Actually, having thought a bit about it, we can do more with it than just the "Sims stuff" (food/water/sleep/bathroom).
Weather effects would be awesome for one. I liked the small sand storm in F:NV, kinda wish it was zone wide and just happened once in a while. I remember in Morrowind: Blood Moon you had these really nasty snow storms. You couldn't see shit from them, imagine if you added a few more effects from them like for example, the freezing over time you get in that one Battlefield: Bad Company 2 mission, forcing you to find some shelter until it blows over.
What I think is most important is to not just do a stat change, it's too much of a pen and paper sort of thing, remember, we're talking video games here. If you're freezing like above, don't do a freez-o-meter, just show gradually increasing freeze effects on the character (third person perspective is better for this).
If we take the F:NV stuff, we can do so much more with it. Instead of doing a stat loss when hungry, just make the player slower, a little weaker, add slower melee swings as it progresses (obviously have some quite decent threshold so you don't just have to walk around stuffing your face every few minutes). When properly dehydrated, maybe induce a hallucination of some sort, when you haven't had sleep for days, vision becomes slightly (very slightly) blurry, your eyelids narrow, limiting your vision a bit (sadly, this would be better accomplished in first person view) and eventually you pass out (have a combat check for it, adrenaline can keep you awake, so it works and isn't annoying). Stuff like that.
Would just love to see some visceral effects from the hardcore mode rather than just pen and paper stat loses. Granted, F:NV has some as stats affect some stuff, but it's not even close to what it could potentially be.
Weather effects would be awesome for one. I liked the small sand storm in F:NV, kinda wish it was zone wide and just happened once in a while. I remember in Morrowind: Blood Moon you had these really nasty snow storms. You couldn't see shit from them, imagine if you added a few more effects from them like for example, the freezing over time you get in that one Battlefield: Bad Company 2 mission, forcing you to find some shelter until it blows over.
What I think is most important is to not just do a stat change, it's too much of a pen and paper sort of thing, remember, we're talking video games here. If you're freezing like above, don't do a freez-o-meter, just show gradually increasing freeze effects on the character (third person perspective is better for this).
If we take the F:NV stuff, we can do so much more with it. Instead of doing a stat loss when hungry, just make the player slower, a little weaker, add slower melee swings as it progresses (obviously have some quite decent threshold so you don't just have to walk around stuffing your face every few minutes). When properly dehydrated, maybe induce a hallucination of some sort, when you haven't had sleep for days, vision becomes slightly (very slightly) blurry, your eyelids narrow, limiting your vision a bit (sadly, this would be better accomplished in first person view) and eventually you pass out (have a combat check for it, adrenaline can keep you awake, so it works and isn't annoying). Stuff like that.
Would just love to see some visceral effects from the hardcore mode rather than just pen and paper stat loses. Granted, F:NV has some as stats affect some stuff, but it's not even close to what it could potentially be.
