"Philosophical" questions, What is a cheesy method? Bug or feature? Options

[Vuki]

I created this topic to discuss the "philosophical" aspect of the game. We can discuss here questions like:

- is a modification really needed or not?
- is something cheesy or cheeting or just a clever trick?
- game balance
- is an actual gap a bug or a feature?
- and so on ...

This topic will be maybe a bit too theoretical but I do not think it is a problem. We need such a place - as the discussions from the last 2-3 weeks prove it.

This post has been edited by Vuki: Aug 11 2008, 08:34 PM

[Vuki]

It is the previously promised post. I wanted to write it yxesterday but I forgot to do.

As I mentioned earlier Sikret made the mod more tactical. And I am sure that most of our different opinions can be derivated from the different viewpoint how we see the game. I see it as an rpg that has a tactical aspect and Sikret view it as a tactical game that has some rpg aspects. Maybe I am wrong but I have some reasons to think it is right.

First example is the prebuffing. My main reason was that it break the rule of a role-play gfame because you heavily use an information that is not known by your characters. I emphasized it more than one time and the strange think was that Sikret did not react to it. I cannot be sure about his reasons but I still pretty sure that he did not answer it because he see the game in a tactical point of view. In a tactical game it is not a problem but in an role-play game it is a serious cheat. Additionally he argued that you can do it because they can do it and of course it is a good reason in a tactical game and not really a strong reason in an RPG (at least in my opinion).

He did not react also to the IA: Divination vs. thief's detect illusion argument. I think he did not react because he thinks it is not important. Yes, in a tactical game it does not matter but in an RPG game reality and the credibility of the game world is very important.

Third example is his missing reaction to steal important items issue. He used to argue against it in Ryel's topic and it was very interesting to read. I realized our different viewpoint while I was reading that topic. He was not really able to formulate why the quest item should not be stolen and he ignored or RPG-based reasons of Ryel. In a tactical game of course it is evident that you should not do it but in an RPG it is absolutely not clear. It is interesting that it does not mean that he avoid seeing it as an RPG because the new quests I have already done have really nice RPG contents. The discussion with Dracolich is brilliant and one of my favorite in the game (and the whole quest is really fantastic and has a good feeling). Also I had a very good feeling when the girl whom I saved from drows come to me and say thank you. These are very nice RPG moments of the game ans they easily match the standard of the vanilla game. So, for me it seems that when he thinks about tactic and battles then he avoid seeing it as an RPG and see it only as a pure tactical game.

It does not mean that his view (or my view) is wrong. I think that most players think BG2 is an RPG and only partially a tactical game but everybody could have a different view of the game. I was pretty sure when I start this discussion that we will not agree and my reason to think it was this different view of the game. This is so different then we will never agree. But I still think it has a reason to start this discussion because here we can clearify our viewpoint. Which is very important even if nothing changes. I did not use cheesy and cheats methods (based on his pdf), so I play the game as it was intended but I will continue to find all "philosophically" false or wrong issues (IMHO of course) and report them here.