Entirely hypothetical poll (Game discussion)

Say someone were to make a game similar to, for example, TEF or FH, in the fact that it's based around animals and community. What sort of animals would you like to see? Should it focus mainly on one animal, or have multiple creatures to play as? Should there be some sort of theme? Would more realism or fantasy be more interesting? What are your favorite features of similar games?

Again, this is all entirely hypothetical and probably nothing will come of it. But it's some fun thoughts to toy with!
I've included a voting system this time for each idea, every vote will be marked with a |. There is no limit on how many things you can vote on, as long as they don't clash with each other.

Ideas to discuss in the comments:
Non-chat based interaction(Body language, facial expression, etc) { | }
Non-chat interaction + chat { ||| }
Difficulty-based servers (Ranging from No challenge/Peaceful to Hardcore) { }
Realistic wing movement and flying
Fall damage { | }
Reluctance to go certain places { | }
Replacement for invisible walls (Mountains, strong tide, rough wind currents) { |||| }
NPC hunting in place of players being hunted { ||| }
Hunger/Thirst/Health system { || }
Sleep system { ||| }
Ability to play as a child { || }
Ability to go through a lifecycle, up to adulthood { || }
Singleplayer challenge modes { }
Ability to turn certain aspects of the game off { | }
Pregnancy { || }
NPC mates { }
Player mates { || }
Stamina { }
Optional wings for all creatures { | }
Singleplayer + Multiplayer options { ||| }
Fantasy and Realism servers { }
Unrealistic markings+colors { }
PvP area and/or server(For hunting/being hunted) { }
PvP options(Can be toggled on/off) { }
Status tags(OOC, AFK, etc. Can be toggled) { | }

Suggested themes:
?

Suggested animals:
Dragons { | }
Gryphons { | }
Various birds { || }
Horses { ||| }
Donkeys/Mules { | }
Canine { | }
Deer { || }
Feline { | }
Hybrids? { }

I'm into ground dwelling

I'm into ground dwelling animals & I like the whole pack/herd dynamic. Though certainly be interesting to play a flyer as well... Diversty would be amazing.

Bumping this because I found

Bumping this because I found it again, and the discussion kind of died. Oops... >3>

Teeny Requite by Dapper.

non-chat based interaction

non-chat based interaction {although there will be a chat}, realistic wing movement & flying, replacement for invisible walls, npc hunting, sleep, ability to play as a child, ability to go through a lifecycle, ability to turn certain aspects of the game off, & serperate ooc & rp servers - approved.

dragons, horses, wolves, deer, - approved
maybe felines? dunno, sounds a bit too much like arokai.

found a game that depicts a lot of species - {link} but it doesn't seem active. the last post from an administrator was almost 7 months ago.
Aquilo's picture

I really like Poppy's idea.

I really like Poppy's idea. There's a game in production called Arokai that looks quite similar to FH (but better, no offense) that will have the options to play as a canine, feline, bear, owl (or it could be multiple bird species idk), gryphon, dragon, or cervid/antelope. Quite frankly, it looks freaking amazing. ;;
Here is their Tumblr development blog, and here is their official forums (log in required).

You can find trailers on Youtube, they look pretty sweet. (: I do believe they also released a beta of the character creation (not the game, just the character creation), but it might be for only canines as of now... This one (OUTDATED!) shows off their work on the character meshes/customization as of October 2010. There's obviously a lot of work they still have to put into the environment, game mechanics, etc.

Let's hope it reaches completion and gets released to the public and doesn't die out before we even get to play it! :s
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Waning-Sun's picture

Oh this! I still stand by a

Oh this! I still stand by a lot of what I said(my opinions don't change super fast) and my ultimate goal would be to make a game like this.

Oh, I don't remember if I mentioned it before, but I like the idea of the game going into a screen saver type of mode when it becomes idle- like say after five or so minutes of inactivity- where the character isn't necessarily completely stationary but can mill about- groom, sit, rest, graze, stare about- a specific radius from where you're at. Nothing big would happen- say being attacked or anything like that- but it'd sort of be like when your deer goes to sleep in game, just sort of a slow circle around the character and its surroundings.



{e} I like the pregnancy idea Poppy! You never really see the baby bump.
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Poppyflower's picture

Yay, glad to see this get

Yay, glad to see this get bumped! C8

My ideal game would be a game where like I mentioned before, you could live out the life of an animal. Maybe with a singleplayer and multiplayer version-kind of like gamevial`s Lif, but without chat. Maybe you could have the option to play as a child.

Something I think would be really interesting is if you elected to play as a baby, you could come into the game as the child of two players that had bred. It would probably take a while to load though, since you can`t have kids every two seconds XD And there`s always the possibility that everyone`s going to want to play as a kid-so perhaps there could be a limit based on the amount of pregnant players in the game. /shrug

One thing that I haven`t seen so far (for example, in Lif or WQ) is for a female`s pregnancy to actually show. For example, their stomach could get bigger as it progresses. It could also be made more realistic; for example, your character wouldn`t be able to run as fast when the baby is close to being born, and their hunger and thirst levels might go down further.
~Poppy~
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Pixel Wis by squeegie~

@Toppled: Alright, I put up

@Toppled:
Alright, I put up your votes and added felines to the tally. If you have any other ideas to suggest, feel free to!
And yeah, a lot of games with this kind of idea in mind tend to be over ambitious with too little staff, so they tend to die out pretty quickly. Sad, really :c

@Aquilo:
Ah, which idea would that be? Poppy had quite a few :3
Yes, I'm well aware of Aro'Kai existing, but we already went over on the first page that this is a discussion of what would be fun in a game, not really a discussion of existing or in development games. It's okay to bring it up as an example of something, but not really for it to be all that you're talking about.
Sorry if this comes off as a bit snappy, I'd just prefer this discussion not to get derailed again.

@Waning:
Alright, I skimmed your previous comments and added them to the vote! I'd love to make a game like this too, if I ever get enough free time to devote to it.

Poppy:
Ah, your player child suggestion reminded me of a game called Web Earth Online, they actually have a system similar to that. You get placed with either a real-player family, or an NPC family. The NPCs have babies too, so that their population doesn't go down too much with hunting, so it's pretty cool. Other than that, maybe a shown marker of how many baby spaces are available?
Added the Pregnancy and Single+multiplayer suggestions to the tally.


Also, I added another couple of things of my own up there, hybrid models of the chosen species (IE Deer+Dragon, Feline+Canine, etc.) along the lines of Khimeros with their split hybrid species, unrealistic markings+colors, and Fantasy and Realism servers. Fantasy and Realism servers would have similar mechanics, except for the fact that some of the things available in the fantasy server will be disabled, such as dragons, non-avian animals with wings, unrealistic markings, stuff like that.

Teeny Requite by Dapper.
Aquilo's picture

@magnanimous: No problemo! (:

@magnanimous: No problemo! (: I didn't know. I meant this idea:

I think it would be really nice if there was a game that let you live out the entire life of, say, a wolf or a deer. You could pick their species and gender and such, and that could be the basis of the entire storyline. Maybe you could unlock new species as you go along? Your animal could have certain characteristics and behavior based on their species. The choices you make could immensely impact the game.

If there ever a multiplayer like this, I wouldn't want it to be chat-based; maybe based on body movement and sound, since that's the way these animals communicate in reality.


To add, I'd like the ability to forage for food if you're a deer. I think thirst, food, and health aspects could become very interesting. Also, if there is another deer MMO, maybe you could escape predators. c; That would be neat.

As for the voting, I'd say my biggest wishes are...
-Non-chat interaction + chat
-Realistic wing movement and flying
-Replacement for invisible walls (Mountains, strong tide, rough wind currents)
-NPC hunting in place of players being hunted
-Hunger/Thirst/Health system
-Sleep system
-Singleplayer + Multiplayer options
-Multiplayer mates*

*Now, let me explain something here... IF there are mates in the game, let's say you go through an entire life from baby to elder, you can get pregnant and/or have babies, etc. then it will require some feature of courtship for a mate (like WolfQuest for example). As long as there isn't any real sexual content, I don't see why we can't have player mates. I think it would be interesting, more interactive, and encourage a form of parental teamwork, ya know? Just my two cents.

As for species, I'll give my votes to Horses, various birds, and deer (but I still love TEF of course ♥)
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@Aquilo: Added your votes to

@Aquilo:
Added your votes to the tally.
As for the player mates, yes there would be courting, and no there would not be any actual sexual content. No matter what the creator's stance on sex was, you wouldn't get many people, perverts excluded, who'd be terribly interested in playing if it was included as such. Strange as "Kiss kiss, you're pregnant" may seem, it's kind of necessary to some extent if you want any business.
Other than that, shared parental roles are pretty cool, it's a lot easier to deal with babies that way. Even better is if you can share the roles with an entire group, helping each other out! ^u^


I removed the Realistic flying from the vote, since that'd be pretty nice no matter what, and added PvP area/server and PvP options (server-wide, not just an area) to the vote.
Also, I was thinking, maybe instead of separate servers for OOC/RP, have an OOC tag that can be toggled on and off?

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Waning-Sun's picture

I like having the idea of an

I like having the idea of an OOC tag that could be toggled on and off. Makes it a lot easier than separate servers.
Avatar by Meadow. Siggy © Shey & Squeegie

Mhm, that's what I was

Mhm, that's what I was thinking. It's a lot less expensive to host, too, which is a really big issue with a lot of games like this.

Teeny Requite by Dapper.