Weather System

[Real]

What if you were walking around with 4-5 stars and you were struck by lightning to death on a longtime PC? It seems an anticlimactic way to go.

[MrDvAnt]

Yeah. It could be cool, but extremely rare would be the way to go. Maybe do a pecentage of remaining health as damage so it's not just arbitrarily killing people?

[tehkory]

Yeah. It could be cool, but extremely rare would be the way to go. Maybe do a pecentage of remaining health as damage so it's not just arbitrarily killing people?

It is estimated that Earth as a whole is struck by an average of more than a hundred lightning bolts every second. The odds of becoming a lightning victim in the U.S. in any one year is 1 in 700,000. The odds of being struck in your lifetime is 1 in 3,000

Coding in lightning strikes on humans/orcs that spend much or most of their time in a city 4-5 times their height or else under the eaves of Mirkwood is probably silly and ridiculous.

[Tiamat]

What if you were walking around with 4-5 stars and you were struck by lightning to death on a longtime PC? It seems an anticlimactic way to go.

That can be done. Trust me, I'm not going out of my way to kill anyone with a lightning strike. That said, don't walk into lightning storms if you can help it. That's just an idle thought I've had, and is not a priority in implementing in storms.

You should expect rainstorms to be mostly atmospheric, where it creates little puddles of water. Lightning storms will be appropriately terrifying, with echoes of lightning strikes and stuff.

Snowstorms will entirely depend on how severe they are. Don't walk out in the middle of a blizzard. A minor snowstorm? You'd be fine walking out in that, granted it's not freezing.

Winds are largely the same as snowstorms. They'll generate piles of dust or debris if it's serious enough, and be a little difficult to walk through if it's fierce.

When mild, the weather is just atmospheric. In its extremes, it can affect game-play a bit.

[wilesly]

Which brings me in to chime in. Why don't we all agree that 2 stamina per room was to high. As Tiamat admitted. Instead lets propose some cool weather affects that this system -could- implement.

Like what do you think should happen in a lightning storm?

What should happen in the winter?

What should happen in the summer on the hottest days?

Lets get some ideas or proposals for Tiamat instead of harping on heat is real but it affects playability.

Good positive thinking. I'm with this. We need frostbite, lightning striking people in metal armor and heat stroke for people wearing too much in the summer.

Also. We need a Fire Swamp.

If you are serious ...

I actually thought of lightning strikes, but if they occurred, they wouldn't be a one-hit KO. Maybe a terrible (like 40-50 hp), at best. It'd be hilarious (to me ) to see a player survive a lightning strike. I considered factoring weight into heat, but I thought that would've been far too restrictive on play and made it a flat affect on everyone. Do we have thoughts on this? I mean, going unarmored out in the heat is ... probably just as severe as giving a mild stamina debuff for everyone, in my eyes. Opinions?

Wouldn't the thick forest of Mirk mostly protect against lightning strikes ... figure giant trees would work mostly as impromptu lightning rods. I'd imagine the fires it'd cause would be more concerning ...

[EltanimRas]

I don't think this is bayou climate that we're seeing at all. I think we saw the hottest month of the year have a couple of very hot days.

Songweaver's got the right of this. We're seeing one extreme end of the weather. Even California, generally VERY temperate in the Bay Area, gets a few very hot days in the summer.

This is helpful to be explicitly told; thank you.

When we're just logging in -- and seeing these extreme weather messages/effects for several log-ins in a row, at dawn, etc. -- with limited meta/OOC information (and given, perhaps, some past experience with very simplistic weather systems elseMUD), it's very easy to think, "Oh, so this is what summer's like here? Ok, so ... guess I should RP as if everything is normal."

[The effect is compounded, of course, when one finds oneself responding to forum examples that reference the sorts of places and climates where it IS normal.]

And getting tired faster in 90+ degree temperatures while hiking around at a full blown walking speed with 50-100 pounds on your back, through treacherous terrain and for miles and miles and miles.

I considered factoring weight into heat, but I thought that would've been far too restrictive on play and made it a flat affect on everyone.

I might have interpreted this whole thing as less extreme if I hadn't seen it over the shoulder of an 'unencumbered', unarmored PC (who wasn't slogging through a swamp).

[Rivean]

My only fear is with what Letters said before: if the players out there need to rest because they're feeling the heat and the wargs don't, this is going to be a problem.

This is easy. Don't go to the area that wargs live in on one of the hottest days of the year unless you have some sort of plan to get away. Would you go to the bog in the middle of a snow-storm?

I couldn't disagree with this more. "It's your responsibility not to let the code screw you," is not an appropriate response to "The code is not handling this fairly."

If wargs, wolves, orcs, vampires, ogres, my mother, and other aggro creatures that may potentially kill my PC are NOT encumbered by this weather change when they very well ought to be, then I'm going to be very resentful if my PC gets killed for having to suffer penalties that the other side doesn't. "What were you doing there in the first place?" is an IC question and my PC may have IC reasons for making such a venture. This does not mean that the deck should be unfairly stacked against him/her.

Which is all hopefully moot - my understanding is that Tiamat has adjusted things to the point where it should not be a terrible burden, and certainly not enough to get anybody killed.

I hope.

[Songweaver]

My only fear is with what Letters said before: if the players out there need to rest because they're feeling the heat and the wargs don't, this is going to be a problem.

This is easy. Don't go to the area that wargs live in on one of the hottest days of the year unless you have some sort of plan to get away. Would you go to the bog in the middle of a snow-storm?

I couldn't disagree with this more. "It's your responsibility not to let the code screw you," is not an appropriate response to "The code is not handling this fairly."

If wargs, wolves, orcs, vampires, ogres, my mother, and other aggro creatures that may potentially kill my PC are NOT encumbered by this weather change when they very well ought to be, then I'm going to be very resentful if my PC gets killed for having to suffer penalties that the other side doesn't. "What were you doing there in the first place?" is an IC question and my PC may have IC reasons for making such a venture. This does not mean that the deck should be unfairly stacked against him/her.

Which is all hopefully moot - my understanding is that Tiamat has adjusted things to the point where it should not be a terrible burden, and certainly not enough to get anybody killed.

I hope.

Yeah, I just disagree with you here on the issue of wildlife and how dangerous weather should be. Weather DOES kill people and should be a legitimate threat that you have to plan around sometimes. Wargs aren't hiking around with 20-100 pounds of weight on their backs, and are animals. Of course they're going to, generally, deal with extreme temperatures better. Most high food-chain animal predators do; it's evolution.

Having a lot of experience with this gameworld now, and having tested the limits of what my PC could do during the first iteration of this code (when it was at its cruelest) and in its current incarnation at the hottest temperatures I imagine we'll see ... these concerns are unnecessary hysteria. People who go into a very dangerous area of the forest without planning for the weather (slowing down a bit, knowing their escape route, keeping an eye out for bigger threats than they can deal with) are going to die for the same reason that they die now; they weren't careful enough.

Having seen it in action, this isn't breaking the game, IMO. Not sure about what else in store, but the heat's a non-issue.

[MrDvAnt]

There are plains and fields also, not just forests and cities. Each room is flagged also, which is what makes the crafting system work for room types.

[hobbitboots]

So, my character was walking around town on a cold November morning, and I noticed that my health was draining. Frostbite damage!

That's pretty harsh. Obviously I went straight back inside, but could this have killed me?

[Droll]

So, my character was walking around town on a cold November morning, and I noticed that my health was draining. Frostbite damage!

That's pretty harsh. Obviously I went straight back inside, but could this have killed me?

Noticed this as well, almost took out a whole star of health..in the middle of a fight. If this is going to be a thing can there be some kind of check against your equipment? Like, wearing fur cloaks and gloves and scarfs and all those things that were designed to keep the cold away?

[Fulgrim]

As a warning, currently I'm unsure if clothing provides protection (or if that feature is working as intended if it does) against the frostbite damage. Obviously the amount of damage being output by this is pretty severe as it is, but furthermore clothing should ward off a lot of harm from this.

We'll get this handled staff-side.

[Icarus]

We are indeed investigating.

[Throttle]

It's always iffy to have environmental health damage. I think it would be better if it affected movement speeds, regeneration rates, skill checks etc. Maybe the cold (and a lack of sufficient clothing) should cause effects similar to being starved/injured as it pertains to skill checks and willpower.

[Songweaver]

I think that the frostbite damage is a fine route to go, if too much currently (like stamina drain was when it was Summer and there were similar gripes). I'm certain that it can be balanced. Over-exposure should be threatening in the winter time.

I like the concept, but the balance is off. I'm sure it'll be promptly attended to, like heat was a month ago.

[Tiamat]

So, my character was walking around town on a cold November morning, and I noticed that my health was draining. Frostbite damage!

That's pretty harsh. Obviously I went straight back inside, but could this have killed me?

Please PM me where your character was in town.

Noticed this as well, almost took out a whole star of health..in the middle of a fight. If this is going to be a thing can there be some kind of check against your equipment? Like, wearing fur cloaks and gloves and scarfs and all those things that were designed to keep the cold away?

PM me also where you were, and what IG time it was.

[Gobbo]

I would love to see some hard winters. It would be quite the motivator if we had to stockpile food in the summer months to get through the winter and we had to keep fires in our homes going to stay alive.

In the winter wildlife could become sparser making it harder to hunt but safer to go cut down trees if you can keep warm. Also farms cant grow in the winter so a stockpile has to be kept. However the summer is dangerous in the wild and the heat has its own challenges.

[tehkory]

I think that the frostbite damage is a fine route to go, if too much currently (like stamina drain was when it was Summer and there were similar gripes). I'm certain that it can be balanced. Over-exposure should be threatening in the winter time.

I like the concept, but the balance is off. I'm sure it'll be promptly attended to, like heat was a month ago.

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2013/10013.html

The issue here, even disregarding that link, is that it's just neither ICly sensical, nor realistic, nor fun. It's hot as balls in Utterby in summer. It's cold in winter. But it isn't so cold that someone wearing a heavy fur cloak, doublelayered gloves, and 2-3 layers wouldn't be just fine, especially if active and used to colder climes.

I like weather effects. I just think this one is out of proportion for the climate, and no fun besides that. I'd love to see the proposed snowdrifts, etc., but I truly think making frostbite an every day winter effects is antifun, unintuitive, and unrealistic.

[Tiamat]

The facts, now that I've tweaked it a bit:

The coldest times of the day will be twilight, followed by early morning and at night. The hottest times of day, in winter or summer, is near high noon and early afternoon.

Wearing a thick fur cloak will help mitigate the cold if it gets to below 5 degrees F. You have a 25% chance of getting only half the frostbite damage you'd otherwise get NOT wearing a cloak. Said another way, you only have a 25% chance of getting frost-bite damage while wearing a cloak, and that's half of what you'd otherwise be taking if you didn't have a cloak on. Frostbite only occurs below 5 F, which is most likely to happen at the coldest times said above.

[Throttle]

But this isn't how frostbite works at all. It's a completely incorrect representation of the physical phenomenon. You shouldn't get frostbite from walking across the courtyard at night, you get frostbite from prolonged exposure to freezing cold. As long as someone doesn't spend the night out in the woods, or goes on a long patrol without gloves on, frostbite shouldn't be a concern at all.

[Tiamat]

But this isn't how frostbite works at all. It's a completely incorrect representation of the physical phenomenon. You shouldn't get frostbite from walking across the courtyard at night, you get frostbite from prolonged exposure to freezing cold. As long as someone doesn't spend the night out in the woods, or goes on a long patrol without gloves on, frostbite shouldn't be a concern at all.

You'll have to make do with the limitations of code. This isn't designed to even normally be an issue unless you're going out at the middle of the night, or early morning when dawn just hits. Wearing a proper cloak mitigates your potential damage considerably, if you get hurt at all.

[hobbitboots]

For playability's sake, I think that if you wear the right clothes, it should be possible to push the frostbite % down to zero. Maybe that should require wearing multiple cold weather items?

Throttle is right about how frostbite works, of course, but I suspect it's coded like it is right now simply because it's more difficult to check how long somebody has been outside rather than if they're currently outside and how cold it currently is. I'd like to see a better simulation, too, but I think the current system is okay once it's properly balanced.

[Holmes]

So who wants to go raid Kara? Do you have your full set of frost resist gear? +50 DKP.

[Rivean]

I don't have an opinion on whether or not the weather code is properly calibrated yet or not (and if it isn't, I'm confident that it WILL be, sooner or later).

I do, however, think that it's very important that code like this is developed. It's ESSENTIAL that we have things of this sort that makes clothing important. It's essential that we have things that make medicine important. That make food important, etc.

This sort of thing, believe it or not, will ultimately lead to a BALANCED GAME ECONOMY!

Thank you Tiamat. Keep cracking at it, you'll get there soon.

And for the rest of you, please bear with the inconvenience of code and systems in flux while this gets ironed out and implemented in a nuanced and well balanced way.

[Tiamat]

I'm moving the worst of frostbite damage to blizzard damage (yes, storms are on their way). So this should alleviate your concerns for now about the cold. But still, bundle warmly. Going outside without proper protection's not going to be pleasant!