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Fog in the Wilderness

Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2014 8:53 am
by Kiyaani
With new changes to fog, wilderness travel has the potential be a bit difficult and I'd like the current settings to be reconsidered if possible.

I can understand extreme fog in a town making it hard to see what buildings may be down the street and I actually like that bit of realism. But out in the wilderness fog doesn't pile up quite so much and you can still see if there are mountains to the east, trees to the south, or if there's hills to the west. My point is, you should still be able to get your bearings, and with how it is now you really can't without aids or having the map memorized. Unless you know where you are when you started you could end up wandering around in the fog for quite a while before finding a landmark and that seems unrealistic due to how vast each wilderness space is supposed to be.

I was driving through the fog today and there were always clear patches and foggy patches. It wasn't a continuous stretch of fog for miles around. Maybe as an alternative you could have certain terrain types have more or less visibility with fog or different densities of fog, but seeing nothing in all directions is disconcerting.

Anyway, it's just something to consider.

Re: Fog in the Wilderness

Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2014 8:59 am
by Sneaky
I'm really not sure how to feel about this. I agree that maybe not every room in a locale shold be fogged, but being able to peer over a league without any interruption in a foggy environment seems a little unreasonable to me, but then it gets into the relm of what's too real, and what's not real enough. so idk.

Re: Fog in the Wilderness

Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2014 9:03 am
by Kiyaani
Maybe being able to see general terrain on the compass, but not peer into the room to see details then? I get what you're saying. And it really is a neat feature. I could just see someone logging in in the middle of fog and being completely lost.

Re: Fog in the Wilderness

Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2014 9:07 am
by Sneaky
I think that would be a reasonable compramize.

Re: Fog in the Wilderness

Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2014 9:52 am
by Rias
I'll look into adding wilderness road directions on the compass, but fog can get nice and thick in non-urban environments in the real world and completely block your view - certainly enough to prevent your ability to see what the terrain is like a full league away. I've driven and hiked (well, camped - I wasn't going to hike when I couldn't see more than a few feet in front of me) in such conditions before. In fact, we had a foggy morning here yesterday and I couldn't see my daughter's elementary school across the small field behind our back yard (about a city block away), let alone the surrounding mountains. (I of course did the typical dad thing and tried to convince her that her school had disappeared. She patiently (and even a bit condescendingly) informed me that it was just fog.)

The fog obscuring mechanic only happens in higher amounts of fog, and no wilderness fog is permanent - it changes with the weather. If there happens to be heavy fog in an area, I consider it a feature that it makes off-road wilderness travel difficult, as far as keeping one's bearings. Probably best to stick to roads and other dependable routes between landmarks when the fog is thick.

Having the fog be patchy throughout the area instead of a consistent thickness could be neat.

Re: Fog in the Wilderness

Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 1:49 am
by jilliana
The only time I have found this feature to be disconcerting is when I am in hostile territory and have to peer around to see what all I'm walking into.
It'll definitely take some getting used to.