Gameplay: Adding Wildlife

[Akadios]

I would like to see wildlife put into the game. Obviously on these continents with vast vegetation there would be all sorts of wildlife from herbivores that resemble deer to something that resembles a mountain lion and will try to eat you.

Now I am not saying that Planetside 2 should have PVE. However I would like to see things like herds of buffalo, predators that come out at night, etc. First off it is totally realistic but secondly I think it would just add some fun to the game.

The simple way to make sure that it doesn't become a "PVE" game is just to never add any reward, badge, tracked stat, etc for any killing or dying from the wilderness. This would eliminate players deciding to ignore the battle to go mountain lion hunting or whatever.

You could expand on the idea by also giving them an AI so if you had a herd of something like a buffalo and you couldn't break this dug in infantry line maybe you could scare the herd to stampede towards the enemy or something. Just interactive wildlife like we have here on earth. When I was in Iraq I had to watch out for certain wildlife, why should it be different on Auraxis?

[Sirisian]

Hostile and Passive Creatures
Wildlife
My site

[OutlawDr]

Main problem I see is that NPCs are going to lower performance. I don't want a slide show due to there being 300 players on my screen plus another whatever number space buffalo.

Limit it a bit. Limit it to single to small groups of creatures that only pop out in low pop areas. This is for performance reasons, and because when there is nobody around players will appreciate these encounters more (but Im sure many will find them annoying). Players are not going to be too thrilled about space buffalo mucking about in the middle of a base battle. I know I wouldn't..especially if its the reason my framerate is suffering.

[Naz The Eternal]

LMAO space buffalo!

Cool idea, but the resources being used to generate all the NPCs could definitely go to better use

[Dubious]

there is no animals cause they have already been killed

and i rather have the 2k ppl than 1,5k ppl and 500 birds..

[Dagron]

I'd like to see someone get torn apart by a mountain lion and a grizzly bear fighting for his carcass after he fell down a ravine.

Seriously though, i kind of like this idea. As long as it was only a few beasts here and there, just enough to make the world seem a little more real, we wouldn't want to sacrifice performance.

[Sikee Atric]

Originally Posted by Dagron

I'd like to see someone get torn apart by a mountain lion and a grizzly bear fighting for his carcass after he fell down a ravine.

Seriously though, i kind of like this idea. As long as it was only a few beasts here and there, just enough to make the world seem a little more real, we wouldn't want to sacrifice performance.

Same for me, a few animals sounds fine....

[Akadios]

Originally Posted by Dubious

there is no animals cause they have already been killed

and i rather have the 2k ppl than 1,5k ppl and 500 birds..

If all the macro life was killed the eco-system would collapse and all the vegetation would die. No Atmosphere and desertification would take over, clearly things are still alive just not put into the game. Further more clearly 500 birds would not replace 500 people, that is just simply not how servers work. There are no NPCs currently in PS-2, WoW has maybe like 100000 per server at anytime with a 15000 population cap. When they add a zone and more NPCs it doesn't magically reduce the population cap.

Originally Posted by Dagron

I'd like to see someone get torn apart by a mountain lion and a grizzly bear fighting for his carcass after he fell down a ravine.

Seriously though, i kind of like this idea. As long as it was only a few beasts here and there, just enough to make the world seem a little more real, we wouldn't want to sacrifice performance.

Ya or like mountain lions that tear up that sniper sitting on the mountain 1km from the base for too long. LOL pilots who land to repair in the middle of no where would need to look out for wild space tigers or if next to water wild space crocs. If they add swimming you could add like 50 sharks across an entire continent. Enough so people would get eaten but very rarely.

Originally Posted by OutlawDr

Main problem I see is that NPCs are going to lower performance. I don't want a slide show due to there being 300 players on my screen plus another whatever number space buffalo.

Limit it a bit. Limit it to single to small groups of creatures that only pop out in low pop areas. This is for performance reasons, and because when there is nobody around players will appreciate these encounters more (but Im sure many will find them annoying). Players are not going to be too thrilled about space buffalo mucking about in the middle of a base battle. I know I wouldn't..especially if its the reason my framerate is suffering.

I totally agree I don't think they should be right by the bases but the continents are huge and of course animals would have found ravines, mountains, forests to hide in. Also when a battle started the first thing animals would do would be run away just like in real life. Out there it could definitely have minimal impact on peoples performance and if you limited it to like 600 per continent at a time or such it could be run with minimal computing (if you consider skyrim runs on a ps3 or xbox). You could add biodiversity by having different creatures spawn at night vs day. Imagine sneaking up on a tower at night but knowing that the continent you were on had roaming packs of Raptors that came out at night too.

[Raka Maru]

Tactically, someone without sensor shield activated or some other stealth device would scare up a flock of space birds and warn the defenders.

I'm sure the space buffalo and space cougars would start to exit the area when gunfire is nearby.

[berzerkerking]

It must be done. Do it with my blessing

[Akadios]

Lets keep this alive, there is no reason ps2 can't have this

Originally Posted by Raka Maru

Tactically, someone without sensor shield activated or some other stealth device would scare up a flock of space birds and warn the defenders.

I'm sure the space buffalo and space cougars would start to exit the area when gunfire is nearby.

I really like this idea of birds flying away and I agree the other animals would of course flee when a battle of any size broke out.

[Dagron]

Originally Posted by Raka Maru

Tactically, someone without sensor shield activated or some other stealth device would scare up a flock of space birds and warn the defenders.

Interesting idea, this could easily be done without even any AI, all that was required would be an area trigger and the flock would just shoot up in the air and move away in a random direction when someone entered it.

It shouldn't be too flashy though, it should warn people smart enough to pay attention to these things, but it shouldn't completely kill the chances of the person who triggered it to get by unnoticed.

[OutlawDr]

Hell, technically we already have dangerous wildlife in PS2: cactus

[Marinealver]

[vilehydra]

Quite frankly it isn't necessary and it only detracts from the actual gameplay.