Extremely flexible objects?

#1 There's probably no general solution... you'd have to make something different for each type of flexible object. Rope is not so bad... but it would really only look real if you animated it in code. It's just a string simulation, which is the basis for cloth simulations. This is what you want. Now to make it collide and interact with your player or whatever else is another story. You'd have to anchor individual points along the rope (as the player is climbing) so they stay in the same spot, while those below sway around. Then you'd have to apply impulses or something to the pieces of rope you want to have move around. So if the player shoots it (and it's indestructible rope), you apply an impulse to the rope at the point of collision in the proper direction, and your rope simulation should handle the rest so it looks pretty good. To make this realtime, you'll either have to optimize or use just a few rope joints.

#2 If the rope is fixed in place at both ends, or fixed at one end and hanging down the method described in that article would probably work, but I can think of many situations when it wouldn't.

For example, if the player was carrying a coil of rope and wished to tie it to a tree (or between two), a rope was attached to a flag which could be raised/lowered on a flagpole, or a rope/chain was wrapped around a winch to raise/lower a portcullis/anchor.

#3 That's a difficult problem. Especially for realtime. I've given all the help I can.

#4 Yes, I thought it might be, even though my lack of experience makes most aspects of 3D graphics seem difficult for me anyway.

Thanks for the link though. I'm sure I can make use of it in the simpler instances.