Tale

I'm kind of with JFSOCC. Shared universes tend to venture into Too Many Cooks very quickly. If some of the actual game writers want to do a tie-in novels, prequels to the games, stuff in other parts of the game setting, I can get behind that so long as they have a really good editor.

I really should have followed NWN1's development. When it came out I still thought I could transfer my Baldur's Gate character. And after it turned out I couldn't, I was further surprised that I couldn't make my character an assassin. It only went downhill from there.

We need more sexy cosplay.

Agreed, we've lost developers that post, but don't gain as many.

Aha! I think I've identified the real problem.

I think Eurogamer specifically mentioned not finding a narrative fork in the hour they had with it. I recall hearing we get a choice between which army we support, Cartman vs the elves, at some point. But I could easily be misunderstanding what I heard a year ago.

I can agree with that. So I'd have to change Too Human to Neverwinter Nights' original campaign.

Too Human was awful and I remember it having progression and loot systems. I don't know if it counts as an RPG, though.

Is it just impressions or are we getting a full embargo lift on reviews?

This is one of those moments where a cane appears and drags someone off stage.

Whatever it is, it better be a thinly veiled reference to colonnades. What's a game about pillars without architecture puns?

From what I've gathered in various interviews, the basic process is that they get something like a month to write a script if they're lucky and then they spend the rest of development implementing it. They're doing things like dialogue trees, triggers for events related to their script, they may even be scripting out sequences having to do it, providing feedback for other writers especially when it involves their characters or relates to their material, and necessary revisions. And all that work ends up amounting to sometimes 2 characters and 2 sidequests. For like a year or more of work. I can see that being intimidating. And having spent my share of time with multiple attempts at mods that never see the light of day, starting off with grand ambitions, then actually getting down to the work, always scoping down and cutting material until it actually becomes something that can work. Two months in and I finally have like two actual plot driving scenes implemented and I hate them.

The armor is seriously impressive. That Morrigan is no Claudia Black, but she'll do.

FALSE. Unless of course you make romance an out-of-the-blue option after 5 dialogues without any buildup like BioWare. If you want romance you need to pay; * Writer for a full year (say, 10K) * Actual gameplay dev(s) to implent said writing (triggers, script, writing) (another 10K) * If aside from just the writing you want more (say, a quest)... add 30k minimal (for a short one) Total cost; 50k (and as stated, this is a low estimate). Feel free to pay OE that for the romances. I won't stop you... but I doubt you will. I don't see 10k getting anyone for a year. An amateur for 6 months, maybe, but I wouldn't want to live in California at that pay. Nitpicking aside, I'm a big adversary of too many cooks. Adding a secondary writer to do major character arcs is a complication that gets my eye twitching. We're essentially talking about someone who has no involvement or investment in the character's conception and themes turning around and trying to add new themes without affecting the old. I suppose it's possible. TV shows do an approximation of it all the time since they cycle writers throughout a season, but checking the writing credits I often see show runners do the major character episodes and leave the others for filler.

People who were happy with...say, the original NWN2 campaign romances must be setting their expectations really, really low. Do it right or don't it at all, I say. Handmaiden wasn't terrible. Visas Marr, on the other hand, made me wonder about the mental health infrastructure in a galaxy far, far away.

We're using different meanings. I don't disagree with you. The reason I said "technically" is because you cannot replace romance options with not-romance options and somehow maintain the quantity of distinct option types, is all. Imagine you have 7 different foods on a table. If you take one of the unique dishes away (say... I dunno, salad), and you replace it with a second plate of another dish (Mac and cheese, for example's sake), then you've still got the same amount of food, but you could still say the table has "less" food than it did have, since it had 7 foods, and now it has only 6 foods. I wasn't trying to argue with you. I was just pointing out a technicality of the meaning of "less interactivity," because I'm a defective android. 8P This analogy doesn't work for me. Why do you have 7 different food types and are taking things away instead of an empty table on which to add things? A video game is not the metaphorical sculpture, on which you take away all the parts that aren't the game. It's closer to a house. If the architect designs the house to not have a study, it doesn't mean he took the study away. The house is still going to be the same size at the end of it all, but maybe it has a rumpus room. Maybe it has a dining room separate from the kitchen. Maybe it has a child's bedroom or a walk-in closet. And maybe he's just expanding the living area. It was never going to have all of these things. It never had the potential for all of them together. The architect didn't feel a study was appropriate, and now he has room in the plans for something else. It's not technically a smaller house for the omission of a study, either.

It was never a battle. I hope we can trust that Obsidian made this decision for the reasons they stated, which were entirely internal, not because the fanbase bickered at one another. The arguing was largely pointless. Points made may have had merit, but the tone of discourse didn't really seem to be contributing one way or the other.

I'm the guy who has to sweep up afterwards. But yay. Part of me was thinking they actually finished already and were waiting for a marketing window. But if they just went gold, I'm going to be skeptical of my own conspiracy.

The sizeable romance budget they started with went straight into hookers and blow. Sorry, guys! Research is an important first step.

Fair statement Junta, but I also fear for the overall quality of writing if Sawyer thinks not one writer on their staff is capable of writing a decent romance. Which is basically what he just said in blunt terms. That seems like quite a jump. Many games have poor romance writing and otherwise fantastic writing. Why would you think that this, of all times, is the instance where those skills are going to be intrinsically connecte?

I wonder if I can hate-mance one of the companions.

In fact, Obsidian has never done a good romance. Ever. Look at NWN2, and Mask of the Betrayer. Brilliantly written Characters in Both, but the Romances were god-awful. Cringeworthy. total black marks on both titles. I have to disagree. Safiya is one of the better romances in western RPGs. Because it's part of her character. It's part of her arc. Maybe Viconia is better, simply because I love the juxtaposition and contradiction she provides in how she reacts all over the place. But let's go over some other popular ones. Morrigan in Dragon Age: Origins. The difference between a romance and not-romance is perhaps 3 lines of dialogue. All the interesting things in her character are completely aside from that romance, like her duality of harsh reality versus the childlike nature that still values baubles when she knows she shouldn't. The highlight of Tali in Mass Effect 2 was the interaction with Legion and learning about her people. They tried to make her something of a creepy Shepard fangirl and I think it made the character look worse. The other Mass Effect favorite was Liara and I don't think that the romance did anything of note in ME1, gave a single extra scene in ME2, and the big contribution she makes in ME3 fit well on the friendship path. By comparison, I think Safiya's was much better. Her romance with the player is sort of a reflection of what she is, the Founder's love for Akachi. She's not as memorable a character overall, but her romance contributed more to her.

I'm actually a little surprised. Not disappointed, but surprised. I'm glad they're not including them just to tick off the check box. I like to imagine they wrote out their character's arcs and simply didn't feel that romance was an appropriate part of what they wanted to say with those characters.

I'm watching Farscape. I'm surprised by all the episodes I skip in watching it nowadays. I love the show, but half of the filler episodes are crap. I, ET and Home on the Remains I think I'm watched once since I started getting DVD/Blu-Ray versions. I think it's primarily an issue of the first two seasons before they get the tone down.

I'm giving those Angry Orchard hard ciders a shot. Definitely better than drinking beer. The Traditional Dry is a what the name implies. I can't detect the ginger in their ginger one. The Crisp Apple I can see myself drinking regularly.