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Torgamous

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About Torgamous

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  1. They wouldn't. The execution you used as an example earlier, however, I think would have benefited from either timing or just if it noticed that you'd turned around and walked away. After all, you can't tell me that walking away from an execution isn't a clear choice regarding what you want to do about the execution. Do I need to drag out my Thieves' Guild example again? The urgency is that there actually is going to be something bad if you blow off the quest. It doesn't need to come from a timer on the top right telling you you only have ten minutes to save the princess, as long as the princess isn't still in the same situation after you do everything else the game has to offer.
  2. Planescape Torment also tended not to tell you that your quest needed to be done yesterday or the village would be destroyed. A lack of narrative urgency naturally leads to a lack of mechanical urgency. I disagree with this. When my stronghold was being attacked in BG2, the level of urgency to be found in the game (none) was very different from the amount I was told about (lots). I considered that a flaw at the time and continue to do so. If they didn't need me to come immediately they shouldn't have told me to. They are, however, unrelated. You think that someone seeing a woman being carried off by a gang of orcs and deciding to open up a savings account at the local bank is unrelated to that person's morality? Just because something has, historically, been unrelated to a game's alignment system does not mean it's unrelated to morality.
  3. That's a different something different, though. Choosing to side with bandits versus not getting to the bandits before they do their banditry are unlikely to have the same ramifications. Again, says who? ...Really? Do I need to provide a peer-reviewed psychology text showing that kings treat people who help kill their daughters differently from people who try to help and fail, and both differently from those who just go off and do their own thing? There's also no one telling me that the princess is in need of urgent assistance before I talk to the quest-giver. There's no narrative urgency for the game to support. Correct. In other words, events are still centered around the player, instead of occuring regardless of the player. So again, what does a timer bring to the equation besides a sense of urgency which decent writing should already cover? You keep bringing up decent writing as if that should be enough on its own, without any reinforcement from the actual game. That is Not How It Works. Imagine, if you will, that Obsidian had had everyone in the Mojave tell you all about how terrifying and dangerous Deathclaws are. The descriptions were masterfully written, works of art even without context. And then the first time one pops up you discover that they do less damage than a housecat. Would you have been as cautious around them? Not "as opposed to". I don't think anyone here is advocating that tossing a giant AOE spell right next to a hostage shouldn't have negative consequences.
  4. That's a different something different, though. Choosing to side with bandits versus not getting to the bandits before they do their banditry are unlikely to have the same ramifications. There's also no one telling me that the princess is in need of urgent assistance before I talk to the quest-giver. There's no narrative urgency for the game to support.
  5. It's also not hard for writers to project a sense of danger, and yet swords still do damage. And they're only unimaginative if the result of the timer going over is "YOU LOSE THE QUEST". Surely having something different happen if you wait several months to rescue the maiden is more imaginative than having the same set of events always happen?
  6. Yes. I'm assuming that. That's usually how it works. Address the point. Change it to the Mages' Guild or Hermits United if you need a guild less likely to send a newbie to do favors for the king.
  7. And What problem is that? I cited the possibility of failure at every step of the questline, including the very first step, which involves caving to greed, instead of "oops! I overslept and missed my appointment!" The problem is that, firstly, "caving to greed" isn't failure unless you're in the habit of basing your dialog options on a coin flip, and secondly, I can still go and work my way to the top of a guild and the damsel will still be in exactly as much distress when I arrive as if I'd gone straight to her rescue. If it's reasonable to give you enough time to sleep before doing a quest then the time can be extended accordingly; pressuring you into doing a quest RIGHT THE **** NOW doesn't need to be the end result of every timer.
  8. Oh, Is the assassination supposed to fail because the player said "Yes, I'll prevent it" and get there, only to find out they arrived too late anyway? LOL Ok, Lets walk through this scenario. 1)Elven king's princess daughter gets kidnapped. 2)Elven king Hires you to free her. Marks the bandit group's hideout on your map 3)You go to the bandit hideout. 4)Bandit leader approaches you, tries to talk you into allowing them to assassinate her in exchange for [insert incentive/reward here] 5)You now have a choice. Side with the bandits and Allow the Elven princess to be assassinated -or- Side with the King and say NO and wipe out the entire bandit gang. The quest then branches out according to the choice you made in #5. No timer needed. That can happen if there's enforced urgency, you know. The only difference is that this is also an available option: (slightly altered because kidnapping someone and then assassinating them is idiotic, and asking permission to kill a captive doubly so) 1)Elven king's princess daughter gets kidnapped. 2)Elven king Hires you to free her. Marks the bandit group's hideout on your map. 3)You run to the capitol because you think working your way to the top of the Thieves' Guild sounds more interesting. 4)You write the next great Argonian novel. 5)You go to the bandit hideout. 6)The bandits sold her to Count McEvil while you were screwing around. 7)You go to Count McEvil's estate 8)Count McEvil approaches you, tries to talk you into allowing them to keep her in exchange for [insert incentive/reward here] 9)You now have a choice. Side with Count McEvil and Allow the Elven princess to work for a living -or- Side with the King and say NO and wipe out the whole estate, freeing the rest of the slaves as a nice side effect. Not feeling very pressured there. I just think it would be nice if the game didn't pretend that you hadn't taken that detour to become faction head. Why should the bandits only ever sell people into slavery when I make an explicit decision to let them?
  9. And thus, she dies. Or maybe she escapes. Or maybe she's sold into slavery. If you character didn't care enough about the elven maiden, there's no reason to care now that something happened. Or the alternative: You took a few minutes to run to the shop to buy some arrows, and thus missed the stated deadline to save her by a few minutes. Alternatively, the game isn't so anal about timing that restocking your supplies is enough to put you over, so running to the shop to buy some arrows just makes you more likely to succeed. Besides, there's no reason that the elven maiden being sold into slavery should mean you can no longer save her. You just need to find out who she was sold to. And that quest likely isn't going to be very time-sensitive, since slaves tend to stay in one place.
  10. But the devs were forcing you to be their storyline puppet. If you want to participate in their storyline, you have to meet Okku at the gate. Dance, puppet. Alternatively, Okku could wait at the gate long enough to make an informed judgement about if you were ever going to show up, and if you decide to ignore him he goes and does his thing, leaving you with a different storyline. How about "complete it on time, or you'll be given an updated objective/outcome reflecting the time you're taking to complete it"? Timing doesn't need to mean that the game says "game over, you suck" in big red letters when the time's up.
  11. It's probably better to just look at it as legal/illegal rather than moral/immoral. And an endless cycle of reincarnation doesn't leave much room for damnation, so that isn't an issue.
  12. And a statue never hears anything. Whenever you receive a divine revelation, it's always wise to check ReligiFact before incorporating it into your doctrine. We'd probably get used to it. In many ways modern civilization outclasses the ancient gods, and most of us aren't being driven mad. In the case of those beings being human, someone would probably get funding to find out how they did that.
  13. This, it seems like mages won't have armor restrictions. Hopefully the same goes for rogues. With rogues the armor restrictions make sense, to a degree. You don't go sneaking through the shadows in full plate. That's not saying you shouldn't be allowed to try, but it's unlikely to end well.
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