BruceVC

So the little tykes name is George Alexander Louis Cool name

It's already well-known that it takes at least 2-3 months for Chris to write a character at his speediest, so the obvious answer to "why can't we have both" is TIME. It's either spend more money to hire more writers, whose output will be of questionable quality/style compared to Avellone by himself and would require additional editing time anyway, or add more time to the development timeline. Because otherwise with the way PE Is development at this point, requiring "deep" romances ("done right") in the game would, IMO, require at least 1-2 characters out of 8 to be completely devoted to only that content type, and that never seems to go well because either a chunk of people are always left out from the RP aspect or the 1-2 romance characters become so "universal" that they're meaningless. Moreover, saying the addition of romances is great for economic reasons is a weak argument. Basically, that "reason" is merely a cover for personal preference. The FPS games that don't have romances do just fine in the economic department; can you really say "add romances to FPS games because it'll obviously increase your bottom line!" with a straight face? Or would you say people played the Infinity Engine games primarily for their romances? It's about the target audience that Obsidian wants to attract and how that affects game development on their timetable: Creating content here and adding a mechanic system there can and will take resources from other places or even impinge development proper. As always, my preference: Leave game romance to the modders. Now, if Avellone did end up leaving traces here and there with no resolution, fine. But I'd much rather have a bunch of Dak'kon -like content because that's rare already in both games and mass media. BruceVC: You missed all the previous thread discussions pointing out that "romance" is actually not a deeper and intrinsically better type of character content compared to other deep and complex relationships, be it family or the bromance/womance that's fallen out of favor in Western mass media since homophobia became much more salient. You clearly are a reasonable and intelligent person and I appreciate your input. A couple of comments from my side You are correct that most FPS don't offer Romance, but we aren't talking about FPS. We are discussing an RPG and people enjoy RPG for a number of reasons that include the narrative, the choices you can make and the party that joins you on your quest. In fact the members of the party that can join are a huge part of an RPG experience IMO. For me the members of my party must not just be unemotional robots that I can't empathize with or interact with, I want to understand what motivates them and there history. I'm sure you can agree with most of what I'm saying up to now Now for me and many others they also want the option to Romance certain members of the party as I firmly believe that a physical relationship does make you closer to person. So even though having optional Romance options won't be more than a few lines of dialogue and maybe a small quest here or there it definitely adds to the deeper connection I feel I have with a party member. The result of this is that I consider there opinion during the game in the context of the overall quest and I ensure they are generally in my party and well equipped . Of course they need to add value in combat but that's normally not a issue. So Romance for me does enhance my RPG experience and provide immersion as I often reflect on my game and choices I have made and that includes who I can Romance. If I could only talk to the person without the Romance arc something would be missing for me from the overall RPG experience.

Do I need to be stoned to work out the answer?

Yeah that's what people say who live in countries that don't have Royal families, its easier to claim indifference than to face the reality that you don't have much of a historical legacy

You are master of theatrics and also very funny

Nope its not new, I've been making this point for ages. But its not as simple as that, I would rather say you will increase the fan base as Romances are popular and Romance do draw certain loyal groups of people who love discussing and supporting them. And by increasing the fan base you would assume that these people would buy PE and that will generate more revenue. Keep in mind this isn't necessarily a good thing; Mass Effect, for example had a massive romance fanbase and things got so rabid that they ended up having to close their romance forums. Bioware also made a DLC that essentially pandered to said audience. You do attract more people, sure, but many of these people are the same kinds of people who obsess over fanfiction and care more about romancing than the actual core mechanics of the game. I hear you, but I still think that the majority of people who want Romance are reasonable and rationale and just enjoy the deeper interaction with party members that Romance provides. So I feel the good outweighs the bad but obviously I would never want the discussion around Romance to get so heated a whole forum gets closed @ The rest of you making jokes about my comments around Romance increasing revenue. Some really hilarious comments, especially the monkey riding the sheep But jokes aside I stand by what I say for the reasons I gave

Maybe, can you provide some links or websites that show this is a popular component for RPG fans?

Yes just to add to the distinguished service that Harry did in Afghanistan. He was a forward air controller until that German newspaper ran the story. His job was deployment into the field with one other person and they had to get close enough to enemy positions to radio in to the airforce the positions of enemy combatants. This is a very dangerous and important job. I can't think of one Royal family in the world in the last 30 years that has allowed one of there princes to be in a position in the front line where they might get killed like this, especially when Harry is a huge target for the Taliban. So huge kudos to him

No that's Raithe's point, they pay for themselves 10 times over with the support from tourism that comes from places like the USA.

Wow, that's an interesting post. I always knew they were an important factor around Tourism but I didn't realize they made that much money. My respect for them has increased even more

Can you post that link?

That's a good point, there is huge support and a massive following in the USA I think its because the USA doesn't have real royalty and people that represent hundreds of years of historical legacy. And to be honest who doesn't like the idealistic and nostalgic appeal of a Royal family that has done so much for a country from a tourism perspective?

Yes its in Dollars, and as far as I know companies only seem to prelease on Steam if they need additional funding and they need it quickly? It won't help develop the game unless Obsidian runs out of money and can't continue to work on PE

So the prince has been born and he is a cute "little critter" http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/23/world/europe/uk-royal-baby/ Its all over the news and for me its significant but I wouldn't mind a break from the constant updates on the international News Channels. Anyway what do you guys think, do you care and have you been following the developments?

Nope its not new, I've been making this point for ages. But its not as simple as that, I would rather say you will increase the fan base as Romances are popular and Romance do draw certain loyal groups of people who love discussing and supporting them. And by increasing the fan base you would assume that these people would buy PE and that will generate more revenue.

Funny

I just don't believe romances are the key to this. I would seriously doubt you would see a massive sales drop off in a bioware game where romance wasn't included. All your are doing is trying to connect sales to romance based on your desire to see romance in the game. I believe that most people would prefer Romance over MP, but I wouldn't mind someone creating a Poll to get a sense of what people want. As I mentioned numerous times Romance is not the only thing that defines an RPG, but it is something that is very popular and will increase the fan base. So I'm not trying to connect anything. I am merely stating the facts which are you will increase the interest in the game if you have Romance as we know Romance is popular. By increasing interest in the game the corollary of this should be people actually buying the game, that is how Romance is linked to sales The only logical counter argument to my point is if you don't believe that the majority of people like Romance or rather that including Romance wouldn't draw new people. But based on the success of BSN I would find this rebuttal hard to believe as the facts speak for themselves? Romance drew in a lot of fans on BSN but how many fans did it drive away? It's easy to know how many you got, almost impossible to know how many you lost since genuine losses don't bother posting on the forums they just go elsewhere. A valid point but I would argue that including optional Romance in PE won't stop anyone actually buying PE but they may spend less time on the Obsidian forums due to the nature of the debate. I can live with that as it shouldn't impact the revenue stream as people would still purchase PE. To be honest I would be a little surprised and disappointed if people did start boycotting the Obsidian forums due to an increased level of discussions around Romance as surly there would be dozens of other debates outside of Romance that people could start or partake in?

I just don't believe romances are the key to this. I would seriously doubt you would see a massive sales drop off in a bioware game where romance wasn't included. All your are doing is trying to connect sales to romance based on your desire to see romance in the game. I believe that most people would prefer Romance over MP, but I wouldn't mind someone creating a Poll to get a sense of what people want. As I mentioned numerous times Romance is not the only thing that defines an RPG, but it is something that is very popular and will increase the fan base. So I'm not trying to connect anything. I am merely stating the facts which are you will increase the interest in the game if you have Romance as we know Romance is popular. By increasing interest in the game the corollary of this should be people actually buying the game, that is how Romance is linked to sales The only logical counter argument to my point is if you don't believe that the majority of people like Romance or rather that including Romance wouldn't draw new people. But based on the success of BSN I would find this rebuttal hard to believe as the facts speak for themselves?

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. Very well said, I have to be honest I appreciate it when someone of your credibility and insight weighs on in on a topic as you make a lot of sense. I particularly like it when you make the same point I am making in your own words and from your own perspective I have said this many times before and I'll say it again. People must stop seeing BSN as the great enemy and assume that any topic or issue that is important there automatically means it irrelevant to PE and its future or rather increasing the PE fan base I have a simple objective or PE and Obsidian. I want PE to have the support of the various Bioware games like DA and ME and of course the BSN. I want thousands of people to logon to these forums and discuss the nuances of the game and give there opinions. I want these same people to financially support Obsidian like they do in with Bioware. I know people on these forums think that some of the discussions and debates on BSN are "weird" and "depraved". But if a group of people want to discuss how the sweat of a Qunari would taste then let them, you don't need to comment. Create a debate that you feel is applicable. I know from the Off Topic section on these forums that there are some topics I think are silly or I don't care about and you know what that's okay. I don't give my opinion on these but I respect the right of people to debate these topics In summary Romance is a popular RPG choice for many gamers and lets try to stop seeing how Bioware includes Romance as a bad thing for Obsidian. Because the more important point should be that Romance should be seen as another mechanism to increase support for PE. Of course its not the most important or only thing but it is relevant

Look carefully: there is a cartoon of a very non-Obsidian house diktat female in boob-plate. She is talking to an NPC with a broken heart over his head. This is clearly the crumb of hope the promancers have been waiting for. You may now wet yourselves. Yeah I noticed that and this make me cautiously optimistic about the implementation of Romance in PE

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. I hear you and even if you have personal preference that Romance is not your cup of tea I would hope that people can see what you are saying. By including Romance you will appeal to a huge group of people that potentially may not be as interested in PE if the game has no Romance. This is a good thing as this means increased revenue and general support for the PE franchise going forward. It stupefies me that people who are really committed to the success of PE can't see this as good thing

Excellent and informative update. Nice one I consider your party members to be an integral part of the overall RPG experience. In fact when I think back to certain RPG I played years ago I may not remember all the quests and lore but I seem to distinctly remember my party members and there own reasons for joining me on my epic journey It may be too early to ask this question but I'll ask anyway Do we know if there will be Romance in PE?

I watched the new Superman movie last night, I thought it was good but you notice I didn't say excellent. My friends all rated it much higher than I did. Anyway we watched it in 3D and the special effects were amazing as usual in a move of this calibre. 68/100 is my score

Keyrock you seem to be a veteran of gaming, do you ever go to forums or watch video's to see how to beat bosses if you have been beaten a few times? In other words do you get advice on the strategy around how to win a certain battle

You can't call me a fool, that's against the Forum rules !!! Moderators, oh Moderaaaaaaaaators. Someone needs a warning !! I'm just joking Malc, you know I love you right ?