LeBurns

Another girl. No idea why. This one even has a gun!

I had just mentioned this in another forum (yeah I get around ... and am occasionally stalked) but how about just a casual romance or just sex ... for fun? As an example I give Kelly from ME2. There were other full romances there in the game, but Kelly was very likable, cute, flirty, and when a convenient time came would have sex with you (and even dance). No talk of the future, or how we're going to beat the next mission, or long drawn out tragic histories, or side missions that needed to be completed. Just some fun between consenting adults to just forget about the stress and life and death struggles right outside the bedroom door. And sure that can lead elsewhere, or just stay as it is. I think that trying to put into two or three months of game time what in RL may take a few years is kinda out of whack anyway. I mean heck I loved the Kelly character and what was gladly missing was all the drama that often comes with the forced written romances of RPG's these days.

Someone's been playing DAI. Obviously the romance options in that game were designed for a very small demographic of the gamer population. BioWare can be really proud of themselves for that. If I were to design my own it would be more like the 'girl next door' type as that's what I find attractive. Cute, athletic, but not overly made up or shaped.

You say that, in I hope is sarcasm, yet I have friends that prefer their rpgs to be straight hack and slash dungeon crawls with as little "rp" as possible. It makes me shed a tear, a single perfect tear, on the inside everytime I hear something like that. There are games like that. Particularly those where you create your whole (or most of) party and your non-main characters are just assets to the combat and nothing more. I get people can like that, but that's just not me. Even in DOS I wished we didn't create two of the party members ... and I really wish the NPC's you could recruit actually had more personality. W2 another one where you can make most of your party, essentially rendering them to be nothing but combat assets. To me that's all just lazy development and someone just not wanting to put in the effort necessary to make interesting NPC's and companions. In this day and age where games are being funded and all but paid for before the game even goes on sale you'd think they could try harder ... but whatever.

But a lot of people play The Sims (not me, but I know some) so mixing some SIMS features into any game could be very appealing to them. As long as it's something you can ignore if you want and it's not shoved in your face (like DA2) then why not. To me just about anything you add just adds depth to the game.

If have no idea what people consider friendship if they don't consider it love. As far as the Greek term goes I've only heard of the these: AGAPE which is the complete giving of love to another person. Brotherly love. Love thy neighbor type of thing. PHILEO which is the affection, emotion, a fondness one person has for another. Friends, family, being treated as equals. STORGE which is the natural affection. Parent/child love. EROS which refers to love between a husband and wife. Sexual, passion. So I suppose the game could use a little philia and eros.

Maybe romance is a little unrealistic considering the setting, but what about just sex? I find it odd that in a world where there is little to do in your down time there isn't even sex. Witcher seems to work this into the game fairly easily. Not talking wife, kids, house with a white picket fence, just "hey we might get killed tomorrow ... wanta bang tonight?"

If PoE had romances I would have pre-ordered it instead of waiting on a sale like I am now. Just as well I guess since it's still being de-bugged. Honestly from what I've seen of the main companions ... hard to say as they all seem pretty shallow (not owning it doesn't stop me from watching a lot of vids). If they added romance they would have to work on making the companions a little more interesting also ... which would actually take some work ... which may explain why there isn't any romance. I guess I'm waiting for a developer willing to put some effort into their characters.

A lot like the old D&D really. I recall playing a lowly wizard and after casting one or two magic missiles just tossing darts for the rest of the adventure. Good times.

I keep finding women for some reason.

I guess I just prefer the more Tolkien fantasy setting myself. I like guns, in RL and games like Wasteland 2, but not fond of them being used next to Fireballs and Magic Missiles.

Honestly I just wanted someone who was really good with a bow and survival type skills. The animal companion seems more of a chore than a help. Especially if it gets knocked out and suddenly your bow suffer for it.

I get pretty attached to my party so I generally spend a WHOLE lot of time on just CC for my PC. I can't count the number of times I restarted games like Skyrim and such because I soon realized I didn't like something about how the PC looked. I do prefer the companions to be well written in-game characters though, not one's I just make up with no in-game personalities, quests, etc.

I don't think the in-game graphics are up to par for that purpose. Considering the angle and max zoom distance we get with the game, I find the actual character appearance to not matter overmuch. It's the portraits that I associate with the characters. I saw someone do it and it didn't look half bad. The problem is I'll pick a portrait and then try to make the avatar match it, which is all but impossible in most cases.

Personally I don't think I'll be using any portraits. I'll just grab a screenshot of the character as I'm making it, pop that into an editor, make a portrait of the actual character and use that. Only way you can really get a pic that actually looks like your character anyway.

Just FYI, I am finding a lot of new (to me) art on this site: http://drawcrowd.com/ Warning, not everything there is safe for work, but I've found some excellent images.

I read the original, but I never read the revised version. More curious as to what is says to be honest.

... ... ... depends on who's asking. Long time, no chainmail bikinis. Good to see you back. Great to be back MC. I'll see if I can find those bikinis. I know I left them on my hard drive somewhere...

... ... ... depends on who's asking.

I'm not sure what the problem is. I keep trying to find decent pics of Males and instead keep finding and making Females. Thought I might as well share them here. Originals with artist info shown for credit (if applicable).

I attached your monk. Also, I spent a couple minutes smoothing the screenshot somebody posted of their character. Removes the jaggies, gives it more of a painted look while retaining the accurate representation of their in game avatar. I think I may try to just edit a screenshot of the actual character in PSP. Beats trying to make a character that matches some random fantasy image.

Well and it could be worse. It could let you time-stop and eat 25 apples, 4 venison roasts and a half dozen small health potions and then start time again ... kind of like Skyrim. The problem is the devs make the combat system they want and then devise a method of healing that works for their system. Emphasis on the combat system and not on the healing system. Skyrim's is beyond ridiculous, but it's the only thing that will work with the combat system they wanted. Same with this game's combat system, you either have to allow something unrealistic like camping in the middle of dungeons, or you have to rework the whole combat system. The easy answer is to just have some minor healing spells, but that would of course get overused as everyone would just heal up after every single encounter, so you might as well just auto-heal after every battle, which is again unrealistic. You end up tweaking the combat, then the healing, then the combat until you end up with something that works most the time and try to ignore any immersion breaking it may cause. No real perfect system that I'm aware of.

That was one of the few 'walls of text' I've enjoyed reading. Well done. I don't have the game yet (waiting on more patches ... and a sale) but this gave me a lot to think about.

Someone with supernatural fighting ability, probably. In a game where you have wizards and psychics and people who literally fight by singing a song, monks are the part that seems unrealistic? I guess what doesn't make them fit IMO is that they don't fit Tolkien lore, which most everything else about D&D is based on. They are kind of an odd ball just stuck in there. Doesn't mean they can't be cool to play, as I've said I played some back in the day, but they do kind of stick out. I guess it's the same reason I think guns don't really fit since they were not in Tolkien lore either. Yeah I know not every fantasy game needs to follow Tolkien lore, but it is the definition I measure fantasy up to. But other than when I played AD&D Oriental Adventures or BioWare's Jade Empire, monks just seemed an odd addition. So while they might be cool to play I wouldn't mind if they just were not there.

Even when I played D&D back in the early 80's I thought they were odd. Who really runs at someone with a bladed weapon and armor tries to punch them? I played a few for fun as they had some real OP abilities at higher levels, but did they 'fit'? No, not really. Course I don't think firearms 'fit' the fantasy world either so I try to pretend they don't exist. Seriously as soon as any untrained peasant can pick up a gun it makes archers and spell casters obsolete really quick ... along with armor.