I’m working on a RPG game and I was thinking about adding a “feature” to main character (player’s avatar). The “feature” is an addition of an “exhaustion” factor in order to influence character’s speed of movement, health and fighting ability. Basically if your character tired/hungry – it can’t do stuff as good and fast as if it were rested/full. It is a time dependent resource drainage attribute. As time passes in game – you have to “feed” your character in order for him to go on. If you don’t – it slows down its movements; speed and strength during fighting, etc. Also, if you keep him “hungry” long enough – his health will start to decline as well. I understand it is extra micro-management issue which could annoy a “general” player quite fast. But I believe it fits RPG genre quite good. My solution to this problem is to provide replenishing sources (places where you can get food) in abundance and at relatively low “cost” – thus elimination the actual cause of the annoyance of micro-management. [in my opinion – the problem is not in adding another exhaust pipe to drain player’s avatar of “life ”– but in not providing enough resources to gain “life” back] I have not seen this implemented in other games (although I’m sure there are games which implemented this or a familiar type of thing, I just don’t know any). The reason they didn’t, I guess, is that it adds unnecessary micro-management issue to the game-play ( - “no time to eat - got to kill.. everybody”) plus it increases the learning curve time and steepness. Although the later can be fixed quite easy with audio prompts like “I need food!” So, what do you guys think – is it a threat to a game to add such a feature; is it a positive and refreshing addition or does it do nothing? Do me a favor – turn this feature ON and play your favorite game in your head and give me some feedback. I will appreciate any. Thanks. ... no magic ... just coding

To further reduce micro management, make the character automatically eats ration and tell it to the player, when available, other wise, warn the player before applying penalties, something like 'I'm hungry/thursty' should be enough.

If you are to include this inside a game, make it USEFULL, there's nothing worse that something completely useless.

Every NPC should follow the same rules as the PC.
The player could then try to trap an hungry creature, try to make them suffer from lack of food...

On a related note, you could if not already did, introduce the notion of fatigue, which reduce player's capabilities when tired.

Now you'll see the full strength of undeads in a realistic setting.
They don't eat, don't drink, don't sleep, are never tired...

*- edit -*
I do remember having to feed my character a while ago, but I don't remember the name of the game, however it was fun.


-* So many things to do, so little time to spend. *-


[edited by - Ingenu on April 25, 2003 10:52:12 AM]

This was featured in Nethack.

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What happens once will never happen again.
However, what happens twice will most certainly happen again.

quote: Original post by Input_iPPie
This was featured in Nethack.

"... died from starvation on level 1", thank you so much. The Eye of the Beholder series also had this "feature", at least in the first episode; The characters had to eat regularly (you could find iron rations and bigger rations) or starve and take penalties. It was effectively disabled somewhere haalfway through the game when you found some magical rations of endless food, a thing I think the designers introduced because they found that their "feature" sucked big time after a while.

The element of food might be bringing some realism in, but gets annoying quickly IMO. It''s just a repetitive gameplay element that adds little. It might be useful to have a system like this for long journeys when you have the character travel quickly from town to town to at least force him to either take something with him or live off the land and thereby slow down or risk a random encounter with reduced strength, constitution or whatever.

Rogue had something like that as well. I always thought it was kind of dumb to die of starvation just because I couldn''t find any food in a dungeon.

On the other hand, I think Morrowind could have benefitted from a hunger/food system like that, rather than the fatigue system they have. It could have added to a game like that that is fairly realistic is some ways. It would have been cool to play a beggar/thief type player who steals food to survive.

Hunger and food are tough subjects if you think about it - mainly because thay are almost never done right in games as of yet (hint!).

Think about it....

In most RPGs, your character(s), if they require food, use it mostly for regaining health. Is that honestly right?? And when does your character have enough room in their digestive track to consume 100 steaks in one short day (and without any waste as well)?! Honestly, unless your character is a vampire (which needs to ''feed'' in order to survive otherwise they decompose) or Goku from DBZ who needs to eat 100 meals in one sitting even if it interupts a match, then why bother using food and not just a quik ''pick-me-up'' magicly healing/restoration item?

Or better yet, why not go for a truer realistic approach? Food should be consumed, all kinds possible, but it should be done with realistic intentions (sleeping is another issue as well) - used to remain healthy and active which should be altered on a reasonably realistic time scale - in other words, only one meal in a 5 or so hour period, dependant on other factors which I''ll mention, as well as depending on how much is consumed, should sufice the character for a similar amount of time if not longer (ever go 3 days without eating? Did you die?). Other factors to consider to add realism as well as extra gameplay elements - Meal size, Meal type, food preferances (stomach aches anyone?), poisoning, medical/health foods, eating too much food, etc. There''s so many ways to get creative and still remain in realistic details without deriving the player of their main attention to goals... unless that''s the idea behind it ;P

My 2 cents on the issue

- Christopher Dapo ~ Ronixus

I would only have a hunger feature if it really was part of the game play.

In most games, food is just annoying. The player has to remember to buy food every time they go to town, or suffer the consequences. This might be a problem at first, when they''re poor, but later the player is buying 100 days at a time just to shut the game up.

Lords of the Realm had a Rations feature, where you could set the people on 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, and double rations...at lower than normal, they got sick and died. Increased rations improved health and morale. Growing food meant taking workers away from weapons production and limited your ability to enlist them in the army. So the food feature worked, because it really was meaningful.

For another example, what if Fallout had had a hunger feature? In a post-apocalyptic world, you probably can''t find clean food and water very easily. The player would be forced to be very careful about exploring the wild, and scheduling trips between towns. Strangers might have begged or attacked for food...or the player could even be reduced to having to beg to get food. It would have been a very different game.

I think everquest handles it well.. you can''t die from lack of food, but your hit points and mana don''t regenerate... i don''t think killing a player for silly reasons (for example, his crap-o-meter got too high) is a good idea

if i were to do something like this, i''d make the "eating" process automatic.
for example, your PC gets tired, so a little icon pops up over his name or whatnot letting you know he''s hungry and has decided to eat some of the rations he''s accumulated. these rations would be restored automatically when you "kill" edible creatures in battle. this would reduce micromanagment and starvation drastically, but the element would still be there. perhaps you could choose to feed your player too often and he gets chubby and his speed rating goes down. too much ale or potion or whatnot and he develops a beer belly and his speed/vision goes down. stuff like that would be cool, but you''d have to balance everything out to make it worthwhile. ie) nobody''s going to drink ale if it makes you stagger and vomit, but if it gave you temporary aggression and power then it''d be a worthy tradeoff (for some). make things interesting, don''t have a feature just for the sake of having it.

-eldee
;another space monkey;
[ Forced Evolution Studios ]

Do NOT let Dr. Mario touch your genitals. He is not a real doctor!

i plan on including hunger and food in my game (a non-massive multiplayer online RPG). the eating would be automatic if the character has food available, and the would be options to "eat sparingly" if supplies are short, or "pig out" if it is plentiful (not useful, unless following a period of "eating sparingly" or starving). not eating would not kill for a while, but it would lower their stamina and morale.

i decided to include this because player characters can hunt wild animals or farm or whatever, if they are so inclined (and SOME will be, i hope, since i want to create a somewhat-realistic market; if nobody hunts or farms, food prices will skyrocket and many will be hungry). i also have included various other factors, such as preferred food types (in addition to ending hunger, foods affect the character''s morale, so if they are forced to eat foods they don''t like they won''t be as happy) and the ability to poison someone''s lamb chops.

i decided to leave out the "dump-o-meter", not because i have good taste, but because many of the players might

anyway, enough rambling about my stuff...

include the food features only if it matters to the game. if everything would be exactly the same with or without the food micromanagement, couldn''t the food and eating just be assumed without inturrupting gameplay? i never played an RPG without food and thought, "man this sucks, my guy never has to eat". i HAVE played some where it was annoying (ultima 7 comes to mind, since i had to dig around through their crappy inventory system to find seven large pieces of food and seven small pieces of food for all the guys in the party, like every 45 minutes or so). the way i see it, characters ought to be able to eat the food in their inventory automatically when necessary, unless the player tells them not to for some reason (rationing?)...

if it adds to gameplay, go for it. if it is micromanagement on the "dump-o-meter" level, don''t.

just my 2 cents