Actually, in Asheron''s Call, not only can you sit on the ground, but there is a seperate sit on chairs motion and you can even lie down... I play EQ a lot and when I first checked out Asheron... I cam across a whole bunch of people lying on the ground. I figured that it had been a party wipe out... Until one of them kindly asked me to step off his face.

I don''t think sitting or lying has a purpose in single player games unless it helps mana/health regen. But in a MMORPG - it is almost needed, if for no other reason than to facilitate the social climate of the game.

My opinion,
Landsknecht

quote: Until one of them kindly asked me to step off his face.

LOL! =)

Yeah, sitting down doesn''t need to be a big deal. It looked totally fine in UO and that didn''t even have an animation. You could walk onto chairs with backs from the wrong side though.

I think one of the ways to help solve a lot of this is to use the same technique that The Sims does in that the animations to interact with a object are embeded in the object itself. That way, by adding a new sitting type device, the device would animate the character that tried to use it. In The Sims, if you approached a chair from the wrong side, for example, the character would slide around the side of the chair (sideways if it had to squeeze between two things) and then sit... all included as part of the "chair" class.

Dave Mark
President and Lead Designer
Intrinsic Algorithm Development
"Reducing the world to mathematical equations!"

This stuff isn''t complex. In three minutes, I thought of all of these ideas:

• Sitting decreases fatigue at a slightly higher rate.
  
• Sitting increases healing at a slightly higher rate.
  
• Sitting decreases one''s target size slightly.
  
• Sitting adds a lag time to responding to combat.
  
• Sitting makes those one is talking to slightly less intimidated.
  
• Sitting occurs automatically when the character is extremely fatigued, and not moving. If within proximity of a chair, the character will use it.
  

There. Incentives to get the player to sit. Also, incentives for the player to be wary of sitting. And, automatic character sitting in certain situations.