[caster]

This idea of lore playing a defining role in getting more verbose and detailed descriptions sounds nice to me.
Also it having a role on correctly judging a worth of a weapon or an item when buying or selling. Usefull for loremasters and provides a player with a sense of satisfaction if he chose to invest in those skills.

Maybe providing loremasters with aditional clues on old maps and various items they examine wouldnt be a bad idea too.
Something that could alert them to dangers in some area or a way to sidestep those. From traps to enemies.

Something like collecting and then providing a leader of a hostile eastern horde or some other tribe or group with valuable info on some of their own history or relics would also be nice.

And weapon smiths knowing and giving the player lore or aditional info on particular weapons is a good idea.

Some could buy newfound info from the player too?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How is the business of item description going?
Any new goodies from cardtrick?

[SW2]

Of course the giving Loremasters of extra intelligence on maps and such brings up the old question of player intellegence vs character intelligence, currently I am undecided on the issue.



Also, I have come into much spare time (oh the hardships of being a student), you need item descriptions? I fancy giving them a crack.

[caster]

Its stil free for all, i believe so you dont really need anybodys permit to try.
Just post them once you have something.

[JESUS]

How are you handling thrown weapons like the disk? I'm sure they are single fire recoverable from the loot screen, but do they stack?

All items of the same type and quality stack. Our chakrams return to you when thrown. Isn't that how it worked in Arcanum?

Ok now i'll have to make a Xena character, if you could please add some lesbo dialogues for me the imershum would be deeper thx.

[Anonxeuix]

I quite like cardtrick's descriptions. I'm not bothered at all if descriptions are long, as long as they are not over the top, and I don't find his descriptions OTT.

The only descriptions I did not particularly like was of the Jambia dagger. His description seemed a bit empty in my opinion.

[Tigranes]

Currently playing Icewind Dale 2, and noticing quite a few items where they've got more than a page of description. Normally I'd be happy, but most of them are quite generic (some guy somewhere did some heroic stuff and used weapon to great effect in some battle or other, died, weapon somehow ends up with YOU, ze chosen one), and I find myself skipping most of those descriptions. The same thing that plagued all those Oblivion books, really.

I think it's a big challenge to have writing for so many items that are both interesting and relevant/fit in with the world and its lore. But then, you don't lose anything by being verbose, certainly.

[Vince]

Finalizing descriptions for the demo. Some samples:

Leather Barbari armor - a light leather armor of the southern nomadic tribes. The term "barbari" is a remnant of the good ol' days when there world was divided into the glorious Empire and anything else. The anything else part was arrogantly called "barbaricum", roughly translated as "out there".

Leather Numeri armor - a light leather armor once worn by the numeri - cheap troops recruited en masse during the War. The numeri were drawn from poorly trained provincial militia and non-citizens trying to earn the citizenship the hard way.

Manica - segmented metal armguard lined with calfskin on the inside. Introduced by slow, fully-armored crupellarii, the manica became popular among those who favoured mobility and needed protection only for the weapon arm.

Auxiliary armor - light leather armor with a metal shoulder guard. During the War well-trained, lightly armored auxiliary troops provided support to the Imperial legions during the War. When the Empire fell, the remaining auxiliary troops formed mercenary companies willing to fight for every cause backed by sufficient amount of gold. 

Praetorian armor - heavy, elaborately decorated metal armor of the Praetorian Guard. At the height of the Empire, the Praetorians were hand-picked guards protecting generals and the Emperor himself. After the fall, the Praetorians found new masters and new roles, becoming protectors of House interests in every way possible.

Imperial Guard armor -  heavy armor of the elite Legio XIII Ferrata (Ironclad) legion. This armor provides superior protection, but greatly limits mobility. While it was a minor disadvantage for the slowly advancing shock troops, a single fighter should think twice about wearing it.
...

Jambia - a short, curved Scythian dagger. These ceremonial, richly decorated, "honor" weapons caught the eye of industrious traders who brought them to the Empire. The civilized world needed neither tribal ceremobies nor honor, but could always use a curved blade to cut quickly breeding throats.

Shamshir - a deeply curved, single-edged sword with a slim blade. For a long time it was believed that it's a weapon designed exclusively for cutting and slashing attacks, until the battle at Al-Jarrah demonstrated the shamshir's ability to deliver rising, descending and hooking style thrusts beyond any reasonable doubts.

Scimitar - a two-handed, heavy Ashkaanian sword with an oversized, curved, single-edged blade. The weight adds impressive power to strikes, but makes the sword more difficult to control. The scimitar isn't an elegant weapon designed for artful fencing. It's a heavy blade to mow through anything that stands in front of you.

Marculus - a small, one-handed forge hammer designed for shaping heated metal and cracking skulls when one's out of metal. It does a fine job delivering some impact to a desired object.

Mjollnir - a large Skanian two handed war hammer. After the armorclad legions taught the Skanian raiders that armored opponents should be respected and feared, the Skanians had started tinkering with hammers until the war hammer - an artfully designed combat force amplifier that could deliver the full force of an impact to the target - was born.

Trident - a long three-pronged spear - a distant relative of pitchfork. The trident is ignored by most fighting men, remaining a weapon of enraged farmers and retiarii gladiators. The prongs can easily trap and disarm most melee weapons.

Recurved Ordu bow - a short, composite birch bow reinforced with deer horn. It's recurved toward the target and looks like a semi-circle when unstrung. The bow is as much a part of the Ordu culture as the horse, and since it takes almost a year to construct a single bow, it's never traded and can only be taken from dead riders.

Hand crossbow - a small, handheld crossbow invented by clever Medean loremasters known for their gadgets. Due to the small size, the crossbow lacks power and isn't very accurate, but many folks native to dark alleys think that it's a great conversation starter.

Handox - a close range Skanian throwing axe designed for speed and penetration. The blade has a pronounced upsweep for good throwing capability. Skanian raiders are trained to throw these axes in volleys, causing great damage and disruption in enemy lines.

...

Gold - various golden Imperial coins featuring different, dead emperors and reminding everyone of the old days. While loremasters can talk all day about differences between aurei and solidi, most people call them "imperials".

I've decided to load the descriptions with bits and pieces of lore, explaining a few things (like the new role of the Praetorians). What do you think?

[Lainestin]

"Leather Barbari armor - a light leather armor of the southern nomadic tribes. The term "barbari" is a remnant of the good ol' days when there world was divided into the glorious Empire and anything else. The anything else part was arrogantly called "barbaricum", roughly translated as "out there"."

Shouldn't that be "when the world" and not "when there world"?

[caster]

I think it works excellent.
Its short, gives you a sense of what each item does and some background too without it being too much.

The term "barbari" is a remnant of the good ol' days when there world was divided into the glorious Empire and anything else. The anything else part was arrogantly called "barbaricum", roughly translated as "out there".

this one was good. shows you how decadent the empire was.

Hand crossbow - a small, handheld crossbow invented by clever Medean loremasters known for their gadgets. Due to the small size, the crossbow lacks power and isn't very accurate, but many folks native to dark alleys think that it's a great conversation starter.

  this one too. explains perfectly for what kind of situations its good for.

Jambia - a short, curved Scythian dagger. These ceremonial, richly decorated, "honor" weapons caught the eye of industrious traders who brought them to the Empire. The civilized world needed neither tribal ceremobies nor honor, but could always use a curved blade to cut quickly breeding
throats.

breeding?

[JuJu]

What I don't like is that in the descriptions of armor is almost only lore without any descriptions of functionality of armor, except for classifying it as light/heavy. Also it seems weird that the first sentence is talking about the armor, but second explains where the word barbari comes from. Reading the descriptions I want to get the idea whether this armor is suitable for me, and right now I don't have an idea of what is the practical difference between Barbari armor, Numeri armor and Manica.


What I would like to see more is the uses of the armor not the history, for example:

"Barbari favored the leather armor because in it you could sneak upon an enemy or easily surprise him with speed while it would still protect from an unsteady blow."

"Although manica was popular in the arena, it was never used in real battle, because when one could not predict the blows, it left the fighter unprotected."

"Praetorian armor was designed and redesigned innumerable times until it was perfect for the Emperor's guard. Neither surprise blow, nor a band of thugs could take out a guard before his master was safe and at least several attackers dead."

[caster]

I dont know... it doesnt have that effect on me. Seems pretty clear what kind of armor it is in all of those cases.
Ofcourse youll get the exact stats for it in game so you will be able to correctly judge exactly how much it protects and how.

[Falloutisgod]

So Vince is finalizing lore for a demo...

I don't visit this forum too often so can anybody tell me when the demo is due?

I don't want to piss off anyone withe this question. I'm just curious...

[caster]

they said in about three months.
nothing more specific.

[serious]

What I don't like is that in the descriptions of armor is almost only lore without any descriptions of functionality of armor, except for classifying it as light/heavy. Also it seems weird that the first sentence is talking about the armor, but second explains where the word barbari comes from. Reading the descriptions I want to get the idea whether this armor is suitable for me, and right now I don't have an idea of what is the practical difference between Barbari armor, Numeri armor and Manica.

What I would like to see more is the uses of the armor not the history, (...)

Seconded. - But I think the "history-parts" are also quite interesting and should be displayed additionally and optionally (maybe with the method of seperately clickable keywords - like in >Morrowinds< dialogues ?)

But the most important question for me is:

are those descriptions "mouse-overs" or are they displayed continuously after clicking on the items ?? - Because for "mouse-overs" they're much too long and exaggerated, I think.

[caster]

You can all read this whole thread first. there were much longer descriptions and types of descriptions suggested already.
What Vince wrote is a derivation of these and will work quite well for the Demo.