Lephys

Oh, worries. I hereby sentence myself to wear a large, scarlet letter "A" (for "arse") upon my person at all times, u_u...

It was rather simple. Especially with the same 5 demon types over and over. I don't know if anyone else has read any of the Wheel of Time series, but there's a dreamworld in that called Tel'aran'rhiod that's remarkably similar to The Fade, but was used far more interestingly. People's dreams were actually separate, individual things, but they could, from time to time, touch the dreamworld (usually for only a few seconds at a time). Also, in its natural state, it mirrors the real world. However, since the real world is always changing, things shift in Tel'aran'rhiod the more those things are moved and/or altered in the real world (desk papers move between surfaces before returning to a stack where they began, doors are open one moment and closed the next, candles are tall and lit, then melted down to stubs and unlit, etc). Likewise, the more stationary they are in the real world, the more static they are in the dreamworld. The idea, I think, kind of mimics that shifting nature of dream transitions. You know... you open a door, and it leads to a meadow or something, even though, just a moment ago, it lead to the other room. Also, the whole "I have no idea how long it's actually been, nor how long it's even supposed to have been, exactly, in this dream" thing. Annnnnnywho. Made me think of it. 8P There's also a "fast-travel" realm called The Ways. However, there's a seemingly invincible dangerous thing there that's corrupted the entire place, and it's all beyond pitch-black to the point of the darkness actually consuming light, to an extent, and everything's falling apart. The interesting thing there, though, is that it isn't a system of portals straight to other places, but rather, a sort of shortcut "highway" system of bridges and paths in a realm in which time passes much more slowly. Someone, long ago, apparently discovered that realm (which was empty, I suppose?) and took advantage of it.

I realize I'm about to take crap for this, but I haven't actually played a ton of RPGs (that would be close enough to P:E's type) that included planar travel. I mean, I played both Baldur's Gates, and I believe both IceWind Dale games, but I never actually finished them (as I never owned them... always played them at a friend's house). I even played a little of ToEE. So, really, the closest thing I can think of, off the top of my head, is Diablo. In Diablo, you took a portal to Hell, itself, and even Heaven in the 3rd game. Not to mention that city toward the end of the second game... I think that was a different dimension, or it was the suburbs of Hell? I can't remember exactly. Oh! Dragon Age: Origins (and 2, I suppose). The Fade, in those. Of course, I'm all for some examples. Whether or not I've played and/or finished a game does not in any way alter the objective functionality of that game's setting. I think you're both mistaking the physical-plain-familiarity I'm suggesting my example for utter normalcy, AND assuming an unnecessarily-high strangeness quota for an alternate plane to have in order to be an alternate plane. Look at sci-fi, with its actual alien worlds. They still have ground, and atmospheres, and weather, and organic life, yet they're hardly the woods outside some medieval fantasy village. The elemental (or others) planes can even have shifted physics and other natural properties, yet they need not be designed by MC Escher just to qualify as "not the regular worldy place." Of course, I realize that a game like P:E probably shouldn't have as much involved planar/dimensional travel as a game like Torment (or Diablo, going back to my most-likely-piddly reference above). However, I hardly think it would be a sin, or in any way problematic, to include otherworldly realms in the lore of the P:E world (maybe tied to the deities, or some of them at least?), and bump into the occasional "Oh, great, we've got to enter THAT place to get some answers? Who KNOWS what'll happen there...", or "Crap! They took her through that portal!" moment. I mean, to say "Nah, best to just do without any alternate realms of any sort" would be to restrict the game's lore from even HAVING any alternate realms. And, in a game that focuses heavily on a world with cycling souls, I'm not sure that's even possible to avoid in some form or fashion. What's the point in the lore including even a single alternate realm/plane if no one ever interacts with that realm/plane in any way, shape, or fashion during the entirety of the game? So, yes... it doesn't have to be an entire extra-planar nation-city that you quest through for 20 hours, but it can be in the game and even enrich the game by being there. elaborate plz See above. Planar travel, as it pertains to P:E (thus far), is a bit like firearms. I wouldn't want to see a class based solely on the arquebus, yet that doesn't mean I want to see precisely zero firearms in the game or it's ruined. Somewhere between "... this is a cave" and "WTF WHAT IS EVEN GOING ON?!" is a nice happy-medium implementation. That's the same factor involved in everything that's implemented. "How large do we want to make these cities? We don't want a whole world made out of urban-ness, do we? But, we don't want just a huge wilderness with no civilization. So where, then?" "How fantastical can soul powers get before it gets ridiculous? We don't want flying deathgods, but we also don't want fictional powers that provide, at most, an increased resistance to indigestion." Obviously, the first step for the implementation of planar travel would be "Where/how does this fit into our world? How much is too much, and how much is not enough? How strange should the realms/planes be whilst retaining enough of the familiar?".

I see, youre just trolling me. You win, I fell for it. Ahhhh, my bad. *facepalm* I completely forgot I worded that like I did. That was pretty terrible wording. 8\ Yeah, all I meant was that, as things, such as the HP/toughness of foes, decreases the relative effectiveness of an arrow, so should your character's progression and abilities simultaneously increase the effectiveness of that arrow (as it's used by your character). I owe you an apology, good sir. Being the one who conveyed the sentence, I didn't even realize that part was so easy to misconstrue until you pointed it out to me just now (even though you did, in fact, include that part in prior quotes). Then I forgot I even typed that "...as the HP of foes..." bit. I've been on overnight shift this week, so I've been extremely tired, and that's STILL not even a good excuse, heh.

I believe he was exaggerating for effect with the "15 minutes" thing. But, I will say that you'd probably be surprised how quickly they can do such things. It might take a day or two, honestly. For something so simple. "This circle that's already programmed to display in all these instances simply gets a different color value in all occurring 'What is the color of this circle you're displaying?' fields throughout the code." They've already coded colored circles, at that point, and they've already coded menu options with checkboxes that already modify the already-coded code. It's not like they have to break out their code lathe, and hand-sand some new circles to perfection, while a guy in the other room manually creates the font used for the menu option using popsicle sticks, while yet a third person arduously invents the checkbox.

Basically, if you can't stand to spend more time than is required to heat up a frozen dinner, you get a microwaveable dinner. If you want to spend the time to procure ingredients and cook everything, you get a lovely, handmade dinner. Either way, though, you get dinner. I think that's how it should work. Lore conveyed simply enough for those "Oh, so these people are at war with those people" types who just want to get on with things with the minimal amount of details, while complex lore is readily available for those who want to figure out the 17 ways to deal with some sticky situation, or locate the ancient king's tomb within the catacombs, etc.

Your definition of "theoretical" is accurate. Your fabrication of my apathy towards any examples whatsoever is inaccurate. My point is not theoretical, because you, yourself already acknowledged that it HAS, indeed, been done well. I'm really not trying to be this technical, but I'm simply catching what you're throwing at me, here. See, now this is just pointless. You give "because they're always such a crazy change in locale" as a reason for disliking planes (or, rather for the disjunction that creates in the game's setting), so I point out an example of "not necessarily." What do you do? You simultaneously acknowledge that such an example does, indeed, accomplish its task WHILE criticizing it using a completely different set of criteria. As if you can't make a non-mundane cavernous/naturey dimension? Your failure to imagine an alien enough place that still uses the familiar object-types of plants and mud/rock formations is not my responsibility to overcome. Of course, I would gladly cooperatively discuss such design possibilities, if you weren't explicitly trying to act as though I wouldn't know a valid point if it hit me in the eyeball. In other words, how to make sure a game region/locale isn't too mundane is something I would worry a lot about if I were actually designing an entire game and not simply pointing out a tiny portion of inaccurate reasoning. And why do you keep referring to everything as "theoretical" now? Is there such thing as a non-theoretical design of a fictional thing? "In the ACTUAL design of the plane of Earth, it wouldn't have any of your theoretical stuff!" I don't have a theory that I can paint a lovely picture using only the color blue. I know that to be fact. I can type some crazy word right now. Just because I don't doesn't mean that's a "theory" of mine. It is true. I don't know what else to say. Planar travel/long-distance teleportation isn't inherently crap in an RPG. Not only that, but several of your reasons for disliking it, in general, are based upon unnecessarily narrow fields of factors and possibilities. That doesn't make me better than you, or make you in any way unintelligent. Nor are you unentitled to your opinion. You may clearly do with this information what you wish. You don't even have to believe it. But, that doesn't make me wrong for wanting to explore the possibilities of planar travel in games, simply because you bet it won't work well. It's like I'm trying to flip a coin, and you're trying to tell me it can't land on tails, because you've flipped a coin 10 times and it landed on heads. If you'd rather not flip the coin some more to find out, no one's making you do so. I'm not going to spam you with pms of planar travel prototypes for P:E or anything. Why not just say "bah, humbug!" and be done with it? Or, you know, "Fair enough, but I'd still rather not bother with planes, personally." And that's it. Why does there NEED to be more? "And also, you're stuff is theoretical, and that example was dull, and... and...!"?

I kinda like "inObsile," or "Obxilian." 8P

WRONG! ... No, I'm kidding, . I agree, heh. So then, back to familiarity and weapon upgrade brainstorming? ^_^

Unfortunately, it's nothing of the sort. I believe it's simply misunderstood. And yes, whatever causes that to happen does tend to annoy people, and it must be something about the way in which I think and present points. I have accepted this, and I choose to attempt discussion in spite of my shortcomings, rather than give up. 8P I believe we actually can agree, for our two arguments aren't even in the same lane of traffic. They are not mutually exclusive. I don't claim your "I see planes and dimensional travel suck a lot in games" as perfectly legitimate, and I believe that it's true, despite being unable to prove it (there's no point in needing to prove this). AND, I see that my "planes and interdimensional travel don't necessarily suck" as being true. You just agreed with it, even, by pointing out that they don't suck in Torment. And I didn't intend for the plane of earth to be a "simple" cave (even though I see how I wasn't ultra specific in that regard). I only meant that it's not going to be any more alien to a person in the physical plane than a rainforest is to a desert-dweller. I mean, how can the plane of "earth" not be made of things familiar to earth? You're going to know it's not just a simple cave, but how much different from a cave/natural-formation can it be? Maybe there are minerals and rocks and plants you've never seen, but they're still going to be recognizable as minerals and rocks and plants. If I see an animal, I know that it's an animal, and I may even say "it's the size of and moves like a large dog," even though it could be quite different from a dog and I might not know much about it at all. I'm not wondering why you don't admit that I'm right and you're wrong, here. I'm simply wondering why you deny that I'm correct about a possibility. If you don't think it's impossible, then you don't think I'm wrong. *shrug*. It's as simple as that. You haven't SAID "it's impossible" yet, which is why I don't think you're wrong. So, again, I'm not comprehending the conflict here, and I apologize for the annoyance and frustration my lack of comprehension brings. I really do.

Yeah. It should also be a reasonably... tricky, for lack of a better word, thing to do. If there are 1,000 bandits in the game, then "kill 50 bandits" probably shouldn't be an achievement. In that example, I wouldn't mind something along the lines of "kill 900 bandits," because that would actually be pretty hard to do. Then, some kind of bandit-slayer reputation would make perfect sense (the number doesn't have to be anywhere close to 1,000... the point was just the 900 versus the arbitrary total of 1,000 possible bandit deaths). Plus, this kind of thing kind of automatically leads to mutually exclusive stuff (maybe you HAD to opt to kill some of the bandits with whom you could've negotiated or even joined, in order to reach 900 kills, so you don't get the "Negotiate with 100 people" achievement or something. Basically, the number should be intelligently decided when it comes to counter-based achievements.

Companions who actually don't ALWAYS steal all the cool stuff you gave them when they decide to leave you. (Maybe they do if they happen to be arses). "I'm afraid I cannot travel with you any longer. I must politely take my leave... AND all this awesome equipment you outfitted me with, u_u..."

Ah-HAH! He "can" confirm! He's a crafty one. He's not actually confirming it. He's simply allowing us to believe he did. I say that pink-haired soul weilding the sword is most definitely one of the main characters in P:E. "... so I can CLEARLY not choose the wine, in front of YOU..." (I jest, of course. Thanks for the confirmation, ^_^)

Nope no steam. I'm pretty sure it'll only require electricity. Although, if you use a steam-generator to provide power to your computer, then that's fine, too. ^_^

Haha. I know, I know... I really, truly do apologize for the way in which I present ideas and thoughts. I try to fill in little gaps, and strive for maximum accuracy and beneficial analysis of things, and I know it tends to come across as... well, counter-argument. Which, it is, often times, on smaller points within the whole. I joke with people that I'm an android, but it's less joke than people think (metaphorically... unless...! *rips chest cavity open to reveal wires and blinking LEDs*... Great Odin's Beard!!!) I genuinely try everything in my power and knowledge to prevent that from happening, but, I'm just not very good at that, I suppose. It's like we said; having something in your lore as opposed to not having it is pretty arbitrary, in and of itself. But that's understood. I mean, that's not in relation to anything else. It's just "does my world have furry animals in it, or does it not?" Obviously there's nothing wrong with your futuristic space station not having swords. So, I simply had the hypothesis that, in the proposed example we were discussing about enchantments and balance concerns for them with things like familiarity and customization thrown into the mix, it might be more prudent to simply omit certain enchantments as opposed to including them and trying to explain why they are severely limited compared to others. Going back to futuristic space station example world, the complete lack of swords doesn't really raise any questions, but "grenades actually only ever generate an explosion up to 3-feet in radius" might be a bit difficult and... messy, to explain. Alas, it was just an educated guess, since I can't really test it without being on the dev team. Otherwise, I'd just test the possibilities against each other, in the context of the rest of the game. For what it's worth, I think it's awesome that, even in the midst of this back-and-forth, we DO agree on so many things, in the end. That's the best kind of argument, if you ask me. Each side is comprised of so many little details and factored-in variables, and, in challenging one another's entire points, we find that tiny switches get flipped, and our collective understandings culminate in a much greater one. I've thought of tons of things, from tons of angles, that I wouldn't have on my own, because you pointed them out, and hopefully I presented some lovely thought meals as well. If it's ever just an annoyingly detailed degree of analysis, just say the word, and I'll stop. But, I can't help but take an argumentative response as an "I care enough about this thing you've brought up to challenge it with my own understanding." I'm like a puppy. If you throw the stick and don't say otherwise, I'm GOING to go fetch it and bring it back. If you're just trying to get a stick out of the yard, you've gotta let me know. Heh. Also... *Slaps you with a magical Grimoire* I accept, and simultaneously disengage from you, good sir!

That's actually an excellent point/idea. Maybe you can see terrain and such in a 360 (insert degree symbol here) view, but you can only see enemies (or certain, crafty/stealthy enemies) when they're within a character's forward-facing cone. I was actually simply talking about the manner in which wolves and such would behave whilst attacking. Even if you can see them the whole time, they'd move very swiftly in around their target, and go for a take-down (as you are probably double the size of them). They wouldn't just wield their claws and fangs at you like a bandit wields his dagger or cudgel. They would not engage you in direct, 1-on-1 combat. Any dodging they did would be simply moving away from you or coming back at you (or your failure to hit them as they circle because of their speed). But, like I said, still an awesome point/notion.

Well, that would've been a perfectly understandable misunderstanding, had I made any mention at all of the HP increase of foes. There is no amount of clarity with which I can convey thoughts that prevents your brain from adding in clauses and notions, then assuming I meant them. I'm sorry about that. It's obviously not the end of the world, and at the end of the day you can do as you please, but, in the interest of smooth foruming for all, I highly recommend inquiry over assumption. There is nothing wrong with misunderstanding someone. There's only something wrong with assuming you didn't, even after they claim otherwise. At the very least, it misleads other readers as to what ideas have been conveyed already in a discussion into which they may wish to dive, and it produces unnecessary amounts of explanatory "clutter" that could've been avoided by a simple question. Also, I'll have you know that there is no force on this earth that can quell the rage welling inside me! And my display is nestled safely beneath a desk-surface panel of tempered glass, rendering the wiping away of my spittle torrent from my display a moot action.

I'm afraid it is. What if a portal takes you to a cavern in a mountain range in the Spine of the World, but you weren't previously in that region? What if the elemental plane of Earth is simply a rain-foresty/cavernous area? A plane isn't even a "far" away place. It's no farther from one point in the world as it is from another. It's like a locked basement. So, are you trying to suggest that one cannot travel to both a city area in a plains region, AND a mountainous region, AND a forested region, AND a volcanic cavernous region, all in the same RPG, or that RPG is doomed to suck? I'm not grasping why: A) Variety in scenery/setting is inherently bad, and B) The use of planes can only come in the form of the prior decision to haphazardly cram a bunch of random settings together. So, to "a bunch of settings haphazardly crammed together in a game, which happen to be in the form of planes," I say "Yes, that's bad." To "the use of planes in games," I still maintain "Nope, that's neither good nor bad, until you make it so." You either agree and dislike them anyway, or you disagree and happen to also dislike them no matter what. And if you don't disagree, then, yes, I'm finding it difficult to grasp why I'm even explaining this and you're finding fault in my argument that you don't disagree with. And if you DO disagree (objectively and not subjectively), then I'd like to know why, as I have yet to see a reason. I don't believe I'm confusing anything of the sort. Why do I have to be talking about a specific game? made an example to support my argument for the potential non-badness of planes/portals to distant/alternate locales. What do you do? You start of your response to that with an example that supports my argument for the potential non-badness of planes/portals to distant/alternate locales. THEN, you go on to specify that, in completely different circumstances, it could be a terrible idea, such as specifically in IWD2. If I never said "Man, portals to dimensional planes and distant lands are ESPECIALLY good in games like IWD2! 8D", then what is that even supporting in this argument, and what is the argument even against? Why must people always disagree with things I COULD'VE said? *sigh* Which is fine. You can fail to enjoy planes for objective reasons, and that still doesn't make planes inherently a bad idea. Planes have just as much potential to be a good idea as they do to be a bad idea, in general. It all depends upon the implementation.

But it's such a good word! Yeah, snippets. I tend to just make up a new word if I can't recall the correct one. Considering that nothing was a word in the English language until people decided to come up with words and dub them an official part of the English language, I'm all for word-spiration. 8P

Hehehe. "It's IMPERATIVE that you travel east, to the land of... ... what are you doing?" "Hmm? Oh, sorry. Keep talking. I'm gonna go see what's in this cave." "... But I'm telling you how important it is to-" "Yeah, I get that. And I'll get right on that... just as soon as I pillage all these caves." "Oh, all right... it's not really THAT important, I guess. As long as you promise you'll get to it before we're all doomed, u_u..."

Looking at it completely objectively, there is absolutely no difference between "There's an unknown area we can't see behind that door down into an ancient cavern" and "There's an unknown area we can't see beyond this portal." Hell, "portal" is literally just a word for door. It matters not whether you travel 100 miles to get to a different climate with different surroundings and different architecture, or if you travel through a portal to get there. So, again, other than the subjective "I think planes are stupid," I don't understand what you're trying to suggest, here. There's nothing inherent to teleported-to areas that can't be equally as screwed up with areas in the same physical/regular plane, and there's nothing inherent to the method of teleporting somewhere that's any worse than the method of stepping through a previously blocked/impassable doorway (or "portal") beyond which you previously could not perceive. I'm just trying to understand the basis for your point, if it isn't simply that you happen to personally not enjoy planes and dimensional travel. *shrug*

Except, the inclusion of alternate dimensions doesn't automatically = afterthought or design clash. You're acting as though there's no possibility of "this game takes place in a physical realm where there are no forests, with another realm where there ARE forests. Both of these exist, simultaneously, within my game world, and I planned for both of them from the get-go." The only difference would be that, instead of traveling north until you enter the forest, you travel to a portal until you enter the forest. Dimensional planes don't kill video games. PEOPLE kill video games.

But now you feel they shouldnt? Fair enough. In the same post you quoted I already accounted for improving damage. Also abilities as exampled by TsugaC make sense. A plain arrow suddenly increasing in damage because you are fighting a tougher foe does not. Okay, I don't know how else to say this. I'm not inferring secret meanings with my words. I'm using words that mean things to say exactly what they mean. The amount of damage YOU (the character) are capable of inflicting, using the same tool you have been using (the arrows), should increase as you improve, regardless of whether or not the tool you're using improves. How does that suggest arrows that nonsensically scale their damage for no apparent reason? And if you already accounted for improving damage, then how is my talk of improving damage confusing and/or questionable? And is insulting my intelligence twice in a row (once by assuming I'm opting for nonsense, and once by condescendingly trying to point out that my clarification doesn't work because my point is nonsense, and that now I'm saying two different things) really a more constructive option than simply asking, "Wait, you're not talking about arrows scaling in damage, are you? Because that would be silly."?

Yeah... in a lot of games, the NPCs tend to either: A) Know the entire truth of what's going on, or B) be completely oblivious to what's going on. About the only thing that strays from that is the use of strong opinions on things. Someone knows what's going on, but they convey it to you under so much particular perspective that you aren't really getting just the truth. You're getting the truth coated in something else. Like when something dirty looks like it's made of metal, then you wipe it off and realize it's just dirty plastic. Which, all that's fine and dandy, but it'd be nice if we could actually run into people who know SOME of what's going on -- some useful stuff, and some not so useful (and maybe not even accurate) stuff -- and we'd have to piece all the bits together to really get the most information available to us (or we could do so, optionally, at least). I'm also sick of these "mysteries" games have us solving. *You found a journal entry entitled Help me, I'm turning into a werewolf at night.* *Continuing on, you found patches of fir littering the floor.* *Steve is never ever seen in anyone's company during any of these creature encounters/deaths* "Hmmm... I wonder what's going on here... I'm gonna need to stock up on magnifying glasses and trenchcoats for this one!" I hate talking to 17 people and finding 10 journals, all basically saying, in a rather flavorful manner, that crazy deaths are happening, and everyone's terrified and oblivious. Then, of course, there's the NPC quest markers. "I don't know anything, except that you should probably go in that building over there to continue this quest." Ooooh! I can almost taste the depth of the world, where people direct you to places based on simple noises and/or hunches!

What won't work? Quality animal AI? I fail to see how the top-down view affects the limitations on creature AI (if that's what you're talking about).