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quote:Originally posted by Gangsta Spanksta:
Okay let me cut you off right there. The description about what something can lift wasn't purely quantitative. You used words and a number to write a descriptive sentence. That is a combination.No, it's a purely quantitative description because it includes a measurable quantity. I have no interest in arguing this with somebody who is clearly not a scientist, and who clearly hasn't even bothered to spend the half hour it would take to learn what the difference is.
There you go poisoning the well. "Whatever you say is meaningless, because you're not a scientist." The real irony of this is that these supposed qualitative words -- and "quantitative" and "qualitative" are most certainly qualitative -- are considered too vague when it suits your needs and then all the sudden become precise enough to define someone as being a non-scientist for sake of winning an argument. Did you come up with this "scientific fact" by using the scientific method? Another irony of this whole thing is that you say that the other side thinks they are better than everyone else, trying to enforce their elitist views onto other players, and then you make the argument that a non-scientist can't argue.
I do have an degree in Computer Science, but that by itself does not make me right or wrong. I suppose it also doesn't mean I'm a scientist necessarily either; it just shows that I managed to pass my classes. My opinion is not superior to anyone elses, and I have met smarter people than myself who were less educated. But the simple fact remains: I do have a right to my opinion.
One thing I see here is you are trying to force me into an argument that I did not make. I never argued that presenting the player the most precise information is superior. I argue that some things should be vague, and that somethings should not be known by the player, such as how much a 400lb gorilla can lift. I do, however, believe that a strictly qualitative description is more meaningful to a player than a strictly quantitative one. That is to say: "A Muscular Dwarf." vs "A Strength 18 Dwarf." One of those requires only imagination to paint a picture, while the other requires some understanding of a certain subset of Role Playing games. I think the first example is more meaningful to the player, while the second one is more precise, but less meaningful to the player. That, "the giant gorilla can lift 4000lbs," is information that makes the game less realistic to me, and less fun. I also see that as cheating, given the current system is how the game is supposed to be played. Anyway, to fully understand the argument that some people have been making, you have to realize the difference between the words "meaningful" and "precise" because you keep arguing like we are arguing that our method would give the more precise information, while precise information is what we are arguing against. That's not to say that everyone who disagrees with you is arguing the same thing as I am. You also need to stop lumping us all together as the same side too. 
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Quite frankly, I don't see why I should particularly care what your opinion on the matter is. You obviously don't understand the difference between a qualitative and quantitative statement, nor will you even acknowledge that the current skill descriptors in Dwarf Fortress are, for the most part, totally ambiguous.
I think I got that a long time ago that you don't care about my opinion. Above explains the thing about qualitative and quantitative. As for the skill descriptors in Dwarf Fortress, if you have read some of my other posts not addressed to you, then you see me agreeing that some of those are ambiguous. But I also think I said -- or at least meant to have said -- that the those skill levels become clear when at the beginning of the game you add points to your dwarf. These 'skills' you talk about I sort of see as 'character classes' and I have also formed the distinction between those and a player abilities such as strength. I've mentioned several times that I think a creatures levels should remain hidden, none of this "a 8th level goblin guard standing next to a 3rd level goblin guard" stuff. Also, I said I didn't mind a quantitative value on those, after drew the distinction. The character levels, including multiclasses "Miner/Fisherdwarf" should only be seen for the players own dwarves.
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Except, of course, that expanding it into prose causes nothing but a waste of reading and writing time. Do you even understand what I mean when I refer to the difference between quantitative and qualitative statements? One is precise, useful, and easy to gain information from, the other is not. There's a reason that qualitative statements have little place in technical writing.
First off, I draw a distinction between something being Meaningful and Precise. Furthermore, I do not like being drawn into the absolutes. When I was arguing, initially I was talking about character abilities like: Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, etc. Then people started talking about character classes and levels. I am against revealing those for the most part. I am for revealing things you gain from observation. Also, I like vagueness in some description. If you ask me how good someone is at fishing. the answer should be: pittiful, bad, poor, okay, decent, good, very good, great, excellent. You don't have to have all that many level, in fact I may have went overboard (requires testing). Knowing someone is a "decent fisherman" is more meaningful to me than knowing that someone has "43" on their fishing skills. That is if the system is 0 to a 100. If I programmed the game to do 0 to 4,294,967,296 for the fishing skill, I would have to translate that back into human terms anyways to read 0 to 100.
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quote:But what I really find odd here is, you seem to be arguing for all the omniscientness to the game, yet you don't want it in a god mode. No, what I want is for the people who fall into the category of "I want limited saves because I can't help but push quicksave every ten seconds and that ruins my game" to stop trying to tell other people what features should and should not be in a game. This is the category that you clearly fall into, since you apparently feel that your own gameplay will be ruined by other people having the option to increase the usefulness of the information the receive ingame. I'm not sure that any game really needs to cater to people who lack this much willpower.
Wrong. I don't fall into the definition you set, because I have never argued for excluding the feature. I have always argued that I wouldn't mind the feature, but that I think that it should be in a wizard mode, mainly to draw a distinction between how the game is intended to be played, vs. playing the game with say no weather. I just want it to be made clear that it isn't intended game play, so that people won't do such things like bragging in the forums about beating the game in a frozen world, when they had turned weather off.
You know, you have this real tendency to put words into my mouth. :/
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What I also want is for you to stop wasting my time with a bunch of useless red herrings that only illustrate that you have absolutely no understanding of the issues. I want you to go and spend a half hour learning about the difference between quantitative and qualitative descriptors from a high school chemistry or physics textbook. Then I want you to go back to my earlier post and actually deal with the fact that the current skill descriptors are mostly ambiguous.
I am not the only one with who you were arguing with. I often times felt, in this argument, that you were confusing me with some other people who were arguing against you, with who I didn't agree with 100%. There are more than two sides arguing here. I am not going to be forced into an argument of quantitative vs qualitative on how precise each can be, when I am arguing about meaningfulness not preciseness, and I want information to be displayed less precise. Besides that, I also don't believe in absolutes; it is a case by case thing, and there is an exception for most every rule. This kind of reminds me of earlier, when you said that I favored Realism over fun, and I had to say that it was case by case, that realism and fun aren't mutually exclusive, and in some case something unrealistic is not fun. I wish you wouldn't over generalize on somethings, especially when it comes to what I think.
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Topic: "Traditional" stats system (Read 15721 times)