JFSOCC

Right, and as a developer it might be easier to create challenges as you can use defaults for certain classes in their observation/patrolling skills and behaviour. All you need to do then is placement, and even if you haven't designed an encounter with stealth in mind, it could by virtue of the game mechanics work out that way.

Truth. That would be really cool. Though, how would that work with combo's? What if I have 1 character that is in good favor with the Thieves Guild, likewise they "hate" the City Watch. In the group I have 1 who has a strong standing with the City Watch, would the Thieves go "hostile" against 1 character or all of the character? Would the City Watch character have to wait outside? Likewise, how would the overall Party reputation work? And how would Morale function with that? Would the Thieves Guild character and the City Watch character work well together in the party? Would it be a functioning (with Morale penalties and whatnot) hassle? (E.g. one of the oddball groups) Or would we see Jaheira start fighting... that Shadow Druid don't remember her name (Cloakwood). I'd like to get a warning somehow. Baldur's Gate with mods, Imoen says something like "Oh I don't like the looks of these guys" about Montaron and Xzar, but in vanilla she says nothing. I'd still have the choice to recruit them, but getting some sort of feedback on "Who are these people?" before recruiting. Parties in cities as well, I made a thread about it some time ago, being able to individually send out party members. Sending party members on "Tasks". What is the in-party reputation? What do Forton think of Aloth? Could "Reputation" deem it somehow? Does party members react to someone getting a better reputation? Can we help the party members get the reputation they "deserve"? Can we influence the path somehow? What I am trying to convey is some sort of "Player Controlled" reputation. Let's say Edair has a steady growth of his reputation according to his own quest tree, but instead of doing that we take Edair off to other adventures and his reputation grows to be like-able by the opposing faction of what he initially goes for... can we influence the NPC's path? EDIT: Can Forton start to like Aloth if you bring down Forton the same "Reputation" as Aloth? As for a Baldur's Gate example... could we bring down Imoen's personality, make her more evil and instead she welcomes Montaron and Xzar like family into the group..? Well, I like (as I've argued a while back in another thread) the idea of having solo-gather information quests, where party members can play to their strengths. (The warrior infiltrating the guard, the rogue sneaking into the shadier parts of town to talk with the local crime syndicate, the bard getting drunk with people in an inn, the wizard searching an academy library. each can find a different piece of information which could help with the next party mission. This way individual failures aren't disastrous, just gives you less of a full picture.)Having mixed reputations can bring mixed results, but generally If the city guard knows you did them some favours in the past, they won't suspect those who travel with you when they've worked for the thieves. Hell, maybe they'll ask you to investigate one of your own crimes. that could make for interesting choices. I also think that eventually the further you go in one faction or another, that should close some doors elsewhere. As for party-member conflict. I don't know, they're not exactly my strength, I generally try to please everyone and thus fail to please anyone.

hour of love. Ask your dad to list a few things he thinks are nice about your wife, and vice versa. that might help set the mind at looking at the positive things. It doesn't even matter how little it is. It's not the things that matter, but what it does is refocusses the mind to pay attention to different things. that might (over time) break the cycle of focussing on the negative and reinforcing the bias when that is observed.

You don't want to hear what I have to say about those books.

been doing light therapy the last week. lots of early rising and early beds

Watched Dredd, was a well crafted movie.

Here in the Netherlands, the Israeli embassy and the US embassy are both about 500 meters from our parliamentary building, and as far as I know, by far most embassies are the the embassy park, about 3 miles further out. I think that illustrates our international relations nicely.

First off, let me apologize for not having pictures to explain what I mean. I tried doing screenshots but somehow they came out all garbly, and online I cannot find examples of what I wished to demonstrate. So, Commandos is an isometric game of a different sort, for those who haven't played or heard of it, you play an elite group of special forces during the second world war, each with their own specializations. Never is your team greater than six members, so in many ways, it has some overlap with the IE games. Despite not being a RPG. I bring this up because I believe stealth is done pretty well in Commandos, and with a few minor tweaks could actually be pretty well implemented in P:E. If you cheat in commandos, as I was prone to when I was younger, you had the option to "trace" the enemy's observation. This involved a few things First you had line of sight, a cone moving outwards from every npc, divided into two parts, a part nearby where anything could be seen and a part far off where you could be observed if you were standing up. Enemies could also see tracks left in snow, though these disappeared after a while. Then, there was something you could only see if you cheated, which was your sound signature. Different weapons had different signatures, but all of them were basically a radius around the player, whenever they were fired. If you moved at speed, your movement had a sound radius as well. enemies within the radius of the sounds would become alerted to it. they would shout out in alarm, which had it's own (rather large) sound radius, but if they were isolated this would not be too troublesome So commandos worked by sneaking towards enemies, dealing with them one by one, moving corpses out of the path of patrolling enemies. Or if the fancy struck you, by ignoring them and using your observation skills to bypass them without leaving a trace. I don't see why this system couldn't be implemented in P:E. Your Stealth skill could affect the range of your enemies observation skills (visually) or perhaps their sight cone could be divided up into pieces, the more stealthily you are, the more parts of the cone you could enter without being spotted. Vice versa, observation skills could increase the sight cone of enemy NPC's, those with tracking skills would be better at observing footprints left behind by your team (and you might see enemy footprints based on their distance to you, and the time since an npc walked past.) I think this would make stealth immensely more dynamic, and would make it a skill where the levels you had in it would change the challenge, but never eliminate it. You couldn't just walk in front of some dude, so you would have to keep paying attention to their movements and positions. and their patrol routes. Skill in move silently would decrease the sound radius/signature you have. A "silent running feat" would make your running sound signature whatever your walking sound signature is. Armour would affect this too. so you could be a stealth character with heavy(loud) armor, but this means you'd have to avoid enemies at greater distance (rather than just have a stealth check fail) and walk slower. Different enemies might have different ways to spot you, some being excellent listeners (their hearing range has to overlap your sound signature in order for them to notice your sounds) Dogs could use scent, seeing where you've been (but this would evaporate over time, quicker outside than inside, and not through some obstacles.) Spotters could have narrow but long vision cones, Guards could have short but wide ones. I think this would create gradients of stealthplay, where it isn't a simple pass or fail check whether or not stealth succeeds. You'll still have to play and pay attention. Your bulky barbarian can still sneak, it's just much harder for him because he'll get spotted much easier. And most importantly, getting spotted doesn't have to alert the entire base to your presence, which means that if you enjoy stealth, you're not forced to instantly reload. (I imagine some alarms could trigger everyone to go on high alert) Oh, and no "must have been nothing" nonsense. An enemy alert isn't going to back down quickly. - Finally, I think this is fairly easy to implement. Sight cones can be stuck to characters' orientation. The shape of them to their class(or role), the size of them to their observation skills (linked to a numerical value, so that things like equipment and skill can affect it) And what they can spot (tracks, movement within distance x , stationary within distance y) while stealth abilities will allow you to move the range of either enemy observation skills, or decrease the range of your signals. Also for weapons some make noise, some might have a noise radius where they impact while others have a noise radius where they come from. Sorry for the rather poorly worded idea. maybe I'll format it better later (don't count on it) --- TL;DR: an idea to make stealth more dynamic by making skills for stealth and observation work in gradients

the smooth operator, suave, polite, guarded, not afraid to get his hands dirty, just not in public. Loves his creature comforts. Arrogant. Has a public face and a discrete face.

I certainy like the idea of having certain plots (of land) that have several options as to what they can become. As your faction, or those you are allied with spread their influence, some of these will be filled in. (out of several pre-made options) That will certainly make the world come alive more.

If we're doing cliché names, how about "Soul's eternal journey" Fits nicely with the project eternity name, the heroes journey that most RPG's tend to be, and the soul mechanic that the core lore of the game is built around. Since since the souls are undying things in this world, I think that fits nicely.

sounds cool, so why not

Like the sword from colour of magic (terry pratchett) Now that's a sword with character

Actions have consequences, but they shouldn't be crippling if you get it wrong incidentally. Mistakes should be ok, many mistakes and you should feel the stares and glances coming your way

But couldn't this already be done with faction reputation? If you pick factions which are more on the down low, whether they're crime syndicates, secret societies, paranoid noblemen or just groups that don't chase fame, you'd get a standing amongst those with an ear to the ground, but not elsewhere. If you pick the gaudy factions to do jobs for, then those who enjoy more discretion might shy away from you, while the public would love you more. here's a thought: I'd enjoy it if different party members could have different reputations, so someone might tell something to one party member, but not another.

adding more (different) enemies, better enemy AI (including item use for instance) on higher difficulty. there's plenty of ways to up the difficulty that aren't economy related. I don;t want it to be a much different game on higher difficulties, just harder.

For me that's precisely it. I think it would be incredibly cool that you could go on without the main character if he or she dies, but I simply wouldn't. I would reload. It's my story that I care most about, after all.

Not being able to afford gear I would enjoy playing with is not how I want the game to up my difficulty.

wolves are social animals that know their place in the pack, I would say that requires enough self-awareness that you can call them sentient.I don't think you mean with sentience what is meant by sentience.

I watched video game highschool. It was both atrociously bad and incredibly good.

A hallcuniory terrain where the damage comes from the real terrain hazards being invisible to those affected seems much cooler. Like you walk on a stairs unaware that the building you're in is decrepit and has been for ages, you fall through a hole in the staircase to your death, because you saw the building as it used to be not as it is.

I loved what they did in Quest for Glory V, where when you died they would have a little epilogue with a morbidly funny rhyme or poem which was most of the time relevant to the way you died

"You are all weak! You are all bleeders!" But in all seriousness, I love my puzzles but they shouldn't be in bottleneck locations and they should flow from the world, and not be contrived and added as an obstacle to beat.

Someone on this forum recommended me Hyperion by Dan Simmons, so I bought it and I am reading it. I'm liking it so far, but it's fairly early in.

it's very engaging, but a little low-brow.