Quote:Original post by MSW
Okay...I'll take this slowly...

I appreciate you taking the time to elucidate me as to your meaning.

Quote:Original post by MSW
There is a ton of info about Britney Spears online. If you are one of her fans, you already know this... if not, then you could care less about such info... the key point is you are online, you still have access to this info... So, how would NPCs be any different?

I'm not saying NPCs would be any different from that (as long as we're having them conform to commonly-observed human nature). What I'm saying is that most "common" NPCs would probably not be able to afford such a mage guild's prices. It is also within the bounds of human nature to be greedy, to charge as much for something as the market will bear. Why would a mage guild charge a smaller fee to poorer people than it would to a king? The king would just pay poor people to get information for him at a cheaper price. So the mages wouldn't charge a cheaper price to anyone. Which means many people will get left out. This is in addition to the other politics that would become involved here.

Information is knowledge, and knowledge is power. As long as there is power, there will be those who seek to control it possessively. This means there'll probably be some king or emperor who will take military control of the information sharing infrastructure in order to prevent spying and keep certain information and education out of the hands of commoners. Even in the real world model of the internet to which you refer, there are many information blocks in place. We will never hear about most of the heroic deeds that occur on foreign or even native soils, because they are all classified. Other times, news only makes it to the internet when someone feels like making a web page about something, or when the news media considers whatever it is (the event) to be noteworthy enough to make the news, be it on the internet or television.

Could a village pay some mage or magic-using rogue to go spy on you? Sure, if they weren't too poor and had an interest in you. But what I object to the most is when you show up at some random village where none of the inhabitants has ever laid eyes upon you before in their lives, and they somehow already know your name or at least that you've been doing heroic things in some other village or country. Most true heroes go unsung in real life, unless they do a LOT. Another political aspect is that most people with power want to preserve and increase their power. You don't accomplish that by sharing your power with anyone, except in extreme cases or when tons of money are involved. Even when getting paid for the service, you risk having people know what you're capable of, and either fearing you, mistrusting you, or seeking to dominate you. So you still are looking at having a (realistic) situation where mages would not want to work together in any kind of constantly-sharing network, and they certainly wouldn't want to work for the entire non-magical world at large. If you think they would, then you don't understand the nature of what would make someone a wizard in the first place.

Quote:Original post by MSW
this was entirely related to this statement you made:

Quote:Original snippet by Ranger Meldon
But having everyone (every NPC), no matter how poor or remote, be able to have access to that information seems like a very bad, very unrealistic idea.

If village A is being tormented by monster rats and the player slays them, well it would go without saying that the residents of village A would be interested to hear that...and by consulting with the mage info brokers, they could all learn it very quickly...This DOES NOT mean all the residents of village B,C,D,E,F have learned this information even though they all have access to the mage info brokers whom would share it if so asked...this is not unrealistic, its entirely plauseable(hell, just think of a Mage News Network given voice by common town criers)...plus the concept of mage info brokers adds story potential well beyond what is typical in CRPGs.

Do you understand now?

Yes, I do understand your meaning now. Thank you. However, I still disagree. My reasons why have already been amply stated in the above paragraphs of this post. I'm sorry if that still doesn't seem to ring true. I'm all for using my imagination, but this scenario just doesn't work, given the more base aspects of human nature.

~Ranger Meldon~ M.M .:

Quote:Original post by Ranger Meldon

Quote:Original post by MSW
Okay...I'll take this slowly...

I appreciate you taking the time to elucidate me as to your meaning.

Quote:Original post by MSW
There is a ton of info about Britney Spears online. If you are one of her fans, you already know this... if not, then you could care less about such info... the key point is you are online, you still have access to this info... So, how would NPCs be any different?

I'm not saying NPCs would be any different from that (as long as we're having them conform to commonly-observed human nature). What I'm saying is that most "common" NPCs would probably not be able to afford such a mage guild's prices. It is also within the bounds of human nature to be greedy, to charge as much for something as the market will bear. Why would a mage guild charge a smaller fee to poorer people than it would to a king? The king would just pay poor people to get information for him at a cheaper price. So the mages wouldn't charge a cheaper price to anyone. Which means many people will get left out. This is in addition to the other politics that would become involved here.

Information is knowledge, and knowledge is power. As long as there is power, there will be those who seek to control it possessively. This means there'll probably be some king or emperor who will take military control of the information sharing infrastructure in order to prevent spying and keep certain information and education out of the hands of commoners. Even in the real world model of the internet to which you refer, there are many information blocks in place. We will never hear about most of the heroic deeds that occur on foreign or even native soils, because they are all classified. Other times, news only makes it to the internet when someone feels like making a web page about something, or when the news media considers whatever it is (the event) to be noteworthy enough to make the news, be it on the internet or television.

Could a village pay some mage or magic-using rogue to go spy on you? Sure, if they weren't too poor and had an interest in you. But what I object to the most is when you show up at some random village where none of the inhabitants has ever laid eyes upon you before in their lives, and they somehow already know your name or at least that you've been doing heroic things in some other village or country. Most true heroes go unsung in real life, unless they do a LOT. Another political aspect is that most people with power want to preserve and increase their power. You don't accomplish that by sharing your power with anyone, except in extreme cases or when tons of money are involved. Even when getting paid for the service, you risk having people know what you're capable of, and either fearing you, mistrusting you, or seeking to dominate you. So you still are looking at having a (realistic) situation where mages would not want to work together in any kind of constantly-sharing network, and they certainly wouldn't want to work for the entire non-magical world at large. If you think they would, then you don't understand the nature of what would make someone a wizard in the first place.

Quote:Original post by MSW
this was entirely related to this statement you made:

Quote:Original snippet by Ranger Meldon
But having everyone (every NPC), no matter how poor or remote, be able to have access to that information seems like a very bad, very unrealistic idea.

If village A is being tormented by monster rats and the player slays them, well it would go without saying that the residents of village A would be interested to hear that...and by consulting with the mage info brokers, they could all learn it very quickly...This DOES NOT mean all the residents of village B,C,D,E,F have learned this information even though they all have access to the mage info brokers whom would share it if so asked...this is not unrealistic, its entirely plauseable(hell, just think of a Mage News Network given voice by common town criers)...plus the concept of mage info brokers adds story potential well beyond what is typical in CRPGs.

Do you understand now?

Yes, I do understand your meaning now. Thank you. However, I still disagree. My reasons why have already been amply stated in the above paragraphs of this post. I'm sorry if that still doesn't seem to ring true. I'm all for using my imagination, but this scenario just doesn't work, given the more base aspects of human nature.

~Ranger Meldon~ M.M .:

Okay, fair enough...I just don't understand how people get so worked up over a village knowing your name when you have never been there before in a game. Its not a big deal to me, I am playing the hero in such games. I'm out to save the world or whatever, NPCs should know my name. Besides I can walk into any shop in such games and buy perfectly fitting clothing and armor, the corpses of monsters leave money/spells/other items behind when its clear such beasts have no use for them in the first place...there are tons of other unrealistic things RPGs do, yet people complain about simplistic reputation systems and the lack of weapon sheathes and drawstrings on bows? I just don't get it.

Quote:Original post by MSW

Okay, fair enough...I just don't understand how people get so worked up over a village knowing your name when you have never been there before in a game. Its not a big deal to me, I am playing the hero in such games. I'm out to save the world or whatever, NPCs should know my name. Besides I can walk into any shop in such games and buy perfectly fitting clothing and armor, the corpses of monsters leave money/spells/other items behind when its clear such beasts have no use for them in the first place...there are tons of other unrealistic things RPGs do, yet people complain about simplistic reputation systems and the lack of weapon sheathes and drawstrings on bows? I just don't get it.

This is actually a very reasonable response to make. I can see why you wouldn't understand, because at first glance I have a hard time putting it into words myself. But after thinking about it, I believe I can tell you what the deal is. People will probably always have their eyes to the horizon, so to speak. You could make the most awesome game in history, and people will still eventually end up sitting around thinking of ways it could have been better. Honestly, since this seems to result in better games being made over time, I can't see that this aspect of human nature is a bad thing. But I can see where it could get annoying, like "will you people just be happy for two seconds?!" :)

This is the very motivation for me wanting to see better reputation systems, weapon sheaths, and bowstrings -- because it's the next thing that could be done. Where do you go from up? Higher up, if you can. These would be the "higher ups". Sure, you're the hero, and people should know your name, but not until it's realistically plausible that they could. Otherwise, it cheapens the effect of your growing coolness dramatically. Also, I look at it like, why not? If you can add these things to the game, and thereby make it better for some people while not negatively impacting gameplay or fun for everyone else, then why not? It's not hurting anything to think about such additions, unless it causes you to never get your game released, which is always a possibility anyway.

As far as the other things you mentioned that you feel are unrealistic: most of those are things I have also already listed earlier in this thread as being unrealistic. So we are in agreement there. As concerns vendor armor and weapons fitting perfectly, this could be explained away as being the result of the fact that the game doesn't always portray the passage of time continuously. In other words, the game also doesn't show the character going to the bathroom or sleeping, but you know these things must happen at some point. So the game just skips over them and it is assumed that they happen. So in the case of the vendors, no one wants to sit around and wait for armor to be fitted to them, so it is just assumed that this is done, and we are allowed to get back to the action.

What makes less sense to me is how you find armor out in the wilds that fits perfectly without having to be taken back to town to be refitted. Maybe in some cases this can be assumed, but at other times, this might be implausible, like if the character is working against a time limit or is trapped in some cave or dungeon. As to monsters, since we don't have any monsters in real life (terrorists notwithstanding), who knows how a real monster would act, or what it would value? Intelligent monsters (i.e. not animals or "beasts") might like to collect certain items, spells, potions, or gold just because they think it looks neat, or sparkly, etc. Maybe they use gold too. Or maybe they just eat it. Or maybe they were carrying the loot they dropped to some monster overlord who is preparing for an invasion. Who knows? I try not to look too much into this unless it's some animal like a wolf or bear or whatever and it drops some really awkward loot like full plate or a claymore.

At any rate, I have always tried to limit my suggestions and criticisms to things for which I can think of solutions myself, and solutions that would not be insane (difficulty) to implement. I'm sure there are some people who think the reputation system I suggested earlier in this thread is insane difficult, but that's what people said about realistic physics at first, until somebody sat down and did it. Now it's relatively commonplace. We have to start somewhere. If not with realism, then with ideas for improvements in general.

~Ranger Meldon~ M.M. .:

[Edited by - Ranger Meldon on July 15, 2005 9:13:54 AM]

Ok, I feel the time is ripe to make the sister thread to this one: what we have loved about RPGs and FPS RPGs. I shall return shortly.

Edit: Ok, here's the link.

~Ranger Meldon~ M.M. .:

[Edited by - Ranger Meldon on July 15, 2005 10:42:46 AM]