Well here is how i see it work out in Illarion(and i bet 50% wont agree well maybe 99% here).
Many people get frustrated playing on Illarion becouse they cant find info outside and barely inside the game. Then they start asking ALOT of "occ" questions inside game "Should i hold down alt, shift or what" and so on. That offcource ruins the atmosfare a little dont you think?
That and they run around doing foolish things who dosnt realy help them staying in carecter.
My opinion/experience is that if a player knows what to do, and how to do it it leaves alot more space for roleplaying. I mean WHY CANT a player roleplay while knowing how his stat raises and how he should go around raising em.
Second thing is why is it that i see tons of questions on the newbie board being answered with "Log in game and try to figure it out there" IF THE PLAYER WHO POSTED THE QUESTION COULD DO THAT HE WOULDT POST!
I agree that stat talk is annoying and that it should be left outside of game but WHY hide it totaly?
At last i want to say that warriors in the old days tried to train there skills the best way posible. Not doing so would be foolish and maybe even result in a short life. Players in a roleplaying game should offcource try and do the same.
Offcource the lack of the lore skills makes it harder. The dev´s seem to think we cant roleplay while knowing a good sword from a bad *LOL*. They even claim that in the old days people couldnt tell. Offcource they couldnt see some foolish stats(2+6+1) but many COULD tell a good from a bad with there skill in "lore". Us? we cant see the sword in real so WE NEED stats.
A swordsman didnt as the dev said "went out and tryid it" they looked at it first, and if they could they took the best one. Again not doing so would maybe mean death.
). so the stats are variable.