TrashMan

I see a difference between "immersion" and "zoning". You know when you play a game like tetris or Unreal tournament or whatever, and you're compeltely in the gmae. You don't take notice of hte outside world. You're in the zone. Some call that immersion. I don't. That's zoning... your brain being so preocupied with the gameplay/mechnics that you dont' see anything else. Immersion is to be a different thing. A thing that is only applicable to games/books/movies with interesting settings and stories. It's when you are taken in by the world - when you *are* the character you are roleplaying. The words feels REAL. Gameplay (machnics) can help or hinder immersion. But immersion itself is a fragile thing, easily broken - and to a point depends on the palyer knowledge. The more you know, the easier is to break immersion. Versimilitude. Common sense. Thigns should be intuitive and work intuitively. No pointless limitations (and yes, I do consider your warrior not being able to use bows because he's a warrior utterly pointless, serving nothing but to artificially and forcuflly distinguish classes).

I kinda don't think that "don't hoard your potions" message will have any effect. Conditioning is hard to break.

I'd more think that, the more skill you have, the harder it is to keep them sharp. Unused skills deteriorate. But like I say - just have young elves in the party (as in, as young as humans) and long-lived odler elves can be lvl 99 super-badasses.

When have I ever said "time limits for ALL quests and EVERYWHERE"? I don't recall that being my position. But seriously man.. We're cool. You're apologizing way too much.

The Alredy Dead (a.k.a. Bro-Force) The most well known and feared team of mercanaries. Former soldiers, elite agents of kings, spies, monks or mages that abandoned ther positions for various reasons and banded together. Efficient and determined, they consider themselves expendable as long as the mission is a success. However, due to their expert planing and incredible skills, a member of "Already Dead" dying is such a rare occurance it gave them a reputation of being invincible. The most well known members are: a 5-man group known simply as "the A-Group", which enjoys complicated plans and scaring the enemy into submission. A 12-man team known as Replacables that consists of the most dangerous and skilled mercenaries in known history. The legenday mercenary known as "the Walker", said to be unkillable and unbeatable. Some call him a god. Was offered to lead the entire band, but he declined, as he prefers to work solo. The current leader - and the one who gave the group it's name - is one Kenshiro Y'Ure, a monk rumored to be able to kill a man just by poking him.

Robutte Grimmaran Drai'Go The God-Emperor, God-King, Master of all, Lord of Gods Many legends exist on the great Lord of Gods, and none can cofrim if they are true. But most legends agree that he was a man without equal, both in body, mind and magic. In ages long lost to memory, after the lands were split by the great cataclysm, and empires fell, He emerged to unite the people again. Marching at the head of a mighty host, he conquered any and all who would oppose. None could stand agaisnt his elite knights, sons whom he created with his own blood and magic. Giants clad in heavy armor, nearl yas immortal as he was, the Setrats Adapti conquered the entire world for him. Seeing his great work accomplished, the God-Emperor ascended to the heaven to take his place at the throne of gods. But his sons started warring against eachother and the mighty empire he created splintered. It is said that the Lord of Gods is dissapointed by the mortals of this world, and that he will only return once they prove worthy.

Helios, God of eternity, fire and hope Alias: Eternal Flame, Phoenix, The Eternal Symbol: Phoenix or a circle "He that is always and forever. He for whom death has no meaning He for whom life is a thousand journies He that is destruction He that is creation He who's spark burns in the soul of every living being He to whom we pray." Was never confirmed to appear in the mortal realm, altough some belive that a phoenix is his avatar. Considered by some to be a force of the cosmos pre-dating and greater than mere gods.

I never did like the 130-year old incompetent elf concept. If elves live hudnerds of years, I'd rather have an elven character start a lot younger than elves being somewhat retarded. So elves start 20-30-ish, just like humans. I get that they might be a bit slower, simply because of time avialable, but that impleis all evles are sloths..not a single one has a drive or necessiiy to learn fast.

I'd rather have long-lasting injuries rather than permanent. For example, a broken bone that cannot be instantly fixed with magic. So it takes a in-game week for it to fully heal. So you're never truly crippled, but injuries still have impact since they can't be dismissed easily.

Well, you could design a game with "faux" timed events - the game would be counting party travels from place to place, not time. It's basicly a timer without being a timer and a nice middle-ground solution. But personally, I like the flow of time in games. It makes it more immersive, it feels more real. You and I Lephys usually agree on matters, but I guess we were bound to run into something we disagree upon sooner or later.

Given that there are RPG'S where time is ticking, I'd say you are proven wrong on that matter. Actually I'm completely fine wither way with merchants. And no. Peopele generally won't continue talking and ignore an enemy that is stabing them with a sword. How can you not get it? Pause is a OUT-OF-WORLD activity that exists FOR THE PLAYER. To go to the john. Take a bite. Answer the phone. Game time DOES NOT flow while paused. Your character cannot move. Cannot attack. Cannot do anything. Time is stopped in the entire world. From your characters POW, there was no pause to begin with. Nothing has changed (other than the player had time to go do something game un-related or time to read the dialogue options). Explain to me how does a pause make timed quests poinltess? I don't see why "hours" would be pointless. Unless you think a random encounter battle is gonna take you an hour to finish. Besides, didn't I say earlier that very short timers (seconds, minutes) would be on a local basiss - if you're already in the area/map. Those don't have to take into account travel time from different locations or random encounters. It's not to big of a range. Preferom and deliver quests? IF you're on a timer, leave those for later (unless they are directly on your route) Sleep? You can take a shorter break or leave it for later if necessary - but in a 72 hour timers, you got plenty of time to rest. Level? How many levels you think you can get in 72 (in-game) hours? You really think 1 level difference will make a quest phisicly impossible? I don' think so. Buying armor? Yeah..I can see that taking DAYS. And then you say you aren't de-ealuing time-constraints. And yet you are. Right there. Double-negative there SpraklePuss. Now you are fabricating an argument there. Who said that items and potions are cheap? But they ARE an option. An option that costs you money, an option that you'd normally not rely on that heavily if you were better rested. That's not balance-breaking. It's basicly the "grenade" option. Something you're saving up for hard situations - and didn't we have coversations earlier about potions and their use? Do you want items and potions to be useless now? You always tend to construct the most damageing, the absolute worst scenario in your head. And again, you're also assuming that characters low on abilities are total wusses and that you MUST complete this quest. Oh, I dunno...Maybe because it's a game and simulating an entire world AND having the game generate good quests is currently impossible? Or maybe it has to do with the fact that things that the player can't see, might as well not be there. It's based on aboth. And SO WHAT? The palyers abiltiy to get there, plan and prioritize should also be inmportant. You know, just because I CHOOSE to fight doesn't mean I should automaticly win. Because OBVIOSULY, if I don't my choice is invalidated... because it depends on something besides my choice...like my skill at fighting. And we can't have that. We can't have a player that CHOSE to go to the barn possibly fail because his comabt tactics were poor and he took too long to defeat the enemies....

Sure things happen, but fictional structures aren't real. There's degrees of believability and the best writers writing something set in the "right now" need to do research so that their fictional constructs hold up under the weight of expectations in how the world is "right now". But its still not "real" its a simulation of reality within a fictional construct. I have no idea what you're arguing here. Fictional structrues aren't "unreal" either. Stories tend to skip over uninteresting parts, not because they didn't happen, but because there's no reason to show them. A Heroes Journey is not "unrealistic"... just unlikely They aren't both magic. That is a gross oversimplification, since science CANNOT be magic by definition. The words are not the same and they do NOT describe the same thing. Sure, you can "look" at them the same. But that is pointless. Just saying "all of it fiction anyway" and painting it with the exact same brush is, IMHO, a denial of common sense. Forest Gump is fiction. Dead Poest Society is Fiction Pokemon is fiction. Telletubbies is fiction. The Game of Throens is fiction. Yup, all the same.

I'm going to dissapoint you some more then, it's a good looking AR, but I honestly thought it was just a FAMAS copy or modded FAMAS with picatinny rails. It's so much better than the FA-MAS its' not even funny

Drat. I typed a long replay nad accidently closed the tab.. all gone... FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU! Ugh..Ok, I'm not gonna type all that AGAIN, so a short, short version: I don't agree with you. At all. About anything you tpyed there. I see you making up problems and contradictions where there aren't any. A RPG is about what you make it. It can be about choices and time - and timing IS A choice. Don't tell me you never timed anything in a RPG (like a fireball to hit that cluster of enemeis JUST as they bunch up at the door). Because that's a lie. The player can ALREADY pause the game to look over some options that the PC would never have to think about that long (for example: dialogue choices), so I really don't have a problem with the game auto-pausing in dialogue (games that didn't do that sometimes had silly bugs..like getting killed while talking). Time flows different for the player and the PC anyway. You think that de-evaluates time constraintes? You think that every time constraint has to either have you run like a madman or it's poinltess? Well I don't. And I don't think we'll ever see eye-to-eye on this. There's certanly a place for such constraints - but only when it makes sense. For example a local quest, where when you reach a village map, you are told by a fleeing mayor that rebels have trapped some villagers in the barn and set it on fire. A really short timer makes sense there - the barn is already burning. So you are in a race agaisnt time to break trough and reach the barn. Otherwise, each quest that does have a time constraint should have a time constraint that makes sense for it - hours or days. If that means the player doesn't have to run liek crazy to accomplish quest X, so what? No, you are. Your HP and spells aren't the only resource you have. You have consumables. Items crafted or bought. And tactics. I have have cleared plenty of dungons in many games when low on everything. Difficult, but far from impossible. And yes - choosing wether to go now or not IS a choice. Choice you so fevereshly claim to hold dear. Risk vs. reward. But if you don't go you'll fail the quest? So what. MUST you do every side-quest? Must all game content be always avialable regardless fo your choice? Should we do away with branching then? A mix actually. Only some side-quests would be relatively random. Of course, ti would depend when you stumble upon them. Again, I really see no problem. Timed encounters and quests are designed to make sense internally. Constraint that make sense for that quest and situation. The super-precise-timing is you own fabrication. Urgency exists in minutes and hours, as well as seconds. And if you don't make it in time, you don't. If you do, you do. It's as simple as that. In other words, you are trying to fabricate some super-formula to make every timed quest the same. To make enemy strength and time limit calculated based on the strength of the party. It is redicolous. What I did say is that every timed quests (that can be completed and isn't pre-decided) shold have such a limit that if you get going right away, you will definately make it. But the longer you dilly-dally, the smaller your chances you will make it. You could just stop by the shop to buy some items, and you're highly likely to still make it (depending how far the shop is). You COULD go for a full rest and still make it. But you don't know. You can't know. It's a risk.. a gamble. As it should be.

Both. Those people still end up holding stable jobs, having kids and being productive members of society. Humans are anything if not ressilient. Traumas leave scars, but humans endure.

But who is going to spend 7000 minutes shopping? No one. If you wanna get pandantic, then have time flow in shops too. I'd actualyl prefer it that way. 99% of any time limits would be in hours or days anyway, not minutes, so stopping for a few minutes will hardly matter. As for why the merchants exception - because taking stock of inventory and deciding what to buy is probably something the PC and the gang would be on their way while traveling. That is one area where the player will probably mull a lot longer over what to do. Nothing bi-polar. Like I siad, you are stuck on the merchant thing, something that I already said I would prefer to have the time flowing. But since the player can already pause the game while in the merchant shop, he already CAN browse the shop for 1000 hours....from the players POV. From the games' POV, he's only been there 5 minutes. Besides, the pause option is always there, but the pause is an out-of universe action during which the game isn't played. Since nothing is happening. Ergo, I'm not really bothered by it, sicne it's practicly only usefull in the shop anyway. I disagree. You don't know...Well, possibly you could IN HINDSIGHT, but hindsight is irrelevant and un-applicable. First of all, in most cases you would be able to alter the situation. Sometimes you wouldn't, becaue the game provides you with the knowledge your PC would have and he doesn't know everything. A game is also designed to be beatable and AI is no match for the palyer. So you won't ever REQUIRE a full supply of well-being. Any game that requires your party to be at 100% for it to be POSSIBLE to clear an area is badly designed IMHO. Harder? Yes. Impossible? No. I said before - fight smart. Prepare. Compansate for your defficiencies in other ways. And if you don't have it? How is that so much different than having certain paths/quests closed for other reasons? What if a failed quest open other possibilities? You failed a quest - the world isn't ending. Also, stop it with the Reductio Ad Absurdum. Such shoddy arguing doesn't fit you. And sice the entire rest of your post is basicly just building strawman and redicolous positions, I'm going to ignore that. I'm sorry, but I don't have neither the time nor the energy to defend poisitons I never made. You seem to descened more and more into this lately.

*still playing DA* Oddly enough, all of those individuals seem to turn out into normal, productive members of society. With sex being a natural part of life, one has to wonder just how much damaging it really is, and how much our own society and teaching/stances are a factor in it.

Ha..I still drop by BSN occasionaly. Mosty to drop by a few perls of wisdom.... and occasionaly provoke some pro-mage fanatics I hope against hope that DA:I won't be a total dissapointment. But I've been all over the internets. The first community I was part of (and still am, tough not as active) was Hard Light Production (Freespace modding). Then I moved around as I palyed and modded other games. Jagged Alliance 2, Relic forums, Lucas Arts forums, Kerberos Productions, Infinity, etc, etc.. I frankly lost count of all the forums I've been. These forums are among the nicest ones I've been tough. Kudos.

I just like to immerse myself in the setting and lore. Not pure escapism, as I like it to be very believable and consistent.

Critical injury - loss of attribute points. Persistant untill healed. Healing takes a lot of time, so you're just gonna have to accept being weaker for a while. Maybe you cannot ever recover COMPLETELY? So instead of a -2 dex penalty, after helaing it's -1? Or reduce Max health by a pont or two? Otherwise, I can't see a permanent injury woking in a game with a save/load option. In Ironman it might work.

Thinking back it astounds me how easily killed your Mercs were, yet how you could go on and clear an entire town without resting if you played good. I guess the whole point was that is was based on damage avoidance and actual sane tactics (attack at night, diversion, drawing out enemies, quitely taking them out) and alerting the whole sector could be damn deadly because EVERYONE on the map would be alarted (but..if you sneaked around and placed some traps/mines and remote detonated explosives in strategic places..setting off the alarms could be very fun..nothing like mining the doors of enemy barracks.) I long wanted a fantasy RPG taht can capture some of that experience.

I feel I made my points clear. If you misunderstood, that's your problem, not mine.

*Still playing devils advocate* 1) consent only matters to our society, here and now. 2) We have decided that unless someone is of this and that age, he cannot consent. A decision that could be argued against. Generally speaking, poeple make informed decisions their whole lives and some grown-ups struggle with various concpets. It could be we're selling kids short and forgetting they don't all learn and mature at the same rate. It's also the question of "how much must you know to make a deicison"? .. I can't believe I'm actually agruing this....

Playing devils advocate for a second. *the following does not represent my beliefs, but rather is a thought experiment. Keep that in mind* Well, you dont decide to be a pedophile any more than you decide to be gay or lesbian. Sexual prefference seems to be hard-wired. And as far as nature is concerned - old anough to have babies? No problem. We humans operate a bit differently, but let's face it - pedophiles in nature would not be considered abusive or wrong.

Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. You are pointlesly nitpicking, because the "you don't know" is reffering to the kidnapping example. If the kidnapers gave an ultimatum, then you *MIGHT* now (assuming the kidnapers keep their word). If a village is under attack, you don't know that it will fall in 5 hours, 30 minutes and 10 seconds. The defneders might hold out for days..or they might fall within the hour. I'm agaisnt absolute certanty where there shouldn't be any. I don't recall ever saying the player shouldn't be aware of that. No, you misunderstand. I'm talking about a quest you're SUPPOSED to fail. For plot reasons usually. QUEST 1 - mayors daughter kidnaped. If you hurry, you can catch the kidnapper. If you dont' they'll escape. QUEST 2 - same thing, only no matter what you do, the mayors daughter dies before you can get there. Of coure, it should be clear that there NO WAY you could have gotten ther in time, so the player doesn't try to reload. Something like "you find the body of the mayors daughter. It seems she was killed the moment the kidnappers arrived here. You feel enraged, but realize there was no way you could have gotten here in time" Ideally he shouldn't be able to tell quests 1 and 2 apart, untill after he gets far enough in (up to a deciding point, like finding the daughters corpse) A game is an illusion. Illusion of freedom, illusion of choice, etc.. Few things are dynamic, not even if you go the Skyrim route. Unless you can create a virtual DM, there will always be limitations. But yes, the world should react to the player, but it shouldnt' be utterly dependant on the player. You again misunderstand completely. What I was saying was that if the player got late, he got late because he was goofing off, because no time limit should be so damn strict that the player literally hurrier immediately and misses it by a minute. Lephys was mentioning unforgiving, redicolous time limits. There might still be people who will miss it even if the time limit is far more reasonable and forgiving? Who cares? Their mistake. That is a consequence of their action. They can either suck it up or reload - as one does with EVERY consequence in the game.