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Topic: Realistic random events

dfTruF
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Joined: 2015-02-15, 21:32
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Posted at: 2015-02-15, 21:55

Greetings.

I think that this game would have many more enthusiastic players (especially on custom maps) if Widelands provide element of realistic random events (at least optional as a custom map's feature, expressed in probability) such as: famine, crop failures, building fires, accidents in mines, transport, and at construction sites, etc. In my opinion Widelands, and any other settlers like game, is too schematic without such random events, because everything works like in rigid, predictable clock which is very unrealistic.


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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2015-02-15, 22:02

I like the schematic because it makes it predictable and so makes it more a game of skill, and especially against another human player i would never want to win or lose because a big building that was economically important got on fire.

but it could be added as an option that can be tjrned off.


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dfTruF
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Posted at: 2015-02-15, 22:18

king_of_nowhere wrote:

I like the schematic because it makes it predictable and so makes it more a game of skill, and especially against another human player i would never want to win or lose because a big building that was economically important got on fire.

but it could be added as an option that can be tjrned off.

Turn off some events would simply mean to set it on 0% of probability. Besides, some nasty events could be prevented by effective methods, for example many accidents with fire would happen in buildings far from water, or many accidents in mines would happen when tired workers are forced to bigger productivity for a long time.

Edited: 2015-02-15, 22:22

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kaputtnik
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Posted at: 2015-02-16, 08:06

dfTruF wrote:

Turn off some events would simply mean to set it on 0% of probability.

If the player could turn this of, i assume this would ever be turned off. But maybe i am wrong...

Besides, some nasty events could be prevented by effective methods, for example many accidents with fire would happen in buildings far from water,

Which means, if there is fire, there has to be a fire brigade, or the carriers leaves there job and fight against the fire.

or many accidents in mines would happen when tired workers are forced to bigger productivity for a long time.

Sometimes i also think about something like you do... f.e. rain/snowfall wasn't seen in widelands. It must be a sunny place face-smile.png Or a story, whithin after a couple of time something happens (monsunrain (flood), heavy winter, gods hand ...) This could visual be doable with a video which starts after the given time and afterwards some economie is broken.


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wl-zocker

Joined: 2011-12-30, 17:37
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Posted at: 2015-02-16, 08:20

Natural disasters have already been discussed at Launchpad: https://bugs.launchpad.net/widelands/+bug/732747


"Only few people know how much one has to know in order to know how little one knows." - Werner Heisenberg

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GunChleoc
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Posted at: 2015-02-16, 08:27

Maybe something like this could be modelled as a scenario in Lua, to test how players get along with it. Of course, we can't have carriers go off to fight a fire at the moment, but you could experiment with burning down buildings

https://wl.widelands.org/docs/wl/reference/


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dfTruF
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Posted at: 2015-02-16, 09:39

> *wl-zocker wrote:*
>
> Natural disasters have already been discussed at Launchpad: https://bugs.launchpad.net/widelands/+bug/732747


Not exactly, because here we talk about all realistic random events, even connected to work process of each individual building and settler. And such events normally occur with much bigger probability than wide floods, hurricanes or any other disasters connected with map's bigger regions.
For example:
* accidents in transport could mean losing random amount of transported goods or carrier;
* accidents in mine could mean losing currently extracted ore unit and halting production for some time (only for this specific mine);
* accidents at construction sites could mean losing random amount of building materials or worker;
* crop failures could mean losing crop unit, which was growing recently;
etc.

Edited: 2015-02-16, 09:56

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SirVer

Joined: 2009-02-19, 15:18
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Posted at: 2015-02-16, 19:47

Hi dfTruF, welcome to the Widelands forums!

What you are describing sounds more like Anno 1502 or similar games, not much like Widelands at all. I think stuff like this is great for scenarios, but it has no place in the default rules of Widelands.

Besides, realisms (as you mentioned in your first post) is a terrible guiding principle for game design. And random events that affect players unevenly is a sure fire way of making a frustrating experience that feels unfair.


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dfTruF
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Posted at: 2015-02-16, 20:49

SirVer wrote: ... Besides, realisms (as you mentioned in your first post) is a terrible guiding principle for game design. And random events that affect players unevenly is a sure fire way of making a frustrating experience that feels unfair.

I think that this is subjective aspect. Some players like element of unpredictable accidents (of course when it is balanced through proper probability and when it can be prevented by applying proper strategy). For example for me, Widelands would be much more playable with such optional feature (at least in single player random map).


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SirVer

Joined: 2009-02-19, 15:18
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Posted at: 2015-02-16, 21:32

optional feature

That is also a trigger word of mine - optional means "nobody uses it". It makes the game more complicated (error prone) without adding much. I like your ideas for (multiplayer) scenarios, but not for the core game mechanics.


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