Forum:Online Environmental Changes

Something that I think would be pretty interesting to include in a future Monster Hunter game would be things that happen to the environment of the maps. I was in Puerto Rico (PR) on vacation last week and had many plans. However, I went there at a bad time because PR had been getting lots of rain, causing floods throughout certain parts of the island, and on top of that there was Tropical Storm/Hurricane Emily that was looming 100 miles to the south of PR, whose bands of rain caused more grief and unnecessary mass mania, so those plans were thrown into the flood waters. My friend who lives in PR even drove me by an area where there used to be a beach, but as the years went by, the beach itself began eroding away to the point where the ocean is 5 ft from the road, of which some of that road sunk into the ocean during those storms last week. Sorry, I ramble a lot. Ahem… My point is that there could be events that feature some sort of calamity or climate change on certain, but not necessarily all, maps in the games. Monster Hunter Tri is the only game I’ve owned so I’ll give examples of possible ideas using the Tri maps (AND YES I KNOW THAT IT’S TOO LATE FOR TRI. THAT’S WHY IT’S CALLED A “WISH.” REMEMBER, THIS IS AN IDEA FOR SOMETHING THAT COULD BE INCLUDED IN A FUTURE GAME.  IF YOU DIDN’T ALREADY GET THAT THEN READ THE FIRST SENTENCE AND THE BIG BOX AT THE TOP OF THE “MH WISHLIST PAGE”). Deserted Island In the offline story, Ceadeus was clumsily bumping its horns into the sides of the Underwater Ruins, causing earthquakes. What if there was an earthquake that messed the place up. Certain areas in the map would be blocked off and new areas would appear to either compensate for the lost areas or to be used to reach those lost areas and such.

Another thing could be a massive flood or tsunami that tore through the island leaving most of it, besides Areas 1 and 8, completely underwater (I can already here some MH Veterans cringing and saying “Oh great, more underwater areas/battles. Screw You, RainbowVangis”). Another could be that the Deserted Island froze over, allowing for other monsters to briefly populate the island. Sandy Plains Like some deserts in the world, they sometimes do experience flash floods (that means more water). Again, new areas may appear so that not every area is completely underwater. Flooded Forest The Flooded Forest area could experience a sudden, freak drought. This drought wouldn’t be like the way the map was changed from MH Tri to MHP 3rd, where the underwater areas were modified and/or omitted. It could either look like the water level dropped significantly, to where there’s enough water to walk in but not swim in, and everything just looks dry or wilted but not completely dead, or to the extreme of the Flooded Forest becoming a barren wasteland like Area 10 of the Sandy Plains but you could still look around and tell that you’re in the “Once Flooded Forest” map. Even the opposite could happen, a Frozen Forest (or more water, a Sunken Forest). Tundra Truthfully, I can’t think of anything for the Tundra other than another earthquake scenario or a scenario where everything is melting, causing yet again another flood (which means more water). Volcano I also can’t think of anything for the Volcano other than it cooling down, but not freezing over, just like either a dormant volcano with no signs of it “waking up” anytime this millennia or a dead one that became a fertile landscape. The problem with both of those is that it takes the “extreme” out of something as deadly as a volcanic area (Area 4 has water BTW). Scenarios like this would only take place online. It could be done by these 2 ways: Events Only Where these map changes only take place for certain event quests. Real Time Events Where the maps themselves go through these changes and stay that way for a predetermined amount of time. For this way to work, ALL online quest, both event and non event, must follow a calendar to see when these changes will take place. Event Quests taking place during these changes would have to be analyzed to see which ones would be available. For example, if the Flooded Forest experiences a drought or is frozen over for a few days, then the “Gobuled Everything in Sight!” event can’t be available during those days because of those changes. This “plan of action” can be an alternative to the creation of subspecies boss monsters (but we LOVE SUBSPECIES BOSS MONSTERS!!!) in that map exclusive monsters can briefly migrate to other maps, for example the Diablos could go to the barren wasteland that used to be the Flooded Forest or if it’s frozen over the Great Baggi or Barioth could briefly inhabit it. These ideas came up when I came back from PR and started playing Tri again. Having a high HR character and achieving practically every goal I set myself up to do in the game was making the game fell like it’s getting kind of stale. I created another character to make the game feel new again and it worked for a bit, but as long as my “completed character” still exists, it still feels stale. The thought of deleting him came across my mind but I don’t want to erase my hard earn things. If only they would throw a change up so that it would make it interesting again. That’s when I thought of my stay in PR and how I was expecting to do one thing but had to change because of weather circumstances (and the fact that a few days ago I gave my input under the “Pokémon Armors” wish in the MH Wish list page about the dream I had of fighting an Arceus MH style instead of an Alatreon and thought that was an awesome, unexpected change up that made it interesting). Anyways, that’s my wish/idea. Please tell me what you think, sorry for my dreaded rambling and, just to let you know, I prefer land over sea in Monster Hunter ANY DAY.
 * Just before I clicked “Publish” I decided to proof read my wish and saw that this next idea may possibly offend some people and I’d like to say that it wasn’t my intention to offend or poke fun at events that have transpired recently. Again, these are just things that came to mind due to my visit in Puerto Rico last week*