another issue.. skill for each weapon? are you nuts?
I am sure if you take this task upon yourself, the devs will give you time and space,
but don\'t ask the devs to do this themselves while you wonder what\'s taking them so long to make the game

It wouldn\'t actually take all that long. All you\'d have to do is create one and copy it, editing the names and basic stats.

I still think IC execution is a good idea - this way you can have open PK, and still have PLENTY of incentive not to under most circumstances. This will make the world more immersive I think, and anyone who goes around killing people for fun  / to rob them deserves to whatever work they put into the pk character. If you REALLY object you could just make it when \'executed\' their level (if the game ends up having levels), stats, skills etc are halved, and their items chucked out over the crowd viewing the execution (which will probably consist of a number of people the pker has killed, delivering a form of justice).

Thats what I meant.... I said class when I should have said skills

How does that work? If all accounts are wiped how do I transfer stuff to my new account? Is it going to be a form on a webpage or something?

Well some of them should have combat skills certainly. But put in some variation. Say some monster gets into town - the kids are told by the adults to get inside and lock the doors, followed by a proportion of the adults depending on their Cool / Bravery whatever.... The NPC\'s roles would affect bravery a fair bit.... a blacksmith is much more likely to pick up a sword hes been working on and attack an invading monster than a librarian (though the librarian could be a mage and start fireballing it). I have this mental image of the local fat brearaucrat running and hiding in an alley

I don\'t really like the idea of hidden quests amongst the crowd.... would encorage people to spend AGES talking to npc after npc looking for a quest which isn\'t realistic at all. Perhaps if the character has a certain reputation they will be approached by NPCs with quests.... say you have a positive reputation from saving the town from a monster, then NPCs might approach you and ask you to save their farm from another monster. If you have a negative reputation for some reason (better left unsaid between civilised peoples ), less... shall we say moral... NPCs might approach them and ask them to steal something or kill someone etc.

The prejudice thing sounds good.... would encourage each races to congregate around a certain town, take on more race involved roles. Hydlaa would have to be neutral of course, and other towns would be tolerant of most people, but not of those who follow an evil god etc

My reasoning on having a differnt stab skill etc for each weapon is this:

Ok, the basic stabbing itself isnt too hard to get the concept of - you get the sharp pointy end, and poke your enemy with it. Even orcs and goblins don\'t have too much trouble with this part .
The difficult part is getting your aim right (and to a degree the right amount of power, so you dont actually impale them and have to kick them off your sword). To get your aim right you have to have the right feel of your weapon, get your balance right and so on. Now the balance for a sword is going to be COMPLETELY differnt from that of a pike. And the skill differers from sword to sword as well. Stabbing with a longsword is differnt to stabbing with a Katana, because the katana is curved, and to penetrate farther with a katana you would have to put a curve similar to that of your swords blade into the stroke.

AMD Athlon 1600XP (Running at stock 1400mhz)
512 MB PC2100 DDR ram (2 X 256)
Geforce 2 Ti Deluxe (Running at stock 250mhz)
64 MB DDR ram at 400mhz
Windows XP Version 2002 (SP1)

Average walking through streets - 10-12. Occasionally chunks.
Average in center of plaza (looking at temple etc) 1-10 (sits at about 6, sometimes goes up, frequently \'chunks\' and drops to 1fps)
Average in temple 40ish, depending on how open the room is. In enclosed spaces upto 120, but thats looking at once wall.

Pretty playable, as long as you\'re not planning on sightseeing

I like the zero-sum idea for skills.... sounds great. And you should lose exp slowly for quite a few skills.... say for weapon skills 10 - 20 mins every 10 hours online should stop that.

For power leveling and so on, there is a simple solution. No levels. Think morrowind style (where each skill has levels) but without any main character levels. Especially the part where you can only level up a skill by using it or getting a trainer. With this system there is no way a character can spend three hours crosbowing bunny rabbits and learn how to cast a fireball.

I think for weapon skills you should have not just bash / slash / stab general skills, but a variation on these for EACH weapon. So you have sword stab / bash / slash, slash and stab woul be pretty powerful for most swords but bash (hitting someone with the flat of your blade or pommel) would be pretty cruddy), for a club bash / poke / swipe, with poke doing nothing much (maybe with a chance to wind unarmoured characters you poke in the stomach though). In battle you would be able to select which strike to use, and be able to qeue up sequences - say slash, slash stab. Improving your stab skill for the sword would increase your slash and bash slightly - after all you\'re handling the same weapon, with the same balence etc. Also if you use a certain combo / sequence a fair bit you could get a \'skill\' level in it and get a bonus when you use that combo.

A bit more on the sequence bit.... say you have the interface window looking a bit like
. __ .. __...___...___.. ______
| B | | S | | T |  |  L  | | S  S  T    |
----..----..----..----..----------

You have your Bash, Slash an sTab buttons, then a Lock button i\'ll explain in a sec, and then a box which fills up with the next 5 or so moves you select. In this case its Slash, slash, stab qeued up. Now as it is this isn\'t a combo, just the next three attacks you will make. But if you press the lock button, it will lock those three moves into a combo, where each action will execute faster, but doing less damage. However once you practice up that combo, it will take as much time as two single moves and do almost as much damage as three moves.... Or something like that.... tweak as you like.