jezz555

You mean the Roman state that survived nearly a millennium, until it collapsed after Odoacer deposed the last Roman Emperor in 476? Slaves don't "inevitably" turn on their masters. True, Rome had a problem occasionally, but slaves were docile, for the most part. Slavery all over the world was different. In Rome slaves could become citizens and had certain allowances that slaves in other parts of the world, at other times would never even have dreamed of. In america, slaves revolted far more frequently. It really depends on how the slaves are treated and the rights they are afforded. That said however even in Rome, slaves revolted a fair amount, to refer to them as "docile" is offensive to the indomitable nature of the human spirit. While there is inequity, there will always be unrest, and where there is unrest there may be revolution. We see this time and again. The Roman empire was so long lived likely due to its relatively fair treatment of its lower classes.

P:E is a real life medieval simulator? Awesome, so no female adventures/leaders. There are no mages, paladins or ciphers. Druids are deviants that practice ritual sacrifice with no magical ability because magic doesn't exist. People don't bathe, disease is everywhere, few NPCs over 40, witch burnings are a regular family event. This is patently absurd. A Realistic fantasy setting is not the same thing as a "real life medieval simulator" you've simply taken my point to a bizarre extreme for a reason I cannot fathom. This is a fantasy setting in that magic and such exists, however as has been discussed time and again on this forum, a fantasy setting is far more relatable if grounded in things we experience in the real world. As should have been obvious by now, I'm not referring to realism as it applies to magic, psionics, druidic abilities or gender roles of the middle ages, I am referring exclusively to the concept of morality when I refer to real life. Which is not to say that realism in other areas of the game would be such a bad thing either. For that matter however, my original statement was perhaps unfair to batman. At the core of the jokers character he wishes to set bare the hypocrisy of society in claiming the moral high ground and looking down on him for being a "freak". In a sense all of his actions have a good streak much like that of muckracking journalists who expose hidden evils in the corporate world.Like he says he's just "a dog chasing cars", not a villain just a source of anarchy. The way you view his actions depends on your perspective. Hell look at Bane in the third movie, he was a terrorist, which is certainly a pretty evil thing to be. But he also protects a little girl from crazed prisoners...OMG how could an evil guy do that? Wont he lose renegade points?

...in batman...a movie. Real life is a different story. Oh, well in that case you're absolutely right since project eternity is real li... oh wait. yeah wtf is realism?

From the Middle East. Apart from a few explorers who went to East Asia (Marco Polo, for instance), Europe had little to no contact with East Asia during the Middle Ages. The East Asians traded and warred with the Central and Western Asians, who in turn traded and warred with us. I didn't say the middle ages, this game is set in like the late renaissance or something isn't it? Even if trade was monopolized largely by middle eastern nations, Europe and Asia were connected by land and trade routes, travel from one to the other would have been perfectly reasonable, if hard. Besides in this game presumably their is travel assisting magic, so theoretically a Chinese person could just teleport to Europe.

I can already figure out what I consider moral. What is the role of the game then? When I play a game there are consequences for my actions, I expect the devs to provide those. Who they are are the people who constructed this world. If my actions have no consequences beyond what I imagine in my head then why am I delving into their world? Why not write a novel about my own world? Granted I find 'rationalizing murder and robbing so it is actually good to me' not particularly interesting. But even if you did I expect the people of the game world to disagree. If I went back in time in a game and killed Hitler as a baby I would expect to be prosecuted for murder. My god you are not getting it. Where did I say that your actions wouldn't have consequences. They would, that is the point, they would just be within the game world as opposed to in a system outside of it a la mass effect. You could do something that people don't like, and they could still get mad at you for it, the only difference would be that you wouldn't see a bar on the side of your screen fill up with evil/good points. Good and Evil are independent of any justice system save a perfect one, you would be prosecuted for killing hitler...but would it be wrong? You still did something good in saving the lives of millions, but the moral ideas of the people of that time would be different they would consider your actions evil and prosecute you thusly. But that's the point, that morality varies in the world, rather than being entirely based on the ideas of the developers. ...in batman...a movie. Real life is a different story.

So I should have choices that produce no emotional responses in me? How...um...compelling? 'I want a completely emotionless dry game where no themes of morality play a part' That cannot be what you are getting at but I cannot piece this one together. That is abundantly clear. The idea is that rather than the game telling you which actions are good and which are bad, you do whatever you feel your character would, and decide for yourself whether your actions were good or bad. The whole "shades of gray" thing, is not having the morality of others spoon-fed to you. What is good, what is evil? If you think an action is good, who are the dev's to disagree with you and give you evil-guy-points? Maybe by murdering the innkeepers son you were saving the world from the tyrannical dictator your character knew he would become. Maybe by robbing the merchant's wagon you were actually exacting justice on the corrupt greedy fat-cats of the medieval world, who are they to judge? There would still be "themes of morality". It would just be up to you to figure out what you considered moral. I can't comment on The Witcher as I never beat it, but I can give you a few reasons why "gray" morality is superior. 1. More role-play options. Instead of being forced to stick to one alignment you can break the mould occasionally, and react based on your emotional response rather than a decision you made at the beginning of the game that you wanted to play an **** or a nice-guy. 2. Yes, more realism. Occasionally things are not as they appear, a quick detect-alignment spell can't determine whether or not the king your making a deal with is going to stab you in the back. Only the rumours you've heard and your own intuition can tell you that and sometimes even those can be decieving. Sometimes the orc won't try to kill and eat you, it's up to the orc, not the coding that says he's got to be mean. 3. Yes, a more mature narrative. You learn not to classify people by the big ugly scar on their face or the fact that they have black hair and spikes on their armour, and instead you judge them as living breathing individuals. It's a fairly easy step that makes the game a lot more immersive, and imo a lot more fun. If you think alignment's somehow provide a superior gaming experience I'd love to hear your argument.

Not really sure what you mean by "weaker design" or how you've proven that such a thing would result from not having a "morality bar" and furthermore a morality that is personal and up to player interpretation is by no means random or generic. I don't think you're really understanding my offering here or at least I'm not understanding your argument against it. I'm saying that individual npcs would react based on their personalities and your actions, there is nothing arbitrary there, just the opposite in fact. The only real difference between this and the typical good-evil system is that you would see more realistic characters and you wouldn't have to worry about only saying renegade/paragon options in order to get red eyes/a better complexion.

I thought the spell interface in the IE games was pretty confusing honestly, Ideally I'd rather something like in ToEE

Sure, but it's a given that your personality is going to influence your characters to a point. They are your characters after all. But I don't think it's too hideously idealistic a goal, to create something that isn't entirely based on your own personality and biases. Being promised 92 virgins as a reward would hardly qualify an action as selfless. I think It's 72 and I'd say it's still self-sacrifice more or less. Furthermore I didn't just mean Muslims, Japanese Kamikaze's would also qualify. But regardless the idea is that you are sacrificing yourself for an ideology you consider worth dying for and you consider good, but others may consider evil.

double post.

D&D may be free form, but the IE games hardly were. There are always the elder scrolls games for people who just want a fantasy sandbox. I was defining the term adventurer in the rpg context not specifically referring to any particular game. We don't know what the role of the player will be in PE so that would be conjecture at this point. I don't think anyone was suggesting that. It's not a matter of not having morality, obviously morality should be present. It's a matter of depicting morality as it is in real life; nuanced and subjective. When I say the game shouldn't have a a morality system, I don't mean that the actions you take should have intentionally counter-intuitive results or none at all. I mean each different npc should react differently to your actions, based on their own personal morality. You could choose to do nothing but deeds you considered to be decent and selfless, but that doesn't mean they will be perceived as such or that you are automatically entitled to any reward for doing so. Suicide bombers actions are doubtlessly selfless, but they are still (I'm sure most would agree) pretty evil. A rich man may think its decent to offer some scraps from his table to a poor beggar, but the beggar may consider this patronizing and cruel. Thematic elements don't really enter into it, you just do what you think your character would do, the game reacts accordingly, and you reach your own conclusions. Rather than always choosing one option or another so the game can pat you on the back or tell you your a d*ck, respectively.

Okay I don't think Dragon Age was the greatest rpg in the world or anything but your criticisms of it are extremely harsh. Dragon Age for all it's flaws and plot-holes, did a lot well. It had a huge amount of writing and voice acting, that was reasonably well written/delivered and a large world that was graphically lush. Video Game technology is not at the point were everything can be totally animated and immersive. I grant you your criticism but you expect way too much. Symbolism is nice, explanation and detail can be nice, but they aren't everything. Bigger-picture things like making combat fun, dialogue engaging, and making sure there's a lot of good looking gear are far more important. I'm finding it difficult to articulate what exactly I find so distateful about your post, but I think it's maybe that to me it smacks of a kind of hipsterish pretension, you lambaste the mainstream and popular dragon age( the game everyone here hates on) while promoting lesser known practically indie games like M&B and Dwarf Fortress. From experience I can say that those games aren't for everyone, I for one don't find Dwarf Fortresses ascii-art based gameplay particularly fun or engaging, and M&B is more of a medieval warfare sim than an rpg, and a pretty hardcore one at that. TL;DR rpg's just are not medieval guy sims.

Not necessarily, we can say that good is objective in that it is what is best for the largest amount of people, but as human beings without infinite knowledge we can't really know what that is, and even if we think we do we may be deceived. Things maybe good or bad, but leave that up to the player, not the devs. If the player wants to roleplay an "evil" character he/she should do what he/she thinks would make the character evil, not what the dev's say is evil. I agree, an "evil" person usually doesn't travel with a band of merry companions saving the world. He is in it for himself. A game that really played well with a concept of "evil" was imo ME and ME2. Going renegade didn't mean you went overboard with stupid-evil actions. It meant you were less likely to grant mercy. It meant caring less for the well being of others. It meant having an overall darker perception of the universe reflected in your actions and what you said. A loner, wouldn't want to travel with people, but there could be good or evil loners. A narcissistic cult-leader style character may desire a gang of sycophants telling him how great he is. A criminal might want partners in crime, it really all depends on how you want to play your character. Evil is not a personality trait. Just because somebodies evil doesn't mean they don't have friends or people they love. They might desire to use these people, or secretly hate them, but regardless a nuanced and well thought out character who isn't confined by stupid bipolar morality might have his reasons. In ME2 you were never really evil just uncompromising and pragmatic vs. empathetic and reasonable. It was more nuanced but still unnecessary and confining IMO. Adventurer is a blanket term for character. Its intentionally vague and doesn't necessarily mean a survivalist type. An adventurer could be a bounty hunter, or mercenary or grave robber or thief(hence the thief class), or just a murderer. Its really all up to the player and DM, D&D is a lot more free-form than people realize (or at least it was). Once again evil is not a personality trait. A greedy person may see great value in raiding ancient tombs, a fierce and hot-tempered one may simply enjoy the act of killing, a megalomaniac may want to prove how great he is. Not wanting to adventure would just make you lazy, not evil.

I think I may be going against the consensus here but I'm not really in favour of the aforementioned changes. Imo it is needlessly complex, takes away from the enjoyment of exploration as you have to worry about the hazards of your terrain, and furthermore is likely beyond the scope of PE. I don't totally hate the idea or anything, but it seems to me to fit more into a third person rpg, like dragon age or w/e, rather than this kind of rpg.

Granted, but some of us may see no point in missions where we are not rewarded. I suppose that's were good and evil comes in. The good guy helps the beggar just because, the evil guy demands the last shirt off his back so his time isn't wasted.

The obvious question here is why they don't empower, say, a gun or a halberd. We need an explanation why monks are restricted to empowering their own bodies. This is were the "spiritual" aspect of it comes in I would assume. Either they feel that their is greater satisfaction in using ones fists/that it gets them closer to god, or they have sworn against the use of weaponry for some reason or another. Like say their religious sect prohibits the use of weapons in combat, thinking that it will result in pacifism, but conveniently neglects to mention the use of ones fists. So a monk desiring to fight, finds a loophole.

This is why I think its stupid to have an alignment system in games at all. People should just react to the things you do, your actions should have consequences based on who your dealing with, but who's to say what is overall good or evil? Why is it up to the dev's to judge right and wrong? Evil for the sake of evil is about the stupidest and laziest thing that exists in storytelling imo, people don't just do things because "hey that'll be mean." unless their mentally ill, in which case that should be reflected in your ability scores. Consistent roleplay is fine, but people in real life aren't always consistent and you should be forced to be in game. XP rewards should be based on the difficulty of the action in question, not some incentivised morality system.

Well, I believe you can create your own party. So theoretically you could play all of these classes at once, or at least a handful of them. I know I'll want to check out ciphers, just because psionics are pretty novel in D&D games

Conversely, If you feel that you absolutely have to like pictures of sexed-up disney animals, then please do so where noone else has to witness it. Thank you.

Yeah, If we leave romances to modders, we are pretty much assured the sappy and immature romance you all claim to dread. The point of a story related romance/relationship is that it is not, tacked-on and with obsidian writing most likely wont be sappy. A romance mod will be, by definition, tacked on. So it appears yet again the old straw-man that us pro-mancers just want "LOLBOOBZ JUVENILE AND STOOPED!11!!" rears its ugly head. We want good, story-related romance, not some crummy mod that lets you dry-hump your party members or something, that really would be juvenile and stupid.

He doesn't look as bad in the wallpaper image imo

Like Jezz said. It's a french comic that used to run in Heavy Metal. It is literally the baddest ass thing ever conceived by man. Give it a read. Wait, I think I saw it a while ago, isn't it with a female hero who has ridiculous proportions on the cover ? Ohter than that, most arguments I see are "it will attract a community I don't like to the game" well guess what, any animal will, having combat means you might attract crazy peoples bent on murdering others. Necromancy ? Will attract necrophiles. And so on. Plus the whole thing might be quite limited if no beast/athro race is included. I mean you guys have a problem with minotaurs being in the game ? Could have been that descriptions is pretty vague. It might not be your thing though, it's pretty stylized. The furries are secondary to the argument I think. I mean clearly we've seen in this thread evidence that even talk of furry races attracts furries, and I think we can all agree that furries are abhorrent mutants. The main discussion here is whether or not the animal head-human body archetype is tired, and under which circumstances. I can't think of any mythology where anthropomorphic races are the good guys, although you're welcome to give some counterexamples. Even then, I'd guess the good anthropomorphic guys are the minority among mythology. So what do you want to imply? We're fine with slaughtering them. This is a very valid point I hadn't thought of. Evil guys is one thing, but I think it may be when you have playable good guy human-animals that they cross into furry territory. Is this a compromise we can all agree on? That furries can be in the game as long as we cant play them, and get to slaughter them?

I believe that's a warrior-priest...

On a side not I would recommend fighting a real dragon, with a real sword, getting real loot, real armour and real magic spells. It beats fighting digital pixels by a huge margin.

Yeah I think its like that one guy said, where priests are more or less your typical paladins and paladins are something new, which I think it probably for the best.