PrimeJunta

I'm pretty sure Josh is aware of the role-playing aspect of it. He's clearly put a lot of thought into naming the attributes and attempting to connect the names to the effects, and is fully aware that the Intellect-base damage connection is problematic in that respect. As to powergaming, I tend to do it too, which is why easily exploitable systems bother me. But that's neither here nor there: the design function of having attributes is to support role-play and character concepts, so it's nonsensical to argue that their role-play and character-concept-support aspects don't matter. That's what they're for, so of course it matters. If you're not interested in this aspect, by all means refrain from discussing it and concentrate on finding ways to minimize the harm the attribute system does to the mechanics instead. Although I don't think you've managed to improve on Josh's proposed system at all, I think it's good to have that discussion, so carry on, pal!

Actually, Sensuki, I disagree. The names do matter. Think of the reason we have the attributes in in the first place. They're not necessary for getting the mechanics to work, or for character, class, or gameplay differentiation. All of that could be done more smoothly through classes, skills, perks, and talents. They're there to support character concepts. They define what kind of character you want to be. "Herbert is smart but clumsy, strong but a little fragile, stubborn and not easily swayed, and annoys people a lot." Oh, OK, INT 16, DEX 8, STR 16, CON 9, WIS 14, CHA 8. I.e., the attribute names are extremely important IMO, and it's also important that they describe some identifiable and relatable aspect of the character being built. This is a tough equation to balance if you also want to avoid obvious dump or pump stats. And it does mean you'll have to find some rationalization to connect whatever mechanical effects each of them has to whatever characteristic they're supposedly describing. This isn't simulationism. It's about role-playing. This is naturally a much bigger deal in tabletop gaming, but I suspect it's a big part of why many of us are drawn to the genre on computers as well.

The French differed from the British in the way they approached their colonies. The Brits went for classic divide-and-conquer subjugation, co-opting the native elites but never intending to give the masses any more rights than they had to, whereas the French wanted to turn their colonies French. The French modeled their empire on Romanization -- they way the Roman empire absorbed and acculturated all of its conquests. I remember reading a memoir by a Senegalais who went to one of the new schools the French built there, reading a history book starting with "Nos pères les Gaulois..." This is why the remnants of the French empire were absorbed into the French polity. That difference in administrative status doesn't change the reality of the DOM-TOM any, though. They're still imperial remnants. History is mostly taught really badly at schools. It's a tool of indoctrination; of getting kids to believe that their country, of all countries, has the most righteous, just, and glorious history. About justifying the atrocities committed in your country's name, and nurturing grievances about wrongs perpetrated against it. Building actual understanding about the past is rarely a high priority. I've checked out a bunch of schoolbooks about history from a variety of countries -- including my own -- and they're all bad. You especially shouldn't trust what they say about your own country, or countries with which your country has been at war. Which, for countries with imnperial histories, means just about everyone, sadly. I think it's a bit facetious to say that the age of colonialism or the age of empires is still ongoing. Historical periodization is based on identifying a dominating factor; if we have to wait until all traces of it have disappeared, ages drag on for a really long time. There's still a Pope but that doesn't mean we're still in the Middle Ages; there are still uncontacted, isolated peoples and unexplored patches on the map here and there, but we're not in the Age of Discovery anymore, European antiquity ended more than a thousand years before the last heir of the ancient empires fell in 1453, and the empires unraveled after World War 2. </end tangent>

I'm kinda interested in it for one reason: choice and consequence. If the game gives you no options to be selfish, callous, cold-hearted, ruthless, bloodthirsty, vengeful, or whatever, then any altruistic, empathetic, warm-hearted, caring, forgiving, etc. options won't be options anymore. They'll just be a railroad you follow, which defeats the purpose of a RPG IMO. (I don't like comic-book binary black/white good/evil though.)

Gunpowder, steel -- including relatively high-grade crucible steel -- and long-distance navigation were all invented before the printing press.

Oh please. They've made it abundantly clear what they mean by the period, and it's definitely not 18th century America. Both Arcanum's and Fallout's tech levels are easy to describe in terms of eras in a single phrase. Arcanum is "swords and sorcery world undergoing the Industrial Revolution," whereas Fallout is "1950's retro-futuristic mixed with modern gun nuttery." Good settings are internally consistent. The logic they follow may not be entirely real-world logic, various laws of physics can be suspended as needed, and new magical metaphysics can be introduced. Even so, even fictional technologies, to be believable, should follow their own logic. Both Arcanum's and Fallout's do. Fallout's tech did not appear from nowhere; we get to interact quite closely with the ruins of the corporations and national research institutes that developed them, and even get an idea of the kind of scientific and technological breakthroughs that made them happen. The fact that it's not hard sci-fi (i.e., the physics doesn't hold up) is immaterial. Likewise for Arcanum. We actually get to meet some of the most important inventors of the age; the James Watts and Thomas Edisons. I don't see it as a problem that PoE's world doesn't have a printing press. I would see it as problematic if, say, there was no explanation for gunpowder. I kinda doubt that's gonna happen, as we already know something about the history of metallurgy in PoE's world -- animancy, the discovery of skein steel, the lost lore of ... what was it again, that one dwarven forge that produced its brand of uniquely good steel, and so on. It seems to be an extremely dynamic era, with new discoveries being made frequently. I like that. I agree that we shouldn't get too hung up on the "Renaissance era" thing, but I think such phrases are useful to describe the overall flavor of the world.

I'm pretty sure it's possible to get it to work, but the libraries are bound to be different. The feature would have to be ported specifically. Anyway I'm sure Obs know what they're doing; the mouse works just fine on most Mac games I've played so it'd be a bit strange if PoE proves a problem.

I intended the phrase to describe apparent performance requirements, not aesthetics. I like the look of the game a lot. I'm generally much more impressed by consistent aesthetics than special effects, actually, and think most games would do better to make the most of less demanding graphics tech rather than push for the latest and greatest in skin pore and fur technology. If that makes me a graphics whore, then so be it.

The devs have repeatedly described the world of PoE as "colonial or renaissance era, minus the printing press." I would suggest you take your objections to them.

Do people really think they will be able to play this game on more than 3-4 year old computers?I really think so. What we've seen of the graphics so far looks high-end for about 2003. I'd guess a high-end computer from around then should be able to run the game just fine. If anyone still has one that is.The overall look without zoom maybe. But firstly the details are much better, this are 3d models afterall not sprites. Combined with a hd/full hd resolution we end up with high cpu and ram consumption. Also I highly doubt the lightning Obsidian shown was made in DirectX below 9. I would say dx11, but lets assume it's 9. Any graphic card without dx9 is out. Also there was a hint of physX used so card would need to support that. I would say minimum would be 2cored cpu with at least 2 GHz, 4gb ram, DirectX 9 (if not 11) and physX compatibile card.So the "I can run BG2 so I will run PoE" approach is not gonna cut it. ToEE came out in 2003, and it used the same basic techniques -- 3D models overlaid on an animated, pre-rendered 2D background. That's from 2003, and ran great on mid-range hardware of the day. PhysX doesn't need hardware support on the card. It just makes it run faster. I doubt the physics stuff in PoE will be heavy-duty enough for it to make a visible difference. I would be willing to make a friendly bet that you can run PoE on a top-of-the-range 2003 computer reasonably well. Say, Athlon XP or Pentium 4 Northwood, GeForce PCX 5900, and as much RAM as it can take.

Q1: I would not be upset by 5 or 7 attributes. 3 or 9 would get a raised eybrow. Q2: Possibly. It's hard to say for certain without knowing the specifics of how defenses are handled, e.g. the role of Talents and equipment. Q3: Possibly. I'd do it if it helped balance out the attributes based on the design goals listed at top. Q4: It feels a little wrong to me, but depends on how it meshes with the other mechanics (see Q2) Q5: "Affected," yes. "Governed," no. Q6: Yes. If stats affect, say, the Top of the Pack and swappable weapon slots, it would make for interesting character variety -- you could play an Inspector Gadget type who always has the right tool for the job handy (but is weaker in other ways), or a Sword Saint type who only every carries one piece of equipment but learns to use it to perfection. They would play very differently.

@Frenetic Pony, you're joking, I hope?

I wonder how this affects game portability? There are going to be OS X and IIRC Linux versions as well.

Do people really think they will be able to play this game on more than 3-4 year old computers? I really think so. What we've seen of the graphics so far looks high-end for about 2003. I'd guess a high-end computer from around then should be able to run the game just fine. If anyone still has one that is.

Guesses -- 1 is probably doable, if you're thinking of a graphic overlay to the character portrait. If you're thinking of different portraits for different levels of injury à la DOOM, that's just more work but certainly technically doable. If you're thinking of local injuries associated with status effects, that's of course doable too but I kinda doubt we'll see it. 2 is probably not going to be in, as it would make the animation budget go through the roof, and we're talking a small-budget game here. 3 see 2 4 how would you even see these on those little miniature figures? 5 agree; ToEE did coup de grace well, I hope it's done in a similar way here, accounting of course for it not being turn-based (more's the pity). (If you haven't played ToEE, you could execute a coup de grace on a helpless enemy; it was a full-round action, and provoked attacks of opportunity.)

If I mentioned the Great War, and you said "Yah, Hitler was a real b@stard," and I pointed out that "the Great War" means World War I, not World War II, and you rambled on about how that phrase makes you think of World War II, I would get a little irritated too. It sounds like you're proud of your ignorance, which is not a trait I find admirable. Definitions are arbitrary, but some of them have fairly well-established meanings. Sometimes the meaning shifts based on context, but those shifts are well-established too. "The colonial period/era/age" means one thing in the specific context of North American history (the period starting from the voyage of the Mayflower in 1620 to the American Revolution). In the context of American history -- not just North American -- the period starts with Columbus's slaving expedition to Hispaniola in 1492 (or, sometimes, a few decades later, ca 1520, with the collapse of the Meso- and South American empires before the Conquistadores). So your insistence that "the colonial period" is the 1700's is off by about 100 years even in the North American context, and off by 200 years or so in the American context in general. As to the colonization of North America, it was only important on the global scale because of what it led to 300 years later. I.e., it was important in hindsight, in the same sense that the Roman victory over the Etruscans was important. At the time it was a very minor sideshow. The real action was in India, Indonesia (spices) and South America (silver and gold). It's certainly not important in any way if you're not specifically interested in North American history. And, in case you didn't notice, PoE is not a game set in North America. If the context is world history, as it clearly is here since we're discussing level of technology and a broad variety of cultures, it means the period between the European voyages of discovery (Magellan, da Gama, Columbus etc.), and the eclipse of the Spanish and Portuguese empires by the French and British ones. Why "hostile?" Tough one. There's something about insistent provincialism and proud ignorance that rubs me up the wrong way. If someone knowingly uses terms wrong, which just spreads more ignorance. That's why.

@Adhin, the world is bigger than the U S of A. Just so you know.

Age of imperialism. Your understanding of the word 'colonial era' is not in line with the normal usage of the word. Or, put more bluntly, you don't know what the term means. Put even more bluntly, you're wrong.

The colonial era started in the 1500's, following the European voyages of discovery. What you're thinking of is the later part of it, sometimes called the imperial era. The distinction is fuzzy, but the main diff is that in the colonial period, Spain and Portugal dominated, whereas in the imperial one, it was mostly Britain and France. So generally speaking if someone says "colonial period" the default assumption would be that it refers to the first, Spanish-Portuguese part of it.

@Cultist, would you still not sacrifice Int if someone demonstrated mathematically to you that some other combination or base damage bonus, accuracy, crit chance, and attack speed yields greater damage per hit and damage per second in all circumstances? Just asking.

-- deleted, never mind --

Yeah, it's really too bad nobody's made an epic western fantasy swords and sorcery dwarves-and-elves-oh-my role-playing game yet.

Sure, why not? If you're assuming that that's objectively the best build, though, you're probably mistaken.

@Cultist, raw damage output per hit is not the most important stat for a combat class, even if we ignore defensive features like the ability to soak or avoid damage. There are three characteristics that affect damage output in PoE: accuracy, criticals, and base damage. Your maxed-out Intellect won't help much if your character never manages to hit. A crit does double damage, which counts for much more than that against (tough) enemies with a high DT, so a character who has pumped crits might be doing more damage than a character who's dumped it but pumped Intellect. The exact equation will depend on just how much each of the attributes affects each of these aspects, and what kinds of enemies we'll be facing, of course: the crit-maxer will do best against high-DT enemies, the hit-maxer against high-deflection enemies, and the raw-damage-maxer against mobs of squishies. I'm sure they'll be doing that kind of balancing all through the development process. But we already know that it's certainly not going to be as simple as "max out Intellect to be a combat god." I'm kinda surprised you can't do this much arithmetic yourself, actually; it's fairly obvious to me anyway. (Tangent: if you want an example of a "pump INT whatever you do" system, S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Skill points are everything, so if you're not maxing out INT you're gimping yourself. Finally got around to playing FO: New Vegas, and while I'm enjoying it a lot -- probably the best sandbox game I've played --, it really could do so much better with better systems and more challenging character development. The same applies to all Fallout games natch, NV isn't even the worst offender.)

Since neither of us knows whether this is the case, I figure it's best we dropped that subject. I think resource cost for resting is a potentially good idea. I don't have anything to add to what I've said about your degenerating stamina idea, though; if anything, I dislike it more now than at the beginning of the discussion. Perhaps that means we're done with the topic, no?