In guild chat this morning, Keoni and I were discussing the true living world concept. Understand, this wuz before my second cuppa, so I do not remember who said what. To simplify, if you find it to be a clever or good idea, ascribe it to Keoni, otherwise blame me
Basically, it's just a food cycle more or less as it exists on Earth, albeit simplified.
For this to work would require a few things to be changed.
All things would have to eat, including Homins. I believe this was mentioned earlier in either this or another thread. Luckily, the foundation for this has already been laid down, in the Matis food rite
We already have three of the four necessary eating groups, predators, herbivores, and plants. All that remains are scavengers to be introduced. Or, possibly, existing mobs modified to fit that role. Yubo and Frippo would do nicely. Omnivores would also be nice, but they are not absolutely necessary.
The numbers of types would have to be modified to be closer to real world proportions, i.e fewer predators and more herbivores. Each predator would have to kill and defend it's kill from scavengers and other starving predators, tho a reasonably well fed predator would eschew it's neighbors kill, in favor of it's own. A predator would be required to kill and eat one herbivore (or Homin) per two or three Atys days to remain in top shape. Meat being a less efficient (albiet more tasty) energy source than plants is the reason for the massive intake of food. Killing and eating one per weak will allow it to survive, but in a weakend state (slightly less max health an max damage). Eating one every two weeks will keep it alive, but just barely, and fewer than one every two weaks will cause it to starve to death. With each stage of deprivation, there should be some noticeable change in either the predators title or it's appearance (just as you can tell if a dog is starving or well fed by looking), it's health and damage should be lowered, but, its agro radius should be increased.
Herbivores would be simpler in some ways. They almost always have enough food. I mean, we LIVE on a plant, heh. They would however face two new problems. One, no longer will the Varinx be content to remain near it's spawn point, trotting back and forth randomly. It must now eat to live, so it will roam until it finds food. Two, winter will now have an effect, as even on this living planet, things get a little sparser. To represent this, herbivores would be a little weaker during the winter, with the possibility of introducing a random element to the severity of the season, i.e. sometimes you have a very bad winter, and the herbivores get very weak, a few even starving to death. Once a set amount have starved during the season, however, the rest will be ok, as they now have enough food. The now actual dependance of herbivores on plants would also lower the overall population in much of the Fyros/desert areas.
Scavengers would perform several minor, but fairly important functions. They would be a foil for the predators, mimicking real world interactions. They would add a blanket of security to the system for instances where one or the other of predators or herbivores population got out of hand, defending territory from predators whos population has exploded (although, this would typically be taken care of by a wave of starvation, as there would not be enough herbivores to feed them) , or, more often, as they usually depend on the predators for food, if predator population drops low enough, scavengers will be forced to hunt for them selves. As few things will willingly eat a scavenger, their population growth would have to be carefully planned so that respawn= just a little more than average death rate, just to be on the safe side. Homins may occasionally be obliged to lower the verminous population, and restore the "natural balance". Scavengers could also appear to explain the current dissapearance of corpses, and why unlooted corpses take longer to *poof*, there is more to eat
Plants need little tweaking. As it is a game, coupled by the fact that homins are not yet major polluters, we can safely operate from the assumption that plants can take care of themselves, and that there are always the appropriate number of them.
To maintain experience point gain, perhaps any mob killed by a Homin respawns as it does now. This may at first break the reality of a functioning food cycle, but look at it this way: We come back to life when we die, even if it is at a deficit. As such, we are slightly removed from the life/death cycle, and it may be that our actions are as well, due to the inherent fairness of the universe (matter/energy is neither created nor destroyed, all actions have an equal and opposite reaction, etc.) if we cannot truly die, then we cannot truly kill, either. Sophistry, but it would work within the framework of the game.
We could get very hungry if we do not eat, reflected by a lowering of our stats (and their attendant scores, such as amount of Health and Sap), but for the sake of play, perhaps we do not starve entire.
Essentialy, and ideally, this would work so that the rules could be introduced and the developers would not have to manually balance the numbers of creatures, it would happen on it's own. Breeding cycles would need to be tweaked to maintain the cycle, but, provided they make it dependant on a single number somewhere, and leave a note telling where it is, that would be easily accomplished. Making breeding cycles and/or rate a pressure valve of sorts.
I'm sure I left some things out, but I cannot remember them, and I have already droned on far more than I had intended.
OOC:
IF you get round ot making it (lol) and need a tester, count me in - sounds like a cool "game" 
