Merin

And I'm the Next Gen'er.

That's a good criteria. Someone who is a fervent fan of and supporter of next-gen games would be a next-gen'er. I'll freely accept that definition. So - you know what games I fervently defend? Curious. What are my favorite games? No, no, that's not what you said... favorite isn't it. What next-gen games am I fervently defending? Clearly I have a list of them, at least a few, for you to define me as such. Empirical evidence trumps all. What next-gen games did I fervently defend? You have proof of bribery more than conspiracy theory, I wager? Like, even circumstantial evidence, that IGN's score is outside the norm of all other rankings? A cursory check shows me that IGN gave the XBOX version a 95, and 33 other critics gave it that score or higher so it was a largely ineffectual bribe... especially since IGN gave Mass Effect 1 & 2 largely the same score (94 and 96, respectively) without Chobot's addition. Who do you think shot JFK, btw? Also - shooting down your conspiracy theory isn't my defending the decision to include her, nor is my explaining why she was included. I said I have no problem with her (or other "celebrities") being included in the game, and later that Felicia Day's inclusion in Mark of the Assassin got me to buy it. I'd rather NOT have bought an expansion to DA2, thankyou, so I'd rather she HADN'T been included. That said, Veronica was AWESOME in New Vegas, so... there's that. Now being a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a slur, too? Wow. Alrighty then. *adds to his list of things Obsidian forum posters like to bash* How do you feel about Shakespeare?

Saying Tom Cruise can act is a matter of opinion. I think he's nuttier than a fruitcake and hasn't had a decent picture since Risky Business. But that's a digression - it was an analogy. Analogies are not one to one equations, They are used to show similar traits. Like Tom Cruise is cast in a movie to try and get more people to see it (in a sense, pandering to the people who find him sexy or a good actor or worship Scientology), Jessica Chobot was cast in ME3 to try and entice more people to play it (pandering to IGN fans, G4 fans, people who like seeing women lick portable game units, anyone who thinks she's attractive.) The fact that a few dozen angry posters on a forum will decry the inclusion of a Chobot or a Day in a game doesn't weigh enough against the thousands of fans each have. It's why they did it. You can think it didn't work - it's arguable whether it did or not because there is no evidence one way or the other. Casting Day got me to buy Mark of the Assassin even though I really was disappointed with DA2, so anecdotally I am proof it can work. That said, Eddie Murphy was considered a box office draw but he could save movies like Pluto Nash, so it also doesn't always work. You not like Chobot doesn't change WHY she was cast. With respect, yes there is. It's like saying "I love eggs in my beer. I think eggs in beer have been done fine." Or, "I need eggs in my beer more than almost anything else." You picked that comparison due to believing that people who like romances in games are "weird" or "outside the norm"... when, using your logic, playing RPGs can be the "having eggs in your beer" as far as mainstream culture is concerned. Should there be no RPGs because most people don't play them? That's assuming, of course, the majority, and not just a very, very loud minority, don't want romances. Or that your audience likes beer. I'd rather drink the raw eggs, thank you. She was a romance storyline used as plot hook. Which a very desirable thing in my opinion. I think there's a disconnect here. I don't think every person who says they want ROMANCE in the game actually want romance with companions or mini-games to win romances I know when I say I want romance in the game, I want it part of the story. I want characters to have romantic feelings where it adds to the story (not plot, story - though adding to the plot would be fine as well.) I also don't mind there being one or more options of characters in the game who are attracted to or whom my character is attracted to, or both. However Obsidian would implement that is up to them. Until you point to the poll that shows that people asking for romance are saying "give me the Dragon Age / Mass Effect model", you should not assume they don't mean also PS:T or Alpha Protocol or The Witcher 2 or (if I keep giving examples, someone will pick ONE and tear it apart...I'll help, try The Witcher 2, that gets picked on a lot... and I've not played it, so have at it.) Seems we've got a contingent of next-gen'ers here who really do believe this. Next gen? As in, what, teen-agers? I'm going to wager a bet that my nieces and nephew could be older than you (the youngest is in college) - not that this means anything at all. Age is largely irrelevent. So, yeah, poison the well more. Here's the thing - whether I, or any pro-romance person, is 8 or 80 doesn't matter to the validity of our arguments or tastes. For the record, my first computer was a Commodore PET. The first cRPG I played was either Bard's Tale or Phantasie, I got to Wizard's Crown late. So, yeah, Next Gen'er here.

Well, there was this post in the other thread -

Two other threads on this - http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60531-should-there-be-player-generatable-companions/ http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60149-1-pc-plus-companions-or-create-multiple-characters-plus-companions/?do=findComment&comment=1189259

I voted for both because I don't think it would take too much to allow the player to fill all the slots themselves and just not recruit the NPCs (since you can choose to not recruit them anyway.) There will be balancing issues, sure, but if there are more recruitable companions than slots for companions this'll be an issue anyway. Classic cRPG's always had you make your party of six, and their stories were good. Companions can be good for drawing the player into being involved in the game world, but that can be accomplished without companions. Not only was Wasteland a classic example of this... but Wasteland 2 will be another example of this. I'll be happy with any of the options, honestly, but there are PLENTY of games with pre-made companions... but other than Wasteland 2, what games have come out since SoZ that offered making your whole party? Also, older thread on this - http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60149-1-pc-plus-companions-or-create-multiple-characters-plus-companions/?do=findComment&comment=1189259

I'd like to see magic, and magic items, rarer, so no magic item shops. That trope always bothered me. As for monsters - I actually think the "shades of gray, no set good or evil" is the trope, the tired, tired, tired trope. Kinda like "dark and gritty" is cliche and no longer edgy. It'd be refreshing for me to have a well written story that included "dude, these Evildudes are evil dudes, dude." You know, without the surfer slang.

Personally, I don't need fancy combat animations. I was satisfied back in the SSI Gold Box days with seeing the little two dimensional flat guy holding the weapon above his head, then suddenly the weapon was pointing downwards to let you know he swung! Graphics and animation, meh, not really what I'm concerned about for my cRPGs. Give me Wizard's Crown over Dragon Age 2 any day.

So what is the problem with people voicing their opinion against romances? That in truth is what I find most fascinating in these topics. There is no problem with people saying "I don't like romances in games" or "I don't think romances in games has ever been done well" or "I'd rather almost anything else be in the game before romances." No more problem with it than with people saying "I love romances in games" or "I think most romances in games have been done fine" or "I need romances in the game more than almost anything else." Opinions on good or bad, what should be included or not based on personal preference stated as such, are valid. If you think I'm saying that you can't say you don't want romances in the game, then I apologize for whatever I said that made you think that. Make your voice heard! And this has to do with the Chobot romance how? Chobot was placed to get a whole bunch of men & women drooling over the fact that Shep can bone CGI Chobot. Nothing more. There is no need for that in storytelling or RPGs. Jessica Chobot's character was added to ME3 for practically the same reason that Tom Cruise is cast in a motion picture - name recognition and celebrity are draws. Seth Green, Keith David and Felicia Day were all included in BioWare games in similar ways. Characters designed to look like the actor, using the actor's voice. You could even romance Felicia's character, and there were plenty of people begging for a Joker romance. The only difference I can see is tha Jessica Chobot is not really considered by most to be an actress, and some people saw it as some way to get IGN to give ME3 a better review (like ME3 got bad reviews from any of the major game sites.) Did you need those celebrities for the story? No. But no given movie "needs" Tom Cruise for the story, either. ... Yeah, that's pretty clear. And, what, you think I didn't understand that this was the argument that some people were making? Because... yeah, I got it. I'm fairly certain pretty much everyone gets it. Who's not getting that this is one of the major arguments?

Seconded. I'm okay with either way (preset character OR make your own character) as long as the game knows that's what it is giving you. I prefer to make my own character, but can and do have tons of fun with guiding presets. The attempted middle is annoying as frak, however.

Level caps only matter in games with endless random content. if you have a preset number of encounters and quests... a quantifiable maximum amount of experience points achievable, if you will... then level caps are a moot point. As much as I love games like Fallout and Fallout 2, I actually prefer there not to be endless random encounters and an endless stream of XP... this usually leads to grinding being necessary at points in the game to be able to push forward in the story, but even without this... no, I don't want endless XP. So I'm okay with there be a de facto level cap. A hard forced one that stops a character from leveling while there's still more XP to be gotten, however, I am not in favor of. I remember reaching the Star Forge in KotOR and being max level. Suddenly half (or more) of the fun of all the fights from that point forward was gone.

While I think the ground between DLC and Expansion Pack is muddy... and there have been some great DLC (lots of Fallout 3 stuff, for example, and overall Bethesda is actually pretty good at this post horse armor) - the DLC model bothers me enough that I'll say Expansion only. With the last clarification that I want large chunks of new content purchasable, preferably a sequel that continues a story, for Expansions. Which many DLC packs could be considered as qualifying for. DLC is almost synonymous for Expansions in all but certain "elite" circles at this point, however, and such a poll is almost simply an exercise in grumbling.

Any writing takes time. It takes as much time and planning to write romance as it does to write humor or action. Some writers might find certain kinds of subject matter easier or harder to write, but that's not a universal rule and just their own foibles and idiosyncrasies. That said, any given scene takes as long or as short as the writer wants to devote to it. God no, thieving and sneaking mechanics in please. Definitely not at the expense of 'romance'. See different opinion, both are valid. Dev choice in what to prioritize. My point exactly. Different opinions on what is important, both are valid. We are on the same page there. And definitely what the developers want to do is of utmost priority. So you disagree? Vehemently. Isabela is a sticking point with me, as is any BioWare game post ME2. But that's me. But picking out (if you think they are, or even if I agree they are) the worst examples doesn't represent the whole. For that matter, though, I'd take the Diane Allers romance over no romance, yes. I have no problem with Seth Green, Keith David, Felicia Day or Jessica Chobot being in BioWare games. I enjoy the majority of BioWare's romances... with the caveat that DA2 and ME3 are not games I particularly enjoyed, overall (though, to be fair, ME3 was the ending almost solely.) Disagreement doesn't equal trolling or aggressive or invalid. And the sky is blue and water is wet. Saying anymore on that and I'll just come across as defensive. I already defined it earlier in the thread, but just for you... a straw man is setting up a weak and easily defeated argument that doesn't actually represent what your opponent said. And the constant, repeated examples of people saying "you just want to have sex with your companions" is a straw man. For whatever reason, role-playing a sexual encounter is not as accepted as role-playing murdering people - and therefore painting your opponent as someone who's "just looking for virtual sex" is a way to discredit them without addressing their actual stated desires of wanting to have romance options. It's not a matter of people agreeing or disagreeing with my opinion. People are free to have whatever opinion they like on things that are a matter of opinion (what is the best song, what color is prettiest, what game is most enjoyable, are romances in RPGs worth it) - what they are not allowed "opinions" on are things that are quantifiable facts... like, say, if someone actually said they wanted to have sex with the companions in a game. If you want, we could also branch into how it's a false dichotomy to keep insisting it's "no romance" or "cheesy sexy scenes" with no options in-between possible. I didn't actually start posting in this thread to advocate for romances to be included in PE. I took the poll and and posted my one post about what my choices in the poll were. Then, after reading pages and pages of one-sided rudeness, I posted asking for the smugness to be taken down a notch. Then, after pages more, I called out someone on how they were posting. If you can find me one post where I tell someone that they are wrong and romances must be in the game, I'll apologize. If you can find me a quote of me saying that people are wrong because they don't want romances in the game, I'll say you are right. Until then - and you'll love this - you saying that I'm telling everyone who disagrees with me about including romances in the game that they are setting up straw men arguments... IS a straw man.

That's not exactly right, though. If you get to only make one character - and there's imbalance - the game, overall, is harder to design. If the Sorcerer is five times as powerful/effective as the Fighter who is twice as effective as the Thief (all other things being equal), then combat encounters become a nightmare to design. How do you make a fight that the Sorcerer doesn't snore through yet doesn't simultaneously prove impossible for the Thief without God Mode turned on? For all things outside of combat, sure, balance is not important. And I would agree that CHOICES should allow for gimped characters (or just stylistic / RP reasons for making less effective characters.) But base-line? The Sorcerer and Fighter and Thief need to be pretty balanced at their min build but especially their max build.

I'm all for the option to do either. But, as much as I love creating characters for IWD, I surely didn't love hitting reroll forever. Some randomness can be fun. I remember the old Phantasie games, where you could pick "random" for race and get kooky things. That was fun. But stats... meh. In table-top it leads to cheating and imbalance. In cRPG's it leads to me having carpal tunnel.

I thought this was a done-deal already, as in 1 PC and recruit NPCS. There's a chance for creating your whole party? *faints* For the record, I've not played Storm of Zehir yet, but am greatly anticipating it. I just have a REAL problem with the NWN game system, and especially 3E D&D ruleset. Getting through NWN 1 OC and NWN 2 OC was like pulling teeth, even though there was much in 2 that I loved. SoZ probably did poorly considering it was "3rd / 6th" in a series that was all about recruiting NPCS to work with you... it broke from the mold of a series. All you have to do is look at DA2 from DA:O to see that, for many customers, this is not desirable.

Replayability, by a large margin. I created a whole topic about this - http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60222-missing-stuff-is-great-replayability-and-choice-driven-content/page__view__findpost__p__1191142 For wishes, I chose: Larger world and more content, more companions, more races and classes, more replayability, and more and better artwork, though not necessarily in that order. And I think all of those combine to make more replayability, personally.

The same reason I keep objecting elsewhere when people use the word "Obsidian" to mean "buggy beyond all playability." Because it's a slur against the company. Saying "badly written, pandering romances, like BioWare" is the same as saying, "unplayable buggy crapware, like Obsidian." If you think the later is not a dig or bash on Obsidian, well, we really have different definitions of the term. And, for the record, saying someone lives in a bubble isn't insulting that person. If you are surrounded by people who agree with you on something, you are in a bubble of agreement on that thing. It means you don't have dissenting voices around you. It's not a personal flaw, it's the situation of your environment.

I can't stand playing evil or even murky most of the time. That said, without the dichotomy, choosing the "good" option kind of loses it's oomph. So while I'm rarely, if ever, going to touch it - I'm all for a well written evil path.

Right. But I think the point was the hard, repeated mantras of "romances drain resources that are better spent elsewhere" and "romances aren't done right." You could just as easily say that resources would be better spent on making male human fighters the only available option for PC's as, with ample metrics showing this to be true, like 75% of players choose to play male human fighters in RPGs. Why waste the resources on the 25% when you can make the experience for the 75% so much better? Or rogues in particular? There are plenty of people out there who think sneaking and stealing mechanics are rarely done well, and with bashing locks or knock spells, what really is the point of a rogue? Couldn't you just limit to mage and fighter and let them handle the odd stuff that rogues would do? There's also a good contingent of players who don't like the option to play "evil" being allowed. When is this implemented well? Rarely, many would say. Any kind of tracking of alignment and many would argue that the game loses a lot for these karma systems. Why not just do away with evil acts, since the majority of players (again) play good guys? --- To be clear, I'm not advocating the above. But they are as valid arguments as the anti-romance ones. There is the underlying root for much of the anti-romance, however. And it's the sentiment that those who want romance in the game are looking for virtual sex simulators, and are people who cannot get a date IRL. Or just that there's something icky and wrong with "role-playing" romance, especially in a video game. If you took that away, the argument about "wasted resources" and "poorly implemented" would suddenly fall down to a level of being equal to any other gaming aspect that people like or don't like.

Straw man. Find me the person who says all three of the above. You have some people who want romance in the game who would agree with you that BioWare does it badly. But you don't have anyone saying that romances don't cost resources to write, period, let alone to write well. You'd have to define "significant" and what it's being drained from? We can make silly statements like "would you rather have romances or would you rather have first person shooting mechanics?" or "would you rather have romances or would you rather have realistic physics for parkour?" You have to give an either or, this or that, for "draining resources" to mean anything. For example, I would much rather have writing time spent on romances than on discussions on religion. I would also much rather have writing resources spent on romances than on thieving and sneaking mechanics. To say, blanketly, "drain resources" is to put into people's mind that whatever their favorite parts of the game are could be cut for romances. But that's just fear-mongering. And you fall into what I'm about to address again below - the assumption that everyone thinks that BioWare's romances are universally (or even mostly) bad. So everyone that's opposite you is in a bubble ? Heh, hits keep coming. Straw man. I never said that those who disagree with me live in a bubble. I said, as bolded above, that those who think "everyone agrees that romance in games is always done badly" are in a bubble... a bubble of talking too frequently with those who agree with them that romances are always done badly. That's not a judgment on their opinion as opposed to mine. That's an objective judgment on every post that states "romances are always done badly" as if there is a general consensus, let alone universal one. By empirical evidence in this thread alone you have many people who list games they felt the romances were good in. Misrepresenting what I say doesn't make you clever. It makes you look confused, as if you don't understand what I'm saying. Or, barring that, it makes you look petty.

A thread exists that discusses this - http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60149-1-pc-plus-companions-or-create-multiple-characters-plus-companions/?do=findComment&comment=1189259

I prefer less walking time. Less wandering. Open world games, especially open world maps, lose me quickly. I made it through Fallout 3 and New Vegas, but barely at times. Most other TES-style game I've not finished. So I'm a fan of like Fallout 1 and 2 (even the random encounters while "traveling by map" as long as they don't happen too often) or Dragon Age: Origins or the Icewind Dale games. not a fan of travel-travel-travel like TES and Fallout 3 on. Though the fast travel on those made it slightly more bearable. Then again, I'm not a cRPG player who lists "exploration" as a big plus. It never makes my list of what I want out of a game.

No one is bashing Bioware. They're main feature in their games is romances. While Obsidian's strengths are usually towards characters, dialogue and story. Bioware lately is all about the romance and action combat. It's not bashing when it's true or it's your opinion about their games. It's about being anti both since Bioware is always pro-romance. Just in the first 6 pages of this thread, the clear ones (not the ones that just mention BioWare as including romance.) There are the dog whistles - Rather, how did BioWare end up here? which, if you didn't understand it being code, is clarified later - Perhaps, but I think you and everybody else know precisely what the sentiment means. to blatant - Maybe not everyone who mentions BioWare as doing romance is bashing, but it's becoming a slur. You cannot hide behind something being "opinion" - as "opinions" can be used to bash, easily. Rarely are facts used to bash. I'm not the biggest fan of BioWare due to their last couple games. This isn't about defending them. It's about not getting the thread shut down. I think it is worth while for the people who like romance to discuss with the people who don't. It's good for the ones who think everyone agrees that romance in games is always done badly get to break outside of their bubble and talk to those who disagree with them.

Everyone realizes that there are two very specific points in the Forum Rules that state they do not allow bashing of other developers and publishers, right? You all do know the rules you are breaking with each bash on BioWare? And the hand-tipping - this is less about being anti-romance for some of you and more about being anti-BioWare. Can this forum PLEASE not be about politics / sports, us vs. them mentallity? You can not like BioWare. Cool. This isn't BioWare. Let. It. Go.