BSoda
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Posts posted by BSoda
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So it is finally confirmed then ? Not that it comes as that big of a surprise considering certain devs ...uhh... reservations concerning the topic from the get go. I will still admit that I am a bit disappointed by that. I would have loved seeing Obsidian taking romances beyond the BW teenage-novella level.
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Why would locking characters out of content based on their builds be considered bad design? It's not like first-time players are going to be aware of 'optimal' character builds in the first place.
Indeed. I actually tend to see the opposite as bad design. Having all content available to all character builds kills replayability and significantly weakens the impact of the choices made by you, the PC. If you carry this train of thought to the extreme you end up with a Bethesda RPG where a magic only character also ends up being a master thief and world renowned two-handed weapons expert.
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Imo gore is pretty much superfluous in a real mature game. Much more than romances which at least ideally contribute to the story / game. But ehh it's no skin of my back either way.
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Hmm...nice interview. Too bad there is little new information in it, though.
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As and when they announce romances, this lot will head on over here. Mark my words.
We are already here.
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Ha ha ha ha ha.
* pauses *
Ha ha ha ha ha.
(etc)
Instead of laughing it off, perhaps you can provide a better example of an emotional scene in RPGs ? ...or at least lay out why this scene doesn't work for you ? (wooden animations ? dialogue ?) ...you know being constructive to the thread.
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Another badly done "emotional impact" from the Mass Effect series is in ME3 where you are supposed to feel sad/guilty about seeing a kid die whom you can't save. The very lack of chance to save it is already a negative in my book, then comes the returning visions using the kid's image which just made me pissed off at the Bioware developers instead of making me feel anything remotedly similar to sadness. You don't even know the kid and didn't see him for longer than 3 minutes before he dies anyway, there is/was no attachment.
So my opinion in short: Well done emotional impact is good, just don't try to force us feel sad/bad about some event where we didn't have a chance to change/avoid things, plus if possible, also consider POSITIVE emotional impact, instead of trying to make everything more "griddy/dramatic" by trying to pull the "tears/guilt card". (which sadly seems to become "the new black" in games recently)
The ME3 duct-kid is an especially good example on how *not* to do emotional impact. There was zero connection to that npc. This coupled with the forced traumatic dreams of the protagonist just came off as a really obvious "now you must feel sad" ploy by the devs. Imo it was even worse because the game didn't even let you decide on how you feel about it -they automatically assumed that your avatar would react sad and thus override the player in front of the tv/monitor. BAD, bad game design.
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Looked through all this and it seems like we have a mixed crowd with leanings towards romance. Here is what I've got to say. When i saw the kickstarter for this game, i ****ing geeked out. got really excited, showed my wife. Told her all about the Baldurs gates series, etc. When i was deployed she had played neverwinter nights, neverwitner nights 2, dragon age, when i got back mass effect, later on trying dragon age 2, mass effect 2 and 3. I was happy to share this with my wife, and she really liked the games because of the romances. I feel like they added alot to them, but were ignorable for people who thought it was weird, stupid, or just not worth their time.
The only reason I backed project eternity was because when you say "baldurs gate" i assume its going to be that rich, deep, and fufilling, complete with the romance. not some dating sim, not some hack and slash, not some hard core adventure sim. the whole package. I would not have thrown any cash towards the game if I saw this: http://www.gameranx....ct-eternity/��I really wish that had been made clear, early on because now i feel fleeced. I like games without romance too, but this particular thing, my wife and I were both sort of expecting it.
You shouldn't read too much into that interview. Chris Avellone is not the project leader nor is he the only writer for PE. He simply stated that he's bad at writing romances...so far this has no impact on the game itself.
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I don't like to make assumptions either but your post makes me think of someone in his early teens (A kid who are looking at any opportunity to see the other gender naked).
When you need physical relationship and confuse sex with love. It is also a very man point of view.
Plus you might not know but when you actually grow up physical relationship isn't really what you are looking for.
You're looking for more significant love. you might understand that when you will be over your 50's or not (some men never grows).
Plus you didn't actually read my post..the actual message in it was "Love for me in PE should be more like trust.
When you trust someone by your side to the point of letting him/her shielding you isn't it beautiful enough to not add words ?"
Because love is actually about trust; Sex is a complete another matter.
But, i am not sure you might understand. It doesn't seems you have a lot of relationship experience even if i don't know your background (and don't care).
But, please don't take offense on what i am saying. I don't claim to know your life.
I somehow get the impression that you are not talking about 'romance' but love as a more abstract term. Of course love doesn't have to be sexual. Most parents love their children. You can even love inanimated things like a country.
Thinking sex plays absoluetly no role in a loving relationship between adults, however...that's kind of naive. Trust is a big part of it, too -but that alone can also be found between close friends and siblings/family.
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No allocation of resources to any form of mp/coop/lan mode.
The sp campaign needs every last droplet of devtime it can get...too many former, traditional sp games went the mp/coop route recently...and not for the better.
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I don't feel the devs should waste resources on what is essentially an implementation of cheating. If you want to break the game, that's fine -but please do it on your own clock.
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I'm not sure why people are saying this is the final word on romances on PE. The tone of the answer is so so bitter that it has to be tongue in cheek. Plus Ziets is on board for PE and MCA just said he made romances work on NWN2, no reason why it will not work on PE.
I personally do not care if there will be romances or not, I enjoyed DA:O (with Alistair's romance being almost a must for female characters and a very cliche one at that) and FO:NV (unless I did something wrong there was nothing romanceable in it) equally.
This pretty much...and it's not "people" (as in a majority / consensus kind of reading) that say that. It's basically the anti-romance crowd latching on Avellone's interview because it validates their viewpoint and hopes for the game.
That Avellone isn't stemming the whole project himself and that he in fact didn't even make a statement about romances in PE is simply contrary to their standpoint.
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GTA IV is believed to be one of the (if not the) most expensive (non mmo) video game made so far. It cost ~100 Million
A title in the sales-wise successful COD franchise goes for about ~30 million.
The Witcher 2 cost around ~10 million.
...and I think BG2 was around 5 million.
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When I think of mature content Arcanum always comes to mind. Is anyone familiar with the Half Ogre island quest? It explores things like kidnapping, prostitution, people smuggling, torture, rape, politics all tied into the one quest line.
When I was playing through it the content absolutely blew my mind. The writers did an amazing job there some of the best story I've seen in a computer game.
Yes. Sadly, that quest was impossible to complete and player was left in the dark(
Pretty sure it ended exactly where they intended it to end.
Yeah. The player can't fix everything. I actually liked the outcome of this quest.
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snip
It may surprise you to know this but I do a lot of reading on this subject and it's not just me who has this opinion. I'm not saying this from a position of ignorance. I happen to know from being in the communities of said games that they are popular with women. I read the blogs of other women who game and participate frequently in debates on the subject.
I'm in no way speaking for all women but just presenting what is evident time and time again.
Here is a link from a 'female geek' website that pretty much matches what I have said as an example. Note the many comments below lauding the piece.
What did you think of New Vegas ? Because I honestly don't expect Obsidian to kind of bork this up. Imo, they've done well on this topic, so far.
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I think there is also an issue there, Moonlight Butterfly. If you make all NPCs treat the character exactly the same, regardless of gender (aside from titles and how they address you), it might make the world seem a bit less organic. After all, even in-setting there are likely to be bigots and chauvinists, and if they go around badmouthing women to a male PC, I imagine it would be a "wtf?" moment if you talk to them as a female character and can't bring it up. Admittedly, I think the male character should be able to as well, but said NPC should react to the player character differently based upon gender.
Of course, this is really me just contesting the assertion that female gamers want female player characters to be just like male player characters. The issue is that in the history of mankind, whenever something was posited as "different but equal," it has been anything but.
This. I remember some Bioware dev being especially proud that their female / male Shephard is virtually the same (aside from how the are addressed in the game). I always thought this was more a sign of laziness than anything else on their part.
Well that 'laziness' is a nice relief for women who want their female protagonist to be as heroic and non sexualised as a male one.
I guess that what I'm trying to say is that at the moment characters like FemShep are the closest thing to a decent female protagonist that we have and that's why they are popular.
Let me try and put it a different way, sure the gaming industry can do better as you very rightly pointed out, but at the moment those are the characters that are popular with women because we don't have much else. If we want to be a hero FemShep gives us that chance without the extra baggage of being a character whose primary feature is 'she is a woman' and isn't there to pander to men.
Well I just think "ideal woman protagonist" = "male protagonist with boobs and female honorific" is...well lazy design.
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I think there is also an issue there, Moonlight Butterfly. If you make all NPCs treat the character exactly the same, regardless of gender (aside from titles and how they address you), it might make the world seem a bit less organic. After all, even in-setting there are likely to be bigots and chauvinists, and if they go around badmouthing women to a male PC, I imagine it would be a "wtf?" moment if you talk to them as a female character and can't bring it up. Admittedly, I think the male character should be able to as well, but said NPC should react to the player character differently based upon gender.
Of course, this is really me just contesting the assertion that female gamers want female player characters to be just like male player characters. The issue is that in the history of mankind, whenever something was posited as "different but equal," it has been anything but.
This. I remember some Bioware dev being especially proud that their female / male Shephard is virtually the same (aside from how the are addressed in the game). I always thought this was more a sign of laziness than anything else on their part.
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I agree with everything but don't pull a Fallout timed main quest. That sucked. I play games to relax and having the game constantly tell me "hurry, hurry...you've got no time for this, hurry up !" is not my idea of a fun game.
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When I think of a mature game, I think Showtime, HBO and not Disney. Just having mature elements in your plot doesn't make it a "mature game", imo. (The opposite is true, as well). I trust Obsidian to find the right balance, though.
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Obsidian is about to make a project from lost art of the CRPG-games, and people most concerning thing about the game is romance, sex and boobplates?
It's the most heated debate for sure, atm...but I hardly think it's the "most" important point of concern for anyone here.
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Arcanum's opening was great. Let's do something like this. We certainly don't need any solists.
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1. The already have an engine (Unity)
2. They already have a lot of tools (e.g. for managing dialogue)
3. There is no publisher taking its (huge) cut out of the later earnings (so they can throw some of their own money in, if needs be)
4 Million will be enough to make a BG2 like (in scope) game, imo.
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Edit:
Agreed. Movies / TV / Books / videogames are all a form of escapism. It's not a coincidence that even the actress who plays Brienne in GoT would be considered traditionally beautiful. She certainly doesn't fit her description in the books ("her eyes were the only thing beautiful about her").Escapism is an interesting point here, but is your ideal place really somewhere where all women are perfect (and, if it comes to that, willing)? Uhm. Wait. Don't answer that...
Still, I'd find it much more interesting when in a world of normal looking women there was one that looked perfect - and then you discover that she is a quite hateable and shallow character and you prefer your not-as-perfect but interesting companion...
Lol my ideal place ? The ideal place for pretty much everyone is populated by beautiful people -hence why even the ugly people in movies / tv shows are almost always played by actually attractive people. That's how it has been for the last 100 years or so...your implications that connect this fact to sexuality and shallowness is pretty telling of your character, though.
A companion doesn't suddenly grow interesting just because he / she is ugly, neither is he / she "shallow" just because he /she's beautiful.
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Meh, there's plenty of things in real life I'm not fond of.....that's why I play games. If I was perfectly 100% happy with real life I wouldn't watch movies or play games. So thanks but no thanks, they can keep that slice of "real" life out of it.
Agreed. Movies / TV / Books / videogames are all a form of escapism. It's not a coincidence that even the actress who plays Brienne in GoT would be considered traditionally beautiful. She certainly doesn't fit her description in the book ("her eyes were the only thing beautiful about her").
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The Case for Romance.
in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Posted
This whole discussion over pricing is kind of pointless. It certainly wasn't budgeting that led to the exclusion of romances.