Hostile/Passive Creatures on each Continent

[Tiberius]

They could call it PandoraSide.

[Crator]

Creatures idea is cool. It should be very well thought out. Should not affect game performance in any way. Should not interfere with large base battles unless very limited. For instance, perhaps there's a specific creature that uses sly tactics to pick off solo soldiers attacking a base. There could be deployables that soldiers could use to defend against these pests while your empire attacks a base. The occasional field battle with some nasty NPC creatures could add some more dynamics to the game. One idea I had that is really cool would be to have creatures in the oceans and lakes. Trying to travel over water is no longer a Sunday drive!

I also like the idea someone else had earlier where birds, or some other types of creatures, close in on a base being hacked. This will give those bored soldiers something to do while the hack goes through.

As for the reasoning to why there would be creatures still alive after so much war and caranage to the populations of creatures. Perhaps the story could be something like an alien race seeded the planet(s) and creatures just started reproducing at a fast rate. There could be conditions that slow the rate of reproduction down (could be cool game mechanic) that might be controlled by the players.

[Baneblade]

Originally Posted by Senyu

Im thinking like Avatar creatures. Like those hammerhead herd ones. Something unique and alien.

Bonus if they treat BFRs like rodeo clowns.

[TRex]

On reflection I think it would add a lot to immersion in the game world if the more a battle area is fought over , the more debris and gravestones appear . Once fighting ceases and moves on , after a little time little nematodes appear and start to recycle everything , and eventually the area is repopulated with creatures over time. The first shots from a gun or vehicles appearing , or a mosquito flies overhead the creatures herd away .

[edit] As an afterthought : what if there was an in-game logbook type thing (a bit similar to the Tome of Knowledge from Warhammer online) that tracked all your achievements , kills, assists and such automatically. You could see the names of people you killed or a k/d ratio of you against a given opponent.You could try to fill the book with every name of enemy . Areas of the world , and a small camera type thing to snaphot creatures you had seen. Different creatures on every continent , and the very rarest only appear when fighting has not occured for a long time , and so timid even the sight of a humanoid on the horizon send them fleeing for shelter.

[Senyu]

Logbook is cool. But also seeing more of an effect on the world is cooler such as the debris that slowly disappear and plants growing again.

[Ormeon]

Originally Posted by Furret

I see your points Ormeon.

Obviously, those type of hostile creatures would be horrible for the game.

However, if creatures were confined to an obvious area, say around a certain lake in a certain forest swamp area between two bases; somewhere everyone knew about and there would be no surprises. They would be more of a tactical aspect than a PvE aspect. If you want to fight through the swamp, you gotta deal with the crocodiles. If you don't want to deal with the crocodiles, you gotta go around.

If you look at it that way, then yes. That sounds wonderful.

If it indeed becomes a tactical aspect rather than an outright bother, I feel like it will be a lovely addition for the game! =)

[Ormeon]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

Some of the examples you described is why I think they'd be interesting and switch up the monotony of the battles. Also I don't think they should do as much damage as you're imagining. It wouldn't be one hit. Whipping around and firing a sniper round into a creature might stun it and allow the second shot to kill it. Also if you're by yourself I think the vulnerability would help. I know a lot of people on this forum hate solo players already.

If the creatures weren't overpowered beasts, It would be a little less of a nuisance. But still, how are you going to tell the player that a bull-o-saurus, twenty feet high, 30 feet length with a weight of thousands of kilograms is only able to deal 10 damage tops?

I understand what you're getting at, but the creature's size and strength have to be taken into consideration as well then.

Edit: I actually do understand what you're getting at, but massive creatures that are rare should be really rare as well. You as, say, sniper should not have a chance of 0.9 that a huge raptophant is going to lunge at you as soon as you take your spot behind that rock.

Edit2: Aaand, still. You shouldn't take away different playstyles, because that's something that makes a game like PlanetSide super-duper-awesome.

[Senyu]

I dont think large monsters would be in game. Lets start with small to medium. Like most people point out this isn't a pve game

[Traak]

Let's make robotic manned monsters. The Metalzoic era is upon us! And they could be overpowered, bipedal, game-wrecking. Oh, wait, Bindur Dundat.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Traak

Let's make robotic manned monsters. The Metalzoic era is upon us! And they could be overpowered, bipedal, game-wrecking. Oh, wait, Bindur Dundat.

People still use those arguments?

You do bring up a solid point though. I don't think that creatures should be used as mounts. I think that steers too far away from the central idea.

[Lithious]

I think that Passive creatures should be in the game. Dont have to fill every square inch of them but just every once and awhile u bump into a horse like creauture or alittle herd of some wierd looking things. Would just be a nice feature so that plain vegetaion is not the only thing you see.

[Gwartham]

I think there should be flocks of birds flying around and if a reaver flies thru them they sucked up into the engines and the reaver crashes.

[Bags]

If we can't have vehicle animations or vehicle hacking due to rresource constraints then there is no way they're putting in this crap.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Bags

If we can't have vehicle animations or vehicle hacking due to rresource constraints then there is no way they're putting in this crap.

The vehicle hacking wasn't because of resource constraints. Go check your facts.

Regarding vehicle animations I don't believe they actually said why there won't be vehicle animations. It's not a resource thing. Animating objects isn't really costly programming wise. I imagine it's a time constraint.

[Lunarchild]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

The vehicle hacking wasn't because of resource constraints. Go check your facts.

Regarding vehicle animations I don't believe they actually said why there won't be vehicle animations. It's not a resource thing. Animating objects isn't really costly programming wise. I imagine it's a time constraint.

Not 100% true. If they want to do it right, they'll have to create some special blending instead of snapping the player to target point so that the animation plays correctly. It can also break a lot of assumptions as to location in various pieces of code...

Also, animators have a lot of work on this kind of thing, which is also an important human resource