Animal Taming

Ok to start with im taking under the assumption that there will be animal taming in sota. Im also hoping it will be along the lines that UO offered but with some slight adjustments\variations.

If possible could we get some info on how the animal taming aspect of the game is going to work?

The UO style was great but did have many flaws so would definately need to be reworked\reinvented

 

The great thing about these forums, the people who make this game, take into consideration what is posted here. What is it you disliked about UO taming? Think that info will be more helpful. The devs may have not even tackled taming yet, or ready to discuss skill mechanics yet.

 

Yes, there will be taming. That was like the second or third stretch goal we blew away.

As to info you will just have to be patient I don't think they've gotten to that design point yet.

 

I remember in UO on a free server they had a guard that would circle part of the town.
So I decided to tame an animal and make it follow him, then I tamed another animal and told it to follow the animal following the guard.
So after doing that with my 5 pets, I switched to my second character.
Then had 5 more pets following
So yea I went through all the characters, taming all the creatures I could.
I know I had at least 20 animals in a line following that guard.

 

Taming is my all time favorite skill systems in all MMOs. It is always the first "profession" I evaluate an MMO upon.
I have really longed for someone to nail an implementation, and introduce the mechanics to single player games as well.

I think the best place to start when looking to design the ultimate system is to go back to UO for Animal Taming, and also incorporate ideas from Star Wars Galaxies Creature Handling and Bio Engineering.
Some quick highlights:
1) The ability to transfer useful pets to others (LBR with Rune Beetles)
2) Exploration/Discoverability (SWG nests)
3) Creation (SWG through BE dna)
4) Enhancement (UO pet training)

There are treasure troves of information and ideas out there, if someone had enough passion to really dive in an develop the ultimate taming system.
Most recent games have really gone astray from the things that make taming great.

 

Next to player housing animal taming was my favorite thing in uo. Having pets was always limited to a certain number which is OK but it would be awesome to have a full blown farm in SotA with an animal breeding system next to taming. Also make it so your pets that are kept in your house stay tamed and don't leave. It was just awesome to be able to tame almost any animal in the game. Having pack animals, mounts, pets that healed/resurrected you, and attack animals were awesome and I want all that in SotA!

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#3 creation could be handled by a summoning spell or illusion spell. Cast an illusion of a dragon that follows you around for 30 minutes or so, or you can cast something like "find familiar" and have a permanent magical companion. Then there is the basic summoning spells that call a monster or force to your aid for a duration.

 

I kind of hope there are very different flavors. One that is a pet, one that raises the dead, one that conjures an illusion out of nothing, one that summons, etc.

Mechanically everything can be very similar. But I just like the idea of different areas of the game having a strong regional flavor.

 

I think pets that actually assist you and maybe even show that they have a relationship with you would be awesome and immersive. Pet stats and skills that are trained and grown over time based on care would be really cool. I'm still wanting pet breeding and ranching/farming of them and their resources.

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+1 to what has been said to everyone in this thread. UO style, but no grinding away taming the same things over and over again. Taming a variety of creatures, or observing them, fighting with them, healing them should get you progress in the skill.

pet/animal breeding is a really fun part of games. Dragon Quest Monsters was a lot of fun in that aspect. Which would be that #3) Creation. I think it would be too ambitious at this point to add that in. A really fun and balanced system takes a lot of time and work. I'd love to see non-naturally occurring creatures come up this way, and the most powerful pets being first bred, then their offspring trained. But I'd see that as something for a later episode... If I remember right there was something like after 5 generations you got the most powerful version of that creature. and they inherited their parents traits, so you'd want to train up each generation first. A very time consuming process, a bit of a grind, but satisfying to get that end result. To be the most powerful you'd want to max level each parent then the offspring would get +5% of their parents stat's.. and so forth till that 5th gen had a nice bonus just to start.

 

It's still early on so you never know what'll name it in the game also after it's out they'll be continually making it bigger and better.

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I am so happy to see that this was one of the promised stretch goals! I loved taming soooo much in UO.

 

I love this! SWG even though the NGE patch ruined the game pretty much the redoing of the Bio Engineer was wonderful and I loved that. I liked going out stealthily on Endor to a rancor lair, or around Mos Eisley to find a Krayt Dragon, to try and get some blood in hopes of not being wiped off the face of the planet while doing so. I don't think having a "Bio Lab" per say would mesh well with SoTA but that system was probably the best ever in my eyes. Lord British and clue should also have it that you can set catches around the wilderness in order to catch a potential new pet while you are off line. I feel like it would be cool if you could be your own Davey Crockett, where you could be a Tinker/Trapper/Tamer type of character.

Oh, I also like the idea, even though it is unethical for most, that you could have animal fighting events. I mean in medieval times this was kind of a staple. This is just my two cents

I am sure we could start a master list of ideas that could be stickied for them

 

MCH/MBE. One of the first handful on my server.
Ultimately it meant that I had little combat skill. I spent a lot of my early days perfecting the art of solo DNA Sampling Rancors as a way to kill them and get my DNA at the same time.
Kite it like a Boss. (BE style).

 

Animal breading would be a nice touch. I don't know if I have the patience to do that, but I bet quite a few would. Especially the true tamer at heart.

 

Making minator or griphon or ware-rabbit could be entertaining

 

I'd like to play as a ware-rabbit are you kidding? I'll be a chaotic-good ware-rabbit magic-user please.

 

For myself, I think animal taming should go beyond the simple basics of having it follow you around and fight for you. I really like the concept of adding in some type of "crafting skill" to it by allowing a breeding program. However I would disagree with the idea of cross-breeding different species to make some weird mutant. I think the art resources alone needed for the potential monstrosities that could arrive would be daunting.

Next thing you know we have a giant, scaly panther with wings and a horn that breathes fire and lays eggs to use for cooking...

 

I agree id rather not delve into cross breeding.

I could see breeding with the same race to create special color variations.


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And not just cosmetic things like that, but also to breed better skills. I'm going to just make up some game mechanics here, but just go with it and you'll see what I'm going for. Let's say I have a wolf that started out with an attack rating of 1, and then I spent the max points possible for the life of that wolf to get it to an attack rating of 9. If I have it mate with another wolf of attack rating 3, I'd end up with a baby wolf that has a starting attack rating of maybe 2 or 3. Better than the parent, but still not that great. But say I take that wolf with a 9, and I mate them with a wolf with an 8 or 9 rating. Now that baby might start out with a 4 or 5 rating.

It would have to be something that took a lot of work. And it would probably be good to say that the two wolves that were to mate would have to come from different accounts. There would probably have to be some type of time sink to it as well. Yes, this would mean someone could eventually raise a super wolf, but if it takes work and is also something that anyone with the skill can do, then I wouldn't see a problem. And then it would add another user created item that could be sold to others, helping to build the player-driven economy.