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Food and Water


The_War_Doctor

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We're survivors, embarking on a journey to save mankind. Of course we need food.  :P

Ma'am, I hope that someone can make a high-calorie food, cause I ain't gonna keep returing at base to gather food. Either that or I'm going Metal Gear Solid 3 : Snake Eater. And I have eaten snakes. Let's just say the results were... combustible.

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Ma'am, I hope that someone can make a high-calorie food, cause I ain't gonna keep returing at base to gather food. Either that or I'm going Metal Gear Solid 3 : Snake Eater. And I have eaten snakes. Let's just say the results were... combustible.

 

I'd imagine there will be food that's high in energy, and going by other aspects of the game, it won't be easy to make or come by. I don't forsee food being such a hindrance as to divert from anything. Energy, making important equipment will be time consuming and challenging, I think it will all fit together nicely in a way that makes sense. 

 

I really appreciate a game that has depth. It seems there are so few games out there these days with real heart and soul, real meaning and depth of gameplay. So much of it is surface, superficial.

 

Truly I look forward to a game that feels gritty, and sometimes even difficult, with surmountable obstacles. Having to eat, and not just that, but having the necessary technology necessary to grow the food, farm it, process it...all adds to the complexity of gameplay.

 

At this point we're shooting in the dark, but I don't equate food with a survival game. Dual houses many aspects, and it is essentially about surviving, but it's not at its core a survival game. We'll need to survive temperature, as mentioned in another blog, attacks from other players, we'll have to master travel and improving technology, obtaining and using fuel supplies. There's going to be so much we need to do, it feels deep, meaningful and purposeful when all elements are put together.

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I'd imagine there will be food that's high in energy, and going by other aspects of the game, it won't be easy to make or come by. I don't forsee food being such a hindrance as to divert from anything. Energy, making important equipment will be time consuming and challenging, I think it will all fit together nicely in a way that makes sense. 

 

I really appreciate a game that has depth. It seems there are so few games out there these days with real heart and soul, real meaning and depth of gameplay. So much of it is surface, superficial.

 

Truly I look forward to a game that feels gritty, and sometimes even difficult, with surmountable obstacles. Having to eat, and not just that, but having the necessary technology necessary to grow the food, farm it, process it...all adds to the complexity of gameplay.

 

At this point we're shooting in the dark, but I don't equate food with a survival game. Dual houses many aspects, and it is essentially about surviving, but it's not at its core a survival game. We'll need to survive temperature, as mentioned in another blog, attacks from other players, we'll have to master travel and improving technology, obtaining and using fuel supplies. There's go to be so much we need to do, it feels deep, meaningful and purposeful when all elements are put together.

It's only fair that if ships need fuel, so do the players. I mean, humans are just complex machines of flesh and blood

 

-- and if you ask about me in particular, I'm 99% salt at this point in time.

 

Hmm, though I wonder if food can be in the game, how many people will DO actually go and build a shack in the middle of nowhere and roleplay a crazy hermit. O_o

 

 

I know Yamamushi is gona roleplay a priest of Cthulu or something. I wonder if he goes up to a guy RPing a hermit saying :

 

"Hello there sir, may I interest you in the word of our Lord and Savior, Cthulu of R'Yieh."

 

 

"Get off my lawn!"

 

So immersive :P

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We're survivors, embarking on a journey to save mankind. Of course we need food

 

I think as last people from Earth we rather need love, as universal source of energy and well being  ;)

 

But, jokes aside, there is some middle ground on "consumption needs": food/water as a benefit, but not necessity. It is simple idea - you can live infinite time on imaginary "rations", provided by a suit (think Dune stillsuits), but if you are full and hydrated, you will perform some tasks (slighly) better. Think about some kind of temporary "buff" - nothing overpowered (that will be drugs), but above-average performance, when you have enough supplies to sustain yourself.

 

This way we will not be limited by agriculture in cases of exploration or pvp, but long-term settlements (or ships big enough) with food-production capabilities will provide better life for its inhabitants.

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I think as last people from Earth we rather need love, as universal source of energy and well being  ;)

 

But, jokes aside, there is some middle ground on "consumption needs": food/water as a benefit, but not necessity. It is simple idea - you can live infinite time on imaginary "rations", provided by a suit, but if you are full and hydrated, you will perform some tasks (slighly) better. Think about some kind of temporary "buff" - nothing overpowered (that will be drugs), but above-average performance, when you have enough supplies to sustain yourself.

 

This way we will not be limited by agriculture in cases of exploration or pvp, but long-term settlements with food-production capabilities will provide better life for its inhabitants.

This I can back as an idea. Sure, you can survive on a suit's repurposed... uhm... waste, but eating fresh food will keep your body on top conditioning.

 

 

Plus, if cybernetics are introduced to the game, that would mean you'll need a special diet >_> 

 

Ain't no part of yo body gonna provide coolant for that shiny arm Bucky :P

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I was reading through the devblogs earlier, and had either forgotten about, or hadn't processed this part before: 

 

So we will need food it seems, which I am glad about, it just depends on how it will be implemented. 

 

From this devblog: https://devblog.dualthegame.com/2014/08/17/about-the-alpha-gameplay/

 

Edit: Seems Halo381's post above partially answers that.

 

 

 

(Posted Sunday 17th of August 2014 on the DevBlog

 

At this stage, it is not clear if we will have enough time until the alpha to implement NPC animals to come and bother you during the night, as well as serve as hunting preys. But that’s the idea, because you will need to feed yourself, and the nanoformer cannot make wood-based lunch for you!

 

We are also thinking about farming and hunting, because you will need food.

 

 

That devblog actually mentions two times that we will need food.

But, as I said elsewhere, I don't think it's going to be minute-to-minute like a survival game.

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That devblog actually mentions two times that we will need food.

But, as I said elsewhere, I don't think it's going to be minute-to-minute like a survival game.

 

Hopefull not minute-to-minute. I already have nightmares about parking meters.

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im a big fan of survial games, i even go as far as to mod the food system to be more unforgiving as i like to torture myself.

 

that being said i just do not see using the food mechanics that survival games do in an MMO as being a good idea. its just far too large of an audience that all has to play the game on the same settings if you will.

 

what i would like to see is complexity and industry, and i do think food has a place here. perhaps there can be some semi complicated recipes for food that can be used as buffing items, or restoring health like some other games.

 

but what if when a player city reaches a certain size or complexity that food becomes one of its fuel requirements as if it has an unseen npc population. then people could build big ol farms and the processing plants to go along with them.

 

i would think it would be easy for any organization large enough to build a city to find a few people who want to play farmer to handle their food production. this way only the players who want to deal with a food mechanic would have to. they also could just buy the food from the market as well, if other players have manged to produce it a bit more cheaply.

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One thing we can't get around, if a game can have survival elements, especially food, many would ask for it. It's quite a cycle.

 

I will be brief here. It's simple depth\complexity issue. What is exactly food system giving us and at what cost? First, it boggles new player experience. It punishes players from the start with hunger, is first mechanic to learn, and so bloats what player must learn quickly. And what does it give? After initial food problem is settled, player is periodically bothered by something that doesn't have a lot of gameplay decision making. Just eat anything and be fine. And if eating is big part of immersion... well, that's sad news. If you are not feeling immersed, unless your avatar bothers you periodically with biological needs... you get me, we have a problem. Food should offer concrete advantages to the gameplay to exist, and especially periodical hunger. DU is already shaping up to be one of the most complex MMOs (more so than infamous EvE), there should be damn good reasons to bloat mechanics.

 

With that said, CaptainTwerkomotor idea about medicine making is quite excellent (yes, he also has excellent ideas). One thing we can expend it into is manufacturing, make special organic materials with unique properties. Manufacturing those would involve biology study, and exploration of different ecosystems to build proper bio manufacture process. It is awesome way to involve players with planets biospheres and is very original sci-fi element. Maybe I will do a thread about how I imagine it later...

 

for those who don't understand what I'm talking about and why I don't want food.

 

Cheers!

 

I hate this forum on mobile....

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im a big fan of survial games, i even go as far as to mod the food system to be more unforgiving as i like to torture myself.

 

that being said i just do not see using the food mechanics that survival games do in an MMO as being a good idea. its just far too large of an audience that all has to play the game on the same settings if you will.

 

what i would like to see is complexity and industry, and i do think food has a place here. perhaps there can be some semi complicated recipes for food that can be used as buffing items, or restoring health like some other games.

 

but what if when a player city reaches a certain size or complexity that food becomes one of its fuel requirements as if it has an unseen npc population. then people could build big ol farms and the processing plants to go along with them.

 

i would think it would be easy for any organization large enough to build a city to find a few people who want to play farmer to handle their food production. this way only the players who want to deal with a food mechanic would have to. they also could just buy the food from the market as well, if other players have manged to produce it a bit more cheaply.

I finished Fallout New Vegas on the modded Hardcore mode (the one that needed you to take a dump, yeah, that one) and finished it after 10 weeks. I had my fair share of the survival extreme genre :/ If food is t exist, it has to be a tame situation, not torture :/

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I think as last people from Earth we rather need love, as universal source of energy and well being  ;)

 

But, jokes aside, there is some middle ground on "consumption needs": food/water as a benefit, but not necessity. It is simple idea - you can live infinite time on imaginary "rations", provided by a suit (think Dune stillsuits), but if you are full and hydrated, you will perform some tasks (slighly) better. Think about some kind of temporary "buff" - nothing overpowered (that will be drugs), but above-average performance, when you have enough supplies to sustain yourself.

 

This way we will not be limited by agriculture in cases of exploration or pvp, but long-term settlements (or ships big enough) with food-production capabilities will provide better life for its inhabitants.

 

Love is what often drives us to survive. We survive to love I believe  :D Food is a fuel and to keep us going we eat from necessity. I mean, aside from it tastes good, it has to taste good in order for us to desire to eat and keep our bodies energised. 

 

I do wonder if food will have benefits in gameplay terms, buffs or healing properties in pvp for example.

 

 

 

 

That devblog actually mentions two times that we will need food.

But, as I said elsewhere, I don't think it's going to be minute-to-minute like a survival game.

 

 

I agree, I think a lot of things will come into consideration and each feature will work fluidly with each other, whether its working for energy sources, or food, I think they will work well.

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One thing we can't get around, if a game can have survival elements, especially food, many would ask for it. It's quite a cycle.

 

I will be brief here. It's simple depth\complexity issue. What is exactly food system giving us and at what cost? First, it boggles new player experience. It punishes players from the start with hunger, is first mechanic to learn, and so bloats what player must learn quickly. And what does it give? After initial food problem is settled, player is periodically bothered by something that doesn't have a lot of gameplay decision making. Just eat anything and be fine. And if eating is big part of immersion... well, that's sad news. If you are not feeling immersed, unless your avatar bothers you periodically with biological needs... you get me, we have a problem. Food should offer concrete advantages to the gameplay to exist, and especially periodical hunger. DU is already shaping up to be one of the most complex MMOs (more so than infamous EvE), there should be damn good reasons to bloat mechanics.

 

With that said, CaptainTwerkomotor idea about medicine making is quite excellent (yes, he also has excellent ideas). One thing we can expend it into is manufacturing, make special organic materials with unique properties. Manufacturing those would involve biology study, and exploration of different ecosystems to build proper bio manufacture process. It is awesome way to involve players with planets biospheres and is very original sci-fi element. Maybe I will do a thread about how I imagine it later...

 

for those who don't understand what I'm talking about and why I don't want food.

 

Cheers!

 

I hate this forum on mobile....

 

An excellent post Draco.  And you reasoning against food is quite robust.  I would like to point out that some people LIKE complexity (I am very guilty of this).  I find that if properly done it can be quite rewarding.  

 

An example I would use is The Secret World.  When most people left the game their stated reason was "it sucked". :mellow: (Not a useful response when devs want to improve something.)   When asked to further elaborate, the most stated reasons oddly enough weren't "it was buggy or unplayable" (It did have these moments but what MMO doesn't in the beginning?)  It was things like "I couldn't get past Blue Mountain" (this was the zone right after the starting area.) and "The investigation quests are too hard."  These factors were due to "irreducible complexity".  However, that was the game was about.  People who came from games like WoW could not wrap their head around the idea that you had to change your role, skills, and equipment on the fly. They didn't get that "I want to play a tank, or only with pistols." was an unacceptable stance to have.  As for the investigation quests.  One literally had to investigate.  You had to take notes, interpret languages, decipher codes, look up information, and you know 'think'.  If you could overcome these hurdles you had access to a game rich in story-telling, lore and possessing incredible "depth" of gameplay.  

 

Notice though FUNCOM has never shied away from this complexity they made the game they wanted to, they don't have the player base that other MMO's have but they are okay with that.

 

The 'Food in DU' topic fits in the same category.  

 

Is it a complexity?  Sure.  

 

Will it drive some people away IF they implement it?  Undoubtedly.  

 

Are the devs okay with "irreducible complexity"?  Absolutely.  

 

You'd be hard pressed to think otherwise, and if you do I'm not sure what game you've been following.  I've been following the one that is going to allow me to design, build, and shape my own ships from SCRATCH no less, AND write my own LUA and HTML5 programming into it.   

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Maybe you have to eat only to use the nanoformer...

 

 

https://devblog.dualthegame.com/2014/08/17/about-the-alpha-gameplay/

 

I did not talk much about energy at this stage, because it is still under discussion. But the nanoformer, and of course more powerful tools or weapons, will need energy sources. For the nanoformer, it could simply be your body heat, so all you need to do is to (h)eat. We would need to get some serious future pseudo-science to explain that however, because the Watts available will be rather limited!

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That there could be a big clue. Heat/eat. Body temperature and food/eating it appears, might be used in some interesting ways.

Well, it would ALSO explain how we survived in cryo stasis and we have implants in our brains.

 

We are Terminators, Skynet succeeded in eliminating humanity but the latest reboot of the series pretty much made Skynet to wanna bail off of planet Earth.

 

And I'm okay with that. ^_^

 

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Blog post for it here, 7th paragraph down (but I suggest reading it in its entirety).

 

Didn't see someone had already posted this but here are my 2 cents anyways  :P

 

At this stage, it is not clear if we will have enough time until the alpha to implement NPC animals to come and bother you during the night, as well as serve as hunting preys. But that’s the idea, because you will need to feed yourself, and the nanoformer cannot make wood-based lunch for you!

 

There will be food and water needs as well as other considerations you need to take into account;

 

Your first task will be to create a safe house to protect yourself from the cold of the night, as the temperature differences on this planet are much stronger than on the Earth.

 

Now the real consideration is how this will be implemented. I think The more complex the meal the long you will have to go before eating. So if you have the cheapest most basic thing you can find to eat then you going to be eating much more often than if you spent a small amount of time to actually prepare something or buy the little bit more expensive food. Most that do not want food just don't want immersion and only care about combat. Also if we don't need food or water why need oxygen? Or fuel for our ships? Or power for anything?

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I was reading through the devblogs earlier, and had either forgotten about, or hadn't processed this part before: 

 

 

So we will need food it seems, which I am glad about, it just depends on how it will be implemented. 

 

From this devblog: https://devblog.dualthegame.com/2014/08/17/about-the-alpha-gameplay/

 

Edit: Seems Halo381's post above partially answers that.

The picture is suggestive as well, of different kinds of alien prey, which could different caloric contents of different kinds of effects. Maybe a rare type of strange gazelle meat would allow for faster speed, so it could even start a whole black market of poaching, not to mention the legal food industries.

 

And to think of all the beautiful furs and pelts that could be used for...clothes.... Sigh.

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Is food meter really necessary?

 

I'd prefer an "hunger meter".

  • below 30% you get bonuses (running speed?)
  • over 50% you get penalties
  • when reaching 100% you die of hunger.

 

it can take 12 hours to start feeling hungry again (30%)

and several days to die (100%)

 

 

also, we can be certain food will be a thing:

 

 

We are also thinking about farming and hunting, because you will need food.

 

source: https://devblog.dualthegame.com/2014/08/17/about-the-alpha-gameplay

 

 

 

The only reason I am OK with that, is because it will create a limitation for the lone explorer to deals with.

Bringing food requires storage, and probably other thing to "support" your life in the wild of a new planet.

You will not be able to stay forever if you came unprepared and unaware of what you are doing.

 

Beside that, I cannot see why I would enjoy playing farmer

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  • 3 weeks later...

This whole "needing food" thingy worries me. Call me absurd, I still find it like Tamagotchi is Space as an idea.

Don't worry I'm sure we can come up with an automatic Tamagotchi feeder for some and a farm biodome for the others. It's just another crafting recipe in the 3d printer thing.  Just look at all the food in Second Life, it does nothing. In Eve online it's just trade goods and decoration. I even have a design for food for one game that gives you the ability to spend your skill points in an imaginative way. Beats the boring skill menu.  If only I could do code! 

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One thing we can't get around, if a game can have survival elements, especially food, many would ask for it. It's quite a cycle.

 

I will be brief here. It's simple depth\complexity issue. What is exactly food system giving us and at what cost? First, it boggles new player experience. It punishes players from the start with hunger, is first mechanic to learn, and so bloats what player must learn quickly. And what does it give? After initial food problem is settled, player is periodically bothered by something that doesn't have a lot of gameplay decision making. Just eat anything and be fine. And if eating is big part of immersion... well, that's sad news. If you are not feeling immersed, unless your avatar bothers you periodically with biological needs... you get me, we have a problem. Food should offer concrete advantages to the gameplay to exist, and especially periodical hunger. DU is already shaping up to be one of the most complex MMOs (more so than infamous EvE), there should be damn good reasons to bloat mechanics.

 

With that said, CaptainTwerkomotor idea about medicine making is quite excellent (yes, he also has excellent ideas). One thing we can expend it into is manufacturing, make special organic materials with unique properties. Manufacturing those would involve biology study, and exploration of different ecosystems to build proper bio manufacture process. It is awesome way to involve players with planets biospheres and is very original sci-fi element. Maybe I will do a thread about how I imagine it later...

 

for those who don't understand what I'm talking about and why I don't want food.

 

Cheers!

 

I hate this forum on mobile....

I'm sure some of us could cook up a deep but not complex food mechanic that wont burden other players. All you need is an auto galley for the non foodie players, space pirates,  and various farm units for the rest of us.

 

We could even have a planter Element that goes on a voxel build with green voxels that grow. Have the voxel mages come up with 2000 crop shapes but it's really just one element replacing a set of voxels with another set of voxels over time in a fixed space. Fuzzy green, brown and wheat coloured voxels. Fruit of all colours and various shapes.

At 25 cm a voxel pumpkins are easy, apples need to be smoothed a little more and wheat is just dirt with a decoration Corn just needs to be a fuzzy voxel with fuzz that goes sideways. If the voxels can have normal maps then we could do even better. Throw in a few bush, stem and leaf meshes, already seen in the demo and we're almost done.  

Add another plate and table Element and the recipes arrange voxels on it and you have a banquette. Almost all art but a notch up from 23rd century space pirate algae hardtack. Of cause the hardtack makes lembas bread look like a light snack. 

 

Add a few non combat bonuses; social standing, awareness and creative intelligence that  buff various skills. Have good food push them up and that does more than just keep you alive. 

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I think they already replied, that for now there wont be any npc in DU, at least humanoid npcs, but later on adding wild life for sure

I think also they didnt solve yet how to plant trees, and farm, or maybe at begning we will have to shape ourselves those trees we want to put in our cities, or maybe they will also have a blueprint for each type for a faster build

When the problem of water (fix or animated) will be decided, all this will pop up at same time probably

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