General Suggestions Thread - Boundless

Firstly, I realize that there are already existing threads for many of the aspects which I address here. Seeing how I would have to fracture my suggestions and create many new threads for individual topics, I thought it best to keep them in one location.

I hope I am following the correct posting etiquette. If not, be gentle.

For the sake of neatness, I will organize suggestions into categories likened to their context.

-Please Do Consider-

• Environment

Oxygen:In light of trees sometimes behaving as animals and vice-versa I submit the idea that the atmosphere contain many times the oxygen content of our native planet. The reasoning behind this would be, well, many things; it would explain the highly active nature, biology and metabolism of trees, could explain the fact that in-game injuries heal faster(actually proven), metal degradation happened faster(if present), and would introduce some extra precautionary factors when one thinks about fire in a high oxygen environment. Nothing much, just things like brighter flames, if some form of explosive(flash power pollen from a plant or a combustive leaf, etc.) were placed in-game and easier fire starting. This could be presented as a factoid, thereby eliminating the need for an actual OXYGEN variable or mechanic in terms of programming and could be presented purely as explanation for existing behaviours observed in-game.

Weather:
I loved the proposed idea of erratic weather. Specifically the cycle consisting of one day in every few being a harsh hard winter. The Amazonian feel of the game also automatically begs for a regular form of monsoon-like downpour, which of course presents it's own dangers should you be willing to implement them. Regional weather might be a very good thing for the following reasons: since our beloved devs (I mean it) are already constructing the world piece by piece and not following the procedural generation fad, it would mix things up quite well if later stages of the story presented whole new survival challenges unique to the region, such as continual snow and cold conditions, or, dead regions, devoid of life with little or no water but presenting it's own advantages, or, magnetically unstable regions where the player must abandon all magnetically susceptible items.

Anomalies:
At this point I would also like to suggest a different kind of anomaly during gameplay. Maybe once every so often the entire world is enclosed in a deep night, it might happen randomly with warning signs, or in some kind of pattern so that the player could learn and take shelter in time. The length of the deep night would be up to the devs, and any occurrences which might take place.

Normal Night Cycle:
I think the devs have thought about this one. Luminescence of specific plants/animals during night time. I'm not just talking about it being a light source, I'm thinking something radical. If luminescence could signal out things that the player could not possibly, or scarcely, make out during the day, then the player would be forced to make more tough decisions in terms of his sleeping habits to accompany his scavenging routine. This can extend even further. During the night the player might encounter nocturnal animals/predators, migrating trees, specific types of insects.

• Player Character

Sleep:
In terms of sleep, I would like to suggest keeping it as simple as possible. A player goes to sleep when exhausted(See Stamina). He might sleep through the night(or day, however the player deems it) or he might awaken. When awakened by something, there is no message, nothing. It is for the player to find out what is was that disturbed his sleep. Perhaps he is very still and hopes to hear a sound that might give this disturbance away. Maybe it's as simple as sleeping without shelter and the rain has woken you.

Stamina:
I would suggest keeping this simple as well. The player gets fatigued when running or carrying heavy loads and must wait before he can set a good pace again. Done. This does not tie in with sleep, in that regard I would suggest that after a time the edges of the screen or the entirety thereof becoming hazy, blurred, dark or whatever the devs think best.

• Fauna

Parasitic animals:
Small animals who simply attach to something and drains it for sustenance. Could be that they only attach to certain types of trees, could be that they attach to other animals by injecting them first with a paralytic agent, which could possibly be harvested. Perhaps they secrete an unknown jelly/fluid.

This could prospectively be a very attractive game mechanic. Possibly in which the player catches this rare small animal, and attaches it to a carcass/tree trunk and, in time, the creature slowly produces something useful. Or not, and it simply detaches and dies depending on what you attached it to.

This whole idea could be translated to the flora department as well as a form of a parasitic plant.

Also in this vain, I would like to suggest a kind of animal/plant that you can remove from a tree or whatever it's habitat might be, and attach it to a source of your choosing. I am thinking in the lines of, for example, the player has killed an animal, scavenged it's fur/stomach. The player returns home and on his way picks up this animal/plant which acts as a purifier/pump/obscure-chemical-process and attaches it to the earlier mentioned fur/stomach, which the player has filled with a fluid/meat/obscure-chemical-produce. The animal/plant then performs it's duty, sucking away dutifully at what it has attached to and excreting something else.

Animal Calls:
Sounds idiotic, but there are a few interesting aspects to consider...

Firstly, if each animal has it's own unique call, then the player would, in time, begin to learn which means what, and with directional sound, be able to track the right animal he/she desires. This eliminates the question of scent and animal tracks, which I admittedly do not support at all (sorry) except when animals might use it to find something(player, fire, food, herd). These calls would not be rare but the jungle would also not be a cacophony of roars. Perhaps a low breathing sound for the animals to know when you are very close to one.

Secondly, the calls might differ somewhat depending on what state the animal is in. Injured, angry, mating-time, normal, attracting one of it's own. This is following the "Exploration" aspect of the game quite nicely, since the player would have to learn these things over time, and in all probability, sh!t himself/herself when they have been playing for four hours, became acquainted and comfortable with local fauna sounds and suddenly hears a new shrieking call.

Thirdly, this opens up the possibility of the ABSENCE of sound, which might signal that something wicked this way comes.

Obscure:
A very interesting thing I read about a few years back is a kind of symbiotic relationship between a specific type of ant and a specific type of tree mite. The ants would herd the mites, feed them and "tickle" them. This "tickle" then resulted in the mites producing a useful substance for the ants. While I understand that the devs do not want to stray into 'farming', this could be an interesting natural occurrence in some form.

Home-invasion by animal/other:
An example, the player stores food and water and a few miscellaneous items and prepares for an expedition as he/she has done many times. The player returns a long time after to find his camp turned upside down, something might be missing or destroyed. Perhaps the player catches the animal/culprit red-handed.

A pet:
I realize this has been discussed before, but here are my two cents, skip if you have no love. Doing one pet very well instead of ten poorly is A-OK in my book. Doing none at all makes Jack a very sad boy. Hopefully just a small colourful fur-ball which walks on it's hind legs, can be interacted with in a variety of ways and has it's own agenda which it's sometimes pursues. Ala Unreal sea goat. I also saw a thread about pets, but it has been deleted. I hope the idea of a pet is not offensive.

Animal interaction of the third kind:
This is a very easy subject for the following reason: inventory space. The devs could put a veritable warehouse of useful things on a dead animal(hunted or otherwise) for the player to access, or, very little. This would be no problem at all because the player has such limited carrying capacity. The player is further handicapped by the fact that the dead animal will very soon have many other visitors which would in turn disallow the player access and force him to prioritize.

The whole idea of these animal interactions is to convey a sense of a living world. Perhaps these things are useful to the player, perhaps not. Again, might be be a hard spell to make it function in game for the devs.

• Flora

Species:
In the department of plants and their differing kinds, I suggest that there might exist a plant which has living organs, such as the devs already mentioned. The difference is that perhaps it could include a certain type. A heat plant; having organs and a metabolism means that the interior of said plant would be warmer than the surrounding environment, but not extremely hot. Possible uses in this case would be accelerating some process. Could be that a certain pod picked up by the player contains edible fruit, but the pod is hard as rock and unwilling to yield it's insubstantial but delicious bounty. Placing it inside would just accelerate the proses of the pod opening by a day. However, the cavity into which one may put things to be heated is small, a maximum of one or two pods at a time. Left too long, it might also spoil the fruit inside.

I realize that you devs have probably already thought about this, but may I suggest a few medicinal plants? Some kind of plant which produces a salve or oil, not to instantly heal the player, but to aid slightly in recovery. I have read about the devs developing a plant to increase the player's stamina, which has it's own drawbacks. I would also like to suggest a repellent produced from plant, or a plant which is in itself repellent. It could be used in many contexts; insects, animals, scent-neutraliser, etc.

Floral Sponges:
These things can be used for anything. Even here on earth they are used for cleaning, fire, filtration and a myriad other things.

Lastly in the flora department, I would like to suggest tree sap. Could be useful, or just a bonus to be observed in a living world.

• Natives

Culture:
I have no idea what the natives will be, and I have no suggestion in that regard. What I do suggest however is that IF the devs decide to add technologically advanced areas/gadgets to the world(which came from a crashed ship, previous colonization attempt, etc.(which are in turn aged and mostly useless, with very few exceptions)) that the natives have taken to worshipping one or two thereof, thereby making it very hard for the player to gain access to said artefact.

Also, I would suggest that individual native villages/communities have independent regard for the player. I hate it when you kill one person and the entire world instantly knows you did it and your exact location. Perhaps some communities are friendly, others just cold and uncaring but not hostile.

Lastly, may I suggest that later in the game, when the player is allowed to wander a village, there be villagers doing things with other things so the player can watch and learn from people who have survived successfully on that world for a long time? Maybe some of the more obscure things a player can do, but he/she does not entirely realize. This could be useful early game, if the devs would so choose; the player is introduced into a village and sees very elemental things being done for basic survival, almost in the vain of a watch and learn tutorial(the player might not be interested, and will suffer for it because they do not know the elemental things, or skip it entirely by just walking through). The introduction village would suffer some horrible fate early on, or some other event takes place which renders the village inaccessible.

And hawt Amazon babes plox(kidding).

-Please Don't-

• Player Character

The player character has not yet been specified. May I suggest that it be kept human, my reasoning as follows:
If intuition and logic/common sense is the order of the day, keeping the character human may be a wiser choice. A different race would introduce specific problems such as; a different biology and physiology(thereby negating the player's human intuitions in terms of food, shelter, abilities, behaviour, needs). Also, keeping our main character human does not estrange the player from who he/she is portraying and assists in immersion.

Also, story wise, the artefacts or gadgets the player is set to find should be rather intuitive as well, and introducing alien elements in this regard might once again estrange the player.

There are more arguments for keeping the player character human, such as the player emphasizing with his character, etc., but these are my main considerations.

Further, I adore the absence of a crafting system. Potions(wut), tools, furniture, metal working and anything but the crudest weapons and traps are almost impossible to make when you are in the wild here on earth, I don't see how it would be easy on an alien planet. I also assume our main character is not a survivalist or trained in survival.

• Flora, Fauna

Please don't overdo the presence of poison. I am absolutely fine with poisonous plant and animals, but please, refrain from adding many different types of poison that may be utilized by the player for simplicity's sake. Poison is, after all, poison and is a hard mechanic to install well. I would suggest that it could be used when hunting, but poisoning the animal in any way would render it useless. Poisoned weapons might be viable, but when the player is in a confrontation, poison has almost no value because it's a slow killer, and the player needs his adversary to die, like, right now.

Secondly, and I know this has been mentioned before, but I must oppose mounts(sorry). I do not think it adds value to the game and will detract from making something else much more worthwhile(no offence meant).

-In Closing-

I would like to say, congratulations on such a grand undertaking. And congratulations once more for doing it in the current fashion. I am doubly sure that this project will be a success.

I realize that many of the suggestions I have made might seen drastic, impossible to implement or plain idiotic. If even one word of this wall of text gave the devs an idea for something totally different, then I deem this successful. I have a million more ideas, but I suspect I have said enough.

Good luck.

To much to read man I thought this game/forum was dead good to see that not all people have given up on it. I like the environment ideas and the stamina could be like say you start off with 5 stamina reg and over time you lose reg but running say is - 6 stamina reg so that when you are fresh out of bed/just started you can run for longer than when you have been up all night and day where you may have no reg and about to lose -1 stamina and when you get say -5 stamina reg you cant move and are forced to sleep where ever it is you are and takes longer than when you had only 0 reg.

Thanks man!

In reply to your ideas about the stamina, I admit I am having a hard time understanding exactly what you meant. Probably on account of my limited intelligence :]

Are you suggesting that the player have a base Stamina variable assigned to him/her, which then decreases by being awake and is reset by sleeping? And if I understand correctly, this base variable in turn then influences your ability to do things which require stamina?

Perhaps, an example: The player always awakes with a base value stamina of 5. This base value is not influenced by things which require stamina, like running/fighting. The only change this base value undergoes is determined by how long the player is awake, -1 for three hours awake, -1 more for another three hours wake, etc.

This base value is then used as a determination of how the player performs when doing things which require stamina, like running/fighting.
To further the example: The player has been awake for eight hours, so his base Stamina value is at 3 (-1 for three hours awake, -1 more for another three hours awake). He finds that he can't run as fast or hit as hard regardless of the fact that his 'stamina bar' is full(if there is a way of gauging this in-game). This is because behind the screens, his base value has been lowered throughout the day.

If this is what you meant, then I'm all for it!

It might even tie in nicely with my suggestion for the effects of sleep deprivation. For each unit the base stamina is lowered, the edges of the player's field of vision becomes slightly changed, blurry, dark, swirly or something, and ties in with your other suggestion of the player having to do either something drastic or sleep on the spot whenever his base stamina reaches a critical point.

what i was meaning is you start of with say reg of +5 stamina but you max is 100 so you can do loads and the reg gets lower and lower rather than the max or like u start with say 100 stamina which gets lower the longer you wait like say for every hour in game time you get 4 stamina max lost in total how ever if you were to run the amount would drop faster but then reg back to the max amount depending on how long you have been away for and running could also mean that you max drops faster the more you run and to counter ppl just sleep loads you could make it your guy cant sleep until your at like 50% stamina lost from your total and the better the sleep you get the faster it regs the max or that you may get liek +10 max stamina. how ever what you thought i ment sounds like a really cool idea maybe ever better than my ideas. I actually love that idea that you thought i came up with xD (I suck at explaining so its all good)