BruceVC

Okay I now recognise we get "good trolls" and "bad trolls", but do you get "neutral trolls"?...or is this an oxymoron by definition?

LOL what you're describing is more like the NWN2 experience. Because that's exactly how they approached the issue when that game was in development. They made no mention at all about any romances during the development cycle and the pre-release hype up. Then the game came out. Then we all started playing it. Then we started noticing that Neeshka was getting jealous whenever we'd talk to a Female NPC, so people began thinking that she must be a Romance option. But then the game throws Shandra at us. It makes her the obligatory "damsel in distress" AND the mandatory party member, AND you get to buy her a gift (her portrait). So suddenly people began thinking that she must be a romance option. But then she gets killed. Then before you realize what's going on, Elanee comes out of nowhere, informs you that she's been stalking you since you were a baby, then asks you to go to bed with her. And everyone is like: WTF! You do realize that if Alan is right than it can only enhance the Romance debate, because then we need to continue discussing Romance and the various connotations around how they could be implemented in PoE. I hope he is right

I like your prose, the angry bit about Reaganomics was good. I think you'll find my gratitude to the kids fighting out in hot, sandy places is in this thread. Mind you, I've three friends my age who've served or are serving in said conflicts. The professional 21st century grunt is digging fox-holes well into his or her forties. But man, you really did miss out on the eighties. I got the tail end of it as a twenty-year old and it really rocked. "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times" This quote summarizes basically what I think about our current generation. But I want to also discuss the status of our current era. Firstly I want to say I think we are all very fortunate as we live in a world where mankind is in its greatest era for a number of reasons. But I'll focus primarily on the social improvements that we now all benefit from. We are all part of a generation where we can really be honest about our feelings and aspirations. For example its okay for guys to cry, its okay to admit you go to a psychologist, people can be honest about there sexual orientation, a single women can have a baby without being married, we discuss and debate anything and everything we decide. I can give many more examples but I think you get my point Now some people will say " guys crying on TV...what about keeping your emotions to yourself and being a man". And that's my point, we are able to redefine if its not constructive what certain preconceived definitions are. In other words why can't a man express his emotions? So what if your wife is earning more money than you? I think our ability to discuss and address certain topics and stereotypes is one of the major advantages of living in the era we now live in But this doesn't make us weak, as mentioned there are 18-22 year olds who enlisted to fight in various wars for there countries for years. So we are able to communicate but also toughen up if necessary. What are the disadvantages of our modern world? Of course IMO there are some. Some people don't want to take responsibility for there actions, they blame it on external factors. Also this great interconnected world means that some people are almost addicted to celebrity culture or are more concerned with making some video for nameless people than doing the right thing. But I still think the good far outweighs the bad of the current era we are all fortunate to be part of

Taken more generally, does this mean that you feel that it should be possible for the player to have every possible character conversation interaction be available on a given playthrough regardless of which choices were made by the player? Do you think that's what Obsidian is doing? Do you think they are pretending to say " we won't have Romance" but in fact they want to surprise us? I'm not sure if you are joking because you very seldom joke

Nah, the case for Romance is that they make for more memorable and better interaction with party members. The case against Romance is.....mmmm.....oh yes we can focus on other types of party interaction and discussion arcs .... That is all Even as someone who is nominally pro-romance in role playing games, a poorly written romance isn't going to be "more memorable and better interaction" than well written alternatives. True but as far as I know no one is advocating a badly written Romance arc But there's no guarantee that by writing a romance arc that it will be good; therefore romance as element cannot be seen as naturally additive, ie game < game + romance. The same as there are no guarantee that other type of relationships whoud be writen good. but still nobody complains And besides "badly desinged romances" are more memorable then good ones ... reaf this thres cerfuly and you see that all people complain about "bio-were cal of duty proromancers, no-lifers, etc. etc ...etc.... scum on the society" but almost no one says ... hey .. some romances was good ... for example those who fit in storyline ... The argu is about "we dont;t want romance-system like in biowere" ... but lets think a bit qhous any one be glad about "frendship" or "rivality" system ? ... i feel then no one ... I'm not sure exactly what you said in that post but I like it anyway

d There isn't going to be one of those either! lol ....I don't know if I can handle another forum discussion around a feature that should be in PoE but isn't

And that's fine. To each his own. But for me, if PoE plays out like IWD in terms of story and character interaction, I'll be bitterly disappointed. I like character interaction. I like my NPCs to have personalities and the storyline to be richly developed by intelligent writers with higher aims than creating flimsy excuses for killing new things and finding better loot. Tactical combat is fantastic, and I find I can't play the original BG2 without tactical combat mods precisely because the increased difficulty and balancing creates a much more interesting experience compared to the vanilla game, but if I thought that was the central focus of PoE I wouldn't have pledged money to the project. Not that I'm worried. Obsidian has a good track record on this front and I'm pretty sure they know, given the feedback they've gotten around here, how important good storytelling is to the people who pledged. I played IWD for the first time about 4 months ago and even though I enjoyed it there was no doubt that something was missing and what was missing was the fact there was no real interaction with your party. I doubt the longevity and success of any modern RPG without some kind of party interaction.

That's really good news and you've just made my "best good news" post of the week. I thought the bill seemed completely incongruous to the general movement we are seeing in the USA throughout most of the states where gay rights are becoming legalised in several areas like the acceptance of same sex marriage

He says while complaining the game is too much "Black Isle" not enough "BioWare". Seriously, though? I think PoE being more like BG2 and less like IWD is something the majority of people want, regardless of how they feel about Bioware or Black Isle. I loved both studios in their prime, but I never loved Black Isle for IWD very much, and in fact never finished the first game of that series because straight dungeon crawls are boring. I would be very content if PoE was like BG2, as I've mentioned numerous times that's my best RPG of all time.

Yeah that's a nice change, finding decent food at a Movie theatre.

Also that Kansas bill you linked is very concerning, is this something that a state can really do and can the federal government intervene For those who haven't read it I suggest you do, the depths of its homophobia can't be legal in the USA...surly? I would like our American members to comment to see what they think about the legitimacy of this bill? http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/02/13/kansas_anti_gay_segregation_bill_is_an_abomination.html

Both of those options seem the same. You really need to post more. @BruceVC: Not sure how that relates to what I said. Homeboy is a homophobic douche and doesn't mind being vocal about it. That's the only difference between him and other politicians at home and abroad that are also homophobic/xenophobic/elitist capitalist douches but simply coat their words (and their legislative initiatives) with a layer of politically correct vaseline before ramming them up society's ass. Case in point, the Kansas bill I linked in the other post. Fun times, man. Okay I see what you mean, I did misunderstand you. Valid point, but in Western countries you generally don't see new legislation that promotes homophobia. In fact most Western countries are moving more and more away from laws that discriminate against gay people. Russia seems to be going backwards with this new legislation

Nah, the case for Romance is that they make for more memorable and better interaction with party members. The case against Romance is.....mmmm.....oh yes we can focus on other types of party interaction and discussion arcs .... That is all Even as someone who is nominally pro-romance in role playing games, a poorly written romance isn't going to be "more memorable and better interaction" than well written alternatives. True but as far as I know no one is advocating a badly written Romance arc But there's no guarantee that by writing a romance arc that it will be good; therefore romance as element cannot be seen as naturally additive, ie game < game + romance. Ah, I see what you are saying. In other words a game with Romance doesn't necessarily mean it will be more interactive and enjoyable than a game without Romance because the writing could be poor. I agree, the Romance writing has to decent. But I have faith in Obsidian they would deliver of they were going to implement Romance

I don't know Kaine what if you refuse to play PoE unless Romance is implemented? That may work....

"On meds that preclude alcohol? Check" "Beer? Check."

I am having a Herd salad and baked fish for dinner, with a low fat salad dressing it will be tasty and healthy

clever post

Nah, the case for Romance is that they make for more memorable and better interaction with party members. The case against Romance is.....mmmm.....oh yes we can focus on other types of party interaction and discussion arcs .... That is all Even as someone who is nominally pro-romance in role playing games, a poorly written romance isn't going to be "more memorable and better interaction" than well written alternatives. True but as far as I know no one is advocating a badly written Romance arc

That's an interesting post and it made me laugh Personally I think every generation has it pro's and con's and no generation is better at all things than another one. But I do always laugh when people say things like " kids nowadays have no respect" or " young people nowadays have it easy" This was the exact same thing people said about them when they were young.

Nah, the case for Romance is that they make for more memorable and better interaction with party members. The case against Romance is.....mmmm.....oh yes we can focus on other types of party interaction and discussion arcs .... That is all

I CTD'd in Skyrim three times in one session, for the first time, immediately after installing last Tuesday's Windows Update. After powering down and rebooting, it hasn't happened since. My hourly total now is only 110, but that's in addition to 600 hours on Xbox. There is nothing more satisfying than the explosion of light and sound after killing draugr with Dawnbreaker. KABOOM Holy Smoke, 700 hours + on Skyrim is a very impressive amount of time to spend on a game. Nice one, you must know Skyrim backwards by now ? Phew, I thought my 400-500 hours was a lot. No your time on Skyrim is impressive, but Manifsted's time is extraordinarily impressive

Maybe it was the Romance options in Skyrim that you couldn't handle....being faced with true love can be daunting

No there is a lot more at stake here than this guy just flaunting his opinion. He was the primary contributor towards the homophobic legislation that is law in Russia. He bigotry has been echoed by many other Russian ministers and we are seeing that filter down to people on the street who can perpetuate hate crimes against gay people without fear of any real prosecution. We now see comments from the major of Sochi like "there are no gays in Sochi" and that example of corrective rape of that women that Fry mentions. But there are many other cases of violence and discrimination against gay people in Russia. I watched a documentary on CNN recently that discusses the rise of this type of violence. That's the problem where you have a law that legalizes bigotry. The consequences for the people being targeted are extreme and serious and go far beyond what the actual law pretends to protect or address

It can also plant me firmly in the anti group. You do know that the rush of chemicals is addictive, right? And that a bunch of the people at the BioWare forums do show symptoms of addiction, right? And that you show symptoms of addiction too, right? Also don't quote me while I'm still editing my post Lurky I'm confidant you'll come round and see reason. You'll end up in the Romance camp, it is as inevitable as the rising sun. Its just the right thing to do And almost all of us are addicted to something in life, the best thing is to acknowledge it. But I really don't consider myself addicted to RPG romance. I enjoy it thoroughly but I don't suffer from some sort of dislike of a game if Romance is excluded.

...Have you considered, I don't know, fixating your attention on other character aspects? Personality quirks, memorable actions, character development and progression during the story, things like that? I can understand that remembering characters is easier if they give you the quick rush of chemicals romantic feelings can provide (look, I can into science too!), but you just said that you're almost unable to remember characters unless they give you that. If you're not exaggerating, then you really should do some introspection of yourselves. Diversify your interests a little, it'll be good for you! Of course all those points are important in you remembering certain characters during your RPG journey, but it doesn't change the significance of Romance. And I'm glad you are also into science Lurky..it can only bring you closer into the Romance camp