Small Suggestions Thread

[Dune]

Got a suggestion but don't feel it needs an entire thread? Post it here in a reply!
We read through all of the replies posted here, so each will be taken into consideration even if a staff member does not reply!

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[gozoo]

Hey,

I posted a suggested portrait sprite change on the Untold Tales forum, but in case you don't see it, here it is again:



I shortened the muzzle and added whiskers for more realism; my whisker spots are different than yours, though, since your original design didn't have spots. In any case, I hope you consider my edit to your design!

[gozoo]

I also tried to edit the head of your side sprite. Not sure if it looks better or worse than the original, but I guess it's up to you. Originally, I felt like the head was too long, so I made it rounder. I still feel like it's wrong somehow, like the head's too small for the body. :/

 

Edit:

I feel like it looks better with a face. Not sure. XP

[Dune]

Thank you for the input, edits, and suggestions Gozoo! I appreciate you posting them here as this is my go-to instead of the UT tales forums now, though the thread there is still checked!
I'm not entirely sure I'll be using your exact edits, but I will definitely look into efiting the sprites to fit your suggestions of a shorter//rounder face. I may not change portraits though, but it should be noted that whiskers and other small details are definitely going to be added - but I really do want to make them semi-transparent, as well as those seen on the in-game sprites themselves. I'm slightly worried if I make the face too short for the default cat face type ( there will be plenty as to fit the types that exist in cats ), there may not be ample room for some of the face markings I want to be available.
However, I will look at the sprites you've provided and play around with them to see how well they'd pan-out in-game.

[gozoo]

You're welcome! That makes sense! I guess you should do whatever you feel is best for the game!

[Dune]

Thank you for understanding! But I really do appreciate your thoughts abd the AMAZING edits you did!!

[gozoo]

I have a lot of small suggestions/ questions, so pardon me: 

1. Will character portraits also change with age (Kit -> Elder)?

2. Would there be a family tree function, or some way to find out your cat's blood/ mate/ mentor/ apprentice relation to another?

3. I'm assuming there will be individual logins. If so, it would make sense to note the username on the profile of the cat. It would also be cool if you had a basic way of tracking each cat that died for each user's pleasure (name, age at death, gender, Clan, rank, reason of death, any accomplishments).

4. Are you planning on having different skill trees/ abilities for cats? For instance, battle skills, hunting skills, hunger/ thirst/ health parameters, swimming, endurance, speed, withstanding certain conditions (e.g. how long can you stay outside of the camp in the middle of Winter before you freeze to death), etc.? 

5. In accordance with the seasons, it would be really cool if your cat portrait background could change with the season. I know it'll be a long time before small details like that would be implemented, but it would be a cool touch. Same with your already suggested optional visible physical injuries that your cat might accrue over time.

6. Depletable and refillable fresh-kill piles in each camp would make sense. In the event that there aren't that many players online, will you program the NPC's to refill the fresh-kill piles? It would also make sense for prey to diminish during Winter or certain weather periods (e.g. drought), or for prey to alternate based on seasons (i.e. in the game Don't Starve, red birds appear in Spring and Summer while blue birds appear in Winter, rabbits become white-furred, penguins appear in Winter, etc.).

7. Maybe once a moon (however long that moon will be), you can also have Gatherings. 

8. To be promoted to Warrior status from Apprentice, it would make sense to have to complete certain objectives as well as reach a certain age. It would be awesome if you could actually make some sort of ceremony take place/ just a dialogue box that says the ceremonial words in italics, and then a "Congratulations! ___paw became __(insert Warrior name here)___". 

9. Who gets to name our characters? It makes sense that we would get to name our own characters in the initial Creation screen, but if we take over a kit from a pregnant queen or undergo the Warrior Naming Ceremony, then who gets to decide the name? 

10. It may or may not be feasible, but it would be interesting if you added a "Create a Patrol" button or something, similar to the way other MMO's might make a party list for raids. In the books, patrols are usually made by cats with a position of power or respect (e.g. Leader, Deputy, senior warriors), but in terms of an MMO, it might make more sense for just any players within a clan to be able to create a patrol. 

11. If you ever find the time, it would be cool if you could assign a points system for the clan and/ or individual cats (e.g. hunting, "winning" battles, playing for X amount of days, etc.). It would be cool if we could earn titles for characters, too, in addition to the traditional clan ranks or designations, like "Expert Hunter", or unlock small rewards, like different pelt colors or abilities. This would just be something extra, I guess. It would be very interesting, but I also wonder if a points system would be a good idea, since it would increase players' competitiveness and clan divisions. 

12. When you mouse over or click on another animal or important landmark, it would be nice to have a name, description (gender, age, Clan, rank, etc.), character portrait, and interaction options. It would probably be useful to have floating names above characters in-game, similar to Runescape. It could include the name, rank or age, and gender (a male or female symbol). Age or rank could either be written or color-coded.

13. A map would definitely be useful! It could also include landmarks. A sight or smell-based tracking system would be useful. Maybe it could be similar to the game WOLF DOS's? WOLF DOS has a smelling button (when the button is clicked, pictures appear in different directions surrounding your character to represent where those other animals/ landmarks are and how far away they are), a hearing button, and a marking system (urinate to mark territory lines). Alternatively, the Untold Tales prey system is simple but cool. In the games Lif 2, Fly Like a Bird 3, or WolfQuest, different animals leave colored trails, or far-off animals appear as colored dots on the map. 

[Barracuda]

I love every single suggestion here gozoo! I'm sure Dune have most of these planned, but I'm not too sure ;o

[Dune]

Jul 19, 2016 15:17:32 GMT -5 gozoo said:

I have a lot of small suggestions/ questions, so pardon me: 

1. Will character portraits also change with age (Kit -> Elder)?

2. Would there be a family tree function, or some way to find out your cat's blood/ mate/ mentor/ apprentice relation to another?

3. I'm assuming there will be individual logins. If so, it would make sense to note the username on the profile of the cat. It would also be cool if you had a basic way of tracking each cat that died for each user's pleasure (name, age at death, gender, Clan, rank, reason of death, any accomplishments).

4. Are you planning on having different skill trees/ abilities for cats? For instance, battle skills, hunting skills, hunger/ thirst/ health parameters, swimming, endurance, speed, withstanding certain conditions (e.g. how long can you stay outside of the camp in the middle of Winter before you freeze to death), etc.? 

5. In accordance with the seasons, it would be really cool if your cat portrait background could change with the season. I know it'll be a long time before small details like that would be implemented, but it would be a cool touch. Same with your already suggested optional visible physical injuries that your cat might accrue over time.

6. Depletable and refillable fresh-kill piles in each camp would make sense. In the event that there aren't that many players online, will you program the NPC's to refill the fresh-kill piles? It would also make sense for prey to diminish during Winter or certain weather periods (e.g. drought), or for prey to alternate based on seasons (i.e. in the game Don't Starve, red birds appear in Spring and Summer while blue birds appear in Winter, rabbits become white-furred, penguins appear in Winter, etc.).

7. Maybe once a moon (however long that moon will be), you can also have Gatherings. 

8. To be promoted to Warrior status from Apprentice, it would make sense to have to complete certain objectives as well as reach a certain age. It would be awesome if you could actually make some sort of ceremony take place/ just a dialogue box that says the ceremonial words in italics, and then a "Congratulations! ___paw became __(insert Warrior name here)___". 

9. Who gets to name our characters? It makes sense that we would get to name our own characters in the initial Creation screen, but if we take over a kit from a pregnant queen or undergo the Warrior Naming Ceremony, then who gets to decide the name? 

10. It may or may not be feasible, but it would be interesting if you added a "Create a Patrol" button or something, similar to the way other MMO's might make a party list for raids. In the books, patrols are usually made by cats with a position of power or respect (e.g. Leader, Deputy, senior warriors), but in terms of an MMO, it might make more sense for just any players within a clan to be able to create a patrol. 

11. If you ever find the time, it would be cool if you could assign a points system for the clan and/ or individual cats (e.g. hunting, "winning" battles, playing for X amount of days, etc.). It would be cool if we could earn titles for characters, too, in addition to the traditional clan ranks or designations, like "Expert Hunter", or unlock small rewards, like different pelt colors or abilities. This would just be something extra, I guess. It would be very interesting, but I also wonder if a points system would be a good idea, since it would increase players' competitiveness and clan divisions. 

12. When you mouse over or click on another animal or important landmark, it would be nice to have a name, description (gender, age, Clan, rank, etc.), character portrait, and interaction options. It would probably be useful to have floating names above characters in-game, similar to Runescape. It could include the name, rank or age, and gender (a male or female symbol). Age or rank could either be written or color-coded.

13. A map would definitely be useful! It could also include landmarks. A sight or smell-based tracking system would be useful. Maybe it could be similar to the game WOLF DOS's? WOLF DOS has a smelling button (when the button is clicked, pictures appear in different directions surrounding your character to represent where those other animals/ landmarks are and how far away they are), a hearing button, and a marking system (urinate to mark territory lines). Alternatively, the Untold Tales prey system is simple but cool. In the games Lif 2, Fly Like a Bird 3, or WolfQuest, different animals leave colored trails, or far-off animals appear as colored dots on the map. 

1. Yup! Portraits are very relevant to age, fur type, health, body type/weight, etc!

2. I am hoping to create such a function, but if not, I'm thinking of a way to record such details within each clan, or area.. Say, one cat like a leader is in charge of such. Or maybe, there is a large rock a cat can visit that is ".. seemingly old as time itself .." one can 'interact' with to get a viewing of all current cats' bloodlines, or your select clan/affiliation's lines? Either way it pans out, it should be some sort of function in game, even if in the first premature phases/releases, an online record on maybe here, or held by staff in-game until the function is in-game. This needs more concrete plans, but I'm not really content with any ideas concerning family trees yet. Maybe a literal tree per area? Haha

3. Seeing we are going to be hosting this game via BYOND, there will be indeed a requirement for logins. I am thinking a character view menu [ alive, dead, or whatever ], will be accessible where character creation is - the game lobby/before joining and playing with other users. It is unfortunate, but I may have to look at putting a limit on "saved" characters - dead or alive.. However, that will be a storing system, and I'm not entirely sure the limit i should set up for it currently. In any case, if there are characters a user wants to remember, I may create a board on here for users to store character's history, profile, etc, on their own threads.

4. Most certainly! I also want to make some 'skills' inborn boosts for cats from/born in certain clans/maps. And to prevent god-like cats, some it'll likely be a point system.. If you are familiar with Sims 2 and the zodiac function, something maybe similar to that, but on a more detailed and massive scale.

5. Planned for it!! Also, portraits should change with the map your cat is located on, in-game.

6. I'm not sure about NPCs doing it themselves at this point, but I would very much like for that to be the case. Worst case scenario in terms of refilling the fresh-kill pile when there is a lack of users in one clan; timed restock. Three minutes or less per prey item, in times of good hunting sounds about right..
But prey availability and type will most definitely change based on season, weather events, or just disaster events in general - which will be an occurring thing at random.. But don't worry, we won't overdo it with various "acts of starclan".

7. Gatherings will likely be player dependent - clan leaders must take charge and legitimately attend gatherings with their clans. But there will be reminders in an OOC chat, or in the lobby. If a leader fails to attend, it will either be seen as a roleplay element, or a staff member will take over for that select clan's leader. Leaders will be a very important position, as they are in the books, so we will be opening applications for such positions in each clan upon first release of TWP.
A failure of attendance without it being roleplay, a reason listed to game staff, or just lack of online activity will call for the leader to be replaced. Users will be not be banned, but just barred form re-applying for the leader position.

8. I would like objectives in place, some of which are mandatory to become a warrior, others of which provide stat boosts [albeit minor], based on your clan or heritage/bloodline. I really want there to be legitimate ceremonies for apprentices becoming warriors, but a dialogue box may be handy if a Leader is not online, busy, or otherwise. This is a decision I need to flesh out further, quite honestly.

9. If you are born, and not personally creating your own cat, you and the Queen [ in OOC ] will need to come to an agreeable name. NPC Queens will allow you to pick your own name, or choose one based on your cats physical appearance at birth.
For warrior naming ceremonies, if you do not go the dialogue box route, you should converse with the leader in OOC to come to an agreeable name before the ceremony occurs.

10. I like this idea. However, such a feature would come later in development as I want to encourage players to work together, plan, hunt, and patrol as clan members or otherwise.. I want to inspire tight-knit clans, a need for cooperation, and overall give it a feeling clans are nothing without the cats who live within them. Our userbase should be able to create their own niches, relationships, and cultures as it were.

11. I am in support of the idea of earning titles. I am uneasy about a point-earning system, but may add one - but points would be minor and very select // you'd need to work to get them. Afterall, you can be a master hunter after just a few mice, you feel? I do see the appeal, but I really would need to strictly flesh out such a concept before feeling comfortable with it being a feature.
Pelt/Traits unlocks will likely not be a feature - pelts/traits will be dependent on lineage and maps/environment.. Among a few other things.

12. I am planning on provide character, landmark, and item details as a popup in chat after right clicking something, and selecting the "inspect/check" option. As for names or otherwise above heads, I am for it, but as an optional feature, because I want players to get to know each other's characters via roleplay. Making it optional allows for this, but also helps players who'd rather not do such - everyone wins.

13. Full detail maps will be available via this forum. However, I may add a "learnt/explored" map system in-game, meaning you can only see where your cat has been. The rest you'd have to explore to learn/add to your map. I am trying to find a nice way to implement hearing besides a "press [button] to listen.." and allowing a description of sounds in your ear-shot to appear in chat. As for smell, I loved what WolfQuest and A Dog's Life did - a mode that allows you to "see" scents in a colour related to the animal you are smelling in a grey-scale world. I'm thinking it be paw-prints [ or whatever in on the ground ] in smell mode, and only when you get close could you "see" puffs of the scent in mid-air. During this mode, you could inspect the tracks, scent, and get a text description in the chat box with a blurred portrait of what you may be tracking. The higher your ability to track and smell is, the less blurry, and more concrete descriptions you'll receive in the chat.

Thank you tons for all the suggestions and thoughts Gozoo, you are really full of awesome ideas and thoughts and I appreciate you!!

[gozoo]

Thanks for the extensive reply! It sounds like you've already started making some great plans for the game!

The inherited or gained skill boosts sound really cool.

I never thought about having a "family tree" to record your family, literally. XD That's a potentially good idea, but I wonder how it would be feasible to see ALL lineages, considering that not all cats would be from the same lineage, and if there were a lot of 2nd generation cats (e.g. 2 freshly made cats had kits -> kits grow up as 2nd generation), then there would be a huge amount of tiny isolated family trees. If you do plan on a database of family trees, maybe you could enable a search function or something? I guess that's just one of many considerations. I do like the Sims 2 Zodiac idea, to determine skills or personality (or maybe even "ideal matches" between mates).

Would you allow forbidden romances, or would specific conditions/ consequences need to apply (or would they just not be allowed to take place)? Can you switch clans or go rogue/ kittypet (or come back to a clan) like in the books under certain circumstances? Untold Tales did a pretty nice job in this part.

The disaster or special event conditions sound like something that would spice up the game. I like the idea of timed fresh-kill restocks in the absence of characters. I just wonder if there will be times there won't be enough food to go around. That could be a potential disaster event, whether programmed to take place or just a coincidental occurrence. Being forced to eat crowfood and risking catching a disease would be a sad but interesting disaster scenario.

This is more of a late-game consideration, but would incest of sorts be allowed to take place (e.g. in the Sims, characters can be romantic if 2 generations removed or something like that), or would you not be able to mate with someone at all if someone appears in your family tree/ lineage (assuming you have a family tree, or if you figure out how to tag characters with same lineage markers)?

Environment and character-status-based portrait changes sounds like a great touch!

The OOC chat box sounds like a good idea. That naming system sounds like it'd be agreeable to most people! So in terms of dialogue, are you planning to have a panel/ hotkeys for in-character chat/dialogue/ action options and an alternate chat box? I played a small MMO called Attorney Online, and they have a window to see characters, a panel to input in-character actions and dialogue, a panel to see a transcript of what characters said, and an OOC chat panel on the side.

If you ever get time to do it, the learned map function sounds like a good implementation.

That prey system sounds great!

Also, will your character only age when you're logged in and playing (like Untold Tales), or will your character passively grow (e.g. close the game for 2 weeks, come back later and your character is older)? If it's the latter, will there be an option to postpone growth (e.g. you want to go on hiatus)?

[Dune]

Aug 3, 2016 12:01:04 GMT -5 gozoo said:

Thanks for the extensive reply! It sounds like you've already started making some great plans for the game!

The inherited or gained skill boosts sound really cool.

I never thought about having a "family tree" to record your family, literally. XD That's a potentially good idea, but I wonder how it would be feasible to see ALL lineages, considering that not all cats would be from the same lineage, and if there were a lot of 2nd generation cats (e.g. 2 freshly made cats had kits -> kits grow up as 2nd generation), then there would be a huge amount of tiny isolated family trees. If you do plan on a database of family trees, maybe you could enable a search function or something? I guess that's just one of many considerations. I do like the Sims 2 Zodiac idea, to determine skills or personality (or maybe even "ideal matches" between mates).

Would you allow forbidden romances, or would specific conditions/ consequences need to apply (or would they just not be allowed to take place)? Can you switch clans or go rogue/ kittypet (or come back to a clan) like in the books under certain circumstances? Untold Tales did a pretty nice job in this part.

The disaster or special event conditions sound like something that would spice up the game. I like the idea of timed fresh-kill restocks in the absence of characters. I just wonder if there will be times there won't be enough food to go around. That could be a potential disaster event, whether programmed to take place or just a coincidental occurrence. Being forced to eat crowfood and risking catching a disease would be a sad but interesting disaster scenario.

This is more of a late-game consideration, but would incest of sorts be allowed to take place (e.g. in the Sims, characters can be romantic if 2 generations removed or something like that), or would you not be able to mate with someone at all if someone appears in your family tree/ lineage (assuming you have a family tree, or if you figure out how to tag characters with same lineage markers)?

Environment and character-status-based portrait changes sounds like a great touch!

The OOC chat box sounds like a good idea. That naming system sounds like it'd be agreeable to most people! So in terms of dialogue, are you planning to have a panel/ hotkeys for in-character chat/dialogue/ action options and an alternate chat box? I played a small MMO called Attorney Online, and they have a window to see characters, a panel to input in-character actions and dialogue, a panel to see a transcript of what characters said, and an OOC chat panel on the side.

If you ever get time to do it, the learned map function sounds like a good implementation.

That prey system sounds great!

Also, will your character only age when you're logged in and playing (like Untold Tales), or will your character passively grow (e.g. close the game for 2 weeks, come back later and your character is older)? If it's the latter, will there be an option to postpone growth (e.g. you want to go on hiatus)?

My pleasure, Gozoo!

Glad you think so.

I think a search function may be required at some point, especially if the game gains more players than expected [ I would love the game to have a huge and active community, but! ]. I think so trees don't look too isolated and odd, of connecting them all to "Starclan" if they are a cat who is created from scratch by a player, or an NPC without genetic background. I'm also thinking of maybe including a "closed and opened tab" function, with generation labels, clan labels, etc.. Kind of how spoilers work on proboards forums, where you click show to.. Show. Lol. That way, it wouldn't be too messy if there are a lot of cats.
I'm happy to hear your support for a zodiac sims' 2 - like system! I think ideal mates might be interesting!

Consequences could apply, but as with all kinds of rule-breaking well ... You're only in trouble if a clan-member catch you and spills the beans. Starclan of course would be aware, and that could effect your cats, but I'd like to make that a small percentage chance of some kind.
Clan switching and joining is welcomed, but truly, up to the clan leader in the end.

I am thinking I'll have to program a percentage chance for food to spawn more slowly, to cause some sort of shortage disaster. I'm also thinking of giving players in starclan some sort of voting system to allow disasters or otherwise to happen to living cats.
I welcome such a scenario, because it would inspire players to be active members of the game for the benefit of their clanmates, at the very least!

Incest, as much as I dislike it, will be allowed for the simple fact it is the reality of such a game. However, without some sort of generational gap, there will be consequences for your kits! Weak from birth, stillborn, disfigurement, or mutation. The closer cats are related, the higher chances of such occurrences in kits will be.

I'm very glad to hear your support, it will be a bit to create all the various blank portraits for such, but so worth it! 

I'm thinking of chat working with small commands or hotkeys that have to be inputted before sending a message. Such as " ;OOC [ ooc message here ] " for OOC chat, so on and so forth. For in-character actions showing up as dialogue, it will be automatic when your character takes an action.. Say your cat pounces on a mouse or other prey npc, it will placed in chat for locally present cats to see. "XPelt pounced on a mouse, but it got away!" for example. You should have the option to mute certain channels though, such as OOC, therefore, it'll all be in one big chat-box to the side of the screen. Above it, your cat's status, name, age, and the time. Along with portrait and location.

I will certainly include it at some point, even it comes as a later game function.

Prey just gives a bit more accurate feel, so I thought it was fairly important!

I want there to be a passive aging system for offline players; but nothing major. No body wants to come back in a week and have a cat be like four moons older or something! I will allow application for character freezing for people going on hiatus, via this forum. But the second they are back on our BYOND lobby, character aging is automatically re-enabled. They'd have to re-applying to keep the character frozen again - we don't want anyone cheating and having immortal cats!

[gozoo]

Connecting all lineages to StarClan does sound like a good way of eliminating the problem of isolated family trees! Good idea! I also agree with a spoiler function or tab function. :3

Hmm. I guess for a "tattletale" system, it would depend on if other cats were in the area, then, and if other cats cared enough to tell. I briefly played the Dragon Ball Generations game, and I found that a major problem with the game was that I could hardly tell where I was, let alone if other players were remotely near me. A map function or something that could lead me to other players would help minimize that problem... Unless I just didn't know about that functionality. Idk. XD

Consequences of inbreeding sounds like a good idea. Otherwise, people probably wouldn't care about who mates with whom.

After playing on Byond myself, I see what you mean in terms of the "small commands" sort of thing. That'll probably work! When the game is further along, making a Wiki with a basic guide or explanations of different parts of the game would probably be useful!

That sounds like a decent aging system!

[Dune]

Sept 5, 2016 0:59:22 GMT -5 gozoo said:

Connecting all lineages to StarClan does sound like a good way of eliminating the problem of isolated family trees! Good idea! I also agree with a spoiler function or tab function. :3

Hmm. I guess for a "tattletale" system, it would depend on if other cats were in the area, then, and if other cats cared enough to tell. I briefly played the Dragon Ball Generations game, and I found that a major problem with the game was that I could hardly tell where I was, let alone if other players were remotely near me. A map function or something that could lead me to other players would help minimize that problem... Unless I just didn't know about that functionality. Idk. XD

Consequences of inbreeding sounds like a good idea. Otherwise, people probably wouldn't care about who mates with whom.

After playing on Byond myself, I see what you mean in terms of the "small commands" sort of thing. That'll probably work! When the game is further along, making a Wiki with a basic guide or explanations of different parts of the game would probably be useful!

That sounds like a decent aging system!

I'm glad you agree!

Each member of a clan is important to the clan's survival; if a cat [ in this case, two, but from differing clans.. ] wonders off for a long period of time without excuse beforehand, I think it would be reasonable to have the clan leader send out a patrol to search for them.. Even just two cats, searching the area. Worst case; the cats are found and a fight or similar breaks out, cats possibly thrown out of their clans - Best case; the patrol[ s ] cannot find the missing cat[ s ] and wait for them to return, to scold them and question their disappearance. The less players online, I'd expect, the more serious a response to missing clan members.. Especially, say, if tensions between clans were high for whatever reason. 
In any case, there will be some way to track cats, and a map system [ maybe not displaying all players, maybe just those in your clan, and with filter options ], so I'm not too worried about forbidden love happening often.

I think a Wiki will be best, but I'll also create guides and FAQs on here for easy access, too.

Glad you think so!! 

[gozoo]

Yay for maps and wikis! Very useful.