FlintlockJazz

No one's even said that don't start flinging that around. The argument is that if there are romances in the game they WOULD have to cater to all which would lead to at least half the companions needing to be romanceable hence why they don't want it in at all. It has been implied, several times in this thread. As for prejudice, I refer you to post #525: It hasn't been implied from what I have seen and that post was satirical response to another joke post, it also included pedophillia, necrophillia and the perception of biowarian romance. Lets not have this escalate beyond what it is, that leads to flaming, trolling and me throttling someone on top of a pile of dead naked people regretting the night before.

No one's even said that don't start flinging that around. The argument is that if there are romances in the game they WOULD have to cater to all which would lead to at least half the companions needing to be romanceable hence why they don't want it in at all.

Whose the Maid of the Order? I have had a little accident...

How about Herve?Maybe all love intrests should be modeled after him so we satisfy both the 'romance crowd' and the 'let's take revenge upon the romance crowd' at once. Now this is a true win-win! Wait Herve isn't already confirmed?! What the hell, first no necrophillia and now this? Where the hell is my money going???!

Finally someone is speaking my language. Anyone else in favor of this, or just the two of us? Wait, they haven't already confirmed its in the game? But that was the only reason I pledged!

No. Please no. I liked her Skyrim covers but that does not mean I want her elsewhere. Honestly the calls for this actor or that singer is a bit much. Will Claudia Black really enrich your playing experience? Will you really notice the difference if its Malukah or some other singer singing? The obsession with celebrities in recent games actually has put me off then. If I see Felicia Day anywhere near PE heads will roll...

Not going to read the whole thread so apologies if already said, but I'm with those fed up with the oversexualised and ego stroking looks we have been lumped with in recent years for both genders. I only played it for a month, but one thing I realised that even the mages looked like Arnie on steroids and all the women looked like they had bulimia. Do people really want to look like this? Since when did any other look become too wussy or sexy to use? Where are the men who look like they are slender dashing swashbucklers and the amazonian women? And even if I'm playing a strong warrior can't I go with more average looking build? And where did all the old people go, everyone looks to be in their early twenties... EDIT: Oh and no boob plate! You want it you already got tons of games catering to it, leave us wanting realistic armour with this one please..

Alora was a good thief to have for a good aligned party for when they were dual classing Imoen to mage, in which Alora's late arrival in the game actually works out. Doubling up on charavter types in BG was good as ot gave choice but if you want depth like in later games then yeah you have to cut down.

Objective-based XP works for me. Its not how you do something that matters but that you achieve it. Never understood why a rogue would gain xp for charging like a warrior and nothing for sneaking like a rogue.

Why should the PC necessarily be the party leader? This isn't something I get at all. If I design a PC who isn't well-suited to lead, why would he lead? 1. The boss doesn't necessarily speak for the team. The boss might not be the best spokesperson. 2. The PC isn't necessarily the boss. Maybe there isn't a boss - perhaps the party is a group of equals. The player is in control, yes, but that is not equivalent to the PC being in control. I agree completely with this. While having the option to be the boss is good, most games these days force you into the role (and then praise you as some great leader when your character has low charisma and no intelligence) and its kinda annoying. If people find it difficult to believe their character isn't in charge just assume your character gets to decide the overall goal and delegates the implementation to other party members?

that last bit I think is key. Companions will have their own personality so they should have different conversation choices than the PC. Their conversation choices should make sense for their character. If I have some super goody-goody paladin, I shouldn't be able to make him threaten to kill innocent people for example. Yep exactly, both dialogue and combat should have restrictions based on the character. If the party starts butchering peasants for instance the paladin should pick up on this and turn on me instead of going along with it. EDIT: Isn't Wasteland 2 doing something like this?

I actually agree with pretty much this whole post, especially with the part about characters having depth with and without romance, and I do think alot of people arguing here are actually in agreement with each other without realising too.

To further elaborate, there should be at least one NPC who can step into the role of spokesperson if the PC doesn't do it. I know some may say that if you don't invest in a skill you shouldn't be compensated, but if you don't take lockpicking for instance you can always take a companion who does so why not? By making it so that only the PC can take it you either need to require the player has to take those skills or make those skills unnecessary to some extent (I know they plan on putting more than one way of doing things but they are even more limited in this regard. As to the idea that you are then controlling and roleplaying your companions, well you already control them in combat anyway, and they can always refuse to go along with what you want them to say...

Something like SoZ would be good. Since these will be fully fleshed out PCs then they may only have dialog options if they have something relevant to say but if they can develop social skills they should definitely have an impact on dialogue. Having the dwarf ranger good at intimidation should be usuable for instance.

I don't want them as adversaries. Every game has them as big bads and its tiresome. Plus I love dragons, and want to ride them rather than kill them. I'd also like to have a dragon react to someone wearing dragon scale the same way you would if you saw someone wearing human flesh as a jacket. If they are sapient then skinning them is kinda wrong...

You are wrong. Romance doesn't develop only one NPC - it has a potential to develop all NPCs as the interaction between NPCs will change. And btw. Romance in this situation greatly increases replayability of this game and it increases it more drastically than low-int dialogues. Oh I am wrong am I because you state it as so? Didn't realise we could just declare it as so. YOU are wrong. Stat based dialogue increases replayability and RP by a vastly greater degree, and its one of the reasons people are against VO since it prevents the resctivity of things like stat driven dialogue and they want it back. Removing it in favour of romance defeats the purpose of not having VOs and shows where your priorities lie. I find the VO in the infinity engine games were done pretty good. Only major story dialogues were fully voiced, minor dialogues were only voiced for the first sentence(s) or not at all. It helped give soul to the character, but was not restrictive for the dialogue choices...I find that a pretty good design choice I'm refering to the fully voiced VO of more recent games. Thanks to every line needing to be voiced dialogue has become more restrictive as every line is at a premium, which is why I amthankful PE is going the IE route.

You are wrong. Romance doesn't develop only one NPC - it has a potential to develop all NPCs as the interaction between NPCs will change. And btw. Romance in this situation greatly increases replayability of this game and it increases it more drastically than low-int dialogues. Oh I am wrong am I because you state it as so? Didn't realise we could just declare it as so. YOU are wrong. Stat based dialogue increases replayability and RP by a vastly greater degree, and its one of the reasons people are against VO since it prevents the resctivity of things like stat driven dialogue and they want it back. Removing it in favour of romance defeats the purpose of not having VOs and shows where your priorities lie.

Indeed. You get the feeling that the same 5-10 people on each "side" tries to make up for lack of numbers by turning up the volume That's the feeling I get as well, that the same people are shouting from the roof-tops to get their stance across, when Obsidian will make the call and the game will turn out, however it turns out. Which will no doubt be incredible regardless. Aye if there's one thing they take from this thread I hope its that they do what they think is best and play to their own strengths. Most people won't care as long as its good!

I didn't say only int, ideally all stats will influence dialogue like in PST. Romance develops only that one NPC, stat-based dialogue influences interaction with all charactions, how they react to it and the challenges you are presented with it. It encourages the player to use his stats to define who his character is, not to min max and then ignore it when RPing his character in dialog.

From my perspective if we are short on resources then we should drop this Arcanum-style 'Low-Int' dialogues. It really nearly doubles work for dialogues, and for what??? Ok, you like low int guys. And I like low Charisma guys, maybe I should request special dialogues for Low-Cha characters? So, if you are worried on effort model here, think about effort that is used to create Low-Int interactions. If I will be asked - drop one - "good romance or Low-Int interactions" I would definitely drop Low-Int. I'd argue that having low-stat dialogue does alot for RP, it lets people roleplay a more diverse character and gives a reason not to treat a stat as a dump stat if they don't want to play such a character. It helps the dialogue to reflect what kind of character you are playing and enables you to define and characterise the PC.

Aye and they'd probably do best just ignoring the whole lot of us and doing what the hell they please! :D

Fixed! Honestly, I neither side knows whose got 'most' and I'd argue that there's probably more than two, most people probably aren't in a 'side'.

As I said, I gave my reasoning in my first post and am not writing it out again on my phone, and as I stated if they can do both without affecting the quality of the other then great. They have already stated how long it takes Avellone to write one character, the time he has can only be spent on so many things and they can only throw so many quality writers at something. I was expressing an opinion on the matter, what this thread is for and what you yourself have been doing, backing up my posts with the reasons why I think the way I do.

Its bull is it? Please provide your reasoning as to why like I did. And as to all interactions costing resources: yes thats the point. I'm arguing that the non romance relationships should be given priority for the reasons I stated in my post.

Exactly! And I'd like to see bromances form between all party members, not just the PC! Or even rivalry and fighting between certain companions!