Desert Biome? Choose Sonoran or Serengeti. And an offer to help.

Okay Red,

I hate to be a pest about this (I vaguely remember posting about this years ago, but I don’t remember if it was your game or someone else’s) and I respect ya'll are in Germany and have likely never seen a cactus up close. I'm in Tucson, Arizona, US. The cartoonish misunderstanding in many games of what saguaros and deserts look like has become a pet peeve of many from my region. Many games like to create a desert biome and they are *all of them wrong*. Even the "Western" games get it wrong! By a lot.

Since you guys are doing such a glorious job with the realistic graphics of nature's art (which are beautiful btw), my guess is that your deserts and cacti wouldn't look like a confusing mish-mash if you knew anything about them. No offense; most people from other parts of my own country don't either. Please know that I'm posting to help, not bitch. My tips here will center on the Sonoran Desert where I live simply because it's the only desert on the planet with saguaros. E.g. If you're going to have saguaros, which is the "item cactus" in the unity version, your desert biome is based on where I live.

Below are some bullet point to make your deserts look and act a little realistic, with a smidge of real-life detail for understanding.

And/or skip to the end of this wall of text for an offer of help from me.

1) Saguaro (sa-HUA-rrro)

My ex called them "army" cactuses because -y'know- they have "arms." Lol. They only grow in the Sonoran desert (Southern Arizona / Northern Mexico) That's it. Nowhere in the Middle East. Nowhere in Africa. Not even New Mexico or Texas. Just here. Since you had elephants and sand dunes in the java version, the quick fix is to just delete the saguaros entirely and stick with an Africa-looking Biome. If that's your choice, you can ignore the rest of this babble with my blessing.

1a) You can't plant them - delete "cactus saplings".

Saguaros are impossible to grow from seed and there are no ‘saplings’. They only germinate naturally. Thus they are protected by law. In fact, if you kill one purely by accident (like running off the road in a car), you will pay a hefty fine. If you kill a saguaro on purpose, you will serve jail time. It's *that* big of a deal. (They can be moved, but that requires a licensed crew, official permission, and proof of previous ownership.)

1b) They don't produce lumber - delete lumber drop.

They might be used as kindling for a campfire, making the temporary shelter you have in the game, or the porous twigs for fencing or shade canopies, sure, but actual building-a-house lumber? No. There is no real benefit to cutting one down. Thankfully, saguaros are always surrounded by trees, palo verde, ironwood, and mesquite, which can be used for building things.

1c) They damage you - make it hurt if player bumps it.

I don't know if that is possible to code, but would be a sweet addition. Saguaro needles are long. Like 4-6 inches (10-15 cm) long. Native Americans used their thorns as sewing needles. My little brother accidentally stepped on one once. The thorn went through his shoe and out the top of his foot with the fallen saguaro bit still stuck to the bottom of his sneaker. More recently, I have a friend who fell full-frontal into one on a hike -- it took six nurses in the hospital to get all the thorns out and a week off work to recover.

1d) They don't grow in sand - don't let them spawn in sand dunes, only from sandstone or a solid desert floor.

Saguaros grow on rocks, rocky slopes, decomposed granite, and hard-packed dirt. They won't stand up in just sand or loose gravel. They're very heavy and would fall over before they grew a few feet tall.

1e) They're as tall as trees - Make them 4x bigger than what you have now.

The unity version cacti you have is shorter than the apple tree and already has three arms? Doubt it. "Saguaros grow from 3–16 m (10–52 ft) tall, and up to 75 cm (30 in) in diameter. They are slow growing, but routinely live 150 to 200 years." (Wikipedia). The first arm starts growing when it's about 75 years old and the lowest arms are often higher than a human is tall. (I’m sure this is already possible with your re-sizing tool, but the default images should be at least close, right?) A point of reference in the image below is not just the man standing next to an average saguaro, but the palo verde trees in the background. Palo Verdes grow like weeds here, and they are *trees* (10-15 feet tall), but they look like bushes next to a saguaro, thus the common misunderstanding.

1f) The flowers are white - The unity version has a red flower.

Their fruit is red long after the flower is dead and it looks like a bloody mess, but the flower itself is white. And the flower only lives a day or two before it dies anyway.

1g) The thorns are on the ribs, not the grooves.

The unity image has the thorns within the grooves.

1h) Birds and owls love them.

They're favorites for digging a hole into the flesh on the side or top for making nests because the height and thorns protect the baby birds. It would be super cool to have an occasional saguaro emit a great-horned owl hoot sound at night. The player doesn't even need to see the owl itself, because, well, we usually don’t anyway. Just make the saguaro make a distant noise until the player approaches, then the noise stops (just like crickets shut up when you get too close). Hee hee.

1i) They can handle snow - don't block snow in the desert biome.

It does, rarely, snow in the Sonoran Desert because we're at such a high altitude. Snow doesn't last long here (usually melts within an hour after sunrise) but the saguaros and other cacti survive it just fine.

1j) It rains too - don't block rain in the desert biome. Make it HeavyRain on a rare occasion.

When we get rain, it's 3x heavier than your unity Weather HeavyRain setting, lasts about an hour, and happens every afternoon for about two months... then not a drop for the rest of the year. That's why saguaros are so heavy and porous - they're full of water. They suck up the rain by the gallon and save it in their trunks to survive a year until the next monsoon. (Water a cactus too much, though, and they slowly explode because they don't know how to stop drinking when they're full.)

Enough about saguaros. Here's some thoughts on the rest of the desert biome:

2) Quit with the palm trees! I don't know of any desert that has naturally occurring palm trees. Deserts that reach coasts will have a sporadic few because the seeds blew in from the tropics. But inland deserts like Sonora or Serengeti? No palm trees anywhere. You only see them in photos because rich retirees moved in, planted them, and water them regularly. Even so, palm trees (especially Mexican palm trees as what you have in Java and Unity) don't survive our storms - the winds in our thunderstorms are so acute they suck the green heads right off the trunk and you're stuck with really big dead stick in your yard for the rest of time. (Again, the "bushes" in the image below are full-sized trees.)

3) What about the rest of the super common cacti? Cholla, prickly pear, barrel, ocotillo. And the super common trees: palo verde, iron wood, mesquite. (You have acacia, which is good, but they are not the most common tree here by far.) Mostly, I’m saying that a desert biome with just saguaros and those little ball cacti you’ve got will look really naked.

4) No standing water - Rivers are necessary, but no ponds or lakes.

Any standing water should be assumed to be teeming with cholera, bacteria, and other thirsty gunk that will kill you quickly. Even so, standing water dries up within days or weeks anyway. All our lakes are either man-made reservoirs or full of salt, borax, or other undrinkable junk. But rivers? We got lots more of those than people think, especially rivers that only have water in them when it rains (washes and flash floods).

5) Desert animals? - No tigers, elephants, or giraffes out here. I know adding a dozen new animals is a huge fix. Maybe just populate the desert biome with what desert animals you had in the java version: donkeys, horses, deer, jaguars, rabbits, bears, and boar (which kind of look like javelinas, so I'll take it) .... or delete the saguaros.

5a) If you choose to add just one desert animal, make it a rattlesnake.

The asset doesn't even need to move. Hide a curled lump under a bush that makes a hiss when you get close. If the Player walks over the bush, curled lump, or tries to sythe it, you hear a snap and get hurt. The player can continue to walk for a bit while groaning and losing life, their sight slowly turns red/becomes wobbly, and they drop to the ground dead. (Venom anecdotes require pharmaceutical professionals to make, and if you don't make it to the hospital immediately, you'll probably have to have a limb amputated.) The best way to make a desert biome realistic, give it deadly rattlesnakes.

6) Hot, hot, hot! - Planning on players get cold to freezing-to-death in survival mode? Love it! Can't wait for the challenge. So, consider making players overheat to dying-of-thirst in the desert biome. Make shade a blessing and finding rivers crucial. Even better, make the biome spawn thick vegetation near rivers (as they do) to players can spot the signs of water from a distance.

7) Ores: copper, silver, gold, and just about anything else you can think of.

Tucson is one of the gem capitals of the world and our mountains are full of shiny miracles. To make a desert biome realistic, make it dangerous to tread, but then make it totally worth it by making it rich with ores and other precious bonuses only found in deserts. I'm game for the challenge!

Again, I’m only sharing all this to be helpful (and to waste time doing something constructive while waiting for your big update. :D) In summary, if you want to use the tigers, elephants, and giraffes you had in java? Great! Love it. See note #1. Make a second “Serengeti” or “Africa” Biome to separate your elephants, sand dunes, acacia, and yellow grass from a "Sonoran" or "American" desert that has saguaros and other succulents.

Or just delete the saguaros entirely from your already very African biome and you're good.

My offer:

I’ve already played and enjoyed Rising World many more hours than the meager $15 I paid for it, and I will continue to do so for years to come. I would be honored to buy for you (or donate cash so you can buy it yourself) unity asset(s) that would solve at least the image problems of your cacti. I found the closest fit in the Unity Assets Store called “cactus-package-190897”. It's not a great set, and certainly not enough types of cacti in this one, but it’ll at least solve the problem of having your desert biomes populated with plastic miniatures of the real thing. (Note that most of Cactus Assets in the Unity Store are also *way* off the mark, so please don’t just go shopping willy-nilly. I can only assume someone once guessed what a saguaro looks like without ever having seen one and that image got burned into the brains of everyone else who hasn’t seen one either. Now we’re stuck re-teaching the world population what a cactus looks like. Not your fault.) If it helps to buy the above or another asset pack from somewhere else I’m glad to fund it. If you are short-staffed and need a hand, I might be able to work my local geek contacts to make you some cactus assets. Say the word if you’d like me to try.

Again, let me stress, I LOVE THIS GAME! And I’m going to keep playing it no matter what you decide to do. Yet I also understand R&D, and recognize the limited time, money, and staff you must be dealing with for such a massive project, even so much as to waste time reading such a detailed post from me. So, while weird cacti and desert biomes are extremely annoying, I’m writing all this so that I can help you in the most efficient way possible I can think of. Feel free to reach out to me by email if you’d like to take me up on the funding or asset creation offer. (Or just post a pantheon link or something.) I assume you can pull my real name and/or email addy from one of my logins here or on steam.

As we say here in Tucson, “This ain’t my first rodeo.” To prove my authenticity, here’s a pic of me in front of a saguaro in the Saguaro National Park.

Thanks for a great game, sir!

Kesselia (Cass)

I was thinking about this more at work today and took snapshots on the drive for those who might be curious to know more about Sonoran trees.

A beheaded palm tree. I don't know why they survive coastal hurricanes by not our thunderstorms, (something about the direction of the wind) but this is fairly common. This dead stick will remain until someone pays a landscaper to remove it.

This mesquite sapling is a natural sprout (not planted or watered by people) in my driveway. Young mesquites have long thorns on their trunks and branches. Once mature, they get tall like this one nearly twice as tall as the house next door. You can't even see the telephone pole in its canopy. Mature mesquites grow out of their thorns and have a rough, dark brown bark. Mesquite beans can be ground to flour for bread. (America didn't have wheat before Europeans arrived.) Their lumber is beautiful as furniture and smells delicious as firewood/roasting meat.

Palo Verdes are by far the most common tree. Here's another natural sprout in my driveway. No thorns needed because nothing about them is edible (as far as I know). Called "palo verde" (Spanish), "green tree" (English), "grüner Baum" (German?) because even their trunks and branches are green. In spring, the entire canopy is replaced with tiny yellow flowers and pollen that makes hayfever miserable. Note it is taller than the house behind it, so remember in the previous post that, when next to a saguaro, palo verdes look like bushes, and you get the idea.

Cheers,

Kesselia

All good points, Red! Do what you do, in the order of priorities you need to do it, and I'll play it. (I suppose if I wanted it to be *totally* realistic, I could just go outside. )

Viago, you're right. Your first post of Red Dead 2 screenshots is exactly what I'm talking about. Especially that first photo -- looks like they got it right! (The second photo is some movie set somewhere. The third is... probably Texas. ) Your second post is of some other desert, perhaps the Sahara? (I've never been there so I know as much as you = what I've seen on TV.)

To be clear: I don't have any problems playing the Serengeti and/or the Sahara, or the Gobi, Gibson, or Mojave for that matter. My overall point was simply that they're not all the same thing with the same stuff and SO many games throw them all together in a single Never Rains biome. Truly, the simple fact that Red read the post and listened to my advice is enough for me.

The true beauty of Rising World is how incredibly customizable it is. I've done all the exploring there is to do in the beta unity version, so I hunkered down and built a house befitting a desert landscape just to see if I could make it all work. Even if I can't blueprint it into the upcoming release, I learned a lot and had lots of fun. I had to 're-appropriate' some things but it all came out pretty close! (The aloe vera is adjusted to look like agave (think tequila), the chili peppers are flattened like vines as some are, the flower-less little ball cacti are beefed up to look like young saguaros, and the flowered little ball cacti are fattened and tilted to look like barrel cacti.) I'm not satisfied with the bell tower, but that'll give me something to do while I wait for the release.

Thanks to the whole gang for chiming in on this.

Cheers!

Kesselia

I just finished downloading the update and living my first survival night in the wild... and I heard an owl. It took me a bit to realize it was in the game: wrong time of day, wrong hoot pattern than my locals-- the hoot came out of the game?! You already have owls in the game!

I will gladly shut up about any desert biome accuracy. I'm confident you've got your development priorities in order. Just having owls is enough for me. As promised, I helped by buying three more game keys in recent days and gave them away. I am awed, humbled, and amazed by this update. I give you a great big THANK YOU as I listen with delight to the owls you already included.

Cheers.