Climate, weather, and RP

[ycleption]

I was just thinking about this question, and was realizing that it's something that should have a pretty big impact on RP, as should the particular weather on a given day. The rain/snow effects help, but there really isn't enough variation displayed as should actually be the case. Often, characters improvise weather ("nice day isn't it"? or "getting cold early this year") but it would be nice to have a bit more... In the MMO, I'm assuming that there will be visual effects for wind, snow, rain, clouds, etc, but those of us living in the midwest know how deceptively cold a clear bright and sunny winter day can be


So, what I would like to see in the MMO, is a little thermometer in the corner, similar to how many games have a compass, that will vary based on the location and time of year, so that over time, players can get a good idea of what the climate is like in different places, and can also RP consistently. This would especially help in areas like the deep, where I've seen people RP as very cold, or very warm, or just ignore. There may not be visual indicators in that kind of area, so another indicator would be useful.

[Hellblazer]

What i`d actually like to see in the mmo, is the passage through seasons. With nwn the only way to do that would have been to redo all the maps but with different tylset that represented the different climate. Which for some would be impossible to do.

Example seeing the passage of winter -> spring -> summer -> fall in hempstead and others area that are usually prone to these changes. I remember that they had did this manually for hlint, adding snow on the trees and such a while back. But that didn't last and was a one time thing i think.

But I'm hoping that with the mmo this is something that can be done overall.

[Marswipp]

Plotting a square grid on a round planet is hard to do...

[Script Wrecked]

An unraveled icosahedron works well.

Regards,

Script Wrecked.

[Link092]

Or better yet, try using those imaginary lines they put on planets for pinpointing locations. it works like a grid. (the latitude and longitude...)



well, that might be hard to do...





oh yes... here:
Map - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion maps might work, script wrecked?

[EdTheKet]

Please bear in mind that we at the moment will release with Tilmar, Corsain and Alibor, so not a full fledged globe.

Good questions though

[Link092]

Originally Posted by EdTheKet

Please bear in mind that we at the moment will release with Tilmar, Corsain and Alibor, so not a full fledged globe.

Good questions though

Har!


"as the solitary slab of earth floats in the sky..."


oh! it's like H2G2! planets are built!

[Script Wrecked]

Actually, it rests on the backs of four huge elephants which are standing on the back of an enormous turtle that slowly swims through space.

Regards,

Script Wrecked.

[Link092]

Disc world!

[ycleption]

Hinduism!

[Link092]

that uses a serpent. it doesn't count!

I just remember my aunt telling me something about a book that has a world as script wrecked described.....

[orth]

Visual representation of weather conditions will exist.

Hopefully be able to tie it into a skill (thinking Survivalism), the better you get, the more accurate your assessment of the weather, not just now but the near future.

"Looks like its going to rain in a couple hours, we should pull out our boots and go attack the Fire Giants while they're strengths are diminished."

Lotsa good ideas. Precipitation/clouds/lightning are easy, visual accumulation (snow on ground, puddles) are not.

[Gulnyr]

Originally Posted by orth

"Looks like its going to rain in a couple hours, we should pull out our boots and go attack the Fire Giants while they're strengths are diminished."

That's cool. Is this more like the fire giants being less effective because everything is wet and therefore somewhat protected from fire or more like the fire giants themselves being weaker because they are wet and less fiery (or otherwise of reduced capacity)?

Are the boots to help protect against less than ideal conditions? That sort of thing would be excellent. One of the things about NWN that bugs me is that it doesn't matter what your character wears to Krashin (or a desert or anywhere else) because the game doesn't look at what is being worn; everyone gets dangerously cold at the same rate whether in a snowsuit or completely naked or anywhere in between. It would be great to see choice of gear matter. A fur cloak would help against the cold, but adding padded clothing, a fur coat, and fur boots would be even better. Just take it off before walking through the desert, where that stuff would just make you overheat faster.

[Leanthar]

Great ideas Gulnyr but man is that hard to implement when you are talking about 1000's and 1000's of items. I love the idea and it is something we are very much aware of, but perhaps we can tie it in to a skill more (survivalism for instance) and not have to fight the balance of 1000s of items (with new ones coming on expansions/updates etc.

Don't get me wrong. I do agree with your thoughts. The question is how and what is the time sink (of which we have tons of already).

[Gulnyr]

Instead of trying to make every wearable item include some sort of environmental stat, too, would it be possible to have only items that protect against elemental damage, for example, also protect against environmental effects?

In NWN, a character can use a cold resistance rod on a belt or cast a cold resistance spell on themselves, which seems like it should help prevent damage from cold of any type. It doesn't work that way, though, since the game handles cold damage from attacks and cold damage from the environment in different ways (which leads to the sadly unavoidable weirdness of getting stupid-cold walking around in the snow but being able to giggle at frosty dragon breath). If cold damage/cold effects were treated identically in the MMO, then having a cold resistant item or casting a cold resistance spell would help protect against a harsh cold environment. It may not be perfect, since that fur coat (with a natural, non-magical cold resistance) wouldn't necessarily hurt your character in the heat of a desert (unless there were also some sort of heat susceptibility on it), but at least it wouldn't have to be applied specially to each and every item; it would already be built into the proper items as part of the resistance they were meant to have.

On the down side, I can see how that could lead to especially hot or cold areas being just like more temperate areas, since everyone gets their hands on resistance rods eventually. Maybe such rods don't have to be quite so easy to make or quite so common in the MMO, though.

[Link092]

also, with the weather, having the climate impact the PC's health would be cool. in the desert, you can easily get heat stroke in the day, and frost bite at night... maybe CON saves + survival skill VS Nature's DC? so that would affect how much water/soup your PC would need to consume to keep healthy... so failing the roll would require you to stop for rest and water, ect. there is more to the Idea, I just need to think out a few kinks....

[Dorganath]

NWN does have items which can be worn to guard against the effects of environmental cold. That's different from resistance enhancements which guard against cold damage.

[Marswipp]

The last stretch of Hordes of the Underdark comes to mind. (Before the final battle.)

[Gulnyr]

I just think it's weird to differentiate. The reason cold dragon breath hurts is because it's cold, and very cold weather hurts for the exact same reason. It just takes longer, maybe. Standing in a cold dragon breath blast hurts, and so does being out in the cold too long. I mean, cold is cold, right? It's odd, then, that a dragon could breathe on a character and cause little effect due to fancy cold resistant gear or magic, but the character could then walk through the snows of Krashin for a few hours and freeze and suffer and lose fingers to frostbite because that fancy gear does nothing against the cold from the environment.

*shrug*

[Dorganath]

Perhaps. I sort of see a difference though between exposure to a cold climate for say...hours or even days (the effects of which tend to be systemic like a growing lethargy, loss of manual dexterity, hypothermia, etc.) and your arm being suddenly plunged into liquid nitrogen (the effects of which are sudden, severe and localized). Granted, long-term exposure to to a cold environment can also result in similar damages, but they take quite a while to manifest, comparatively speaking.

DR against cold can abate the physical damage caused by low temperatures, but it doesn't keep one from feeling those low temperatures.

[Gulnyr]

I can see how a difference could be made, but it still seems weird. I guess I just see things like loss of dexterity and hypothermia as damage (they hurt and hinder, right?), so either something protects from cold (as much as it's able) or it doesn't.

Think of liquid nitrogen, since you mentioned it. It's definitely cold and would definitely cause damage (though I've seen people swirl stuff in it bare-handed and have their finger tips touch briefly several times in a short span of time and end up with nothing worse than chilly, rosy finger tips). But as the nitrogen boils and evaporates, leaving the surface of the liquid, the molecules are barely warmer than they were as a liquid. The gaseous nitrogen is still very cold there, in other words, but you can put your bare hand into it for much longer without damage than you could into the liquid. That's because the gas isn't nearly as dense so it conducts heat away less efficiently. That's basically the difference between an intentional cold attack, like dragon breath, and a cold environment, like Krashin - the attack is concentrated, "dense" cold. Something (like a magical resistance effect) that can block an intentional, supercold attack should be enough to stop a chilly wind. Just as the character doesn't feel the cold of the attack, he shouldn't feel the cold of the wind.

Since I was thinking about it while typing... In a system that can use a broader range of numbers, environmental effects could be set at, say, 10 damage per whatever time unit while an attack could be in the hundreds of damage. Then unprotected people actually could die from exposure. Other effects, like dexterity loss, could be applied at damage thresholds.

[Link092]

The only reason I'm thanking you is because of the Ironic use of High tech terms, and example of thing that would not exist hundreds of years ago, as a comparison to a time frame which doesn't ordinarily use that kind of thinking....

and because it sounds really cool.

[Dorganath]

Originally Posted by Gulnyr

Since I was thinking about it while typing... In a system that can use a broader range of numbers, environmental effects could be set at, say, 10 damage per whatever time unit while an attack could be in the hundreds of damage. Then unprotected people actually could die from exposure. Other effects, like dexterity loss, could be applied at damage thresholds.

This is the one thing really missing from our NWN version of handling cold, that is the possibility of actual damage due to long exposure to cold. Perhaps if that existed, our handling would perhaps make more sense, that being that by the time it got cold enough to start doing damage to a person, those items worn that abate cold damage (in the mechanical sense) would then have an effect.

When I speak of "damage" I mean in the mechanical sense. Mechanical reductions in saves, attack effectiveness, the damage one does and/or abilities (i.e. Dexterity) would fall under the mechanical heading of "effects", and would manifest in the real world as lethargy, stiffness, lowered immunity and hypothermia. All of these things can occur before someone actually begins to suffer actual damage from the cold, such as frostbite, organ failure/shutdown and the like.

[Gulnyr]

I agree that a real life consideration of why cold hands become stiff and less dexterous probably won't include the idea that there was any damage done except in the extreme cases of frostbite and such. In a sense, though, that's basically what's happening. The hands are taking "cold damage" at a slow rate and then tripping thresholds of effects, to say it with a game-rule slant. It's a low level of damage at a slow rate, which is why people don't realize how bad off they are sometimes. Frostbite isn't a sudden affliction on a snowy day and hypothermia can happen in rather mild conditions, after all.

I don't know if that sort of thing would be a good system, but it sounds alright: cold damage causes cold effects. It seems easier to build because there isn't any reason to make more than one kind of cold, and seems more consistent since an item that says it protects against cold actually would protect against cold (up to its rated limit), regardless of the source of the cold.