Silly things Gamers do!

[ryaldin]

I honestly use the pause button whenever i play, and it does make the game, and specifically battles, go a lot smoother, but in some senses, i think that not pausing is much more....realistic, i guess, than pausing, because you have to take a second to tell one person to do something, such as to tell a mage to cast a specific spell, etc. In the meantime, A.I. for your party does fairly decent, in making sure that everybody keeps fighting, but in an actual battle, with arrows flying, and people yelling and monsters dying, it seems unrealistic to assume that everyone would (once agian, in the heat of battle) target the same creature automatically, etc. In my humble opinion, orders could be given, by the party leader, to fire at a specific target, but that doesn't mean that some of the archers aren't going to fling a couple of arrows in the general direction of whichever enemy is closest. So i think that not using the pause button is very very cool, from a purely roleplaying stance, of course.

[whodoyouthinkyouare]

How can you say it makes it more realistic? This has been an issue since Warcraft first came out. In this game, when you encounter multiple enemies, they all simultaneously are given orders. Since this is a game about companions, and not soldiers, your party members should not have to wait for orders to do something. That is where the pause button comes in. You're are suggesting that to make the game realistic, you should need the hand eye cooradination to click anywhere on the screen without being able to see it in order to be effective.

Oh, by the way, I am not directing an hostility towards ryaldin. I just feel strongly about this.

[ryaldin]

Though i see the point that, you're ability to point and click isn't really a RP function, i think there is somthing to be said for reaction time. If your party is just meandering along the road, and you're attacked by bandits, it's going to take you a second or two to retaliate, but i agree that no player or character should just stand around while the other party members one by one get their attack orders. However, I don't feel that, in the heat of battle, a party could pause for a second, and assess the situation and say, hey everyone, lets systematically focus all our firepower and/or swordplay towards one character at a time, therefore, wiping out a single enemy at a time and destroying the whole attacking enemy quicker. It's not a perfect system, and while not using the pause function isn't necessarily the answer, i think it's cool to try.

[ 09-15-2002, 08:42 PM: Message edited by: ryaldin ]

[whodoyouthinkyouare]

Good point. But in later levels you'll end up fighting multiple, stonger enemies, not just these little pansy bandits who really wouldn't hurt you at all, even if you were almost naked. And while I see you're point about not being able to pause in real life, there is no communication feature built into the single- player game, so in real life, they would at least be able to not only communicate (such as speech, gestures, and telekinesis) with each other each other, but characters whit a high dexterity should feasibly be able to do two things at once due to their high hand- eye coordination. So it can be justified either way. I think that the Final Fantasy games perhaps solved this problem best with their 'Active Turn Based System', but that type of gameplay would not fit this genre. Oh, well.

[NobleNick]

Hooo boy!! As a gamer who lives and dies (mostly lives) by the pause button, I must say, "I'm impressed!!" You have played through the game with a handicap that I am sure the creators of the game never intended. My part is on pause about 60% of the time that I am in front of the screen. And during battles that percentage jumps to over 90%. Wow.

[Legolas]

Welcome to the 23rd meeting of Pausers Anonymous

With a lot of effort, I've managed to disable the autopause in my games. I occasionally have the urge to turn a number of them back on, but I can fight that. The dreaded SPACEBAR (insert apocalyptic drum roll here) is too much of a temptation though. When I start playing I play in realtime, but the longer I play the more often I press it. It's just so much more comfortable to be able to oversee the situation and give everyone orders simultaneously. The computer gives orders to everyone at the same time too, you know. But I have to admit, no pause does give the game an extra dimention. Three cheers for pritchke and other PA members displaying this much self control [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Keraptisdm]

Originally posted by NobleNick: Hooo boy!! As a gamer who lives and dies (mostly lives) by the pause button, I must say, "I'm impressed!!" You have played through the game with a handicap that I am sure the creators of the game never intended. My part is on pause about 60% of the time that I am in front of the screen. And during battles that percentage jumps to over 90%. Wow.

That's how I play too. I would pause less, if the AI scripts were better. Allow me to illustrate my point. I used to be Captain of a Civil War reenacting company. The men marched, formed and fired under my direction. When we were in line of battle, firing into the Confederates, no one in the company would suddenly just charge into the Confederate line. They followed orders. Unfortunately, the AI scripts seem to allow the charaters to "improvise" too much, even to the point of being suicidal! We're peppering monsters with ranged weapons and drawing them out a couple at a time, when suddenly some fighter decides to switch to melee weapon and charge the monsters. Now all of the monsters within a 10 mile radius are aware of our presence! Really, only a berserker would do that, while the rest of the party (as mentioned earlier) would communicate their tactics.
My hat is off to anyone that can play without using the pause button. The old reenacting captain in me requires my troops to follow orders, so I will continue to pause.

Getting back to the original topic, I used to hoard most of my gold, instead of spending it on stuff I could use. Duh. I finished TOLM with almost 60,000 gp. Stupid.

[B1ade]

Here's another stupid thing I did (apart from not using the pause button according to some of you....) - lugging back lots of heavy rubbish to find that it sells for practically nothing (e.g. those heavy umberhulk hides, although I only carried one luckily). It's difficult to decide what to keep and what to leave behind sometimes.....