alanschu

I definitely would NOT agree with this. There's no such thing as a type of content that can only, unequivocally make something better. Unless we're classifying it in a nebulous way such as "good" content. At which point it's a tautology. (Adding good content makes something good). It's entirely possible for romance content to be added in a way that ultimately takes away from the game. Further, it's nearly impossible to truly ascertain that adding romance content is the best thing to do with that time, in order to make the best game possible.

They earned it, literally, by paying people less than what they delivered (although, hopefully, more than what the person felt was fair). This is a foundation of capitalism/economics, and drives the profit motive. Which is fine and fair (I prefer less government in the economy). This ignores the families that made their money doing outright illegal things, or things we later see to be wrong (slavery). Harold Godwinson had to fight off two different claimants at the same time! Hahaha. I do agree though, that being a ruler of realms back then was a bit more tricksy than it is today. Especially in terms of preserving it. As for the baby, I honestly don't care too much. I think the Royals are a great example of how people are able to be made "interesting" through the media and the likes. Kim Kardashian is the worst for this, as she is famous pretty much for being famous.

At this point, I have to ask, how marginal must romances be simply because you hope that they are? Your entire post earlier, in response to me, can be directly countered with every argument that you make. It's meaningless to pull out the tired "correlation vs causation" argument only to immediately counter with a correlation of your own. What you're putting forth is a supposition. So tell me, how many fans do romances drive away? Could it be lots? Sure. I have to ask you, could it be miniscule? The strongest impetus of your argument comes across as "this is the way I want it to be." This isn't particularly compelling. I'm of the opinion that, if Obsidian wants to put in romance content, then they should. If they don't, and feel that time is better put elsewhere, then they shouldn't. But the dismissive attitudes towards people that DO like romances is entirely overstated in my direct experiences on ALL the RPG message boards (not just BioWare's) I visit, as well as direct interactions with many of the fans at various cons. A lot of people like them. A lot are indifferent (I'd put myself here). Some do actively hate them, although my presumption is that this stems more from the amount of focus that those that like them place on them. I can't validate this with data (nor do I care to), but I do feel that a lot of hatred for this topic comes from a vindictiveness towards those that REALLY like it, to the point where people get tired of threads like this one or the idea that, because they don't care about the feature they see it as an opportunity cost that they don't want to pay. (As an aside, I see this pretty much everywhere for all topics. Take a group of people that REALLY like something, and you'll get people that end up really hating it because they find those that really like it annoying and persistent).

Is this some Facebook style game? I have seen a lot of "Your friends won't be seeing much of you" types of ads there.

As an armchair designer, I actually don't agree with this. If you get some level of consequence for doing that content, I don't think that that's a bad thing at all. Though I tend to frown heavily upon power gaming for the sake of power gaming. If it makes sense to get a buff (or penalty), then give one. If you want to avoid content, I think it's up to the player to avoid said content from an RP perspective. If the content in question denies some level of reward, oh well. It's a very popular feature with many people that are fans of RPGs, particularly ones like Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate 2. The reaction to romances was probably the biggest surprise of BG2. They were ridiculously well received. Despite not being a fan of them personally, I disagree with the implication that their popularity is constrained to something like the BioWare Social Network (hence why the topic continually gets brought up in pretty much every RPG developer's forum). I doubt that MP for Project Eternity would see the benefits that you are putting forth, unless they changed the scope of the game. FO:NV, however, is also a part of a franchise by which the predecessor sold mountains of copies. I think you may have confounding circumstances with your correlation. I can't say for certain whether or not romances would or would not make any difference in sales. I suspect, for a great many, that they may be getting a game akin to an Infinity Engine game likely motivates a lot because they are starved for that type of a game. But I would say, for a game like this, I would expect romances to resonate more strongly than multiplayer.

Yup. I am looking forward to that. That and Saints Row 4 should carry me nicely into Rome 2!

I'm not a huge fan of romances because, in general, I don't find them very well done nor something I find particularly interesting. I won't deny that many people really, really enjoy them, however.

Well, I think my example kinda breaks down that. I didn't mean for it to be a dichotomy of "You do damage or you don't." I gave several different breakdowns for how you could design different ways to do just damage. There's different archetypes that you could use for a fighter as well. Classic ones like "Tank" and so forth, but you can be creative here too. I could see there being a few different types of archetypes for each class, coupled with different ways of fulfilling those types based upon your attribute distribution

I disagree with this assessment. Yes, using another engine helps a GREAT deal for a lot of things, but I think you're woefully understating what modifications, if any, would need to be done in order for the engine to do all the things that they want it to do for the type of game that they want to make. Further, I think you also greatly underestimate the time and iteration required for only the content creation. Especially if you want to be reactive. Further, bug testing should be a part of the agile development process, and done throughout the project. You seem to have isolated it to the end of the project, which from personal experience I would suggest as being a poor idea.

Character concept could be broken down further, such as "damage dealer." I could probably come up with ways, using the D&D skills, that most of these would still work. (this is a derivation from Josh's suggestions): Fighter: Strength: Straight up raw damage numbers Dexterity: Critical hits, or attack speed, or accuracy Constitution: This one is trickier, as it tends to feed into survivability. Perhaps constitution could feed into a grappler type. He can put holds or sustain abilities that can enhance damage in different ways Intelligence: Skill with weapon, skills at combat, or also critical hits Wisdom: You could probably use most for Intelligence here, but also maybe something like rate of XP gain. Charisma: Okay, this one gets me for a damage dealer. At best I could think of maybe, a first strike bonus from an unsuspecting opponent. Charisma might not be the best for this. I thought of this while I was typing, however. With more thought I may be able to come up with better situations. I don't see how this system wouldn't allow for some level of variety either, where the straight up bruisers are better for some people, but an intellect fighter has advantages in other circumstances. Both work for dealing damage, with their own unique twists.

I guess we'll have to wait and see. To me, it seems like hes simply renaming D&D mechanics: Attack of Opportunity is now Disengagement Attack, Berserker is now whatever they are calling Barbarian rage, Weapons Specializations are now all rolled into a generic "Damage". Choosing a weapons specialization never before sacrificed other mechanics but I think you are right that these mechanics will be tweaked to punish players if they do not spend points in a Jack-of-all-trades kind of build. Adequate at everything, great at nothing. Or it could just lend itself to a variety. Jack of all trades are all relatively independent in that they don't need any party member to be effective. But maybe you have a guy that you have dumped ALL of his points into damage. But because of it, his chance to miss is high. Buuut, you have a guy with high chance to hit, and as such it increases the likelihood of him hitting with a stun ability. When creatures are stunned, people may get a significant bonus chance to hit, and as such in that situation the guy with the big hand can crush the stunned guy in a single hit. Different, but not necessarily superior.

Yes, it's just a matter of assembling it and nothing can go wrong there!

Well done on that link! Got me twice XD

I might do some surgery and get that data off my other HDD then! Thanks.

Quick question regarding 400 days. I have a new computer and hence, no local save data. Is this an issue at all?

Piers is just lucky that Alex didn't go Super Saiyan....

I actually never finished Fallout 3 either, although I enjoyed that game as a sandbox game as opposed to a narrative driven game, so I came away satisfied.

My only experience with Piers Morgan had him next to Alex Jones, so it's kind of hard to not think "Piers seems to be a pretty stand up guy" next to that....

I personally feel that any inventory buffs helps undermine the effectiveness of Josh's mod, but that may just be me.

Sawyer's hardcore rules may antagonize a lot of people, but I loved them and it really makes me have to put some thought into how I want to play through the game, in deciding what to carry.

I always founds the game to actually be decidedly niche. I remember playing it waaaaaaaay back in the day. I also picked it up off GoG not too long ago, and realized that perhaps I didn't finish it because it simply wasn't my cup of tea.

I didn't realize multiboxing was against the TOS. If someone was multiboxing, however, they probably wouldn't even need to look at your video to confirm your report. Game logs would show it.

Is 70,000 pounds that far? I haven't really followed it. It's roughly $140k isn't it?

No one here put forth that Atheism is the eradication of a belief system. Although we're starting to argue semantics, as you could argue that not believing in gods is equivalent to believing that there are no gods (and as such, it's a belief system in and of itself). Atheists also include antitheists, since an antitheist must not believe in any deity by definition. They're just more proactive about being against organized religion (such as yourself). As for the impacts of "traditional" Islam and Christianity, you can still see it all over the secular world as well. As an agnostic, it's pretty trivial to see the influences that religion has in my neck of the woods. Are you of the mind that none of these influences? It should also be noted that the definition of the word militant, does not require physical violence: From Wikipedia If you feel that an atheist are never engaged in aggressive verbal exchanges, then you have your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears. That you do not know how to perceive, or are unable to perceive, uniquely divine influence, does not preclude them from actually existing. Definitively stating any proof of a deity not existing through your little exercise is on part with those that do believe in that sort of stuff. I'm certainly skeptical since I doubt it'd be possible to ever employ any sort of empirical test to verify it. As such, I consider it a discussion for philosophy, rather than science. My own personal belief is that I don't bother with the existence of any divine being, since I do not believe I will ever be able to differentiate any actions as being divine. There could be one, there could not be one. Regardless of the answer to that question, it doesn't appear to have much influence on our reality. Given your last response, however, you actually are coming across as decidedly militant as far as I'm concerned.

The official religion of the Soviet Union was indeed atheism. That the government was structured as a dictatorship is irrelevant. Although I wouldn't call the Soviet-Afghan war an example of militant atheism either. Unless the definition of "militant atheism" is simply "An atheist government that happens to be at war." It's important to note that the Soviets got involved at the request of the Afghan government at the time. The Soviet Union did have the goal, however, of eliminating religion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Soviet_Union While the Soviets did do a lot of things against religions, in practice they couldn't outright persecute it as so many people were religious believers at the time. It would have been too difficult to attempt to completely remove it.