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Post by zeis on Mar 22, 2012 21:57:25 GMT -5
Wow, there are a lot of ideas flying around. I've considered the idea of letting all females clutch quite a bit, and with making changes to the Simourv hierarchy, such as scrapping it all together, making a system where there could be males and females of both colors with one sex being rarer than the other, making all simourv the same size etc.
The biggest problem of allowing all females to clutch is potential overpopulation in relation to candidates, but thats a problem that can be solved. Especially if you guys allow people to role-play only simourv, which admittedly I'm a bit wary of. If you guys do allow this, I think it should be rare.
But back on topic. If all females are allowed to clutch, you guys should either limit the number of eggs laid for the more common colors, or put a high dud rate in place. That way the smaller simourv could still have children, but it would be relatively uncommon and could be used as a reward for player activity within the game. This would keep the game from being flooded with single eggs from the 20+ number of greens that fly every in game year, and keep it from seeming like a chore to the people who have multiple greens.
Another idea I considered was scrapping the difference in number of eggs laid all together, and applying the same clutch rate possibly with varying dud rates on eggs. Then again, GS grays had an insanely different and high maximum clutch size if I recall. Something like 40 eggs?
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Post by Para on Mar 22, 2012 22:21:43 GMT -5
Something like that; I think we brought it down to 20-25ish eggs here, but I think our maximum was about the same as Bre's minimum.
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Post by Chern'a on Mar 23, 2012 0:04:15 GMT -5
hmm...just a few thoughts for now, as it's late, all personal opinions which can be disregarded:
Nocturnals/colors: I hesitate to get too many colors going, since we already see quite a bit of disparity between 'normal' ratios and PCs - for instance, greens and blues are supposed to be the majority, but most of the colors we actually 'see' in game are the greys, blacks, tawnies, and rainbows, with greens and blues making the minority. Also keep in mind the number of active players you expect to have at any given time. I'd prefer to see more people playing a small amount of colors, rather than 20 different colors and only 1 person playing each. The nocturnal idea itself is interesting, but from how GD has worked up til now, I'm not sure how feasible it is. You never got anywhere close to enough PCs - or even NPCs - to fill the daytime squads, and on top of that we were dividing characters between two different Eyries. If we're leaning towards multiple Eyries - which I fully support - each with their own squad rotations, again, you're going to end up with a divided player base struggling to find reasons to overlap with each other. I know that was one of my main frustrations with bringing the Northern Eyrie back here - we had so few people playing in Southern as it was, that splitting people off to play in the North meant even fewer chances for threads and interactions. Plus, I feel like kamrov can fulfill that role just as easily as simourvs, so it would be potential for a lot of overlap.
On the topic of kamrovs, I came in thinking that they were similar to the intelligence level of Pernese metasynth (sp?) dolphins. Capable of simple speech, some abstract thought, and independent action, but Bonded to individuals. I'd still like to see that happen, knowing that it would make them much more interesting to play instead of the equivalent of horses with claws.
All females being able to clutch sounds much more fair, and one way to keep the colors divided might be to use a random number generator (available for free online; other creature-bonding sites use it for just this purpose) to determine whether or not a female clutches after a successful mating flight. Say, greys have 100% chance, Tawnies have 75% chance, Greens have 50%, and rainbows 25%...or whatever percentages you think appropriate. You can also have it roll random numbers of eggs for the hatchings - Greys lay between 10-25, tawnies up to 10, greens up to 5, rainbows up to 3 (or whatever floats your boat). And I like the idea of females rising near each other triggering other females so that, especially for the smaller ranks, there could be two or three clutches hatching at the same time, allowing for a larger number of candidates. I'd also say that, to keep all hatchings interesting, all females can produce any color except possibly Queens - which are the only ones who can produce more Queens. But even rainbows may produce black or red sons - that keeps people interested even in non-Grey bondings. Again, random number generator can help you set the probabilities so Greys have a higher proportion/more chance of producing higher ranks, while greens and rainbows MAY produce blacks/reds, but more rarely. Once you get the RNG set up the first time, it'll move much faster in subsequent hatchings.
I see no problem keeping current maps and locations. I agree that more Eyries would be fun and make more sense if we're setting this farther in the future, but I'd suggest focusing the initial role play on just one, so everyone can start by interacting with each other. The other Eyries would be "NPC" locations - places where characters can be from, but not where the RP takes place until the new OOC community grows large enough that branching out won't split the players/characters so badly.
I wouldn't be averse to new color combinations. the current system is fine, but I wouldn't mind seeing it mixed up a bit. The idea of albinos/whites as sterile shamans is interesting (as is the idea of rainbows as priests/shamans).
Magic is tricky...I think it should definitely be limited. And maybe be the purview of simourvs alone, rather than humans. Humans can, perhaps, act as batteries/an extra power source, making innate simourv magic stronger for those that bond. 'Regular' simourvs might have certain mental powers (perhaps related to their color? Tawnies are stronger at empathy, blues are better at telekinesis, rainbows may exhibit hypnotism, etc) while shamans may be more elemental - pyrokinetic, hydrokinetic, etc, showing a well-rounded ability to affect the world around them? Or roll a two-out-of-three deal - a simourv may be very strong in one area, or moderate in two areas, but never a master of all three (probably telekinesis, empathy, and hypnotism/mental suggestion)
A threat would be good to add some spice to the proceedings, but definitely it's one that needs to be used more. The koxi were feeling very...blah. Something we 'heard' about, but never really saw in action. Part of the problem is the size of both simourv and koxi - it's hard to think of anything that big actually being able to survive in a group without starving, unless everything else on the planet, including prey animals and plants, were also super-duper sized. Is shrinking the overall size of the simourv an option? (for comparison, a grey is taller than an average 3 story apartment building/house and easily outmasses an apatasaurus, and a rainbow is around the size of a 2 story house - and still dwarfs a T Rex.) It's...honestly a little hard to take any threat seriously when the sizes are that big. So yeah...maybe make the simourv and koxi smaller so they're more realistic, and spice the koxi up a bit to make them more threatening - and if you keep them, run some basic ecology on them to make them fit into the world more smoothly.
ummm...it's getting late and brain is frying. May post more later. Just things off the top of my head.
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Post by Para on Mar 23, 2012 1:42:15 GMT -5
For the koxi, one of the problems with showing them is Proboards' PG requirement--we actually got an email early on, when our rules said to mark any threads over PG with a warning or just continue them in PMs, where the Proboards staff ordered us to change the rule to 'PG, only, no exceptions, even in PM' or GD would be deleted. That limits how much we can show of the koxi, among other things, and would be difficult to solve unless we moved to another host that was a little more lenient on the rating.
As for hatchings, something I forgot to add earlier: what if, instead of just limiting grays to grays, we also limited rainbows to greens and rainbows? That would add more interest to non-gray hatchings, as well, especially if we added another 'small' color to be green and rainbow exclusive.
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Post by Kilnarak on Mar 23, 2012 2:09:46 GMT -5
I'm all for sizing things down some. I would still like at least one fairly large rank - also possibly having the bonded rider working with a team of non-bonded assistants on the larger individuals. ( ... and yeah, Zeis, it's because I liked that idea from Temeraire. >> ) Koxi I thought we already had sized down some, but I'd need to actually look up the sizes again.
And... I always took the PG rating mainly to mean no on-screen sex rather than about violence and swearing. I mean, unless we go insane with the gore and swearing, then that might be problematic.
We might tie magic to lesser colors - For example, greens and rainbows would be more likely to produce offspring with a talent for whatever magic ends up being? I'm not sure about limiting rainbows to just greens and rainbows - but we might add a new color that only they can produce? Or we might make that the white priest-mourv? I'm... not entirely sure.
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Post by Para on Mar 23, 2012 3:08:43 GMT -5
We sized koxi down slightly, but not much, and it really depended on the subspecies.
I looked up Proboards' rules; I doubt they're as obsessive about violence, but it's definitely included. So yeah, we could get away with a fistfight, but the mutilation that would realistically result from koxi getting in a good swipe at a simourv, nevermind a village without any help from simourv? Either koxi have some really blunt claws and weak leg muscles, or that'd at the very least noticeably risk breaking the rules. I've been imagining E'nei as having somehow ended up holding her childhood friend's head after said friend was beheaded by a koxi; I really don't think Proboards would be okay with that little detail. Swearing, actually, I think is completely okay, though.
I don't think it matters much what it is; just having something 'special' that only (or mostly) greens and rainbows produced would be useful for making them more interesting.
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Post by Kilnarak on Mar 23, 2012 3:16:06 GMT -5
I've... seen plenty of people do violence involving bloodshed on proboards sites before. So long as we're not graphically disemboweling someone and going into grotesque amounts of detail, I think it would be fine. I don't know. I remember we had koxi attacks on GS that involved simourv injury, and on the other RP I'm in there's a lot of dog-fighting and getting shot going on. Haven't been shut down yet?
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Post by Para on Mar 23, 2012 3:26:29 GMT -5
I don't know... it's been a few weeks since I looked at the rules (maybe a month?), but I definitely remember violence being on the banned list. I suspect it's a combination of 'what do you define as being too much' and just whether they actually check or not. Still, if we're going to do much with the koxi, that's something that I'd want to at least consider.
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Post by Kilnarak on Mar 23, 2012 4:46:45 GMT -5
"Depicts excessive violence, contains comments or images that are offensive, abusive, threatening, harassing or menacing, or that incites, encourages or threatens physical harm against another;"
Is what it says. I looked it up, because I wanted to make sure. Which, I think, is something we could easily work around for things involving koxi - so long as we aren't too graphic, it should be fine. More or less, if it's something you think someone on the board is going to find it offensive, don't post it. I think the moderators would actually be the ones to police it, but I'm not really sure - I imagine proboards only checks specific sites when someone reports them as a violation of the ToS, 'though, given how many forums there are hosted by proboards.
Anyway. Back on topic. Huma birds = six limbs - four legs, two wings? or four limbs - two legs, two wings? or four limbs - all wings/wing-arms and legs? More reptilian, avian, or mammalian? Opinions?
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Post by Chern'a on Mar 23, 2012 9:18:48 GMT -5
Yeah, cruising sites I've seen a fair bit of violence/fighting - both between PC factions and against NPC monsters/foes. And a number of the character backstories include koxi violence - either getting bitten/swiped themselves, or being in a town/caravan where the koxi attacked and killed parents/siblings/half the town.
I would also point out that you've had 'mauling' as an option on the site for Hatching injuries, which can get pretty graphic too, and generally includes lots of blood and sometimes permanent maiming. Not to mention that you were alright with mutilation of the Northern simourv from the Great Earthquake, and those injuries have been discussed in some detail. So if we can have the violence in the backstories, and violence on the Hatching sands, it seems strange that we can't have it in regular RP as well. Even G/PG rated cartoon shows and Disney movies have battles and fights - and deaths of villains (albeit, usually off-screen or falling from a great height)
I had a thought, though; as much as I like the kamrov, if we're looking for non-koxi jobs for simourv to hold, it might make sense to swap out the kamrov with the smaller simourv (especially if they're shrunk further) who can run the same tasks - messengers, caravan guards, wilderness guides, etc. Just to give more variety of things to do.
Huma Birds - probably not four legs/two wings; otherwise they're just small simourv. If we're keeping kamrov, I'd avoid the two legs/two wing-arms for the same reason, although if kamrov phase out Humas could use that physical 'niche' What about two legs, 4 wings? Or two legs, two wings, and a prehensile tail? Again, to avoid simourv-overlap, I'd lean towards reptilian or mammalian instead of avian.
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