While animals can be hunted into extinction in reality it will probably be harder than you think. The same animals will be present across numerous biomes so hunting each and everyone down will be a daunting task to be sure. And could another animal move into the area that was vacated by the one hunted into extinction, sure. Could a new animal be found that produces the same products, probably. Personally I am not worrying about animals going into extinction, I am more worried about the forest and fish dwindling down to very low numbers.

Not to mention, in modern society, a lot more goes into killing animals off into extinction than people killing them.

Elyria probably won't have massive logging operations that cut huge swaths of forest down in mere hours, nor will it have fleets of factory ships fishing the oceans dry, or pollution (On the scale we have in Real Life) that will drive many plants and animals into extinction.

I think that extinction in Elyria will be more a combination of Players over hunting, natural disasters, and other factors the Soulborn Engine throws at us. I don't think players alone will have the means to make entire species extinct. At least not for many RL years into the game!

yeah probably not likely to happen quickly SBS puts a lot of time into creating these creatures so I doubt they would make their ecosystem fragile enough to be driven to extinction shortly after release. It may happen over a long time but I don't think it will happen within the first 2 or 3 years after launch for sure. After that who knows.

The other reason that I dont see this happening is because they have already said that disrupting a ecosystem will have consequences. For example lets say the local wolf population is attacking sheep and a farmer creates an open ended contract stating he will pay anyone that brings him a wolf's tail 5 gold coins. So people start hunting wolves after a week the wolf population is so low that A. the time it takes to hunt down a wolf, kill it, and return to the farmer is no longer worth only 5 gold per tail so people are not motivated to do it any more. and B. the local rabbit population explodes and eat all of the farmers crops which he needed to feed his herd of sheep through the winter. Now the farmer has no income so he can't afford to pay people to kill wolves in the area and because of the over abundance of rabbits and reduced hunting the wolf population in the area rapidly increases. These are the types of ecological effects we are likely to see.

Hahaha

Posted By CaptainSeli at 12:43 PM - Fri Dec 01 2017

Elyria probably won't have massive logging operations that cut huge swaths of forest down in mere hours, nor will it have fleets of factory ships fishing the oceans dry, or pollution (On the scale we have in Real Life) that will drive many plants and animals into extinction.

I think that extinction in Elyria will be more a combination of Players over hunting, natural disasters, and other factors the Soulborn Engine throws at us. I don't think players alone will have the means to make entire species extinct. At least not for many RL years into the game!

80% of deforestation in the amazon rainforest is due to cattle ranchers needing pastures to breed cattle. Brazil has the largest commercial cattle herd in the world. Livestock and their byproducts account for 51% of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions (transportation is only 13%). Cattle is killing our planet, more specifically, the consumption of meat... and this has all been over-time and not suddenly. SOURCE: http://www.cowspiracy.com/facts/.

Time goes by much more quickly in Elyria. The world is going to change and I'm sure there will be things that kingdoms do not account for or prioritize. I hope a healthy eco-system is not something we skip over. Also, cooldowns for people having children is 1 week. What is the cooldown for your livestock? People will have to play a timetable game, farmers will have it easy because their animals are in a barn. Hunters will have to follow certain herds and know their patterns. Hunters are 100% going to be responsible for wildlife conservation just as they are on Earth. Believe it or not hunters donate a lot of money towards wildlife groups... because they don't want to stop hunting. They know they need to replenish the pool.

I definitely think players will be able to impact the environment very seriously and possibly detrimentally. It's been explicitly stated that players CAN over hunt an area. In that situation, either the animals go extinct or migrate. Now, wherever they migrate to could cause new problems. They could become prey to other animals or thrive but that's without PC intervention. With PC intervention, what if the wolves migrate and a new tribe encounters them? What's their first reaction? "Cool, new wolf i haven't seen in this biome before... let's kill it to sell its spoils!" Those PCs won't know that those wolves are the last of its kind. Bam, wolves extinct. (This actually happened with a pack of rare wolves that migrated from Canada to the states but I probably won't be able to find the article on google).

ALSO, there's a whole religion based on how every living thing has spirit. What if the world becomes imbalanced and too many spirits are slaughtered? I'm sure the gods would be unhappy too.

Edit: Included sources for facts.

Looks, like I may have to build a zoo and botanical gardens...

Might also be a good idea to build plantations for logging and other animal specific farms for animal resources, not unlike fish farms, reptile parks and a Kypicological gardens!! :)

Posted By Snipehunter at 6:50 PM - Fri Dec 01 2017

We're keenly aware of the lesson learned in Ultima Online, so we're definitely considering extinction related problems as we design stuff. That said, we don't want to remove the risk of extinction from the game; if you all hunt the poor kyp-- uh, arboreal critters down to the last of them, they will be gone for good. We have no intention of that being an easy task for you all though.

Hope that helps! :) (Note: I'm just kidding with my example, I love the, err... arboreal critters.)

bush rustle - twig snap - tiger roar so help me, I'll ursaphant roar - tree falling - lightning strike be glad the Fae says all lives matter or you'd better believe..

Unrelated though, I remember seeing a group dedicated to the preservation of species.. Can't ever remember the name though >.> hoping to find some good breeders to work with, then ultimately a preservation to dedicate atleast some of my time helping, even if it's simply something like "Uhh hey, I uh.. Found these two guys... Doesn't matter where.. Here, they're a donation, keep their species going if you can."

Challenge accepted.

Posted By Mhaura at 7:05 PM - Fri Dec 01 2017

Posted By CaptainSeli at 12:43 PM - Fri Dec 01 2017

Elyria probably won't have massive logging operations that cut huge swaths of forest down in mere hours, nor will it have fleets of factory ships fishing the oceans dry, or pollution (On the scale we have in Real Life) that will drive many plants and animals into extinction.

I think that extinction in Elyria will be more a combination of Players over hunting, natural disasters, and other factors the Soulborn Engine throws at us. I don't think players alone will have the means to make entire species extinct. At least not for many RL years into the game!

80% of deforestation in the amazon rainforest is due to cattle ranchers needing pastures to breed cattle. Brazil has the largest commercial cattle herd in the world. Livestock and their byproducts account for 51% of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions (transportation is only 13%). Cattle is killing our planet, more specifically, the consumption of meat... and this has all been over-time and not suddenly. Time goes by much more quickly in Elyria. The world is going to change and I'm sure there will be things that kingdoms do not account for or prioritize. I hope a healthy eco-system is not something we skip over. Also, cooldowns for people having children is 1 week. What is the cooldown for your livestock? People will have to play a timetable game, farmers will have it easy because their animals are in a barn. Hunters will have to follow certain herds and know their patterns. Hunters are 100% going to be responsible for wildlife conservation just as they are on Earth. Believe it or not hunters donate a lot of money towards wildlife groups... because they don't want to stop hunting. They know they need to replenish the pool.

I definitely think players will be able to impact the environment very seriously and possibly detrimentally. It's been explicitly stated that players CAN over hunt an area. In that situation, either the animals go extinct or migrate. Now, wherever they migrate to could cause new problems. They could become prey to other animals or thrive but that's without PC intervention. With PC intervention, what if the wolves migrate and a new tribe encounters them? What's their first reaction? "Cool, new wolf i haven't seen in this biome before... let's kill it to sell its spoils!" Those PCs won't know that those wolves are the last of its kind. Bam, wolves extinct. (This actually happened with a pack of rare wolves that migrated from Canada to the states but I probably won't be able to find the article on google).

ALSO, there's a whole religion based on how every living thing has spirit. What if the world becomes imbalanced and too many spirits are slaughtered? I'm sure the gods would be unhappy too.

1. Consumption of meat isn't killing the planet. Greenhouse gasses emitted by production factories contribute to our ecosystem being off balance, sure. But it's not meat consumption that is to blame. Saying that just sounds like Vegan propaganda.

2. Can you please provide sources when you present statistics? Especially since not all statistics are entirely accurate or necessarily trustworthy. This is especially true based on source, and personally I know I would like to read them.

3. There are dozens upon dozens of religions that believe everything has a spirit. Mind, the majority of them are pre-Christian forms of Paganism. But regardless, hunting was a big part of their survival and in some cases, a part of their culture. Heck, Celtic Paganism believed in nature spirits and that animals had souls. Yet they still had animal and human sacrifices. So I wouldn't count on an animistic religion being a saving grace.

Posted By MaverickMissy at 11:30 AM - Sun Dec 03 2017

1. Consumption of meat isn't killing the planet. Greenhouse gasses emitted by production factories contribute to our ecosystem being off balance, sure. But it's not meat consumption that is to blame. Saying that just sounds like Vegan propaganda.

I'm really not trying to get off topic of Elyria here, we can do another discussion about this in another post because I'm a passionate person about this subject and I love talking about it and informing people. A quick google search results in ample research supporting the fact that meat consumption, resulting in the release of so much methane, IS killing Earth. I'm just extremely aware of all the choices I make (Re: above where i said I have anxiety lol) and how it impacts those around me. I'm just a very empathetic person and I care more about other people than I do myself.. but I digress. I care about sustainability and eating meat is not sustainable. That's what I am bringing to the table in this post to look out for the future of Elyria not in terms of specifically, meat, but sustainability.

Also, I eat meat. I just don't have meat with every meal because it's unsustainable. Maybe once a week, which was last night when my boyfriend made awesome home-made tacos and guacamole. I snipped some jalapenos and german queen tomatoes from my garden and chopped up 1/2 an onion and made salsa too. Delicious.

1. Can you please provide sources when you present statistics? Especially since not all statistics are entirely accurate or necessarily trustworthy. This is especially true based on source, and personally I know I would like to read them.

I edited my posts with links to the sources. Everything I've listed you're able to find even more sources online supporting it as well as books and research studies. It is not a new issue. I'm an advocate of research.

1. There are dozens upon dozens of religions that believe everything has a spirit. Mind, the majority of them are pre-Christian forms of Paganism. But regardless, hunting was a big part of their survival and in some cases, a part of their culture. Heck, Celtic Paganism believed in nature spirits and that animals had souls. Yet they still had animal and human sacrifices. So I wouldn't count on an animistic religion being a saving grace.

I was referring to the Elyrian religion, Faedin.

You're right though, early humans used to be hunters and gatherers and were primarily nomadic. They NEEDED to follow the animals for sustenance. Until about 10,000 years ago there were few if any permanent homes/villages. Why? People discovered how to cultivate crops and domesticate animals. Even when they started doing this, it didn't account for the majority of their diet. Meat has always been a luxury. It's just that with modern civilization, we forgot that. Google Jericho, one of our first cultivated settlements. Very interesting. Source: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab63

Posted By HajimeSaito at 5:18 PM - Fri Dec 01 2017

Looks, like I may have to build a zoo and botanical gardens...

Might also be a good idea to build plantations for logging and other animal specific farms for animal resources, not unlike fish farms, reptile parks and a Kypicological gardens!! :)

That sounds awesome! For some reason when you said logging i thought of the movie Princess Mononoke. If you're on the NA-W server, I would like to contribute to helping make those possible! I love botanical gardens, grew up close to one and was taken there as a kid. Nature you crazy. Ooooo! You could also have different rooms in the botanical garden for different species like one for all the poisonous plants and one for flowers, etc.

The Janoa will protect the forests of their homeland....but Trophy Trees am I right? Besides it's part of the religion "See animal. Kill animal. Eat animal. Gain animal's power."

It is my idea to protect the animal species creating the 1st Elyrian Zoo. I would love to have many different species. When i used to ay Ultima Online i used to have many animal skrink in bottle for preserve them. Obviusly I used to be Mage-Tamer. In Coe i am a Duke so i belive and hope i will have sone power in safeguarding animals and i really hope tne Mechanics will allows me to create a nice Zoo.

Posted By Proteus at 8:11 PM - Mon Dec 04 2017

The Janoa will protect the forests of their homeland....but Trophy Trees am I right? Besides it's part of the religion "See animal. Kill animal. Eat animal. Gain animal's power."

-nods- exactly. It's biological, they just can't help being inferior minded and weak willed! Ah, shame, I shudder to think of thr poor animals that will be lost to the arrogance of the Janoans.