Kuru is too common!

[mithrawndo 166]

Right now the chance to get Kuru from eating human meat is very high. This doesn't reflect reality, where the chance varies depending on the quantity of and what tissue was eaten, amongst other things. Several times as a starving fresh spawn I've spied a corpse in the road and left it lying: Perfectly good protein that in all likelihood *shouldn't* give me brain disease as I'm only eating the choice cuts*, but I'm forced to leave it. Gutting and cooking it would've attracted attention too, driving interactions!

Can't we dial it back a little?

 

*Potential expansion of game mechanic?

[-Gews- 7443]

Realistically if you're eating a nicely prepared human steak there shouldn't be any notable risks to your character's health.

[liquidcactus 719]

Which reminds me I still have never eaten anyone yet...  hmm maybe a good excuse to jump on pipsi now to find someone to eat

[shinjuru 114]

Realistically speaking, I'm glad that you decided to not discuss the amount of time involved healing broken bones and bullet wounds.

[Sqeezorz 839]

I wanted to get it, and had to eat 2 people. Finally the first time with over 1000 game hours I had Kuru. My conclusion: the laugh / giggle comes too little, but is too monotonous (only one soundfile). the trembling is much too often and always the same, it should be less and different. My conclusion with Kuru was: Only survival with melee possible, so I went to a full pop server on the NWAF ... and died.

//Quote: Shinjuru:

Realistically speaking, I'm glad that you decided to not discuss the amount of time involved healing broken bones and bullet wounds.//

 

Right, however, I have some trouble with diseases like cholera. A wound or fracture is instantly cured, a cholera takes about 5-7 ingame hours, it's just too much, despite the bonus for immunity. (I have tried the cholera 3x times to survive, 1x successful and 2x in the last minutes before the end dead.) ---> ok it is all not yet definitely ... much need still the balance.

Edited September 25, 2017 by Sqeezorz
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[mithrawndo 166]

5 hours ago, shinjuru said:

Realistically speaking, I'm glad that you decided to not discuss the amount of time involved healing broken bones and bullet wounds.

Of course; realistically speaking the second and third phases of Kuru are debilitating, yet we can wander around freely. Creative license completely granted as far as I'm concerned, it is only a game :)

My point was largely surrounding interactions: Whilst currently eating human flesh has a high chance of the eater developing brain disease, the interactions that result from this are in my opinion less valuable than those that could be attained by dialing back on the likelihood of degenerative brain disease from human steak and further reducing the amount of ready made food available, including things like trees and bushes. An infected player who still has survival on their mind is surely inclined to avoid interacting with others due to the side effects, making the game feel more lonely.

[BeefBacon 1185]

Isn't kuru some ridiculously rare disease that only exists in, like, the deepest darkest jungles of Peru or something? I don't think you can get kuru just from eating whoever.

That's besides the point, though. I think it's a balancing mechanic. It's not difficult to kill a freshspawn and harvest them for meat. It's to limit the attractiveness of a readily available food source. I suppose the alternative would be to have players yield only a very small amount of meat.

[mithrawndo 166]

5 hours ago, BeefBacon said:

Isn't kuru some ridiculously rare disease that only exists in, like, the deepest darkest jungles of Peru or something? I don't think you can get kuru just from eating whoever.

That's besides the point, though. I think it's a balancing mechanic. It's not difficult to kill a freshspawn and harvest them for meat. It's to limit the attractiveness of a readily available food source. I suppose the alternative would be to have players yield only a very small amount of meat.

The last known Kuru sufferer died about a decade ago. It's a form of degenerative brain disease, and I think they may have used the term in the game files to refer to this particular disease. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, colloquially known as Mad Cow Disease, is a good example and it's transmitted in exactly the same way: There's a risk from eating any meat that carries the infecting prions, so if we're contracting it from human steaks there should also be a chance that we contract it from other types of meat, too.

Either way, it's way too common for my liking.

[Sqeezorz 839]

maybe are Kuru the wrong Name ^^

@BeefBacon Peru... the P are right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease)

[pilgrim* 3513]

22 hours ago, mithrawndo said:

Right now the chance to get Kuru from eating human meat is very high. This doesn't reflect reality, where the chance varies depending on the quantity of and what tissue was eaten, amongst other things. Several times as a starving fresh spawn I've spied a corpse in the road and left it lying: Perfectly good protein that in all likelihood *shouldn't* give me brain disease as I'm only eating the choice cuts*, but I'm forced to leave it. Gutting and cooking it would've attracted attention too, driving interactions!

Can't we dial it back a little?

 

*Potential expansion of game mechanic?

 

TSEs in non-human mammals include scrapie in sheep, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE ='mad cow's disease') in cattle and chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer and elk. The variant form of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease is caused by exposure to bovine spongiform encephalopathy prions.

TSEs (prion diseases) may be transmitted through contact with infected tissue, body fluids, or contaminated instruments (knives). Normal sterilization procedures such as boiling or irradiating materials do NOT render prions non-infective. The infectious disease model of TSE has been questioned in favour of a prion transplantation model that explains why cannibalism (within any species) particularly favours transmission.

Prion diseases have an incubation period of months to decades during which there are no symptoms.