Rostere

Who is the Milkman?

I think the most important part of developments in gaming lately has been Microsoft's decision to launch the XBox in 2001, in which process they also left the PC as gaming platform in shambles. The golden age of PC gaming pretty much begins with Microsoft's OSes coming into prominence as "the" computer platform for games in the early nineties (leaving Macintosh and Atari behind). Back then, the choice of a PC with DOS/Windows was a perfect one for most people. The best choice for work computer and play computer was the same. Why should anyone not want a Windows PC? Now we are seeing a different revolution. Portable devices such as phones and tables have suddenly become commonplace. The new, large market is for games you play on the run. As with every revolution small actors get a chance to take a piece of the pie, and from this we get the current "indie" game revolution. But as soon as the AAA giants wake, the market will be homogenized again. In a few years, people will all play the million-dollar productions Angry Birds 5, FarmVille Space: Harvest the Moon and so on and once again there won't be much attention afforded for indies. The lasting effect will probably be more games in a format you can play in short intervals or with touchscreen controls only. So I think simpler turn-based (RPG) games might actually come back again, however games which requires long, coherent play sessions in order to work will be even more rare.

I must say I do second some of Oby's criticisms in this case. Do steer clear of sex tourists/prostitutes and the Russian Mafia in Estonia and you should have a pleasant stay, though. In those regards, Estonia isn't half as bad as Kaliningrad, though. :/

To be fair, quantum theory is just as unproven as climate change, seeing as both are designated the title of "theory". However, in the scientific community, that is a pretty big title, which means that while they can't prove it, it is heavily supported by evidence and has been peer reviewed thoroughly. Quantum theory is not unproven. It is just as proven as Newtonian gravity, or any other old theory (if you're interested in what that means you can read up on how physics is "proven"). There are a lot of things in quantum physics open to further/different interpretation though.

Estonia is a nice country. The most modern urban parts almost remind me of Sweden a bit.

Was it really Sid Meier who was the driving force behind AC at Firaxis? I think it was this other guy... Oh yeah, Brian Reynolds was his name.

300 was a comic book movie; not a historical one. You wouldn't go to see Captain America for an accurate portrayal of WW2; why expect that from 300? So what if I made a movie about WW2 with the only difference from history that there were no genocides, and the Allied bombing of Germany and Japan were the significant atrocities of the war. Even if I stated it's fictional people would surely accuse me of trying to change our view of history. There's a common interest in knowing our shared history. It's hard to say what is OK and what is not, I would say the only way we can determine that is by looking at the effects of movies such as 300. Obviously there are a lot of stupid people and 300 did not do anything to help them with an accurate picture of history. The effect can only be reversed, in my opinion, by criticizing 300 for it's detrimental effect on our knowledge of history.

I don't think that they should pretend there is no love in the PE universe. I just want to avoid the devs wasting time on something history has shown they will fail at. I just don't understand the idea of falling in love with a character in a written game. Even from the perspective that nobody has to be and you're just roleplaying different outcomes, I still think it's awful and that all computer game romances I've seen so far fail in two important ways: first, most of them feel contrived and unrealistic. Second, they often feel like they are really more about thinly veiled sexual fantasies than real love. The result is that romance is immersion- breaking, and instead of serving to draw you into the game, I keep thinking about the personal biases of writers, of the target audience who actually appreciates it, and so on. So while I definitely think that themes of love belong in computer games (love being the motivation for NPCs, for example) I don't think the story should ever be dependent on the whether or not the PC has those feelings. Deionarra in Torment is an actual example - she was in love with the PC, but it's relatively irrelevant how the PC relates to this throughout the game. If romances are left to imagination or are explicit doesn't really matter.

It's a pretty accurate article, but I agree that he's being a bit to angry. Of course, 300 is one hell of a stupid movie but not many historical films are very accurate anyway, so it's nothing to get worked up about.

It's a funny thought, but a bit true as well.

I'm finding it quite a limitation in my current play through of BG2, but I guess I should just hurry up and get to their matters quicker I think you get quite a lot of time, my only issue was that Jan's quest was impossible to complete because I had accidentally one of the key NPCs

I don't know. An IE- type game centered around quest timers (in- game time, of course) does not sound so interesting, but it could be added here and there for realism's sake. But I'd most of all like to say that I don't think most quests in RPGs have a relative urgency calling for timers, and even if they do, they could easily have been designed otherwise. Personally I think it would feel very immersive if the game made you feel it's POSSIBLE to actually botch a quest by being too slow, though it's not a central mechanic. But maybe that kind of realism is a bit too hardcore for some of you?

It's not an issue of comfort. Plate armour should not fit tight and has several deeper layers of clothing and padding. It also has an ideal shape to deflect blows. Compare this all to how modern tank armour works, it's the same underlying principles. This has nothing to do with comfort. Even if it had, the female plate armour would only differ on how it is fitted to the hips where the breastplate would start higher up compared to the male versions (see earlier discussion of modern female body armour - however this would arguably not even be visible from the top- down view of PE), and invisible details in clothing under the armour. I can see the argument for a Cleric wearing elaborate armour for religious purposes, but this still leaves no room for "boobplates".

Well, you're all giving quite bad examples of quests. For example, take the werewolf island in BG:TotSC. Dont' you think that one is likely to remain in it's current state for at least a year or so without the PC's intervention? All quests - or whatever you want to call them - are not quick errands regarding unstable situations that is available to anyone. Furthermore, you could have a timer starting from the first time you've heard of urgent issues such as the "rat problem" so that if the PC ignores an urgent quest it is botched, but any time they first hear of the quest happens to be the precise moment where the rat problem makes the innkeeper's life hang in the balance. Plausibility is retained. Once again, I don't think most quests are so urgent that the need to be completed in under half a year, or whatever is the typical timeframe for a RPG. Even if that happens to be the case in current RPGs, they could easily make only low-urgency quests with no harm done to the story. A lot of dungeons also come with the remains of earlier unlucky visitors, taking care of the issue that the PCs seem to be the only adventurers around.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63765-update-52-monk/page-7?do=findComment&comment=1329978 Partially answered by the man himself a page back. Hm yes, my post seems a bit silly now in hindsight. Maybe I should read more than just the first post before posting in a thread. See above and SOULS! Answer to everything in PE. Yes, but "souls" is a rather shallow explanation, isn't it? I'm sure they can come up with something better and more specific. For example, Monks and Clerics (and I guess everyone else) use the power of souls, but in which ways are their usages different? How is the Monk and Cleric training different? Why can't a powerful cleric suddenly use Monk abilities? Why not something in between? The existence of classes would imply that the different powers of the soul are discrete(-ish). There has got to be a something which explains this (although hopefully people in the game world won't know much about it). I don't think even you realize how silly your questions are... in the game as in life there are multiple disciplines that require study, time and dedicated training. You asking why a cleric can't use monk abilities is like asking why a catholic priest can't just switch professions and become an MMA champion. I'm under the impression that you think the soul is this precious little light source inside the PC's chest that he pinches in order to get soul juice to power abilities he purchases at the local market....I'd wager it is a bit more complex than that. I think you misunderstand the purpose of my post in the first place. First, I don't have any presupposition of how things work, unlike you who thinks that acquiring class soul powers is solely dependent on "study, time and dedicated training". The purpose of me asking those questions is not that I want the devs to give me an answer, what I want is for them to ask themselves these questions in order to avoid later contradictions, and design the themes of the game around what they decide on. To me it's less obvious how the training of a cleric and a monk is any different. Obviously I know how Catholic priests and MMA fighters differ in their training, but I haven't any idea about what is the case in PE, because it's a fictional world designed by Obsidian. The point is that the definition of the classes and what makes them different is dependent on what Obsidian designs, not about our analogies to the real world. We know a bit about what separates them but not enough about how their training is mutually incompatible. Monks believe in strength through mortification of the flesh and Clerics believe in undying virtues and beliefs. To me those are pretty overlapping, if you made a survey on IRL people I think you will find that that mortification of the flesh correlates with strong belief I think JES answered that rather nicely. Using your soul's powers takes a lot of dedication and training. A wizard's training is not like a monk's or a cleric's. A monk can't suddenly start using a wizard's skills any more than a martial arts master can suddenly start using a master watchmaker's skills. It takes a half a lifetime to become a master watchmaker or a martial arts master, even if both skillsets are "powered" by the same thing. (I'm liking monks a lot more after that explanation BTW.) The thing is that they have recently talked about souls of different power, "fractured" souls and intact ones. We know that there are different souls in the PE universe, perhaps it would make sense that different souls have different affinities for class abilities? For example, if you just reached level 10 with your Monk you've really only used training to reveal the latent "Monk powers" of your soul. We know that souls are the source for class abilities. How are the powers dependent on what powers them?

You speak as if quests are the only think that make the wrold feel alive/artificial or big/small. I have to disagree. Having a bajilion quests doesn't make the world feel alive. Quite the contrary, it makes it feel even more fake as every Tom, **** and Harry on the continent seems to wait just for you to get s*** done. Everyone else is incompetent. In no way are "quests" the ONLY thing which can make a world feel alive. On the other hand, having a lot to explore does, quests being one of these things in the sense that a "quest" is an interactive event with an effect on the game world. I think you also have an own idea of how quests must look like. I've already mentioned how I don't like the word "quest". When I use the word, I don't mean "quest" in the WoW sense, where you approach an NPC with a "questgiver" mark over their head which proceeds to give you some errand. I'm really just talking about a piece of interactive narrative content, which sadly has become synonymous with "quest" in modern RPGs.

See above and SOULS! Answer to everything in PE. Yes, but "souls" is a rather shallow explanation, isn't it? I'm sure they can come up with something better and more specific. For example, Monks and Clerics (and I guess everyone else) use the power of souls, but in which ways are their usages different? How is the Monk and Cleric training different? Why can't a powerful cleric suddenly use Monk abilities? Why not something in between? The existence of classes would imply that the different powers of the soul are discrete(-ish). There has got to be a something which explains this (although hopefully people in the game world won't know much about it). Yes they could... but should they? Magic is more interesting when it is a little bit mysterious. You've then got schools of philosophical thought on the topic, but no exact science. I'm not saying that they should give us a full explanation, just that they don't forget about these questions. Obviously people in the game world are going to ask themselves these questions. They haven't neccesarily got the right answers, but they are bound to have SOME explanation. There has also got to be some explorable limitations in the game world - there has got to be some person who tried to combine "wizard magic" and "monk magic". Maybe it's perfectly possible, and the result is what constitutes a multi- class character. Maybe it's possible but not really meaningful in any way. To address one possible explanation, to me it seems that if abilities were just dependent on the "strength" of your soul, we are left with some undesirable logical side effects. That would either mean that a cleric suddenly training to be a monk would say that "oh, I know I eventually will be able to do all the soul- demanding monk stuff because my soul is sufficiently strong. I just need to get the hang of this monk training" or "Bah, all my soul power is used up on my cleric training. I better get a stronger soul in order to absorb any monk training". I would rather prefer that gaining class soul abilities meant refining a certain aspect of your soul. Of course, maybe no actual people in the game world know what exactly is the case but I'd like the devs to make up their minds on things like this. I'm not trying to say I want to know the answer to everything by the end of the game, I'm really a fan of keeping things vague but I'd like the devs to have all the facts in a top- secret dev file so that they can achieve thematical coherency in the story.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63765-update-52-monk/page-7?do=findComment&comment=1329978 Partially answered by the man himself a page back. Hm yes, my post seems a bit silly now in hindsight. Maybe I should read more than just the first post before posting in a thread. See above and SOULS! Answer to everything in PE. Yes, but "souls" is a rather shallow explanation, isn't it? I'm sure they can come up with something better and more specific. For example, Monks and Clerics (and I guess everyone else) use the power of souls, but in which ways are their usages different? How is the Monk and Cleric training different? Why can't a powerful cleric suddenly use Monk abilities? Why not something in between? The existence of classes would imply that the different powers of the soul are discrete(-ish). There has got to be a something which explains this (although hopefully people in the game world won't know much about it).

I think Baldur's Gate 2 hit the perfect spot in that regard. Ironically, in order to create a great game with a sense of freedom you have to give the player more (side)quests than he/she can remember to do or keep track of. Most people will miss a few quests and that will create the illusion of a large, exporable world. If they player is fed the quests one at a time on appropriate levels you get the feeling of a small, articifial game world. It's also good to keep as many quests as possible "hidden away" and not shoved in the player's face. NPCs who state a quest (oh I hate that word) in their first window of conversation is the worst idea ever. Quests given to you as soon as you enter an area is even worse, obviously. Completing a side quest should give you the feeling of exploration, not ticking off another box on the list of what the developers wanted you to do on your playthrough. So while superfluous quests might seem like bad game design it's actually good game design.

I just dropped by to say thank you to the Obsidian crew for making such a good interpretation of the "Monk" class. It is really well thought- out and deflects all the current criticism of for example the incomparably stupid D&D Monk. To me at least it also looks as if you went for a more "flagellant" type of monk Basically this more intelligent approach to design is what I like the most about Obsidian's games. I hope that when designing future classes and features, you are not afraid of criticizing the tropes which everyone take for granted and come up with own twists and explanations of why things are as they are. Now we arrive at the next important question, which is where these Monk powers come from and if/how they are tied to a specific religion and organization.

It's tasteless, but obviously not illegal.

At least I agree with the part of keeping some parts vague and open to speculation.

I'd like to destroy another idea about wars: that they are won by primarily by actions taken during the actual war. The better commander ensures his victory before the war has even started. Unfortunately, this is greatly downplayed and not much understood in history books, because of the narrowness of perspective which occurs when you define what a "war" is. If you broaden the discussion to a "conflict" of interest opposing powers then it becomes clear that military or otherwise war- related actions or decisions taken before the war are devastatingly crucial to the outcome and at times more interesting than the actual war. Take for example Heinz Guderian, Charles de Gaulle, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, and Lidell Hart - to a large degree, the outcome of WW2 was dependent on to which degree their respective nations adopted the ideas of these thinkers. "Deep operations", "indirect approach", "blitzkrieg" were all really different terms for strikingly similar types of post-WW1 warfare. I'd really say that wars are mostly won before they are started.

I almost expected her to break into this at any moment:

Are you talking about WW1 or WW2? I remember reading Dönitz' recollections from the war, at one point he mentioned being interrogated by Allied commanders immediately after the peace had been made. Their most important question to him was why the Germans did not build more U-boats, when their potential had been proven during WW1 and even during the war when the numbers so clearly showed success. It says something that France had more submarines than Germany at the start of the war. In this situation, let's not forget that Dönitz was not at all in charge of the Kriegsmarine during the build-up and initial phases of the war - that position was held by Erich Raeder until 1943, a man who was anything but a visionary in the field of naval warfare. I think you must also take into account the psychology of Hitler and the Nazi ideology as a whole, I find it hard to envision Hitler choosing to mass produce U-boats instead of building battleships like the Bismarck (only to field them as giant floating piñatas) for bragging rights.