Animal behaviours

[Misscreant]

I've discussed this once before with a person in Ryzom... just tell me I'm nuts if it's unworkable, ok?:

When we get lots of mobs of different types roaming around, it would be great if they had evolving behaviours. Let me explain... (though I think there might already be a bit of this with the sheep??)

Say you came across a pack of wolves while in a party, and you went in and slaughtered the lot. The wolves would initially be programmed to attack, as wolves do. But after getting wiped out a few times in a row by a strong party, it would be great if they changed... they might evolve to be stronger the next time they spawn - and get stronger each time they spawn if they continue getting wiped out... That would be consistent with Darwin's theory of evolution in regard to "survival of the fittest".

If they get left alone for some days weeks, their strength etc might return over time to normal levels again. Or even below normal as an animal that has no predators would become more lazy and less agile (hmm, humans??).

Sheep might evolve to run faster and sooner if people are spotted - ie they become defensive in their pack behaviour. Cows might breed a higher number of bulls to defend the cows from attack.

*comes down off a caffeine high finally*

Whew...

Cheers
Miss

[Charles]

Natural evolution normally takes enormous amounts of time. Multiple generations. It is not something that should realistically be simulated in a game unless the game has a huge time scale.

For creatures capable of learning, something like that would be appropriate, but not easy to program so that it occurs automatically.

On the other hand, the constant interventions in MOG by game developers make it possible for this to occur by means of manual adjustments and we will do that, especially for the behavior of intelligent creatures.

[Leirza]

May 31, 2008 20:36:21 GMT -8 Misscreant said:

But after getting wiped out a few times in a row by a strong party, it would be great if they changed... they might evolve to be stronger the next time they spawn - and get stronger each time they spawn if they continue getting wiped out... That would be consistent with Darwin's theory of evolution in regard to "survival of the fittest".

Not to be discouraging, but if they were constantly getting wiped out they wouldn't grow any stronger and infact become extinct, it would be the player who is surviving.

It is a nice idea though, DarkFall has something loosely like this, on there if you keep killing a mob in the same area, it will run off to find some more of it's own species to get help, I think that would be do-able here.

[magick]

Well there would be a way to kinda implement your idea. The animal, in your case the wolves, could get smarter, not stronger. It could be possible to make the creature run instead of always attacking. If someone kept coming back and killing the creatures it would be possible to program it so that after a certain amount of times getting killed it would either spawn in the same spot and "migrate" to another area or spot or it could automaticly spawn in another area, though spawning in the same spot and moving someone else would be more realistic, wich is what i think you want. Hmm...i might be able to figure something else out programming wise, if i think of anything i will update the post.

~Magick