Atrokkus
Erudite
Stats are essential to an RPG. I tried to argue that, I tried to put an alternative, but there is none. There is a way to make stat-system irrelevant for a player, tho - a game with fixed protagonist, but still he must evolve in the process of the game, so stats still play a part, or they should, at least.
Basically, you can even play yourself in the game: taht is, if the game was set in realistic setting, and preferrably in contemporary times, with adequate skills and attribute sets, you can pretty much "copy" yourself into the game, but then evolve yourself as the game situations dictate.
By the way, the concept which I've been thinking about of late is hiding all the numerical stats from player, but compensate that with very advanced graphic model which gives very detailed visual representation of what your character is, how does he feel and all that. Also, of course, there should be those "sensors", like if you experience pain, the image of your body should indicate which bodypart hurts and how intense the pain is.
The thing is, that the player won't be all obsessed with number-crunching, and it'll probably give a little "realistic" flavor to the game, making your character a little bit of mystery even to the one who controls him. Of course, skills will grow (and possibly diminish) depending on what you do. Get a lot of hard physical work, your strength will be increasing, perform agility-intensive skills, and it would improve the attribute, but that's standart, just has to go through a lot of adjustments, balaance-wise. Also, for insatnce, if you catch some disease, you won't have a huge icon glaring "you're SICK!!!", quite the contrary - you may even confuse the symptoms with those of poisoning or something else, and may even end up dead without knowing the cause... and similar features.
WEll, just my musings...
Damn those dungheads at TES forums are ignorant to the point of being amusing. And to think, they really believe in what they say...
Basically, you can even play yourself in the game: taht is, if the game was set in realistic setting, and preferrably in contemporary times, with adequate skills and attribute sets, you can pretty much "copy" yourself into the game, but then evolve yourself as the game situations dictate.
By the way, the concept which I've been thinking about of late is hiding all the numerical stats from player, but compensate that with very advanced graphic model which gives very detailed visual representation of what your character is, how does he feel and all that. Also, of course, there should be those "sensors", like if you experience pain, the image of your body should indicate which bodypart hurts and how intense the pain is.
The thing is, that the player won't be all obsessed with number-crunching, and it'll probably give a little "realistic" flavor to the game, making your character a little bit of mystery even to the one who controls him. Of course, skills will grow (and possibly diminish) depending on what you do. Get a lot of hard physical work, your strength will be increasing, perform agility-intensive skills, and it would improve the attribute, but that's standart, just has to go through a lot of adjustments, balaance-wise. Also, for insatnce, if you catch some disease, you won't have a huge icon glaring "you're SICK!!!", quite the contrary - you may even confuse the symptoms with those of poisoning or something else, and may even end up dead without knowing the cause... and similar features.
WEll, just my musings...
Damn those dungheads at TES forums are ignorant to the point of being amusing. And to think, they really believe in what they say...
. Plz stop using terms that you don't andersted. (infinity)
