Puzzled by the main concept of the game....

[Darth Trethon]

Ultimately, I guess I'm not sure what the point is of trying to assess the 'sensibility' of PE's definition in relation to yours, since within the larger schema of various definitions of soul abound, it fits in just fine. In practice, I don't think it would confuse anyone playing, given their familiarity with fantasy settings as well.

 

The questions of afterlife and Gods are as you say interesting, and certainly the PE definition of souls should have a knock-on effect in changing how PE individuals treat those issues. But I don't think that's a 'problem' with the definition of any sort, just an interesting question that the PE definition will allow the setting to explore. What does it mean to know in concrete terms (if they do) that they all have an afterlife, but the afterlife is not entirely 'theirs'? Does the notion of judging a person by their blood, race, or other forms of biological and material inheritance taken on a different meaning when there is a soul-inheritance going on?

 

PE's stance seems to stand opposite the reasoning of most of today's belief systems as I pointed above. Nothing wrong there but it sorts of contradicts their core points and reasons for belief without really replacing them with anything which just leaves weak and quite strange core for PE's lore. Since this is the main, key driving factor of the story I think it needs to be better defined....just my two cents though.

[Calmar]

Let's be blunt. What you see as a soul isn't what is being described here.

 

A soul in this game is something which is separate from the brain. The brain makes decisions, has memories, is in fact the primary decision maker. The soul is just there, offering special abilities, offering memories and skills at times, and recording affairs in its own memory. It has been in other people too. It's not a soul like you say, but a fictional soul.

 

Although I am inclined to indicate there are no such things as souls.

 

Then a term like 'ancestral spirit' might be more suited to describe the phenomenon that is called 'soul'. The quality of the sentient human brain that distinguishes it from others is called personality; a soul is the essence of a person/personality.

[Gromnir]

didn't read the whole thread, but we have no problem with the premise of past souls and free will. kotor2 had some problems, but we very much liked the exploration o' free will in a world/galaxy wherein the force could exert influence on individuals to create balance. not like 'soul' nomenclature? fine. 'soul' is a very evocative word given judeo-christian impact on western culture... am guessing that the impact o' 'soul' is very much intended.

 

look at it another way. imagine that all magic in pe is tied to invocation o' spirits, and that ultimately there is uncertainty as to whether mages is controlling spirits or the reverse. not difficult to understand. eh? use 'soul' terminology simply makes the concept more evocative, but is functionally no different.

 

oh, and as we said, we didnt read totality of the thread, so if we repeated what somebody else already stated, we apologize.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Calmar]

I realise that I've maybe observed the matter from a wrong perspective in my previous comments. I think it's not about you versus your soul, but about individualism versus determinism. You are determined by your nature (soul) to behave in a certain way, but you may strive to chose your own path.

 

What do you think?

[Darth Trethon]

didn't read the whole thread, but we have no problem with the premise of past souls and free will. kotor2 had some problems, but we very much liked the exploration o' free will in a world/galaxy wherein the force could exert influence on individuals to create balance. not like 'soul' nomenclature? fine. 'soul' is a very evocative word given judeo-christian impact on western culture... am guessing that the impact o' 'soul' is very much intended.

 

look at it another way. imagine that all magic in pe is tied to invocation o' spirits, and that ultimately there is uncertainty as to whether mages is controlling spirits or the reverse. not difficult to understand. eh? use 'soul' terminology simply makes the concept more evocative, but is functionally no different.

 

oh, and as we said, we didnt read totality of the thread, so if we repeated what somebody else already stated, we apologize.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

That's Star Wars in general rather than just KotOR II and I never had much of a problem with Star Wars system. The issue I have with PE is that as you said....it calls upon the familiar and redefines it(this bit is fine) but it removes some of the core pillars of the standard beliefs without replacing them with anything substantial which leaves it a bit awkward and in need of something more substantial to make it more clear and cohesive.

[Tigranes]

without replacing them with anything substantial

 

Well, we'll see, since we've had a grand total of few paragraphs on the subject.

[HungryHungryOuroboros]

but a fictional soul.

There's no such thing as a soul that ISN'T fictional.

[Darth Trethon]

without replacing them with anything substantial

 

Well, we'll see, since we've had a grand total of few paragraphs on the subject.

 

This is true, Obsidian hasn't said a whole lot. What compelled me to make the topic is that the couple of sentences I quoted in the opening post seemed very self contained and didn't really leave a lot of room to expand upon the basic core of the lore itself.....details and growth can always go infinitely but the core itself appeared very limited in terms of opportunities for growth and without a strong core all else is at risk of collapsing on itself.

[Gromnir]

the star war movies do Not focus on free will as a major theme. incidental theme? perhaps, but is not a main issue. we got no idea what is explored in the plethora o' books, cartoons and comics, but the suggestion that free will and force is a major theme from core star wars material would be a gross overstatement.

 

as to the complaint 'bout pe magic... huh? based on snippet you is presuming that the theme in question is not fully explored or realized in the game? hell, the pe notion o' 'souls' and free will is not even particularly unique. a famous example is the dune series and alia's struggles. am hardly worried that obsidian will fail to develop or explore. in fact, am more worried that they do the opposite. leave somewhat vague is better than doing some silly exposition to fully explain. let player fill in the gaps is better than attempting to answer all questions.

 

HA! good Fun!

[Darth Trethon]

but a fictional soul.

There's no such thing as a soul that ISN'T fictional.

 

If I didn't need to keep this thread related to PE I would have a lot of fun with that bit.

[Wolfenbarg]

didn't read the whole thread, but we have no problem with the premise of past souls and free will. kotor2 had some problems, but we very much liked the exploration o' free will in a world/galaxy wherein the force could exert influence on individuals to create balance. not like 'soul' nomenclature? fine. 'soul' is a very evocative word given judeo-christian impact on western culture... am guessing that the impact o' 'soul' is very much intended.

 

look at it another way. imagine that all magic in pe is tied to invocation o' spirits, and that ultimately there is uncertainty as to whether mages is controlling spirits or the reverse. not difficult to understand. eh? use 'soul' terminology simply makes the concept more evocative, but is functionally no different.

 

oh, and as we said, we didnt read totality of the thread, so if we repeated what somebody else already stated, we apologize.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

That's Star Wars in general rather than just KotOR II and I never had much of a problem with Star Wars system. The issue I have with PE is that as you said....it calls upon the familiar and redefines it(this bit is fine) but it removes some of the core pillars of the standard beliefs without replacing them with anything substantial which leaves it a bit awkward and in need of something more substantial to make it more clear and cohesive.

You're not making any sense. In Project Eternity, the passing of a soul is part of the life cycle. We don't know why yet, because that's part of the mystery of the game, just how it was in Final Fantasy IX. You're left with what you feel is insubstantial because you have only read a small teaser about the lore instead of the big picture. And your redefinition wouldn't leave it more cohesive. Why would calling them demons or guardian spirits suddenly make it cohesive if they still serve the exact same function?

[Darth Trethon]

the star war movies do Not focus on free will as a major theme. incidental theme? perhaps, but is not a main issue. we got no idea what is explored in the plethora o' books, cartoons and comics, but the suggestion that free will and force is a major theme from core star wars material would be a gross overstatement.

 

as to the complaint 'bout pe magic... huh? based on snippet you is presuming that the theme in question is not fully explored or realized in the game? hell, the pe notion o' 'souls' and free will is not even particularly unique. a famous example is the dune series and alia's struggles. am hardly worried that obsidian will fail to develop or explore. in fact, am more worried that they do the opposite. leave somewhat vague is better than doing some silly exposition to fully explain. let player fill in the gaps is better than attempting to answer all questions.

 

HA! good Fun!

 

Depends how much you care to read into the philosophy of the movies but it is there nonetheless.....takes a lot of cutting to make a movie fit in two hours.

 

Oh I never said that exploring the idea of souls is original, not by a long shot. I also didn't say they will fail I just thought it was important to bring up the discussion because it seemed like they are putting together a weak core for the lore that in these early stages is more limiting than it needs to be as I see it. If they happen to read this I'm sure they'll have their own ideas whether they be that we don't know the rest or perhaps they feel a need to tweak certain aspect or whatever. This while I'd like know is not as important to me as is to hopefully bring attention to some red flags they may have missed.

[Darth Trethon]

You're not making any sense. In Project Eternity, the passing of a soul is part of the life cycle. We don't know why yet, because that's part of the mystery of the game, just how it was in Final Fantasy IX. You're left with what you feel is insubstantial because you have only read a small teaser about the lore instead of the big picture. And your redefinition wouldn't leave it more cohesive. Why would calling them demons or guardian spirits suddenly make it cohesive if they still serve the exact same function?

 

The single, greatest and most grave mistake they can make when developing lore for PE is take any kind of ideas or notes from a JRPG(doesn't matter which). That's all I feel i need to say here.

[Gromnir]

the star war movies do Not focus on free will as a major theme. incidental theme? perhaps, but is not a main issue. we got no idea what is explored in the plethora o' books, cartoons and comics, but the suggestion that free will and force is a major theme from core star wars material would be a gross overstatement.

 

as to the complaint 'bout pe magic... huh? based on snippet you is presuming that the theme in question is not fully explored or realized in the game? hell, the pe notion o' 'souls' and free will is not even particularly unique. a famous example is the dune series and alia's struggles. am hardly worried that obsidian will fail to develop or explore. in fact, am more worried that they do the opposite. leave somewhat vague is better than doing some silly exposition to fully explain. let player fill in the gaps is better than attempting to answer all questions.

 

HA! good Fun!

 

Depends how much you care to read into the philosophy of the movies but it is there nonetheless.....takes a lot of cutting to make a movie fit in two hours.

 

 

 

sorry, but cutting room floor dont count... and if you gotta "read into," then it isn't a major theme, is it?

 

"it seemed like they are putting together a weak core for the lore"

 

again, based on a snippet from an off-site preview interview?

 

...

 

ok.

 

regardless, we has seen obsidian deal with the freewill theme before, and they handled it with mixed results. motb? so-so. kotor2? pretty good. their failures with the freewill stuff is not related to some ambiguous notion o' a "weak core."

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Darth Trethon]

the star war movies do Not focus on free will as a major theme. incidental theme? perhaps, but is not a main issue. we got no idea what is explored in the plethora o' books, cartoons and comics, but the suggestion that free will and force is a major theme from core star wars material would be a gross overstatement.

 

as to the complaint 'bout pe magic... huh? based on snippet you is presuming that the theme in question is not fully explored or realized in the game? hell, the pe notion o' 'souls' and free will is not even particularly unique. a famous example is the dune series and alia's struggles. am hardly worried that obsidian will fail to develop or explore. in fact, am more worried that they do the opposite. leave somewhat vague is better than doing some silly exposition to fully explain. let player fill in the gaps is better than attempting to answer all questions.

 

HA! good Fun!

 

Depends how much you care to read into the philosophy of the movies but it is there nonetheless.....takes a lot of cutting to make a movie fit in two hours.

 

 

 

sorry, but cutting room floor dont count... and if you gotta "read into," then it isn't a major theme, is it?

 

"it seemed like they are putting together a weak core for the lore"

 

again, based on a snippet from an off-site preview interview?

 

...

 

ok.

 

regardless, we has seen obsidian deal with the freewill theme before, and they handled it with mixed results. motb? so-so. kotor2? pretty good. their failures with the freewill stuff is not related to some ambiguous notion o' a "weak core."

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

I don't think this has much worth discussing past saying the force is the main driving core of the Star Wars lore and its influence over the user is very clear in the movies. The prophecy bit foretelling is a dead giveaway, a child born of the force, dark side dominating one's destiny....etc. KotOR II phrases it differently, perhaps even stimulates a different thought pattern but it is not saying much beyond what the movies already say. Even Windu questioning what bringing balance to the force means when there are so many jedi and just two sith......

 

As for the "failures" of KotOR II....you didn't grasp the game. This might be a more fruitful discussion if this were a KotOR II forum though.

 

As I said, it's early in pre-development but I felt they were burning more bridges than necessary in terms of where they could go from here. You can disagree all you like but I think it's very much worth discussing. You're the one who thinks Obsidian failed to develop a proper core for one of their previous games...I don't see why you're complaining. You should be far more concerned than I am. Bleh, this last bit, which is the only one actually relevant to this forum, is getting distasteful. Feels like a pissing contest of personal attacks. If you have nothing to say on the subject itself would you mind trolling elsewhere?

Edited October 20, 2012 by Darth Trethon

[Gromnir]

the star war movies do Not focus on free will as a major theme. incidental theme? perhaps, but is not a main issue. we got no idea what is explored in the plethora o' books, cartoons and comics, but the suggestion that free will and force is a major theme from core star wars material would be a gross overstatement.

 

as to the complaint 'bout pe magic... huh? based on snippet you is presuming that the theme in question is not fully explored or realized in the game? hell, the pe notion o' 'souls' and free will is not even particularly unique. a famous example is the dune series and alia's struggles. am hardly worried that obsidian will fail to develop or explore. in fact, am more worried that they do the opposite. leave somewhat vague is better than doing some silly exposition to fully explain. let player fill in the gaps is better than attempting to answer all questions.

 

HA! good Fun!

 

Depends how much you care to read into the philosophy of the movies but it is there nonetheless.....takes a lot of cutting to make a movie fit in two hours.

 

 

 

sorry, but cutting room floor dont count... and if you gotta "read into," then it isn't a major theme, is it?

 

"it seemed like they are putting together a weak core for the lore"

 

again, based on a snippet from an off-site preview interview?

 

...

 

ok.

 

regardless, we has seen obsidian deal with the freewill theme before, and they handled it with mixed results. motb? so-so. kotor2? pretty good. their failures with the freewill stuff is not related to some ambiguous notion o' a "weak core."

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

I don't think this has much worth discussing past saying the force is the main driving core of the Star Wars lore

 

the part quoted above is the only truth you stated. is near nonexistent discussion of the force as robbing individuals of free will... and clear ain't a main theme. come now... argue to silliness does not help your position. kreia were claiming that the ultimate antagonist of kotor2 were the Force.... but we do agree it ain't worth discussing further.

 

 

the thing we is trying to get you to state (and am failing to do so) is how the snippet referenced can somehow result in burnt bridges. from the fragment quoted, we analogized to Dune. we can see possibility of souls limited to id. we can see souls with ego. we can see the entire impact of souls left ambiguous but ubiquitous. given how little obsidian said, the possibility o' a bridge being burnt is negligible... and as imagination is hardly as limited as the army corps of engineers- there is theoretically unlimited places to ford your river of doubts.

 

so...

 

HA! Good Fun!

[septembervirgin]

Then a term like 'ancestral spirit' might be more suited to describe the phenomenon that is called 'soul'. The quality of the sentient human brain that distinguishes it from others is called personality; a soul is the essence of a person/personality.

 

Personality is also fictional. We use the term personality loosely; it does not cover as much ground as a mile and air floats through it unhindered.

[Darth Trethon]

Gromnir repplying only to the first half sentence I wrote, ignoring the rest and missing the plot of another game while making wild claims of the validity of my points(I hereby pronounce your points invalid type deal).....yep still just trolling.

Then a term like 'ancestral spirit' might be more suited to describe the phenomenon that is called 'soul'. The quality of the sentient human brain that distinguishes it from others is called personality; a soul is the essence of a person/personality.

 

Personality is also fictional. We use the term personality loosely; it does not cover as much ground as a mile and air floats through it unhindered.

 

Personality is the unique set of traits and characteristics that make each individual unique.....given that it's near impossible to find two identical individuals kind of makes a strong point for the existence of personality. You can say one straight forward thing to ten different people and get ten different answers....every one of them thinking and reasoning in different ways. I can say a simple word like "apple" and most people will have different ideas....some will think of different colored apples, others will think liking/disliking certain apples, others will think of apple pies.....etc. This applies to everything, without personality all would be identical as they would not have any personal ideas or desires of their own to make them individuals.

Edited October 21, 2012 by Darth Trethon

[Gromnir]

we replied to all you said, but we only quoted relevant. seriously, you is still trying to argue that force-as-antagonist is a major theme in the original star wars core movies?

 

and you were the one who said you didn't want to discuss kotor2 shortcomings here. so, you got what you want. quit complaining.

 

and again, "As I said, it's early in pre-development but I felt they were burning more bridges than necessary in terms of where they could go from here," is meaningless rhetoric. "soul" is a loaded word, but as much as you think it hinders, it expands. "apple" is not an emotionally charged word, but "soul" is. games ain't novels. can't use hundreds of pages to develop a concept. limited space. limited dialogue encounters. audience with a limited attention span. game developers need to embrace brevity. they likely need to use archetypes and familiar themes. they need to be creative, but they gotta use what players bring with them to the game. the notion that use of "soul" "burns bridges" ignores the fact that certain words cut straight to subconscious, and particularly in a game, that is a good thing.

 

some people have an emotional reaction to use of soul? yes. duh.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Sensuki]

Hey if you're lucky you'll end up coming out next to the New Jersey Turnpike

[Darth Trethon]

we replied to all you said, but we only quoted relevant. seriously, you is still trying to argue that force-as-antagonist is a major theme in the original star wars core movies?

 

and you were the one who said you didn't want to discuss kotor2 shortcomings here. so, you got what you want. quit complaining.

 

and again, "As I said, it's early in pre-development but I felt they were burning more bridges than necessary in terms of where they could go from here," is meaningless rhetoric. "soul" is a loaded word, but as much as you think it hinders, it expands. "apple" is not an emotionally charged word, but "soul" is. games ain't novels. can't use hundreds of pages to develop a concept. limited space. limited dialogue encounters. audience with a limited attention span. game developers need to embrace brevity. they likely need to use archetypes and familiar themes. they need to be creative, but they gotta use what players bring with them to the game. the notion that use of "soul" "burns bridges" ignores the fact that certain words cut straight to subconscious, and particularly in a game, that is a good thing.

 

some people have an emotional reaction to use of soul? yes. duh.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

In other words your point is....what exactly? That it's ok to chop the plot and leave large gaps in logic and that it doesn't need to be reasonable as long as they use words that people are familiar with because they evoke emotion? Sounds kind of like what BioWare did(specifically with Mass Effect 3 more than other games).....yeah, let's just go for the emotional responses, we don't need dialogue and a cohesive plot so let's just chop the ending...yeah, that sounds like a good idea. That always works out so well.....

[mokona]

This seems a bit nonsensical to me in that it separates the self or the individual from his or her soul. To me the notion of the self, the part that thinks and reasons and chooses is the soul. The soul is that which animates an otherwise useless object.

There are real-world belief systems about souls that are almost the same as what Chris was describing.

 

1. The sense of self is divided into multiple parts or souls. The body, the animalistic urges, the intellect, and the eternal soul. The soul itself is not the thinking part and the soul is not responsible for evil actions.

 

or

 

2. The sense of self is the unique combination of the soul and the body. As they blend together and interact, that is when a "person" is created. When the body dies and the soul is combined with a new body, a "new" person is created. The newly incarnated person is somewhat similar to the dead person because half of their being is the same but they're uniquely different people because of the influence of the half that isn't shared.

 

Free will is an important concept to many people and many religions and in both of the instances above it would be debatable if the soul is sometimes in conflict with your free will or if the soul's desires are the true free will that is being perverted by the non-soul elements of the person.

[Gromnir]

we replied to all you said, but we only quoted relevant. seriously, you is still trying to argue that force-as-antagonist is a major theme in the original star wars core movies?

 

and you were the one who said you didn't want to discuss kotor2 shortcomings here. so, you got what you want. quit complaining.

 

and again, "As I said, it's early in pre-development but I felt they were burning more bridges than necessary in terms of where they could go from here," is meaningless rhetoric. "soul" is a loaded word, but as much as you think it hinders, it expands. "apple" is not an emotionally charged word, but "soul" is. games ain't novels. can't use hundreds of pages to develop a concept. limited space. limited dialogue encounters. audience with a limited attention span. game developers need to embrace brevity. they likely need to use archetypes and familiar themes. they need to be creative, but they gotta use what players bring with them to the game. the notion that use of "soul" "burns bridges" ignores the fact that certain words cut straight to subconscious, and particularly in a game, that is a good thing.

 

some people have an emotional reaction to use of soul? yes. duh.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

In other words your point is....what exactly? That it's ok to chop the plot and leave large gaps in logic and that it doesn't need to be reasonable as long as they use words that people are familiar with because they evoke emotion? Sounds kind of like what BioWare did(specifically with Mass Effect 3 more than other games).....yeah, let's just go for the emotional responses, we don't need dialogue and a cohesive plot so let's just chop the ending...yeah, that sounds like a good idea. That always works out so well.....

 

wow. beat on that strawman a bit more if it makes you feel better... makes you look a bit silly though... more silly than you star wars argument were. use of "soul" and emotionally heavy language necessarily leads to plot holes and unreasonableness?

 

HA!

 

wanna try again?

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Katrar]

I don't think there's necessarily that much distance between what Avellone wrote, and the familiar trope of bodies inheriting souls. Especially if Avellone's reference of a soul finding a new body meant the body of a newborn child, then the question "how much of your own behavior is free will ... etc etc ... how much is the soul," is pretty standard. It's an open question as stated. The interesting part of the whole soul thing is, to me, the "shards of souls" component, or the rarity of intact souls. That seems to lend itself to the possibility of some kind of fantasy dissociative identity disorder if your "main" or "first" soul is a shard, allowing room so to speak for other bodiless souls to pop on in and wreck a little havoc.

[Metabot]

In the interview here: http://www.gamesindu...-on-kickstarter

 

Chris Avellone said:

The whole premise of the lore and the magic system is that souls get inherited, and then when you pass away the souls wait for a time and then come back to another body. The question is how much of your own behavior is being governed by your own free will or the influence of the soul inside you and all of its history?

 

This seems a bit nonsensical to me in that it separates the self or the individual from his or her soul. To me the notion of the self, the part that thinks and reasons and chooses is the soul. The soul is that which animates an otherwise useless object. I can get behind the idea of reincarnation which leaves the issue of the memory wipe to contend with but still...that part is reasonable.

 

 

 

How is it nonsensical in the context of fantasy? I mean this whole discussion is really pointless and nonsensical if you ask me.