Board 8 > Non-city-builders that to simulate "a living world"?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Obviously a game like Rimworld or Dwarf Fortress simulates a living world, with characters motivated by filling their own needs, expanding, etc, but are there other games that let you play a game on top of a living world?

I think one of the Stalker games has a mod that does this, it makes every NPC in the game have needs that they actively fulfill, which is supposed to lead to emergent shit like NPCs stealing from shopkeepers, who may or may not retaliate, and then their stock is affected, which affects their income, etc.

I remember before Skyrim came out, one of the devs did a Molyneux and said "if you cast a fire spell on a woodcutters supply, they won't be able to warm their house or make money, which can cause problems", and being like "OH SHIT! That sounds cool as hell!" and then that was 100% not a thing, lol.

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You mean something like Shenmue maybe?

There was also that Nemesis system in the Shadow of Mordor games that sounds sorta like what you're talking about, but I didn't play them so I don't know if that was overhyped/how detailed it was.

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xp1337 posted...

There was also that Nemesis system in the Shadow of Mordor games that sounds sorta like what you're talking about, but I didn't play them so I don't know if that was overhyped/how detailed it was.

no

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xp1337 posted...

You mean something like Shenmue maybe?

There was also that Nemesis system in the Shadow of Mordor games that sounds sorta like what you're talking about, but I didn't play them so I don't know if that was overhyped/how detailed it was.

Not quite. While Shadow of Mordor Captains are directly reactive to you and each other, they follow a pretty constrained formula, and don't actually try to accomplish goals emergently.

Like, imagine if the NPCs in Shenmue moved around the towns freely (and physically) based on if they wanted to eat, or like, sought out their own capsule toys to fill their own goals.

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Rune Factory 3 kind of did something like this? The townsfolk's daily schedules would vary depending on their mood and desires. Of course, it would lead to weird things like a character deciding they wanted to fish, but by the time they made it to the beach they realized it was too late and they wanted to go home so they'd immediately leave...

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That's so funny, I love that.

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I remember reading an article about the original launch of Ultima online

All the npcs, creatures, etc were simulated, had desires, and would reproduce and so on

But the players just slaughtered everything immediately and ruined the ecosystem (for example, all of the rabbits and wolves died, so no new wolves or rabbits could be created)

So, they rolled those systems back and replaced them with normal game stuff. I think proper simulation clashes with player experience most of the time

also, dwarf fortress still has an adventure mode i think (?). that was their original goal, then people were more interested in the dwarf management aspect

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Animal Crossing

I honestly don't think we're at that point yet, a lot of games have dabbled with that idea, but I can't think of any that have actually pulled it off on a large scale.

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ChainLTTP posted...

Animal Crossing

Im looking for basically the opposite of how animal crossing handles everything, lol

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I swear I remember reading about either Skyrim or Oblivion trying this during development, programming NPCs with needs/wants and then just cutting them loose, only for it to end with everyone murdering each other. Only now I can't seem to find anything about this on google so I'm wondering if I dreamed this or if it was a creepypasta or what.
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Robazoid posted...

I swear I remember reading about either Skyrim or Oblivion trying this during development, programming NPCs with needs/wants and then just cutting them loose, only for it to end with everyone murdering each other. Only now I can't seem to find anything about this on google so I'm wondering if I dreamed this or if it was a creepypasta or what.

I remember the story about during beta testing they had a setup where two NPCs were placed next to each other. One NPC needed to rake leaves but had no rake to do it with while the other had the rake. The intention was to see if they would trade items with each other. Instead the first NPC simply killed the second and took the rake from their corpse.

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The Sims 3 is pretty good at this. And it's technically not a city builder.

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Crusader Kings does a little bit of this. Like I had a brother who was cut out of inheritance leave my court to become an adventurer, start a mercenary company, and show up with a giant army at my doorstep a decade later to try and push his claim on the throne. Or you could have your mistress start a conspiracy to assassinate your sole heir, forcing you to legitimize the bastard son you had together so she can be the power behind the throne - thereby pissing off your wife who might retaliate in turn.

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oh yeah Paradox games are 100% the answers you are looking for. Every game of CK and EU generate insane stories--for example, my friend, leading Ireland, just became the ruler of Hungary by some insane inheritance. And famously, the economy system of Victoria 3 was so complicated that after the lunatic creator of the system left, nobody else in the company (or the community in general?) had any idea of how it really works

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I know it's not your thing but for purposes of this topic question it works. Total Extreme Warfare is a pro wrestling booking sim that you can literally just let play itself and do nothing in and the other companies will hire and fire talent, run shows, and do everything on their own.

Kinda funny to just watch it go sometimes as Tombolo will vouch for.

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Lopen posted...

I know it's not your thing but for purposes of this topic question it works. Total Extreme Warfare is a pro wrestling booking sim that you can literally just let play itself and do nothing in and the other companies will hire and fire talent, run shows, and do everything on their own.

Kinda funny to just watch it go sometimes as Tombolo will vouch for.

On this note, making a civ game with all AIs can be pretty entertaining. Somebody did this on the Earth map with as many civs as he could fit placed into roughly the correct places and posted about it. Good stuff came out of that

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Raka_Putra posted...

The Sims 3 is pretty good at this. And it's technically not a city builder.

The Creatures series is along the same lines. Virtual pet type thing where each creature has simulated DNA and neurochemistry driving its actions. I believe the third game is supposed to have a cause-and-effect ecosystem too, but I'm not sure if that works properly.
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The Sims 3 qualifies, but thats like, THE game, and (3 especially compared to the rest) really fits in a similar category as Rimworld or Dwarf Fortress, even if youre not building a City.

Lopen posted...

I know it's not your thing but for purposes of this topic question it works. Total Extreme Warfare is a pro wrestling booking sim that you can literally just let play itself and do nothing in and the other companies will hire and fire talent, run shows, and do everything on their own.

Kinda funny to just watch it go sometimes as Tombolo will vouch for.

This actually does sound like something Id like. One of my favorite things as a kid was filling the roster of the PS2 wrestling games (hot take: HCTP would STILL be the best wrestling game ever if it had commentaryand even so it still might) with CAW and watching them slowly takeover/integrate with the existing stables while I advance my own career.

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So it's kinda like that but the gameplay is entirely building your roster and putting guys in your roster into matches/storylines to make "good shows" while managing finances and all the stuff backstage like contract negotiations and taking out loans and such-- no seeing or playing any of the matches. It's basically all text and pictures and numerical values/grades on your segments and shows, with the rest of the game world playing by the same rules and running their own shows with the same guys you have access to (well, same pool-- exclusive contracts are a thing so you often won't be able to use everyone you want till the game goes on a while). You can see the results of all their shows just the same as yours.

I think it's fun but yeah I think you have to be pretty deep into wrestling (or really into management sims) to appreciate it. Though it does have historical mods and stuff so if you were a big wrestling fanatic in the late 90s for example you can do that-- heck we've made mods where we had video game characters as wrestlers. It's really customizable, but really in depth and heavy too.

But you could always just try it. Though the later releases add a lot for me I think TEW 2008 is actually free. There's also Extreme Warfare Revenge which is a free game in the same style which is a simplified version some people prefer.

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Lopen posted...

There's also Extreme Warfare Revenge which is a free game in the same style which is a simplified version some people prefer.

It's a lot more accessible but it's not nearly as in depth with its "living world" (but it's also free so you can try it with no real risk)

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I watched Free Guy today, and man I want that game.

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https://store.steampowered.com/app/838350/_The_Scroll_Of_Taiwu/

You play an endlessly reincarnating martial arts sect leader that retains learned/practiced knowledge through death. The rest of the world is working under mostly the same rules as you on the player character aspect, except you don't lose anything after death (but other sects are more well funded and freely give their martial arts to their own sect members while never willingly giving martial arts above a certain level to outsiders). Mastering martial arts or stuff like toxicology require a combination of innate genetic stats and aptitudes, learned knowledge of similar stuff (like lower level finger martial arts when learning a higher level one), and various other miscellaneous knowledge that's relevant (like medical knowledge for one sect's finger techniques).

So basically you just learn as much as you possibly can getting stronger and stronger with every death, while the world continues to turn regardless of what you do. All the while, you build up your home village (it's not a huge focus, you mostly just make money and build more places to train) and train your villagers so they can take care of local threats on their own (you can teach them techniques and they'll spread them amongst their friends and family, which is pretty neat. that goes for anyone in the world, actually).

The translation is iffy as all hell and probably almost entirely machine translation, but it's kind of legible. The battle system isn't very hard but there's a ton of variables involves as it's limb-based combat. As a huge fan of living world games, I've just never come across another remotely like it.

Seems like there's been a recent massive downvote brigade by Chinese players because the game's gotten no updates in years, which is.... pretty fair. I think it hasn't been updated once since I bought it lol. But I've gotten a TON of hours out of it for a $20 game.

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