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PsychoBlonde

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Everything posted by PsychoBlonde

  1. It's not the sewer itself that is anachronistic, it's that most sewers are not big enough to stand up in much less have a battle. Heck, MODERN sewers aren't this big. There's not a lot of value-added in giving the poop commodious (hah) tunnels.
  2. I'm not sure randomization is key to replay ability. I find what drives me to replay cRPG's is more "ooh, here's this character build idea that could be really cool" or a desire to revisit the story. Not "maybe it'll spawn wolves this time instead of bears!"
  3. Dungeons are a staple of this type of game (heck, we're going to get one ENORMOUS dungeon), but it seems like a lot of the time they look a lot like the SAME dungeon. The same few location types get trotted out again and again: Sewers Caves Crypts There have got to be more options than this. So I was curious to hear what sorts of ingenious things people could come up with.
  4. I'd like to note that Tundra and Taiga are RADICALLY different environments--Taiga IS "northern conifer forest". So you've got a little duplication going on there. I find I generally enjoy desert environments the most in games. It's not that deserts are particularly interesting, usually they're pretty boring. It's just that the game developers tend to trot out lots of interesting ingenuity to make the desert look cool, whereas forested areas are often just a lot of green with little variation. I think you tend to get the least ingenuity in barren rocky environments, though, so I picked that one as my least favorite.
  5. I actually hate stealing in games. I try never to steal. Even if it's incredibly lucrative. It's not like I was *poor* in Fallout 3 after selling all the loot that was just lying around free for the taking. I still regularly ran every merchant in the game out of caps. Actually, one thing I did like about the Elder Scrolls games were how you couldn't just steal everything and then sell it (although IIRC you could get to the point where standard merchants would buy stolen goods).
  6. I, personally, don't mind it, but some of my games fight with my video card and I first have to alt-enter them into windowed mode in order to switch to the desktop. And, when I put them in windowed mode, it moves some of my interface bars around. THAT is annoying. I'm not opposed to having an in-game real time clock though. If some people would like one, I'll be happy enough to have one.
  7. I think you misunderstand what "exponential" means. Exponential health gain would mean something like you doubling your health every level. Which is true in many games for 1st to 2nd level, but thereafter it's a simple arithmetic progression, not a geometric one. In games like Skyrim you can add a maximum of 10 health per level. In any case, I think it's highly debatable whether this type of system "ruins" any game. You have to know a lot more about how it is integrated in with other systems before you can make that kind of determination. I, personally, tend to prefer systems where numbers increase slowly (so I don't go from doing 3 damage to doing 87,000--doing the math for that gets to be a headache). So, in general I also tend to prefer systems where health doesn't increase by leaps and bounds. That doesn't mean everybody should feel the same way.
  8. To be honest, The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson is probably one of the best examples of this kind of "magic"-driven economy. (Well, nanotech. But it's basically the same difference in that case.) Raw materials largely lose their value--diamonds are cheaper than glass. So your economy shifts from being stuff-driven to being service-driven. Ingenuity, artistry. and judgment cannot be replicated and thus are of highest value and in highest demand. It's incorrect to say that magic being used for any one particular thing would "hurt" other industries, though. What it would mean, is that those industries would never develop in the first place. If there isn't demand for charcoal because smiths use fire elementals to power their forges, then you won't have people cutting up undergrowth and burning it slowly to make charcoal. And you'd have much cleaner air.
  9. I would prefer not to have any filler quests unless there's a mechanical reason for them to exist. I didn't mind the lost-and-found quests in DA2 during Act I because Hawke was supposed to be looking for ways to make money, and they were the lowest-profile filler quests I've ever seen. Still, once Act 2 rolled around they started to get kinda silly. The various Board quests in Dragon Age: Origins were really pretty pointless and unrewarding even though they had (somewhat) of a story around them. If the filler is sufficiently integrated into the rest of the game, though, I don't have a problem with them. They can even be a fun addition. For instance, if a hypothetical game were built around the idea that equipment is easy-come, easy-go (and not the dominant factor in your character awesomeness), then they could put in various events that wind up with you being robbed, enslaved, or otherwise suddenly deprived of your gear and money. At which time you'd have serious cash-flow issues and be happy to go kill 10 wolves or whatever in order to make some money so you can replace your gear and go wreak your vengeance upon those who did you wrong. Stuff like that. But when it's only padding? No thanks.
  10. Not any more. The characters in DA2 smirk, glare, etc. with excellence. And even with clunky expressions there's no reason to write the PC like they're an ignorant boob.
  11. Morte wasn't forthrightly emotional. He displayed bratty, comedic behavior, yes. He wasn't a mature character, but he was written in a mature way. You can have violent hysterics that are written in a mature way--people tell them to shut up instead of rushing to their side and then yelling at you for hurting their feelings. They are a rarity and are treated as if they are making idiots of themselves (sometimes forgiveably) rather than being a prime example of standard behavior.
  12. Yes--and then you can go after people who make a similar-enough product using a similar-enough symbol. The breadth or narrowness of a given trademark depends a lot on how many lawyers you can afford.
  13. I'd consider this all to be spectacularly immature, even downright stupid. If you want a good scene of mature conflict over food, watch the movie Defiance. Watch Schindler's List. Watch The Lady.
  14. Related to the question above, would people miss clear, "hysterical" NPCs if they're presented with more subtle dialogue? After all, it has to make an impact on you (or at least try to). Morte basically only had over the top, cheesy dialogue, but people mostly loved him. You're thinking hysterical means humorous. It doesn't. It means wildly, violently emotional in an extremely demonstrative way. It is the antonym of reserved. Morte was a reserved character--he used humor, sarcasm, and occasionally outright lies to cloak his past and his emotions. Being reserved doesn't mean you can't be friendly, talkative, or humorous. It means you don't go around shoving your problems in people's faces. It is the difference between someone who, when they cut themselves, says "well damn" and goes and gets a bandage, and someone who, when they cut themselves, screams for help, passes out, demands immediate help, acts like they're dying, cusses out the person trying to clean the injury, and overall acts like a four-year-old.
  15. It's amazing what people will sue over nowadays. It's like the Tortocalypse.
  16. I'd like to see movement abilities like "jump" or "teleport" or "tree stride" that let you move quickly around the terrain. I'd like to be able to lay down walls of force or fire or wind that deflects missiles. I'd like to see enemies use barricades to block choke points. Traps should have no faction awareness, triggered by anyone and hit anyone. Yeah, I love terrain effects like these.
  17. Plumbing isn't a NEW invention, you know. Some of London's drainage system dated back to the Romans.
  18. I hate persistent visible spell effects, especially when they're godawful ugly and obtrusive like they were in NwN2. I do not need some giant floating geometric multicolored bubble-thing to surround my character for every single buff they put up. By all means, let's have special effects for instantaneous effects. Yeah, bring it on. But not for persistent effects. PLEASE.
  19. Heh, I had a problem with this in Lothering in Dragon Age: Origins. "There's no food! People are starving!" "Hey, here's a quest to go kill 3 giant bears just outside of town . . ." HELLO. BEARS. U CAN EAT DEM. (I would have laughed my ass off if you could have suggested solving this problem by having the townies eat the bandits you also killed, though.) One of the biggest verisimilitude errors for me comes from these kinds of context problems. When you have something, anything, that has no connection to something else 5' away, you exit realism and enter surrealism. That's one of the reasons why I liked Gothic so much. If you go in people's houses, they yell at you and chase you out. If you draw your sword in a peaceful area, people shout at you and if you don't put it away they draw and attack you. Even if everything in the game isn't perfectly implemented, a few details like this can make a BIG difference in whether it feels like a world or a like a colorful painted backdrop. I'd like to see good day/night implementation. I'd like to see at least a nod at the changing seasons. I like going into a house and finding that they have a freakin BATHROOM. I like it when there are children, and they're not all just copies of the same 10-year-old. I'd like to see some pregnant women and some BABIES.
  20. I actually really like the way multi-classing works in Dungeons and Dragons Online, but that game is tied to a lot of aspects of D&D. (I also think that the way DDO handles prestige options is about a billion times better than the way it works in tabletop.) I think if you design your system well, multi-classing will be both unnecessary and nonfunctional.
  21. M is an ancient symbol and that doesn't prevent the golden arches from being trademarked.
  22. Hmm, Elder Scrolls: Online is using this image: I'm sensing a potential trademark issue here.
  23. Do you mean sound cues? They do something like this in DDO where if you "hear" a stealthed critter moving, there's a brief reddish flash around its feet. It works quite well, and I like the idea as you've shown it there. I also very much like your "sense magic" idea. I really hope they incorporate ideas like these into Eternity. This kind of detail has been sadly lacking from games in recent years.
  24. I think this should depend on where you are and what you're doing. Would it make sense for it to be more dangerous in a haunted graveyard at night? Yes. (Well, assuming undead don't like the daylight very much). Would it perhaps be SAFER to attack a stronghold of bandits at night when most of them were asleep? Probably also yes.
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