Lord of Riva

ahhh at least you bring something worthwile to the discussion about now. while i certainly do not agree with this statement to the same extent as you, since i do not see why shallow gameplay is a symptom of having romances in a game, but ok. you are certainly not alone with your opinion. Still i do think it is not okay to hinder others on worthwile discussions throwing rocks at people to hinder them on discussing what they like is never the right way. Just imagine you on the Dragon age boards complaining about shallow gameplay and you get bashed around with semantic arguments that have no place in the discussion, obfuscating all the good and valid points you make. If i understand correctly forums are a medium for discussion right? You are deliberately hindering these discussions. and again it is sad that you do not see a problem with that.

well the problem is that if someone opens a topic in a offtopic forum about My little Pony, and them some guys come and hijack the thread with "MLP is BS" all the time then i see that as an issue. This is a Topic about romance, not a discussion about how the english language works. It does not matter if you disagree to MLP or Romance. i understand that people want to state that they do not want a certain feature in a game and please go ahead and state that. But a little tolerance should be possible right? its not like these guys harm you in anyway. EDIT: no, you are correct im not a moderator, do i need to be a moderator to ask you something? O.o its sad, that you do think this is necessary though.

Oh yes it is. One of my definitions totally encompasses everything the promancers are going on about. Why do you think we've been talking about Ravel for the past 7 friggin pages? That, i do not know. i still have problems finding the reason for you argumentation after all. why not give it a rest now? i mean if obsidian is looking at this topic they will know your position, its hard to avoid it. So let the guys who are actually interested in the topic the space to discuss, how does that sound?

Again Stun, your definition of Romance is valid, but it is not what the so called "pro-mancers" are going on about. Your generalisation of romance is a pointless argument, nobody argues that you need to want romances in a certain way, its wholly up to you. but instead of arguing this over 20 pages you could just outright state that you dont want them and thus finish this discussion. How do you think you wil persuade someone to stop liking something they like? i do not like tomatoes and you wont ever get me to change that, regardless of how much "logical" arguments you bring on the table. Look at the post of Varid, it has a similar Issue. First he states that he doesnt want Romances, which is fine. But his argument on why not is a complete fallacy, its not an argument to say "because i do not like it, because i do think it breaks my immersion, because i do believe that something else will get less love in the development" . because even if this explains the reasons for his tastes its only very personal opinion. This topic is about people talking about if and how they can imagine romances in this game (or the next whatever) so it should be enough to show that you do not want to have them and be done wizh it. shwoing resistance is a good thing, dicussing things is a good thing. Trying to press Logical argument on tastes and preferences is not. This is something we do know in Real-life why does it come up on the internet so often?

@sedrefilos: oh and there IS another interesting point already. Youll, again stand pretty much alone if you are talking about publishers. The Publishing issue people have is something not inherently born from Publishers but are a symptom of a greater issue. Paradox acts as a Distributor mainly, it would be same same to critize them using steam or any store whatsoever. its just not practical. Still the reasons you wont find any supporters for this is because paradox has no way to act on Obsidian as the "as evil perceived" Publishers do. that doesnt make your point invalid (although i do not know of any promises since im no backer) Well Sedrefilos asked the party in question for information, there is no issue with that. How else go about the problem? You can certainly express doubt ( i just said your demand for proof is incorrect, i never said your opinion, or the opinion is wrong from any other user). Please go ahead and try to analyse the problem further, as much as you like , it was not my intention "come down on me" (im not even sure what this way of saying stands for, sorry but as said im not a native speaker) if this means "why did you attack me?" then please udnerstand that this was not my intention. I merely stated that there is no use in this way of discussing things. so, now im really outta here :D

How is it a red herring? We have no proof one way or the other if Obsidian used any of their own funds to cover development costs. Sedrefilos is affirmatively claiming that the haven't used any, therefore the burden of proof rests on him. i think Lephys puts is in more beautiful words than i would be able to. its pointless to discuss this point with the information we have, we would need confirmation from the faction in question to make our conclusion. well we can still throw wild swings at each others, i sometimes feel that this is the reason for forum discussions nowadays. I will come back if i see another interesting topic popping up in this thread. Riva, over and Out.

I love the 'Capitalist' point of view as if this is some huge corporation and not a company making a niche game. Everyway we can spin this to paint Obsidian is evil is being deployed, even ridiculous political and economic ideological garbage. We want Obsidian to make money so they can invest in more games. Period. Not interested in the committee of fairness dictating pricing based on its preconceived notions and guesswork. it is indeed your right to have your own opinions on matters, although i somehow feel that your harshness in your last two posts does ridicule the possibility that others dont share your opinion. If you want your opinion to be accepted you should be able to accept others. im not entirely sure why this makes you an enemy with anyone though.

^I'm trying to identify this. How exactly is romance perceived by the gamers? And isn't it true that if we gather all these perceptions and describe them here we'll get something that looks like this: Romances in video games can be any type of affectionate communication, or any type of love, professed or otherwise, be it via dialogue or otherwise, requited or not, reciprocated or not, with the player character or not well the thing is, it can be perceived from a lot of standpoints, look at your definition. Romance can be what you describe, but it doesnt have to. it could be some of the things exclusively it could be all of them, it could be something entirely different. quite a few people stated now that the definition of romance does not make their arguments invalid but who am i to say that your definition of romance is wrong ? (Although i do not see why the sentence starts with "video games" your definition works with every romance... or nearly with any kind of interaction between living things)

thats not correct, It's not? Then how do you propose that a game developer even attempt to cater to a crowd that wants Romances when no one is even bothering to determine what this crowd sees as romance in the first place? The same way developer find new ways for all mechanics, they try new things out. Alternatively they can still use what exists (and maybe improve upon), it seems to be perceived as romance by some, at least the press. But that should become clear with the post i made in my last statement. The same is true for every part of any given game, PoE will have a newly established world, an original story, a whole new system on character development etc. i certainly do not see how "romance" is any different?

Ahh, the old "Neither one of us knows something, but only one of us needs to prove it, and it's not me" argument. That one's never ridiculous. Also, how is something a "logical conclusion" based on no proof? They're prepared to "eat" the extra shipping costs of shipping the game discs later than the other physical goods. Do you think they accounted for that in the Kickstarter pledges, and are somehow breaking perfectly even? Well the issue is that Illathid demanded proff of Sedrefilos, it was not my argument. You are correct in the statement that this does serve no purpose. Which is exactly what i said btw, so you are actually agreeing with me. Im sorry if that didnt became evident. Well you can gather information up to a point were you think you have conclusive evidence, thats how it works. You do not know if the comclusion you got is correct, but you think that it is. Thats how people understand the world we do not necessarily know but we learn. It is unimportant if your conclusion is a fallacy as long as you search for new input and feedback and you are willing to incorporate new information in the thesis you built yourself. Something that certainly happened in the case of Sedrefilos since he put out his thesis in this thread, openly to discuss. The problem here is that you guys do not know how the Money was used, so you (and i since i generally do not think that Sedrefilos is correct) act on a basis of believe as well. I state again that to fully understand the whole explicit issue we would need to get information from Obsidian to come to the truth of the matter. The whole problem that is discussed here is a philosphical/political one, so if we regard the Societies we live in and come to the ground of the thematic we will end up in a situation were one person does not agree to a standpoint, including understandable reasons against a person with another viewpoint and understandable reasons. (wish i could write in german here, i wonder if it becomes clear what i mean, im not a native speaker so give me some leeway :D ) The topic, that is coming through here (maximising revenue vs. social capitalism (maybe even socialism/communism) is a Discussion about how to solve the issue in society and if we would find a perfect solution in here we can certainly laugh at 2000 years of human society. EDIT: also : thats the point why we are agreeing with each other. If a discussion is to be understood we need to incorporate the complete statement of others. (also can i get one or two of your fabuouls puns in there, i like them :D )

Still not seeing it. It has been explained to you in detail. Understanding him is quite easy, his point of view has been explained in detail as well. There is a difference in not agreeing with a person and pointing out that his arguments are invalid. And yes i can see that you explained your standpoint as well, why prolong the discussion now, since even if you understand each other you do not find a way to accept the respective standpoint. I explained it above as well. If we could go from ridiculing each other into constructive discussion i guess this would serve its purpose a lot better. i Agree with Sedrefilos that the only correct answer has to come from Obsidian, but i still doubt that they would answer his question as openly as he wants. The Capilaist point of view is the more accepted one so there is no need for them to back down/explain on their pricing

thats not correct, the definition doesnt need to be broad. PoE eternity is a game, Call of Duty is a game as well. that doesnt mean that all PoE players need to like CoD. Not all of you want romance, Not all people want the same kind of romance. But that doesnt mean that there is no appeal in it, even if its something only a niche of players want. You do not need to cover the whole spektrum of users with every feature, if you had to PoE wouldnt exist. The question remains what is to be gained to find a specific Definition?

you want a Definition of game romances? i suspect you want to hear that there is none. What being romantic is, is something you could ask in general, nobody will give you the same answer. Still the same is true for RPGs, or for Combat systems, or for well written texts. Tastes are different and that means that all people perceive things differently, there is no reason not to try though?

Oh im aware that developing games is expensive (im one of the lowly, QA henchmen myself ) . im too lazy to calculate this now, also we may have an average there but thats no clear evidence on what Obsidian pays, it may be vastly different, who knows. but my actual point was that this is a red herring in the discussion.

I think it's a Steam's fault, if you look at the pricing you'll see that in Europe you have the same price but in Euros, in England you have exact the same number but with changed symbol from euro to pounds, same with USA. Why do people that live in Poland or Czech Republic for example have to pay more than people in USA while their revenues are a lot smaller, that's simply not fair. It's better for them to buy this game in Russia or Ukraine because the cost is much lower, ofc there's always a risk of being banned by Valve for this. Poland and Chech Rep. will have cheaper physical copies in stores. Outside of sales I don't purchase on STEAM as it's extremely expensive. However the store price for PoE is 125 PLN while Witcher 3 preorder costs 130 PLN in Poland and this is overpricing to me. Maybe, just maybe, CD Projekt decided to sell the game at a greatly reduced margin in Poland(them being Polish), because where I live the price is equivalent to 207 zloty. Strange, over here clothes are a product with one of the highest profit margins before price drops. P.S. I must commend this thread, it's giving the romance one a run for its money. well at least its a lot more civil so far

what exactly is the merit of taking Survival/Athletic? i really want him, for his Background/ RP reasons to have Lore as his main Skill, i thought i would specialise in two and dont invest in other skills at all. He/She is not the person to stealth into the enemy, but more of a charakter barking Orders while crushing the heads of the enemy. I just think that as an Explorer the Lore skill makes sense (also i personally want to read as much Lore content as possible, and i feel i want that on my main) Stealth and Mechanics are pretty uninteresting imho for this char. And i just fear that if i splitt it over three things that the skill levels wont be high enough. (could happen with only two as well, but i will risk that) EDIT: also thanks at karkarov and Odd hermit, i liked your post but wanted to thank you correctly, its appreciated

Things in Greece must suck right now. I hope the Germans come to their senses before it's too late. My sympathies. Nevertheless, I get a feeling you're shifting your argument. Earlier I got the impression that you were arguing that Obsidian's pricing was morally wrong; now you seem to be arguing that it's a poor business decision. That's a different argument, and one I have no opinion on as I have zero experience pricing games. That said: P:E is a niche game. I'm pretty sure it would not shift Skyrim-like units even if they set the price at one cent, or zero. The market for PC/Mac/Linux party-based isometric top-down RTwP RPG's is limited, and expanding it is uphill work. I have no idea how big it is -- a million consumers? two million? five million? -- but it's certainly smaller than the Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Angry Birds, or Skyrim market... or the T-shirt market, for that matter. That means that setting the launch price too low is potentially more dangerous than setting it too high, as that'll saturate the market at a lower price than you could have had, whereas you can always lower the price later -- indeed, you're expected to do so. oh god, im german, i hate this **** going on, sorry in the name of germany, we are not all **** Thats not how it works, with the information we have its a logical conclusion that they didnt invest anything. If they did it would be necessary to back up your argument not his. Its nearly impossible to double check on his end, which is why he saked, more than once, that somneone official makes a statement (which probably wont happen, which is also kinda udnerstandable for a company, please dont misunderstand). But i feel we are talking about some very basic, economical and moral, discussion. I do not think that following this line of argument would help solving the issue

Well he is only proposing to cut the Publisher cut out of the price (since they do not have obligations to one), i still do not think its unreasonable. so if you normally have 30% cut for the publisher on a 60$ game you could sell the game for 45 and make the same (or in my great calculation) even more money out of the game. as said, i do not think the price is to high, but he is right that im willing to pay quite a bit of money for my hobby. This is a fight with Windmills overall, as long as "we" the players are willing to pay as much (and the price for PoE is relatively small´, compared to AAA products) this wont change. And i still think the money spend is worth the product (or i hope it will be, there is no guarantee) I kinda Agree that the Kickstarter System has a problem regarding legalities. We the crowd are basically the publishers (at least some kind of Investors), normal publishers have a safe system they can fall back on if the game turns out to be a scam or badly developed. And that is a Problem. i actually tend to prefer the patreon Idea, where you can leave if you are not happy with the Progress. A solution for that is certainly tricky, and i just tend to back projects i can be confident in.

Hey Guys, Since the game will be realesed soon i have some questions for character creation etc.. I want to start with a Wild orlan barbarian On Hard difficulty focussing on Intellect and Might mainly. He comes from the Living Lands with a Explorer Background. i want him/her to be a Wild, but very Intelligent Character. since i hopefully can play day 1 i would like to have some tips on the Attributes (im thinking of Maxing both int and Might). The weapon of choice will be A Two handed sword (i heard two weapons are better atm, but i do not really care) Another thing i need some help with is the Armor system. I would like to have him/Her stick with Hide Armor, but would like to know what you recommend for a such a character regarding speed/Cooldown between attacks. I guess the character will be played as a Flanker who hits hard, but does not Tank. Oh yes, i saw some discussion about skills i want to make an Athletics/Lore or Survival/Lore Hybrid. Since information is hard to come by regarding skill spread i can udnerstand if you cannot recommend anything but i would like to hear your opinion on the validity of the skill choices.

Im Onboard is Sedrifilos notion in general, although we have to accept that this would be a very bad business idea in the our currenc economical system. Whatever, regardless of Production price, i can look at PoE and say: "yes, i think its worth this amount of money!" and as long as this is the case i do not see a reason to complain. EDIT: and Pirating is out of question in general for me, i do not need to play Video games, so there is hardly a reason to steal them. If im Hungry and need something to eat or starve, that may be a reason, not games.

hah, Well Ravel and TNO is a romance right, one sided love is still love. I kinda agree that all these, a lot more "toned down" romances, they are way better than these awkward mechanics we saw in a few games. That doesnt mean that a romance cant work, no i think romances can be a very interesting plot or subplot so i do not understand how people can think its as bad as they make it out. on the other hand, its the same extreme way of seeing this if not including "romances" into PoE will break the deal for you. Not all games need to feature romance, but they CAN be a worthwile addition. We will see how the PoE story plays out im pretty confident it will be pretty good even without.

Currently there is only pre-orders for physical copy of guide. But I would guess that GamersGate (.com / co.uk) will sell digital version after release and other similar stores. When they release details on how they will deliver digital copies to backers, I can buy you copy if it is possible to gift them (which I think there probably will be, as I don't think that they will give direct downloading links for those add-on copies). that sounds good, i will look for them after release then, I will come back to you if they do not sell them digitaly thank you for your help and your proposal EDIT: thank you as well Ark Evensong (i somehow missed your post)

for some reason i cannot edit my post again(you do not have permission to edit this post) so ill make a double post, please fogive me. EDIT²: I somehow feel misunderstood atm :D okay, trying again: Im a Steam Pre-Order buyer, i want to get my Hands on the Digital Prima guide WITHOUT buying the royal edition (i just do not want the rest of the "swag"). I do NOT want the Hardcover, but would be willing to pay the same for the digital version. Is there a way/place who sells ONLY the digital guide?

Go here: Pillars of Eternity Login, choose Manage Pledge, choose Buy Addons, choose the Strategy Guide. sorry if i was unclear, im not a backer EDIT: im just a normal Pre-Order guy on steam

Yeah, i saw the physical Edition, as said i would like to have a digital version of the guide though, something i have not found so far.