Grandkhan
Telvanni Master Wizard
Is it too late to change which species I'm evolving? I decided I'd rather evolve the packer from the devourer instead of the burster.
NESLife VI
- Thread starter Lord_Iggy
- Start date
I haven't started work on the update yet- just erase your old evolution post and edit in your new one.
If you leave two evolution posts up, I'll do whichever one I read first. It wouldn't be fair to let some people get multiple evolutions when most people only get one.
If you leave two evolution posts up, I'll do whichever one I read first. It wouldn't be fair to let some people get multiple evolutions when most people only get one.
Organism: Jargo
Ancestor: Shredder
Selective Pressure: Not enough maneuverability to be able to capture prey, fight others and escape predators with less energy output.
Mutation: The skeletal system is much more improved then that of it's Shredder ancestor allowing for easier movement and quicker swimming. This skeletal system also increases their strength allowing for them to overtake prey or, while fighting, be able to overpower and out maneuver it's opponent better. It's improved skeletal system, along with it's already slimy skin, makes the Jargo a very elusive and dangerous predator.
Ancestor: Shredder
Selective Pressure: Not enough maneuverability to be able to capture prey, fight others and escape predators with less energy output.
Mutation: The skeletal system is much more improved then that of it's Shredder ancestor allowing for easier movement and quicker swimming. This skeletal system also increases their strength allowing for them to overtake prey or, while fighting, be able to overpower and out maneuver it's opponent better. It's improved skeletal system, along with it's already slimy skin, makes the Jargo a very elusive and dangerous predator.
Organism: Survivor
Ancestor: Sky-Stealer
Selective Pressure: Encounters with saline environments
Mutation: The waxy outer cuticle of the Survivor is now also found on its roots where it evolved to exclude salt from penetrating into the root system. What little salt that does penetrate is funneled to the oldest leaves which can then be shed if required. This has allowed the Survivor to survive in all but the saltiest of environments. To better conserve what water it has, the Survivor can also move its leaves to control how much exposure to the sun it has. Due to its environment and the high chance of failure, the Survivor has also abandoned the colonial and budding reproduction of its ancestors and moved towards an approach geared for survival. This sees it release spores only during the most intensive rains where it can count on good conditions. The size of the spores has also increased and are now filled with tissue that gives the spore just that little more to work with during the first part of its life.
Ancestor: Sky-Stealer
Selective Pressure: Encounters with saline environments
Mutation: The waxy outer cuticle of the Survivor is now also found on its roots where it evolved to exclude salt from penetrating into the root system. What little salt that does penetrate is funneled to the oldest leaves which can then be shed if required. This has allowed the Survivor to survive in all but the saltiest of environments. To better conserve what water it has, the Survivor can also move its leaves to control how much exposure to the sun it has. Due to its environment and the high chance of failure, the Survivor has also abandoned the colonial and budding reproduction of its ancestors and moved towards an approach geared for survival. This sees it release spores only during the most intensive rains where it can count on good conditions. The size of the spores has also increased and are now filled with tissue that gives the spore just that little more to work with during the first part of its life.
Epoch X: The Oratan Epoch
Life continues to thrive on Lambda, which enjoys a long period of great stability throughout this Epoch. The Orata give this epoch its name, for their fossils are found in particularly high densities, on every continent and in every sea. Diverse new internal structures develop in organisms from many different branches of the tree of life, as many of the most successful groups radiate widely during this time of plenty. Throughout the Oratan Epoch, the phylum Orata continues to exert its dominance over land, while Phylum Zebedida does the same in the global ocean. Each of these two major groups of animals has a single beleaguered family in the opposite environment, the Padipeds and Zebpights respectively. Plant life remains largely unchanged, with forests thriving in the southern hemisphere, while drier scrubland defines the northern continents. In the oceans, algal life has diversified rapidly, after tens of millions of years of relative stasis.
For now, life is good.
Okianus and Eddoria
Vines, descended from Ground-Grabbers, have developed a saprophytic existence. Relying on Horras for their existence, Vines crawl up to the forest canopy, constantly draining resources from their hosts. While some early Vines outright killed their hosts, this proved to be an evolutionarily unsuccessful strategy, as the Vines invariably died soon after, lacking a vascular system sufficient to maintain themselves after the Horra’s death. Thus, the most successful species of Vine have evolved to take away as many resources as possible from their host trees, leaving behind only enough to allow the Horras to barely hang on to life.
Zebpight evolved out of the Zebetackas of the rapidly dehydrating Haskone salt lakes. By adapting a cephalic invagination (an infolded area in the head-region) of their digestive system into a gas exchange surface, Zebpights are able to breathe out of ammonia. With this adaptation, coupled with their stiff lower fins, these creatures are able to skip out of ammonia for brief periods of time, before their delicate outer mucous membranes begin to crack and dry. This ability has proven critical in allowing the Zebpights to escape from the natural deathtrap of the Haskone Salt Lakes, which, throughout the course of the epoch, finally dried up for good as they were uplifted into the Haskone Mountains, forming the boundary between Okianus and Eddoria. The remaining Zebedis, Zebetackas, Friendlies, Gangers, Protlaepish and Ith were less fortunate: each of them faded into extinction as their habitats shrank away to nothingness. Zebpights continue to thrive, living amphibious existences around the rivers and coastlines of the northern continents.
Many an observer might have expected the Tybillers, one of the first Oratan lineages to fully adapt to life on land, to be falling into a state of decline with the success of their Spiracul cousins. However, this gradual decline has been turned around with the rise of the Estabils. By adapting part of their internal tracheal network into a system for nutrient transport, Estabils have both linearized their previously two-way digestive system (a significant advantage) and developed a fantastic method of dispersing nutrients swiftly through their bodies. This bizarre hybrid ‘gastrovascular’ system allows Estabils to eat food, digest it within a large stomach, then disperse the digested food throughout their body. Once nutrients have been released, waste material is absorbed, and ejected through the ends of these digestive tubules. This system has given Estabils a strong competitive position, and they continue to grapple with Spiraculs and their relatives for dominance in the Northern Hemisphere.
The Spiraculs themselves have also continued to swiftly radiate. The Ileum has developed a two-stage digestive system, with a muscular stomach and a long, absorptive intestine. The simultaneous evolution of two radically different systems for nutrient absorption has given new life to the growing evolutionary conflict between the Estabils and Ileums, to the detriment of their now-uncompetitive ancestors. Ileums possess a very slight cardiovascular edge, but Estabils, who can accomplish with a single body system what an Ileum does in two, enjoy an efficiency advantage. Neither of these two families has been able to take a decisive upper hand- however, the evolutionary arms race between these two dominant lineages has been enormously detrimental to the less-advanced Orata of the northern continents. The explosive radiations of the Ileums and Estabils have forced their way into almost every extant niche on the land of the northern continents, driving the old Tybillers, Spiraculs, Hunters and Paravesters to extinction.
Plassidia, Graderia and Lambridia
Survivors, close relatives of the highly successful Sky-Stealers, had a promising, but ultimately self-defeating set of mutations, which undermined each other through a lack of synergy. These plants used hydraulic pressure to optimize light capture and minimize desiccation from intense sunlight, effective ion pumps to thrive in saline soils, waxy roots to prevent subterranean water loss, and nutrient-rich seeds. Unfortunately, the waxy roots severely inhibited water uptake, and the nutrient rich seeds lacked an effective dispersal system, rendering them into little more than an exceedingly delicious waste of resources. Survivors, contrary to their name, were very quick to disappear from the roster of extant life-forms.
Watchers, descended from amphibious Hunters, have been able to move further inland with the spread of the great forests of the southern supercontinent. Developing some of the most advanced eyes ever seen on Lambda, these creatures have taken to a nocturnal existence of ambush hunting. This strategy synergizes excellently with their physiology- while their digestive system, vascular system and desiccation resistance lags behind most of the other members of Phylum Orata, they have no need to chase their prey through the heat of day, when a swift strike in the cool, damp night will serve just as well.
Global Ocean
The Stripper, a descendant of the highly-successful Grower, has developed long, photosynthetic strips to increase its surface area. This is the end result of an evolutionary arms race which has seen progressively larger Grower-derivatives attempt to monopolize the limited sunlight striking the ocean floor. Beyond these long light-collecting apparatuses, Strippers remain morphologically very similar to their quite simple ancestors.
Pivots were an odd descendant of the Waltzer, with claw-like termini to their piston-like leaping structures. This system proved to be highly maladaptive. When Pivots latched onto motile species, they were more often than not dislodged and damaged by their hosts, who were frequently driven into violent panics after being accosted by roaming Pivots. Meanwhile, when Pivots they latched onto stationary organisms, they did little more than limit their mobility, granting a competitive advantage to their Waltzer relatives. Unable to successfully wrest a niche away from their simpler ancestors, the Pivots stumbled out of the block, and ultimately succumbed to extinction.
Flitters, one of the new branches to emerge from the wildly successful Zipper lineage, have found huge success by adapting to filter feed upon planktonic lifeforms. Previously, this role has been filled only by tiny hobos, leaving a huge empty niche which was very rapidly filled by the Flitters. By rhythmically pulsating their ‘lips’, Flitters are able to generate strong currents which suck ammonia in and out of their mouths. With each pass, many small organisms are caught in fine ‘combs’ within their mouths, and subsequently swallowed. This simple but effective strategy briefly allowed Flitters to become the largest animals yet to evolve, with some of their oceangoing species growing into huge, lumbering wanderers up to three meters in length. However, their distant cousins, the Jargos, would soon place an upper limit on their size.
Jargos, descending from predatory Shredders, have developed the musculoskeletal system, optimizing their build for swift and powerful swimming. While they lack endurance, they are able to outpace anything in the sea over short distances, rendering them into fearsome predators indeed. To best make use of their increased musculature, Jargo bodies have grown more paddle-like, while their comparatively flimsy ribbon-like tails have diminished. Jargos have come into heavy competition with Padipeds, and are generally winning out, their superior digestive systems helping them win in competitions over limited resources. The only significant remaining advantage of the Padiped is its armoured carapace.
Packers, descended from the Bursters, engaged in social hunting, targeting the ever-more diverse and abundant descendants of the Zebedi, Zippers in particular. However, the increased size of the Packers proved to be just one of several problems facing this family. Their increased size rendered their lack of complex gas exchange techniques, and their simple sac-type gut, into huge liabilities. This unfortunate combination of features left them sluggish in their motions, and slow to digest the large organisms which they were specialized to hunt. Worse still was the fact that, in becoming dedicated to predation upon swimming prey, Packers came into direct competition with Shredders and predatory Zipper lineages. All of this compounded into the problem that, since the reconnection of the Sejessian and Arisian Oceans into a single global body of water, Zippers, Abyssi and Shredders had been gradually pushing the whole Burster lineage into decline. In the end, the highly effective hunting tactics of the Packers were not enough to overcome the superior physiologies of their rivals, and both the Packer and the Burster descended into extinction.
Okianus and Eddoria
Plassidia, Graderia and Lambridia
Global Ocean
Lambda
Notes: Lungs aren’t the only way to breathe air, you know. You could also do gas exchange through the skin, or tracheae, or any other feasible system you can imagine. Don’t let yourself feel too constrained by what happens on earth!
Also, lots of people are going for what I think of as ‘flashy evolutions’ without considering the basics of how their organism works. Does your organism have a digestive system? Does it have a means of gas exchange? Does it have senses appropriate to its lifestyle? These are important things to ask yourself as your brainstorm your next evolution. Remember, many of the most wildly successful organisms have thought up by people who just did simple and obvious things.
Remember, the most successful parasites are not the ones that kill their hosts. If you’re a parasite, killing your host is the equivalent of being an arsonist who burns down his own home (when it’s not part of an insurance scam, that is). It’s counterproductive, and much more effective to keep your host alive.
@J.K. Stockholme- The motion of Waltzers and their relatives can be thought of as a self-setting mousetrap. Its leaping spine is akin to a knitting needle, it is a hard and lifeless growth (sort of like a fingernail on a human) extending out of a high-tension cavity within the organism. It is not a limb that is well-suited for the development of dexterity. The Pivot aimed for a level of mechanical complexity that introduced unreliability into its biomechanics, and more problematically, provided little evolutionary advantage to its lineage. There was very little to be gained from being able to grab onto a surface, especially when so much of the success of the Waltzer is due to its ability to depart rapidly when it is disturbed, springing away to safety in a single leap. A system to lock it in place, even with a release mechanism, doesn’t make sense. Increasing an organism’s complexity without a corresponding increase in competitive ability is rarely a pathway to evolutionary success.
@Masada- You evolved 4 different things (liquid-tight roots, mobile leaves, salt expulsion and full seeds with an endosperm). This is too much for a single evolution, and a lot of your mutations do not follow from your selective pressure, which is exposure to salt. The killer, however, is that the very first mutation that you mentioned (waxy roots) is basically lethal. It’s like a mammal evolving armour to protect the inside of its lungs. Why is root epidermis not covered with cuticle?
Life continues to thrive on Lambda, which enjoys a long period of great stability throughout this Epoch. The Orata give this epoch its name, for their fossils are found in particularly high densities, on every continent and in every sea. Diverse new internal structures develop in organisms from many different branches of the tree of life, as many of the most successful groups radiate widely during this time of plenty. Throughout the Oratan Epoch, the phylum Orata continues to exert its dominance over land, while Phylum Zebedida does the same in the global ocean. Each of these two major groups of animals has a single beleaguered family in the opposite environment, the Padipeds and Zebpights respectively. Plant life remains largely unchanged, with forests thriving in the southern hemisphere, while drier scrubland defines the northern continents. In the oceans, algal life has diversified rapidly, after tens of millions of years of relative stasis.
For now, life is good.
Okianus and Eddoria
Vines, descended from Ground-Grabbers, have developed a saprophytic existence. Relying on Horras for their existence, Vines crawl up to the forest canopy, constantly draining resources from their hosts. While some early Vines outright killed their hosts, this proved to be an evolutionarily unsuccessful strategy, as the Vines invariably died soon after, lacking a vascular system sufficient to maintain themselves after the Horra’s death. Thus, the most successful species of Vine have evolved to take away as many resources as possible from their host trees, leaving behind only enough to allow the Horras to barely hang on to life.
Zebpight evolved out of the Zebetackas of the rapidly dehydrating Haskone salt lakes. By adapting a cephalic invagination (an infolded area in the head-region) of their digestive system into a gas exchange surface, Zebpights are able to breathe out of ammonia. With this adaptation, coupled with their stiff lower fins, these creatures are able to skip out of ammonia for brief periods of time, before their delicate outer mucous membranes begin to crack and dry. This ability has proven critical in allowing the Zebpights to escape from the natural deathtrap of the Haskone Salt Lakes, which, throughout the course of the epoch, finally dried up for good as they were uplifted into the Haskone Mountains, forming the boundary between Okianus and Eddoria. The remaining Zebedis, Zebetackas, Friendlies, Gangers, Protlaepish and Ith were less fortunate: each of them faded into extinction as their habitats shrank away to nothingness. Zebpights continue to thrive, living amphibious existences around the rivers and coastlines of the northern continents.
Many an observer might have expected the Tybillers, one of the first Oratan lineages to fully adapt to life on land, to be falling into a state of decline with the success of their Spiracul cousins. However, this gradual decline has been turned around with the rise of the Estabils. By adapting part of their internal tracheal network into a system for nutrient transport, Estabils have both linearized their previously two-way digestive system (a significant advantage) and developed a fantastic method of dispersing nutrients swiftly through their bodies. This bizarre hybrid ‘gastrovascular’ system allows Estabils to eat food, digest it within a large stomach, then disperse the digested food throughout their body. Once nutrients have been released, waste material is absorbed, and ejected through the ends of these digestive tubules. This system has given Estabils a strong competitive position, and they continue to grapple with Spiraculs and their relatives for dominance in the Northern Hemisphere.
The Spiraculs themselves have also continued to swiftly radiate. The Ileum has developed a two-stage digestive system, with a muscular stomach and a long, absorptive intestine. The simultaneous evolution of two radically different systems for nutrient absorption has given new life to the growing evolutionary conflict between the Estabils and Ileums, to the detriment of their now-uncompetitive ancestors. Ileums possess a very slight cardiovascular edge, but Estabils, who can accomplish with a single body system what an Ileum does in two, enjoy an efficiency advantage. Neither of these two families has been able to take a decisive upper hand- however, the evolutionary arms race between these two dominant lineages has been enormously detrimental to the less-advanced Orata of the northern continents. The explosive radiations of the Ileums and Estabils have forced their way into almost every extant niche on the land of the northern continents, driving the old Tybillers, Spiraculs, Hunters and Paravesters to extinction.
Plassidia, Graderia and Lambridia
Survivors, close relatives of the highly successful Sky-Stealers, had a promising, but ultimately self-defeating set of mutations, which undermined each other through a lack of synergy. These plants used hydraulic pressure to optimize light capture and minimize desiccation from intense sunlight, effective ion pumps to thrive in saline soils, waxy roots to prevent subterranean water loss, and nutrient-rich seeds. Unfortunately, the waxy roots severely inhibited water uptake, and the nutrient rich seeds lacked an effective dispersal system, rendering them into little more than an exceedingly delicious waste of resources. Survivors, contrary to their name, were very quick to disappear from the roster of extant life-forms.
Watchers, descended from amphibious Hunters, have been able to move further inland with the spread of the great forests of the southern supercontinent. Developing some of the most advanced eyes ever seen on Lambda, these creatures have taken to a nocturnal existence of ambush hunting. This strategy synergizes excellently with their physiology- while their digestive system, vascular system and desiccation resistance lags behind most of the other members of Phylum Orata, they have no need to chase their prey through the heat of day, when a swift strike in the cool, damp night will serve just as well.
Global Ocean
The Stripper, a descendant of the highly-successful Grower, has developed long, photosynthetic strips to increase its surface area. This is the end result of an evolutionary arms race which has seen progressively larger Grower-derivatives attempt to monopolize the limited sunlight striking the ocean floor. Beyond these long light-collecting apparatuses, Strippers remain morphologically very similar to their quite simple ancestors.
Pivots were an odd descendant of the Waltzer, with claw-like termini to their piston-like leaping structures. This system proved to be highly maladaptive. When Pivots latched onto motile species, they were more often than not dislodged and damaged by their hosts, who were frequently driven into violent panics after being accosted by roaming Pivots. Meanwhile, when Pivots they latched onto stationary organisms, they did little more than limit their mobility, granting a competitive advantage to their Waltzer relatives. Unable to successfully wrest a niche away from their simpler ancestors, the Pivots stumbled out of the block, and ultimately succumbed to extinction.
Flitters, one of the new branches to emerge from the wildly successful Zipper lineage, have found huge success by adapting to filter feed upon planktonic lifeforms. Previously, this role has been filled only by tiny hobos, leaving a huge empty niche which was very rapidly filled by the Flitters. By rhythmically pulsating their ‘lips’, Flitters are able to generate strong currents which suck ammonia in and out of their mouths. With each pass, many small organisms are caught in fine ‘combs’ within their mouths, and subsequently swallowed. This simple but effective strategy briefly allowed Flitters to become the largest animals yet to evolve, with some of their oceangoing species growing into huge, lumbering wanderers up to three meters in length. However, their distant cousins, the Jargos, would soon place an upper limit on their size.
Jargos, descending from predatory Shredders, have developed the musculoskeletal system, optimizing their build for swift and powerful swimming. While they lack endurance, they are able to outpace anything in the sea over short distances, rendering them into fearsome predators indeed. To best make use of their increased musculature, Jargo bodies have grown more paddle-like, while their comparatively flimsy ribbon-like tails have diminished. Jargos have come into heavy competition with Padipeds, and are generally winning out, their superior digestive systems helping them win in competitions over limited resources. The only significant remaining advantage of the Padiped is its armoured carapace.
Packers, descended from the Bursters, engaged in social hunting, targeting the ever-more diverse and abundant descendants of the Zebedi, Zippers in particular. However, the increased size of the Packers proved to be just one of several problems facing this family. Their increased size rendered their lack of complex gas exchange techniques, and their simple sac-type gut, into huge liabilities. This unfortunate combination of features left them sluggish in their motions, and slow to digest the large organisms which they were specialized to hunt. Worse still was the fact that, in becoming dedicated to predation upon swimming prey, Packers came into direct competition with Shredders and predatory Zipper lineages. All of this compounded into the problem that, since the reconnection of the Sejessian and Arisian Oceans into a single global body of water, Zippers, Abyssi and Shredders had been gradually pushing the whole Burster lineage into decline. In the end, the highly effective hunting tactics of the Packers were not enough to overcome the superior physiologies of their rivals, and both the Packer and the Burster descended into extinction.
Okianus and Eddoria
Plassidia, Graderia and Lambridia
Global Ocean
Lambda
Notes: Lungs aren’t the only way to breathe air, you know. You could also do gas exchange through the skin, or tracheae, or any other feasible system you can imagine. Don’t let yourself feel too constrained by what happens on earth!
Also, lots of people are going for what I think of as ‘flashy evolutions’ without considering the basics of how their organism works. Does your organism have a digestive system? Does it have a means of gas exchange? Does it have senses appropriate to its lifestyle? These are important things to ask yourself as your brainstorm your next evolution. Remember, many of the most wildly successful organisms have thought up by people who just did simple and obvious things.
Remember, the most successful parasites are not the ones that kill their hosts. If you’re a parasite, killing your host is the equivalent of being an arsonist who burns down his own home (when it’s not part of an insurance scam, that is). It’s counterproductive, and much more effective to keep your host alive.
@J.K. Stockholme- The motion of Waltzers and their relatives can be thought of as a self-setting mousetrap. Its leaping spine is akin to a knitting needle, it is a hard and lifeless growth (sort of like a fingernail on a human) extending out of a high-tension cavity within the organism. It is not a limb that is well-suited for the development of dexterity. The Pivot aimed for a level of mechanical complexity that introduced unreliability into its biomechanics, and more problematically, provided little evolutionary advantage to its lineage. There was very little to be gained from being able to grab onto a surface, especially when so much of the success of the Waltzer is due to its ability to depart rapidly when it is disturbed, springing away to safety in a single leap. A system to lock it in place, even with a release mechanism, doesn’t make sense. Increasing an organism’s complexity without a corresponding increase in competitive ability is rarely a pathway to evolutionary success.
@Masada- You evolved 4 different things (liquid-tight roots, mobile leaves, salt expulsion and full seeds with an endosperm). This is too much for a single evolution, and a lot of your mutations do not follow from your selective pressure, which is exposure to salt. The killer, however, is that the very first mutation that you mentioned (waxy roots) is basically lethal. It’s like a mammal evolving armour to protect the inside of its lungs. Why is root epidermis not covered with cuticle?
Spoiler Extant Organisms :
Also, the southern 3 continents are beginning to fuse into a single continental body. Rather than calling it Plassidia, Graderia and Lambridia, I'm going to ask you to vote on a new name for the southern supercontinent!
Below are some current popular names that have not been used. Feel free to suggest and vote for more!
Bospor/Bosporic 2
Sundentia/Sundentian 2
Zabriska/Zabriskan 2
Nevia/Nevian 3
Delgon/Delgonic 1
Alvuela/Alvuelian
Soumjiana/Soumjianic
Fexel/Fexelic
Tassadero/Tassaderan
Also, here is the music I was listening to while updating:
Link to video.
Below are some current popular names that have not been used. Feel free to suggest and vote for more!
Bospor/Bosporic 2
Sundentia/Sundentian 2
Zabriska/Zabriskan 2
Nevia/Nevian 3
Delgon/Delgonic 1
Alvuela/Alvuelian
Soumjiana/Soumjianic
Fexel/Fexelic
Tassadero/Tassaderan
Also, here is the music I was listening to while updating:
Link to video.
Daftpanzer
canonically ambiguous
Woo update! Awesome, great work once again 
. Happy to see Flitters doing well. I feel like I need to do something to give the Padiped lineage a chance...
Q: how many traits can we add per evolution? I guess you would rather keep this a little ambiguous, depending on the situation and etc? I'm wondering if an evolution of Padipeds could become social, as well as having a gill-leg mutation at the same time.
. Happy to see Flitters doing well. I feel like I need to do something to give the Padiped lineage a chance...Q: how many traits can we add per evolution? I guess you would rather keep this a little ambiguous, depending on the situation and etc? I'm wondering if an evolution of Padipeds could become social, as well as having a gill-leg mutation at the same time.
bonefang
Emperor
OOC : Query : FreeFloaters : They do not have any sense of sight do they ? Any chemoreceptors / eyespots or something of that sort ?
filli_noctus
Hmmn
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2010
- Messages
- 2,221
I've just noticed the existence of the Boskone Sea, as it now appears to have been isolated from the global ocean for two updates should it not have a separate ecosystem?
In general, I try to limit people to a single significant mutation in response to their selective pressure, but there is wiggle room. Firstly, if people have a cluster of small changes they're making in response to their selective pressure, then I usually allow this, to a point. Also, some changes are more significant than others. If you're doing something huge, like developing a new organ system from scratch then that should probably be your only change, while if you're doing relatively small things (or modifying existing traits) then I'll allow for more than one change. For example, if you're evolving eyes, that's probably the only thing you can do in an epoch, but if you already have skin and legs, and you want to evolve thicker skin and longer legs (for example, in response to a selective pressure requiring your species to be able to traverse deserts) then that's an appropriately-sized mutation.Woo update! Awesome, great work once again
Q: how many traits can we add per evolution? I guess you would rather keep this a little ambiguous, depending on the situation and etc? I'm wondering if an evolution of Padipeds could become social, as well as having a gill-leg mutation at the same time.
For Padipeds, sociality and a gill-leg seem like two different things. If you can justify how both of these things are a response to a single discrete selective pressure, then I'll allow it, but otherwise I'd say that's too much for one evolution.
A plant needs eyes like a squid needs a beard. In short, they do not have any sensory organs.
It has only just become isolated, but at present sea level fluctuations still provide intermittent contact, so it has not yet had the opportunity to become distinct from the Global Ocean.
Terrance888
Discord Reigns
My votes.
My Offerings
Karatoff/Karatovia
EDIT: Is it just because of the increased habitats, or is the rate of evolution (player participation) slowing down?
EDITEDIT: How common is sight underwater, especially for aquatic predators?
Lord_Herobrine
Back in the Saddle
Sundentia!
And great update! I'm sorry to say I was too busy to offer a mutation for that epoch (The first time I've missed an epoch).
And great update! I'm sorry to say I was too busy to offer a mutation for that epoch (The first time I've missed an epoch).
Grandkhan
Telvanni Master Wizard
I'm voting for Delgon, solely because it sounds like a Great Old One's name and so I can make all manner of mind-shattering aberrations and crimes unto god and man on it.
filli_noctus
Hmmn
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2010
- Messages
- 2,221
Not Great Old Ones, but the inhabitants of Delgon are sadistic mind slavers who feed on their victims pain. Pretty close.
I'm not renaming continents for any reason other than to simplify terminology and allow for some name turnover. It's just like how, on Earth, Baltica, Laurentia and Avalonia collided to form a new continent varyingly named 'Euramerica' or 'Larussia'.
Why would I change a continent's name in response to player participation? The only thing player participation is going to change is updating speed. I think it'll form an equilibrium, actually. If I update slower, some players will lose interest, making my updating speed faster, and if I'm updating faster, the NES will pick up more interest, thus slowing me down again. I could graph the ratio, but... honestly I'd rather do another update than navel-gaze.
Busy times happen for us all, I look forward to your next SACRIFICIAL OFFERING!Sundentia!
And great update! I'm sorry to say I was too busy to offer a mutation for that epoch (The first time I've missed an epoch).
Mind-shattering aberrations? Crimes unto god and man? Sounds like an excellent plan, get on it!
J.K. Stockholme
Right Opposition
I'll take your points into consideration Iggy. Though evolutionary failure is fun too.
Terrance888
Discord Reigns
EDIT: Is it just because of the increased habitats, or is the rate of evolution (player participation) slowing down?
EDITEDIT: How common is sight underwater, especially for aquatic predators?
Sigh. These questions are not attached at all to the continent naming thing. I was asking about feeling the fewer evolutions, and am wondering whether there are actually fewer evolutions, or if it is merely an illusion due to said evolutions competing in more spread out habitats.
EDITEDIT: How common is sight underwater, especially for aquatic predators?
Sigh. These questions are not attached at all to the continent naming thing. I was asking about feeling the fewer evolutions, and am wondering whether there are actually fewer evolutions, or if it is merely an illusion due to said evolutions competing in more spread out habitats.
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