Lephys

I HIGHLY doubt the Shared Pack has any chance of being infinite in size. That would literally defeat the purpose of the Stash. "You can't access anything in your Stash, but you can ALWAYS put it in your Shared Pack, instead, and access it whenever! 8D" I think they only meant that they're not sure exactly what finite size to make it.

I agree, . Might even be interesting if the money was entirely made-up. Like... some crystals or something, that get cut into coins, or other convenient shapes that stack and/or fit together, and can be carried/stored easily. Maybe the crystals are rare and/or necessary for something important to the world's civilizations. I don't know. I'm not very good at lore-smithing.

Logic is heavily math-based. Even morality attempts to quantify, to a degree. "If I kill this one guy with a deadly and contagious disease that we don't know how to cure, this entire village of people will live. Even though it's killing, it's still doing good. 500 vs. 1."

I don't fault you for misunderstanding me here, but, that paragraph was not meant to be standalone from the rest of my post. I was referring only to quests/scenarios designed with "how you deal with this affects the entire rest of the game" stuff. Like "Ohh, you picked the wrong rooms, so you ended up siding with Faction A and getting NPC C killed. If you had HAPPENED to take a different route, you would've ended up with Faction B and NPC C would've lived." You know, objectives that are "failable." Chance is fine for "do you happen to get 200 gold pieces from a chest, or do you happen to get burned by a trap?." The labyrinth example was figurative. I was saying I didn't want actual "how do you want to handle this situation?" quests to be reduced to chance-labyrinths, with random/arbitrary rewards and punishments.

Something just tells me ancient viking warriors didn't just say "Guys, it's okay! We can all have long, Thor-like manes! Just make sure you bring your scrunchies, and whip those bad boys out whenever we think there might be trouble afoot, u_u." Not to mention that, as an adventuring party in a medieval fantasy RPG, you wouldn't know when you were going to run into trouble and when you weren't. AND, buns and such can still be grabbed/snagged. If armor can't hint at torso structure, then hair can't be allowed to give your enemy advantages. Seasoned danger-handlers simply wouldn't allow it, just as seasoned armor-makers wouldn't allow minor breastplate variance.

Arcanum is actually Eternity: 40K.

Yes, but it's illogical to know you don't know something and decide to know it anyway. "I saw that ship sail off, and now I can't see it anymore, THEREFORE THE EARTH IS FLAT!" isn't logical. It's logical to consider that possibility. But, to see that same ship return from "off the edge of the earth," and still just go "Well, everyone says the earth is flat, so I'm still gonna go with 'the horizon is the edge of the flat earth' here" is pretty illogical. In other words, the absence of doubt isn't logical. "Just believe this and never worry about anything ever again" is the suppression of logic.

Yup. Even if you're just gonna let the players sculpt whatever they want to, you've still gotta give 'em clay. Players don't like to invent their own clay.

Babysitting/escort type missions/quests makes me think of a good context point: Don't make things TOO complicated, for the player, that is. The reason I bring this up with such quests (you're probably scratching your head right now) is that, sometimes, during those, the AI is SO terrible, or the mission design is just SO brutal that you're not really given enough control over anything, as the player, to have your choices really produce a range of consequences. Basically, how to not-fail at the task you want to achieve (preventing that escorted person from dying) becomes an enigma, because effort and tactics seem to do little good. Then you find out some obscure thing, like "Ohh, if I cast 17 protection spells on this person, then have them stand in a corner, and aggro enemies in small groups, and kill them all, I can totally do this without him dying!" Essentially, make sure you don't make the quest "deeper" simply for "Ohh, see it's not so simple now"'s sake. Along these lines are those quests in which you just kind of have to eenie-meenie-miney-mo stuff to determine your odds of success. You took the left path instead of the right, to approach the town? Well, if you went left, you JUST SO HAPPEN to find out a bunch of important info regarding the handling of this situation. If you went right, you're pretty much effed. You missed your chance. You should've gone left, even there there wasn't any logical deduction to be had there as to which way to go. No clue as to which way might've led to actual info. As complex as you wanna make it is fine, but if you don't allow the player to be able to figure things out. And, by that, I don't mean "there's always a happy ending, and you're always in control of everything." But, there should at the very least be an opportunity to figure out what will help you have more control and knowledge of the situation and what will not. I don't like it when "complex" quests get turned into labyrinths of rooms in which you can't backtrack, ever. Some contain treasure, some contain traps, and when you reach the edge, you exit, no matter where the exit leads. So, it's just coin tosses. You might go through 10 rooms of traps, then leave, accomplishing nothing but almost dying. Or, you might go through 10 rooms of treasures, then leave through an exit that's conveniently only a brisk walk away from your next destination. If the complexity doesn't actually allow invested effort and thinking to pay off in any way, then it's for naught. As others have touched upon, this almost encourages save-scumming. If the only way to control the situation is via manipulating chance, then your choices are A) replay this 80-hour game 15 times and hope you don't go through 15 rooms of traps every time, OR B) keep reloading and figure out where the good routes are. At that point, they might as well give you the Dagger of Time (from Prince of Persia).

I just thought of something! In battle, you'd never want to have long hair, as enemies can grab and pull it, and it can snag on things. Therefore, all our characters should have shaved heads, as long hair would be preposterous. Bye bye, hair options at character creation. u_u Also, solution: Boob plates that are mounted in such a way that they break off very easily when hit, 8D! Man we're good! High fives all around! GO TEAM!

^ Gonna hafta agree with AGX on the logic thing. 2+2=4. If you want 4 things, and you have 2 of them, then you need 2 more. It doesn't matter if you're a robot or a human, much less a religious person or a psycho or an emotional person. Logic is an inherent structure/relationship woven between all things in the universe, both tangible and intangible. Most morality is actually logic-based. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." That's one of the most logical things ever. Hell, that's at the heart of OODLES of concepts, like equality, etc. We all use SOME degree of rational thought (even though a lot of people, admittedly, use very little, as they train away rational deduction and focus on simple religious/emotional absolutes due to a PLETHORA of psychological and external factors). It's also why we have the status of "crazy." As in literally insane. It's like a computer glitch in a brain, kind of. You hallucinate and thing people are gargoyles and are trying to kill you, even when they're calmly sitting in a room and drinking tea? We call you insane. Obviously, there's a flaw in some logical processing of your brain (much like a computer that's rendering improper things on the screen), and it's showing you what isn't there. Stuff like that. The main problem comes with people thinking up things like "Well, logic isn't always good. Some people know that the logical thing is to get something done, so they just kill anyone in their way to get it done, and justify it with logic." Well, that's not logic's fault. Logic said "Logically, this should occur." That person took it upon themselves to fill in the blanks with less-than-perfect deductions that they gave logic credit for. It's the human psyche's tendency to impatiently wish to simplify and know the unknown that leads us to all these "absolute" forms of religious morality and such. The point is, logic is often what leads us to decisions of morality, but that doesn't mean logic just tells us what's moral and what isn't. It's more complex than that, and plenty of people think they've figured it out before they have. Sometimes, maybe it can't actually be absolutely figured out. Maybe you can only get as close as you can get. But, logically, either some things should happen and some things shouldn't, or everything should or shouldn't happen and nothing actually matters except to our individual whims, in which case, we're all just seeing what we can do before we die, like one big MMO in which we don't get to make corpse runs. Right and wrong were not invented by religion, however. They exist without holy or demonic power, or posessions, or deities.

Interestingly enough, the Captain Planet bit was much less of a joke than the Skyrim reference. 8P I've even got plenty of copyright-dodging names for him: General Nature Corporal World Lieutenant-Colonel Gaia Commandant Humus Admiral Aedyr ^_^

My bad. I misunderstood. Yes, that is my opinion. I just feel it's extraordinarily silly not to just have the option to play without the limitation simply do away with the need to rest in the first place if it's going to be unlimited, rather than require you to actually click rest after every single battle when you'll never not-be-able to do that. At that point, the resting mechanic, alltogether, is rendered moot. That's all. For what it's worth, tl;dr versions don't work. I do that, people say "Why? How? Where in the hell is the reasoning behind this?". I don't do it and elaborate, and people say "Why did you go into detail and explain why you felt how you did? Just use like 5 words, man!" It's a lose-lose, for me. So, I just do my best. And, for what it's worth, on the topic of doing away with limitations, there are certain limitations that the game is in no way obligated to provide a bypass for (such as finite health, or mutual exclusion in dialogue/story choices, etc). That's more a tertiary point, though.

Neither was Mithril. 8P

It sounds like they'll kind of just be patterns of the phrases, as customly assembled by the character. I mean, I'm sure there could be default ones. I don't know if the game's going to force you to go in and actually assemble them, lest your Chanter just stand around in combat muttering the same phrase over and over and over and over... ("You never assembled a chant for me!"). But, it also sounds like the specific sequence of phrases, in conjunction, will enable a specific shout. So, it would actually be interesting to know exactly how that's designed. I mean, Aefyllath Ues mith Fyr 5 times in a row wouldn't be as effective, like Josh said, as 5 different phrases. BUT, what if that same phrase 5 times in a row enabled an immensely potent silencing shout? You could cone-blast a handful of enemy Wizards with that, and BOOM! Any verbal-component spells, rendered useless for like 15 seconds. Oh, the possibilities. ^_^ Okay, Easter Egg proposal... Have little piddly, obscure quests to find the words for "Earth," "Fire," "Wind," "Water," and "Heart." And have them summon General Nature. Or, you know... we could throw in a "Fus... Ro-DAHH(ahhh-ahh)!" in there somewhere.

I now have a mighty need for staff slings to be in the game. o_o

I fail to see how discussing possible ways to handle positioning during a scripted event is off-topic. o_o And yes. I actually live in a cave, and I carve a small tally mark into the wall every time someone comes along in these forums and agrees with me. ASSIMILATION IS INEVITABLE! RESISTANCE IS FUTILE! You WILL think what I think! *eye glow*

Definitely succeeded in the "not just copying Bards" respect. What if the shouts produced different effects depending on what phrases were still lingering in the area of effect (the cone)? I know that's pretty vague, as they could do any number of different things. Just a thought. EDIT: I felt I needed to elaborate a tad. I was just thinking along the lines of the shouts "activating" further aspects of the lingering phrases. Almost like a physical manifestation of the effects of rhyming or otherwise tying together phrases and words in a poem or tale, as opposed to simply saying both phrases with no particular connection. So maybe shouting with phrase A lingering could cause multiple foes to immediately be knocked to the ground, whereas the same shout with phrase B lingering could cause them to be merely stunned, and their weapons knocked from their hands. The shout is knocking things, but the lingering phrases would lend influence as to the specific effects of the knocking. Yet another phrase, in conjunction with the same shout, could leave them on their feet, but push them far away. Agh! I missed that you said "after the chanter has spoken a number of phrases." Obviously, that probably determines what manner of shout you gain access to. So, that kind of handles the diversity I was getting at. Silly me...

I'm not sure you're capable of comprehending points that you wouldn't have already made, yourself. I think anything more on my part here is wasted effort. If you want to be narrow-minded, that's your prerogative, and there's not really anything wrong with that. It just doesn't support discussion between us, is all. Good day to you, sir *tips hat*.

Let's all just not address opinions that aren't already our own. That seems ultra-constructive in a discussion. But, hey... to each his own.

That's what I was thinking. I mean, I claim noobness when it comes to knowing the details of what was actually historically used, and how exactly it was designed and wielded, etc. But, I didn't think plate armor was meant to nullify the effectiveness of any direct blows, but rather to mitigate the force of blows with weapons that would normally annihilate the human body (like a blade). Basically, blade cuts flesh, but blade does not cut plate. Now the enemy must use something else. I mean, you can pierce a truck door pretty easily with the right tool, and I didn't think full plate weighed 174lbs and was 1-inch thick. Obviously, MOST things aren't simply going to puncture your armor. That was the point. But it wasn't because no one could conceive of any way to puncture such impenetrable material. It's kind of like how, in World War 2, everyone was all "Oh no, tanks! Better use explosives to get past that tank armor!" And Russia was all like "Pssh, we're gonna use rifles to just pierce it if that's okay. u_u"

Maybe you can only rest down in a cave somewhere if you've got sufficient provisions. That's your limit. They'd be easy to get when you're in-town (there could be a little default provisions "grocery" list that you can tweak if you so choose, as you go through the game and come upon different types of food and medical supplies, etc). Basically, I don't think the focus of the system should be micromanagement, as many have said. But, you'd be limited by how much you can carry and how long it lasts before spoiling (even if this is abstracted a little, since I realize food won't just be fine for 5 days, then instantly spoil). And, of course, there could be various extra benefits and perks to picking and choosing specific provisions and supplies over others, weighed against cost and capacity, etc. But they wouldn't be anything that would just hinder your ability to get through the game if you chose to pay only basic attention to your supply stock every time you went to town. So, you run out of provisions... well, maybe now you can't "rest," because, without food/water, you're not going to decide to lie around for 8 hours while your wounds heal up and you slowly starve. You're going to keep moving to get to a water and/or food supply, THEN you might rest. So, if you're way down in the middle of some cave or dungeon, you can't just rest unless you find some more provisions for your party. BUT, this doesn't mean you couldn't ever rest without proper provisions in-stock. Survival-y characters (like Rangers, or anyone with enough Wilderness-type skill, really) could hunt/gather and allow you to rest, but maybe it's not as effective. Maybe you only regain 50% of everything you normally would, since you don't have proper meals and hydration and/or medical supplies (Wilderness skill stuff could find herbs and such for poultices, but they wouldn't be as effective as they wouldn't have time to be processed into proper medical provisions). AND/OR, it takes longer to recover. So, you could still rest with just berries and water and a few herbs on your wounds, but you might have to rest for 14 hours instead of 6 or 8 to recover fully. OR even only to recover partially. Maybe medical supplies determine how long it takes to recover (to whatever extent), and food/drink provisions determine the extent to which you can recover? If you've got awesome bandages and salves, but piddly amounts of foraged food, your body's probably not going to repair itself as effectively whilst you rest. *shrug*. Just some thoughts. I don't think we need to force the player to manually eat the food, and/or apply salves, etc, though. Just choose what to buy or not (in town), and maybe what to use when and what not to use when (if you want to preserve your provisions for a longer trip, etc.).

But leaving holes is like taunting the enemy's aim! You've lulled the enemy into thinking they've found your weakness, when really, you've trained your entire life specifically to counter attacks to your axillary artery. 8P

There's definitely been a growing association between simple character progression ("leveling-up," etc.) and the term "RPG." But, I think an RPG's all about influence/reactivity by the player. There's a world and a story, the everything in a bubble around your player is in flux, and depends upon what you, the player, specifically decide to do with it. You can even change history via your character, as you can often decide your character's background as it actually affects the world and the story. You don't just go through the game choosing between lists of the same thing -- take this path or that one, kill this guy or that one, use this weapon or that one -- which you can do in oodles of different genres, but you actually choose between DIFFERENT things that produce DIFFERENT effects and make the story and world and characters all a unique reaction to your role-playing. I agree with McManusaur that there are spectrums. I mean, how is something a role-playing game, yet completely devoid of anything that is even REMOTELY part of another genre? There's no action or adventure in the game? You just go around playing an action-less, adventure-less role? Probably not. There are even shooter RPGs, etc. I think it's kind of like you said with the spectrum thing, that a game is typically more complex than a single genre code can cover. Granted, there are a lot of games that only have a sprinkle of RPG in them, even if it's legitimately there. But, I think as long as the game provides the interactivity with the story, world, and entities inhabiting that world that it's supposed to, no amount of action or bullets or drama or racing or aliens or strategy can simply negate its RPG status. It's kind of like... if you put some diced up strawberries into some vanilla yogurt, then stir them, is it no longer vanilla yogurt? Well, you could call it strawberry yogurt, but the vanilla yogurt's still vanilla yogurt. The two didn't chemically fuse into a new substance that no longer possesses properties of vanilla yogurt. They're simply 2 flavors co-existing now. Maybe it's better because of the fruit, or maybe it's worse. But, it's not a 100% different entity.

Gfted1... You do realize that you're basically saying "there is no differentiation between what constitutes playing a game and what does not, except people's silly opinions," right? So, a player fires up P:E after it comes out, and decides they wanna play it by dumping a bucket of water on their computer. Only, this just fries the crap out of everything and the game stops functioning. Man, who's the jackass who decided that we had to play P:E by not-dumping buckets of water upon our computers?! The ridiculousness of that example is intentional. How water functions when dumped upon operational electronic devices is not up to anyone's opinion. It just works that way. And it's the same way with logic and rules, and the very idea of gameplay that can be failed. That's why things that remove limitations are typically called "cheats." Because there are established rules for any game, and breaking those rules defeats the purpose of the game. So, either "You can only recover your HP and spells so often" is a rule, or it isn't. There is no point in making it a rule, then saying "you never CAN'T recover all your stuff, but you can only recover all your stuff whenever you're allowed to." What's even stranger to me is that I pointed out that I don't mind someone playing the game by completely choosing to not even have a limitation, thereby accomplishing the same thing in a non-illogical fashion, and yet you're still acting as though I'm "trying to get people to play the game only the way I would play it." Which is silly. If I were trying to do that, wouldn't I be against the idea of lifting the limit on HP/spell recovery in the first place? I genuinely do not comprehend why you think this is some kind of opinion battle, and everyone's trying to simply invoke their will upon other players. The laws of nature existed long before anyone ever thought them up. They merely observed them. Everything in the world isn't made out of opinion.