UO Second Age

Mikel123 wrote: Also, there's this really bizarre section about NPC and creature desires, such that they seek out food and shelter, or something, which confused the hell out of me.

Ronk wrote:

Mikel123 wrote: Also, there's this really bizarre section about NPC and creature desires, such that they seek out food and shelter, or something, which confused the hell out of me.

This was actually a cool feature which, I believe, was in the game for a while.

The idea was a wolf would want meat. Therefore he would seek out meat...thus you'd find a wolf near a sheep spawn because it would kill the sheep to get the meat.

Originally, creatures had AI on what they wanted to seek out. But ultimately this was scrapped because the AI was hardly ever noticed and it was just not worth the CPU cycles to constantly calculate desires on animals when no one really noticed/cared.

Ronk wrote:

Mikel123 wrote: Also, there's this really bizarre section about NPC and creature desires, such that they seek out food and shelter, or something, which confused the hell out of me.

This was actually a cool feature which, I believe, was in the game for a while.

The idea was a wolf would want meat. Therefore he would seek out meat...thus you'd find a wolf near a sheep spawn because it would kill the sheep to get the meat.

Originally, creatures had AI on what they wanted to seek out. But ultimately this was scrapped because the AI was hardly ever noticed and it was just not worth the CPU cycles to constantly calculate desires on animals when no one really noticed/cared.

Artificial Life Engine

Starr Long, the game's associate producer, explained in 1996:
"Nearly everything in the world, from grass to goblins, has a purpose, and not just as cannon fodder either. The 'virtual ecology' affects nearly every aspect of the game world, from the very small to the very large. 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."

However, this feature never went into production. Because of several hurdles and concerns (like performance issues), the whole artificial life idea was considered a boondoggle.

Derrick wrote: The designer has a great article about this system on his website:
http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/03/uo ... ce-system/

Mikel123 wrote:Yeah, that was funny (likewise, a resisted E-bolt does 0 damage. Really?!)

Early '99 wrote:Your magic resistance will now affect how much damage you take from spells. You can have up to half the damage removed by effectively resisting a spell.

Faust wrote:

Mikel123 wrote:Yeah, that was funny (likewise, a resisted E-bolt does 0 damage. Really?!)

This statement actually can be very true. The resisting spells skill was changed when Eval changes was introduced in early '99 as you can see in this patch note below.

Early '99 wrote:Your magic resistance will now affect how much damage you take from spells. You can have up to half the damage removed by effectively resisting a spell.

Resist was a very powerful skill during the pre-t2a and early t2a ers before the changes with eval took affect. When you would resist a spell it would literally resist the entire spell instead of the later change that simply cut the damage in half when you resisted the spell.