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Boz0r posted:I just rewatched the trailer, and is it just me, or do the player characters seem to be constantly ducking when they run around? If you are lower to the ground you travel faster, relative to the observer.
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Jan 8, 2014 00:27
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Darkhold posted:Yeah I don't know why you have invested this much thought in this but even Tolkien called it magic. There's roughly a billion and one fantasy books where 'magic' is some type of natural force but it's still just magic. Because what Tolkien does is actually far more subtle and interesting than D&D or roughly a billion fantasy books' style magic or roughly a billion fantasy books, that's why.
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Jan 8, 2014 02:42
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User posted:Because what Tolkien does is actually far more interesting than D&D style magic, that's why. Your pointless quibbling only muddies the waters of terminology, increases the probability of a misunderstanding, and gains you nothing. If you're going to insist on an alternative term (or to not use a term at all), it usually helps to be doing so for increased clarity.
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Jan 8, 2014 02:43
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Captain Oblivious posted:Your pointless quibbling only muddies the waters of terminology, increases the probability of a misunderstanding, and gains you nothing. Actually the distinction is critical to Tolkien's work. If you're actually interested you can read what he has to say about "Magic" and "Machine." Edit: I believe it's in the Silmarillion somewhere. User fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Jan 8, 2014 |
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Jan 8, 2014 02:54
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User posted:Actually the distinction is critical to Tolkien's work. If you're actually interested you can read what he has to say about "Magic" and "Machine." Jesus, who wants to waste their time and read Tolkien this day and age when there's so much better written stuff out there? maybe not with six-page songs and poo poo every thirty pages, but still. 
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Jan 8, 2014 04:21
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User posted:Because what Tolkien does is actually far more subtle and interesting than D&D or roughly a billion fantasy books' style magic or roughly a billion fantasy books, that's why. And I've read books that did magic even more naturalistic and subtle than Tolkien. And yes it's still magic.
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Jan 8, 2014 08:06
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Darkhold posted:I've read books that did magic even more naturalistic and subtle than Tolkien.
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Jan 8, 2014 08:19
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I just recalled one of my favourite silly parts of Baldur's Gate was constantly selecting a character to see what silly things they would say. For example Xzar screeching "Stop touching me!"  It'd be a nifty thing if Eternity also had that.
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Jan 8, 2014 09:17
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Furism posted:I don't know, for a long time people thought lightning was a spell effect from Zeus. Would that count as a spell effect? From my knowledge of Greek mythology, I was under the impression that people thought Zeus literally held the lighning in his hand before throwing it really hard and it striking the ground in like an instant.
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Jan 8, 2014 09:19
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CottonWolf posted:Are we expecting an update today? Before we all kill one another. Appropriately enough it would be an update saying PVP was included in the game.
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Jan 8, 2014 09:33
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RE: Tolkien, didn't first edition D&D literally just throw in hobbits and the like until someone told Gygax to cut that poo poo out, so then he just kinda half-assed changed the names?chiefnewo posted:I just recalled one of my favourite silly parts of Baldur's Gate was constantly selecting a character to see what silly things they would say. For example Xzar screeching "Stop touching me!" After the thirtieth time you hear "YES, oh omnipotent authority figure?  " it kinda loses its luster, man.
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Jan 8, 2014 10:52
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Wolfsheim posted:RE: Tolkien, didn't first edition D&D literally just throw in hobbits and the like until someone told Gygax to cut that poo poo out, so then he just kinda half-assed changed the names? He passed away in 1973 and his creation kinda were in the hands of some publisher companies and they indeed told them to cut it out because they had copyright on Hobbit because that was the title of the first book. If he had called it "Elf", history would be very different, D&D would still have Hobbits and elves would be "tall folk".
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Jan 8, 2014 11:05
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This is the correct answer. The only difference between Odin and Gandalf is one of them still had both eyes. Or to put it in more gamery terms, Tolkien just reskinned Odin when he made his mod for Norse myth.
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Jan 8, 2014 12:09
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You probably couldn't copyright Elf any more than Giant or Zombie, they're in far too much prior art. Hobbit is something Tolkien invented for his book.
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Jan 8, 2014 12:27
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HotCanadianChick posted:This is the correct answer. The only difference between Odin and Gandalf is one of them still had both eyes. Or not. Gandalf is in fact much less malevolent and overall his personality is pretty different. He also doesn't have a whole panteon of god-relatives to aid or betray him etc. etc. Yes, they're both travelling figures with hats, they do magic. That's about it. As for magic use in Middle Earth and by Aragorn specifically, I recommend reading some Martinez, or Tom Shippey. (IIRC "Road to Middle Earth" has a pretty great discussion of the differences between Gandalf's "tricks", ie magic (to which Necromancers and other sorcerers are likened) and "words of power", which are more of a godly power bestowed on him by Valar/Eru.) http://middle-earth.xenite.org/2011/12/06/did-aragorn-use-any-magic/
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Jan 8, 2014 13:50
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That site has some very strange articles. I can kinda see where it comes from, but it's still surprising to read their interpretation that Tolkien had more magical items in it than your average video game, but it isn't wrong, it's just a difference in how the two are presented and somehow Tolkien nails subtlety in magic in a way I think most game designers wish they could do. I mean, it has magical loafes of bread that staves off starvation for longer than normal bread, how the hell do you really work that into a game like Pillars of Eternity?
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Jan 8, 2014 14:35
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Mordaedil posted:I mean, it has magical loafes of bread that staves off starvation for longer than normal bread, how the hell do you really work that into a game like Pillars of Eternity? Make whatever buff the food provides last 3 days instead of one? Or do you mean "how do you write something like Lembas bread without making it Not-Lembas-Bread"? In Lord of the Rings Online it restores more health than regular bread and also provides some buff (which is a big deal in LotRO). It never bothered me. E: Also you can get it only from quest rewards as I recall.
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Jan 8, 2014 14:50
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Mordaedil posted:I mean, it has magical loafes of bread that staves off starvation for longer than normal bread, how the hell do you really work that into a game like Pillars of Eternity? It's all in the item descriptions.
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Jan 8, 2014 14:53
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I just mean it doesn't have much of any application in a game like Pillars of Eternity, so it is kind of a moot thing. It's like giving you, as a wizard, a spell that allows you to light your pipe, but it only works for lighting small fires and it has to be close enough to be your pipe and not someone elses pipe. And then you put that into an action adventure game. Where the players would probably rather use the slot on an actually useful spell. My point being there sure are a lot of magical items in Tolkiens stuff, but he has a bit of an advantage in being a purely narrative device and things like balance doesn't govern his writng. Still, funny ideas.
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Jan 8, 2014 15:01
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LotRO (again, sorry) does this rather well since you have two "pocket" slots for gimmick items. This game did a lot of things right 
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Jan 8, 2014 15:15
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Mordaedil posted:That site has some very strange articles. I don't see how all Tolkiens Magic Items are subtle. They're all over the place - while only Gandalf knows how to cast spells, everyone else is decked out head to toe in magic equipment. Even the minor Hobbits have Short Swords of Evil-Slaying (from the hill graves) and several people have weapons that magically glow when orks are nearby. They've got chameleon cloaks that take on the colour of the surroundings, straight up healing potions (which they basically use up before they even hit Moria - great rationing there), infinite-length rope (which isn't even that far removed from a bag of holding) and magic star-light-lanterns.
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Jan 8, 2014 15:15
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Mordaedil posted:I just mean it doesn't have much of any application in a game like Pillars of Eternity, so it is kind of a moot thing. It's like giving you, as a wizard, a spell that allows you to light your pipe, but it only works for lighting small fires and it has to be close enough to be your pipe and not someone elses pipe. And then you put that into an action adventure game. Where the players would probably rather use the slot on an actually useful spell. I would never, ever complain if magicky classes in some game got a couple of "free" flavor spells like this over the course of the game (and non-magicky classes maybe got something analagous but qualitatively different). eg., "After reaching the fourth level of wizarding proficiency, Wizard BonghitzMcGee finally mastered the art of lighting pipes that are relatively close to his face." "Oh thank you, Rogue StabbitySnarkChick! As a reward for rescuing my chickens from the evil fox Vulpes Inculcata, I shall teach you how to pants people." "Upon discovering the thought-lost books of LucrumGaudium and MyrtisBeneFelas, Bard MentulaDiffututa has discovered the lost art of doing that trick where you pull a coin out of someone's ear."
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Jan 8, 2014 15:21
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Tolkien, in his letters, said that the power of the elves (and others) came from a sort of sub-creation; the idea is that if God has the power to create new things in the universe, why couldn't he grant a tiny fraction of that power to other beings? They pretty much use that power the way we use the power of speech or the ability to walk. That's why you get the answer the elves give when the hobbits ask them about magic, which is "we don't know what you people mean when you say that, especially since you use the same word to describe the stuff Sauron does". It's not because it isn't magic (it is, by any reasonable standard), it's just that the elves don't have a concept of not being magic.
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Jan 8, 2014 15:22
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DatonKallandor posted:I don't see how all Tolkiens Magic Items are subtle. They're all over the place - while only Gandalf knows how to cast spells, everyone else is decked out head to toe in magic equipment. Even the minor Hobbits have Short Swords of Evil-Slaying (from the hill graves) and several people have weapons that magically glow when orks are nearby. They've got chameleon cloaks that take on the colour of the surroundings, straight up healing potions (which they basically use up before they even hit Moria - great rationing there), infinite-length rope (which isn't even that far removed from a bag of holding) and magic star-light-lanterns. These guys were decked out because they were were part of The Fellowship. They got twinked and powerleveled, in MMO terms. Soldiers at Helm's Deep or Minas Tirith didn't have much in terms of magical items I think. It's the same discussion as before. We see a lot of magic items in D&D because we run dungeons and are heroes. Most people don't. There isn't a factory of Shovels of Speed for farmers.
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Jan 8, 2014 15:27
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And because they are Tolkein elves, they sing their magic into being for the most part, much like how the world was sung into being. Yes, I do like the Silvamarillion too much, why do you ask?
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Jan 8, 2014 15:27
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Quote is not edit.
VanSandman fucked around with this message at 15:39 on Jan 8, 2014 |
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Jan 8, 2014 15:28
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ITT people who haven't read the Silmarillion explain Tolkien.
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Jan 8, 2014 17:38
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Let's not fetishize the Silmarillion here. I mean, I enjoyed it (or most of it), but it's just a collection of Tolkien's unfinished drafts, background notebooks, and other stuff, glued together with filler by Christopher Tolkien and Guy Gavriel Kay after the man's death. It was not ready for publication and its canonicity is shaky at best. It's interesting to read how he was thinking about his universe's background, but it's not going to be that helpful if we're talking about how the main books treat magic (which I guess is what we're doing here now). There actually are some parallels with Pillars, though. It seems as if the various classes are all (or mostly) using "magic" in some way, it's just that magic is "effects from the particular nature of this person's soul".
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Jan 8, 2014 18:30
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FRINGE posted:The Coldfire Trilogy played along those lines. Those books were really good. idonotlikepeas posted:Guy Gavriel Kay
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Jan 8, 2014 18:46
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chiefnewo posted:I just recalled one of my favourite silly parts of Baldur's Gate was constantly selecting a character to see what silly things they would say. For example Xzar screeching "Stop touching me!"
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Jan 8, 2014 19:02
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rope kid posted:It does. Do neutral beasts exploded after 50 clicks as well?
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Jan 8, 2014 19:08
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More importantly, is chunky explosions with screen-shaking on critical hit in? 
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Jan 8, 2014 19:12
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rope kid posted:It does. You've just made my day.
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Jan 8, 2014 19:20
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Otto Skorzeny posted:I would never, ever complain if magicky classes in some game got a couple of "free" flavor spells like this over the course of the game (and non-magicky classes maybe got something analagous but qualitatively different). I would love some cantrips (basically small party tricks every wizard knows) in this game
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Jan 8, 2014 19:30
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Pimpmust posted:More importantly, is chunky explosions with screen-shaking on critical hit in? Seconding this.
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Jan 8, 2014 19:47
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User0015 posted:Seconding this. Thirding. Big, boomy AoE spells (or powerful direct damage spells.... or really hard hits for that matter) just aren't as impressive if they never result in exaggerated bloodsplosions with random parts flying everywhere and landing with loud wet thuds on the ground.
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Jan 8, 2014 21:02
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GreatGreen posted:Thirding. I for one hope they use that lovely little mechanic where stuff splatters onto your screen - like how other games do with water droplets or ice - as if the monitor was simply a window into the world you see. And for particularly nasty gibs, you get to have a gobbet of bloody flesh slowly leave a trail as it dribbles its way down the screen.
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Jan 8, 2014 21:28
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Pimpmust posted:More importantly, is chunky explosions with screen-shaking on critical hit in? Why would I even play an IE game without gibbing?
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Jan 8, 2014 21:32
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I mean, this effect on a crit kill would be okay too *hint hint* *nudge nudge*
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Jan 8, 2014 21:38
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Drifter posted:I for one hope they use that lovely little mechanic where stuff splatters onto your screen - like how other games do with water droplets or ice - as if the monitor was simply a window into the world you see. This game needs the Turtles in Time move where every now and then you hit a dude so hard he flies up and into the screen, then slides down out of view. 
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Jan 8, 2014 21:38
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