>birds are more sight oriented than smell oriented.
>
>They have great sight, sure, but they are no slouches when it
>comes to
>odor. Check out this link for more:
>
>http://www.valleywild.org/TVfacts.htm

Which says:

Turkey vultures have an extraordinary sense of smell. They have been known to be able to smell carrion from over a mile away which is very unique in the bird world. The turkey vulture has the largest olfactory (smelling) system of all birds.

Then again, I have smelled carrion from over a mile away (roadkill). Carrion stinks.

And I've known people with much better senses of smell than I (for example, being able to smell someone who was smoking while walking by on the sidewalk outside a house -- 30 yards away, and I didn't smell a thing).

>Note that having a sensitive sense of smell should also be
>a weakness in some contexts.
>
>And then there's the "fade out with time" issue. Plus, to do
>it right, there'd have to be effects from perfume, rotting
>corpses and so on.
>
>Both of those comments only make me like the idea better.

Ok, but that's getting into complex data structures strewn all about the mud. Lots of detailed smearing of data about characters onto rooms as they pass through seems like it would add a lot of bulk data for what is a minor end.

>"Smell" goes right along with the theme of blood trails, but
>gives it a logical boost where animals are concerned (as one
>would expect.)

I thought blood trails were already getting a boost where animals are concerned? http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=3&topic_id=136&mesg_id=139

>It might be plausible to introduce some utility form with
>this as its utility ability, but I suspect this involves way
>too much work for the gain.
>
>That completely contradicts the idea, which was to give ALL
>animal forms somewhat "heightened" sense in this area, where they
>should be.

It sure does contradict the idea. On the other hand, I'm not sure about the "should"?

Let's take sharks for instance. In real life, sharks can "smell blood trails" from a long way away, and can similarly sense thrashing about. In the game, swimto captures most of this ability (though a "(wounded)" indicator which shows up on where/scan (and maybe on who if they've been in water in the shark's area in the last tick) might also be appropriate). But it doesn't make a lot of sense for sharks to know specific things about morale, etc. ... unless you're trying to make people harder for sharks to find if they're being calm and quiet?

Ok, maybe it makes sense for people to have extra lag on a shark's swimto if they're not wounded and if they've held still for the last tick... but that seems kinda pointless. What's the difference between this lag after the command was entered and all that lag before the command was entered? Can you imagine anyone saying this feature rocks?