A quick summary of Lineage 2.

Make a character. Fairly standard. Get a quest. "Kill monster A and B". Walk for an hour to monster A and wait a few hours until whoever's camping it leaves. Kill it. Walk for another 30 minutes to monster B. Wait and then kill it. Walk back to the quest giver. Get 2000 gold, and put it in the bank to save up for that 20,000 gold shield you really want. Go outside, kill monsters for 4 hours, level up once, maybe twice.

It is year 3 of your reign. The population is 1937 citizens. In the past year, 24 citizens died and 92 citizens were born. You have 178 acres of land under cultivation and 241 bags of grain in storage.

How many bags do you want to use for seed this year?

At the same time, however, there was also a "health" counter in Doom that told you in explicit numbers exactly how much health you had left. Since you already could see the head, the counter was redundant, and I think it was a mistake.

Whenever we put a raw number on the screen, we're clinging to our printing-terminal heritage. If your fantasy world really involves numbers, as in a business game or a simulation of a modern military vehicle, well and good. But if you're a space marine or a knight-errant, you shouldn't be seeing numbers all over the place. No knight ever inspected his armor and said, "Yup, this can handle exactly 37 more whacks."

Similar comments on the rest of that article (which I haven't completely read). It mostly suggests on how to make games more realistic, which isn't really the point of most games.

And magic. "I CAST FIREBALL ON YOU TO DEAL x DAMAGE! YOU WILL DIE!"
That doesn't really work. And I don't mean in real life. How could anybody believe that's magic? All I can imagine here is some warrior with a sword represented visually as a person of lesser physical strength wearing some robes, with no sword and a flame that travels from his hand to his target. Oh, and this "sword" deals "fire damage" whatever that means. I swear, if that's not fantasy, NOTHING IS!

Why are people trying to let us understand magic? Don't you think that we, by definition, should not be able to comprehend those arts? Or do you like the idea that there's nothing special about using magic now?

Realism, yes, not graphics/physics wise, just your abilities, and what you are allowed to do within the limits of the game.

A "fire sword", can't you imagine (fantasy-like) a sword constantly on fire? That could be one thing.

Wizards, for balance purposes in most games, must sacrifice one thing for another.

Gandalf knew how to use a sword, but his speciality was using magic.

Sauron, remember that big mace he had? That thing flung back people from all around him, not just what it touched. That is a weapon with magical abilities.

You don't know exactly how much damage it does, that is dependent on your skills and those magical numbers they keep talking about.

A game can't just be completely random, you never know what you're magic will do since nobody would want to bother learning new things.

It's just confusing hmm if you have any way to explain a solution to what you are talking about, I would really like to hear it!

Till something solid is found to replace those numbers, we will still have to depend on leveling up, random numbers, probabilites, and the sort for out RPG gaming.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Is that a bad thing? It isn't about characters being realistic to real life people with similar body structure, just that they're realistic to their own character and the world they live in.

That's just about how you interpret it. Calling it a fire sword, I think, is wrong unless you (or designers) mean to say the sword is made of flame rather than steel engulfed by fire (or some nifty red/orange particle effects).

I see you're drawing quite a bit in the next bit from the Lord of the Rings, which is a good thing, although you seem to be referring more to the movie.
In the books fire is mentioned many times in describing swords.
Look at Narsil:
nar is come from the Greek wo-- I mean, is Elvish for fire. If wtd were here he could tell probably tell us which dialect the word is (I'm not as learned in the Elvish toungues), though I can tell you it is derived from the Quenya word for "sun" (anar).
sil is "shine (with white or silver light)"

Above lore taken from the appendix in the Silmarillion.

OK? So, it's described as a bright flame, but it's more like an artistic description. Sure it's likely that the blade gave off a bright light and would burn the flesh of the goblins, but it wasn't as though you could stick it in a pile of logs and set them aflame.

OK, if magic is an energy or power that is within you (like the Force perhaps) then it would make sense that you become exhausted when releasing great amounts of this energy.

I don't know about saying that he knew how to use it. Anyone could pick up a sword and fling it around to kill, and Gandalf had greater strength than it would appear to a stranger, but I doubt he had much (if any) actual training with the sword. Luckily, he had a very good sword. Glamdring (Foe Hammer) known as "beater" to the orcs could scare them shitless just seeing it which is a pretty big disadvantage for them while fighting.

Was it? T3h mace of uber pwnage +7, right? Sauron was one strong (not just physically) biatch. His master was among the beings that crafted the world (though he was more for destruction, really).

Let us not forget he also had the One Ring (and unlike everyone else, he was it's true master and knew how to wield it). Another thing to consider would be that there were loads of soldiers crowded around, so even the ones he didn't necessarily touch would be pushed by the ones he did in one hell of a fantastic domino effect.

Sure, but there has to be a line. The player shouldn't be dealing with these numbers. So why do they? It used to be necessary with real RPGs. The kind with nerds, a table, pen and paper, and 20 sided dice. Why does it continue with CRPGs? Is that where the company formely known as SquareSoft got it?
Numbers like that aren't gameplay, they're calculations. Good for simulation behind the scenes, but not like "are my stats high enough to be having fun yet?"

WHO said it had to be random? Admittedly I've not read the article in several months, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't say it has to be random.

Don't you worry, I'm working on it!

NO! Who came up with "levelling up"? Why do you believe it to be necessary?

He could have, I mean, Gandalf did travel lots as opposed to studying magic day and night. And certainly, he did live very long, but would you consider his life "long"? Did not the Istari come into Middle Earth appearing as old tired men? Gandalf wasn't really born... he didn't "grow up" did he?

i see.
i wonder if there are any really good games with gandalf in it. virtually every LOTR game sucked. the third tower game was mediocre.

Because Gandalf is 'dah pwn!'

Dragon RO, it's not too great though...
it used to be good when it came out, but it's boring now

can't you search it up on google?
type in ragnarok online.
here it is in case your too lazy http://www.ragnarokonline.com/

Uh... if you're not into wacking snails repetitively, don't play maple story. Oh, and also stupid spanish people going "JAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJA"

Better yet - go to games.yahoo.com .

Jajajaja....... ??