Greetings to you, Creator, and to all JADE fans. I am Baalak, called dreamer, and I have joined the forum
with joy in my heart after reading through the JADE development blag. I am thrilled to have a way, other than postcards, to speak with the Creator and those who follow His creation, and I hope to help the community inspire the best out of JADE.
Thinking about ADoM, one of my favorite games of all time, has gotten me wondering. How could I make the game better? What improvements could be made? I quickly came to one facet of ADoM I always found lacking, and that was the Stealth skill.
Stealth, as most of us know, is a passive skill in ADoM, and presumably JADE as well. This means that you're always trying to be stealthy, if you have the skill, at all. Stealth only seems useful to those who
can Backstab or Find Weaknesses in an enemy's defenses, but there is a whole other aspect to the skill, an active aspect involved with evasion of enemies, which ADoM has never played with.
Standing proudly next to ADoM amongst my favorite games is Thief, by Looking Glass Studios, in which stealth plays an enormous tactical role, your character can only overcome obstacles easily through deception and evasion, and confrontation leads swiftly to death. I would love to see stealth playing an active roll in JADE, allowing you to avoid a fight without having to resort to invisibility or simply running. I, for one, would cherish the opportunity to challenge myself to a game of JADE where I never attack a foe who is aware of me, and while such tactics are possible in ADoM, it is not a thrilling proposition.
I regret I have no suggestions for how such gameplay could be implemented, but I believe it has a place in the JADE experience, given JADE's lineage and predecessors. I shouldn't have to be a 50th level Thief to trust in my ability to hide, as long as I'm adjacent to a wall, and I ask that JADE provide opportunities to make use of cover and concealment as us stealthy players make our way through Ancardia.
Mr. Biskup, thank you for all you have done, and thank you for giving me the hope that my ideas have a place in your creation.
- Baalak nalzar-aung.