I'm against live play for inventory browsing and spell browsing, but for it for just about anything else. Even lockpicking and pickpocketing could benefit from live play if there was some kind of auto attempt you could hold to better make use of character skill. I really don't want to see a role playing game where player skill and speed determines how good your character is.

I vote no for long browsing activities since success on those is determined by the speed players are able to read and perform, which has nothing to do with role playing and character skills at all.

I recently made a topic about this before. And seems like the majority of people do not want that. The freezing time in-menu is much more preferable around here.

I think having the action take time would be better then having time pass when moving through your inventory. So yes you can pause the game to switch spells, take a potion or swap rings. But then an animation would play of your character doing that, taking a potion, putting on a ring. In the case of armor you simply couldn't do it with hostile enemies looking for you.

First, give me the option to pause during dialogue. Then we can talk about non-pausing menus.

But what about immersion? For some people reading or digging around in their pack in the wilderness might break that sense of immersion, knowing that time has stopped, while if they knew time was passing while they re-read that treasure map, or dug through their inventory to look for something, it might aid their sense of immersion.

That is a good point about the animations, though. It would limit the more nonsensical mid-battle acts.

It's so strange to me. People are in favor of anything that makes them more likely to win.

Another, related idea I've thought of is an inventory-related question. Make it so that the player can only have a limited number and type of things on his person easily accessible, and the rest goes in a sack of some sort that is slower to root through. You could have a finite number of weapons on your belt or across your back, depending upon the type. Maybe two one-handed weapons on your belt, while on your back you could carry either a shield OR a bow OR a two-handed weapon. That would allow people to plausibly switch between some weapons combinations - shield and sword to bow and then back to shield and sword, or dual-wield to shield and sword, or warhammer to bow and back - without it being possible to walk around festooned with weapons hanging off your body.

Yeah, that sounds smart. Actions have consequences: drinking a potion takes time, and there are times you don't have much time and certainly can't manage to stop and take a drink.

Well, partyly to add a tactical aspect to things when you're in dangerous territory - make sure you're in a reasonably safe place before you pull out that treasure map in the wilderness - but also to aid immersion for some people. Some folks have that sense of immersion broken by things like freezing time in the middle of a battle to draw a backup weapon when they get disarmed, and that sort of thing.

It's so strange to me. People are in favor of anything that makes them more likely to win.

But some items might be easier to find then others. I'd certainly keep the potions and scrolls readily accessible. If you've organized the bag you shouldn't have a problem finding your gear quickly.(and given the capacity of our bags is already beyond unrealistic there really isn't a need to add a time factor to search through them.) Which is why I say have the actually action take time not the selection of it.

And what of spells, shouts, and powers. Not having the game paused while equiping those could break immersion for some.

AFAIK you can't bring up anything during dialogue, and time doesn't freeze. However, eventually the dialogue exits on its own. I've walked away during dialogue and come back to my char standing alone in a room.

Why would you want to pause during dialogue? That just further kills immersion.

You know what's immersion breaking? Some dude runs up to me while I'm fighting a dragon and locks me in place forcing me to listen to him go on about he'll kill me if I give him away, while both of us die to the dragon's breath.

Pausing while choosing items in your inventory is a staple of the classic RPG. There are RPG's out there that don't, but they are more action/adventure games because of it.

Pausing while choosing items in your inventory is a staple of the classic RPG. There are RPG's out there that don't, but they are more action/adventure games because of it. When you were sitting around a table on a campaign, your DM didn't make you choose your weapons and roll the dice at the same time, or make a creature attack you as you drank your potion. These things took turns, hence turn based play. That's part of the strategy of a role playing game.

Yeah, but TES isn't a turn-based game. I mean, don't get me wrong - I love my 4X turn-based strategy games. I played all the Civ games from the original to Civ V. Played Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Master of Orion I, II and III, Master of Magic, and more. But I never had any attraction to turn-based RPGs, and TES isn't a turn-based RPG, so I don't think time-freeze, especially during combat, really fits well.

You know what's immersion breaking? Some dude runs up to me while I'm fighting a dragon and locks me in place forcing me to listen to him go on about he'll kill me if I give him away, while both of us die to the dragon's breath.

You could always exit from the dialogue?

Most important to mention... Diablo does not pause the game ~but it also does not occlude the gameworld when you are in the inventory. Arx Fatalis does IMO a [mostly] great job with the inventory. You start with a sack, and can aquire more sacks eventually. The game world does not pause IIRC. It's actually one of the better RPGs I've played IMO (for quite a few reasons!); though others may chafe at its lack of appearance customization.

Classic RPGs are not always turn based (or indicative)... The first cRPGs were realtime, and some were even first person. ** Some were both (being RT FPP and then ISO TB for combat; or the other way around).

Okay, so this is something I've mentioned in threads in the past, but never started a thread to actually discuss.

Before Skyrim came out, I remembered playing Oblivion and decided that it would be kinda cool if they stopped freezing time while the player was in the menu system. If you wanna read a book, or drink a potion, or what have you, you have to remember time won't freeze while you're doing so. One obvious benefit is that it can preserve the challenge of battles - no guzzling potions in the middle of a fight, right? It could also make Restoration magic somewhat valuable, since you can simply equip a healing spell with a hotkey or something similar and heal yourself quickly in the lull of a battle where it might not be practical (or plausible) to say "Hey, wait a sec" then dig around in your rucksack to find like four healing potions to drink.

Also, it might aid immersion for those whose sense of immersion is a little more easily broken. If you're on some quest that you find through a book (I can think of at least two offhand) and you wanna stop for a second in the wilderness to re-read that book you're carrying in your pack to check your progress, or if you're using one of the treasure maps and want to re-check the map, you'd better make sure you weren't in bandit country, and check to see that there isn't a bear or pack of wolves on the horizon, or you might get jumped while your nose is in the book. Apply a damage multiplier to attacks on the player if they've got their attention concentrated on reading.

Also, this would apply to all kinds of activities. Time doesn't freeze while you're mining ore, right? Do it in a mine full of bandits, and the noise can draw them out, and you can easily get jumped while you've got a crappy weapon (a pick axe) in hand and your back turned. The same applies to smithing and improving weapons and armor, and I think it works the same for enchanting and alchemy - time continues to pass as you perform these activities. So why not make pickpocketing and lockpicking work the same way? If a guard walks by periodically, you'd better be good at lockpicking to get through that master lock quickly before he walks by again and sees you obviously committing a crime. If you're trying to pick the pocket of a mark who's walking along, you'd have to use the stick to keep sneaking behind them, while trying to fiddle in their pocket without getting caught.

This would also make people think more carefully about the things they do in terms of carrying several of the same item, with varying enchantments for different purposes. It's reasonable to pause before an imminent battle to take off your ring of sneaking +20% to slip on a ring of heavy armor +30% before the fight, but stopping time to take off your robes of sneaking and boots of sneaking and gloves of sneaking and hood of sneaking to slip into a full suit of heavy armor? No, that's patently silly, and it would make it so that playing the game is rewarded, rather than playing the game system.

This could be harder on people using the console-style hotkeys - console players plus PC players like me who use a 360 controller - but everything has its downsides. And PC players have the use of eight hotkeys, making it fairly easy to be able to do some reasonable things without freezing time - swapping out their bow for a greatsword, or something similar.

That's fine, I'm a known [censored] myself.

Another, related idea I've thought of is an inventory-related question. Make it so that the player can only have a limited number and type of things on his person easily accessible, and the rest goes in a sack of some sort that is slower to root through. You could have a finite number of weapons on your belt or across your back, depending upon the type. Maybe two one-handed weapons on your belt, while on your back you could carry either a shield OR a bow OR a two-handed weapon. That would allow people to plausibly switch between some weapons combinations - shield and sword to bow and then back to shield and sword, or dual-wield to shield and sword, or warhammer to bow and back - without it being possible to walk around festooned with weapons hanging off your body.

It would also help prevent the "Hey, Imma wear a bunch of sneak-enchanted clothes for sneaking, then if I get seen I'll just pop on some heavy armor before the bad guys reach me" nonsense.

Then there are possibilities in terms of adjusting the encumbrance system to track bulk as well as weight. Carrying around five full suits of heavy armor as loot just isn't feasible even for a burly warrior. Even though a lot of people could actually carry that much weight (most full plate armor wasn't all that heavy) the bulk would be completely infeasible.

And as a corrolary to the idea of activities not freezing time, that of course should include the inventory menu, and equipping worn items should take varying amounts of time according to what you're doing. Slipping a ring on your finger or an amulet around your neck or a hat on your head would take a mere instant. Pulling on a pair of shoes or boots with buckles would take a good bit more, and of course buckling yourself into a suit of armor (both light and heavy) would certainly not be something you could do quickly. I think that even though in the real world it could take ten minutes (or more!) to put on a full suit of armor, depending on type, that twenty or thirty seconds or so in-game would get the point across, without being long enough to tick people off.

Your acronyms have confoozed me.