Release 11 staying open for testing longer duration

Not sure what you are asking for? Do you want detailed notes on how your actions affect the different virtues? If so. I can't see them doing that. Not even for testing. That would provide to much information even for the few virtue affecting action in game.

Currently in game you can do things and they affect your virtuous path. How well are you doing on the paths? Talk to the oracle, she'll give you a general idea on how well you're doing. But I wouldn't expect large amounts of information as to how well things are going, even in later releases. Remember RG wants the mechanics to be a mystery.

 

Guessing you picked up on this conversation mid stream. I wasn't asking for anything.

 

I don't see any of that here.

http://ultima.wikia.com/wiki/Eight_Virtues

Also, NPC's are not human. In fact they're not even close. I think it's a good idea to recognize that. I would be far more understanding of getting dinged for cursing at a player verses cursing at an NPC. Which oh by the way, I do all the time. They're really quite frustrating at times.

Players have feelings, NPC's have scripts. So what's next, taking a hit on virtue points when the game crashes and I use an expletive?

 

humility.
Scripts? What chaos is this you speak of.
So you say the Oracle controls npcs ? Then all the more reason for the virtue ding.

 

Well, I'm an Avatar and I got to New Britannia when I entered this portal through the "dark webs". The dark webs are all powered by scripts, and since I'm not completely brain dead, I know what the difference between a script and a real person (or fellow avatar is). I'd be a sorry lot if I didn't understand that difference!

Ya see, a script, or an NPC (Non-player character) is a very simple person. I'm not talking Nob the Stable boy simple, although he's a script too. I'm talking about all these people that stand in the exact same place all day, never do anything and have a very limited vocabulary. Ya see, where I come from, that place is called Texas. But even in Texas there signs of life beyond a handful of sentences and a lot of repeating "I don't know what you speak of" in-between what any sane person would think of as gibberish in an attempt to pass for conversation.

These guys don't really have feelings, although you can interact with them and perform actions that show general "intent". I'm ok with someone holding me accountable for my actions that impact NPC's (or scripts) and if the developers want to put in some game mechanics that show that an NPC is offended by something I said...they should do that. But I don't want NPC's that don't even know what I'm talking about to impact how virtuous I might be behind the scenes. I don't think that's a fair way to judge that. I think first we'd have to establish that NPC's don't like being cursed at. So far, I haven't heard any complaints from an NPC...not one.

Also, I read the virtue definition of Humility and would never have associated cursing at NPC's or Players as having to do with pride.

 

Well you see, this is a hidden plan by Darkstarr to eventually pull all to his side. Buwahahaha

 

I reject both sides. I make my own fate.

I'm fascinated to walk through the exercises though to see where the game tells me I end up.

 

There is no greater virtue than to live by chaos.
There is no greater chaos than to live by the virtues

 

You're asking the NPCs to break the fourth wall and that absolutely is not going to happen.

 

Sorry, no I'm not asking THEM to do that. I wasn't being clear. I'm saying that it's probably not a good idea for real people to think that NPC's have the same value as real people. Telling an NPC "where to go" has what impact? Does it even make the world a worse place? I don't think it does anything. It's probably got the same net value as if it never happened at all.

Where as, telling another player "where to go" could have a significant impact on a real person. I'm actually saying several things about this over the course of my last few posts. But the bottom line is that they're NPC's...cursing at them is the equivalent to cursing when you stub your big toe. There's no virtue that covers that.

 

So if your cursing while talking in chat to other players, then get dinged for cursing but not if the NPC is the chat target then not. Do other players hear/see the chat your having with NPCs?

 

You also know that stealing from a person can have a significant impact on that person, but stealing from an NPC won't have a significant impact on them. Nor does killing a respawnable NPC or even his sheep have a significant impact on them, or helping them get their red sashes.



If a person is rude to an NPC and nobody is around to hear it - was that person really rude?
Lum's Data says yes.

 

No I don't think when you're engaged with NPC's anyone hears it but you. I know I don't see a lot of people talking to NPC's where the conversation is visible. But maybe I'm just not paying attention.

 

Who's the Oracle? Lum or some NPC construct?

Also, is it wrong to use curse words as adjectives or is it just wrong to use them ever? Because I think there's a fine line between the two personally, and I'm positive that the NPC's don't know the difference.

So let me get this straight, the NPC's don't like it when I curse at them, but they never say "don't do that" and they never hint that it's wrong. What else is wrong that they're not telling me? Maybe you guys are doing stuff that you would never think of as wrong in a million years, but you don't know it because there's not any type of two way communication going on. Have you thought of that?

Look, I understand the spirit of what this is about. But the idea that I could just be a colorfully worded person, and otherwise the most virtuous person in the game doesn't appear to matter much when it comes to cursing. The more I think about it, the more I think that cursing should have nothing to do with the virtue system.

 

Just off topic a bit... Many people in the real world do think cursing when you get angry, whether its to others or just to yourself, shows something negative. As Sir Isycle says, it may be interpreted as a lack of patience, a lack of temperance (self-restraint).

But yea, I don't know if that's what RG had in mind with humility. Some people might consider patience an aspect of humility. Some people might consider temperance an aspect of spirituality, I think. Just given RG's tract "ethical hedonism", I'd guess his idea of the virtues is socially-centered. Though spirituality in the game is sometimes described as a self-centered virtue.

On topic... IF it is in the game, definitely the NPCs should say something. I remember in Ultima V, whenever you cursed, NPCs would say "With language like that, how did you become the Avatar?" Still, its often annoying. I would ask an NPC about Farthing --- a fortress in the game --- and they would think I said "fart" since words were recognized by the first four letters, and then they'd scold me about using bad language. I don't even know if "fart" is bad language except to kids.

Censoring in forums is sometimes like that, it often filters words that aren't really vulgar language, or aren't vulgar in the right context. So I might be talking about donkeys (asses) in some forum and have that censored out...

 

The other day I'm standing around in Owl's Head and hear the following conversation:

Player 1: "So can we curse in this game?"

Player 2: "I don't know, I think so."

Player 1: "Good because sometimes I like to use racial slurs. What about that?"

Player 2: "That's not good."

Player 1: "Yeah well I like to do it."

So there's a lot I don't like about that conversation, and I certainly don't think it's headed down a virtuous path...but I'm human and I can distinguish between all the nuance (or lack thereof) that's going on. NPC's will have no clue. They're just going to compare words used in a flat file behind the scenes. That's not right. I think we need to be more clever than that and ask players to perform actions that tell us if they're virtuous or not.

 

Yes, and that's why I think NPC's are kind of stupid to have in the game by default. But stealing and killing are actions that we can definitively draw conclusions from.

Now if you were to have NPC's say "Whatever you do, don't talk about the Duke's sister. He's never been the same since she died." and the first thing you do when you see the Duke is say "How's that sister doing?!" Well then sure, we can conclude that you are not being virtuous. But just random casual conversation? It just doesn't work well, cursing or not. NPC's and whatever Lum can think to check for are not going to cover this well, or even accurately.

 

Judge a man (or woman) by the virtue of his (or her) deeds, not by what comes out of his (or her) mouth or by his (or her) attire or even his (or her) station in life. I mean, take the average Catholic priest...

 

Started having ui problems and loading problems friday morning, havent been able to log in for more than few seconds at a time since then

 

Has the update fixed the issue?