Melan on 27/11/2007 at 07:32
Quote Posted by ionia23
Now, wait about 16 hours.
Whoa. :eek: That's dedication! :wot:
Here's a question about ghosting: how are areas which have been abandoned for several years, and will probably stay that way for many more, handled? Dafydd mentioned that even there, destroying a crate or two and breaking through boards counts as a bust. I think that may be a bit too literalist. What's the popular consensus on this issue?
Dafydd on 30/11/2007 at 04:46
Melan, you've got to remember that ghosting rules have nothing to do with real life: They're simply a special set of arbitrary game rules.
I could argue that in real life, finding a broken window doesn't necessarily make you think that a thief has been through there; you might think the kids outside hit a baseball through it. Or if you nudge a particuarly irksome AI into the water, where he dies, people might think he just fell in.
But that makes no difference: Those things are forbidden by ghosting rules. It's all self-policed anyway; there's no Final Ghosting Authority that examines all claims and makes a pronouncement! It's sort of like playing solitaire... you can argue with yourself that there's really no rule against peeking at the downfacing cards -- but that doesn't change the fact that doing so violates the rules. It's entirely up to the player whether he wants to play by those rules, but those are they.
In this case, there is no ghosting exception for property that has probably been abandoned; it's arbitrary, but so are all game rules. It has nothing to do with reality. Heck, in real life, there are no such things are rope arrows or water-crystal arrows, undead, treebeasts, Hammerites, or teleportation devices...
Dafydd
smithpd on 30/11/2007 at 07:34
Quote Posted by Melan
What's the popular consensus on this issue?
Dafydd is correct.
There is some history behind this. The basic premise of Ghosting was invented about 8 years ago by clayman, followed by Sneak and a few others, with yours truly not far behind. The rules were written initially by clayman and then rehashed with endless discussions and modifications on the Eidos forum, which is the place it all started. About 4 years ago I edited the final version of the rules, which was reached by consensus of all the active ghosters at the time, including the Old Guard. I think Dafydd and I are the only regulars here who were involved in the final rule discussions. By now, the official rules are a tradition. "Popular consensus" should not be used to change the rules at this stage. If the rules could be changed at will, the statement "I ghosted it" would be meaningless.
The players at TTLG came into ghosting late in the game. There is often confusion here about exactly what the term means. The official rules contain lots of explanations and examples, the purpose of which is to allay the confusion.
I am happy the tradition has been kept alive here. It is interesting how something that was just a whim at the time has become solidly entrenched, to the extent that many mission developers actually design missions with ghosting in mind.
Melan on 30/11/2007 at 08:25
Thank you for the explanations. I admit I was somewhat ignorant about a lot of this - for example, I didn't know you could use water and moss arrows while ghosting. I may have been confusing the style with how Lytha used to be doing things. She was hardcore. :cheeky:
Mikael Grizzly on 30/11/2007 at 09:56
Reading that LotP ghosting account is interesting, but kind of funny. Ghosting means by definition going through unseen/unheard, leaving as anonymous as you were entering right?
I have a hard time imagining how the lady would not notice Garrett nudging into here. That is, unless her husband has a detached phantom limb hovering behind her to grope, and so she got used to... nudging.
smithpd on 30/11/2007 at 16:23
LOL :) Well, nudging is one of those techniques that is allowed but discouraged according to the rules because it uses a quirk of the Dark engine. The reason those things are allowed is that if they had been disallowed then Sneak's heroic effort with the Golden Child would have been invalidated, as well as our Banner Transmigration in Shipping and Receiving. In general, we tried to be sensitive to past history. These methods were, after all, fun to discover, even if they are ridiculous compared to real life.
