Forum:Geneology and Seasonal Hunts

Introduction
This is a very complex idea, which could be rather simplified, and it serves mostly to flavor of Monster Hunter over gameplay, but could heavily impact play as well. When playing Monster Hunter, I realized that stuffing 50+ beasts into the same game and making them all mass hunted at the same time would take away from the game's authenticity. So the concept of reworking geneology and creating a real-time seasonal hunt system (based on 3 months of real time being a full seasonal cycle), but also giving identity to the hunter's guild, and creating a new humanistic villain for the hunters, poachers. At first, this concept will probably leave bitter tastes in the mouths of many players, so I would ask to implore the reader to think of the concept entirely instead of divesting it with half-baked argument.

The Path to Evolution
Take, our friend Barroth, and it's Icy cousin, where do they come from? What are they related to? To me the answer was obvious, Gravios. Would it not make sense that the game explores the concept that Barroths are Gravios/Basarios whom adapted to life in the mud, which had their wings hazed out after several generations due to their immense weight and mud life?. Then, say, some of the new species moved to the tundra, an environment as moist as swamps, where they could thrive due to high internal body temperatures (which allowed Gravios to adapt to volcanic bathing).

Or

Let's take the raptor-races, and say that they evolved from Monoblos, who lost their wings and horns so that they could scavenge better and took smaller bodies so that they could breed faster and become more diverse, in exchange for living lower on the predatory food-chain. Then we could take it a step further and say that Monoblos is descendant to the Elder Dragon, Kirin.

Creating a web of evolution between Elder Dragons and lesser predators (whether evolved from or into Elder Dragons) could create more room for new monster creation as well, without too many "rehashings" of the same beasts.

As The Seasons Grey
Next would be the concept of the environment going between the 3 seasons, and how different species would behave. Moreso, the concept that the Hunter's Guilds would restrict some monsters (most especially Elder Dragons) from being hunted at specific times, or even dispatch hunters to protect a creature from rogue poachers (by means of assassination or repelling the creature to safety).

Likewise, there would be a season where catching a specific subspecies of a creature would pay better due to their over-population and the demand from farmers.

The other importance of season is in farming, as the world of Monster Hunter is dominated by farmers (a "crude modernism", inverse of our own). Since, farming is now an important part of the Monster Hunter offline experience, perhaps ontop of crop-yield, season will also effect the kinds of plant-life obtainable in the field.

Poached, Not Scrambled
Something I should elaborate about is the concept of having monster poachers (those who hunt out of season or take slays from licensed hunters), or rather an anti-thesis to the players. Instead of the protagonist being the savior of a village in the offline mode, this would allow them to take up the same role as online, a mercenary. Ideally this could also make onlinexoffline almost seamless.