Originally posted by Adeli
This is a fantasy game, realism has no place...(I know you are groaning about now... but bear with me)
I am from Australia, and can\'t vouch for the rest of the world... but there are no Krans in my street, no Elves frolicking in the park, no Enkidukai running around up to no good (or mastering martial arts), no Diaboli with dark skin causing havoc, no Dwarves getting drunk down at the local tavern (little people perhaps), no Klyros winging their way around the skies, and last but not least, no green skinned Lemurs doing err stuff... anywhere!
How can all of this be incorporated, if it needs an aura of realism? This is hypocrisy of the highest degree in my eyes. But that\'s just my opinion.
It is
far from hypocrisy, because these are entirely different things IMO. First we have the races. These
are possible IRL, the only thing that\'d need to change is the path evolution has taken, which I consider highly random. Granted, there indeed are some things that would probably not work as well IRL as they are made to in PS (Klyros flight, underwater + air breathing), but still. Nobody has complained about the bird other than stating that it\'s ugly, which it is, but there are other animals that I consider ugly IRL.
Originally posted by Adeli
To correct Moogie (please forgive me) This is not electrical manipulation of the brain, but manual stimulation, which is possible, and has been for many, many years. This is not far fetched futuristic nonsense, but has been around for hundreds of years... the only problem is the patients dieing from disease, or lack of anaesthesia, or blood loss.
OTOH, the brain manipulation seemed
very far-fetched to me. If you say that this sort of thing is possible and not even difficult, then I will need some proof, since I have never heard of some thing like this. The only form of brain manipulation I\'ve heard of is electrical stimulation. I\'d
never have thought that pressure will do anything controllable except deal damage.
This would then have been something that would
completely alter one basic rule of the world, which is just like adding magic. But while magic is 1) traditional medieval fantasy and 2) already planned in by the devs, this thing is neither, so there is a big difference.
If it indeed
is possible IRL, it wouldn\'t alter such a rule, and thereby remove one central problem that I have with this idea. I will, however, not accept it without proof.
Originally posted by Adeli
It is possible though, cauterisation stops blood flow (painful indeed, and dangerous), as for anaesthesia, magic would work fine. Disease could be a problem but once more, magic works fine (Finally, I can explain something away with magic!).
Shielding the brain is a good idea. It would indeed prevent exposure in most cases.
I\'d say shielding is an absolute
must. And yes, magic might do the trick here, though this would make this thing highly expensive and rare (IMO luckily).
Originally posted by Adeli
In my opinion Seytra, Danny explained why they would this adequately. These beasts, ugly as they may be, are for speed. For grandeur and pomp they would ride a more elegant and graceful steed, but if they were in a hurry, no other beast would suffice. He also explained the brain manipulation rather well, he had a few holes... Which I have plugged.
I didn\'t argue on the beauty point, but on the moralistic one. Indeed ppl. are \"liking\" things despite them being totally ugly (IMO, of course, but I think that this is just pretense anyway, in order to seem special). However, this sort of brute manipulation is just immoral. OK, you might argue that \"training\" is the same thing, but IMO it\'s not, because this bird would simply be treated like a machine. Unless, of course, you \"train\" by punishing. So anyway, this is something that
prominently shows a total disregard towards nature and life in general and therefore IMO is evil, making this something that only evil ppl. would want to show off and admire.
So
if this would indeed be popular in Hydlaa, this would therefore make al of Yliakum evil, which would be sad, and also seems to contradict the spirit of the setting (though this is just an impression, derived mostly from the Statement that Klyros are not an evil race despite their looks, which means that evil isn\'t
nearly as popular as in a drow society, for example).
The speed argument I did also not even touch.
I had the impression that dannythompson did
not explain this properly, especially did he not even try to prove that this actually is possible IRL, which led me to assume that this was indeed just far-fetched nonsense.
Originally posted by Adeli
So, based on my rather lengthy addition to this thread... Why not? The only feasible reason I can think of \"Because the devs don\'t want it\" which is fair enough, but a poor excuse. Please, give your opinions a reason. I admitted I don\'t like the creature.
Right, I believe that I have
always given reason to my opinions, not just in this post, but anyway.
I also have stated that I don\'t like this idea, but if somebody can actually give some links to prove that this \"pressure point\" thing actually works and is easy to use, then the only things that keep standing will indeed be
- the morale point
- the fact that you need extremely fine-tuned and sensible mechanics to transform the pressure of the hands into the tiny movements of the needles. I don\'t think that this would be feasible, considering that all the mechanical clocks that were being made way after medieval times AFAIK, but this is something that
might be one of the few advances that actually make Yliakum stand out compared to our medieval. As I always say, the-religion-that-shall-not-be-named has stifled almost all research during our medieval times, a burden that Yliakum is free of. Therefore, I indeed think sciences might be more advanced, though somehow I don\'t think that manufacturing should be part of this, as this would greatly alter the feel.
Anyway, if you manage to provide scientific proof that this pressure method works as described and is highly usable as described, I will admit defeat, despite my antipathy towards both this idea and the way in which dannythompson participates in discussions. I will not support it\'s inclusion in PS, but I will also not stand in it\'s way any longer.
However, I will
not give up the morale point, and since I\'ll play a good char, I
will put every instance of this down
on sight, (along with the user and the creator(s), as long as by any means possible - PvP here I come! Finally a good use for PvP.).
Just for future reference: I absolutely and deeply
hate the \"this is fantasy\" argument, because it completely fails to adress
any point. The most important thing IMNSHO is
consistency, which means that the effects of each and every change to RL world rules must be thought through and applied. This means that any idea could possibly completely alter the setting simply because it\'s introduction would require alteration of a rule tat makes more / less things possible than IRL.
This is not desired! If it were, the setting would already include it, but it doesn\'t. I like this setting and don\'t want it altered, but most importantly, the devs want it this way.
Do you know the PnP RPG \"Deadlands\"? This is something that this idea would fit well, but I hate the whole setting so obviously I don\'t want PS to even get close to it.
My point is that, unless you\'re in the process of designing a world, you simply can\'t add anything and everything, because the \"fantasy\" part is not even half of the defining properties anymore. In fact, once the world has been designed, the entire world construct becomes
unchangeable rules, to which every addition needs to adhere, not the other way. Therefore, if an addition would require a basic change that would result in a different setting (if applied universally, which IMO is a must), this addition must not be added. This is paramount.
So for every property that is not deliberately altered (like magic), the only way is to assume RL defaults (which is why realism indeed
has a prominent place in fantasy). Therefore, if you can prove that what you want added is already possible IRL but simply hasn\'t been used, or that it\'s feasibility is a logical consequence of the altered world rules (like the magic explanation, though don\'t overuse it, because otherwise we\'d have magical supercomputers in PS, Babbage\'s \"Analythical Engine\" comes to mind), it\'s OK with me (unless some other factor comes into it, like the moralistic one, which also is a property of the world and thus a law).
It is my impression that what I have posted was reasonably precise and clear and removes any impression of hypocrisy.
