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Atonewell

Unhitch starving horses, bulls, etc

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When a Wurm player decides or is unable to play for a long period of time, we often see animals hitched to carts and wagons starving away, trapped to the vehicles they have been hitched to with no escape.

 

In these cases, as the animal progresses from fat to starving, it would be nice if there was an increasing chance for the animal to become unhitched.

 

Perhaps some other modifiers could also be used as well, such as when the cart/wagon was last used, or when the animals were last groomed.

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+1... branded horses etc would still follow their deed permissions so een when unhitched thy won't be looted.  I can see it as a win win.

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+1 it's a shame to see good horses starve to death because they can't escape a wagon or cart.

 

Why not change it to you can't hitch starving animals to a vehicle or hitching post. And if a hitched animal turns to 'starving' it will unhitch automatically. 

Same should be true for animals with a saddle. Can't ride a starving animal and a starving horse with a saddle will no longer stay in it's place.

 

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Plus 1 for something like this. I like Yng's idea above. I know I know they are only pixels, but it always bothered me seeing horses left on carts and stood there starving for years sometimes (cared for maybe) or just a few months before dying. 

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+1 Pixels or not they are meant to represent living creatures in game so it's only right they should be treated accordingly.

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-1

what if they were branded(or not) and hitched with horse gear on them.... gives  free gear to anyone for packing dirt and starving cart pullers

 

have this as option in cart permissions and default it to never "unhitching mounts"

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10 minutes ago, Finnn said:

-1

what if they were branded(or not) and hitched with horse gear on them.... gives  free gear to anyone for packing dirt and starving cart pullers

 

have this as option in cart permissions and default it to never "unhitching mounts"

 

This is mainly a problem that happens when players have gone inactive. An active player will notice the packed tile and just replant or move the cart long before the animals actually reach the starving stage.

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Yes to starving animals *immediately* becoming unhitched when they reach the *starving* stage because then these seemingly abandoned vehicles can be pushed out of the way. This is more the main benefit I see to making this change.

 

=Ayes=

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so you see a cart with 2 horses.. both have supreme 100+woa or botd shoes, saddles etc.. all you need to do is starve the creatures and clap with your new 100+ euro worth of loot?

 

sounds 'reasonable', 'great' idea

"lets implement griefing mechanics, because we like them!"

triple-facepalm.jpg

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21 minutes ago, Finnn said:

so you see a cart with 2 horses.. both have supreme 100+woa or botd shoes, saddles etc.. all you need to do is starve the creatures and clap with your new 100+ euro worth of loot?

 

sounds 'reasonable', 'great' idea

"lets implement griefing mechanics, because we like them!"

triple-facepalm.jpg

you know you can already starve the horses and then they die and you get the loot anyway

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I'm not against the idea, but I don't think it is good either for one reason. Ownership of the animals. Why should the ownership of the animal differ from a cart, or a chest or any other item that decays. You don't know if the person who owns the cart and animals plans on coming back or not. They are their animals, hitched to their cart. Why not ask for ownership of the cart as well and all its contents. A player that hitches an animal to a cart should be able to expect to log in and still find that animal there, outside of the normal death (decay) of the animal, just as with the cart, it will decay (die) in time. I don't see why one should be different from another.

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11 hours ago, gnomegates said:

I'm not against the idea, but I don't think it is good either for one reason. Ownership of the animals. Why should the ownership of the animal differ from a cart, or a chest or any other item that decays. You don't know if the person who owns the cart and animals plans on coming back or not. They are their animals, hitched to their cart. Why not ask for ownership of the cart as well and all its contents. A player that hitches an animal to a cart should be able to expect to log in and still find that animal there, outside of the normal death (decay) of the animal, just as with the cart, it will decay (die) in time. I don't see why one should be different from another.

 

When a vehicle or locked chest decays away, any contents that haven't also decayed will fall on the ground free for anyone to pick up. Items that were secured to the ground can also be picked up after taking a certain amount of damage. This is the same concept, except carts take so long to decay that the animals will die of starvation before that happens. If you think of the animal as an item, starvation is the stage of 'decay' that should release ownership and allow it to be picked up by other players.

 

Everyone who plays this game is well aware that things decay and if we care about those things, we take various actions to prevent that from happening. Players return after a long absence fully expecting all of their animals, buildings, and possessions to be gone. So, what's the difference if they log in and the animals have wandered off instead? The difference is that other players haven't had to watch the animals starve to death. It's just a depressing thing to see.

 

 

Edited by Vorticella
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10 hours ago, Vorticella said:

 

When a vehicle or locked chest decays away, any contents that haven't also decayed will fall on the ground free for anyone to pick up. Items that were secured to the ground can also be picked up after taking a certain amount of damage. This is the same concept, except carts take so long to decay that the animals will die of starvation before that happens. If you think of the animal as an item, starvation is the stage of 'decay' that should release ownership and allow it to be picked up by other players.

 

Everyone who plays this game is well aware that things decay and if we care about those things, we take various actions to prevent that from happening. Players return after a long absence fully expecting all of their animals, buildings, and possessions to be gone. So, what's the difference if they log in and the animals have wandered off instead? The difference is that other players haven't had to watch the animals starve to death. It's just a depressing thing to see.

 

 

 

 

An issue with starving animals, is that even if I have one on deed, fully geared, hitched to my cart, and the animal dies, the gear stays on the ground on my deed still after the body decays away. Many of us pay for our deeds for years at a time, with the full understanding that we will come and go when life allows us to play. What is being suggested would be a problem when that horse becomes unhitched, and starts to wander away, once it is off deed it is now free for anyone to take including the gear that is on it. This would be abused by people just going on deed and trampling down the areas around hitched animals and then wait for them to starve.

 

What about a horse with a saddle that is starving on deed? How about a horse branded but off deed and has a saddle, should it be allowed to be free at some point as well.

 

There are steps that others can take to keep animals that they see from starving. Unless you cannot physically access the animal, which would not matter anyway because you would not be able to rescue it and it will die hitched or not. So if the goal is to not have to see it starve because that is depressing, feed it, if the goal is to be able to have that horse because it is desired, and having it unhitch when starving would give access to that animal, then I would say that is selfish and a wrong reason to have changes made to the game.

 

I understand the feeling of not wanting to see the starving animals, but at the end of the day, the animal hitched to the cart is the property of the owner of that cart and should remain that way until the cart is no longer his property, typically via decay. Increase the decay rate of carts (and boats) off deed so that they decay faster if the account has not logged within a certain period of time. That way it is then considered abandoned and can decay away thus setting the animals free regardless of current status, the same as you mentioned about items secured to the ground becoming unsecured. The horse is an item "in" the cart, the cart is gone, the horse is on the ground, it just happens to have legs and can walk around.

 

 

 

 

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4 hours ago, gnomegates said:

An issue with starving animals, is that even if I have one on deed, fully geared, hitched to my cart, and the animal dies, the gear stays on the ground on my deed still after the body decays away. Many of us pay for our deeds for years at a time, with the full understanding that we will come and go when life allows us to play.


How about an exception being branded starving animals don’t unhitch?
 

I assumed this suggestion was more about releasing hitched animals from abandoned deeds, not deeds with upkeep. There’ve been two such abandoned deeds very close to mine in the past couple of months where multiple hitched animals starved to death while everything around them decayed away. I even tried dropping batches of grass to keep them alive long enough for the items they were hitched to to decay, but — wow — those carts and posts decayed slowly.

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8 hours ago, gnomegates said:

An issue with starving animals, is that even if I have one on deed, fully geared, hitched to my cart, and the animal dies, the gear stays on the ground on my deed still after the body decays away. Many of us pay for our deeds for years at a time, with the full understanding that we will come and go when life allows us to play. What is being suggested would be a problem when that horse becomes unhitched, and starts to wander away, once it is off deed it is now free for anyone to take including the gear that is on it. This would be abused by people just going on deed and trampling down the areas around hitched animals and then wait for them to starve.

 

Other option would be that a starving animal can not wear gear or be hitched, so as the animal becomes starved it unhitches and drops it's gear making it free to wander off in search of food. If this happens on a deed the gear remains on deed and is not lost to the owner. And even better, if the animal is in a fenced area (hopefully with grass tiles) the deed owner also gets to keep his/her animals (if cared for). So that's even a bonus for deed owners as opposed to the current situation.

 

Of course this situation could also be easily prevented if you leave your animals in a fenced in grassy meadow before disappearing for a couple of months. But that's just me being sentimental about pixel animals :)

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On 3/20/2021 at 3:36 AM, Oblivionnreaver said:

you know you can already starve the horses and then they die and you get the loot anyway

which makes speeding up the process worse situation
KnobbyColossalHummingbird-size_restricted.gif

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+1 It is a great idea, I like it.
I hate to see when horses are starving and die. I know they are just pixels, but it is hurt me. I use to make enchanted grass under them, maybe I'm childish but it is an MMORPG, the emotions are important. :)

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I just give the mayor cart permissions but it's a better idea than seeing them waste away lol

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This, please! Not only that, it would be nice to be able to feed any animal that's been left without food to the point of starvation. We wouldn't have to enter deeds to do it. Could be a mechanic that starts when starvation begins that allows us to click on the outermost wall and give food to animals without entering the deed. It is so incredibly depressing to watch entire herds starve when someone doesn't log on for a month. Make it as difficult as you like, I don't care. Just let us feed them.

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+ 1 

This is a great Idea and they should also speed decay for carts off deed maybe even have a multiplier if the cart has not moved for a long time ( like 3 months or more ).   There is a large cart with 5 speed bison on it near me that has been there for a year the buildings and fences have decayed, the mine has closed up but the cart and bison are still there and abandoned wagons are all over the server from deeds long gone.

For those worried about losing thier equipment try not leaving your cart parked in the open without any food for the animals.

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