Increasing immersion by limiting information shown

[pannu]

First of all, forgive me that I did not go through all the suggestions or mods to see if these have been suggested or implemented in mods.

It would be more immersive if the spoilage status of foods would be somewhat unknown. Approximate true state would be revealed after food being visually inspected, smelled and/or tasted, based on abilities/skills. While being sick, smell/taste abilities could be reduced, and perhaps sensitivity of these senses could be improved with certain herbs.

Knowing the date makes playing the game nice and easy. This kind of breaks the immersion, though. Back in the day, people had to count days, and use "weatherlore" to determine for example the relative length of day and night (they are equally long at equinox and solstice) etc. There must have been a lot of ancient wisdom considering the annual clock, and also important rituals. It would be a nice challenge to try to do them at the right time to keep the spirits happy. Kustaa Vilkuna's Vuotuinen ajantieto is a great source for this, though it does not go as far as to iron age.

Then of course, in the past, perhaps the most important skill has been not to getting lost. Rock paintings in waterways used to act as landmarks and/or signs, telling which way to go. I'm pretty sure there has been local poem-type lore instructing wanderers how to get to places. In today's North America, some signs of native people are still visible for example in trees, guiding people to springs and so on. The hobos of North America during the last century also drew signs at site, warning people from unpleasant people, indicating whether camping is possible or not, and suggesting if there is work or meals available.

I have over 1000 hours on Valheim, and the immersion and whole experience got totally different level when I started playing in immersive mode (no map, no portals). It's truly amazing feeling while exploring and traveling straight west, signs of civilization are found and you realize you have discovered your own base coming from South-East. Trees blocking the sky, clouds and fog can make navigation rather difficult. Of course, implementing this into UnReal World would mean overhauling the whole world, which is a huge task and transforms the game into something completely different. Maybe in 2035?

[JP_Finn]

I feel that Urw.ini could be used to set variables to “display nearby cultural areas”*, “enable map” (with default to 1) and “Hide World Gen”
That way casual players wouldn’t lose their mind trying to remember after few weeks IRL where they were and what were they doing in-game.


*on the top center region screen “Appoperä, no man’s land near Western Kaumo”

[makute]

Using weatherlore to get precise dates or planting and harvesting seasons is something that could add a lot to immersion and make the skill useful.

[PALU]

Weatherlore would be of rather limited use for planting. Firstly, it would require a change to the code so that plating success was somehow dependent on the weather, which isn't currently the case (but, I think, a future development), and secondly, the important weather for planting comes well after the planting time, when frost may kill off the plants. This, however, is too far into the future for Weatherlore to be applicable.
The other weather related part applicable to planting is soil temperature and moisture, but that's both more of a direct measurement thing rather than a prediction, and something the game currently doesn't model.

I don't see any application for Weatherlore when it comes to harvest. Modern agriculture is dependent on the weather in that you don't want the machinery to make trenches into the soil when harvesting, but that's an immediate concern rather than a prediction one, and doesn't apply to manual harvest. Similarly, modern harvesting is more affected by bent grain stalks than manual one is, and, again, it's a direct condition rather than a prediction one.

[makute]

There are a lot of activities that could benefit from knowing the exact time: fishing, drying meat, husbandry... (wink, wink).

[Plotinus]

If storms are implemented, a storm could damage crops. In Hungary the villagers used to ring bells to try to scare the storm clouds away so that the storm would not ruin the harvest