Holy shit. I was reading the text thinking how horrible it all sounded, then I scrolled down and saw the picture... It absolutely boggles my mind that you're still in one piece! Sure, the human body is more resilient than one might think, and most cars today are pretty well designed from a safety perspective, but judging from your description as well as the picture I'd expect a couple of broken bones at the very least...

I'm really relieved for both you and your family's sake that you didn't get permanently crippled, or worse. And even if it could've been a lot worse I hope you're taking good care of yourself, going through a trauma like that would leave anyone shaken up as hell. I know I'm hardly a doctor or anything but I still strongly recommend you take a couple of days of rest ;)

As for your car though... yeah that sucks. I'll make a donation in memoriam in a day or two.

Make sure to take it easy the next couple of days, and don't feel pressured to work with ToME if you're in pain or if you've got too much other stuff on your mind. There's no point to working yourself into the ground after all this stuff has happened.

I hope you'll recover nicely -- "get well soon", as they say.
Regards,
TehRei

Glad you came out of it in one piece (mostly.) That's quite shocking. I imagine you are probably still reeling from it. Be well.

Thank the Gods for Saving Throws and Seat Belts! Glad you escaped relatively unscathed

Awesome to see this progress so quickly! What Goblinz suggested for handling combat seems like a good idea, but other than that it's hard to give feedback from a players' point of view at this early stage of development.

I really do think that this project has a ton of potential, so best of luck to you! ;) I'll follow the development with interest, and I look forward to seeing this module evolve further.

--TehRei

I'll see if I can fix it. Or come on #tome at irc.rizon.net some time.

I think this is a neat demonstration of what is possible. You have gotten to a nice point to progress from. Before you get to far into specialties I would suggest not using the dialog box for the combat. I think teleporting the player to an arena and spawning allies will work better from a user stand point. Plus you can take advantage of more t-engine features like particle effects. I hope you make progress and make a cool game.

you should also start a thread in the forum for this

That is a lot of time. But time well spent! :P

Well, it's hard to call them racist when they truly are superior in many ways. They simply want to preserve their bloodline- and in the fictional world of ToME (as in most fantasy worlds), blood and race do a lot more than physical features and whatnot- race gives significant powers and abilities, many of which are directly linked to each race's unified culture. Not being very racially-aware in such a world would be a serious drawback.

Wow...I didn't expect this. Found it by chance through googling, I was looking for info on the ToMe setting change...

I can't resist commenting however, since I feel that unfair accusations of racism shouldn't be passed over.
Not only are they wrong in themselves but they are damaging in that they might make justified accusations of racism be taken less seriously.

The fact that Maj'Eyal is a fantasy world *IS*extremely relevant.
For one, the existence of different human races with significant differences makes it a world where *racialism* is true - which is required by, but does not imply or by itself justify *racism*.

I'm saying that being able to envision different 'human races' with different 'abilities', while a necessary component of racism, is not by itself racist, just like being able to think of sex differences does not make one a sexist.

Look at it this way - if in the real world there was a small ethnic group were EVERY member possessed a specific special powers other groups didn't have - please look to the Higher base talent for an example of , and then the advanced ones - then our discussions of racism involving that group would likely be very different, don't you think?
Luckily, our world doesn't work like that.

Which is actually why I think that exploring racism in this kind of game would be, while not offhand wrong, something to do very carefully.
Because fantasy races DO have significant, obvious differences, which is usually the point from a game design perspective.

I'm saying that while racism in Maj'Eyal wouldn't be good(well, duh, it's racism), it could certainly be more *understandable*(less obviously wrong?) than in the real world...hence using it as a metaphor for THIS world racism could be, well, dangerous?

Because Highers *are* different and not just because of culture.
They're NOT people like ourselves - hell, Cornacs aren't that either when you look at what some of them can do with the proper class(and that doesn't count as magic - look at Zerkers and Unstoppable, for example).
Yes, the hair color difference is a bit annoying, I have to say, it was a lazy way to differentiate them.

Oh and don't forget that playing someone inherently superior 'just because' IS a significant part of many fantasy games - yes, you may train very hard, but often you are some kind of fated/predestined hero...ToMe is nice and very 'progressive' about that, as you're just an adventurer.

Also, 4 things to consider if you really care about 'race' in ToME:
1)Highers aren't really superior, and this was already brought up. Being superior would imply being better in every way, hence they would have an extra cat point(and perhaps no exp modifier - if you believe it represent learning difference and not simply balance)
It is true that the 'Higher' name is then deceptive, but then that might be simply how they call themselves or are called by Cornacs.
2)Halflings technically would likely be
Human, as there is a mention of a Higher and Halfling breeding with no magic involved, and we have no reason to believe this 'hybrid' is unfertile.
3)If you *MUST* see Highers as equivalent to a possible real world human group, I feel the closest match would a genetically altered bloodline to have slightly superior physical and remarkably superior healing abilities and eyesight- but which ended having a slight learning impairment(loss of the cat point).
Would their *existence* by itself make the world racist, or racism justified?
4)There are technically another two human subraces which aren't playable. One would be described as 'dark skinned'(the Sholtar).
While I think having them playable would be nice, I suspect that them becoming available as PCs and having different racial talents than Cornacs and Higher would cause even more complaints, wouldn't it?

It's not spoiler-y enough to warrant it's current place in my opinion. I agree with your suggestion.

That's basically what your point sounds like to me. Not that it isn't partially a valid point -- but it seems very contradictory to me.
They have magic in their blood, yes, and they don't want to intermingle with Cornacs in order to remain "pure". However, I believe the definition of racism is to classify certain ethnicity's as you put it: "a different race of man". That's the part that made wigdaddy uncomfortable, and that's certainly racism.

Now you could say that keeping the two races separate would not mean racism, much like a law that was in force in the US until 1954. I suggest you read up on that in order to get some understanding about why that philosophy is today considered flawed (in addition to racist).

Anyway I'm getting fed up with this debate now, so I'm probably gonna leave this topic alone for now. I do agree that Highers being blond Caucasians is likely a coincidence though.

Have a nice day

--TehRei

I don't think there's anything particularly spoilery in this section. Shouldn't it be moved into Game-play?