NaturalNines

Rearrangment of skills on hotbar for a small period of time

Absolutely not.  Nothing worse than disturbing immersion, in my book.  Though there may be a way to utilize this without disturbing immersion depending on the specific system, I suppose.

Inversing controls (move left by pressing right)for a small period of time

This one I like a lot.  Secret of Mana had confusion spells that would reverse your directional control when hit by them.  At first it was crippling, but you could adapt and navigate just fine during that period after you were hit by the spell a few times.  I like this idea because it doesn't ruin immersion, but it forces the player to adapt to small shifts in the game.  Expands the mind.

Generally I think it's a great idea.  If you make it part of the gameplay then the player shouldn't feel cheated; it's just another obstacle/challenge the player must overcome to excell at the game.

Sexism and racism.  Just shit tons of it.

You could also abandon the transfer rate approach and use in game events as chronological triggers.

You artists have the benefit of working on a constrained environment.

That was actually the basis of my concern, so I'm glad you mentioned it.  I can look at a picture, an animation, scenery, whatever, in a game and get a pretty accurate idea of how the visual aspect was completed and the time and tools it took to do so, but I won't know if there are 10 or 10,000 lines of programming behind it.  The good idea fairy must be a pain in the ass for programmers.

Again, thank you all for the continued assistance.

Perfect.  Well that answers my question.  Can't imagine an answer I like more than "no work necessary" or "don't use words you don't know" or "English", haha.
I haven't had any miscommunications with any programmers I've worked with, by the way, but I was anticipating it would eventually occur.  Guess not, good to hear.

Thanks, all.

I'm solely creative.  Art, writing, design, but little to no programming knowledge although I am computer literate (solely from using them).  While I don't intend to begin programming, probably ever, I nevertheless do want to be able to communicate with any programmers I may be working with as well as create/design in a manner that facilitates their work (or if nothing else doesn't aggravate it).

Is there a preferable language for this goal, or is this goal achievable through knowledge of programming jargon alone?  I guess the best way to ask is: has there ever been something you wished a creative member of your team knew, be it a language, program, whatever, that may have facilitated development or at least communication?

Thanks beforehand for any time or assistance.

Under-barrel SMG.  Always wanted one of those on a sniper rifle.

Energy Pulse system attachment: releases a directional burst that detonates incoming rockets/exposives and knocks back any enemies nearby

EMP: close range underbarrel attachment to easily disable robots/equipment

the guy above your post pointed out the complete obvious but at least he attempted to help.

So completely obvious that you didn't do it, and still haven't done it?
What an obnoxious ingrate to insult the people attempting to assist you, whether you find it to be quality assistance or not.  Are you also insulting your players?  Because if so that's probably your problem.

How about a Sling?  Incorporates the plentiful ammo aspect of rocks as well as can utilize a unique firing method, such as holding the button down to start swinging the sling, which gains power, then release to throw.  You could even add in aim disruption as you hold the button for longer to increase the difficulty of power shots.  Make it weak with extra damage to the head and an additional bonus when undetected by the enemy.  Difficult to use effectively, but infinite ammo and stealthy (unless you miss, of course).

I'd like to add that both of those functions can serve the player beyond revisitations or game juggling.  As the average age of gamers increases you'll find more players with schedules that not only impede their ability to spend those long hours playing but also can prevent them from playing for weeks, if not months, at any given time.

A good reference would be Deus Ex: Human Revolution.  By enhancing your characters strength you were able to move large objects that hid entrances you otherwise wouldn't have access to; by learning the Cloak ability you could walk right by heavily populated rooms without alerting them; by upgrading your jump you could reach ledges unreachable by piling (often heavy) objects; by upgrading your combat skills you could just blow through the enemy.  Their solution was to provide multiple "gates", as you used in your example, and allowed the player to pick the one they wanted to (or were able to) bypass.  To enhance difficulty they would add more obstacles, such as placing a grate higher up, which forced the player to jump to reach it, and having patrols to moniter it.  If you didn't have the silent jump upgrade that particular stealth option was effectively prevented, forcing you to find a new solution.

Thus you solve the level based on your chosen abilities.

I agreed, at first, that it was an annoyance.  But as kseh said it becomes a part of the game, and leads to variance between plays.  In prior Elder Scrolls games you end up with insane amounts of money at higher levels whether or not you invest in the ability to barter, but in Skyrim I found even my level 50+ characters fluctuating around only 10-20k in gold.  Sure, I have a house filled to the brim with rare equipment I sell when i need to, but that's a stark difference from my thief character that trained in speech for better prices and store investments and has never encountered a money problem, by far exceeding the purses of my other level 50+ characters even at level 20.  It grants variances in gameplay and how you experience their world.

That's my thought, at least.

I would advise avoiding it, since by placing yourself in the story you run the risk of stealing the show or focusing on yourself.  A big ego can derail a story or make a character come off as a douche, and, no offense, but based on your model-esque picture my guess is you have a big ego.

I always stick to using facets of personalities rather than inserting the whole person into the game to avoid that problem, since cognitive dissonance can be a bitch (I have a huge ego).  This way I run less a risk of minimizing or glossing over the character's flaws.

Just a thought.

The problem I see here is that Merlin, or whichever god-like wizard you choose, is old, wise, and knowledgeable of this immense power called magic, whereas the average gamer is an obnoxious tool.  Acharis probably gives the best solution, limiting these uber wizards while creating a second tier of pseudo-uber wizards (the assistants who will most likely be the next to overthrow the currently residing god-wizard) and also creating a pvp game mechanic where wizards struggle for control of these towers.  Further, the wizard's enhanced power could be limited to a certain range of his tower, creating zones where different god-wizards reign suppreme.  But your challenge here, also stated by Acharis, is still how to attract players to the lesser non-wizard roles.  Why do I want to be a swordsman or an archer when I will never be as important a figure as a wizard?

As AdrianC said regarding permadeath, think of the old game Gemstone III.  Warriors were the easier class to start out, jumping right into battle and quickly gaining levels with their high constitution and strength, but at higher levels warriors became more of a phenomena since the entire persona of the Warrior is to place itself in danger.  The most common high level classes were Empaths, a largely non-combat class, because they could gain experience slowly but incredibly safely by healing in towns.  Wizards and Sorcerers were slower to start than Warriors in Gemstone III, since they could not jump into combat like the Warrior, but would attain powerful spells later on which would compensate, if not overcompensate, for their weakness.  With your realist approach to the wizard's level of power you have to consider how the wizard attains this power.  Since that power is attained through studies, or mental exertions instead of physical, the wizard will never gain any HP or toughness or capability of sustaining physical damage.  With permadeath, this makes the wizard a high-risk high-reward class as even at higher levels one small mistake will put your wizard in life-threatening danger (thus derailing all of that hard work).  Wizards having such high potential, yet having such an obvious vulnerability, could make them fun targets for non-wizard classes.  Archers become the bane of Wizards, and thus a mundane class now holds power over the seemingly invulnerable.  Wizards would be more inclined to make friends and allies with mundane classes early on, promoting community between Wizards and mundane classes (and possibly even campaigns against wizards by former mundane allies spurned upon the wizard's rise to power).

Anyway, just a thought.  Good luck, I think this is possible.