So I'm still racking my brain for ways to make Live Nornish Action more interesting for the community. And while I'm planning on doing a few community live wolfling runs, so far the idea really hasn't gained much support or contribution.
One of the problems with streaming community live wolfling runs is that the lives of the norns are so short. People might be interested in watching their own norns and maybe their first offspring, but after that the creatures are foreign to them and there's no real motive to keep tabs on them.
So I'm trying to come up with some more ideas for "programs" that hopefully people can feel a little more connected with.
The first and simplest notion to come to mind is just a feral run with genetically altered norns-- just changing the half-life gene so the norns age very, very slowly. I'm talking a lifespan of 100-200 hours (less so if the run was shown in intervals rather than stream 24/7). Some other modifications might be made to make pregnancies longer as well as recovery time afterward, but otherwise the run would proceed as normal. It would give everyone a chance to see their creatures in action and perhaps put more emphasis on actual survival, since the longer a creature lives the more likely it is to come in contact with antigens and other dangers. People might be able to get a bit more attached to something like that.
Now, developing the notion a little further, I might consider running some sort of Survivor-esque game show (which.... probably wouldn't be very survivor-esque, considering I've never even watched survivor) in which members of the CC send in creatures under their names. The creatures are genetically altered to be fixed at a desired lifestage and never age (they are still perfectly mortal, just not by aging). These representative Creatures would be released into the world and occasionally be subjected to certain obstacles-- be that disease, a particularly vicious creature, an elaborate version of the IQ test, etc.. Creatures would be awarded points based on how many children they had (which would be exported after note was made of them) and for exceeding in certain obstacles (being the first to finish the IQ test or killing off the vicious creature). Most of the time though, the creatures would just run around doing their creaturely things-- though I would probably make note of dates and times that certain events would take place so people could watch at that time if they wanted to.
Something like this could work several ways:
- The game could run for a certain length of time and at the end the creature with the most points would be declared the winner. Creatures that died throughout the course of the game may be reincarnated at the cost of half or all of their points.
- The game could last as long as it takes for all but one of the creatures to die off. Points could be spent on reincarnations, but if a creature dies and is out of points, it is out of the game.
- As per tradition, people could vote a different creature out of the game every week. The creature with the most points would be immune to the votes, reincarnation would cost a set number of points, and votes against creatures with negative points would be worth twice as much.
- The game would be ongoing until everyone got bored and and have no real winner, but a point tally would be kept for fun.
In the end though, LNA is just a bunch of creatures running around-- something anyone can witness by firing up the game. Except in the case of special events, it's really not meant to be something you watch for extended periods of time; it's just something you peek in on now and again to check on a favorite creature. Unless the community can really benefit from it in some way, I'm not sure how long it will last after the novelty wears off.
I am considering using it for other purposes though-- perhaps as a way for developers to promote upcoming breeds, metarooms, or agents. I think having an open warp in an unreleased metaroom would be quite a way to get people interested about what is to come.
It doesn't have to be limited to unreleased stuff either... It could also just promote any community-created content that people might be interested in. Might be a fun way to spread the word about new or nearly-forgotten content.
Anyway I'm rambling now. I believe I've been up all night brainstorming.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Belated Warp Week 1 Video Journal
I don't know if I mentioned it at the time, but during the first Warp Week I kept a little daily video journal, detailing the highlights of the days. I finally got around to compiling it into a single video file which you can download at this link, if you so wish.
Granted, it is a bit long (21 minutes, hence why I didn't stick it on YouTube or anything) and a bit large (78mb, but that's quite a feat considering the raw AVI was nearly five gigs). It's more for record-keeping/archival purposes than entertainment value. But if you want to listen to me ramble on about norns for 15 minutes followed by five minutes of hundreds of norns being spliced in super-speed set to insane DDR music, you're welcome to it!
Granted, it is a bit long (21 minutes, hence why I didn't stick it on YouTube or anything) and a bit large (78mb, but that's quite a feat considering the raw AVI was nearly five gigs). It's more for record-keeping/archival purposes than entertainment value. But if you want to listen to me ramble on about norns for 15 minutes followed by five minutes of hundreds of norns being spliced in super-speed set to insane DDR music, you're welcome to it!
Saturday, June 6, 2009
The Scattered State of the Creatures Community
I miss the Gameware forums.
Not because they were great forums. Don't get me wrong-- I was annoyed as anyone with the spammers and kids who just couldn't grasp the concept of basic forum etiquette, and it really would have benefited from closer moderation.
But they were a gathering place. People would break off and start their own forums, but all organized events, all group projects, all big announcements could still be discussed on the Gameware forums with the whole community. But when the forums went down, the remainder of the Creatures Community was scattered to the four winds. Some didn't know where to go and disappeared entirely, and the rest scurried to one of several fan-based forums.
Years later, the community continues to shrink, and appears even smaller due to being so split up. It makes it extremely difficult to coordinate a community-wide event (such as CCSF) when several people don't seem to know that there are more people involved in the community outside their forum, or if they do, don't seem to have any interest in contacting them.
But what can we do?
In a perfect world, we could all merge into one big happy forum. But that is far easier said than done.
First to protest I believe would be the admins/mods of the forums. I've run forums for other games/fandoms and let me tell you... merging just plain sucks for the admins. When you've been handling your community pretty well for a while and you have your own set of rules, your own way of handling misconduct, and even your own favorite skin for your forums, it is a serious test of patience to be put in a situation where you no longer have full control over your community, where you have to clear changes with other people before putting them into action, and so on. And if any conflict erupts between the admins, the whole thing is pretty much history. In fact, trying to run any community with more than two or three admins is generally a bad idea. I'd like to say we're above petty conflict and drama, but we are still human (though some of us swear otherwise)
Not to mention that during these past gameware-forum-less years, some of these sub-communities have grown rather comfortable and happy within their little group. Some forums are perfectly fine with mindless offtopic spamming; others will ban you for it. Trying to force those previously isloated cultures to mingle would likely result in conflict as well.
So what do we do? We can't create another general creatures forum and advertise it as the new community gathering, because unless everyone agreed on that concept we would just be creating another sub-community and splitting ourselves up even more.
So the idea I'm turning in my mind is not necessarily a community forum, but a community hub.
It would link to all the other sub-communities out there. It would include Creatures-based communities as well as other general communities started by CC members, and just generally link everything CC-related together as much as possible so we're just not so scattered.
And though it would have a forum-- a small one-- it would be used purely for discussing events that pertained to the entire community, so as to not take away traffic from the other sub-communities, but create a neutral ground for discussing things like CCSF, for coordinating and recruiting people for development projects, or for announcing new sites/content.
As per usual, I have no intent or means of putting this proposal into action, but it certainly has a much smaller chance of happening if I didn't write it down at all.
I really hope someday we can find a way to unite the CC again. As it seems Gameware has all but abandoned us, we really need to take matters into our own hands.
Not because they were great forums. Don't get me wrong-- I was annoyed as anyone with the spammers and kids who just couldn't grasp the concept of basic forum etiquette, and it really would have benefited from closer moderation.
But they were a gathering place. People would break off and start their own forums, but all organized events, all group projects, all big announcements could still be discussed on the Gameware forums with the whole community. But when the forums went down, the remainder of the Creatures Community was scattered to the four winds. Some didn't know where to go and disappeared entirely, and the rest scurried to one of several fan-based forums.
Years later, the community continues to shrink, and appears even smaller due to being so split up. It makes it extremely difficult to coordinate a community-wide event (such as CCSF) when several people don't seem to know that there are more people involved in the community outside their forum, or if they do, don't seem to have any interest in contacting them.
But what can we do?
In a perfect world, we could all merge into one big happy forum. But that is far easier said than done.
First to protest I believe would be the admins/mods of the forums. I've run forums for other games/fandoms and let me tell you... merging just plain sucks for the admins. When you've been handling your community pretty well for a while and you have your own set of rules, your own way of handling misconduct, and even your own favorite skin for your forums, it is a serious test of patience to be put in a situation where you no longer have full control over your community, where you have to clear changes with other people before putting them into action, and so on. And if any conflict erupts between the admins, the whole thing is pretty much history. In fact, trying to run any community with more than two or three admins is generally a bad idea. I'd like to say we're above petty conflict and drama, but we are still human (though some of us swear otherwise)
Not to mention that during these past gameware-forum-less years, some of these sub-communities have grown rather comfortable and happy within their little group. Some forums are perfectly fine with mindless offtopic spamming; others will ban you for it. Trying to force those previously isloated cultures to mingle would likely result in conflict as well.
So what do we do? We can't create another general creatures forum and advertise it as the new community gathering, because unless everyone agreed on that concept we would just be creating another sub-community and splitting ourselves up even more.
So the idea I'm turning in my mind is not necessarily a community forum, but a community hub.
It would link to all the other sub-communities out there. It would include Creatures-based communities as well as other general communities started by CC members, and just generally link everything CC-related together as much as possible so we're just not so scattered.
And though it would have a forum-- a small one-- it would be used purely for discussing events that pertained to the entire community, so as to not take away traffic from the other sub-communities, but create a neutral ground for discussing things like CCSF, for coordinating and recruiting people for development projects, or for announcing new sites/content.
As per usual, I have no intent or means of putting this proposal into action, but it certainly has a much smaller chance of happening if I didn't write it down at all.
I really hope someday we can find a way to unite the CC again. As it seems Gameware has all but abandoned us, we really need to take matters into our own hands.
Random Run Updates
It didn't take terribly long for the first run to homogenize-- by generation 20~ or so pretty much the whole population was Chichi with Astro arms (which actually match very nice on the female Chichi body) and Harlequin legs. Not terribly impressive, but some potential, so I decided to try another.
I actually made note of which genomes were randomly injected this time, and the resulting sample consisted of Hardman, Wasserpflanze Plant, 2x CFE Treehugger, Moon Light, Unkraut Loewenzahn Plant, and "screw.gen", which is probably one of my long forgotten bizarre genetic experiements.
As of typing, the run is creeping into its 20th generation and most of the population consists of these odd grape-hardman-headed moon light norns. Some of them have moon light tails but many of them have these strange ... grendel-like tails? I'm not sure where they came from.. it may be some sort of mutation.
But they don't account for the entire population-- I'm really not sure of the genetic quirks involved in the plant norns but they don't seem to mind hanging out in the bottom of the workshop, thriving despite their lack of food. It may be a while before the population is truely homogenized if two separate populations can exist in different places on the ship, which is quite fine by me!In other news, I'm going to try to make use of my Ustream channel to do a live wolfling run sometime in the next week or so. Details are in this thread at Creaturetopia if you want to get involved. It should be an interesting experiment.
Friday, June 5, 2009
The Random Run
Well, LNA has been running fairly nicely for a week now. In an attempt to better the performance I reformatted the hard drive and while I don't know if I see a notable difference in the stream, the computer itself is much easier to work with now.
Progress has been slow but steady on BattleStance. I have added in the overlays, CAs, CA linkers, and have worked a little on the sprites for the fruit meant to grow on the tree. In experimenting with norns in the room though, I am worried that I may have made the lifts too large-- in some of the smaller rooms, they seem to grab every norn into it, willing or not-- and because they move so fast, if one norn is insistant on pulling the lift and the other on pushing, the lifts end up bouncing up and down for quite a time. As much of a pain as it was to do those lifts I am seriously considering reworking them.
There's been a lot of chatter over at Creaturetopia about CCSF '09. A couple of polls finally set this year's festival date for November 1st-14th-- partly in honor of the ten-year anniversary of Creatures 3, which was released on November 1st, 1999. Now there's a bit of dicussion about the potential theme. It's nice to see so much enthusiasm. I have high hopes for this year.
With the required updates out of the way, I'd like to make mention of a new sort of wolfling run I'm trying out. I'm calling it a "random run" and essentially beginning it with this block of code injected eight times:
It looks like the initial line-up consists of some chichis, an astro, a fallow, a harlequin, a couple plant norns, and a weird purple bengal. Not as many of the strange new breeds as I initially hoped, but randomness will have to take its course for the sake of the run rules.
I intend on letting the run go on until the population is mostly homogenous. Nothing special is being done to accomodate those norns with special needs-- the resulting genetic sample needs to be able to survive and breed normally in a typical DS world. I've rigged up the egg finder with the timer in the workshop and killed all teleporters as I do for all my runs, but other than than the world is virtually untouched. Nature will take its course now.
On a somewhat related note, I would like to do a few experiments on norn adaptation in different metarooms. It would take a while, and the results may or may not produce anything, but it might be interesting to try.
I would run several feral runs... perhaps five for each room. Starting with normal chichis, and letting them run until generation 100 or so, then comparing genetic samples to see how much they differ from each other and the base chichi genome. In theory, the norns within the same run would differ very little from each other, but differ some from the norns in different runs within the same metaroom, just due to the randomness of evolution. But theoretically, the norns from all runs done in one metaroom would differ quite noticabley from norns raised in another metaroom, because they have had to adapt to different enviroments.
I'm not sure if 100 generations is really enough for the genome to settle though. And I'm not even sure if the difference in metaroom enviroments would cause the genome differences to be greater than the sheer randomness of mutations that take place in separate colonies. But eh... that's what experiments are for, right? To prove or dispprove theories.
But I'll file that away in my nice little idea folder for now. As if I don't have enough projects to keep me busy!
Progress has been slow but steady on BattleStance. I have added in the overlays, CAs, CA linkers, and have worked a little on the sprites for the fruit meant to grow on the tree. In experimenting with norns in the room though, I am worried that I may have made the lifts too large-- in some of the smaller rooms, they seem to grab every norn into it, willing or not-- and because they move so fast, if one norn is insistant on pulling the lift and the other on pushing, the lifts end up bouncing up and down for quite a time. As much of a pain as it was to do those lifts I am seriously considering reworking them.
There's been a lot of chatter over at Creaturetopia about CCSF '09. A couple of polls finally set this year's festival date for November 1st-14th-- partly in honor of the ten-year anniversary of Creatures 3, which was released on November 1st, 1999. Now there's a bit of dicussion about the potential theme. It's nice to see so much enthusiasm. I have high hopes for this year.
With the required updates out of the way, I'd like to make mention of a new sort of wolfling run I'm trying out. I'm calling it a "random run" and essentially beginning it with this block of code injected eight times:
new: simp 3 4 1 "eggs" 8 0 2000It is a generic egg-injection script-- but the bolded line ensures that a completely random genome is injected into the egg. I have recently downloaded just a ton of new breeds and thought this would be an interesting way to test drive them.
pose 0
attr 195
bhvr 32
elas 10
fric 100
aero 10
accg 4
perm 60
gene load targ 1 "*"
setv ov01 0
tick 900
mvto 443 9167
anim [0 1 2 3]
It looks like the initial line-up consists of some chichis, an astro, a fallow, a harlequin, a couple plant norns, and a weird purple bengal. Not as many of the strange new breeds as I initially hoped, but randomness will have to take its course for the sake of the run rules.
I intend on letting the run go on until the population is mostly homogenous. Nothing special is being done to accomodate those norns with special needs-- the resulting genetic sample needs to be able to survive and breed normally in a typical DS world. I've rigged up the egg finder with the timer in the workshop and killed all teleporters as I do for all my runs, but other than than the world is virtually untouched. Nature will take its course now.
On a somewhat related note, I would like to do a few experiments on norn adaptation in different metarooms. It would take a while, and the results may or may not produce anything, but it might be interesting to try.
I would run several feral runs... perhaps five for each room. Starting with normal chichis, and letting them run until generation 100 or so, then comparing genetic samples to see how much they differ from each other and the base chichi genome. In theory, the norns within the same run would differ very little from each other, but differ some from the norns in different runs within the same metaroom, just due to the randomness of evolution. But theoretically, the norns from all runs done in one metaroom would differ quite noticabley from norns raised in another metaroom, because they have had to adapt to different enviroments.
I'm not sure if 100 generations is really enough for the genome to settle though. And I'm not even sure if the difference in metaroom enviroments would cause the genome differences to be greater than the sheer randomness of mutations that take place in separate colonies. But eh... that's what experiments are for, right? To prove or dispprove theories.
But I'll file that away in my nice little idea folder for now. As if I don't have enough projects to keep me busy!
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