Ginthaeriel

Well, I think I really tried to hammer down the point about "epic fairy tales", and I disagree that ALL myth would follow the same formula as Tolkien. I agree that the details are what make it Tolkienesque... but we're positing a world where Tolkien is dead. We are left with only fantasy. That's kind of... broad. Exactly. Not Tolkien. We're in a world where Tolkien is DEAD, remember? But it would *still* be High Fantasy. And I don't think the current state of High Fantasy would be much different in the situation I proposed. First of all, I doubt even if anyone did it, it'd still be very different from Tolkien, because in order to create High Fantasy you'd need Epic and Fairy Tales. You'd have to draw from classic European epics and Fairy Tales, and Tolkien basically did just that: he ran the whole gamut of mythic literature. Emulating that would only result in minor variations... which I really don't see the point in listing. I don't think "what we would do in Tolkien's shoes" was really the question, and if it was, I don't really have an answer since I can't really imagine what I would do to combine Fairy Tale with Epic. I'm a much bigger fan of Cyberpunk and Steampunk, and I absolutely dreaded Lord of the Rings.

From the same source: That article states Homer's Odyssey as the roots of Sword & Sorcery, for goodness sake. I'm not arguing that Howard *couldn't be called* Sword & Sorcery, and you'll note that in my post I said that his work was probably crucial to the development of the "genre". But it's such a vague and nebulous "genre" in the first place, taken so long in the making, that the only definitive example would be the modern examples of Sword & Sorcery: like Moor****. As I said: "Grungy adventure pop fiction"... I don't see anything wrong with that definition of S&S. And the only "definite" S&S existed after the 60's, since that's when the term was invented, and didn't really get used that much until recently. I'm not sure why you cited that source, to be honest... It just kind of helped prove my point...

I'm agnostic, so don't think I'm some crazy Christian trying to "bring Jesus to your soul", or anything. But I would counter that Religion can be used in a very positive way, if done right, and I think you're being a tad bit too cynical. But religious people *don't* depend on God to solve all their problems: religion isn't a crux unless you're not really taking the religion seriously and actually believe prayers will help you win the lottery. Most of the deeply religious people I know don't depend on God for anything: anytime they pray, they're only thanking God for what they have, and what they've got. Indeed, wouldn't the religious need to work extra *hard*? They'll be held accountable to whatever moral code they submit to. Technically, Secular Humanism is labelled a "religion". Not all religions have Gods, anyways. Besides, your argument posits that the person in question is only looking to religion to increase their material gains, and that requires that they stil be driven by a greed and desire in the first place, which is a pretty cynical and hopeless outlook on human nature. Would you say Buddhists are lazy for giving away all their worldly possessions, getting rid of their earthly desires through meditation, and finding happiness in a life that seems unfair, chaotic and destructive? The same life which you seem to find contention with, and seek to fight. I'd think it'd be tough trying to transcend the pettiness of life itself, and to me, that's taking charge of your life if anything. Becoming a billionaire requires luck: you can't totally influence your circumstances, even if you don't submit to the belief of a God. Either way, you're still a slave to your reality: only difference is, your reality is a meaningless mess, while that Christian next to you can only see the blessings given to him and the belief in a greater purpose. Isn't some of the greatest spiritual leaders also some of the most intelligent people on Earth? Who said that you had to close your eyes to truth to worship a God? In fact, I would say that for a man to know the realities and horrors of life, and yet still believe in a God, is a mark of a man of great conviction, willpower and strength. It takes guts to believe something that you KNOW may very well not be true, but believe it anyway. That's called a leap of faith: and I can respect that. And I think it's the strength that they derive from that faith which allows the religious man to work against the horrors of reality. Martin Luther King Jr. could have decided that God abandoned him and all the other black people in America: he had every right to. But instead, he used his faith to create change. Certainly there are those who use religion as a means to deceive. But is it really the *religion's* fault that they can do that? And certainly there are those who follow their religion with blind faith because they have never known anything else. But that's just because of their own ignorance. If someone gave those extremists who hijacked the planes in 911 a proper education, and gave them time to try and understand the consequences of their actions, rather than being fed the same propaganda BS from the clergy since they were born, do you think they would have done what they did? Tabula Rasa. And if they got that education and STILL did it, then I would say they have come to terms with themselves, found inner peace, and great conviction: enough to sacrifice their own life for a cause that seems to be morally wrong. They'd be one twisted, psychopathic f*ck, but they'd still have great faith and conviction. That can be respected, irregardless of one's moral inclinations, in my opinion.

I would classify Conan the Cimmerian as LOW fantasy, or fantasy pulp, rather than Sword & Sorcery. After all, the "magic" inherent in that setting was more divine, or spiritual- not that much of "fairy tale magic", which is how I would classify the "arcane" magic which is featured in fantasy nowadays, but more of the similar epic and mythic powers, making it similar to traditional epics anyways. There wasn't much magic in the setting anyways. The whole setting was technically on Earth. I would argue that Sword & Sorcery is more of the merging of Tolkienesque high fantasy with Howard's pulp fantasy, which I referred to in my previous post as a "corruption", but that's only because everyone here is intent on seeing Tolkien's fantasy as the original high fantasy. And if you look at that way, then yes, Howard DID invent Sword and Sorcery: he was around longer than Tolkien, and Tolkien, instead, could be the corruption. In any case, what can be said is that the "fantasy" of today had many founding fathers, including both Howard and Tolkien and probably many more. I said that. By no means do I think that if Tolkien died, the exact same course of events as we see today would unfold. I did argue that the nuances would be changed: But it would be so similar as to be of no consequence. It's all archetypal really. Good guys, bad guys, big villain. I'm a firm believer in the Joseph Campbell... um... camp. After all, I did try and take a stab at High Fantasy from a Chinese perspective, but that's impossible because the background culture that lead to it's creation were so different. The closest equivalent I could think of is wuxia literature such as Louis Cha's work, but that doesn't really incorporate folktale elements like Tolkien. I can't think of a NON european High Fantasy. All the ingredients are so intrinsically tied to european literature. European Fairy Tales and the Nordic Epics (the very founding of anglo-saxon, and therefore English, culture) were both such prominent parts of the western literature, that it seems impossible to incorporate the two without having the many traditions of both being "sucked in". Maybe if someone else wrote it, the elves would be a foot shorter. The dwarves WOULD be evil. The star of the show wouldn't be some puny runt, but a barrel chested barbarian, to be more in line with Beowulf, the epic which The Hobbit was actually based on. But in the end, I don't think it would be SO different that it'd actually matter. Besides, I doubt it's even possible to project HOW it would be different unless we posed the question with some theoretical alternative to Tolkien. Right now, in our "alternate history", just about anyone could have written High Fantasy, and so we have no point of reference.

Dammit, another hopelessly dense post. Alright, here's the sparknotes version (refer to my last post for evidence and supporting points and stuff) Tolkien never intended to invent a whole new "high fantasy" genre. He didn't even want to publish most of his work. Most of Tolkien's work in Middle Earth was a hobby, as an English professor, he was fascinated with european folklore, especially anglo-saxon epics and myth (since he was the PROFESSOR of that in OXFORD), so he tried to EMULATE this in what he called his "Legendarium", including The Silmarillion. That was not high fantasy, that was epic: very similar to Beowulf. High fantasy really came from The Hobbit.* Did anyone like The Silmarillion? I don't think so. It was the fusing of the epic with the fairy tale that made Tolkienesque fantasy popular. So High Fantasy = an Epic Fairy Tale. An example: Elves are depicted as an idealized version of man. In any Fairy Tale, there needs to be a symbol of ultimate good, and Elves were it. Given the nature of European folklore, I agree with others saying that the creation of High Fantasy was inevitable. If Tolkien didn't write an Epic Fairy Tale, someone else would have, and in the end it would have been very similar: Great Evil vs. Brave Hero, Good Men vs. Evil Beasts, etc. It would be extremely similar, and the only real difference I could perceive would be in the details. IE the elves wouldn't have pointy ears. What would happen if NO ONE took Tolkien's place, and no one ever merged the epic with the fairy tale? Well then the only conclusion I imagine can be drawn would be... High Fantasy wouldn't exist. Hypothetical situations dealing with a LACK of something in the past (rather than say, a CHANGE in something) don't really ever go anywhere. What if there was never a chicken? Then there would be no egg. *It was conceived as a bedtime story for his son, and was written as a fairy tale. He just so happened to fuse stuff from his legendarium into it. It was only a student's urging that he published The Hobbit. And in a rare case of luck, it became a hit. Tolkien never wanted to do stuff like "The Hobbit", it was the only text in which he fused his Legendarium with his children's stuff (like Roverandom). The publisher's had to urge him to write LOTR.

Traditional Western Dragons were spawned from anglo-saxon myth and nordic culture: Nidhogg and the other wyrms and dragons who devoured the roots of Yggdrasil, the World Tree, the Dragon slain by Siegfried... hell even in Beowulf, the oldest extant English poem, has a Dragon in it. Tolkien didn't invent those. Tolkien's elves were really more of a merge between the traditional European depiction as small wood sprites or nature spirits, with the fiercer, human sized Nordic elves. The modern day fantasy elves are really not that much different from humans, only immortal, slender, noble and beautiful. Basically, an idealized depiction of mankind... which is probably why they're often depicted as haughty. In LOTR, they were the tenants of the world before the Age of Man, who departed to the island in the west (I forgot it's name), and in lots of fantasy literature, they act almost as a proxy God to the land. As a literary device, it is an imagining of the greater aspects of humanity, which can then be mocked (fancy-pants pansies) or idealized (OMFG MI DUALWIELDING BLADESINGER ELF IS TEH AWESOMEZ, ELVES PWN ALL). Nothing special there: a staple of high fantasy is a clear struggle between good and evil, and thus there must be a force to represent ultimate good. If not elves, then something similar. Probably without pointy ears, though. (Tangent) Indeed, Dark Elves act as a polar opposite to that: a representation of humankind at it's worst, a fallen angel. Satan was once, after all, Lucifer, the morning star. Which is why it seems their depiction is always so needlessly over the top. And that's probably why they're so popular too: they appeal to our darker, selfish impulses. The same can be said of Orcs, Dwarves... hell just about every nuance of Tolkienesque fantasy was a modernization and reimagining of anglo-saxon myth... that was what Tolkien was a professor of, after all. They were worked into the themes of a traditional fairy tale: good vs. evil, a journey into the unknown and a return with knowledge, etc. After all, The Hobbit was the seed that started it all, and it was written as a children's book, originating as one of the many tales he wrote for his children as bedtime stories. i.e. Roverandom. (Although J.R.R. Tolkien did work on recreating a complete epic, aka his "Legendarium", of his own imagination before the Hobbit; I doubt what he was intending with that was what we would traditionally call "High Fantasy". There's a reason why everyone loves The Hobbit, but not The Silmarillion. He just borrowed ideas from that while writing Hobbit. Tolkien didn't even believe in publishing any of the work in the first place, he never published Silmarillion for example. Middle-Earth was just a way of amusing himself, as a way of giving tribute to the anglo-saxon epics which he studied and taught... it was emulation. Unless in this alternate history, a great deal of people enjoyed reading Beowulf in High School, I doubt there could be a genre forged from that that wasn't as stale and academic as Tolkien himself.) The merging of the epic (all the anglo-saxon themes and imagery which he fused into The Hobbit) with the fairy tale could be argued as what constitutes High Fantasy, and although the whole thing eventually grew into something much more than just a fairy tale, those roots remain. So if Tolkien was killed in WW1 and never wrote Lord of the Rings, then... I would say perhaps what we conceive as High Fantasy (Epic Fairy Tales) would lose a lot of its anglo-saxon nuances and roots. If it were based on the epic traditions of another culture... say, Chinese, for example, we'd have... actually we'd have a more youth-oriented wuxia, I'd think. I don't think eastern traditions really fit the mold well, because of the inherent differences in the culture. So I believe that Tolkienesque was really inevitable, even if Tolkien was dead. The European tradition was the best place to draw from for High Fantasy... and Tolkienesque being an amalgamation of european folklore and myth, would probably have come into existence in a very similar form by another author anyways. That the genre was so popular shows that the concept was probably in the back of many people's minds anyways. Now, what would happen if High Fantasy never EXISTED? If folklore and myth were never merged? Well... I suppose the difference between children's fantasy and academic myth would be much greater and more distinguished... much like the era in which Tolkien wrote LOTR in the first place. There would be no room for Wizards or DnD or pulp writers to corrupt it into the... grungy adventure pop fiction we have today, aka Sword & Sorcery, which were attributes more native to swashbuckler's tales (three musketeers) Science Fiction, comic books, and such. Just look at the stuff that was popular with teens when Tolkien was around- the 50's. Comic books, campy scifi like Buck Rogers... stuff that Fallout was based on without the post-apoc. Actually, versions of all that still exist... so really, we're looking at a vacuum. Without any cultural replacement for high fantasy, it wouldn't make sense for it NOT to be written eventually. It's impossible and fruitless to even try and predict how things would turn out, as the only certain thing we could say is that "High Fantasy just wouldn't exist". Which is an obvious conclusion when you kill one off one of the genre's founding authors, AND assume that there will be no replacement for him.

Hmm... if you're talking about using the Spore Engine for a seperate RPG game, then I'm intrigued... An RPG about alien mutation, ala Bioshock, perhaps? You're a failed clone, a mass of genetic material, that has to slowly absorb genetic material from the bodies of the creatures you've slain to morph your way into a veritable killing machine, all the while attempting to escape the horrid laboratory where you've been trapped. The single cellular version of the game could be worked into a weapon, where your monster could kill from afar using mentally controlled nano-viruses, or perhaps a minigame in which you need to "capture" DNA after slaying enemies, and you can actually invest points into your little DNA capturer to evolve it so it can capture rarer and more powerful genes. Perhaps have a human consciousness trapped in this grotesque creature ala "The Metamorphosis"? That would definitely be an original theme to work with in an RPG. You could work all sorts of crazy themes and motifs into that framework. The alienation of modern man, confronting inner evil when you have to resort to survival, etc. etc. Imagine having to try and communicate to your pre-mutation girlfriend in your current state. The evil path could be to kill humans so that you can absorb their dna, so that you can quickly evolve into a more humanlike creature. Perhaps turning "fully human" could be the objective of the game.

No. I don't think it would be like Morrowind at all. Because I loathe Morrowind with an unbridled passion. Rather, I would think Spore would be very similar to The Sims. Which is not really saying anything at all. Hmm.

Hmmm... that seems a lot like The Sims. You can only really get as much from the game as you put in. I mean, I think The Sims is revolutionary in game design. But I couldn't play it for very long because I just didn't have the heart to set up the intense soap dramas between the characters. I played it much like an RPG... trying to get the best job, etc. And once I realized the absolute futility of that, I just stopped in less than a month. The interior decoration and creativity factor involved with the Sims is great, and I think it can definitely be expanded upon in Spore. But not everyone has the talent, time nor the will to put the effort in arranging all that stuff. I would think the game would be amazing on the first playthrough. It would be decidedly awesome to be able to go from being a single celled organism into conquering the known universe. It would definitely give the player a lot of connection with the species they create. But I couldn't see MYSELF playing around in the sandbox much more afterwards though, given the massive undertaking of the game. It seems the game would play very similar eventually, and the most fun you can get ouft of it is from the sandbox style insanity that would although be incredibly freeform and flexible, require a LOT of orchestration on the player's part. It's cool that the player can basically create their own narrative with so many procedural variables in play, but I don't think many people would find playing through their own story fun, since you'd already know the ending. I mean, that's why Sims 2 has a "photogallery storybook mode". All the hardcore players like to use the game almost as a Machinima style engine for their own dramatic soap opera narratives, which they share on the web.

Holy Crap! A 3d fighting game by the makers of Guilty Gear?! I want!!

I think China is actually implementing new laws against MMORPGs much like that. I believe the new law is akin to something like... it is legally required that all MMORPGs shut down after six hours of play, and you cannot play MMORPGs unless you are a certain age. Which I think is not a bad thing at all. Playing a computer game for more than six hours a day is quite frankly a big problem

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060222/sirlin_01.shtml This article is getting so controversial that Blizzard is even shutting down threads about it in their forum. I'm no stranger to WoW. I've played it up to level 50, and although I never experienced the insane Raid Content which Sirlin describes, I can definitely imagine as I can remember waiting hours on end LFG in Final Fantasy XI *shudder*. WoW was much better than FFXI in comparison, but it was the boring trudge of the grind that got to me. The small instances were fun at first, but after running it a million times for the loot, it lost its charm. The problem I find with this article is that although it highlights many good points, the delivery is extremely biased and poor. The rhetoric is good, and having read Sirlin's previous articles I believe he does have a knack for persuasion and a flair for the dramatic, but it's clear that in this article he is only arguing for his personal tastes as a competitive solo player of fighting games. WoW already has a strong solo AND group game from level 1 to 60, and yes, WoW *is* exclusively group>solo based past level 60, but I think that there should be gameplay for people who enjoy social interaction. As for his moral arguments, that WoW corrupts the mentalities of our youth... well I think that's where his bias really reveals itself. In real life people do indeed reward ability infinitely more than effort. But that is not to say effort yields no results, and I think that the cooperation that WoW espouses is also a positive thing. (The unfortunate thing is, WoW eats up so much of the player's time that they rarely have any time left to apply these lessons to real life!) And that's where I think the insight of this article lies, and where the deeper problem in WoW lies. I think that this article definitely does say some things about the addictive qualities of MMORPGs and how those should be addressed. I have some friends who totally disregard their professional and academic lives just to play WoW. It really does take ten hours of playing per day to get to the higher honor ranks in PvP. That's really scary. But I think that WoW is an extremely good game from levels 1 to 60 (even Sirlin says so in the article). Comments?

I am not arguing that Torment has good combat. No. It had SUCKY combat. But I think it was better than Arcanum. Torment's combat was actually better than another game's combat, and that is a scary thought. And Baldur's Gate 2 had just so many spells that if you DID cut out all the repetitive damage dealing spells, you'd still be left with MILES more combat options than Arcanum. I'm not saying Baldur's Gate 2 had perfect combat, but it was still ridiculously better than Arcanum's. Spiteful Spirit is a retributive damage-per-attack spell. So if the warrior decided that he just stopped attacking, he wouldn't suffer any damage at all. You see? It's a counter to the skill: the second layer of depth in the combat. He could decide to run until a monk could purge that curse from him, or he could say "Damned if I do, damned if I don't" and keep attacking the necro at risk to himself. The necro could then try and guess what the Warrior would do, which leads to the *third* layer of depth: the counter to the counter. Here's a good example of what I consider deep combat (though it applies to a fighting game): http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_Yomi.htm But you can't counter a direct DoT spell. No matter what you do, a poisonous vapors still makes your number go down. Lingering Curse reduces all healing on the target by 20%. This does not mean the monk cannot keep trying to heal the person, but it means that they'll be wasting mana. If they allow the person to die, then that's one less meatshield before the opposing team can rip the monk to shreds. But if the monk heals now anyways, he would burn up all his mana, and the guy would die... only later, and now the monk has no energy to defend himself. Or the monk could try and purge the curse, but necromancers have tricky spells that cause curses to cause damage if you try and purge them, etc. And would the time it took to purge the curse be enough? The monk is trapped at an impasse. There are options and counters to every move. But Dweomer Shield simply shuts down any magical effects from happening on the guy. How exactly can he stop it? He can't disperse magick, since he can't cast magick in the first place. There are no options, the guy is left to run up and start slashing. The thing about combat is that a million combat options can result only if can fine tune the balance in a very precise way. Arcanum's combat felt like trying to kill a mosquito with a sledgehammer every which way because it was so unbalanced. Just look at disintegrate. Backfire only damaged the caster if they casted a spell: the spell would still go off. Again it was left to the backfired caster if they wanted to go ahead with casting the spell. Was the risk worth the reward? I'll point you to another sirlin article: http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_rps.htm. Good combat is the ability to make risk analysis. Take Chess for example. All the most glorious and legendary moves are always gambits. But Reflection shield granted the player just about complete immunity to magic. How could you get through it? Not that it even mattered actually, since so few monsters in the entire game bothered to even cast spells at you. Hence my apprehension to use it as an example, but since you were comparing the bad combat in Arcanum with the bad combat in other games, I felt I had no choice but to show the other side of the spectrum. I don't expect Arcanum's combat to be Guild Wars quality, it's unrealistic to do so, and I believe I've stated that. But with that frame of reference in mind, I think it's quite clear to me that Arcanum has some of the worst RPG combat ever. Maybe not quite as bad as I thought since talking to you (which is what is so great about discourse: you always learn something new). But I still think that it is absymal and that Troika could have done a much better job. And indeed, they DID do a MUCH better job with ToEE, which I thought had a terrific combat system. Contrary to what other posters are saying, I felt Troika did learn a lot from their mistakes. Maybe not quite enough, and maybe they did forget a lot of their old mistakes because of the fanboys they were surrounded with, but I think it's unfair to say that the quality of Troika's games hasn't improved by leaps and bounds. Yes I think it is best we drop this topic. Perhaps I am too harsh on Arcanum's combat, considering the games I've played. I would wonder how your reaction to Arcanum's combat would change had you played some Guild Wars, but then I also remember when I first played Arcanum, before playing Guild Wars, I did not mind the combat as much. Only when I really tackled it again recently did I find it as atrocious. My original post about of the game was to tackle the issues I saw outstanding, but I guess if I were to put it into an actual review I would be much less volatile as I would be explicit in saying that fun combat is NOT what you would be expecting from Arcanum. I guess it's all relative, in the end. Ignorance is bliss. Probably explains why FPS's have so many rabid fanboys.

It was atypical, I'll give you that, but I don't think it was atypical in a good way. A lot of the tasks, though not the classic "kill teh minyunz!1", were goofy and weird and didn't inspire an engaging story. For example, looking for a copy of a published book? Not to mention that there was PLENTY of mindless dungeon trudging in the end, anyways. I think at this point it's a matter of taste. I think the positive qualities of Arcanum's plot are worth a lot more to you, while the negative qualities take away from my experience of it much more. Still, I think we can agree that Arcanum's plot was neither the best, nor the worst? It was not atrocious, but it wasn't memorable. It was mundane. I told you that I exaggerated, and I already apologized for it. I wanted to simplify my argument and make my point stronger by relating J.C. Denton to one's actual real life persona, though I should have realized that a created character does not always have to be an alter ego. But I said that because of its anchoring to a plot that makes more sense, I felt the motivations of games like BG2 and DX could commit these sins, because it was necessary to act as a lynchpin for the plot. Arcanum has no such excuse. I felt DX's plot to have pulled off the conspiratorial angle much better than Arcanum did, and BG2 was although a simple plot, still more engaging than the void encounter at the end of Arcanum. If Arcanum has a mundane plot, it has nowhere to lean on, and so the senseless motivations are vastly more debilitating to it's quality. I think though, that the developers had to sacrifice those aspects of the game to build in the non-linearity and absolute freedom in the game, which I have repeatedly praised again and again. I've talked about this in another thread: character development vs. non-linearity. I just do not think that they executed it with very much finesse, and that the relationship between the plot and the non-linearity could have been done much better: as we have already seen in Fallout or Fallout 2. I think they ought to have tried for a completely untraditional story if they really wanted to fit with the unique gameplay style: they did have some innovation but they should have gone further, and although they get an A for effort, the fact remains that the game still suffers because of it. The guy already can't move when its your turn. So by paralyzing him, you're just giving yourself more turns to kill him. It's all numbers, man, all numbers. Oh. Well I am using the definition used mainly by MMORPG players, an arena which the limits of RPG combat are tested to the extreme. Like what? Ranged weapons have, as far as I can tell, almost negligible penalties to hit when attacking at close range. All other things the character can do, they could have done when it was their turn even when the enemy is right up in their face. That still makes them twitch reflexes. Fatigue is made pointless with the presence of fatigue potions. And even if it were an issue, it just means one less combat option available. Doesn't that serve to further my point more than yours? There was no risk in Arcanum's combat. You either won, or thought to yourself: "Damn, this guy is too tough, I'd better level up some more". There was never a sense that with a bit of tactical risk, you could win battles that you wouldn't ordinarily think could be won. That is what made great generals great: to be able to defeat their enemies even when outnumbered and outgunned

Alright, I think things have gotten too complex. Let me try and simplify my argument. 1. RPGs have heroes, who level up and kill lots of baddies. 2. In real life, we don't get to level up and kill lots of baddies. We would like to, but we do not live in a world that has baddies. So RPGs are escapist. 3. If the baddies were weak, then it'd be boring. But for them to be powerful, they must have some source of... um... power. And for us to kill them, we must be even more powerful than they are. Where the hell does that power come from? 4. I think that that power can come from either Magic (distorts natural law) or Technology (exploits natural law)*0 in the realm of escapist fiction.*1 5. With power comes an ethical dilemma: Whether you use the power virtuously, or selfishly. This ethical dilemma is what drives the narratives of most RPGs or escapist fiction. *2 6. ... So how would having the power come from magic affect this ethical dilemma? How would technology? Which one do you think is more interesting/creates a better RPG or story? I hope that clarifies things at least a little. I placed these footnotes so that it would not distract from my line of reasoning: *0 This is my definition of Magic vs. Technology. As for the exact implementation of them when they are put into context, such as whether quaffing potions or "teh force" count as either Magic or Technology... that is a gray area. It doesn't exist in an either/or situation, it's a continuum. As I said, magic and technology can be mixed. This would create some interesting scenarios. Example: What happens when magic is institutionalized? When it becomes a science and everyone knows how to use it? See: Harry Potter's world. Wouldn't that destroy the very magic of magic? Is that really magic, or just another form of technology? AKA "Clarketech", when the two become indistinguishable. *1 This would determine whether it is Fantasy Escapist fiction or Sci Fi Escapist fiction. But I'm not talking about Fantasy Sci Fi literature in general though. And I am most certainly not talking about all literature in general either! Whether the literature has an engaging story, has complex and strong characters, explores philosophical ideas, etc. are besides the point. I'm only exploring narratives in RPGs, because we are on the "Computer and Console" forum in a message board owned by an RPG games developer, after all. *2 Myths are about those who have great power and uses it for good- heroes, who rise above the temptation- and those who use it for evil- villains, who succumb. We praise heroes for being stronger than us, strong enough to resist the allure of having great power. Look at every RPG: It's always the same thing. Good guy vs. Bad guy. Hero vs. Villain. Myths always have hyperbole of the abilities of the heroes, and the heroes become almost supernatural. I'm not looking at the historical veracity of the myth, but rather its telling. Spartacus the man who actually lived and died thousands of years ago has got nothing to do with this. Spartacus the movie dramatizes his ability to mythic, magical heights: I doubt the actual Spartacus had fights anywhere near as spectacular as that chariot scene. The magic is introduced in the dramatization.

I wonder which one is the "evil" twin?

Hehe... anybody who thinks Star Wars is Sci Fi instead of Fantasy does not have a good grasp on the laws of physics, in my opinion.

Ah, but did Mahatma Gandhi or Eleanor Roosevelt play or read very many SciFi RPGs and books? I'm not saying that life is essentially out of control, rather, I am saying that the popularity of the SciFiFantasy genre is based on feelings of powerlessness. I'm not pushing any personal philosophy, and I don't think that's the kind of thing someone can convince others of, but that train of thought probably belongs in WOT. However, it does not seem that you disagree with my thesis that escapism is, at the very least, a large factor in the popularity of the genre. For example, I think Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness says more about the nature of evil than any Drizzt book ever will. Well, personally, I don't think Sci Fi/Fantasy is the best genre for doing that, then. The amount of time devoted to creating the setting and describing it would, in my opinion, get in the way of a good character study. This is just me, but I find that many personal "flaws" possessed by the heroes of Sci Fi/Fantasy stories are really nothing but well-tread gimmicks these days. But that simple difference can be expanded on so much, and thats what I want to explore. It's not just a simple matter of them being the same thing, or else why would the genre be divided so clearly between Science Fiction and Fantasy? It's because of the fact that we can't understand magic, that it is so mysterious- that is why it is alluring. It's personal. But what we understand, we can abuse and exploit. These are vastly different themes. And that's exactly what I mean by how technology examines the morality of a society. But again, that was a society discovering the folly of power beyond understanding. It was a government which dropped that bomb, not an individual. Generally magic is not cast by committee. That is a very heavy distinction, one which drastically changes the ideas presented. Listen, it's not like I'm laying down the law about what's different between magic and technology. I was only listing a couple of possible themes that the dichotomy between the two could explore. Perhaps I should have made clear that most of what I said were my own thoughts and nothing more, and for that I apologize. And that's why I made the clear distinction that I was only talking about escapist fiction at the very top of my post, as I believe that is the genre of literature that is most applicable to RPGs. What you're proposing would apply to all literature in general, but I doubt all literature can apply to CRPGs. All this talk about CRPG settings and no one ever dares venture beyond the scope of a Sci Fi/Fantasy setting, or some derivation thereof. Cyberpunk, Steampunk, Tolkienesque... all variations on the same theme: imagine a world totally different from ours. And why shouldn't it stay within that realm? What is the point of creating a character in a bleak world, grounded in reality? Why should we face the struggles of our every day existence, why should we learn of our identities and seek the meaning in our lives, when all we want to do is just play a game? I know a lot of people who believe there is not an engaging story to be found in all of Sci Fi/Fantasy. And can we blame them? Are there really all that many complex characters to be found in the literature? A young governess with a fiery spirit, seeking a balance between her passion and her rationality, caught up in a whirlwind of romance in the rigidly class-based and confining Victorian society, only to discover a dark, horrible secret locked up in the attic of her lover... that is certainly an engaging story with complex characters. But would Jane Eyre make a good RPG? I do not think so. If you're going to talk about historical epics, then I would say I don't think that makes a very good RPG. It's going to be difficult for an individual to triumph without some sort of external influence, a dramatization of reality. Even Spartacus, in fiction, is usually given some legendary, mythical and... dare I say? Nearly magical fighting ability that cannot be on par with what really happened. And if we were to focus on those great battles of old without the rise of the individual, then that sounds more like an RTS.

That sounds like an awesome game, though I slightly disagree on the archetypal channeling of characters into "classes", which then correspond to their path. I prefer if there was some flexibility involved, and I would venture to say that it'd be even easier to program the game if it was totally skill based and there were no classes: then you could define your character as you wanted. But here are a couple of things I see that seem difficult in terms of actual implementation: How exactly? How exactly do you get a "different perspective"? If it's the same villain, and the same event, what makes the experience different for the various paths? If by "images" you mean the visual look of the experience, then that would be a nightmare for the artists. But what I find completely unfeasible is the mutating subquests. For the different subquests to have any effect, the devs would have to nightmarishly program 4x more subquests than a normal game. Considering that then the rest of the game will remain the same, I'm not sure all players will be willing to do a playthrough just to reach those subquests, and infact many players refuse to replay games again at all (game renters). This means that about 75%, or at least a large majority, of the content developed by the devs will be never experienced by many of their players. Content requires time, effort and a lot of money to develop. I don't think many developers will think its worth the sacrifice to develop content that will only be experienced by a small margin of the target audience. That's really difficult, in my opinion. There is just so much creativity, insight and possibility that the audience could bring to a game, that no matter HOW big the game is, the audience will still feel restricted. And the bigger the game, the more expensive it is: so I don't think this will be happening anytime soon simply because of monetary limits. It's an ideal, though, and I too wish that games could evolve to a level of such sophistication. But sadly, I doubt that's going to happen in our lifetime. That's because the more the player can affect, the more variables are involved, and with more variables involved, the content required to cover it all grows exponentially. Isn't that already how Fallout is like? The theme of the destructive nature of human evil is what I felt was laced throughout Fallout's many small narratives. The problem here is that theme and narrative are mutally exclusive. You can have narratives with shared themes, and you can have a narrative that have many themes in it, but they are indepedent variables and you cannot fool people into thinking they have both. I think people are smart enough to figure out the causal chain of events in any game, as that is the way to piece out any plot, so regardless of how similar the small narratives may feel, they'll still feel disjointed since in terms of sheer logical procedure, they're disconnected. Anthologies of short stories all share common themes, but you don't read them together like an epic novel. What I think causality brings into a narrative (thus increasing its length) is the sense of suspense: no closure is offered yet, so you want to find out how it all ends. In Fallout, all the narratives ended so abruptly that you never really had that chance. But adding non-linearity and branching pathways to a causal chain of events means that inevitably, a lot of content is going to be skipped.

I define magic as anything that does not follow natural laws, while technology as anything that exploits said laws to produce great effects. Yes, that's the Arcanum definition. Yes, I am shamelessly ripping off of that game.

The setting was aweome Denied! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Are you two, like... the same person?

What I'm arguing is, that none of these attack options play very differently at all in Arcanum. Just compare to Guild Wars. A necromancer can disable enemy warriors using Spiteful Spirit to get them to slowly kill themselves, neuter the Monks by casting lingering curse on their tanks and therefore cut healing effectiveness by half, summon minions and then kill them by using Taste of Death to refill their health and fatigue so they can fuel their life-sacrificing skills, or instead use Putrid Explosion on the corpses to damage nearby characters. They can cast Tainted Flesh on all members of the group so that the disease can claim the other group, or they could use many life-sacrificing skills so that they're nearly dead... and then use Grenth's balance to steal a ton of health from nearby enemies. Mesmers can use interrupt skills to disable enemy spellcasters, or use Backfire to cause them to kill themselves with their spells. Warriors could use Berserker stance to charge up their adrenalin and then unleash with sever artery, so that the enemy is bleeding, then follow up with a gash attack to cause a deep wound. etc. etc. etc. In a group, the combinations are endless. Regardless of your equipment, profession and level, if you are smart and skilled at the game, you could defeat anything, but then there is always something that can defeat you, because there are always counters to every tactic. That's when mindgames become involved. Should you perform move A when you think your opponent is going to counter it with move B? Or should you throw up move C and totally mess them up? Or what if they're EXPECTING you to know that they know you're using move A, and have secretly prepared move D? Then should you just go ahead with move A, because move A is better than D? There are almost 400 skills in that game, and being only able to pick 8 of them is already complex enough. No, I don't think that game is anything like the "Vapors, vapors, vapors" of Arcanum. Not even close. Now I'm not saying that Arcanum's combat has to be THAT complex, but in comparison, its combat is pretty pathetic. Maybe you are right in that Arcanum isn't completely devoid of any combat depth, but it's damn close to having none. It is indeed the RPG with the worst combat that I have ever played. Differences which can be rectified with a few gold... of which tonnes can be found throughout the game. It's largely inconsequential. Relative to your enemy, as I said: the ratio can be boiled down from any situation. And yes, congeal time is great if you're looking at developing a character over the long term course of the game... but in terms of the combat, a great ability is all it is. Congeal time is like saying "all technologists ought to get the Charged Ring schematic, because it's like getting FOUR dexterity points for only TWO character points!" and I know I've heard it all the time in Arcanum forums. Stats are different from combat tactics. Arcanum is about who's got the bigger number, congeal time just happens to lower your enemies number by a lot: and that's all. I'm just about convinced that a mathematical model can be created which can analyze the statistics of any two opposing enemies in Arcanum, and churn out an extremely accurate prediction of who will win. There is a difference between twinking a character, and having deep combat tactics. Now I'm not arguing all RPGs should be as insane as Guild Wars. But it serves to highlight the fact that Arcanum just about hits bottom compared to what's already out there. Well I'm not saying it's completely devoid of options. Rather, I'm saying that the options are so similar that they might as well all be the same thing. I'm saying that the combat is utterly devoid of combat depth. I'm saying that no matter what combat option you take, the perceptible differences are largely superficial, and it all boils down to which one is more "effective", because the game is so darn unbalanced. I guess you have shown me that there can be some creativity involved in Arcanum's combat, but I certainly do not see any signs of analytical skill required to plumb the depths of the system, of which there is none. It's a valid example of how physical attacks are different than magic in terms of effectiveness but not gameplay or use. They both just boil down to seeing who can click the fastest. Since you cannot control what debilitating effects the critical hits will cause, it is therefore not at all related to player skill or thought. It just becomes a matter of luck. The difference between a mesmer and a warrior in Guild Wars, however, feels like two totally different games. And so was the difference between warriors and mages in Baldur's Gate II (while the former was very similar to Arcanum combat, which I suppose is fine if you just want to whack stuff, playing a mage in BG2 required a lot of finesse and study of the incredible myriad of spells). Of all those possibilities, I only see stunning someone as having any real advantage, as I think enemies tend to pick up their weapons... but I've never seen that effect happen that much. The Disarm spell seems to be different from the critical hit version of the "weapon drop." Sure, if that stuff happened to the player, it gets REAL annoying (I recall a lot of people hating the weapon decay system immensely) but that affects the character and inventory management, and the game, rather than the combat. I'm not arguing that the game isn't deep. It's the combat which isn't deep. (P.S: To be fair, despite Eldar's claims, we are making definite progress. I think we've settled MANY different lines of discussion, especially concerning the story, and we actually essentially agree on a lot of stuff.)

But You argued that a lot of games these days have derivations of the standard conquer the world plot, as very few games actually have that standard by the book. So my question is: how does Arcanum differ that much from those games, in the end? Either way, it still involves mass genocide. I think that Arcanum's plot was not nearly as special as you thought it was-- perhaps all those plot twists did serve to obscure its actual originality. There's a bunch of stuff here about character development vs. non-linearity that I started a new thread for, so I'll just cut it out to reduce my "verbage" upon Eldar's suggestion. I would just like to sum up my stance: since the developers wrote more background into the characters of JC Denton and TNO, the motivations for their characters were clearer since they were written like that, creating a strong narrative but at the expense of allowing a player to create their own character. In Arcanum, however, the character had absolutely no backstory, which is what I felt caused the plot to fall apart. And isn't that exactly what Arcanum suffers from? A motivation that is meaningless or relies too much on assumption. You have to assume a character who has just about no specific character history (the background you choose has just about no effect on the story) will choose to help a strange, dying gnome deliver a ring to some mysterious "boy". This motivation is meaningless anyways, because you HAVE to go through the hoops to further the main plot. Thus lowering their actions points to zero- a debilitating effect. And only for a few turns, since they'll wake up. The only thing you really change are the numbers, because your PC Thus lowering their defense- another debilitating effect. Debuffs are in my definition, a debilitating effect. Just because they are debuffs does not mean they lead to bad combat- but the specific debuffs you mention are extremely superficial in terms of gameplay depth. See Guild Wars for some well made tactical debuffs. When Arcanum is turn based, all knocking an opponent back means is that you'll either give them an advantge (in the extremely rare case that they're using a ranged weapon) or it just means that in their next turn, they won't be able to perform as many attacks on you in one turn as they wasted most of their AP's running to you, because run speed vs. knockback in Arcanum was ridiculously marginal. And in real time, you have just around two to three seconds max to use your ub4r twitch reflexes to heal/buff yourself, before your enemies are right back in your face because the realtime gamespeed was so hyperactively fast. Also, because Arcanum has no Attack of Opportunity or Interrupt system put in place, paralyzing opponents really doesn't increase your safety margin much at all- it only increases the ratio of your number of attacks against theirs. This is because in turn based, your enemies might as well be paralyzed when it's your turn (allowing the "hit and run" exploit that has existed since Fallout). In Real Time, things became a twitch/click fest. What you propose could work in another, more well-designed game, but the reality of arcanum is that everything was cranked out in such a way that it became a matter of who could spam their attack the fastest. The Tranquilizer gun was one of the few ways to get ahead in terms of speed. I'm not arguing for its ineffectiveness. Arcanum was a pretty easy game in terms of combat. What I am arguing is that Arcanum has shallow combat that felt like spamming the exact same attack ad nauseam upon wave after wave of enemies. Of course not. But it doesn't make it any more special from any of your other combat options. You already have other damage-over-time spells and effects. You also have other area-of-effect spells and weapons. It's just more of the same: all it comes down to is when you click it, the monster's HP goes down.

Oh, c'mon, you know you want to join in the fun. :cool: They both had a lot of bugs, yes, and they shared the same engine (but it was changed so much for ToEE it was nearly unrecognizable) but they were pretty different games in almost every other aspect... was there really that much to learn? I would venture to say that they certainly learnt a LOT (except for the virtues of good bug testing) before they made Bloodlines.

That sounds like an incredibly interesting game to play, but how practical can it be? The resources required to develop a game with almost four different alternate paths would be like... making four games at once. It's not economically feasible to undertake a project of such magnitude. And isn't your scenario just a lot like four different narrative driven stories sewn together? You can ONLY be a soldier, cleric, or the other two paths you've written into this game concept. Each path is extremely archetypal and the same criticisms against narrative driven stories will be levelled at it. ("What if my soldier doesn't WANT to side with the military, and decides to side with the Church?") You could put multiple points in the story where one could rebel and switch to another side, but with three different "rebellions" for each side, and multiple "side changes" required to be put throughout the game, good luck hammering out all that scripting, much less the rest of the game. On the other hand, give a GENERIC plot hook that could intrigue any character (a mysterious stranger gives you a strange ring as he lays dying, pleading you to 'find the boy') and you could get a whole RANGE of backgrounds, as demonstrated by Arcanum. The unfortunate thing then however, is that the plot makes no sense at all and is weakened bizarrely (WHY would I accept a strange ring from a mysterious dying stranger?!) The motivations are thrown out the window. But then there is the approach where only as much background is preset for the character for it to create a good plot hook, but not much else. For example in Fallout, you HAD to be the Vault Dweller. You HAD to be from Vault 13, and you HAD to go find the Water Chip. Everything else was up to you. I agree with you that it wouldn't be difficult at all to put in an ending narrative of your general character, maybe based off of your alignment in Fallout. But that is still a story that is lacking, imo. Whether your character ended up as a "good guy", "bad guy" or "neutral guy" is irrelevant, but that you killed "the master" is what is important. I don't think the technology that enables us to string all the ending slideshow segments of the Fallout games into one long, strong narrative recap of your character's journey/plot is available yet. But in the end, I think that the character's individual story and the plot are two difficult things to reconcile. Fallout was disjointed because each individual "adventure" was built to be nice and tidy, like a theme park world: that was what allowed the massive freedom in that game. Instead of creating a branching tree of a plot (which is incredibly difficult and exponentially time consuming) they planted many little trees. The number of branches stay the same, but the length is maintained. But they didn't interrelate, and each individual shrub could never become a towering, epic, redwood (am I the only one who gets my own metaphor?).