Lephys

Haha. That guy's not even FEMALE and the chest of his breastplate protrudes! *realism referee whistle*

While I don't understand why you'd want to turn them off, from a "you shouldn't have to work at something that your character already intuitively knows" standpoint, I guess something like that could be toggle-able, just for more challenge? But, just so you're clear on it, the suggestion isn't for your character to simply always know where everything is because it's harder for the player to figure such things out. It's to have things that your character WOULD intuitively know be marked for your character (to represent the idea that you already know it, rather than having the player spend 15 minutes searching, with mouse-and-topdown-view, for something on the ground, or some identifiable marking that your character has easily been able to see for the past 15 minutes). If it's done right, you shouldn't really ever feel the need to turn it off, at least not for the reason that it's arbitrarily taking away your need to actually discover and search for things. You'll just only have to search for things that are unknown in location/aesthetics, rather than having to do it for EVERYthing.

I'm confused... There's a bountiful amount of horizontal space, and significantly less vertical space, so it's actually more prudent to shrink the inherently smaller dimension than it is to shrink the blatantly larger one? "Oh, you need some furniture? Well, I've got like 800 couches, but I've only got like 2 armchairs. You'd better take one of my armchairs." Let's just do math. Let's say the screen's 7x5. That's a screen area of 35. If you cut a unit off the vertical size (slice along the length of the screen's top or bottom), you get 7x4. That's an area of 28. Going back, if you instead slice the same-size unit off the width of the screen, you get 6x5. That's an area of 30. I'm not seeing how shrinking the smaller dimension is more beneficial than shrinking the larger one, if you've got to shrink one or the other.

Yeah. Questions such as "Who says the chainmail out in the wilderness is A) known about and/or B) available at the same time that the quest is able to provide chainmail?" Only-some-things-considered, you're absolutely right, though. If you'd like to consider the rest of things, instead of ignoring me and acting like I'm just make-believing there's actually a point I've got that you're not only not getting, but also blatantly asking me to provide good reasoning for, that would be awesome. ... When you've got stuff he wants. You COULD carry an umbrella around all the time, or you COULD only do it on days when its cloudy. On days when it's sunny, you're out the freedom of not carrying around your umbrella all day. In regard to merchants, if you COULD sell those 3 weapons you found in your current town, for 300 gold, but you want to travel for 15 minutes to a different town to sell them for 325 gold, then IS it a better choice, automatically? Sure, the gold value is higher, but that's not the only factor at play, here. Maybe you could've used that 300 gold for some better equipment or other useful items, to prevent you from taking so much damage on the trek to the next merchant. Maybe not. It's based on circumstance. It has dynamic value. If sawing your left arm off always got you 1,000 gold, and not-sawing-your-left-arm-off got you no gold, would sawing your left arm off ALWAYS be a better decision than not doing so? Clearly not. Let me make sure I get you here... Managing party resources (that happen to be the party's health and such) for more efficient damage/combat-effectiveness payoffs = totally awesome! Managing party resources (that happen to be the party's sellable items) for more efficient currency payoffs = not only terrible but also completely unrelated to anything we're even talking about. *scratches head*

I suppose. I'm admittedly lacking in IE-game specific reference knowledge. I never played Torment (I know, I know... I was in that "I only get to play cool, new games at my friends' houses" phase during which we didn't own a very good computer and my game budget was tiny for a while), and all I played from the rest of the IE games was either too little and/or too long ago, leaving me with no memory of the specific story/quest details. I admit my noobness. But, yeah, I'd rather the thought process go "Hey, this person in the world might actually need something here, for these story/reactivity-related reasons. Maybe that could fit in a quest presentation to the player somehow?", and not "Hey, obviously we need a quest here for the player to do stuff and get stuff in return for his stuff-doing. Maybe we could just make someone 'need' some stuff, so that we have that quest?" I just don't think they've become sigh-worthy "fetch quests" simply because they're quests that involve technical fetching, but rather because they're typically so inorganically included in the game. What'd be even MORE interesting is if these situations involved people simply having a need, and your abily to meet that need in many different ways. Maybe someone needs arms and armor, and you give them axes and chainmail. So they train with that (because they can't really turn down arms and armor in favor of specific ones), and that affects how they fight later on, and what part they play in some larger scenario. Obviously they're not going to be providing ranged support if they've only got axes and chainmail. Etc. Maybe you give them oodles of invisibility potions, and their simple militia is able to infiltrate some post with almost no casualties. Etc. I think that's another part of fetch quests oversimplification: "Here's this person's problem, and they already know how to fix it, and you can either fix it for them or don't." Why is the world so simple, that you just need 10 loaves of bread, today, right now, and your family will live on forever and do really well from here on out? Or you need 10 iron swords, and now your milita is well-outfitted and good to go, but if I hadn't given you 10 iron swords, you'd've all gone into some battle anyway and died? What about all these daggers and bows and weapon parts I have lying around? Or this 700 gold I have? Nope, you JUST want 10 iron swords? Alrighty then. THIS feels totally like a believable world. 8P

I guess what bugs me about even not-so-terribly-implemented fetch quests is that the fetching always seems to be forcibly facilitating something else. It's just always so specific. Or if it isn't, you just get a thanks, some gold'n'goods, and it doesn't impact anything. Typically, that is. Obviously it could. But, why does this healer need some herbs, that rumor has it can be found in this cave, the path to which is frought with appropriate-challenge foes and other contextually convenient things? That sort of thing. Why can't they just need herbs? And not really expect anyone to give them herbs? - Don't "You there, adventurer! I'm in so much distress! I've really been waiting for someone to come along and ask me about my problem in greater detail!" me. - Don't always attach your needs to some other quest/specific situation for no apparent reason other than that this is an RPG and it flows nicely for the player hovering outside the game world. - DO have actual impacts on contextual lore/narrative elements, ranging from positive to negative, blatant to mysterious, immediate to belated, extensive to minor, etc. I guess what I'm getting at is, the need of material things doesn't have to be an afterthought. "I need turtle eggs... SO THAT YOU CAN GO AND FIGHT TURTLES! 8D!" Or "I need some swords... SO THAT YOU CAN GO INTERACT WITH THOSE SOLDIERS WHO CARRY SWORDS! 8D!" I just think a more "this is stuff going on around you, and it'll react to what you do" approach is in order for such things that often get packaged into simplified "fetch quests." So much more could be done with all that, and already is, but not often all consolidated into one approach throughout the design of such things.

Well, I mean, mail, and even plate, are so beneficial mainly because they eliminate the range of angles/forces that can cause horrible damage to you, right? I mean, you knock a guy in the heaviest full-plate down on the ground and go all Link Kneel-Drop on him with a sword, and I would think even a 10-year-old lad could easily pierce the plate with a durable enough sharp projectile. The point is that, during active combat, with stances and shields and formal combat movement going on, and barrages of arrows coming at you from an entire archery unit, you have a MUCH higher statistical chance of deflecting and/or otherwise shrugging off the actual damaging effects of those arrows or sword blows, etc. The edge of a weapon or arrow/bolt gently carressing your arm or striking you across the abdomen isn't going to result in damage to your actual flesh, since armor is much less slice-able. However, a good thrust to your abdomen, or an arrow/bolt fired square at your breastplate that strikes head-on (with enough force, sure, but not a CRAZY amount of force) is going to penetrate the armor. Even if the armor still absorbs some of its force before as it penetrates. It's still surprising to see in action, I suppose, especially blatantly pointed out like that. But, I'm not really surprised that it's not actually that difficult (in terms of sheer capability) to pierce all manner of armor. It's just that you're limited to piercing it (or mauling it... or maybe giant-axing it enough times), and it's significantly harder to successfully deliver the appropriate blows (because of angles and movements and turning and the shape of armor, etc.).

^ You broke the forum frame, Mcmanusaur. Impressive.

Just because you don't NEED to take advantage of pricing differences doesn't mean that you can't potentially gain something from taking advantage of pricing differences. Please un-narrow your mind for a minute. Please. Actuall -- read -- this. And even think about it. I'm asking you. What you're saying is the same thing as "If one outcome of this quest can have you end up with a set of Mithril Chain, but you don't NEED that quest outcome to obtain Mithril chain, then there's absolutely no point in the option of that quest providing you with Mithril Chain; it's completely insignificant. The only two options are that its insignificant, or that that quest is the only way to get Mithril Chain, in which case you're COMPELLED to make sure you get Mithril Chain out of that quest." If you CAN get something at a certain point, at a certain quest, then cool. You got that, and you spend your money on something else. That's one unique experience for that point in the game. Otherwise, you don't get Mithril Chain, and if you still want Mithril chain, then you easily have the ability to obtain it later, with money. Even if you can go buy it, right then, after the quest, the differences are still there between getting it for free, as part of a quest resolution, or having to buy it. It changes what else you can afford at that point in time, and the order in which you decide to go tackle other optional things, in order to do things such as raise enough money to get some Mithril Chain. I don't know how else to point this out... If one character has 10% more hitpoints than another character, the game doesn't have to REQUIRE someone to have those extra hitpoints to stay alive in battle. If your characters have 10 HP, and that one guy has 11 HP, the game doesn't have to have enemies that deal 10 dmamage for that extra HP to be significant. Why? Because at any given point in time, you MIGHT take 10 damage and remain alive, because of that extra 10% "insignificant" HP. So it's not insignificant, because it is potentially significant. Things aren't just absolutely necessary, or absolutely meaningless. That's now how it works. An umbrella on a day it's not raining. Pretty pointless... under those given circumstances. But, much like an entire playthrough of a game, life consists of multiple days, with completely varying sets of circumstances. So if I have an umbrella (a metaphorical extra 10% money), then when it DOES rain, it becomes significant. Doesn't mean you HAVE to have an umbrella. But the umbrella isn't pointless. When rain is falling, it stops it from falling on you, and keeps things dry. You get that benefit, when the circumstances are right. Just like taking advantage of some price differences throughout the realm. If you do it, then you'll benefit, at some point. But you don't NEED the benefit. It just changes the rhythm of that playthrough. It's no different from efficient party management in combat. One person might play on Normal difficulty, and use 5 potions in one battle to stay alive (purely for example... I know this isn't necessarily how P:E combat will work). Another person might just make super-efficient use of their party (totally optional, as the first person obviously proved by getting through that battle with those potions) and only use 1 potion. Boom. They made better use of their resources than the other person. They now don't have to make another trip back to town for more potions, and/or can spend their money on other things, and/or can continue farther on because they avoided so much damage. Does that mean it's insignificant, and we should somehow remove the dynamic effect of party management efficiency from the game? Of course not. Pricing dynamics are no different. I really don't understand why you think something is either mandatory, or meaningless, and there's no in-between.

Are you saying that evil characters are all pedos? Not at all. Just that all evil characters are King Solomon.

It's just that you directly described mechanics as merely the tools with which the player interacts with the game. I merely wanted to emphasize the fact that mechanics encompass more than that. In other words, if the overall aesthetics are a bowl of ice cream, the mechanics would encompass the spoon (as opposed to some other utensil), as well as the properties of the ice cream (how cold it is, exactly how the spoon is able to affect it, the boundaries of the bowl, etc.)

I'm a huge fan of providing (when appropriate) oodles of directions, signs, and landmarks in lieu of typical golden trails/minimap guide-arrows/quest markers (although... if your character knows the exact description of something/someone and that thing/person is within their sight range, maybe some kind of indicator wouldn't be silly? Glowy outline or arrow? It's a bit silly when your character can spot some perp at 20 feet, but the player can't see enough detail to know who's who, so you have to jog around talking to everyone in the room just to "spot" the right person.). And I've gotta say... Reading "streetnames" in the title just made me think of this: "*Points to Barbarian with twin axes across his back* This is Thorildir, but around here, he's known as Chops."

What about evil characters? Shouldn't we be able romance, marry, and halve children?

*Hypnotizes you and removes your enjoyment of hoarding potions.* Hmm... I may have misconstrued your meaning.

Ouch. I hope people realize by now (with all the Summon Extremely-Minor Humor spells I cast all willy-nilly) that I mean that type of thing in a joking way, as opposed to an "OOOOH, SUCK IT!" way. I mean, the point still stands (morph-weapons being imbalanced does not mean morph-weapons are inherently unbalanceable). But I didn't really mean it in a hostile fashion. 8P. I'm just a sillyfolk.

Or shocks/stings you when you lie. Or maybe it just shrinks (the piece, itself) when you lie.

Insects have hiveminds. It's not terribly infeasible that nature might not have some kind of over-arching life force/"will." Plants have always been kind of like biological robots, while people are like biological AIs. It's not necessarily automatically the best idea ever or anything, but I think it's equally as likely to be a good idea as it is to be a bad one.

^ That's actually a really good test. Strip your person naked, and see how well they fare in combat. If they still just laugh at 10 people attacking them (not talking about fights in which your abilities allow you to annihilate all foes from a distancein one blow, or otherwise avoid incoming attacks all-together), then there's probably something wrong. At the very least, if your character is THAT capable at naturally mitigating/absorbing incoming damage, then armor is redundant. "Your naked character actually now has 700HP instead of 100, and a base damage resistance of 15 instead of 3. So now, we've upped the enemies' damage and HPs to keep them on par with you. But wait! You can also have equipment, which increases YOUR damage and toughness by even more. So let's make yet ANOTHER adjustment to the foes to make sure they're still within a decent challenge range in comparison to your own abilities." How's about if you're naked, that sword hurts really badly, no matter what? The same sword, that does the same damage. Now, sure, when you start out and are an apprentice Mage or some novice soldier, you might be less generally apt to shrug off damage/concentrate despite taking damage (mage). And abstract mild increases in HP or even toughness, over time, reflect this. But, I think this is reflected even better with something like Stamina (so way to go, P:E!). You got a gash on your abdomen, and you didn't collapse and cease functioning, leaving you there to bleed out. That doesn't mean the gash is less deep, or that you got any less cut by it. Also especially in P:E, thanks to the soul-force aspect, it makes even more sense for that to add an extra layer of reason for HP/toughness to increase. Maybe the strength/conditioning of your ability to tap into your soul makes you even more resilient. In reality, martial arts masters, at the very least, have far greater control over their muscles and such to be able to block attacks that would've normally splintered small trees, escaping with only mild bruising instead of broken ribs. So, it make sense that some kind of intangible force (like soul "strength" or what-have-you) could also be conditioned/developed just like muscle conditioning in martial artists. There's also the aspect of ki (chi?), etc. But, like I said, I've seen scientific tests of martial artists delivering attacks that could easily dent a car, and others stopping them with naught but their muscle-control (not super-giant dudes with 7-feet of muscle to act as a simple mass shield to stop bones and internals from taking the damage). Anywho, the point is, there's reasonable basis for some amount of vague, abstracted toughening to go on, but you don't really need to become some kind of passively unslayable thing simply because you're experienced.

I see what you're getting at, but the mechanics of a game (especially as they pertain to gameplay) go beyond the input toolset available to the player. Mechanics affect what you can and can't do, what happens when you do and do not do certain things, and they affect your very decisions on what to do and how to do it. They affect both things within your control AND things beyond it. In other words, the mechanics allow you to control your party in a battle. But they also lead the player to determine HOW to use the tools available to him to get through that battle. They're a much larger part of the "aesthetics of play" than I think you're realizing, rather than being a completely separate aspect of the gameplay. For example, the mechanics of the dialogue/scripted-events system not only dictate your available options in a given dialogue/event, but also directly affect the sense of reactivity and the aesthetics of play in relation to how you approach dialogues throughout the game and how reactive the world "feels."

I actually agree with pretty much everything you said here (shortened your quote for brevity). I think what I meant by "money sink" wasn't very clear, and I really shouldn't have even used that term. I was thinking more of a very simplified definition of "something that money can be spent on." Like... the stronghold, for example. It's optional, but it was sort of being referred to as a money sink. Something that, if you so choose, is going to actually give you a use for your money, and, therefore, against the total potential income you can get throughout the game, give your money some actual strategic value. In other words, I agree with the general idea that you kind of have to balance, to some degree, the income potential in a game with ways to actually use that money. If you always get 7,000,000 gold throughout the game, and there's only ever 500,000 in costs, total, throughout the game, then you've got a problem. But, yeah, you really could just go the other way around: when you've got something that costs money, then balance the income potential so it's sufficient. It does get a bit tricky, though, when you've got a bunch of optional things. Because, you want a Mithril Longsword to be rare/costly, for example, but you also want there to be enough money in the game to be able to cover all the stuff you can do with a stronghold (which is probably WAY more costly than a single weapon). Well, if it's easy to get the money for the stronghold, but you don't do the stronghold, then now you've devalued the Mithril Longsword, because of the ease/potential of income. So, yeah, I don't think anything should just be designed to force you to "sink" money for no other reason than to balance the "economy." But, if you zoom out and just look at the entire game, the game actually requires you to spend some amount of money to get through it. There's not a certain specific set of options you have to pick, but there is a minimum amount of expenditure involved across a range of options. So, in thinking of the things you have to spend some amount of money on, and the optional things you don't have to, but lose something for spending them on, I understand the label of something as a sort of monetary counter-weight. I think maybe "sink" is misleading, like I said, but it's kinda tricky to pinpoint this idea. At least for my feeble brain. So, if something actually serves a purpose other than money balancing, then I don't really mind if it ALSO serves the purpose of money balancing. That's what I'm saying, I suppose. Once it's a secondary objective, that means another objective was already met, so that "money sink" is never going to be pointless.

Yeah, it's not so hard to learn to make a sword. It's tough to make a high-quality sword. Hence, we have another potential function for durability that addresses/handles the "OMG how can my adventurer make equipment when he doesn't have time to become a master smith?" question: The stuff you make kinda sucks relative to the stuff awesome smiths can make and you can buy. Of course, if you just think of merchants/smiths/prices from existing games, and toss in this notion, it's not going to work at all. But, if you factor in completely different prices and a completely different implementation built around this design, you end up with the norm for incredibly high-quality stuff being rarer/pricier, and your own craftable items being a lot cheaper but far less durable. At least then, it's a lot easier to have spare weapons and such. Even in the typical durability-is-just-a-thing-that-ticks-down-with-equipment-use-and-makes-stuff-worse system, this would be loads better. Of course, I still think any durability system needs to go beyond that.

So your point just a moment ago wasn't "if prices differed, you'd obviously be COMPELLED to go out of your way to take maximum advantage of all the pricing differences?" I guess we just imagined those direct quotes from you. And MacManusaur and myself clearly never said anything about regional pricing not single-handedly depriving the player of sufficient amounts of money unless they rabidly scour the land for optimal prices. Your argument still seems to be "See, IF a player does everything he can possibly do (out of a list including lots of optional things) in the game that possibly earns him money, then the price differences are insignificant! Therefore, the price differences are, inherently, under all circumstances, insignificant and pointless! MUAHAHAHA!" Okay, maybe the evil laugh wasn't actually part of your argument. I just thought it was a nice touch. Sorry about that. But, yes, your argument, seems to be, fundamentally, "since certain circumstances negate the significance of this setup, I have deduced that all other circumstances that DON'T negate it are irrelevant, u_u" Correct me if I'm wrong, please.

How's about Beta Backer? Maybe the initial people were alpha backers? Err... Reinforcement Backer? You know... the battle's already begun, but they join in anyway. Reinforcements are important to battles. So that's not as negative. Though it's also 7,000 times less catchy.

... I see what you did there. . The answer is affirmatory. . For what it's worth, bandages don't actually heal you. They just keep your body's natural healing process from being impeded in its efficiency. Now... I dunno about mysterious bandages. They could do all SORTS of things.

I appreciate the feedback everyone. To clarify, I'm simply suggesting that, instead of looking upon fetch quests and saying "I think giving people things is lame," that we maybe look at what makes fetch quests lame. I think it's the "fetching" part, as well as the "quest" part. I think the quest makes it a fetch. What I'm urging is for such factors of reactivity to be approached almost like optional objectives that aren't actually tied to any particular quest. I realize they might still be called "quests" in the game, or go into a journal or something. Another example that's very similar to the idea I'm getting at is the "supply this faction with stuff" type mechanic, where a need for some supply is expressed, and you choose to either try to give what you can when you can, or you don't. There is no "Travel to this cave and get me this particular number of these particular things, and then the quest will be complete, and something will happen because you completed this quest, and I shall give you things 8D!". You drop arms and armor in a box or something. And, later on, after you've done some stuff/traveled about and the world has had time to "update," so to speak, the factor of "how much arms and armor this faction had" is checked, thanks to your contributions (or lack thereof). You see, their having stuff will inevitably change things, but they don't know exactly how much they need, or what quality of equipment they need, or where you can get it, or exactly by when they'll need it. And, nothing happens when you put a certain amount of stuff in their supply box. They don't go "chaching!" and a little checkbox appears in your quest journal. Granted, these situations are often annoying, because you don't really know what measure of impact you're having on things. But, this could easily be remedied with some more-immediate reaction from the person checking the "donations." Anywho, I just think the idea behind cliche fetch quests isn't actually abnormal or crazy or inherently lame and uninteresting. It just gets implemented that way, because they typically become just some optional thing to do whose sole purpose is to supply the player party with an optional gain-producing quest. "Well, fetching some things doesn't take very long and isn't as extensive as other larger quests, so this makes for perfect optional quests if you just need some extra money or cool things! ^_^" I like to think there could be factors -- whose connections to the larger picture we cannot see -- throughout the game that are simple things like this, and it would be optional ways in which to "spend" your resources as opposed to simply selling things or using them yourself. So, it's not "give guy 10 swords and they'll give you a bunch of money." If they had a bunch of money, wouldn't they just go buy 10 swords? No... if you have 10 useful swords (for using, or for selling, or for breaking down for materials), you can opt to give these to someone else, if you so choose, who will put them to some kind of use in some other manner. And they won't be completely standalone. I would expect you to be able to find out varying bits of info about a given person in need of something. Some would be individuals, some tied to factions. Some with clear motives, some not so. Some would alter something on down the road a ways, and some would produce an exclusive scenario the next day. Amounts would often matter, too. Give the healer some herbs, then say "eff this... I don't have time to gather any more herbs, or I'm going to use the rest myself, or I'm going to sell them 'cause I need the money"? Well, maybe the fact that she got SOME herbs allows some certain individuals to survive the plague later on, but not others. *shrug* It's not like I've thought out every single possibility. It's just an idea on a forum that I've spent a good half-hour or so pondering thus far. And again, I'm not claiming it's utterly unique and unheard of. I just think it's specifically different from the typical implementations of these situations/"quests", while drawing valuable similarities from many other existing aspects of RPGs.