JFSOCC

I believe that: There should always be room for growth There should always remain things to challenge you So no on the XP cap, but the level advantage past a certain point should become ever more marginal.

I would enjoy it if your lore skill was build up by learning about things during the game. so someone who reads through every book has a higher lore skill. And it would only give you extra information, or call back information that you already have seen when it is relevant. I'd like my search to be separate. I'm tossing every barrel, looking at every inch of the wall, pressing loose rocks to see if there might be any way to budge them. I don't see how cartography would enter into that.

Ehm? TSLRCM? I used to be a beta-tester for the team gizka one. Unfortunately that one never got finished. a shame because it had gotten almost to the end. (only a little genoharadan piece had to be finished.) And the voice acting for Kaevee was so much better than the TSLRCM. most voice acting was better imo.

I don't think she's run of the mill at all, intonation is perfect. she doesn't read the text, she acts it. I've seen far far worse. (Star Wars the old republic MMO was atrocious imo, but then again, I only watched some developer vids)but then, there's no arguing over taste.

Doesn't seem like much of a starting point. Trying to talk down Hamas from that will involve what degree of capitulation from Israel ? I guess they could threaten brutal reprisal if Hamas reneges on a deal they win from that, but still can't see that as politically possible. if a truce can be negotiated then so can a peace.

Yesterday I went along with my mother to a meeting of young immigrants of whom the status is either in dispute, or who have been declared illegal. We have a law here in the Netherlands that immigrants are not allowed to work without a status, which means these kids are completely screwed over. I got to hear stories of 20 year old men who had to endure the horrors of war (having to scavenge for food, getting told by militia to drop what little tainted food you could find after days of hunger when you arrive at your doorstep. finding parents dead from eating poisoned grass because they had taken to eating the grass out of sheer desperation. Being forced into choosing recruitment with the bad guys and access to food, or starving. seeing family raped and tortured.) So out of desperation they find themselves fleeing, coming to the Netherlands without speaking the language, knowing anyone here. One kid only managed to find his way to a shelter after finding others who spoke farsi . Then you'd think the horrors end when they found their way into civilization. Well you'd be wrong. Dutch immigration imprisoned most of the people I spoke to, for several months, then dumped them outside without any means, a prohibition on doing work, no addresses for help. That's before their status is determined by the way. And when it is determined they're illegal. (because they couldn't prove that they were fleeing a war... however ridiculous that is, but that one afghan kid had left without much of anything, and didn't expect to be needing to prove it. So their choice is go back to a place they don;t know anymore, is torn apart, where they have no contact. Or stay in the Netherlands illegally, with no hope for work, a home, or education. These are people who want to contribute to society but are denied because they can't prove a negative: they can't prove that they didn't come here for economic reasons. That Afghan kid is sleeping in someone's shed. two others I spoke to were living on the streets. They have committed no crime, came from horror and have now fallen into horror again. It certainly put things in perspective for me. and there was a whole bunch of them. it was a small meeting in a church, with both priests and imams present, and there were about 30 kids there. If my government can't help these kids, then I have a serious problem with my government and their ****ed up immigration laws and standards. I haven't even yet mentioned half the abuse and racism these kids have endured from Dutch police, immigration, and even ordinary people. Let's just say it was an eye-opener.

You keep coming back to that argument. The only way forward is with negotiations. (unless you find genocide an acceptable alternative)Hamas has it in it's charter, when it was started up. So they'll have to come down from that. Not talking to them isn't going to make that happen. It's just such a perfect excuse to vilify the other side and use it as an excuse for measures that don't harm Hamas but all of Palestine.

That movie was sheer genius. It's the best John le Carré transliteration (I don't know a better world for book to film, anyone can help me out?) yet.And that is saying something after movies like The Constant Gardener. I watched the hobbit as wel yesterday. I liked it despite some of it's flaws. I like what Peter Jackson did with making it more of a prequel to the lord of the rings. Though there are some choices that he made which I wouldn't have. I watched it in 2D (Don't like 3D film so much, for practical reasons (glasses, tires the eyes) but with 48 frames. I did feel my eyes tire faster.

you win the thread.

I'm curious have you played KOTORII? I don't want her in because I'm a fanboi. I want her in because her voice-acting is fantastic and I'm sure she can make any role memorable.

I think the stronghold would be a perfect candidate.

edit nvm.

My experience is mixed MMORPG and normal western RPG's. JRPG's I don't care for so much. I don't care about combat much in games. for me role playing games is about the role playing. That said. I do understand that you want to make every class have something to contribute. I don't think doing that for combat is a bad idea. I do think it's a bad idea if you have to wring yourself through some weird shaped spaces in order to achieve that. I'm ok with some characters being less effective in combat. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to do anything interesting or useful. If my rogue can do something interesting in combat, I think that will only add to my enjoyment of the character.

anything that can be used as a tool for a creative mind, I like.

I tend to be a timmy. I build my strategies on what I can know, which is myself, not on what might happen (the enemy) that means that I tend to pick few situational skills or abiities. Hell, if I can pick a passive ability over an activated one, that's what I usually go for. If you have situational skills, I'd best be getting plenty of opportunities to benefit from them for me to consider them worthwhile to take along.

I don;t mind being powerful, but not because of innate ability, but rather through what I have built up during the game. Political power, faction backing etc.

the more I hear Josh talk the more confident I become that this is going to be a great game. Everything he says just inspires more confidence to me that he "gets it".

I enjoy puzzles that rely on your observation. My favourite is probably from Riven, where you see objects that vaguely look like eyes in walls. when you look at them from a certain perspective, they represent an animal. (you can hear their animal call too, and since some of these animals can be found on the islands, you can eventually figure out which call belongs to which animal, the animals whose call you haven;t heard can be found by process of elimination. When you later come across a room with many stones with animals depicted on them, you can figure out which stones to press. Another example for riven is a dark tunnel, where if close a door you find it's more or less a switch. things behind other things which means you have to rely on observation too. Now many of Riven's puzzles were based on perspective and clearly the top-down isometric games are going to have to have different challenges. But I don't mind some silent puzzles that don't appear in your journal till you've solved them which rely heavily on observing and joining the dots together. And those who don't have the intellect to solve the puzzles, well, they might fail to recognise there was a puzzle at all so they won't miss it. Edit: and should they be determined, they can always use the internet to cheat.

What I don't understand, why isn't the game allowed to require some intelligence from you the player? isn't it ultimately to challenge and engage the player. the Player Character is my avatar. but I as player will always figure out some things that my character might not. Me supplementing my abilities to my character engages me and pulls me it. If every single thing is done with checks, am I still playing the game, or is it a simulator where I get relegated only to picking character traits which I feel will help my avatar best? Doesn't that create extra distance? Perhaps (not going to happen) we should do away with intelligence and wisdom as traits and let the player substitute his own mental prowess?

that's not what was said.What was said was (and it was an example, not yet certain if it's going to be in game) that if you had a skill check, and you missed it by a margin, there should be some way to compensate for that margin. so if you have a skill of 45 is lockpicking, and the lock is 55 you might be able to pick it with 10 lockpicks (possible example) that doesn't mean that it you'd be able to do it with 20 at 35 skill, because the margin would be bigger and it might be too much. Clearly if your lockpick skill is high enough that you exceed the difficulty, no extra items would be needed.

I'm ok with levels caps if my character feels finished when I reach it. Meaning that I'm satisfied with the powers, skills and abilities I've gotten and don't feel like I've missed some things that I really wanted to add.

they tried a dynamic economy in Guild Wars, this led to some items being worth a **** ton, and all the rest was worth practically nothing. was interesting to see prices spike for certain items when a new area opened up and some crafting materials suddenly had purpose. but altogether I think the player's contributions, at least before they have a stronghold, shouldn't be big enough to affect the larger economy.

I play my rogue characters as an "Agent" IE a professional spy/saboteur.

I like that, except I don't believe in absolute moralism. so I think they should have not a virtue, but a "legal" vs reputation rather than virtue vs reputation

Your argument is one I get. I don;t want the game dumbed down. but the most uninteresting part of games, looking at spreadsheets (basically) seeing the stats could be significantly improved. because let's face it to hit armor class 0 was a dumbass convoluted concept, that would have been much easier to understand is 20 and below was red, 10 and below was oramge and 0 was green -5 would be blue and I dunno -10 (if you could even achieve that) would be purple. If strength 9-0 was red, 10 was yellow, 11-14 green 15-18 blue and anything over 19 purple. You quickly learn. red=really bad orange= still pretty bad yellow= not good, not bad green= good blue= fantastic purple= AWESOME. You would still show the numbers but now you'd also be able to see what could use improvement at a glance.