Resource System

[tenduil]

So coming back after a semester away I wondered why I was getting less wood from trees when lumberjacking. Patch 136 notes were informative but led to new questions:

I read through Raph's posts on his page and wanted to know how much of this is available? Will we see rabbit/wolf interaction or is this being limited to ore/lumber/etc?

[Panthor the Hated]

rabbit wolf interaction?

[tenduil]

Pulled from: http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/04/uo ... em-part-2/



If the rabbit population suddenly drops (because some gung-ho adventurer was trying out his new mace) then wolves may have to find different food sources – say, deer. When the deer population drops as a result, the local dragon, unable to find the food he’s accustomed to, may head into a local village and attack. Since all of this happens automatically, it generates numerous adventure possibilities.

Pulled from: http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/03/uo ... ce-system/

A rabbit, then, might look like:

* PRODUCE FUR in a small amount, and doesn’t regrow it; and MEAT
* EAT GRASS, FLOWER, and VEGETABLE, up to a small stomach size, in small nibbly bites.
* SHELTER in GRASS or BUSH, but treat BUSH as home if they’re a decent size
* DESIRE nothing, but have an aversion to anything that produces CARNIVOREMEAT

Conversely, a wolf might be

* PRODUCE FUR in a medium amount, and doesn’t regrow it; and CARNIVOREMEAT
* EAT MEAT, up to a small stomach size, in medium bites.
* SHELTER in TREE or CAVE, but treat CAVE as home if they’re a decent size
* DESIRE nothing, but have an aversion to anything that produces CARNIVOREMEAT

Stuff like pack behaviors were layered on top of this, so wolves, being pack animals, could have a DESIRE to be near other wolves. When animals were in a pack, they were supposed to add up their needs, so that a pack of wolves would start ignoring bunny rabbits and start being willing to tackle bigger game.

Lastly, the (in)famous dragon example:

* PRODUCE SCALES in a medium amount, and doesn’t regrow it; and a huge pile of CARNIVOREMEAT
* EAT MEAT or CARNIVOREMEAT, up to a huge stomach size, in big bites.
* SHELTER in MOUNTAIN or CAVE, but treat CAVE as home if they’re a decent size
* DESIRE GOLD, GEM, and MAGIC



He goes on to say it didn't end up working but it seems definitely possible and I'm curious if the resource system is going to be expanded to encompass something like this.
Lastly, un-factually, I 'swear' I remember animal-animal interaction in the early days of UO.

[Derrick]

The ability to implement this has had a lot of work put into it, for example currently in game all resources are in the map, such as dead logs producing insects etc. The desires and productions of various creatures is partially implemented, but not currently integrated into the AI.

A more comprehensively accurate creature AI has been on the back burner for some time, and we do hope to implement something more OSI like in the future. As far as whether the AI on UOSA will integrate this resource model is reliant upon whether we find that it's accurate to our timeframe or not.

[Kaivan]

Unfortunately, the complex resource system never made it very far on OSI servers. In the last HoC chat of 98, Raph Koster explains exactly why the resource system was turned off early in UO's time frame.

[tenduil]

Thanks guys. Thought it was an interesting dynamic and just wanted to hear if there was a future in it for us.