first of all, i recall Chris saying somewhere that for dismemberment to be included, hed have to think of a way for limb replacement? well, i had a couple of thoughts on that;
i remember him saying that losing a fight was not neccecerily fatal, and hinted that often it wouldent be. but, correct me if im wrong, but in the setting this is in, losing a limb was rather -likely- to be fatal. so, if in the injury system, a limb had enough damage to sever it, and it wasent vital, then thats probably a fatal wound. but, not neccecerily. in some rare cases its conceivable a charecter could pull through with some sort of crude medical treatment. so, assuming that a dismemberment was essentially a fatality, rather than either not including it, and just inducing death, or including it and automatically killing the charecter, no doubt with an amusing animation of it flailing around, assuming someone got to him/her in time and did something to stem the blood flow, e.t.c. there would be a small chance of it not being fatal. this game seems to be quite heavy on realism, so surely, rather than wiping a charecter out and, based on what ive heard start anew in the same or a new world, or continue on, using a child of your avatar, (note this is assuming a single charecter party, though this obviously still applies in the most part to multi character parties) the charecter would have to make do with living with the injury. say it was a leg, peg leg, charecter has problems running, balance, e.t.c, say it was a hand, or an arm, the charecter can only use one handed weapons, or hell, maybe it was just a finger and the charecter will be slightely clumsier. for the ultimate of choice and option (remember the npc's have the same options you do) after subduing a foe, you could deliberatly do this, say one of your self created quests was to annihalate your main rival, for something he said which caused whatever, you could knock him out, or just render him imobile (maybe have your freinds hold him down?) and cut out his tongue. on the flipside a particularily sadistic band of bandits could do it to you, and youd have a huge issue communicating. or eyes, or any sort of deliberatly induced permanent damage. a system allowing for that would also aid if you wanted to role as a gang leader/enforcer (kneecapping, anyone?) the main point however, is that it dosent neccecerily have to be a one to one replacement, when the alternative is the charecter dying. last offshoot of this, is that maybe if a limb was damaged badly enough, it might become infected, and have to be amputated? youd ultimatly end up with the choice, and a risk either way.
the next point i had is more of a question, than a suggestion, but nevertheless;
how is control divided? do you have more control over your avatar (or presumably the designated squad leader, if youve split your party) and merely direct the others, or is it a more, select the one you wish to direct at the time, kinda thing? oddly enough this question is also related to the intricacies of the damage system, and spreads from dwarf fortress (a game i love the concept of, but find excruciatingly painful to play) and the grappling system. say you were caught unawares by someone, with nothing but your hands to defend yourself, could you just merely select -attack- of could you direct it more specifically? and how specifically? the same thing applies to weapons, too, though not quite to the same amount. on a sub note, please tell me you do have hand to hand combat? not that i imagine most people would use it, but its always nice to know the game doesent turn around and say 'hah! your artifically screwed, now!' in a variety of situations when your unarmed. i can only imagine how satisfying to play with a combat system that allows you to direct throws, breaks, and strikes. i mean like the adventurer mode in df, that was pretty fun, imagine how much better it would be in 3d? could you, for example, stab someone in the eye, or strangle them? or even sneak up on them and break their neck? and if you could, would it be just your avatar that you could direct so finely, and the other charecters only respond to your commands loosly? as an added point, it would be pretty sweet to have your avatar as the command role. say if you were knocked out, the screen would black till you either shaked yourself awake, or one of your companions roused you, and theyd do their best without you until that point. or, if like i previously mentioned, our charecter had suffered some sort of damage affecting his ability to communicate, your options to direct your team mates were lessened. though not too much or it would be so ridiculously frustrating. maybe if you had an army type of grouping, you could issue commands to a team member who then shouts them out?
another subject of combat again, is stealth elements. say you happen across someone unconsious, asleep, or unaware of your prescense, are you restricted to just attacking them? or could you slit their throat, or largely whatever you wished? i also heard kidnapping being mentioned in the forum, can you move/restrain unconsious or suprressed npc's? can npc's intelligently act together, to say, restrain someone for another to hurt or tie up for transport, and the like? say you have kidnapped someone, are you limited to one type of thing, such as selling them into slavery, or do you have the options of ransoming, them, using them as a hostage to guarentee your safe exit from a situation that is rapidly turning sour? if you did and killed them instead of releasing them, does it register as a kill, or only if they are found? could you bury them, or other wise hide the evidence? can you use the environment, such as, smothering someone with their pillow? pushing them into the river? drowning them in a bath? (yes, i know this is getting a little excessive, but i am phyched for this game and the whole 'everything the charecter could do you can do, just the same as anyone else' type mentality you seem to have going on here, and i want to know just how far it goes, and since a large part will be combat, i have quite a bit of focus on it, lol)
also, back to the crime aspect, if you were setting up something like a protection racket (assuming you can), would you be able to make varying demands, or is there just one options for like -demand 10% of stores income- or whatever? would store owners refuse at first, but gradually start giving in as the reputation for what happened to people that said no spread?
can you kick in doors and forcibly storm people's homes? pick the lock? can you take everything that isent nailed down, if you wanted to? even if it wasent practical? (imagine that, you had a rival, who one day went too far, the next day, his entire house is mysteriously empty, including him, as if it had never been inhabited) can you buy houses/property? can you furnish them? could you seize property and inhabit it as either your residence, storage, or housing for your team? could you leave say 3 members of your party behind to guard your property against theft, but without having to actually maintain them as an individual squad? like set them out for that specific role? do people keep animals? could you threaten to slaughter a farmers cattle if he dident meet your demands?
if you started up criminal activity in an existing crimnal factions 'turf' would they be capable of realising this and trying to put a stop to you? could they chose between killing you outright, kill one member of your team, threatening you, or beating you/holding you down and breaking your legs? while i hear you mention the police will distinguish between criminals and those who havent done anything, would the actual criminals be capable of attacking non participating party members to send a message?
how involved do you HAVE to be in your parties direction, could you split a section of them off and have them do something generic? or do you have to maintain control over them at all times for them to do anything? can you enploy people if you own a business? have a manufacturing line, or provide service people?
and, lastly, on the subject of whether or not to allow the player killing of children, i have a few points on the subject. firstly, if you are set on not allowing it, please stick with your current idea of allowing npc's to do it. im hoping it would be modable out, ala fallout-3 (hey, worked for them) and then the npc's keep upwith it. though, youd have to, in theory, otherwise when hordes of bandits destroyed villages, theyd be swathes of immortal children wandering around. secondly, they should definatly have more of a stigma attached to killing them reputation wise. i mean, if you killed some of a villages children, its going to rile people up a lot more than if you bumped off a geriatric, know what i mean? though, i concede that youd get a better reception if you did allow it, if you gave an option to toggle it off. even though, ironically, the sort of people that would toggle it off, wouldent be trying to do it in the first place and it woudlent make a practical difference.. but people never think like that, do they?
it would add so much to the immersment though. nothing pisses me off more than charecters that are potentially annoying, but you cant do anything about. remember that place in fallout three? lamplight, or whatever? your a en-bittered wastelander, armed to the teeth, and some fat prepubescent is standing on a gate shouting childish insults at you, and the game wont let you do anything about it. artificial restraints that the user dident chose annoy the hell out of people, and especially for a game based on realism and being able to carve your own path in the world, i think its important to give people the ability -even if they dont intend on using it- (though, as said, the option to turn it off will make the people that dont like it feel better, no doubt) or if you absolutely have to leave the block in, please make it something like a 'killable=1/0' switch in a configure for certain types of people so its editable out. works for fallout (y)
i dont -think- ive missed out anything i intended on putting in there..
apologies over the huge wall of text, but i am ever so excited about this game >.> if you take the time to read and answer id appreciate it, lol, though i cant say id blame you for not <.<
