Topic

The Animal Over Crowding

So one of the common complaints this test were where a person (or people) have gone berzerk on a street and it's become over crowded with wildlife. Its certainly an attention grabber when people go WOW... as their browser crashes. It's a waste of the developers' time and resources when they have to go in and remove a few because it's having a severe effect on the wider community. Well here's the other half of the tree debate... someone has the power to create, but the community has little power to destroy. 

Technical and courtesy issues aside, what to do? Here are some of my thoughts...

1) Put things in balance. A single player can create an unlimited number of animals in a space... but as players we can only move one pig. It takes a massive player effort to undo the effects, and we only stand a chance with pigs. Personally I prefer it when things are skill-linked and expand as you learn more... since Animal Husbandry comes in after Animal Kinship 4, maybe you can only create 4 pigs/butterflies/chickens a day... with an increase each time you obtain an additional AK skill. Equally, you can only move that many animals of a type in a day (for now just pigs) but I'd prefer a 2x on the move. 

1a) The 1x per street per lifetime is hugely crippling, and highly annoying. At home, I put a pig in one room.. then changed my mind and wanted to re-purpose the room, so I moved it. I hated the changes and wanted to move the pig again and I can't. Also, players buying pre-owned homes were having a bit of trouble, and shouldn't need to request a developer to come by and remove unwanted wildlife. I have to get someone to come by to move it for me. Can we get that to 1x per street per *day* perhaps?

2) Give us a way - as players - to help out with the butterflies and chickens. We've been begging for a butterfly net for ages, and here's another great reason for it. It doesn't even have to be an in-game thing carried around, just a picture in the inventory and a small 'working' action like milking or nibble. How about a portable chicken coop and chicken bait? Butterfly Lotion could double as "bait".

3) Give players the ability to make use of the 'caught' items. Perhaps processing a pig or chicken gives you a higher volume of meat, and processing a butterfly gives you a dust of some sort... maybe that dust is used in advanced teleportation or levitation, or maybe you sprinkle it on food to boost the effectiveness.... now you've got a whole bunch of advanced skill and skill tie-in (animal kinship / cooking) avenues.

(Edited to add an after-thought) 
4) Put a max on the per-room creation. When the player goes to release the 100th 'object' they get a message saying 'no more can be created here'. Marylpole had 640+ pigs at one point during the test.. not joking.... but I think that was a bug not a player.

Posted 20 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • I'm not against the general nature of this post, cause I agree that some balance is in order, but...

    If they built this game as efficiently as the press is proclaiming, removing excess wildlife shouldn't be a problem as far as devs' time and resources are concerned, especially when the game is closed.

    Nitpicking, but...just saying.
    Posted 20 months ago by Lyndon B Johnson Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Well said. I would also like mortality added to butterflies and chickens.

    The current situation of Marylpole Mount isn't the first time it's been overrun by pigs. There was a pig part a couple of months ago which resulting in 80+ pigs, but because there is not enough food for that many pigs, they slowly turned into piles of meat and the problem corrected itself, however the new swarm of chickens and butterflies won't do that.


    Although I like the ability to collect several hundred meats in a very short period of time, I can see the need to correct this problem so every street doesn't end up looking like this.
    Posted 20 months ago by Zaphod Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm somewhat indifferent towards the additional suggestions, I'm mainly +1’ing this because I really don’t like that there are now 25 pigs roaming The Entrance, for example. It ruins the mood of the caverns, amongst just generally slowing the game down in that area and making mining rocks there a painful, annoying process.
    Posted 20 months ago by KuraFire Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yes. Yes. And Yes. I love the amazing ideas that keep coming up in these forums.
    Posted 20 months ago by Jhennauchan Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I wouldn't worry too much about the pigs in the caves, most of the probably won't make it to the next test. There isn't much food in a cave, just rocks.
    Posted 20 months ago by Zaphod Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 Good ideas, Travinara!
    Posted 20 months ago by GreyGoose Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Going off of Kura's post, I always think it looks a bit weird when I see pigs in the caverns. They also don't really seem to fit the Shimla environment.

    It'd be nice if like trees, animals had zones. Maybe new animals could be introduced. Shimla and similar areas would look great with lizards roaming around, for instance. 
    Posted 20 months ago by leah Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree on limiting the number of animals that may be in an area as per Trav's #4 suggestion. That seems the easiest and most efficient way at this time to stop the overpopulation, slowing down of browsers, and difficulty completing tasks such as mining that many of us were experiencing during this test.
    Posted 20 months ago by Holly Waterfall Subscriber! | Permalink
  • We had about 100 pigs in Tallish Crest yesterday, then they suddenly disappeared.  I second the motion about being able to move pigs more then once.  I have them in my cave and would like to move them, but since I have moved one, I am stuck with where they are.  One move/day would be great!
    Posted 20 months ago by Cabinwood Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "Can we get that to 1x per street per *day* perhaps?"

    Most important suggestion here. Also, unlimited repositioning inside one's home. Heck, you shouldn't even need bait for that.
    Posted 20 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Limits can be gotten around.  I'd rather see something like street pigs die faster when there are more than 20.  Dump 1,000 pigs and all you end up with is a street of meat piles and a few survivors after a minute.
    Posted 20 months ago by Tingly Claus Subscriber! | Permalink
  • how is that solution better than just having an in game limit of 20 pigs per area, where if you try to drop more, the game won't let you?
    Posted 20 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I went a little astray.  I was talking about putting pigs on streets, not moving them around houses.
    Posted 20 months ago by Tingly Claus Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I would like the option of being able to move as many pigs/chickens/butterflies out of my residence as I want to, without it being a one time only deal. I'd also like the option of meating my chickens and pigs, as in, turning them into meat instead of keeping them alive. Why isn't raw chicken on the menu, but raw pork is? 
    Posted 20 months ago by Essie Kitten Subscriber! | Permalink
  • a really great Idea that will never happen due to resources-- Would be a barn inside our homes where our piggies could live--- could purchase them for Credits.. then be able to enter into it and see all our piggies etc.... Kinda like harvest moon LOL. But yea.. also.. ----im going to Hell for saying this--- Animal poison---- To kill off unwanted animals that will overpopulate
    Posted 20 months ago by blackwidow Subscriber! | Permalink