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BioWare Forums  Forum Archives Old Dragon Age Forums Dragon Age (Old) Creature SiZeS in Dragon Age
Dragon Age (Old)
b0rsuk
Joined: 11 Nov 2006 |
 Posted: Sunday, 08 July 2007 04:41PM |
I'd like to bring your attention to this article:
The Biology of B-Movie Monsters
http://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/2/21701757/
Basically it says that you can't just enlarge a creature and make it work. Laws of physics are the same for large creatures. Usually large creatures must have different build because materials they're built with have the same endurance/weight/volume ratio.
Fantasy genre is notorious for ignoring laws of physics. But facts speak for themselves. The largest land animal, elephant, can't jump at all. In fact, an _empty_ moat about 0.5 m deep is enough to prevent them escaping from zoos ! They know too well their bones would shatter from even a small fall.
Elephants have very special build without which they wouldn't survive.
Also, notice that venom is for losers. No animal larger than a platypus uses poison (I think). And even among Platypus, only males are venomous in reproduction period. It doesn't make sense at all for a giant spider to be venomous. Smaller spiders need poison to defend against larger animals, who learn to avoid them. Poisoned daggers make sense for assassins, because it's the ultimate outcome that counts. The poison doesn't help the assassin in combat.
Poison may be useful in duels - in cases where the duel lasts until first blood (unthinkable in a computer game !) or the duelist plans to drag on the fight, or feels he might be the losing side.
Poisoned weapons don't make sense at all for regular combat. The wounded are going to be finished by the winners anyway. Besides, with a weapon big enough, you can kill enemy outright, and much faster, so why bother with poison ? (we're not talking about Baldur's Gate/D&D sillyness here). Poisoned great swords or halberds are downright ridiculous.
It makes just as much sense for a large beast to be poisonous.
A mouse or a toad can jump off a plane and won't take any damage. A rat is wounded. Human is killed. Cow splatters.
I'd love to know what is game developers' stance towards this.Edited By b0rsuk on 07/08/07 16:41 | 
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loppan torkel
Joined: 09 Apr 2007
From: Sverige |
Posted: Sunday, 08 July 2007 05:00PM |
Moats are no problems for dragons, they would simply fly over them.  | |
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Versidious
Joined: 22 Feb 2004 |
Posted: Sunday, 08 July 2007 07:42PM |
Well, first of all, a mouse falling from a plane would most certainly take damage - the extent of this damage would depend upon the surface it falls on. Speaking as someone who knows a fair bit about physics, I can tell you that a lot of this is wrong. Also, with regards to venom, you've made a rather stupid mistake with spiders - spiders use their venom on their prey - no spider, regardless of size, is venomless. Their venom is generally useful for its paralysing effect, allowing the spiders to eat their prey alive/fresh (Many spiders inject their prey with digestive liquids, allowing them to literally drink their insides). Likewise, a giant spider would gladly use venom on large targets. Such as humans. And as for assassins' poison... well, the strength of the poison and it's effects would again be highly relevant - many poisons will in fact work very quickly, especially when your opponent has his blood pumping, such as in the heat of combat...
Finally, I just want to insert the all-important word here: MAGIC! All discrepancies can be explained with this simple word.  | |
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Woolfsmck
Joined: 29 May 2007 |
Posted: Sunday, 08 July 2007 08:31PM |
Quote: Posted 07/08/07 16:41 (GMT) by b0rsuk I'd like to bring your attention to this article: The Biology of B-Movie Monsters http://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/2/21701757/Basically it says that you can't just enlarge a creature and make it work. Laws of physics are the same for large creatures. Usually large creatures must have different build because materials they're built with have the same endurance/weight/volume ratio. Fantasy genre is notorious for ignoring laws of physics. But facts speak for themselves. The largest land animal, elephant, can't jump at all. In fact, an _empty_ moat about 0.5 m deep is enough to prevent them escaping from zoos ! They know too well their bones would shatter from even a small fall. Elephants have very special build without which they wouldn't survive. Also, notice that venom is for losers. No animal larger than a platypus uses poison (I think). And even among Platypus, only males are venomous in reproduction period. It doesn't make sense at all for a giant spider to be venomous. Smaller spiders need poison to defend against larger animals, who learn to avoid them. Poisoned daggers make sense for assassins, because it's the ultimate outcome that counts. The poison doesn't help the assassin in combat. Poison may be useful in duels - in cases where the duel lasts until first blood ( unthinkable in a computer game !) or the duelist plans to drag on the fight, or feels he might be the losing side. Poisoned weapons don't make sense at all for regular combat. The wounded are going to be finished by the winners anyway. Besides, with a weapon big enough, you can kill enemy outright, and much faster, so why bother with poison ? (we're not talking about Baldur's Gate/D&D sillyness here). Poisoned great swords or halberds are downright ridiculous. It makes just as much sense for a large beast to be poisonous. A mouse or a toad can jump off a plane and won't take any damage. A rat is wounded. Human is killed. Cow splatters. I'd love to know what is game developers' stance towards this.
I think they will pretend to throw out the laws of physics .
And...
Make the pretend monsters xtra way more scarrier
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Planetus
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Joined: 17 Oct 2006 |
Posted: Sunday, 08 July 2007 10:09PM |
Ok, while the mouse falling out of a plane may not take much damage on most surfaces (combination of terminal velocity and momentum will show this to be roughtly true), you are entirely wrong on the venom issue. All poisons in nature are increadibly effective against their intended targets. Desert vipers, who primarily pray on large rodents roughly 80%-120% of their body mass, can generally kill/imobilize their targets in less than a minute with one bite. The fact that they don't work too well on humans is a relative mass issue. Same thing with spiders. Just think, if the tiny amount of venom a black widow spider injects into you is enough to kill some people, what would a dose 500X do?
And giant spiders can work by physics because their exo-skelatans are proportionally thinner, that's why a dagger still does damage. That and magic!
_________________
Quote: Posted 06/14/07 12:00 (GMT) by Zelphi
You don't get killed in DnD, someone does damage that results in Death.
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the-expatriate
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Joined: 19 Feb 2005
From: Halifax NS, Canada |
Posted: Monday, 09 July 2007 12:31AM |
Let's not totally gainsay the OP here, he made some rather good points (and Versidious, let's please refrain on these forums from calling someones mistakes 'stupid,' as this tends to lead to offended responses and heated threads just about EVERY time.  )
Now, that said, the original point of the first post was that organisms, when enlargened, must operate absolutely differently under the laws of physics. A prime example in fantasy are dragons -- the size of them, their total mass and even with the size of their wings... it's absolutely ridiculous to imagine them actually flying, once you stop and think about it. It's easy for the writers to explain it as "hey, it's magic... anything can happen" but I think they're trying to get away from that in the case of DA... to have things around you make more sense. Instead, they could explain the magical nature and creation of dragons, and how they came to possess the supernatural ability of flight.
As for venom... yes, it could be deadly. It has limited use in an RPG however... it either has to be built into the combat system doing steady damage/ability score damage, or it has to be included into a pre-written script (i.e. having someone poisioned before a duel)
To cap it off, I'd hate to burst your bubble, but for the most part I'll be doubting that many large creatures in DA will be *exactly* true to physics, and simply remain true to previous Bioware games. However, I doubt there will be many creatures of a size to really make this an issue (except dragons).
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There cannot be two skies. -- Dak'konEdited By the-expatriate on 07/09/07 00:33 | |
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Maria Caliban
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Joined: 29 Jun 2002
From: In absentia |
Posted: Monday, 09 July 2007 01:53AM |
Has anyone ever said that a dragon could exist in the real world? Like griffins, medusas, and mermaids, a dragon is understood to exist outside of the boundaries of the natural world. That's not a cop-out; in many ways, that's the point.
Komodo Dragons, the largest living species of lizard with an average length of 8 feet, have virulent bacteria in their mouth that causes blood poisoning in the animals they bite. Many times, they grapple their prey and hold it still while it dies of organ failure.
(Another interesting fact: when male Komodos fight, the loser is sometimes killed and eaten by the victor)
Anyways, the suggestion that 'venom is for losers' because there are no large, venomous animals rests on the assumption that, evolutionarily speaking, being big or a predator makes you 'the winner.' If that were the case, you'd think the T-Rex would have made it through the Cretaceous. If being a big predator is so great, why are lions and tigers endangered while termites and ants comprise 25% of animal biomass in the world?
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VonChalay
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Joined: 13 Sep 2006
From: Planet Earth |
Posted: Monday, 09 July 2007 02:58AM |
Since DA is going to be a Fantasy world not Earth (or even necessarily in Earth’s Universe) there is enormous license here. Does a DA animal the size of an elephant weigh the same as an elephant (volume v density relationship)? It won’t be if DA isn’t a 1G planet and earth-style locomotion is maintained. Though overall rules still apply, atmospheric density, composition and pressure will certainly not be Earth standard resulting in different drag/lift ratios for dragons to fly in and different terminal velocities for mice to fall by.
Are Dragon, demon or monster bones made from calcium/carbon like elephants or some other harder carbon composite (don’t forget diamond is a carbon) providing both higher strength *and* a lower cross-section to mass requirement. Do they have thicker, higher tensile skins than beasts found on earth? Are some antropod/vertebrate hybrids? Do dragons and any other flyers have both lungs *and* a trachea system on their wings for maximum burn? Who knows - it’s not Earth, nor enlarged Earth creatures, nor Earth evoled with exact same ELE (extinction level events) at exactly the same time.
Lot’s of scope to play with, but having said all that, I really just want them to look damn awesome rather than Discovery Channel 
Seeing as DA is being made by a company called Bioware (and were founded by doctors) I’m content to leave the biology to them 
Cheers
PS. There is some merit in the poison being overpowered argument, imho, but it’s not about poison potency per se but that normal weapon damage is nerfed in any HP based system. i.e. irl a halberd or any other major weapon will take your head off in 1 hit, making poison (on those weapons) superfluous no mater how potent or fast acting. By making one or two hit kill weapons take 10-20 hits to kill, it makes poisons overpowered by default. | |
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Planetus
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Joined: 17 Oct 2006 |
Posted: Monday, 09 July 2007 01:11PM |
Actually, if you take a real look at dinosaurs, dragons could exist with relatively little modification. Wing size and wing-muscle size would have to be adjusted, but even there, not too dramatically. The T-Rex and Alosaurus were both massive creatures that mannaged to move around, and by all likelyhood jump some distance, without collapsing into shattered heaps, and the largest flying reptiles of the time had a wing span of over 300 feet and could fly trans-Atlantic. If you think about these things, and then add the various approximations and assumptions, something like a dragon, behemoth, stone golem, or giant spider isn't really impossible.
_________________
Quote: Posted 06/14/07 12:00 (GMT) by Zelphi
You don't get killed in DnD, someone does damage that results in Death.
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Maria Caliban
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From: In absentia |
Posted: Monday, 09 July 2007 03:38PM |
Pretty good. Now, about the fire breath?
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Magnum Opus
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From: Wherever my heart lies |
Posted: Monday, 09 July 2007 04:00PM | |
Jalapeños. | |
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Aedan mac Gabran
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Joined: 17 Mar 2005 |
Posted: Monday, 09 July 2007 04:19PM |
Quote: Posted 07/09/07 13:11 (GMT) by Planetus
Actually, if you take a real look at dinosaurs, dragons could exist with relatively little modification. Wing size and wing-muscle size would have to be adjusted, but even there, not too dramatically. The T-Rex and Alosaurus were both massive creatures that mannaged to move around, and by all likelyhood jump some distance, without collapsing into shattered heaps, and the largest flying reptiles of the time had a wing span of over 300 feet and could fly trans-Atlantic. If you think about these things, and then add the various approximations and assumptions, something like a dragon, behemoth, stone golem, or giant spider isn't really impossible.
Got any sources for any of that? I've never heard of a T-Rex jumping. A flying reptile with a wing span of over 300 feet? That's almost 50% wider than a Boeing 747. I've never heard of such a thing. If it’s true, I’d like to read more. | |
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LdyShayna
Joined: 18 Oct 2001
From: Colorado |
Posted: Monday, 09 July 2007 04:31PM |
This one, possibly.
See also here and here
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loppan torkel
Joined: 09 Apr 2007
From: Sverige |
Posted: Monday, 09 July 2007 04:35PM | |
I don't think T-rex could jump, and I don't think the wingspan of any dinosaur could be 300 feet.... not on earth anyway Edited By loppan torkel on 07/09/07 16:37 | |
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LdyShayna
Joined: 18 Oct 2001
From: Colorado |
Posted: Monday, 09 July 2007 04:40PM |
Quote: Posted 07/09/07 16:35 (GMT) by loppan torkel I don't think T-rex could jump, and I don't think the wingspan of any dinosaur could be 300 feet.... not on earth anyway
Biggest one I could find was 30-40 feet. Which is big enough, I think.
Of course, that's 'cause I'm lower on the food chain.
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