Mythruna

Have you ever explored the dark and scary areas of your base or house at night, afraid that something is going to be waiting for you around the corner? Well, I have an idea for the combat system coming out. Maybe, at night in certain areas of your base/house, shadowy enemies with glowing eyes wait for you, and attack for you when you least expect it. That sounds like a pretty solid idea, and even if the enemy had to take simple paths, it seems like novel little idea to me.

Maybe as a mod.  It sounds kind of fun but doesn't really fit some of my main "game design rules" for Mythruna.

Mainly it defies the rule that the player should be at least relatively aware that they are entering into danger when there is the possibility of attack... or at least be able to learn to spot the signs.  Your base should be a place of relative safety if properly secured... so either (by my own rules) any creatures would have to be so far nerfed that they'd be more of a nuisance than interesting.

...though I'm not above the idea of ghosts if you built your house on top of a town you burned to the ground or something. :)

Yeah, or even if you murdered somebody, they will haunt you until you have to do something for it to stop. That makes sense  ;)

that kinda sounds like a nusence to have ghost thought because some times i just want to go through a slaughter a whole town of people with not repercussions in game of course and having ghost would be very helpful unless there was like a random like 1/500 chance of a ghost

Maybe if it were just dark areas of you're house that you haven't lit yet... but I think that would take alot of time to make the game recognize darkness.

No, the game understands darkness.  The other problem is that a million Minecrafters would show up at my doorstep with pixelated torches and pitch forks to tar and feather me for directly copying a Minecraft feature. ;)

lololol :D

I have to be honest, I never liked the way that monsters were spawned in Minecraft related to the light level. Its makes it so hard to use atmospheric lighting on anything but peaceful mode, and it always felt like a bit of a stop-gap solution to me.

Yep.  It's a nice simple mechanic for a simpler game... and it was fun.  But it's been done so now let's do different things.  :)

My thoughts exactly. I don't suppose you can tell us the criteria for spawns in Mythruna?

Tough to say.  Many things will just exist whether you are there or not, like NPCs.  Wild game like rabbits, squirrels, birds, etc. will be spawns.  Takwin will be spawns, though.  (More on what those are later. :))

Its later. Hi, nice to meat you. Lets get to the point, what is a 'Takwin' (if information will not spoil :D)

I'm working on a concept art piece... when that painting is done then I will spill more info about these sets of creatures.

awesome more progress to survival great job paul

the first thing i think of when i think of criteria for spawning something is "biome"

i can't remember if we've really asked you about biomes yet, paul.

This is what I know

• Biomes won't be random, meaning a desert and a tundra won't be beside each other.

From this post: http://mythruna.com/forum/index.php?topic=502.0

The idea that you'd have some hard line where desert ends and frozen tundra begins is not appealing to me.  So "biomes" will develop naturally where certain terrain intersects certain average climate.

obviously paul is gonna make things as realistic as he can. but i meant how diverse are the biomes gonna be? like theres obviously plains and tundra and desert, maybe a heavy forest area, but what about other stuff?  cubeworld got me thinking cuz it has lavalands and undead lands and savannahs, as well as just plain ocean (which is fun since you can sail).

It would be hard to explain or guess as it will be the intersection of a few variables.

As an example, let's say the terrain itself becomes more diverse and spread out... mountains will be higher, sections of the world will be larger, sections of the world will also vary in "roughness".  This gives you mountains, mountainous land masses, high plateaus, canyons, large rolling plains, etc..

Water also begins to flow and springs are randomly places.  This gives you rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, etc.. 

Then there is climate and "general weather".  A larger fractal will determine the relative average "climate" for an area... basically the min, max, and average temperatures.  A particular spot on the world's weather will also be affected by the elevation and the general land layout.  (High winds are more common across open flat land or in high elevations, for example.)

It's important to note that all of these are not hard-edged things.  Any point on the world will have a blending of these variables.

Finally, we enter the "planting plan".  This is a smaller scale fractal that attempts to map the richest soil/growing areas.  Basically, it's randomly assigning areas where plants are easier to grow... it will do this irrespective of terrain because a) the terrain will already filter out stuff that won't grow there, and b) it makes it more interesting.

So, for a given block, all of these things combine with the "randomness" to decide what will grow there.  If the climate is hot year-around and there are no water sources nearby, then the land is likely to be sand and not support any plant life.  If the temperature is cool enough to grow stuff and/or a water source is nearby, then grasses will always be a potential plant unless the "planting plan" is _extremely_ inhospitable for that area.  Right here this leads to deserts and grass lands/savannahs that have nice transitions if they happen to be next to each other.

Next up are the trees.  A rolling plane with favorable temperatures and extremely high winds will only grow trees in the most hospitable "planting plan" or otherwise near rocky land.  Otherwise, you have forests similar to now.  If the seasonal temperatures tend to be really cold then the majority of trees will be pines... this would lead to tall pine forests.  If the seasonal temperatures tend to be hot and the area is wet then you will end up more rain-foresty feel.  Lots of ground cover and high forest canopy.

Areas near shallow standing water will grow marsh plants.  I'd like to think they'd be different for full sun salt water than for shaded fresh water... but we'll see.  Shallow fresh water can still grow trees if the planting plan is high... then you end up with nice swamps.

The thing is, I don't actually specifically make any biome.  I create the environment with the variables above and then when I add support for specific trees and plants, I give them a list of conditions required to grow them.  Biomes are a by-product of the fact that all of those other variables will tend to intersect over large areas.

P.S.: I really hope I also find a nice way to add glaciers.  The idea of hunting down ice-takwin in pure-ice glacier caves really appeals to me. :)

That puts a whole different standing point for me with generation of practically everything. Not once until reading this have I thought of a way to make terrain like this.

Heheh... then on my scale, I saved you like 20 years of thinking about it. :)

Ha! Good job! Now start thinking more for me, I've already grown bored of the thought 'thought'.

I much prefer that way of going about it, Paul, the blend will look much better than assigned biomes. Now the fun part is making it happen :) I also agree that tundra must be formed somehow... along with ice caves! Oh, and speaking of climate, what are your plans for weather again?

BTW When we get into things like crystals and ores, I will spearhead the conversation. Just sayin.

Awesome system!

Thats a very intuitive method you have described there, Paul. I like it. With tuning, it should result in quite a natural looking world.