Crafter breeders? Crafter breeders!

Speely

So what does everyone here think about monster/creature
breeding being available to crafters? For protecting keeps,
leaving nasty spooks in the Depths, hauling supply trains, etc?
I think it would be cool. Ideas welcome!

BowbowDAoC

"Breeding" was inplemented when UO released, it was there the very first day, no one actually knew about it, because in a matter of hours, every living creatures on the map was killed lol. they had to react and go back to the old spawning system.

the worst part about it is that it was time and monsy consuming to program all this, and it didnt serve at all.

so if they implement it in CU, i think it should be wise to implement both breeding and spawning, even to the ectent of having more creatures on the map at times. breeding alone could be risky.

Speely

Interesting. I played UO and never heard about that.... probably because I didn't play at launch.

Well maybe it's just a pipe dream then

dantheman13

Interesting idea!  MJ said there won't be pet classes though because of pathing and performance issues that they cause, so I would think they wouldn't want to go this route.

mklinic

Reading the OP, my first thought was a variation on the SWG Creature Handlers. They were pretty cool and the people that got into that class had a sort of mini-game of their own. Heading into a tangent: I only dabbled as a CH briefly and always felt there was more to learn/accomplish with the class. Pet class or no, I just hope the classes are engaging in that you don't easily come by feeling that you've mastered or "done it all" with your chosen class.

Speely

Thanks for the input, all. I feel like there is something to be said for exploring this concept in a new way.

Player-created spawns, able to be thwarted by rival crafters.

Crafters breeding creatures for keep defense.

Oh hi, realm mates! Who wants to participate in a tourney to kill my newest creation(s)?

Etc al....

Speely

Herman "et al" Stupid autocorrect.

Speely

Aaaand Herman usurps hrm in my correction. How quaint.

meddyck

Originally posted by dantheman13
Interesting idea!  MJ said there won't be pet classes though because of pathing and performance issues that they cause, so I would think they wouldn't want to go this route.

Yeah unfortunately there won't be any kind of pet classes in the launch version. I get the performance concern they have although it seems like the fun factor would drop to 0 well before you reached the kind of huge (500+ players) fights they are trying to tune the engine for whether there are pets or not. It would seem like it wouldn't be that big an issue if you maybe only had 1 pet class per realm. Maybe the situation will change after 3+ years of tuning the engine and there will be pet classes later on after release possibly in an expansion. At that point we can talk about ideas like the OP's.

BowbowDAoC

Originally posted by PerfArt
Interesting. I played UO and never heard about that.... probably because I didn't play at launch.

Well maybe it's just a pipe dream then

i only found out about it last week too, i stumbled upon a SotA interview where they talked about that. i dont think breeding is impossible, but its even more important to have a system that works headstart, in a game where ressources play a major role.

 

Tamanous

I agree with the suggestion of making a craft skill for managing mobs on your RvR realm side but not as pets.

 

That would be an incredibly intriguing mechanic to morph PvE into RvR as a player tool. CU has the chance to completely rethink PvE which is more accurate to what it is in reality within the game over simply saying PvE doesn't exist at all.

Speely

To be clearer, I was not referring to pets, but more to morphing over into rvr as Tanamous suggested.

Lawtoween

My original interpretation of the OP was that none of the animals would be combat pets.  While having beasts of burden to haul your goods still puts them into the RvR mix as avatars, the only pathing they need to have is how to run away from an attack (which means go directly away until it runs into something that stops it, then randomly select a new direction and repeat).

On the other hand, what if they took the player controlled mobs from The Depths idea and made that into the "pet class."  In other words, the character would stand still on the battle field (or in some hiding spot away from the field), enter a trance-like state and then control the pet directly.  Otherwise, the pet only follows the character.  I guess the issue there is all the art work required for the playable pets, but at least pathing is not an issue.

Tamanous

I think a cool idea would have the the ability to use the magic from the veil to mutate creatures in almost "patented" ways for the crafter and put to use for the controlling side as defending mobs.

Speely

Some cool ideas here. I like the Veil idea... there is nothing to say that crafters can't utilize magic as well. Just different kinds of magic from normal casters.

Aside from hauler-types and/or Depth npcs, i can envision creature breeding being a component of upgrading a keep's defensesw one you take it. Standard guards come free, but other nasties will cost ya. That would be neat.

edit: each realm could have unique creatures for this purpose, thus adding a bit of non-mirroring into the crafter class.

UOlover

Purple con badger I choose you

Speely

Originally posted by UOlover
Purple con badger I choose you