Diogo Ribeiro

Lucky for me, I don't, and your insinuation is only that. However, if you think that character freedom is *only* about having the freedom to create a character, then lost cause is too soft a term for you. This coming from a self proclaimed "roleplayer" is a joke. If you actually are involved in PnP as you claim, then you should know that character freedom goes beyond mere creation and goes into a character's development and improvement, its physical and social expression in the world its inserted into. Then again, given your ludicrous claims troughout the thread on the subject, including the now classic concept of >"Creating a "talky" character for the express purpose of talking your way through a game is not roleplaying. It's simply a different form of powergaming."<, does show in a painfull manner who actually doesn't have an idea of what they're talking about. And while we're at it, why do you call Squaresoft's Final Fantasy series RPGs? You don't create characters at all, you play with premade ones. Why apply them the term "RPG" if they go against your own logic that they're not RPGs? Unless of course in the meantime you've stopped calling them as such? I know you're an intelligent person, so when you tell the truth, I usually have no problems with what you say, but honestly, your idea that i'm confused or something, comes off as an empty and pointless statement, and your refusal to explain your motivation for quoting what i said earlier and make a fuss out of it makes me wonder if this isn't mere trolling. You were the one who told me to "take my time"... getting itchy? Surely you forgot the part where i stated that "compelling" is subjective? Wait you didn't forgot - you simply dismissed it as an excuse. Convenient.

Why wasn't this implemented in KOTOR? Probably because the game was "loosely" based on d20 Star Wars. No, no. You see, compromises have to be made, and often you have to balance it all out. In the face of time constraints, and of working with what you have, you often have to evaluate what is better for the game as a whole. Surely, the decision we made will keep the hardcore player away, but in the end, the tradeoff is mostly accepted, and encouraged! [/end usual apologetic discourse] <_<

So, to you, character freedom is only about creating a character, nothing else? Excuse me while i try to find PnP players, and CRPG players that think choosing clothing color and a name are the utmost representative elements of character freedom. By that logic, no it doesn't. Then again, by that logic, it also doesn't seem like character freedom. Nah, its just you that's the problem.

My point regarding that was trying to have Grom explain where he was coming from based on his quote of what I said. Seems odd that he'd want me to do something when I was talking of another; weirder still, when you take into account that what I was talking about isn't theoretical only, as I pointed out with examples of games which present what I was talking of.

While i'm not denying that' date=' I question just what that has to do with what was being talked about. Your background in the game is mostly nullified or assumed to have happened despite 1) what you write for your character, and 2) what you do with the character himself. You're telling me my choices in PS:T are made for me, but are not in BG2? I can't get my head around it, not because i'm not a PnP player (anymore, at least), but because you're not making sense (again). That's ridiculous. How do you define what the character wants, or how the character would act? You can't, period. You can only imagine how he/she would act, and have to carry it our yourself. I find it highly amusing how you have called yourself a PnP gamer in the past, and then make such a mentally challenged claim such as the one above. Let me know when you're confident in using common sense again. So what does that tell me? That you have your own special, personal take on what it means to be out of character, and playing in character. Which obviously doesn't have to be followed by anyone else. You play your characters your own way, that's fine with me. However, the problem is that you assume your way of playing is a universal take on roleplaying itself, when it isn't. If you claim PS:T has no character freedom, then you obviously didn't played the game. No, not really. That's not what i'm doing. I question myself what lead you into saying this. SP made the claim that giving character freedom to a player would be placing some form of burden on player's shoulders. And in turn, all I said was that character freedom for players is not a burden at all; a burden is placed on players when they are given a character which they cannot develop in their own way. If character development was a burden for players, then it would have been a highly criticized aspect in games which allowed for it. And wheter statistically or in a roleplaying sense, its often found to be their favourite aspect. Given this is the what? third time? I've explained myself, and you still seem to fail to understand what I meant, and where I was coming from, despite expressing myself fairly well, only leads to that kind of "complaining" on my behalf. Yup, I'm not surprised the fault would have to be mine. The feeling is mutual everytime I have to deal with either you or SP, so don't sweat it.

This is untrue. No character will have a different background. Every one of them will be an orfan, brought to Candlekeep by Gorion at an early age (the only difference in background will be who your mother was and where she came from, and that is handled automatically also, based on gender and race). There is no such thing as a different background in BG games. Sure, you can type it, but typing something you made up is useless given the game still overrides that and goes with its own enforcement of predetermined background. How different from BG!!! I think the worst part with this line of thought is that not only is it poor, its also not the first time you try to use this. It didn't work back at the IPLY forums, and it won't work again. For one, you claim that all the choices in PS:T fit the character, but then claim choice is not character driven, but player driven. Guess what? Every choice you're given in a CRPG is character-driven, as its being formulated based on your character. Its only player-driven in the context of you choosing it yourself. And second, that dice-rolling concept is as inane as they come, and useless to the whole point. It is possible of doing that wheter in BG or PS:T, and guess what? You can "act out of character" by just choosing wrong and/or weird options, but never to the point of acting out of your predetermined character. All choices fit the characters in both games because they were made to do so.

Give me a reason why I should even bother. Its got nothing to do with what was being talked about, and is unrelated to the entire conversation, at least from my side. Too bad that for a change, i did clarify and people didn't understood. But hey, I'm getting used to it, so don't feel bad. And if you've never seen character development being handled by players, i can only suggest you'd play more games.

Er, creation != development, which was what was being talked about, if i recall. You mentioned how freedom placed a burden on players, though its still unclear on what grounds. Again, unless development is stunted because of abusive restrictions on what you can or can't do, freeform games aren't a burden. Its more of a burden to have your character develop automatically and against what you'd like to do with it, then it is to develop it as you want (within reason, o'course). Yes, that particular game can't. Doesn't mean there isn't a possibility to achieve this. Multiple aspects of character creation must have different corresponding elements. Just because I am able to go trough 120 different character combos, doesn't mean I should have 120 different outcomes because of that. If you're going by name and racial differences, true. But, no freedom? So, what do you call deciding what to explore? What to become, how to grow? How to solve problems? Translation, please? You can never "not be" any other character aside the one you're predestined to be on a CRPG. How does this relate at all to PS:T? Could be because of what I said earlier. Despite its strict structure, you can develop the Nameless One as you see fit, within rules. Its not automated to the point of removing control and focus most of the times. Its possible to roleplay a premade character, who has to operate in a certain way within a story; however, how the character reaches the mandatory chokepoints is what matters, and can depend on the player. Fallout has chokepoints. How you reach them, however, is open to players' "work".

Why, exactly? The player has to "work" in a more freeform environment as much as he'd have to work in a more strict one. The good thing about most RPGs, i remind you, is that they tend to give players the freedom to only input as much as they want, wheter the game is more or less freeform. Well, for starters, not having to do anything for your character automatically removes a great part of roleplaying, and its a no-go in terms of roleplaying. While I'm not going to get into what constitutes roleplaying with you (as it'd be as fruitless as trying to bring a cement wall down by using nothing more than headbutts), having the character development handled automatically is a mistake. Defining a character is always, or should always be, dependant of what the player decides. Also, I don't quite understand why you'd believe that being creative would imply some extra hard work. Most of the time, defining your character in an electronic RPG is based on choices you make. Choices are a staple of the genre. And most often than not, choices help define a character. Now, either you're telling me that making choices is hard, or you're talking of some other way of character development which is incredibly hard. If it's the first, well, that's subjective. Making a choice that defines your character is no more harder than choosing in between dialogue options, paths to go or quests to take. If its the second, then I don't see many other ways. Care to divulge a few of those, optionally pointing out where and why they're hard?

I'd say the problem in it is that they weren't as explored as they could've been. They were too simplistic and barely gave a reason to go along with it. They mostly felt bad, because you looked at some and realized that they didn't had necessarily anything to do with the alignment, as they could happen to an adventuring party of any alignment. I'd find it more interesting if the vignettes were based on actions the party made before.

Obsidian comes from the Obsidian Earring that the Nameless One used in PS:T. Rumor has it it was based on one of Feargus' secrets (wearing earrings). >.> <.<

Sorry, but you're the only one making that assumption. What I said is not in any way making any kind of assumption. You were the one that assumed that giving absloute character freedom to a player would be placing some form of burden on player's shoulders. All I did was point out that freedom is not a burden, unlike story-driven games, where you must comply with a larger, and usually stricter, set of rules. If you somehow feel that what i wrote has anything to do with that answer, well, go you.

Chronicles of Ny, by Clownkeep (weird name, i know. Incidentally, Bethesda's title seems to be anything but an RPG.

I'm guessing you didn't quite grasped what i said.

Not so much of a burden, as its paramount to RPGs. More freedom is also hardly a burden, as its not mandatory, unlike story-driven games.

^I did. O'course, people who just care about the story, usually don't mind gross assumptions made by the company on their behalf - such as, no matter what you want, your character would be depicted as a soldier.

"Realistically", lightsabers don't exist. But it's possible to implement them correctly, as was done in Jedi Outcast or Jedi Academy. Most games end up doing this at one point or another, based on several situations ranging from high-level combat, to mage combat, etc. Reloading because of combat isn't new, and basing the reason for excess reloadings on a vorpal weapon is iffy at best. However, castrating lightsabers and have them operate like if they were nothing more than magical swords like ye olde standard D&D magic sword isn't the way to go, either. It depends on the system used. In an action RPG, it would be possible to have the lightsaber function as it should. Even if people come up with the whining based on it being too hard for them, and prefered the lightsabers to operate like they did on KoTOR, then a different method could be used, like having lightsabers hack away a limb based on, say, targetted attacks + critical hit elements.

I also tend to prefer the character which isn's special, or isnt special in the way of inhuman abilities. Most SPESHUL character often are special in name only, and have barely anything special to their namesake. The main problem you get when you're given a special character from the beginning is that it's already been dictated in what he is special about, and most if the times, you just sit and watch him/her get special on its own (specially true if the story is enforced heavilly on players). The idea of beginning as a regular character in a more freeform game allows players themselves to become special in their own way. Liked it a lot when i played it some years ago. I felt the game was good, but too short. I heavilly disliked one or two puzzles, specially because i don't remember being any logical guidelines at the time. I remember the puzzle of the bug which crashed into some control panel and ou had to lift or rotate its parts to reach the controls. Probably i might find it easier if i play it today, but at the time it was hell.

This can be said of Bioware games on a whole. They tend to focus on story, and its production values. I'm almost willing to bet that, if the game turns out to be not as good as KoTOR, it'll be Obsidian's fault; but if it turns out to be better, people will attribute the achievement to Bioware instead of Obsidian. Then again, we still haven't been clued on what Obsidian's contribution to the game would be.

That sucks <_<

I actually played the first game - Little Big Adventure - but never got around to playing Twinsen's Odyssey.

Earthbound and Secret of Evermore did this to a degree. And Freedom Force also did it to a degree.

I think calling it "Europe's 9/11" is an exageration. We're talking of a country which has already had to deal with sucessive terrorist threats for many years, by the hand of ETA. And the tragedy that happened in Spain is hardly comparable to that of the WTC, both in magnitude, casualties or even of changing views on terrorism. And besides, is there anything that could change people's views on terrorism after 9/11? I think most people became unfeeling towards this kind of situation after the WTC deal. This bombing in Spain seems almost mundane in comparison (and thank god for that, as it would be terrible if it was any worse).

Like any mailing list, one could just select to receive one or not. Its not like Obsidian would mass mail it against people's will.

So it seems my future gets worse... <_<