Lephys

WHOA whoa whoa... that's HORRIBLY inaccurate. I think it would be more like 70.7/29.3, u_u... Gyah. What are you trying to do, conceptually ruin the game's loot system?! Nah, but really, I agree. Since they've said SOME will be hand-placed and SOME will be random, I hope it's a good mix like that. And I'm all for the "we hand-picked the possibility set here, but then the specific item is randomly decided out of that set" method.

What if the dagger in his hand is just a decoy, and he keeps a dagger up his hat, that sort of mechanically folds out (like those hidden-in-your-sleeve pistols that pop out into your hand!) onto his forehead, and he LITERALLY stabs you using his face (forehead... he headbutts you with a forehead dagger)?!!! 8D! The term is still apt, AND misleading, at the same time. "Oh, he's going to stab me in the face... I'd better prep-... WITH his face?!!! I was NOT expecting that!"

The thing about P:E's nigh-unlimited inventory is... only the part you can't immediately access is "unlimited" (Josh has said that it may not actually be unlimited, but just much larger than your typical game's, in comparison to the amount of stuff regularly found). Therefore, you still actually have a limited amount of space to manage for things that you actually want to use before you get to a resting spot, at which you would've juggled around your inventory anyway. The ONLY change I'd make is that I'd have the Deep Stash (super-huge, not-readily-accessible portion of the inventory) be accessible ONLY at towns/the stronghold, instead of at any and all rest spots (like campsites in the midst of a dungeon/forest). That way, you can always pick up whatever you want, so you never have to make a trip JUST to pick up some more things. But then, you can't ever access the Deep Stash stuff until there's no longer a strategic advantage in being able to access it (back in town, when you're not in the middle of any kind of conflict, and you would, in ANY inventory system, simply sell off your excess stuff to vendors, etc.). If you can access it every 20 minutes or so, at a little rest-up campsite, then it's pseudo-circumventing the limited space for your usable/equippable goods, which is sort of the whole point of the choice of what to have on-hand and what makes that choice matter. Better yet, if you can camp somewhere to rest up, then fight like, a group of foes, then pick up everything, then just run back to that camp 1 minute away, then move stuff between your Deep Stash and your limited inventory, then... that's even worse. That's an IF, though. *shrug*

Haha. I seriously thought that, too, when I first read the thread title. I was thinking "Hmm... I guess they need a legal writer?"

Really, so long as we simply have radio silence, I'm just going to assume they're putting their time to better use working out systems and hashing out design tweaks and putting in the grunt-force hours to get it done correctly and beautifully. Even though it would STILL be really nice to know more stuff, if it's just that the time's being spent super-diligently working, then whatevs. I honestly cannot complain at all. I have to say, the ONLY thing that feels like maybe they've dropped the (tiny) ball is when pretty meaty details get revealed and questions get answered across a handful of sites, but it has to be found by a forum-goer and make its way here, to the official forums, by chance. Granted, I know most of that is by Josh, and it's on his own personal time. But, it's still information directly related to the official project (it's not just him talking about how rough work was), and yet there seems to be absolutely no worry as to sharing that on the official forum. It's hardly the end of the world, and, like I said, I'm sure they're simply more worried about getting their work done than they are about entertaining us with tidbits, or being extremely organized about collecting any and all revealed tidbits and posting them here (most of the stuff, however final it might turn out to be, is still subject to change). I get it. It's not really necessary. But, it would be extraordinarily splendid if, given that anyone's going to take the time to sprinkle information around here and there, they just did a little dev blog each weak. OR, a dev-team Q&A thread or something. They could read through it in their spare time, and answer anything from the tiniest of questions, to very large ones. They don't even have to answer them all. But, it would be an official-forum space reserved for forum-goer/backer---dev-team casual communications. For anything less formal than the official, major updates (revealing/detailing entire system layouts, like the stronghold, or a class). Maybe even both would be cool. Some place like a simple blog for just any and all dev team members to blurb about something, maybe even just once a week, for like 5 minutes. Not even necessarily on a set day. Just whenever they feel like it, on whatever's cool to officially talk about. Then, like I said, the Q&A. That way, people with questions could all just be directed to the Q&A thread on the forums, instead of having questions asked on 17 different sites, then having to find those answers and cross-post them everywhere. It would, at the very least, be more efficient for any question-answering or tidbit-revealing that goes on. *shrug* Just my two cents. I don't think we're OWED more than they're giving us. I just think the gears could be a bit better greased on the "hey there, backers. How's it going?" machine, and it would be beneficial to many while costing little. But, again, I don't know what they do and do not have time for, and I'm not about to guess.

Because... just because you can deconstruct an iron sword doesn't mean you have the prowess to reshape that essence EXACTLY into a new, sharpened, masterwork sword. Give me a wrecking ball, and I can demolish a building. Doesn't mean I automatically know how to construct a structurally sound building. Maybe you can take iron swords, and mix their essence with some other metal/objects, and reform it all into a lump of new, distinct metal. THEN, take that metal lump to someone who actually has mastered metal forging, and pay them to make it into a sword for you. That's what I'm talking about. You can make things without just physically making the final products you want. And/or, you could break things down into their essences, then impart their essences onto an existing sword or piece of equipment, once you know how. You'd STILL have to produce the sword separately from the whole magical essence-crafting process. A valid point, but this is precisely why I referenced only the particular Thaumcraft (magic mod) aspect of Minecraft, and not the general design and gameplay of Minecraft, itself. I think there's value in applying aspects of Thaumcraft (the researching and things having essences and producing new materials from essences) are very valuable in considering how to handle player-controlled crafting in an RPG like P:E. As many have said, while it's understandable that people have lives and experiences beyond constant adventuring, it's a bit ridiculous for characters in RPGs to go from 0 skill in Weaponsmithing to the same skill as some guy who's spent his whole life doing nothing BUT crafting weapons at the forge where he lives and works all day every day. So, if you need top-of-the-line crafting (think master-made katanas from Japan, etc.), you probably will never, in all of your adventuring, acquire enough skill to work metal in that fashion as well as some master weaponsmith. BUT, maybe you can use soul magic in such a way that he can't. So, while he can fold steel like a boss, you can work essences of other things INTO the metal material, itself, like a boss. But you can't work the metal itself, because that requires oodles of physical metal-working skill. It's like chemistry. Just because you can mix things and produce different things doesn't mean you can shape and design tools out of them expertly. Also, for what it's worth, I'm not even suggesting directly copying Thaumcraft. I'm just tossing it out there for the consideration of P:E's crafting system, and for evaluation. All that aside, we definitely need a less bland crafting recipe system than the super-structured "you get ultra-specific new recipes as you go, a handful at a time" system that's seen in 99% of RPGs. You know, "Now you can make a steel longsword instead of an iron longsword, because you have 5 more points of Crafting skill." Then, "Now you can make a steel longsword of lightning, that does 9 lightning damage, with no variance, ever, because that's a recipe, and you know it now." Whether it's research, and/or various other means, there needs to be a sense of discovery and dynamics in the structure of recipes. Look at food. People modify recipes all the time. There are probably 1,000 distinct recipes for even something simple, like "pound cake." IF the game lets me make a sword, I should be able to figure out lots of spiffy different exact results to produce in making that sword. Not just "you can make Generic Longsword," which is sold by every merchant in the land and dropped by every foe in the land.

Ahh. My bad. I didn't know, and now I do. For what it's worth, I agree on that. In general, the name for a class has aesthetic quality, at best, and isn't really a huge deal. The ones that DO make sense as titles, though, should probably be made sure they don't sound silly and/or that they flow well. But then, they pretty much already do. Like "Paladin," or "cipher." In the Cipher update, for example, they provided the lore behind how the term "cipher" came to be used to describe them. And, that class is so unique, unlike "fighter," the term can actually be used to distinguish members of that class from others. So, yeah, titles and class names. Sometimes they overlap, sometimes they don't. If the game pays attention to titles/roles by which our characters are called, regardless of whatever our class name happens to be, then awesome, ^_^

News Flash: Eternity is not set on Earth. It's called fiction for a reason. They aren't Europeans, because NO ONE in the lore "are" Europeans. Sure, lots of the cultures draw from some real life stuff, but they didn't really base entire cultures on entire real world cultures. You can't say that the Vailians are somehow stripping blacks of their true African Heritage, because, where the Vailians live, there is no Africa or African culture. They never were from Africa, because they don't exist. If they made a game set on Earth, and/or in which there was an Africa, and an entire African culture, and all the dark-skinned people instead lived in a different culture from that, AND/OR there was also a Europe, and all the dark-skinned people were part of the European culture INSTEAD of the African culture, then you'd have an actual issue here.

Would this ability be called "Frontstab"? And would it deal .5X normal damage, instead of 1.5X like a BACKstab? Karkarov, I'm not sure who you're suggesting is putting too much emphasis on class names. As far as I know, Osvir and myself were merely rolling with the idea of titles (or whatever word you want to use); what people call you as separate from your class name, as most of the time (as you pointed out), no one's going to refer to you by your class name. That's not what class names are for. That's why I pointed out how silly it was that other games either just use them like nothing's weird, or awkwardly avoid using them without actually handling titles or anything of the sort; they refer to the fact that you're a fighter, or a rogue, but just don't use any particular word (i.e. "We could really use someone with your magical skillset" for a Mage, etc.).

Yeah, scantily clad warriors, both male and female, make fine sense. There are cultures and peoples who simply fight unarmored. What doesn't make sense is synthesized, metal armor that is designed to not only lack body coverage, but also to ACCENTUATE the sexual nature of that uncovered body. So, yeah, that's a bit of a tenuous subject. People go all "Hey, I can see her ankles! THIS GAME IS SEXIST!", and I have to laugh. But then, when armor is designed for the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, it really is a bit ridiculous. Plus, the heavier the armor, the more you're going to have it cover. Annnnywho... As for the continued inventory/loot issues... it's really a catch 22. You could just give all the common stuff no universal (monetary) value. However you want to do that: you can only sell so many rusty iron swords before the merchants don't want any more, or stuff like that just won't go for any price to begin with, because its cheaper for the blacksmiths to use their own materials and make their own weapons, and no one wants the weapons because they're so subpar. But then, people would ask "Why the hell do I even have the CHOICE of picking up this stuff? There's all this stuff around, and it does nothing for me!" You could just limit inventory, and have all the stuff you don't take disappear after 12 hours or something, or whenever you leave the area, but then people will say "Blarg! I wanted that stuff! Why would you make me choose?! And then, why should it go away? I left it where everything was dead already!" You give virtually unlimited inventory, and people say "Agh! I wanted limitations as to what I can take! I want what I pick up and what I don't to matter!" You give all loot items some monetary value, and give the player a need for money for oodles of things throughout the game, and now 7,000 trips into LootLand is a perfectly viable plan for monetary income. Then we're back to "ZOMG! This game encourages me to pick up all I can, because money!" And, I'm sorry, but the "players should get to play how they want" argument does not fit here. That's a valid argument, but not for this particular issue. It's a matter of design, and the inherent limitations that come with it. Would you play Super Mario Brothers, and say "Why can't Mario tunnel through the ground, and turn invisible, and summon flaming swords that he can then juggle around the screen, and cast magic spells, and why isn't the game in 3D instead of 2D?!"? No, you wouldn't. Because it just is what it is. If you limit inventory, you're mandating what can and cannot be done. And if you make it unlimited, you're simply mandating a different value on a scale. You're never NOT-mandating what can and cannot be done (aka "How players are allowed to play the game") via the game's design. Why can't you have more than 6 party members? Why can't you grow a third arm and wield THREE swords? Why can't you just GTA up the city, blow up all the merchants, and take all their stocks? There are infinite "why can't we" questions to ask, and the answer is "because finite game design."

I will second the "Hey, Team Eternity... if you've got something you want to reveal to ANYONE, you can totally reveal it to us" sentiments. As for the being "unable" to talk about stuff... they have their reasons, and I trust those. I don't want them to tell us literally every single thought they have on the game, because then we're going to get all overly excited about mere ideas that need to be changed so much they don't ever even make it into the game. But, yeah, I would love some kind of blog thing. Or even just "Hey, we don't have a single, organized, major update this week, but here are some little snippets from various peoples regarding little bits of systems they just wanted to talk about." Some of my favorite things to read are the little answered questions and blurbs about systems by Josh on here. I don't read them and then say "OMG, YOU SHOULD'VE TOLD ME A WHOLE UPDATE'S WORTH OF INFO IN AN ORGANIZED FASHION, OR NONE AT ALL!" I'd LOVE it if they just sort of went down a list of things that are okay to comment on/briefly talk about, and took about 10 minutes out of a handful of devs' time, and let them sit down and write a paragraph about something they're working on right now that they think is really cool or interesting. A concept artist could talk about an almost finalized concept for a creature or person, or one of the writers could talk about a faction or something. Or Josh or someone could just point out some nifty little system snippet. Or "Hey, look, we made shadows do THIS (screenshot) instead of THIS (screenshot) now! 8D! Honestly, go look at www.playstarbound.com, and you'll see that, almost every day, they post a little update about what they've done. Even if it's "Here's a new sprite we made" and that's it, or "we had a lot of trouble today, but we're still working on stuff. We've found a lot of bugs, but we didn't kill as many today as we'd hoped to, thanks to a few troublesome ones. See you guys with more info next time!" Just little things. Like... pretend all of us backers are some guy in the office, in a cubicle, and every day you just stop by, and have some coffee, and say "man, Defiance Bay is gonna be so awesome. I just got to do some more environment work on it. Check out these architecture samples! Yeah... alright, well, back to work I go." I say that encouragingly. I'm fine with the fact there was no update this week. I simply wanted to emphasize (as others have) that you CAN provide us with more info on a more regular basis without it being all super official and organized in a color-coded project binding. We're not a publisher, and we're not the masses. We already love the project, and we want to get photo texts on our phones of it taking its first steps and making silly faces (figuratively... like it's a niece or nephew or something). ^_^

... Or a video PLAYthrough! O_O Which, admittedly, would probably be a demo, and not a video...

I would like to respond on behalf of multiple, multiple people here with the biggest "No, thank YOU!" I can muster. I will also add that the bounds of my disappointment at the lack of expected update are surpassed only by those of my further escalated excitement and anticipation of the coming update, like a surge of lave bursting from the side of a volcano, colliding with a crashing ocean wave, forming cool, obsidian (see what I did there?) shapes and patterns in the turmoil. 8D

Yup yup. So you shouldn't just so HAPPEN upon a dock rat with a jewel-encrusted magic sword strapped to its back. Although, I do like it when, very rarely, you slay some manner of wild beast, and you find a handful of coins, or a ring, in its innards. Maybe 1 in a 100. Or on some "Find Fred" quest, where you have to figure out that Fred is now cougar food, using actual clues and deductive reasoning rather than simply finding "Fred's super-noteworthy tatooed shoulder skin patch" as a quest item.

Well, you see, it's the Inverse Property of Enchantment. The potency of the Enchantment is inversely proportionate to the amount of the body the enchanted item covers. Why do you think rings and amulets are often so magical? They're really just enchanted pieces of armor that physically only cover about .8% of the body.

I suppose it's loads better than destructive writing. 8P

Yeah, it's a REALLY basic system in Minecraft. And, of course, Minecraft has pretty basic gameplay systems already. I just kind of thought about how I generally felt about it, since you've still got the issue of going out, collecting things, and coming back with a full inventory, and you have to worry about what you're picking up and what you aren't. There's oodles of stuff I'm not even worried about anymore, because I have "enough" of it. If I've got 3 stacks of something in a chest back at my base, for research, then I don't need any more. I don't feel that I'm missing out on ANYTHING by not picking it up. Even something "valuable," like diamonds. I see diamonds, and if I've got plenty back at the base, I just won't mine them. I don't ever go "Gah... guess I'll have to make room in my inventory," or "Dangit! I was gonna head back to base, but now I've gotta stop and collect these diamonds!" But then, in a typical RPG, if you don't give loot monetary value, it becomes largely useless. I mean, maybe a handful of things have crafting value, or some use in quests, but most things are either valuable to sell, or worthless. I think that, at the very least, by giving almost everything some other value, you make things not NECESSARY to gather all the time, as with money (you always want money, because you can always use money to buy 90% of things from merchants and such). Also, there's a lot of redundancy, so you don't have "Oh no, I need to collect lots more Specific Item X to make a new thing!" In the Minecraft mod, you just need, say, fire aspect to make a new fiery item. There may be 10 different items with fire aspect. So it's not suddenly "Oh noes, drop everything and go hunt down super specific monster X to find item X so that I can make this." Granted, the higher you go, the more often you do need a few specific items. But, in the context of Minecraft, they're pretty much just found along the way (or made from stuff you find along the way). So, in the context of P:E, if you go clear out a cave, you're going to find useful things. Also, I'm not saying nothing should have monetary value. I just think it's interesting that in Minecraft, nothing does, and it provides a good view of all the other values and functions of items without the influence of "OMG THAT EQUALS MORE GOLD PIECES" urges. But, yeah, to put it simply, I think a lot of the crafting could feasibly involve figuring stuff out and uncovering things, rather than necessarily developing extremely fine-tuned dexterous skills. It would blend quite well with other means of crafting. I mean, if you complete a quest in an hour, why would you suddenly be steps closer to masterfully working a forge? But, you might better know technical info and/or recipe specifics to make a certain material or perform a certain enchantment/alchemical process. It makes a lot of sense (in a magical, fantasy context) and provides a lot of potential gameplay/economy benefits. Also, I'd LOVE to see some sort of crafting room/apparatus/interface that allows you to utilize multiple (maybe 3?) party members at a time. The different characters could have varying unique talents/affinities for research/crafting. Maybe it's tied to souls... I dunno. This is all just a foundation idea, so there are a lot of directions it could go.

^ I would only say this much: don't just allow the simple fact of your success with pickpocketing to warp your title as the public sees you. After all, the more successful you are at pickpocketing, the fewer people have any idea of your actions. So, like I said, I would just want to make sure it was tied to the reputation system. This would even allow for titles (such as "Thief") for which you didn't ACTUALLY perform the actions people believe you did (In the TV series, White Collar, main-character Neal Caffrey takes credit for one or more high-end heists that he didn't actually perform.), either intentionally or unintentionally.

I would definitely come up with a character who seems to have a lot of secrets and connections and influence, but really just loves to let people constantly make incorrect assumptions as to such. And/or, a Wizard character who was magically incognito as some easily-ignored elderly lady or something. So then, when his true identity gets discovered, everyone's all amazed and such, and thinks they have it figured out. But then, it turns out that this "true" identity was really just an elaborate, elaborate cover identity for the character's REAL identity. It would really be the hardly-ever-talked about sister of some noteworthy Wizard's apprentice. She used to sweep the floors and such, and was actually more talented than her brother, but she was all but loathed by everyone around, as her brother was the favorite, and blamed all his own mistakes and stupidity on her. So, one day, he did something REALLY arrogant and stupid, and basically sparked his own demise. The only witness was her, and she knew everyone would think that her stupid attempts at controlling her volatile "talent" had killed her brother, because of the veil of lies he'd spun around her for so long. So, she assumed his identity, and claimed that "he" tried to stop his poor, beloved sister from toying with forces she couldn't control, but she insisted on trying anyway, to her own misfortune. She's been living the facade, ever since. She uses the FURTHER disguise to allow people to discover her "true" identity, so as to prevent them from ever suspecting further secrets and catching wind of what really happened that day. She extorts her brother's identity and family standing to make things happen that will help those who are in anything resembling her own position of neglect and misfortune, as a child.

... and the tree... ... and the fire... Hey! One of my "qualities" made it into the "worst of us" list! 8D! You know, Sacred_Path... you forgot to mention how... "pun"ishing those 500 words would be.

He sure is. Musket-ballin'.

Abort! Abort! We've been compromised! *throws smoke bombs everywhere*

This is a bit of musing on crafting, but I just thought of some interesting things lately. I've been playing a lot of Minecraft lately, with basically a magical-stuff mod, and you have to research to discover specific recipes, and you craft things with a combination of traditional crafting (assembling physical items according to a recipe) AND magical crafting (almost alchemy; you break things down into fundamental components, called "essentia," and you reassemble these essentia into altogether different materials/objects). Most of the time, it doesn't really have anything to do with physical crafting. For example, you can "invent" the magical-affinity metal, Thaumium, via research. Then, you can make from it anything you can make from any other metal (swords, tools, armor, etc.). So, 2 main things here: 1) Crafting like this could address a lot of the "why would you go from being a nub to being a master armorsmith?" concerns and such involved with "regular" crafting. You could, for example, invent something like Thaumium, then take that, as simply a raw material, to someone who actually is a master of shaping it and crafting actual equipment. And/or, you could get equipment made, then modify it using magical means. 2) Research could be a very nice change from the typical "here are the recipes for things, and you just learn them as you improve your skill" thing. You'd start with basics, and you could advance what you want to advance through research. Want to learn how to make all the best metal/material enhancements? Research metal and materials. Want to make all the best potions? Research the various animal parts and herbs and such. You could still find/acquire any number of recipes through other means (and I sure hope you do, regardless of whether or not anything even resembling research is in as one method of finding out some grouping of recipes). Another notable thing? This gives loot items in the world value, besides just typical loot sale value. Two values, in the case of the Minecraft mod. A) I can use up things to research, based on their various magical aspects (fire, metal/ore, earth/soil, animal/life, etc.), and B) I can break those things down into those essentia if I need to make other things from them. In fact, these things don't even have a sale value in Minecraft. There's not really anyone to sell to. You can barter some things, as far as I know (somewhat random offers), but you can't ever acquire money that you then use to spend universally on any other things. So, it's interesting. I loot all the stuff I need, and the rest? I couldn't care less about it. "I've already researched the crap out of that... don't need it anymore." Or "I've got plenty of stuff made out of fire essentia, so I don't need that." Etc. I'm not saying we copy Minecraft here, and just use the exact same system. But, it did get me thinking. It's not your super-typical, bland "I just make slightly better swords and armor as I go along, out of slightly better and better metals" crafting, and it brings a lot to the table that could, at the very least, be considered and utilized to varying extents. Thoughts?

Speaking of the people like that ninja chap from ME3 who beat you despite being whipped by you, it would DEFINITELY be a better idea to have them be "supposed" to be really, really tough, and simply allow the player to POSSIBLY outsmart/beat them, and have that affect the outcome of that bit of story, even if it means that they get away unscathed or something. The simplest example of this I can think of is of those occasional boss fights in old-school turn-based console RPGs (like Final Fantasy and such) that, if you die in, the story still progresses because you were "supposed" to die. But, sometimes you can actually still win (though, in those games, it was usually just a matter of grinding your level up beyond reason before going into the fight), and the outcome would be slightly different. Granted, you usually just got bonus loads of money/exp, maybe a spiffy item you can't get any other way, etc. But, in a game like P:E, the outcome variance could be much more significant. Still, if you NEED the bad guy to maintain the upper hand in the grand scheme of things, there are plenty of varied outcomes you can allow for while still allowing for the overall narrative to continue in the same direction. It doesn't have to just be between "this guy whoops you good" or "you smite the crap out of him and thwart all his plans." Kai Leng! That's his name! <ME3 MINOR SPOILERS> The ME3 cyber-ninja. Yeah, somehow, he beats you no matter what, even though HE doesn't even beat you. A gunship that's somehow got an impervious flood light and cannot be harmed by any means at all beats you. So, basically... he's not any better than a single gunship, even though you've taken down like 3 of those so far since the first game. It's just rather silly. <END ME3 SPOILERS> It's as if the developers thought "Hmm, for the duration of this boss fight, we couldn't care less about how any of this fits into the lore or story or ANYthing. All we care about is making this a tough fight, with gameplay mechanics." Then, after the fight, they just have the story pretend it never happened. It just pretends you watched a cutscene or something, rather than participated in a dynamic fight. The fight allows for plenty of dynamics, but only one outcome. Anywho... I just thought that was a good thing to point out (when Nonek pointed out those annoying villains). Really, it just comes down to the fact that, it doesn't make any sense for them to just be invincible and "win" no matter what. Oh, you just sawed them into 7 pieces? Well, the story just compensates for whatever you did to get everything right back on the EXACT same track it was, with absolutely no differences. As in, the only two options are "this guy just kicked your party's arse, then laughed and fled," or "you just kicked this guy's arse, after which is threw some super-powerful bomb that you don't know why he didn't use before, thereby instantly kicking your party's arse, then laughing and fleeing." There's really no need for the arbitrary course correction. If you want to maintain the same course, then just write/design things in such a way so as to constrain the course variance to a narrower field. I don't mind some "linear"/definite aspects to a story. Like "The bad guys are EVENTUALLY going to get their hands on this ancient artifact." But, if that's so, then I'd like to affect how and when they do it, and I'd like how and when they do it to affect the course of events leading up to that, and the choices available to me, and the situations I've got to deal with.

@Osvir: I really like the idea of the game lore actually addressing how people react to your character and what they call your character. And, what with an already good reputation system in place, it would already make sense for your actual title to change depending on reputation. It makes me think of the George R. R. Martin A Song of Ice and Fire books, in which you have people like Davos being dubbed "The Onion Knight", even though he's basically a Rogue/pirate, or Sandor Clegane being dubbed "The Hound," both because he's ruthless like a wild dog, AND because he's sort of the Lannisters' guard dog. Though, those are a bit more precise than what I was thinking of as an "at least this" implementation for P:E. The Onion Knight title is the better example, as it's based on his reputation. Davos doesn't even really consider himself any different just because he's technically received a Knight's title, now. And most people call him that to mock him, saying he's the Knight of Onions, and asking where his onion crest is. He was knighted for what he did, and a lot of people respect and appreciate him for what he did, but they're not describing his occupation/"class" (if he were a video game character), or they'd be calling him "pirate" or something. But, yeah, a lot of games either just awkwardly avoid official titles altogether (substituting things like "obviously you know your way around a weapon" or "our magical friend here"), or pseudo-break the 4th wall by sort of tutorial-moding it up with gameplay-only class titles, right in the middle of serious dialogue. It'd be quite refreshing to see the reputation system handle the manner in which you're actually addressed. Even differently by different factions (some people would still just call Davos "pirate," some call him "Onion Knight," and some call him, respectfully, "Sir Davos.")