Lephys

LOLCANO! Best... joke supplementation... EVER! Also, I just want to back you in saying how great it would be to work in at least pretty accurate economics, political structures, etc. (with fantasy/fictional artistic license, of course), and that they wouldn't even have to be fully represented. What I mean is, you don't have to let the players directly play the economy, just to verisimilitudinously represent legitimate economic causes and effects as a result of quest/scenario outcomes, etc. A lot of it is simply having the lore foundation make sense. Even if something like the economy hardly ever changes significantly within the player party's little bubble of perspective, it can easily be quite coherent. And if something effects the entire region, or a whole city, etc, just have some economic change. That would be interesting.

So he splits casting durations (i.e. time to cast something) into 3 categories: immediate, short and long. These categorical stratifications are equal amongst all character classes (fighter, cleric, wizard, etc). I suppose this answers my question, except it begs the question: what percentage of a round (pardon the nomenclature) are immediate (this is obvious), short and long? You were right though, I was caught up on the use of duration and the answer to the question was right there. Now it's a matter of clarification. No worries. We're constantly putting our thoughts into words with oodles of meanings, and everyone sees words in different pairings and with different meanings with greater frequency than others. It just happens. 8P As Greensleeve said, they're just going to be specific increments of time, but they probably don't have the EXACT numbers finalized yet. I mean, instant will probably be instantaneous (although there might be some minimum amount of "stick out your hand to focus the ability" time or something... like .1 seconds *shrug*... like a reflexes/reaction time thing, so that you can't fire off some kind of instant counter-spell .0000000001 seconds before the tip of a sword strikes your face or something, I dunno). And then short might be something like 3 seconds, while long might be 7 seconds. Also, while this is mainly speculation, I would bet that those are going to be simply static BASE cast times. In other words, you'll probably have things that modify those. So that, some Wizard with a bunch of feats, or maybe who has really high casting skill or something, might have a 30% reduction in casting time. So, his would be just over 2 seconds, for short-cast-time abilities, and somewhere around 5 for long (again, purely example numbers, plucked from thin air). And someone else might have LONGER cast times. Or, buffs and debuffs might also affect this (things like haste, and slow). The reason I'm thinking that is that Josh mentioned penalties from heavy armor being applied to combat actions. He said they wouldn't slow your move speed, or affect spell/ability failure (like in DnD), but would simply encumber you by slowing your actions. This leads me to believe that a penalty would be applied to the base cast time of your abilities (Short abilities go from 3 to 5 seconds for that character, and long go from 7 to 10 seconds, etc.). It's very similar to how Mass Effect 3 handles ability "cast" times, only in that, weapons were the things that affected weight/encumbrance, instead of armor. Works pretty well, though. *shrug*

AKA, Potter Scar formation.

I'm sorry... Just as a quick aside, the "MC Hammer" would be an excellent sentient weapon. And by "excellent," I mean "hilariously ludicrous." It would rap whenever you attacked, and would require you to cease all action for a few seconds before beginning hammering. Also, I like where your head's at, Trashman. And you can definitely have zoning AND immersion in the same game. But they're still distinct. And yeah, immersion involves the player sort of placing himself into the experience, as something resembling himself (some manner of sentient being to which he can relate). It's hard to feel like a Tetris block. I mean, sometimes you can zone and SORT OF "be" the Tetris block, but you're not really relating to the Tetris block, or feeling like you're experiencing some sort of life from the Tetris block's perspective. You're simply blocking out reality's stimuli with an imagined zone involving nothing but the mechanics of Tetris, like you said.

Agreed. There should be a new class, like the Cipher, only using interpretive dance as the source of their powers rather than audible chanting. The Vailians would be masters of this class, and then would have all the best custscenes. 8P

Wait... you're telling me that Kaz and the P:E dev team didn't invent the idea of short, humanoid people with longer ears, as well as the dignified, serious standing pose? Well now I'm upset... T_T

The symbol could be some kind of paradoxical hourglass, in which "sand" (probably representative of the soulstream or something) is flowing in both directions at all times.

@Amentep: All I'm saying is, arbitrarity would ideally be taken down to zero (as if by Captain Planet, or... Captain Purpose? ). I'm not even worried with comparing one specific arbitrarily missing thing to another. @Fearrabbit and Karkarov: For what it's worth, I honestly don't think there's any reason for being able to "randomly" kill children, either. Or non-children, for that matter. Just as with the arbitrarity Amentep and I were mulling over, I think there's no actual point in worrying about the ability to kill children for no reason at all. It's pretty much going to result in what is effectively a game over. Everyone will hate you at that point. Even the main quest people should. Unless you literally kill every single person who witnessed anything at all... even then, there's going to be a big investigation, etc. That's too big of a thing in the eyes of the rest of society. *shrug*. Even if you somehow do it elaborately and get away with it, it serves pretty much no purpose. The only remaining issue I'm pondering is simply "How do you let players kill children non-randomly and not have the same situation in a smaller dose?" In other words, if you have a specific, story-supporting quest/scenario in which a child can be harmed, unless you still magically prevent the player's fireballs and such from producing any harm to the child, you're STILL allowing the player to kill that child "for no reason." In other words, if we're just assuming "well, we're not worried about letting you arbitrarily kill children," then how is intentionally killing that in-harm's-way child any less arbitrary? And, if the player is PREVENTED from harming that child in any way, then does the scenario not suffer? Again, if you can burn the entire building to the ground, all you're going to kill is the bad guys, why would you ever worry about doing anything less than burn the whole place to the ground, and why would the bad guys even worry with specifically targeting an area populated by invincible innocents in the first place? Sure, THEY (baddies) could still attack innocents, and you could still stop them, but, that just narrows the possibility range by a ton, seemingly only because of the concern of ever allowing the player to harm children. Does that make sense? I would like people's thoughts on that. I'm not trying to say "No, see, all the stuff we just said before, and whatever you were arguing for? I'm saying the complete opposite." No, it's just a further concern, is all. With the very same issue. Just something I feel is worth considering, and am interested in hearing more than just what's floating around in my own head about this.

To address the "rounds of combat" concept from IE games, I'm fairly certain they've said that P:E will be fully real-time, and not round-based. So, no worries there. With that being said, I believe Josh was simply being concise. Out of the two options in the question, his answer was the second: "everything will take equally long to use." Except the answer is more precise than that, so he elaborated. Everything will take one of three (in the design thus far) "casting" durations. So, all short-cast abilities will take the same amount of time, all immediate-cast abilities will take the same amount of time, and all long-cast abilities will take the same amount of time. However, an immediate-cast ability will obviously take less time (essentially none) than a long-cast ability. So, his answer is either "neither" or "both," basically, however you want to look at it. Is there still something that remains unclear? EDIT: Ohhhh, I see. The word "duration." Yeah, it's used very often to refer to effects, but a "duration," alone, is still simply a period of time "during" which something is occurring. In this case, he's referring to "casting duration." Thus the "we will probably have three casting/ability use durations" bit. He means the time during which you are still in the act of using/casting the ability.

My apologies. I mistook the mood of that statement, 8P. Also, I don't know what to do, other than reword previous arguments, when my point so strongly seems to be misunderstood. Even if my point is flawed, or even stupid (and I just don't know it/see it), it's one thing to be corrected or have that flaw pointed out, and another, entirely, to have counter-argument after counter-argument presented that still doesn't really touch on the same thing I'm touching on. In other words, even if my point IS understood, and it's simply some discrepancy that's causing me to feel like it isn't understood, then, at the very least, that discrepancy is going uncomprehended. Now, at a certain point, maybe there's just nothing more to say to aid in any kind of further clarification of anything. Maybe I'm an idealist, though, but I fail to believe that there's anything two people simply cannot comprehend, even if they still have different feelings/thoughts on the matter once they do comprehend it. Good, bad, flawed, flawless... what I've been trying to point out this entire time is definitely a thing. No one's said "here's why it isn't a problem," or "here's how I think it should be handled, and I don't think that would be a problem." Just "no, that's not even a thing." If I've seen a mirage, then it would be great for someone to say "I recognize that you saw what you saw, but it was actually a trick of the light reflecting off the sand that produced that image," and not "No, you didn't see what appeared to be water." I'm much more interested in why we aren't on the same page than I am in whose point is better. Just for the record.

There's a very large difference between disagreeing with someone and simply telling them "you're wrong." Just because everyone doesn't see that doesn't make it not so. Granted, I AM working on my realization of when further typing simply becomes fruitless. I'm only human... -ly programmed.

I realize you're joking, , but I'd just like to point out (because a lot of people keep coming back to the "fulfilling player's desires to brutalize children" notion) that this isn't about satisfying players' urges to assault children. It's simply about allowing harm to come to children, at all. Even if you want to force players to be good (because attacking children is so morally despicable to us humans, who comprise the player base), if you line the streets with children, then prevent even the "bad guys" from harming them, then you're preventing the game from even encouraging the OPPOSITE of child-harming (which is the prevention of child-harming). If children just aren't in the game, then so be it. That's a bit weird, a world devoid of children. If children ARE in the game, but are invulnerable, then so be it. When we get to that quest in which some murderer is holding an entire church full of people hostage, I'll just douse it in oil and light it ablaze, because I know the children will be completely unscathed. OR, I'll shout "Little Timmy! Attack him! HE CAN'T HURT YOU! LITERALLY!" through the window. Maybe no one ever takes children hostage or puts them in any danger, whatsoever? Awesome. Just how far are we gonna go here, just to make sure that players who might actually sadistically enjoy virtually attacking virtual children with a little avatar don't get their wish? That's my point. The consequences are worth considering, not simply ignoring. Even if you don't let children be attacked in a game, are you preventing people from WANTING to attack children in the game, from being mentally sadistic? Not at all. It's not as if we're controlling the very idea of child-harming by simply not allowing for it in a video game. There's no option being voted for here where the game lets you play a child-torturing mini-game, or lets you cut a kid's arm off, then pick him up and throw him at his mother while the rest of the village applauds and shouts "ANOTHER! 8D!".

Unless you're suggesting that everything in the game could conceivably be arbitrary, and that there'd be no problems with that, I don't really see how this "problem with this argument" somehow makes the consequences of arbitrary game design decisions any less of a concern. I mean, are you not suggesting a problem with the seemingly arbitrary nature of his not-killing you early in the game (BG2)? Wouldn't it have been better if he had actually had a reason not to kill you, or if he had simply killed you (insofar as no longer being nonsense, but not insofar as the game ending being good at that point)? Also, if you parallel this with my own example, then whether or not the villain kills you would be equivalent to whether or not people attack you in civilian-populated areas. If the villain kills you, the game is over. If people attack you in civilian-populated areas (namely because they hope to use the vulnerable civilians to your disadvantage), the game isn't over. So, there's not really a good reason, inherently, for that NOT to happen. I would point out, too, that what I'm getting at lies more in the difference between "this doesn't happen in the game" and "this can't happen in the game." How do you really know one from the other? What if the villain of BG2 TRIED to attack you, but failed? You just took no damage, or it said "Invalid target" to him? He just kept casting fireballs at your feet, and nothing happened? You don't think that would be different from his simple lack of attacking you? Maybe he had a reason. Maybe he didn't. It's still probably better, from a story-being-presented-to-a-player standpoint, if the player at least knows (eventually) of SOME good reason for him to not have tried to kill you early when he could have. And, on the other hand... what are the odds of someone simply not attempting to murder you, versus all hostile people in the entire game never ever attempting to attack you while there are civilians around (The "this doesn't happen in the game" scenario, instead of "can't")? Are cities and towns filled with nothing but righteous, infallible people and immortal guards with impenetrable defenses, and only people OUTSIDE of the cities and towns could possibly ever produce a conflict? Man... the rulers in that world sure are sitting safe.

*Applies aloe vera gel to burn* You actually skirted my entire post, except for the mostly-just-a-touch-of-humor supplement at the end, there, which you apparently decided to "critique". No feedback on the reasoning I presented? ... Bueller? ... ... ... Bueller?

As far as handling past stories being told (like the game's intro simply presenting some history/lead-up to the player, etc.), I REALLY like the sort of "events being acted out via living ink on a page" style used by Guild Wars 2 and I THINK Dragon Age 2? It's almost like the page is Mario from Super Mario RPG, and it can't talk to you, so it just acts out the story via charades, but in a really artistic manner... and there's a narrator. But, as far as in-game stuff? There doesn't need to be very much that simple scripted events inside the in-game engine can't handle. Especially since it's not really a 3D game. No need for cinematography. 8P

One of the issues with "immersive" might be that some people think "but wait! Some people weren't immersed! You said that game possessed the constant quality of immersion!". I think when we say "immersive" game, we're talking about factors that support immersion; that make it more easily achieved, when it is sought after. It's like... calling something "malleable." Play-Doh, versus steel. Steel is plenty malleable. You just have to apply a LOT of force, and/or heat. But Play-doh, relative to the capabilities of the average person, is much more easily shaped with minimal effort. Immersiveness is simply a property of something. Like sweetness is to food. Sure, some people don't like sweet things. But that doesn't mean sweet things aren't sweet. If a game is set in a rain forest, and it actually accurately depicts a rain forest, and has accurate animal sounds and a good variety of animals, that game is "more immersive" than a different game (also set in a rain forest) that just has a big desert environment with some trees. It's not because you, as a human being, are supposed to like rain forests. It's because it supports the imagined experience of being in a rain forest. Look at it like this: If you're camping, and you find a fire pit already dug, with stones around it, and a big stack of logs nearby, and a fire already set up, then all it needs from you is a spark. IF you want to start a fire, that's a lot better of a spot to be in than some other site with no pit, lots of foliage, and nothing but 3 soaking wet logs lying around for fuel. If you have no interest in starting a fire... well, then there's not even any evaluation going on, now is there? "This is a TERRIBLE place to not-do-anything!"

I'm pretty sure that, throughout history, people have employed the "Ha-hah! You can't attack me without killing all these innocent 'shields' around me, but I couldn't care LESS about all these silly people!" tactic. It's pretty simple logic to baddies. "I'll employ a factor that gives me an advantage." So, I'm not going to say the world HAS to have this in it. But, it seems like a pretty forced thing to just say "Nope... no one in this world, run by fallable humans, could EVER have the means or desire to execute some plan utilizing the innocent populous as counter-attack deterrents." Not to mention, you can't even have any kind of specific scenario in which you need to save an endangered child without: A) Allowing sadists to intentionally allow the child to die OR contributing to its death, OR B) allowing ONLY the enemies to damage the child, and thus rendering the danger of the situation somewhat moot. I'd say a complete lack of conflict in areas populated by innocents, in general, is a larger concern, but the endangered child scenario is just something else to think about.

You haven't said that. I didn't intend to suggest that. It just sometimes seems as though instead of simply saying "I see what you're getting at, but here's why I'd say that's not as useful as you'd think/here's a problem you may not have seen" or "I think this is what you're saying, but could you confirm?" or something, you kind of skip straight to the "I'm going to only respond by pointing out what I think are merits in the thing I'M advocating." Almost as if there's only value in one or the other, even though that's not said. And, yes, I admittedly am not the most precise discusser, but I honestly try really hard. I just often think things much more precisely than I realize my words actually convey, and I try to clarify, but sometimes I'm clarifying the wrong thing, or clarifying in an unhelpful way, and then the point becomes even less clear because of how it's read. Anywho, if you ever just aren't picking up what I'm putting down, please, by all means, just ask me. I welcome the help in making my ramblings more interpretable. You can totally call me out on not seeming to make any sense, but if you don't actually say that, and you just say "That's incorrect," then I'm just going to assume I did make sense, and you're simply understanding a different point than I'm actually making. I just don't know what else to do until someone points out otherwise (my brain has weird protocols). I'm glad we're cool, honestly. I don't want us to stop ever having disagreements. I'm just interested in keeping them as focused as possible, whatever part I can play in that. And lastly... I am? Oh... s-sorry... o_o.

Ahh. My mistake. I agree. Strangely enough, however, it almost seems like there's a difference here between the lack of inclusion of an option (like... you can't just run around destroying all objects in the world) and the active exclusion of an option. For clarification, I merely think that, if NPCs are killable for no reason at all, then kids shouldn't be excluded. If you want to exclude kids, why not exclude all innocent humanoids? Then it'll be just like objects in the world. You can't just burn down forests and smash walls, but you might be able to burn CERTAIN things, and smash CERTAIN walls, when there's any shred of a reason to. Another thing to clarify (mainly for the discussion at large, and not as prompted by anything you said) is that having a reason to kill someone doesn't mean the game either makes the obvious choice to kill this person or it doesn't. If there's a situation in which there's a probability that someone is not who they say they are, and is lying to you about stuff, and is planning on harming someone else who is innocent, that provides a reason for your character to kill that person, as opposed to absolutely no reason for your character's psychotic behavior. Now, you could still act before you knew everything, and end up killing an innocent. But you killed them for a reason. You just weren't very smart about it, and/or didn't care much. Maybe your character just overly trusts the word of certain people, so that someone's claim that person is really bad was reason enough. *shrug* Just wanted to point that out, so that no "wait, only people you're supposed to kill will be killable? That denies an awful lot of scenarios and messes up immersion!" arose.

Cursed text tone. I fear you mistook mine in that first bit, McManusaur. My point was along the lines of "You can jump off a cliff in a game, and you get a 'game over.'" Why is this? Because that act renders playing the rest of the game impossible. Floating around as a ghost for the rest of the narrative would sort of prevent you from getting much of anything done. So, yeah... I can't really think of how to eloquently word it, at the moment, but I was basically trying to point out how, even if people "get their immersion," I don't think it's really anything they'll want. Ehh, it's sort of like how those games with ultra-clever DRM do things. If you pirate the game, you get to play it, but the game basically screws you over (deletes your save and ends your game just before the end, randomly "glitches" so that various attacks instantly kill you for no reason at all, etc.). I dunno, though. There is some sense in "IF everyone else is killable for absolutely no reason at all, why not children?", from a functionality standpoint. It's not like it'd be extra effort to make children killable, as they're already in the category of NPC people, who are assumedly already killable. Now, if NPCs aren't attackable/killable under any and all circumstances, then children also wouldn't have a reason to be. Basically, I agree with "why would anyone really need to be able to be a serial child-killer just to reinforce their immersion?" But, at the same time, I don't see much of a leap between children and adults, there. The slaughtering of random, innocent people -- child or adult -- is equally as senseless in such a game. Even when you adhere to immersion, the result is a functional "game over," even if the game were to continue on and allow you to keep playing.

Medieval settings. "Wha... there's not even a BRIGHTNESS adjustment! All I have is 'SFX -- on/off' and a text speed slider!"

Fantasy, as a media genre, holds a narrower meaning than fantasy, in general.

Yeah, I mean, as horrible as child-killing is labeled by society, I don't think the sheer ability for virtual adolescents to die in a game in any way encourages players of the game to bring about that death. I mean, if they are simply invulnerable, then when would you ever need to PROTECT them from, say... the orcish onslaught? So, by sheerly removing their mortality, you're removing scenarios that even allow for the bolstering of the idea of preserving child life above all else. Then, what if you simply can't hurt them, but the enemy can? Well, there's nothing to stop you from leading crazy orcs into the streets of the town, and intentionally luring them over near children, so that while they kill everything in their path, they kill the children. The other alternative, of course, is to simply have no children in the game, whatsoever. And/or arbitrarily exclude them from any and all hostile scenarios that could ever arise. But, that's even worse than having them around, and simply making them invulnerable, in some ways. *shrug*

In case it doesn't show, I DO value your input on these forums. I think we both get a little passionate about our points, but, this isn't some kind of "no you're wrong and I'm right" scenario. I'm not trying to get to prefer what I prefer. I simply appreciate when what I bring up is acknowledged as something to be considered. A lot of stuff you said actually helped me think about my own points and stance on the matter from different, new angles, and that only helps my understanding upon which to build a more solid stance and make even better points. Doesn't mean I'm flawless. But, I tend to point things out that I see, even if I don't know everything about them. But, it's a bit daunting when it feels like people are just trying to say "you're imagining things," rather than "there's a little more to it than that, but yes, you are seeing something there." I've played games in which the soft time limit was in place, the whole time. You can even still have regular time flow. Honestly, in the long run, you have to go out of your way to actually notice a disconnect. That's why I kept pointing out the nonsensical person who spends eternity (no pun intended) shopping, or rests 800 times before going out of the town after a quest. No, it doesn't HAVE to be done that way, but I think it works quite well. It's all abstracted, to a degree, unless you literally make every single thing in the game have a time limit. Didn't collect those flowers in time? That person couldn't make that concoction, and everyone who needed it died. Didn't get that cat out of the tree in time? It starved to death. Didn't get to the weapons merchant in time? He sold all the good equipment. Etc. Even that wouldn't be "wrong." I just think it would be unnecessarily consta-urgent. Urgency serves a purpose at times. But, at other times it doesn't serve much of one. I think being intelligently selective about when time-passage actually affects thing around you and when it doesn't works very well with an RPG that isn't trying to be a 1:1 simulation of verisimilitudinous real-time life in the game world. That's all. And I think there are reasons for me to think that, and I'm not just whipping it out of thin air, and making all this up. And that doesn't mean that there aren't any reasons to think other methods work, as well. I hope that makes sense, and thanks for the intellectual opposition. I would honestly love to collaborate on types of scenarios that could greatly benefit from ticking timers, and types of scenarios that maybe could benefit more from a bit of abstraction, in the grand scheme of things, instead of butting heads in an "there can be only one!" fashion, because that isn't my intention at all, and I apologize if I've been difficult or made it seem like that. I can try harder not to do that in the future. Like I said, I agreed with you absolutely on the burning barn scenario.

Sense is not my own personal construct. This doesn't make sense. To me, if I observe sense. You did, it would seem. Inequality already exists. In a world without magic. Some people are strong, some people are weak. Not to mention the plethora of other factors that can all independently vary, as you pointed out. So then, we're gonna toss in an extra factor. We've got a realistic world, and now, *poof*, we added in magic. Uh oh... but everyone who gets a certain amount of Strength always gets that amount of MAGIC, as well! Despite the fact that everything else is an independent factor, these two things are friggin' quantumly entangled. Why? Simply because "why not?", apparently. Simply because there's nothing "wrong" with this. Let's just exponentiate all existing differences in power by arbitrarily applying a rule to the world that those with power get bonus power, and those without get even LESS power. Nope. You never said that. And that's not the point I'm making. You're correct that everything IS possible with magic, and my point is that we do things for reasons, possible or not. It's possible to write "a novel" that doesn't have a single coherent sentence in it. Just string a bunch of random words together. Why don't we do that? Because, without an intelligent design, the novel is pointless. Why? Because it's intended to be used by people, who like sense. Sure, some people don't make sense, but a novel isn't for them. When's the last time someone wrote a novel specifically for psychos? In other words, the very reason you have rules and limitations to intentionally avoid this "problem" is the EXACT same reason you use to implement your magic into the world in the first place. Annnnd back to the actual affects on a stat-based character system in an RPG, problems arise, beyond simple "this is nonsense." If one stat gives you two power boosts, and the rest of the stats boost mainly individual things, then you've got an imbalance on your hands. Also, for what it's worth, politely responding to someone who took the time to postulate something isn't "trying to get the last word in." Trying to get the last word in is when you don't already have a reason for saying anything, but you just want to forcibly have said the last bit on the matter, because it makes you feel better. If people would rather everyone just ignored everyone else, then awesome.