Malicus]

I don't fight bears, myself. They're more on my "things to avoid" list. =P

[Dennislp3]

I love this update...i love the new map view too...its awesome seeing our impact on the world....i just hope we can start destroying old unused stuff now...seems like we are getting cluttered...especially around Brodgar.....

[Trafalgar]

I haven't gone looking for bears either, but I do still have to fight other things. I'm curious what your solution for bows is going to be (If you've even decided :P). I'm nature specced, so if I want melee weapons I would have to trade for them or for the metal bars to make them (unless I want to use unarmed or a stone axe). I'd also have to trade for metal armor or the bars to make them (and presumably keep replacing them) - which is why I use a bow and leather armor instead.

[jorb]

I actually don't mind if you exploit the lack of pathfinding to the fullest extent possible. Bear Capes flooding the market will be a painful thorn in the side reminding us to fix that. Bears will have their day, and no new creatures will be implemented until pathfinding is fixed.

[theTrav]

Hurah! That was a high item on my wish list which is now checked off. All we need now is dynamic forest zones and I'll be calling for a map restart ^_^

As an aside, I don't reckon we need the 50 points from brodgar, I'd much rather see it without those 50, or with something drastically smaller (like 5 or 10) or perhaps just a much sharper fall-off

[Malicus]

[quote="theTrav"]Hurah! That was a high item on my wish list which is now checked off. All we need now is dynamic forest zones and I'll be calling for a map restart ^_^[/quote]

I declare that nobody should call for a map restart until "geological features" for mines are generated, myself. =P

Edit: The failure to use BBCode thing this forum does is... buggy.

Edit 2 (instead of reply to self): How would the danger map look if ONLY the RoB was considered? Would it look pretty much just like the old ring map?