59 réponses à ce sujet

[mousestalker]

The one thing no one ever tells you about boxing is that if you fight bare knuckled (which is a very bad idea, btw) it injures your hands. Turns out Newton had something to say about fisticuffs.



Also even if the armour prevents you from being cut, it doesn't necessarily prevent you from being bruised.



As for horses, just try galloping a horse for a longer than a few minutes. If you're going to go the distance on a horse, best learn to ride at a walk. If you're really in a hurry you can trot, occasionally. Possibly even canter. But never, ever gallop. It's also a good idea to pay attention to your horses sex lives. Stallions can be a nightmare to handle. Mares have their own problems. Horse herds, and anything more than one horse is a herd, have their own hierarchy.



Lastly, stew takes bloody forever to cook in a camp setting unless you're reheating it.

[CalJones]

You're not kidding about the hands. Try hitting a heavy bag with no gloves on and say goodbye to the skin on your knuckles. As for actual fist fights, they generally end with one person breaking their hand and the other person breaking their jaw. Although in reality, most fights end up on the ground.



Male horses are usually gelded these days so stallions are uncommon as riding animals. Geldings are usually better tempered than mares, who get moody when they're in heat. All horses are individuals, however.



I can't comment on the stew but I will say that if you're camping and have to wash your utensils in cold water, it doesn't always clean them as thoroughly as you'd like. Jippy tummy can result.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Archery: Forget the dex score, Dragon Age...especially for longbows. You need *strength* to draw the string of those monsters, not to mention to hold them steady for aim.



Camping: Yep, cramped, draughty, horrible if they collapse in a rainstorm, uncomfortable if you pitch them over roots or rocks. Washing yourself in cold water, relieving yourself behind trees (if there ARE trees), female sanitation , making sure your food is stored so that insects/animals don't get into it overnight... oh, and always having a bucket of water near the fire Just In Case.



First Aid: Thank goodness for magical healing and insta-fix injury kits, that's all I can say. Knowing the correct way to splint broken bones, wrap bleeding wounds, treat the plethora of natural poisons out there... It's lucky all we really have to worry about is darkspawn taint.



Caves: I imagine Orzammar being surrounded by lava is what kept it so dry all the time...if you've got the DLC for Stone Prisoner, Cadash Thaig is half underwater. Also, you don't need dwarven carvings to make a natural cavern look spectacular.

[CalJones]

I'd imagine Orzammar is stupidly hot, especially if you're tramping around in full armour. I remember going to a Rammstein gig in February one year and, as the queue for the cloakroom was immense, I wore my long leather coat for the whole thing. Huge mistake (but hilarious at the same time).

[Sattva]

To Shadow of Light Dragon :
Could sign everything you said

Sadly, I never had the pleasure to visit spectacular caverns (btw couldn't get the link to work)
All I was exposed to was a pitch black, freezing hole in the mountains, slippery with wet clay and so narrow sometimes that one had to crawl and slither on the stomach to get through the narrow spots. When I see those digital chums trotting leisurely following twists and turns of a luxuriously high and wide path with no crevices, clefts and other unpleasant surprises, I ENVY them! But also I'm happy I'm not there in RL anymore!

Modifié par Sattva, 03 septembre 2010 - 01:02 .

[CalJones]

There's a big cave system at Silver Dollar City (amusement park) in Missouri. I visited there in 2008 - it was well worth the tour. Unfortunately we were only there for the day so we did the regular tour, but they also do lantern light tours where the cave lighting is off completely and you only have, well, lanterns to see by. Nice if you want to enjoy a spectacular cave with minimal danger.



Site link here: Marvel Cave

I've not done proper caving - going through narrow crawl spaces in the pitch black would give me a severe attack of the willies. I'm mildly claustrophobic, so very dark, confined spaces are a no. Watching The Descent was enough.

Modifié par CalJones, 03 septembre 2010 - 01:08 .

[Sattva]

Eye candy Sometime, someday...



Oh, and almost forgot: gas. People can't smell it. Nowadays, there are special gadgets to alarm to the threat, but in the old days... *sigh* Poor canaries.



I imagine dwarves are immune to both lyrium AND gas. But what of Grey Wardens and their companions?



Cave-ins. *shudder* Never personally experienced and don't care to.

[CalJones]

I think you'd have to be immune to gas if you were around Oghren.

[Sattva]

*Heee-heee-hee!*


Oh, I've found a remarkable description of Joan of Arc by De Boulainvilliers (Chamberlain to CharlesVII, and Seneschal of Berry). His description is as follows:

"This girl is reasonably good-looking, and with something virile in her bearing; she speaks but little, and is remarkably prudent, in what she does say. She eats little, and drinks wine still less; manages both her horse and her arms superbly well; greatly likes the company of knights and soldiers; scorns the company of the rabble; sheds many tears; has a happy expression; so great is her strength in the endurance of fatigue that she could remain completely armed during six whole days and nights.


OMG!

Modifié par Sattva, 03 septembre 2010 - 07:44 .

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Not working? Let me try posting the image...







And Joan of Arc must have been pretty darn tough. o_O



I understand they wanted to have lyrium addiction as a game mechanic (so it would be dangerous to chug too many potions), but that got scrapped for some reason or another. A realistic implementation of poisons and getting hit in the face by swords would probably be a game where you died too fast, however.

[Sattva]

The stalactites are sooo beautiful!

Yeah, the poisons are pretty weak in the game. Even without curare and arsenic there is plenty of deadly stuff out there. A wrong mushroom could send you packing, a spider bite, or even a simple food poisoning could make you totally unfit for a serious battle.

It would be interesting however to see how the lyrium addiction idea could further be explored in the game...

I vaguely remember some ancient RPGs where they've implemented an element of surprise while camping - a random ambush or some such. Shadows over Riva, or something equally antique.

Modifié par Sattva, 04 septembre 2010 - 01:35 .

[EccentricSage]

Sattva wrote...

To Patriciachr34 :
Very cool XP, thanks! :-)

To adneate :

I've heard practically the same things you said on German swordsmen, except in the version I was told, there were "kamikazies" who were placed between two armies at the beginning of a battle with the sole purpose of cutting pikes. Such job would beat bungee jumping any day :-)

To EccentricSage :

Interesting how our real life experience shapes our perception of in-game characters and events...

I have had no exposure to a RL person who would make me perceive Leliana similar to your way. To me she is just a bard that weaves a tale out of real events that surround her - to tell them later as a tale as is her job. Mind you, I do not try to defend her - I'm rather indifferent to her.

As to Zevran, I merely think that he is a good candidate for antisocial personality disorder given his background. I reckon most Crow assassins would be sociopaths. It's really a miracle (or rather the writer's whim) that he is not one.

Another RL bit: all caverns that I've encountered had no illumination :-) So Deep Roads must be very luxurious caves. Also, they seem pretty dry, which I have never experienced so far. They keep a steady temperature (cold) and a complete absence of day and night changes, which screws up one's biological clock in time.

So when Oghren says: "we are losing, what'd you call it... daylight" it actually rings true to me ;-)

I don't think it's antisocial nor sociopathic to kill other humans to survive, and then just try to harden one's self against the natural emotional responce to the situation.  Just look at soldiers in long going wars.  There are places in our world where people have to live lives just as cut-throught and devoid of love as Zevran had to, and while it's true that only the strong survive, that strength can prevent one from loosing themselves and their figurative 'humanity'.

Being a sociopath or anti-social means you do not feal higher human emotions.  You don't experience love, compassion, sympathy, etc.  You onely experience the baser impulses of desires.  We know this is not true of Zevran, who resisted the Crow training initially and also tried to run away from them once.  He also has a personal set of ethics reguarding his work, such as trying to make the mark's final moments pleasureful, and trying to kill them as cleanly and painlessly as the situation allows.  He also shows compassion for complete strangers repeatedly in game.  For example, if you sound like you intend to massacre the Circle, he'll plead for mercy on their behalf.  A sociopath by contrast would see the massacre as an oportunity to hone their fighting skill, gain some extra loot, and perhaps even as a fun diversion.

As for Lel, I agree.  I also would not be able to romance Alistair IRL, for example. 


As for the deap roads... I know!  LOL  I think a lot of the dryness could be explained by the heat from lava.  Though, of course, that just brings up how obsurd it is to have Orzamar be pretty much a city in a cavern above an open lava pit.  RPGs are always so unrealistic about how dangerous lava is, as well as the fumes that can come off it, especially in a closed space.

I found the Deap Roads and caverns really disapointing.  If you read The Calling, David Gaider describes all sorts of light sources such as glowing stones and phospherescant pools, as well as some stretches of tunnel that are so dark that even useing magic to illuminate the tunnel, you couldn't see very far ahead.  He also described this crawling black film that creaps along the walls and floors of blighted cavwerns and seems to be alive, as well as black blighted pools of filth with something moveing below the surface.  The art team for this game did a pretty ****ty job on many locations, IMO.

[EccentricSage]

CalJones wrote...

I can't comment on the stew but I will say that if you're camping and have to wash your utensils in cold water, it doesn't always clean them as thoroughly as you'd like. Jippy tummy can result.

Ah, if you use wraught iron you needn't worry about the cleaning as much.  You burn the excess grease and then scrape it off.  We use them as much as possible at home.  Also, you heat the iron up before cooking on/in it, so that any bacteria die. 

[Wedger]

Lewis & Clark Caverns in Montana are quiet the lovely limestone caves. Lots of stalactites & stalagmites. Nice campground near by, too.



For lava tubes, Idaho's Craters of the Moon has some nice ones, & there is Ape Cave in Oregon. So does the Big Island in Hawaii. I would think Orzammar was more a basalt cave then a limestone cave. But who knows?



One thing, if you are tall, be prepared to hit your head caving. Maybe that's what those pesky helmuts are for??

[CalJones]

I'd imagine humans, and Sten, would hit their heads a lot given that the tunnels were made by dwarves.

@ Sage - I imagine the Deep Roads are as light as they are because players would complain if they were dark. There's a line between playability and realism, and Bioware have headed towards playability. However, the luminous fungi and such would have been awesome. As it is, those levels are rather brown and boring.

[TanithAeyrs]

Fun thread.



Horses: sustained trotting is the best way to cover long distances but you need to be in good shape. Have spent most of my life riding (and falling off from time to time - mostly while jumping). Saddle sores happen, blisters on your hands if you are riding a hard mouthed horse (riding gloves help), sore knees, sore thighs, ect.) Had my one of my mares fall on me once- ouch. Mares and geldings make better riding horses in general but some stallions are well-behaved and pleasant to ride. As a historical note the Bedouins mosty rode mares into battle.



Camping: yes, in a tent, in a bedroll, try to avoid it in the snow but our new wall tent does have a stove (as long as you remember to wake up and put wood in it every few hours). Sleep with your clothes in the sleeping bag - they are warm and dry the next morning. Cooking over a campfire is a bit of a challenge - waiting to have useful coals for the Dutch ovens is annoying. Nothing beats fresh fried trout (10 minutes from catching it) on a cold morning in the mountains. Trout in high mountain streams that are rarely fished will bite on almost anything - but they usually aren't very big. Horses are nice even if you don't ride, just so you can pack the wall tent and the Dutch ovens. A sturdy horse can carry a quartered cow elk or half of a quartered bull elk, or a whole deer. Lifting packs on a horse makes you want a short horse or a steep downhill slope. The feminine hygiene thing is a pain when camping. Drinking from streams is a little safer if you are high in the mountains or can find a steam that emerges from a cliff face or underground. You can develop a gut immunity to Giardia (not that I really want to try). Wool is your best bet for warmth, cotton is a killer in the high mountains.



Archery: effective range is shorter than you think. Traditional bows are a lot of fun to shoot- don't expect to kill anything with a bow that has less than 40lbs of pull (minimum legal in Idaho). Pulling a 60lb traditional bow is hard work. Arrows are hard to find after you shoot them - even with pink or yellow fletching. Large critters take awhile to bleed out after a chest shot. Realistically you shoot and wait 20-30 minutes to make sure the critter is dead before you approach - otherwise they might get up and run and then you have to track. Tracking a blood trail is harder than you think.



Caves: no light, mostly narrow passages, damp. Lava tubes have a lots of sharp edges if they aren't used by a lot of people to wear them down (and, oh yes, snakes) - the desert east of Craters of the Moon is full of unnamed lava tubes and a few others (Government Cave) that are named but hard to find.



Swords and armor- no experience. I can put a good edge on a knife though and gut a carcass or do a complete necropsy in about 15 minutes.

[Sattva]

EccentricSage wrote...

CalJones wrote...

I can't comment on the stew but I will say that if you're camping and have to wash your utensils in cold water, it doesn't always clean them as thoroughly as you'd like. Jippy tummy can result.

Ah, if you use wraught iron you needn't worry about the cleaning as much.  You burn the excess grease and then scrape it off.  We use them as much as possible at home.  Also, you heat the iron up before cooking on/in it, so that any bacteria die. 

Nice tip

[Sattva]

TanithAeyrs wrote...


Fun thread.

Horses: *SNIP* As a historical note the Bedouins mosty rode mares into battle. 

I dimly remember a historical anecdote where two armies had trouble battling each other for one of them had mostly mares and the other stallions... Anyone could be more precise?

Camping: *SNIP* Nothing beats fresh fried trout (10 minutes from catching it) on a cold morning in the mountains. Trout in high mountain streams that are rarely fished will bite on almost anything - but they usually aren't very big.  *SNIP* 

In my XP, a friend of mine had a sport of catching trout with his bare hands. That is standing in a mountain stream (37F or 3 degrees Celsius in the morning and about 44F=7C in the afternoon) with no warm rubber shoes on...
We didn't bother to cook it - it was small indeed; we marinated it in salt and added something acidic (don't remember what) to discourage those small pesky icky things that dwell in any game from coming to inhabit us

Sorry for snipping, the whole reply was very interesting to read. Thank you for your input

Modifié par Sattva, 07 septembre 2010 - 07:52 .

[CalJones]

I mostly use a skillet now (at home) - big heavy thing. Hardly have to clean it - it gets stupidly hot anyway. I have to wrap a towel around the handle.

[TanithAeyrs]

Sattva wrote...

TanithAeyrs wrote...


Fun thread.

Horses: *SNIP* As a historical note the Bedouins mosty rode mares into battle. 

I dimly remember a historical anecdote where two armies had trouble battling each other for one of them had mostly mares and the other stallions... Anyone could be more precise?

Camping: *SNIP* Nothing beats fresh fried trout (10 minutes from catching it) on a cold morning in the mountains. Trout in high mountain streams that are rarely fished will bite on almost anything - but they usually aren't very big.  *SNIP* 

In my XP, a friend of mine had a sport of catching trout with his bare hands. That is standing in a mountain stream (37F or 3 degrees Celsius in the morning and about 44F=7C in the afternoon) with no warm rubber shoes on...
We didn't bother to cook it - it was small indeed; we marinated it in salt and added something acidic (don't remember what) to discourage those small pesky icky things that dwell in any game from coming to inhabit us

Sorry for snipping, the whole reply was very interesting to read. Thank you for your input

Mares are quieter and less apt to give away an ambush.  I doubt there would be any problems in the heat of battle no matter what sex the horse you are riding on is. 

Just for fun the word for catching trout with your bare hands is guddling (I read it, then had to look it up- Webster's Unabridged, word is Scottish).  Have never tried this myself but I've heard it works.  You are braver than I am to eat raw trout. 

[EccentricSage]

CalJones wrote...

I'd imagine humans, and Sten, would hit their heads a lot given that the tunnels were made by dwarves.
@ Sage - I imagine the Deep Roads are as light as they are because players would complain if they were dark. There's a line between playability and realism, and Bioware have headed towards playability. However, the luminous fungi and such would have been awesome. As it is, those levels are rather brown and boring.

I don't mind that there is lighting in the Deep Roads. I mind that there is no explanation for the lighting. There should have been glowstones, lerium veins, phosphorescent pools, and bioluminescent lichens. It would have been cool if there were some dimly lit sections where you need a mage with you to use a constant effect spell to illuminate your surrounding, but at risk of drawing enemies. Casuals would **** about it being 'unfair' and 'too hard', but it would have added more atmosphere and a real sense of fear to the Deep Roads. Here we are walking right into the Lion's Den of the Darkspawn, a place where few have dared to tread since a young Dunkan barely survived an ordeal there, and all we get is **** colored rocks.

It would have been so cool if there were some recognizable landmarks from The Calling. It would have sent chills up my spine coming across that glowing green pool, or the Dwarven palace with the ancient evil, skeletal remains of a lone Grey Warden in the midst of the ruins, and some special quest to lay his remains to rest in the pool. Now that would have been some worthwhile DLC.

[CalJones]

The giant statue in Ortan Thaig is mentioned in Stolen Throne (as are the spiders...ugh).

[EccentricSage]

CalJones wrote...

The giant statue in Ortan Thaig is mentioned in Stolen Throne (as are the spiders...ugh).

That is true, but not much else was simular.  They took a compelling place full of dread and terror, hollowed ground covered in the remains of the Dwarves who died making their final stand there, and turned it into a mostly empty pit with just some generic Dwarven buildings and etched panelling to hint at what the place was.  I always dread getting to Orzamar because the Deap Roads are just so damn boring and flavorless most of the way through.  Only thing I like about it is the amount of loot I pick up and a few major boss battles.  But really, it all could have been much more epic and emersive if they had put in the detail to create more of a sence of time and place.

[CalJones]

I won't disagree. And I find it pointless that you have to roam through so much of it. Now if only they'd halved the length and included the Celene plot instead...*sigh*

[mousestalker]

Or have several Grey Warden skeletons all in the same place. Even if nothing happens there, it would have been very creepy. Just coming across your dead brethren and realizing that's likely going to be your fate.