I love this game but the Sea Dragon is a bit too much for my taste ..
Zard
France Join Date: 2016-08-12 Member: 221226Members
France Join Date: 2016-08-12 Member: 221226Members
I think this game is unique and really well made. The team studied extensively aquatic life, biomes, colour patterns, etc... The result is a believable alien ecosystem, that could have evolved on earth with the right parameters. That realism makes this game so good, why ? Because it's immersive. You really feel like an intruder in an uncharted, living and breathing world.
Now that sea dragon.. Well that's another story. Throwing fire with his mouth like a high fantasy dragon ? And... underwater ? That monster also happens to be stuck in a cave.. how does it even feed ? All those things require too much suspension of incredulity for me. I don't know if other people share my opinion but I would have preferred to have a believable giant sea creature. Its size doesn't seem absurd to me, I can believe it. But throwing fire like a magical being, that's really killing it for me.
Now that sea dragon.. Well that's another story. Throwing fire with his mouth like a high fantasy dragon ? And... underwater ? That monster also happens to be stuck in a cave.. how does it even feed ? All those things require too much suspension of incredulity for me. I don't know if other people share my opinion but I would have preferred to have a believable giant sea creature. Its size doesn't seem absurd to me, I can believe it. But throwing fire like a magical being, that's really killing it for me.
Comments
Well, I'm not sure that sounds more believable
It's like 2.5x the size of a blue whale (krill vacuum cleaner). The size itself ain't an issue, I mean it is an oceanic planet. But where's the damn food, it looks carnivorous, but not a krill type filtration machine the blue whale is... So what exactly is it feeding on?
maybe it has a kitchen in it's home we've not seen yet and is just pretending to be just another animal
EVERYTHING...
And ANYTHING...
... that happens to pass by it.
I know, evolution, and alien evolution at that, but it's just weird.
By the way, big fan of Burial myself.
As for the creature itself, it's pretty funny because it directly against the natural order of things. The thing to remember about deep-sea gigantism is that temperature is a major factor. The depths of the ocean are mostly cold and the creatures that live there have evolved very efficient metabolisms. The amount of food they require per kilo of body mass is just a fraction of what we surface dwellers require and because of this successful eaters can gain mass rather quickly. Multiply that by an environment that is essentially weightless, so that you don't have to worry about your skeleton collapsing under your own weight, and you've got a formula for truly massive organisms.
So long as it stays cold.
See, the larger the organism the higher it's core temperature is going to be (because physics). Try putting a Moby Dick sized creature on land and two things will happen right away: First, it's skeleton will collapse under it's own weight and second, it will overheat and die of heat stroke in short order. Water is a much better cooling system than air, after all.
Move into a 50C water environment and the water around you is halfway to boiling already. Add in body heat and a human being is up to 87C - certainly enough to be fatal. Now raise that by the body heat of a gigantic creature and you've got a creature that could very well explode as it's blood literally boils in it's veins and bursts open.
Simply put, something the size of the Sea Dragon could easily exist in other biomes. The kind where 7C is the norm. But 50C lava beds? It's like sticking a sumo wrestler in a sauna. It's just gonna keel over dead in an hour or two. Anything that could actually survive in an environment like that is going to be tiny and - important part - not likely to be a carnivore, as food supplies are going to be more than a slight problem. Your best bet is going to be itty bitty tube worms and filter feeders than can metabolize raw chemicals and utilize the heat to their advantage. Extremophiles, in other words.
Thanks, I see what you mean but in my opinion that's not really more credible to have a creature expel such materials. I'm sure you wanted this creature to be as scary as possible (which by its size is already terrifying) but that might be too fantastic for me. I think the Reaper exemplifies extremely well what would be a nightmarish sea creature while being totally believable. Crabsquids are also amazing in that department
Well it's still a great game for me and I can only congratulate Unknown Worlds for the accomplishment. But this sea dragon just feels somewhat out of place compared to the realistic feeling of the game which imo is its strongest point. Just my feedback though
But does it bother me too much? NO!
- sea dragon developed a secondary digestion system to filtrate surrounding microorganisms as added nutrition
- the carnivorous "part" (over the top jaw and teeth) serves as advantage to catch both ALIVE prey and bigger CARCASS
- its size is just another example of evolutionary extreme = it got stuck there, developed into this size
OK, what I am saying doesn't make sense... My point is that it doesn't matter that much. The game had to derail from pretty decent realism at some point.
That thing may not barf molten lava but it'll surely make you reclaim that body fluid
Dont forget to turn on that chemical taste neutralizer
The dinosaurs were really quite massive and lived in an environment that was much hotter and more humid than present day Earth. Granted, that's air vs water heat.
Second: Are you sure it's a naturally evolved creature? Does it even need to eat in the conventional sense? Maybe there is a story behind it?
You're right, and that's why I plan on defeating the Sea Dragon by kiting it with Magic Missile spells from atop my flying carpet, while my Ring of Fire resistance protects me from it's attacks.
'It's not ultra-realistic, so it has to be an MMORPG!!!" Seriously? I know it may be sarcasm, but the underlying point is still there.
But you can expect them to obey the laws of physics.
Sci-fi requires an element of realism or believability with explainable physics/chemistry/whatever to back it up. If it doesn't it falls under science fantasy and not science fiction. Personally, the molten metal spewing sea lizard doesn't bother me in the least, but I tend to have a preference for fantasy over science fiction anyway.
Perhaps the SD has much stronger bones and thrives in heat like some bacteria.
I defer to dagothUR's excellent explanation of why that's not how that works.
Which is literally what I was arguing against. He said it would die due to its size and the heat. I said, perhaps it thrives in heat, like some Extremophile bacteria, such as a Thermophlie, an organism that can thrive at temperatures between 45–122 °C. And yes, I know it's not bacteria, but it could've evolved those traits. And I refer to my previous post, where I ask why it even matters. Its the Dragon. It goes in the place with the lava.
And where does it get it's food? It's jaw is clearly meant for attacking things not too far off it's own size, and yet there is nothing anywhere near it that even approaches that size.
Also, if you ask me, any decent fantasy does not have dragons living in a volcano just because they breath fire.
Maybe the swarms of creatures in the ILZ? It could just have those giant teeth for defense. Most fantasies have dragons in volcanoes because they like heat. Sound familiar? Not all dragons even breathe fire, so yes, it has nothing to do with that. It does have something to with the fact that its the Sea DRAGON, and if it were anywhere else people would wonder why it isn't in the Lava biome.
Couldn't the Dragon eat the lava lizard things? Or those small energy suckers that cling all over your cyclops? It's teeth are pretty clearly carnivorous so that probably rules out feeding on chemicals and an symbiotic relationship with bacteria is rather unlikely for something that size.
I wonder if there is a reason that there seem to be only bacteria and other tiny organisms that can survive extreme heat and nothing larger? Surely, if it just had to do with skeleton structure or internal combustion there would be a potential evolutionary workaround given its worked around ever other environmental block. I guess the rules wouldn't necessarily apply, but there needs to be some sort of bridge between the two for it to work.
I think, perhaps, that we have been reading different fantasy. But if the teeth are for defense, then defense from WHAT? There's NOTHING down there big enough for teeth like that to be necessary or even effective. Try killing a housefly with a broadsword and you will have some idea of how useful teeth like that are down there.
Perhaps, oh I dunno, the OTHER massive Sea Dragon with huge teeth? They could be territorial, and if one encroaches on the other's territory, they fight for it.
Territorial behavior has some requirements for it to be at all practical. Primarily, food needs to be abundant and concentrated in certain areas. If food is spread evenly everywhere, there is simply no point in fighting over territory. One stretch of sea is as good as another, so if your competitor is one place, you simply go somewhere else. Territorial behavior will also not evolve if there is very little food available. Fighting members of your own species takes a lot of energy, energy that could be better used hunting what little prey is available. Fighting over food can be a positive evolutionary trait because it helps ensure that the strongest, toughest, and smartest examples of a species survive. However, if survival itself is a challenge for a species, having them fight amongst themselves will only serve to deplete their numbers and waste precious resources.
The sea dragons live in an environment where food is both scarce and spread over a large area. Such extravagant adaptations that serve only for combat with their own species will not serve them well in such a place as that.