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The Sharmat

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Posts posted by The Sharmat

  1. Often the best developed characters/those with the most content are those with Romances. Which is why I am in favour of romances. If they can do deep Party interaction without romance (definitely possible) I would be equally satisfied.

    This can be a trap though. In some cases in recent games, the characters with romance arcs are the best developed and have the most content...IF you romance them. If not, be prepared to have a total of three conversations with them because going further ends with them mind controlling your character into having sex with them.

  2. Bioware has actually learned a tiny bit. There's GLIMMERS of decent romances in a few arcs. There's just...a lot of problems on top of them.

     

    The main thing is it should flow naturally. You shouldn't be able to get someone to fall in love with you in a totally isolated conversation branch that only takes place in the party hub/inn/Ebon Hawk. It should derive from actions in the game world. And don't try to make every character that may be a fan favorite romancable. I don't care if he/she is your favorite character. They may just not be into you. Quality over quantity, what makes sense for the story and characters, etc...

     

    EDIT: Oh, and no accidental romances. conversely, would be kind of cool to see a companion get increasingly depressed/jealous/angry if you behaved in a way that would trigger a romance sub plot but you ignored/shot them down. Or maybe that's too soap opera...

    • Like 3
  3. I would kill for a khopesh. And with a khopesh.

     

    I get the "historically accurate" requests though. Yeah, it's not a real history. But most real world weapons and armor were shaped the way they were for a reason. Doesn't mean we can't have variety.

     

    I'm also guessing in those Dark Souls screenshots that the sword is so huge simply to make it easier to pick out for the player. Graphics have to be easy to read, not just realistic or pretty.

    • Like 1
  4. Hadn't thought of that, good point.

    There's lots of things you could do with it. Not just one character showing concern for another, but noticing that one character has some exotic means of healing. Or say, an interaction along the lines of "Dude, your leg was nearly cut off and now you're standing on it fine. What's the hell's going on?" to reveal something about less...baseline human party members.

  5. Well yeah, just because you have a strong soul doesn't necessarily mean your offspring will. I'd expect such an inheritance based system to rely far more on wealth acquired by superhuman ancestors, which would be a volatile thing since it's vulnerable to market collapse and mis-management. Perhaps a more Roman/Athenian sort of deal where there is a strong middle class plus an aristocracy with a certain degree of power; but compared to say, medieval France it's quite vestigial and doesn't exclude upward mobility.

  6. If magic is common and simply a matter of learning I'd expect that the nobility/leadership of any given nation would all have magic to some degree or another, for the same reason that in medieval Europe most of the landowning aristocracy would fight as heavy cavalry. They have the money for the necessary equipment and the spare time to train because they aren't subsistence farmers.

     

    That doesn't seem to be the case here though. If magic requires a "strong soul" then it sounds like most people simply could never have it.

    • Like 1
  7. You can have unique elves and dwarves. Using the basic concept as a skeleton for something different has been done. Some examples I can think of in terms of Elves:

     

    A Song of Ice and Fire's Children of the Forest: Actually kind of small, creepy, and utilize some sort of global neural network where ancestors upload into trees and spy on people.

     

    The Second Apocalypses Cunuroi/Nonmen: Don't even have pointy ears but hey're clearly intended to be an elf analogue. Tall, hairless, pure white, with "perfect" but alien features like fused teeth. Ancient and advanced, but with entirely different neural architecture (They're unable to see 2 dimensional images as representations fo 3 dimensional objects) and a species wide variety of Alzheimers. Can only remember important events in their lives by inflicting post traumatic stress on themselves after awhile.

     

    Morrowind's Dunmer/Altmer/Bosmer: Hoo boy there's a lot of these literally based on D&D derivatives but still hugely divergent. Altmer/High Elves are eugenicists that live in cities made of crystal, have numbers for names, worship a time when time was nonlinear, and discard any infant that doesn't live up to their standards to the extent that to outsiders most Altmer look like siblings. Dunmer/Dark elves are ancestor worshipping neolithic (until recently) necromancers that make armor out of insect chitin and a resin, ash, and bone mix. Bosmer/Wood Elves are obligate carnivores that refuse to harm any native plants (though outside timber is ok), eat their slain foes to gain their strength, and if really pissed off sacrifice hundreds of themselves to form a primal lovecraftian archetype of all beasts to kill a specific target.

     

    Glorantha's Aldryami: I know less about this setting but it's pretty wild. The elves in it are literally plants.

  8. Echo Bay, for some reason, caught my attention. Will there be scary echoes there?

    I'm reminded of that one place in the Silmarillion where, after Ungoliant attacked and wounded Morgoth, the latter cried out in fear and pain. A near godlike being crying out in fear and pain is a really big deal, as it turns out, and anyone at the site where it occurred could still hear the cry, even thousands of years from then. It never faded.

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