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Topics - Peanuts

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Mac OSX Specific Issues / Hydlaa Map Crashing
« on: July 08, 2008, 01:30:57 pm »
This is an issue I ran into a few days ago when first running the latest update.  As I lacked the time and patience then to mess around with it, I uninstalled the game and reinstalled without running the updater, but now I'm tackling it again, and hoping someone can help me out.   There's probably some "oh duh" explanation for it, but I'm not exactly brilliant at this kind of thing, I'm afraid  :P

Here is my problem: I was one of the people experiencing crashes whenever I tried to load certain areas, including the area around the Magic Shop and the Arena.  Post-running the updater, to get the patches to fix this, both sections of Hydlaa are unloadable, causing the game to crash.  The magicshop map remains unloadable, as is the BD1 map.   Ojaveda and its road areas, and Gurgontid, load as normal. 

According to the updater log, the updater ran 100% successfully, with no issues. 

Any idea what the issue is?   I can uninstall and reinstall again and stick to Oja and Hydlaa, which is workable enough for RP purposes, but I'd of course like to be able to access the whole game again.

Computer type: Macbook
Mac OS Version (x.x.x): 10.4.11
Processor (speed, type): 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
RAM: 512 MB
Video Card (type, VRAM): GMA 950

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Wish list / Location Listing
« on: July 03, 2008, 10:36:19 pm »
Totally trivial request time!

Would it be possible to have a list somewhere - in in-game book form, or on the forums, or whatever - with a few noteworthy locations from every level, like major cities, landmarks, etc.?   I think it might colorize RP (well, it would colorize mine, anyway :D) to be able to say "Oh, yeah, I'm from Suchandsuch - you know, the big city on Far Ground with the famous menagerie?" or "Look at this beautiful cloth!   It's imported from Whatsit, that place in the Lower Field where the Nolthrir have those underwater weaveries."  

I love that in-game book with the descriptions of various places on the Dome, and it's cool when NPCs drop references to places outside of the current game; it helps remind me of just how big Yliakum actually is.   So I'd be totally chuffed to see more of that, for a bigger area.

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General Discussion / Descriptions as Roleplay Tools
« on: June 25, 2008, 06:07:16 am »
I'm in the process of paring down a character's too lengthy description, and it's gotten me thinking about descriptions as tools for good roleplay.   

I know I personally tend to check descriptions out before I get down to RPing with someone, and I really love being able to work details from them into roleplay.   I try to keep in mind that characters aren't, from their own perspectives, wisps of coding - they're physical beings in a physical universe, and their first reactions to other people will normally be based on things like height, or build, or clothing, or whatever.  (For example: I have a character who's tall for her race, and grew up in a relatively homogeneous area; she thus subconsciously finds it unfamiliar - and rather uncomfortable - to have to crane her neck to look someone in the face.  It's fun for me when a character description mentions a height - whether exact numbers or just "So-and-so is tall for a ___" - because it gives me some idea of what her reactions should be.)   

I'm not very interested in seeing psychological examinations or histories - what can I do with that material that isn't OOC? - but I jump for joy when I see a description that mentions what kind of voice a character has, or what their posture is usually like.   Details don't have to be special and exotic to give material for roleplay, either; glowing eyes aren't as interesting to me as a character who smells a particular way.

How much do you make use out of descriptions when you're playing?  What sorts of things do you hope to see when you click that eye icon?   

4
General Discussion / The ICness of Quests
« on: June 20, 2008, 01:43:28 am »
It's possible this topic has been done to death, but I'm not seeing more than a couple of casual references to it searching the boards; if I'm bringing out the whip over a dead horse, I apologize  :P   I've been musing about this a lot in the last few days, and I'm really curious what other people think.

Questing is one of my favorite parts of the game, and I love having the opportunity to hare off on little prepackaged dramas when good RP is scarce on the ground.   One of the things I've noticed, though, is that most of the quests have a small issue: it doesn't make total IC sense for them to be done by multiple people.  Unless the poor NPCs are stuck in some Groundhog Day scenario, they're asking multiple people to fetch the same exact book, or carry the same exact message, or whatever, over . . . and over . . . and over.   How many times can the same person steal the same dagger?  How often can some poor sap get investigated for the murdering the same person?   

This isn't a complaint on my part, nor a request that the quests be changed, either - for starters, pretty much all of my favorite quests have this issue and I would be a sad panda if they had to be scrapped.   Quests would be painfully boring if they had to be limited to events which could happen many many times!  But I am curious how other people handle the obvious problem this creates re: working quest events into a character's personal canon.   Do you assume they did them anyway and have them reference having done X for Y, screw the discrepancy if they meet another PC who's done the same quest?  Do you treat all questing as OOC? 

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Wish list / Observational Skill
« on: June 10, 2008, 02:22:36 am »
This is a random fancy on my part, and not very important, but: I think it might be kind of neat to have a way of measuring characters' observational abilities, either just as a subset of the Intelligence stat or as a special skill.   I'd personally prefer it as an independent skill, since in real life intelligent people can be unperceptive and vice versa, but I think it could work either way.

What would one do with such a skill?  I could think of a number of things - getting a more accurate read on the strengths and weaknesses of an opponent before attacking them, for example, (as opposed to just the normal "You evaluate that So-and-so is stronger than you"), or getting a warning that "You hear something moving behind you/around the corner/up the stairs!" in those situations where a mob is just out of sight but coming your way.

Also (something I would particularly love, because I have a mania for putting roleplay "hooks" in character descriptions) possibly there could be a part of character descriptions that would only be visible if the character doing the looking had high enough observation, so that players could include in that subsection little things that someone with sharp eyes and enough interest to peer would notice about their characters, without spamming up the general description.   (Maybe even a possibility that the observee might occasionally get a notice that the observer is staring at them?)

I have no idea how plausible this actually is, but I thought I'd toss it out there as an idea.

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