Tagaziel

The Watchers Deconstructing fantasy cliches.

Since Project Eternity is at the present the most successful Kickstarter project, I was wondering, if it couldn't be used as an icebreaker, to create a new stepping stone for modders and writers on their way to a more... professional career. What does that mean? Project Eternity is going to include a modkit and people will, inevitably, modify it. And, inevitably, their creations will always be non-canon, as fan-made. What if Obsidian opted for a more open approach and, after consideration, incorporated mods of exceptional quality into Project Eternity canon, further fleshing out the setting? The current approach to settings and canonicity pretty much across the industry strikes me as, well, almost completely closed-source (for the lack of a better term). Fan creations, no matter how good, are extremely rarely accepted as parts of the franchise, if at all. Obsidian can effectively pioneer a new approach, working more tightly with the community. Compensation can be an issue, as would be the problem of IP rights. However, the benefits, such as stimulating mod development (everyone wants to be 'official', after all), chance for more ambitious project to actually complete development etc. outweigh, in my opinion, the problems.

I think the general lack of ability to withdraw backing at this stage takes away from the poll's sense of significance.

Assuming Fallout-like worldmap is going to be used, random encounters generated on pre-crafted maps would be a good filler, while allowing for node areas to be more focused and detailed, without a lot of empty expanse. I'm rambling, again. What I was trying to say is that Fallout/Fallout 2 used an interesting system for generating random encounters, which varied by location on the worldmap, by type, encountered people etc. It's very robust and very, very nifty!

Multiple endings a'la New Vegas: inevitably, someone is screwed. You can't make everyone happy.

I am interested to know how you think Kurt Vonnegut is an obvious choice for a fantasy game... You can be influenced by the tone and style of a writer without literally utilizing his settings... Okay, still explain. I am pretty familiar with Kurt Vonnegut and I can't honestly fathom how his tone, style, or otherwise could possibly have anything to do with PE. Unless he is referring to the "so it goes" stuff, but even that I find a hard fit. Creativity. Asking questions. Some concepts and themes can be explored in fantasy more thoroughly ("unstuck" in time as a godlike entity touched by the ability to see his entire life, paralyzed by this talent and inability to take action; Ice-9 of magic). Hell, magical Player Piano?

I don't think anyone was arguing for just one type of slavery to be used. You're fighting strawmen here. And yes, the Spartacus uprising. Doesn't change the fact that Rome survived, or, in fact, reached the apex of its development on the backs of slaves (and though possibilites for becoming freedmen were available). If people only did sensible things, we'd live in a perfect world.

Let me get this straight: people with nothing to lose are less likely to revolt, than people who are not in an immediate danger of being killed? It does disprove your assertion. If people in a much more extreme situation remain pacified and docile, allowing themselves to be murdered, then people in a less severe situation (slavery, as opposed to extermination) would too. In ancient Sparta, one of the largest (as a percentage of the overall population) slave states, the helots revolted constantly; the militarization of the spartan state was due primarily to the constant threat of slave revolts. It was also one of the reasons the spartan army rarely campaigned far from Sparta's borders from long periods. Likewise in pre-civil war america, the history books rarely mention it, but plantation owners spent vast amounts of money on overhead just to employ thugs who could put down slave uprisings. Slaves in the south rebelled, killed their masters, tried (and succeeded) to escape etc. Apartheid-era South Africa was a similar situation. Slave states are never stable because they're heavily militarized by necessity and always a revolt away from collapse. Rome and Athens aren't good examples because, like Jezz said, their slaves had some rights and social mobility. In light of the above, the whole slave-wizards thing doesn't really make sense either, why wouldn't they just use their powers to rebel? The explanation would have to be pretty creative; the whole thing with the mages and templars in DA:O was ridiculous. TD;LR: you don't know wtf you're talking about. Interesting how you avoid ancient Rome, which was a massive economy relying on slaves, that survived for a very long time. The problem here is that you're assuming that every wizard is walking powerhouse.

Frank Herbert. The political intrigues in the Dune series and his other works are phenomenal. Kurt Vonnegut is a close second, for reasons that should be obvious.

Hindsight is 20/20. It also depends on the definition of slave and one's individual point of view.

I'm not actually saying it's infallible; I was pointing out the baseless assertion that the human spirit is somehow "indomitable." I wholeheartedly agree with your post, as it encompasses my stance on the issue (and we have to remember the development level of PE's world).

It does disprove your assertion. If people in a much more extreme situation remain pacified and docile, allowing themselves to be murdered, then people in a less severe situation (slavery, as opposed to extermination) would too.

"Indomitable nature of the human spirit?" Sorry, doesn't compute. Humans aren't indomitable. Most of us are weak willed, easy to break and very, very docile. If you think humans are "indomitable," then explain why people allow themselves to be herded and butchered by relatively small groups, all throughout history. You don't have to look far: ethnic cleansing in Africa, the Khmer Rouge, the myriad of mass murders committed by Soviet and Nazi groups during World War II etc. We're talking about groups of people slaughtering other people, who outnumber them by several magnitudes. Take, for instance, Fall 1941 and the Sonderaktion in Belarus, where in Minsk, a 450 people strong Lithuanian Sonderkommando murdered eleven thousand Jews in the ghetto. Eleven thousand. The victims outnumbered the murderers more than twenty two times. And yet they allowed themselves to be slaughtered. It wasn't an isolated event either. History begs to differ on the supposed strength of the human spirit. That's why slave-based economies are not only viable, they can work, particularly in much less advanced societies than ours.

You mean the Roman state that survived nearly a millennium, until it collapsed after Odoacer deposed the last Roman Emperor in 476? Slaves don't "inevitably" turn on their masters. True, Rome had a problem occasionally, but slaves were docile, for the most part.

For a first post, that's a... Wow. Words fail me. Awesome.

Oh, bugger. Should check definitions more often. Substitute "day job" with "full time job." I meant working as a mage in the aforementioned capacity full time, getting handsomely paid (after all, the employer doesn't have to bother with workers demanding cash, getting hurt, sick or dying at work. It does. Since grimoires were mentioned as necessary to cast spells, that means they still base on specific rituals and/or incantations. These elements can be broken down into base components and analyzed, to figure out what makes them tick. As such, I think it would be possible for wizards to analyze the spells and develop them to obtain specific effect, such as a source of fire that isn't a short-timed fireball or a source of water that doesn't call down an entire thunderstorm.

That's actually the same in my example. A mage that maintains eg. fire portals that heat furnaces, or the golems/zombies/mind controlled peasants that work is a distinct, separate class of worker.

For the same reason most people are. Not every person practicing magic has to be a wanderer, changing the world. Plenty of people would like an opportunity to have an honest day job, place to live in and grub to chow.

http://sierrahelp.com/Documents/Manuals/Arcanum_-_Manual.pdf Refresh your memory. Arcanum's system bases on an eternal conflict between natural and supernatural forces. Both exist naturally, but are in conflict whenever they come near.

How exactly does that break immersion? We barely know enough about Project Eternity to speculate on high level concepts, much less determine if the presence of cat people breaks versimilitude. Really, I feel you're being dishonest here.

An useful distinction to make is separating "natural" fire from "magical" fire. While the former needs fuel to sustain, the latter can, perhaps, directly draw on the energy of the divine realm (where souls go, when their skinvelopes die). A localized portal transforming the energy into fire? This would be practical, as outlined in the opening post.

Appropriate gore. That means people exploding if they get hit by a really high level lightning spell, burning up after being hit by a FIREball or simply falling over after receiving an instant death spell. What'd also be welcome, would be the death messages, like in Fallout. Y'know, spines clearly visible in front and all that jazz.

I've already explained my opinion several times, but for the sake of consistency: I like non-human races. Add much needed variety beyond the anthropocentric elves, dwarves and orcs.

I think you're right, we have a similar opinion, but got sidetracked by errors in communication. I was talking about their plausibility within a game's setting, rather than pure gameplay. Sorry if I behaved like an ass. Obligatory last word: I still think a playable companion (even temporary) would be interesting. For example, it worked well as a gameplay/narrative mechanic in Dead Money, with Christine. Communicating via gestures and interpreting them with my character's stats felt quite rewarding (feedback on my character build) and made the final confrontation with her, once she regains "her" voice, all the more powerful. Fixed the sentence. I'm going to keep disassembling your argument, because it lacks consistency. You apparently like humans with different hats (orcs, elves, dwarvas), yet non-human bipeds are apparently abhorrent. In short, your argument boils down to: I like lazy design, but don't like lazy design.

It's nice to see you purposefully miss the point, several times in a row. You're presenting a false dichotomy in the form of a binary situation: either you communicate, ie. have real, mutual understanding and exchange, or you do not. This is untrue, as there are various degrees and types of communication. I'm pointing out that we communicate with other species, eg. dogs while eg. training, to show that interspecies communication is possible. And, again, if we are able to communicate with beings of limited intelligence, then communicating with being of intelligence similar to ours would also be possible. Can you be more precise? Because I get the feeling that unless you get completely wild, goofy non-human species that have nothing in common with anything you know, you're not going to be pleased. The bipedal template with opposable thumbs is a logical choice for a sentient, non-human species that developed tools and a civilization, especially if they're based on certain species (eg. Wizardry's Felpurr/Rawulf/Draconian/Mook, Wizards & Warriors best species, The Elder Scrolls' Khajiit/Argonians, Wing Commander's Kilrathi etc.) I really don't get you point, or bashing anthropomorphic design as lazy.