Quite a few things.

1 - People are going to be aware that the ecology can be damaged, unlike in UO where that wasn't even a thought any of the players had.

2 - scale. The maps here are HUGE in comparison to UO. the size of the world will mean that It'll likely take a concerted effort on the part of many people to wipe out an ecology, and they would also have to work against other people who are trying to save the ecology. Not to say that it won't happen, but it'll take some deliberate effort.

3 - Ecology management will be a focus effort during the Alpha and Beta, depending on testing SbS will tweak the plants and animals to either be easier or harder to propagate and kill.

4 - if it happens there is probably some Story Engine stuff that is planned for said ecological events. So while it might suck for where it happens, it'll lead to some interesting events and who knows what the Story engine will do from there.

This Video has been brought up a few times before, but every time it is there is usually an interesting discussion about it.

@Sackeshi,

You are almost certainly referencing Ultima Online. I don't even have to follow your link to know that, because the scenario is so well known in the veteran online gaming community. The extinctions in that game were partly a result of the overly simplistic evolutionary and behavioral models used, and partly the result of the fact that characters had to kill things in order to progress. The results were entirely predictable given the rules.

CoE developers are explicitly aware of what happened in UA, and have talked about it, They have announced that it will be possible for players in CoE to completely exhaust resources, which for living things means make species extinct. They have given players the ability to restrict themselves from doing so, by making player-created laws and law enforcement possible. We shall see how it works out.

We’ll probably see dead zones on hostile kingdom borders where both sides have hunted and ravaged the country side on the other side.

It’s also going to add another concern when huntsmen of one county decide to hunt in a friendly neighbouring duchy for whatever reason.

We will most definitely see overfishing.

Take any form of exploitation or overfarming that politicians and corporations are doing in our world, and expect to see that in this world. We can only slow it down. It won’t stop. Money needs to be made. Growing populations need to be fed.

I'm certain the devs will think of something... Else they shall be let down when the Undead Lords stroll through screaming 'BLOOD AND SOULS FOR MYRKUL!'

Posted By Barri at 5:50 PM - Sun Aug 18 2019

I'm certain the devs will think of something... Else they shall be let down when the Undead Lords stroll through screaming 'BLOOD AND SOULS FOR MYRKUL!'

So I guess the Undead Lords will be the Avengers of Ecocide?

Will this be so on all the servers?

It would be bad for any community to kill of the land they are living on.

I guess most leader will have laws agenst it.

@Daarco. '...It would be bad for any community to kill of the land they are living on...'

That is obviously true...but the people doing the killing off may just be racing into and out of the game to deliberately wipe everything out 'for the fun of it.' Then simply disappear and go over to the next game. Mindless individuals...

Doomed

Thx for playing.

Ideally some animals should survive by fleeing from humans, or by trying to hide. If a species is close to extinction, then it should be hard to track down the last individuals to kill them.

How I see it first appearing is through the loss of forest. Without any planning ahead some villages will cut the trees closes to home and over time the closest tree will get farther and farther away. Maybe you started the game in the forest and after a few months of play you can only see them on the horizon. Now if they built the wildlife with advanced needs (which I hope they do) the prey you want to hunt will also get farther any farther away as they try to stay in the forest. No longer is it a quick trip in and out of the woods to get a deer but now it takes overnight expedition. Soon your booming wood industry feels the pain of needing to pay someone to go out and cut and transport the lumber which used to be cheap forcing wood crafters to move on to a location with closer timber. Soon the leather workers follow and the entire industry shifts.

Mostly not doomed.

Posted By Daarco at 03:43 AM - Mon Aug 19 2019

It would be bad for any community to kill of the land they are living on.

I guess most leader will have laws agenst it.

I see what you did there.... ;]

Leaving ecology maintenance in the hands of gamers will go about as well as you'd think it would. It will be equal parts sad and hilarious.

Posted By Brynath at 6:26 PM - Sat Aug 17 2019

Quite a few things.

1 - People are going to be aware that the ecology can be damaged, unlike in UO where that wasn't even a thought any of the players had.

2 - scale. The maps here are HUGE in comparison to UO. the size of the world will mean that It'll likely take a concerted effort on the part of many people to wipe out an ecology, and they would also have to work against other people who are trying to save the ecology. Not to say that it won't happen, but it'll take some deliberate effort.

3 - Ecology management will be a focus effort during the Alpha and Beta, depending on testing SbS will tweak the plants and animals to either be easier or harder to propagate and kill.

4 - if it happens there is probably some Story Engine stuff that is planned for said ecological events. So while it might suck for where it happens, it'll lead to some interesting events and who knows what the Story engine will do from there.

This Video has been brought up a few times before, but every time it is there is usually an interesting discussion about it.

1. I don't know about that. I have been following this game for quite some time and I didn't even know that you could damage the ecology... huh o_O

2. Not convinced by this reasoning. If it's just a matter of scale, the same things can happen even on a larger scale. Just change the number of concurrent players to match and voila you have the same/similar situation.

3. I'm interested in what kinds of tools or methods they think will be able to fix players running roughshod over the ecology?

4. This is the most interesting of the points you make. Very interested to see how this might play out (fallout-type world, anyone?)

Overfishing with medieval technology isn't a thing. While the dispersion of settlements is even across the continents leading to no particularly massive regions with no humanoids, the overall population density is quite low, and I don't imagine a realistic ecology being overwhelmed by humanoids.

Unless all the space between settlements starts getting fillled up, and the in-game population ends up being a lot higher than the DSS settlement populations would indicate.