Natural Disasters (Edited:7)

[Peter]

Well, hold on...
This is Suggestions, where plausability takes a back seat to awesome.

Now, my basic argument for natural disasters is not that we need something rolling over the land, destroying everything; no, we need them as a motivation for co-operation and challenge.

Consider floods; let's say your town is on a riverbank for the trade advantages and access to water. However, rain clouds appear and it is clear the waters will rise. The whole town works together, shoveling earth to make waterbreaks and other defenses, until the town is safe, and in the aftermath, finds washed-up timber and good soil for farming. Or, the town splinters and no one tries to protect it, and thus, it's washed away.

The Flood is not a random instant-loose condition; it is a reward for co-operating and a penalty for failing to do so.

A less severe example is the lightning; it can harm and even kill Hearthlings, and may damage possessions- but only those possessions that are going to decay away anyway, and only those Hearthlings that don't seek cover. Imagine that you are exploring and get caught in a storm. You might run into a house for safety, and talk to the locals, whom you might not have met otherwise. Perhaps they'll be friendly- and of course, perhaps it might be safer in the storm- but the "disaster" drove interaction between the players, which is what an MMO is all about, right?

The Earthquakes are an even more apt example of how these disasters could cause interesting actions. Imagine if everyone on the multigrid gets knocked down by an earthquake- which means that somewhere in the grid, a new mine has appeared!
Quite possibly, earthquakes could cause cave-ins in mines, that might get teams of miners "trapped" and unable to travel anywhere, even home, until they've reached the surface.
However, this might also expose rich veins of ore otherwise hidden!

[canned]

I just wonder about 1 thing... how long would disasters like flood or volcano eruption last?
And shouldnt floods have a quite set pattern, or reason to happen? if yes, then some areas should become nile like areas, shouldnt they?

[Jevon]

Think of it also as natural selection, if you cant be bothered to protect something if you know it is succeptible to danger and destruction, you're just asking for it to be destroyed. These ideas might not be ideal for people who log off for long(ish) periods of time, as they might be caught by one when they're not there and not have time to defend. Even though this is quite harsh, It would provide extra challenegs for more experienced players out in the open.

I just wonder about 1 thing... how long would disasters like flood or volcano eruption last?
And shouldnt floods have a quite set pattern, or reason to happen? if yes, then some areas should become nile like areas, shouldnt they?

Floods would last for a while, not too long though or it could be too much of a problem to deal with. I don't know about an approximate time... (feel free to suggest! )
Same with volcanoes, the eruption would last about 1 ingame minute, and the lava flows could be something like, 3*6 or 4*6 tiles width*height, coupled with the slow nature of lava this would provide ample time for scouts to find out about and alert other members of the IMPENDING DOOOM and set up defences.

I like the idea of certain longish rivers becoming nile-esque, as this would provide a rich new environment, and encourage population growth along the rivers, also the fertile land would provide excellent crops. These towns would have to have a system and routine though, as if they block their crop-land from being flooded the next time then they would lose out on the extra fertility the flood has to offer. Edited main post with a precipitation meter to gauge how susceptible an area is to flooding, along with 'seasonal' or 'regular' floods that happen say, every two or three H&H months or so.