gkathellar

In Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, he describes a village that worshiped the deity of a nearby lake. When the rain failed to come, the people of this village would pray. When the god failed to respond to their prayers, they would throw rocks in the lake to punish the god for not holding up their end of the bargain. Did they lack for faith? Were their offerings and supplications insincere? Was their outrage? Reciprocity is the essence of faith. Though some modern religions don't promise any return on investment until after death, that doesn't change the reciprocal nature of the arrangement. Moreover, look at the believers of those religions, and you will find an incredible wealth of people who claim to see their deity's hand in the misfortunes of their enemies, ask for divine strength or protection or guidance, or expect the divine to always be working in their interests; they are no less faithful, no less deeply and personally connected to their concept of the divine. For Soren Kierkegaard and Paul Tillich and a few other people (some of whom may be in this argument), faith is "belief despite the absence of proof.". For most people in the world today, and most people throughout history, faith is "belief that refuses the absence of proof," that never considers any other possibility. Having the gods actually around in Eora does little or nothing to change that. The majority of people will still follow what they see as an observable truth about their universe, theologians will still question the parameters of divinity, and skeptics will remain steadfast in not caring. That'd be damn awful. I've heard the aztec empire had a political enclave within their territory where'd they grab people now and then from their enemy nation Tlaxcala. Which is awful too after all. there were a professor at Cal, we forget his name, who advanced the theory that aztec sacrifice were the single greatest limit to their expansion in the region. approximately 1% o' the population were killed by sacrifice each year, which at the height o' aztec civilization meant that hundreds o' thousands were being sacrificed. for a pre-industrial society, that were, according to the professor, an insurmountable hurdle. HA! Good Fun! It's widely speculated that, while the Aztecs were pretty bloodthirsty, sacrifice was a political tool above all, used to keep their vassal states fearful. European accounts are almost certainly untrustworthy on the matter, as are those of the allies Cortez found among the Mexican city-states; it's also very likely that the Aztecs themselves deliberately exaggerated the extent of its use to quell dissent. 1% is a baffling and deeply improbable figure. This was not an empire that did itself in with its excesses. It might have been working in that direction, but it hadn't gotten there yet. Because Saint Josh of Sawyer doth so proclaim. Gods are real and active. The nature of the gods is up for debate though. It ain't a god if it ain't omnipotent. Them's just sky wizards and strong aliens.

I do serve the Flaming Fist.

Whatever they were, they wouldn't need to be monk-only. Only monks can fight unarmed effectively, item bonuses or no. Really, though, I'd prefer a fast, evasive martial arts class over one that draws its power from getting hit. It comes across more like a barbarian, IMO.

That would be very frustrating to learn after leveling up. Yeah, although in fairness, +10 to Fort/Ref/Will is pretty good bang for your buck.

Remember, this is one of those things that people really hate about JRPGs. It also takes away the opportunity to use monster parts as crafting ingredients, which is just, like ... I dunno, that's integral to this genre in my mind. I mean, come on, are you telling me NOT to play some kind of wild-eyed murderhobo? Well, I was responding to Gifted1's idea, which concerned items that weren't quest/enchanting related... [Edit: or is enchanting not the same as crafting? (No beta access)] I will remember that about JRPGs, though! Enchanting uses ingredients in the same fashion as crafting, so they can be generally grouped together.

Fighters get access to an ability for that, although they of all classes don't get a ton of use out of it.

Here's an interesting piece of information I found from investigating the higher level monk stuff: around level 9, monks get access to an ability called Something Or Other of Duality, which lets them choose between one of two modal abilities. The first gives them +10 to Fort/Ref/Will, and the second gives them +8 to Deflection. Unfortunately, the second mode doesn't seem to stack with Cautious Attack. Food for thought, though. EDIT: They also get an ability that does AoE damage and ... Dazed, IIRC, to nearby enemies whenever they get a Wound. It's pretty sweet.

The foil was never used in serious warfare, no. The sidesword and rapier however, saw use by infantry and cavalry at war, in addition to civilians looking to do each other in, at around the time where PoE's technology is set. The term "case of rapiers" originates from the practice of carrying a pair of rapiers side-by-side in a single sheath (something also done in some Asian two-sword styles - you've probably seen it in a Avatar, or in a kungfu movie somewhere). We see it here and there in training manuals. IIRC, there are accounts suggesting that it was remarkably good at killing, and its main failure was defensive; two-sword fighters tended to take their opponents with them. Actually discussing the specifics of technique approaches the limits of what I know about this subject. I've studied Chinese martial arts, but never two-sword fighting, and the rest of what I know comes from research and talking to people in other disciplines than myself. However, the training manuals exist, so we know it was done, and the weapons it was done with were used in a legitimate military context. The sidesword and rapier were notably heavier than the foil, although slighter than the arming sword - which, by the time of their appearance, was already on its way out. That said ... Melon hammers were typically used in pairs. Why, of course. PoE seems to be set in a place which is mostly inspired by Europe in terms of weaponry and culture. So considering the setting, what we consider exotic Asian styles of martial arts is likely exotic also in PoE. This is a game with kung fu monks (and no, the self-flagellation thing does not disqualify them, everybody did that).

Yeah, it was a mechanic that, increasingly, people have grown to despise. It added nothing to gameplay and made the whole experience of playing a lower-strength character slightly more obnoxious; there's a reason Bioware introduced containers in BG2. Hateful game mechanics are not identical to bad game mechanics, of course, but encumbrance had no meaningful effect on play or on balance anyway. "Golly, I can only carry 7 of these 12 bandit jerkins? Why, that might be a whole 10 gold pieces lost! Whatever will I do?" It was a pain in the ass, and more importantly, it was aesthetically displeasing. And then you got the Bag of Holding, making your life easier and proving how completely and totally pointless the loot micromanagement was. Yes, it's true: after starting the beta with equipment that the devs said is already slightly above the level curve, and a bag loaded up with extra crafting ingredients so that you can test that feature, in one small town and three dungeons and two wilderness areas while completing several quests you can accumulate 20,000-30,000 cp, a number that has no objective value independent of how prices scale throughout the game. The beta is not a useful gauge for this. I can't deny that the full game will be Monty Haul, for the same reason that I can't confirm it. I don't know, and neither do you. But you know what was Monty Haul? Baldur's Gate, where, in the course of the second and fourth areas you were likely to visit, you could find a diamond in a tree and one of the best rings in the game in a rock. Oooh, oooh, or BG2, where you could pickpocket a fence's goods and sell them back to him infinitely. How about Torment, which let you address your money needs with random grinding areas full of respawning hostiles? If you think money didn't become trivial in the IE games, you don't know them very well. ... many of the IE merchants did have infinite money. Hold on right there, I'mma get my waterboard because I think we've got us a slippery slope. It makes mundane objects exactly as valuable as they are. That is to say, you use an item until you have something better, just like in any other game of this type. Hell, I'd argue that mundane objects are more valuable, if only because the notion of +X magical weapons has been replaced with a mundane sort of Fine/Excellent/Superior model. Are you complaining about crafting or something? (Confession: I could almost never bring myself to use my magic arrows, because I would sure I'd have a better chance some time later. Consumables have an adverse effect on my mental health, really.) Tracking mundane arrows in a video game is not a good use of time in a human being's life. So we've lost ... what, having exactly the same item slots as you did in BG1? Does that actually matter? (Obviously it has to be that, since the IE games didn't have animated cloak visuals.) No. I honestly don't think this is an attempt to provoke me, and that you have chosen to attack me personally because you are passionate, because you really do care about your position. I sincerely respect that you care about it. And I ask you to respect, in turn, that I do not care enough about you or this argument to flame or insult you personally. If I attack your argument, then I am attacking your argument - not you, not your lifestyle, not your choice of flooring - your argument. If I contradict your position by claiming it's utter ridiculousness, it is because (as is the case) I find your position utterly ridiculous. Don't take it personally, babe; this just ain't your story. EDIT: Remember, this is one of those things that people really hate about JRPGs. It also takes away the opportunity to use monster parts as crafting ingredients, which is just, like ... I dunno, that's integral to this genre in my mind. I mean, come on, are you telling me NOT to play some kind of wild-eyed murderhobo?

I'm just messing around. I meant to put that first post in red, but I forgot. There probably are pillars, since the Backer Beta title screen has one that looks roughly like the ones in that poster ima- ... I kinda dig this idea. Probably not the case, but I'm sort of wishing it was now.

Clearly we should just demand an interlingua translation. (This is not sarcasm.)

Maaaaaan

Yep, it would be, but doesn't seem like it will be. I already wrote about that - we get the stronghold around the middle of the critical path, upgrades cost from near a thousand up to a few thousand cp and give boosts of a 3-4 points to stronghold stats. At the same time it costs 75cp to remove an equal-sized penalty to stats (pay off the drunkard). At first glance, these prices pose virtually no challenge for someone who has been even moderately thorough in looting stuff up to this point in the game. I start the BB with 2800-something cp and by the time I had finished all quests in it I had over 20 000cp. The most expensive room at the Inn costs 250 (or 280?) cp, and I didn't use food buffs. I personally believe, the issue is "being able to thoroughly loot everything" in IE games, you only had so much inventory. If they want to give us a cart, fine, then make a cart visual and following us, and make it affected by terrain, and have things attack it, with chances for everything to be destroyed, add random encounters from brigands too while world mapping.... Other demands along the same lines: Hunger and thirst mechanics. Hypothermia and hyperthermia rules. Mud slowdown for characters traveling on dirt paths in the rain. A minigame for repairing the damage to your armor after a fight. Social penalties for failing to bathe. Characters who don't use the restroom regularly should acquire the "Constipated" condition.

Naw, I'm pretty sure those are cigars, not pillars.

Like you say, a style used in dueling (when you have pre-arranged rules). Not in a valetudinarian military context, nor in group battles. Skirmishing =/= pitched warfare. There is a great deal of space in between duels and formation fighting alongside hundreds or thousands of others. Goes under "experts of exotic fighting styles". If you train enough, I'm sure you can learn how to kill a man with chopsticks in 3 seconds. I don't suppose you'd care to qualify what makes Asian martial arts more "exotic" than European martial arts, would you? (Also, note: I didn't say "experts." In Filipino martial arts, you might well learn to fight with a pair of batons before you learn to fight unarmed.) Edit: On considering that you don't see critical miss rules as an abomination, I'm going to assume we're incapable of coming to agreement and respectfully bow out of this.

It does sometimes. Honestly, the whole affair is very obtuse.

They're metaphorical pillars, clearly.

Bumpedy bump. This is something that could actually be fixed in a day. Sit a group of people down to do it, have them ctrl-F through the relevant files, and they could finish in 8 hours. It's probably too late for it to be in the release version, but (especially when you consider how much inspiration the developers have clearly taken from tabletop games, for which this is a chronic problem) this should be Patch #1.

Nope.

... Dwarf Fortress?

Oh, paired long weapons were definitely used, though almost always in a civilian context. Case of rapiers/Florentine swordsmanship was quite popular for a time, and I've heard historical fencers claim that it provides unparalleled control. The Chinese, south-Asian and southeast-Asian martial arts have a fairly extensive history of it as well. Of course, you'd never have done it on the battlefield, but in a duel? Yeah, it happened. Obviously it requires some measure of skill to do effectively, but ... a lot of characters aren't going to get any real mileage out of fighting with two weapons, which I feel covers the matter adequately. Besides, penalizing people for playing the way they want is totally, like, so AD&D, guhrlfriend. Like, get with the times, uhkay?

It goes to the fact that those settings were designed for the sole purpose of the players resolving specific conflicts. Amalur was (ironically) about the Fateless One, and the whole setting was a foil for the player's actions. Dragon Age is obviously building up to the RETURN OF THE BLACK CITY OR WHATEVER and how the players will stop it - that is why Thedas exists, that's what it's about. Much of the appeal of the old IE games, on the other hand, was that they were local. Everything from the side characters to the weapon lore to the NPC backgrounds reinforced that. The work that the players were doing was important, but it was also only one part of a much larger world, a world big enough that even its major players didn't truly have a handle on it or on its workings. It didn't even matter that in most of them, said world was Toril and therefore complete garbage; you didn't know that. What you knew was that out there, beyond the borders of your own conflicts, were strange and terrible places, heroes and villains, tragedy and triumph; a world that you were part of the fabric of but that was not yours. And so far, PoE's lore does give me that feeling, does make me feel make my characters are living and acting and contributing to a larger universe that does not mute their actions, but also doesn't accept them as the inevitable arbiter of all things. Hopefully the actual game will manage that as well. I'm for reals imagining Josh Sawyer as an entry on my character sheet now. "Deflection 62, Fortitude 39, Josh 52, Will 37"

What bother me are the portals that lead from one part of Sigil to another part of Sigil, and the portals that don't lead to Sigil at all. I mean, it's not like this is some mortal sin or something, but it still irritates me, and it ends up weakening the last act of the story.

One of the problems for both Rangers and Druids is legacy. Shapeshifting and animal companions were associated with those classes in D&D, and in particular, featured very prominently in the 3E games. In the case of the Ranger, the main issue is that not all people have this beastmaster image of the class. Many hear Ranger and think, "archery." Others hear Ranger and think "dual-wield," and then I come for those people in the night and they're never seen again because I hate them.Trying to meet too many of these expectations at once isn't impossible, but it becomes a lot harder to have "pet" as a side-feature unless said pet can die and be revived without causing real problems. Personally, I'd really rather have a Beastmaster class cover that angle, and have the Ranger be an archer/hunter/woodsman sort of class. Druid's issue is similar. D&D3E druids were ... strong. To the point that they were game-breaking. Not the absolute strongest casters, mind. But through the combination of Wild Shape, Animal Companion, and an immense and fantastically varied spell list, they had too many tools. And the PoE devs know this. Animal companion is easy enough to cut because that wasn't around in 2E or the IE games, and you can say, "hey, look over there, it's still on the ranger!" But people want shapeshifting on their druids. And the problem here is that if shapeshifting is worthwhile, and spells are worthwhile, then a druid becomes nearly as valuable as two characters. So they took the easy way out, and emphasized spells over wildshift. I dunno if I have a problem with that, either; It's not like IE druids had worthwhile shapeshifting abilities. I can live with their being a caster class.

Looks that way. The water wheel still doesn't make sense, though.