.jpg.ce846aae50e732dc4985eb712252381f.jpg)
Merin
-
Posts
618 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Blogs
Posts posted by Merin
-
-
Rink, I asked from you:
Low-intelligence dialogue has been asked by a lot of people and devs actually -loves- to write low-intelligence dialogue, so would you want to force devs to drop something out of the game what they love to write just because you selfishly want romances romances in?
So, would you want to force devs do that?
I'm not rink, but here goes.
No.
If they want to do A and don't want to do B, then they should do A.
Your question is, as someone else pointed out, a false dichotomy... but I answered the spirit of what you are asking anyway.
Next question.
-
Low-intelligence dialogue has been asked by a lot of people and devs actually -loves- to write low-intelligence dialogue, so would you want to force devs to drop something out of the game what they love to write just because you selfishly want romances romances in?
I think we need a bit more reality here.
Where did romances and low intelligence dialogues become mutually exclusive again?
They aren't. I think the comparison is being made because both are dialog focused additions to the game that not every player will access. There are players who don't want to have romance in the game, for whatever reason. There are players who never play low intelligence characters, either. So both of those are relatively similar examples of text-only parts of a game that are for a limited percentage of the audience...
so from that comes the jump that one could lead to the elimination of the other, if it comes down to limited writing resources.
That's the range of the debate, at least as I see it.
-
This also for you if you really want to debate about romances:
http://forums.obsidi...40#entry1257224
http://forums.obsidi...60#entry1257453
http://forums.obsidi...80#entry1258212
http://forums.obsidi...80#entry1257519
http://forums.obsidi...80#entry1257566
http://forums.obsidi...00#entry1258255
Have fun reading and counter-arguing mine and others points from those with actual facts and solid arguments why romances wouldn't take much time, and how they could be well done with a small effort and time.
I expect counter arguments on all the points I've give in those posts. Enjoy!
I don't really want to argue that romances won't take much time or be done with small effort - never been my point.
But those links are quite full of a lot of things. If you wouldn't mind, can you provide some questions or points, enumerated, to be talked about?
Like three - can you give three points, like a sentence or two each, for starting points, and then I'll engage? It'll be less messy and easier to read.
-
Dude, you never argue a point.
Which point do you want me to address?
This one?
:banghead: GOD DAMN IT!
You are just trolling right now.
Or this fine point?
@Merin Is that when you play epic music on the background?
How about this one?
I don't understand what you are getting at here.
Duh!
I mean do you play epic music on the background in order to feel you de-constructed my character or our arguments?
I fail to see what any of those have to do with the thread, but okay, I'll answer those points.
Hitting your head so many times will probably cause brain damage, you might want to stop.
While I don't believe in any god, I doubt one would want to curse someone who you just disagree with.
I don't think he was trolling, I think you are.
No. I don't play music when answer your posts. Or anyone's. Unless I happen to have music already playing in the background. It's not a thing for me. I don't know what music listening to has to do with my post trying to calm you with reassurances that what you fear isn't going to happen with Obsidian's PE.
----
Did my answering your "points" solve anything? Were they even really points to be answered?
The only thing you do is point a finger and say "See they are jerks. Therefore romances.".
Good straw man. My whole argument "for romances" is that there are "jerks on the internet." Well played logical fallacy - should get a few fellow mean-spirited "men" to guffaw heartedly and add their purposeful images and intelligent insults to the mix. Bolstering how right you are each and every step of the way with that kind of "point making."
And you say it all in a "White Knight"-ly manner as well. Do you think it's difficult to pick up on that? You still sound like you think you made the world a better place.... for romance minigames!Ad hominems. The fallback of so many "good debaters " Somehow trying to insult me by calling me a "white knight" is supposed to, what, shame me into conceding? Enrage me into arguing the point that I'm not a white knight? Make other's who like targeting me for whatever personal fulfillment they get out of mocking me have another chuckle? The name-calling adds, well, what, exactly, to anything but your attempts at "manning up."
Is being a man insulting others and puffing your chest as if you are a tough guy? I'm not sure I'm learning the right lessons from you.
And another straw men. I've never argued for romance minigames. But, hey, what do facts matter for a good dig, right?
Duane Gish returns!
-
I'm sorry, jarpie, but if you want to consider this my concession, so be it.
I really don't have the desire to continue a lengthy argument about this. You can't make a one-for-once comparison of the game industry to the movie industries. You can make a general comparison, but that's about all I believe is possible.
Picking out individual films or such to try and prove a point is just cherry picking. For either of us.
I think EA doing 116 games and a big company like Paramount doing 16 films just shows how much of a difference there is in scale. What you don't consider as games, as apt because they are different platforms...
no, I can't generate the desire to really argue this. You post a lot, too much to read, on a topic of debate that is so ancillary and uninteresting (to me) outside of a very generalized point that can be made....
If others want to debate this, more power to them.
I bow out.
-
Yeah, sorry, reading comprehension is still failing me here. I sense some kind of dig, but I must be too slow to grasp it.
I think he's saying its slightly obvious how proud you seem of your own posts.
Ring a Ding!
Ah.
It was more of an attempt at playful banter with you, like saying "there's no need to get so upset over someone's post that you do three headbang emoticons and shout an exclamation of frustration in all caps..."
but, sure, I guess setting myself up for you to rip on me is more of what you wanted.
I'm sure you are proud of yourself. Well done. Being a jerk to people must be what you mean about "manning up."
-
@Merin Is that when you play epic music on the background?
I don't understand what you are getting at here.
Duh!
I mean do you play epic music on the background in order to feel you de-constructed my character or our arguments?
...
Yeah, sorry, reading comprehension is still failing me here. I sense some kind of dig, but I must be too slow to grasp it.
-
@Merin Is that when you play epic music on the background?
I don't understand what you are getting at here.
-
:banghead:
GOD DAMN IT!
Okay, I just wanted to point out -
all those times people tried to paint me as "angry" or "needing to calm down" - and there was nothing to base their assumptions that I was upset somehow other than my being verbose and arguing point by point -
kenup here is clearly demonstrating being upset.
kenup - if you are really that upset, go away from the thread for awhile. You aren't holding a line for Obsidian anymore than the most apoplectic of "must be all romanceable characters in all gender variations or I explode" is forcing Obsidian's hand.
Take a breather. Realize that, to your benefit, Obsidian is NOT known for it's romances, nor do they claim to want to be known for them.... and, if romances are included, you'll still like get a game along the lines of PS:T and Baldur's Gate, okay?
Seriously, no matter how many "promancers" there are, Obsidian is far more inclined to make the anti-romance crowd happy.
Accept that reality, take some solace in it, go do something more fun than arguing on a forum thread...
then, refreshed, come back and give it once more with both barrels!
-
Everytime I see "promancers" I keep thinking of some kind of championship wizardry league.
"Little hedge wizard, you aren't in the big leagues. When you're in the Shadowdale Evokers, you get sponsorships, lucrative contracts, and everyone turns out to the jousting fields to watch you duel! If you want to go promancer, sign the contract!"
-
In a fantasy world where the gods are real (per fiat of the creators of said fantasy world, the writers!) AND the gods have an active hand in affairs (even to the minimalistic view of cleric spells, which is not how "magic" works in PE, right?) even if some have "died" or "stopped communicating".... then atheism becomes something a pseudo-science, a wrong-headed belief.
Now, there's nothing saying in a fantasy world with gods that the people are going to worship, or like, the gods.... and that's where you can have some fun as a PC. Rejecting deities.
-
1
-
-
Merin, would love to hear your counter-arguments to this.
My simplest response would be:
First, that the game industry, again, is at a different phase than the movie industry, and it is growing through it's phases in a different era. The film industry started roughly 1900, the video game one roughly 1970 (I'm not giving exact years the first moving picture was made, nor when the first electronic device for gaming entertainment was made, so roll with it instead of getting pedantic about 1860 or 1950). Each industry grow in vastly different cultures.
Second, that the game industry has always and continues to make smaller games. The shelves are lined with them. Before consoles, birth of consoles, pre world-wide-web, pre-Steam, today. Companies like Activision and EA gobbling up smaller competitors is like the big six for the movie industry. They are not exact analogues, but they are similar enough to draw comparisons.
So in conclusion, I will just state, again, that it is my firm opinion based on my analysis of the two models that there isn't a significant, noticeable difference between indie vs. tent pole, middle sized game vs. large sized game from big companies, from the film or the game industry...
with the noticeable exception of video games not having high-brow awards nor be considered, by many, an art form. Without a video-game equivalent of the Oscars, or at least Golden Globes, to chase (let alone Cannes or Independent Spirit or such) of any weight, big publishers have no impetus to make smaller, different games with a lot of focus on uniqueness and quality over marketability. What video games have for awards is, at best, the People's Choice Awards, but actually is much closer to a mix of the MTV Movie Awards and Nickelodeon Kid's Choice.
----
A more lengthy and boring ramble ---
You CAN pick out box office flops like Blade Runner, that later became cult classics and critical darlings, as an attempt at saying "look, high art" - but Ridley Scott is the same man who made Gladiator and Prometheus (Gladiator won at least one Oscar, too...) so I'd refrain a bit from quoting it as an example of anything.
Your list is not good examples beyond Blade Runner. Videodrome was a Canadian film - not a Hollywood film. Blue Velvet was by a film company that lasted two years (formed in 83, but only released films from 86-88) before going bankrupt (even if it brought us Evil Dead II!) Terminator was done by an independent film company as well - Hemdale. Dead Zone was made by a television production company in partnership with another corporation and...
you know what, the point is, the films you are talking about were done by small studios for the most part, not considered to be anything "big" at the time, and even the success of Terminator (moderate, as it were, if not considering the subject matter) just further illustrates it wasn't considered to be "good fair" - http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=LFs1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=lIUFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1826,10181612&dq=the+terminator&hl=en
Tons of games are released that aren't big budget games, and there are many genres of games out there. Just looking at the big budget ones and saying "bleh" is what people do to the movie industry as well. There are other options out there, yes even distributed by the big companies....
Here - a list of last years's EA Games - http://www.ea.com/past-year#9 - 116 of them. Looks to be a wide range of games in there, not all the same budget or genre.
Here - a list of last year's Disney movies - http://www.disneymovieslist.com/year-disney-movies.asp?disyear=2011 - 15. Hrmmm. There is a little variety - but not as much range, or number.
and, in case you don't like Disney, here's Paramount - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Paramount_Pictures_films#2010s - 16. One more than Disney, a little more variety... but nowhere near the number, nor range, that EA games have.
And this isn't me defending EA. It's me saying that you can't do an EXACT comparison, or a close numerical comparison, but only a very, very broad generalized comparison.
Big game publisher release way more games than big movie studios release movies. But there are many factors that go into that.
....
long story short, I still say Hollywood is a better example of what the game industry is going through (as what the movie industry went through) but NOT a role-model for what the game industry should do. And that it's a very, very bad way to try and judge the game industry. Big companies making products for millions of consumers want big returns, especially if they are publicly traded companies.
-
Occasionally I feel like I'm the only person in the world** left who hasn't played the DA or ME series. They just never appealed to me enough to buy them. Wait, no, I did buy ME1 at some point, but it's still on my shelf.
**hyperbole, of course....
If you don't mind some third-person shooting action (and if you do, go biotic and you can avoid most of it), Mass Effect is a solid game that I loved. (IMO) Great story, some of the better characters that BioWare has created (some are dull, and of course taste varies), a great original universe, good voice acting and cinematic storytelling (if you like that sort of thing, and I don't mind it in games that I expect it from>)
Dragon Age: Origins, IMO, was amazing. There are flaws in it, like any game, but the overall experience is amazing. Only in ToEE do you see another game where you get to pick one of multiple beginnings (and ToEE are alignment based, and short.) Character creation is somewhat limited in classes and class skills (especially at the very start) but if you aren't married to the variety in 3.5 D&D, it shouldn't be an issue. Great (again, IMO) story, if a bit trope-y, good voice acting, a few great characters (though I tend to feel most are flat in this game, that's my opinion on at least half of the characters BioWare has created), good tactical combat (when compared to the other kinds of cRPGs you could find in 2009, especially), and a hell of a lot of gameplay for a not open-world BioWare formulaic story (I clocked 128 hours my first play!)
I love Obsidian... love Obsidian... and have been cheering on the company more and more as BioWare, post DA:O, continues to go down the road of single set protagonist, cinematic storytelling to the point of almost being a "choose your own ending movie", and action-y combat (awesome button for the !win) -
but short of some great mechanics in SoZ, some very excellent scenarios in NWN2's OC (the Keep and the trial), one good setting (dead god's body) and one good theme (rise up against the gods, always a winner for me) in MotB ... for me, only Alpha Protocol beats DA:O and ME, and Fallout: New Vegas comes in just under those two because of crappy TES / FO3 gameplay (which I'm okay with, but is definitely NOT a plus in my book.)
That's my tastes, though. Still, unless you break out in a rash because companions are romanceable, ME and DA:O are definitely worth playing for any RPG fan who doesn't NEED his or her games to look like they came out of the 90's.
Saving just a little corner of it can be enjoyable though.
Heck, DA2 promise me I could save my family, and like everything from BIoWare DA2 forward, the story LIES TO YOU!
Couldn't even save my family....
stupid DA2 -
If you read my post you would know that film studios also makes films with average budgets which potentially won't sell that much alone but when you combine their profits they make as much as one huge film and that's where game publishers are doing wrong; They are only concentrating on huge AAA+++ titles and not doing what film studios do.
Games haven't gotten there yet. The movie industry went through a "crash" and adjusting to the burgeoning indie film movie, creating "indie studios" and funding such films to try and control that market as well. Largely because they want Oscar bait, but that's beside the point.
When the game industry creates an award show that doesn't pick best sellers but picks things that at least pretend to be avant garde and sell less but get huge critical acclaim, don't expect there to be too much impetus for the game industry to follow Hollywood in this just yet.
See, that's where you're wrong. Film industry has always been making films with small or average budgets, even when they did the huge epics in the late 50s and early 60s. Sure couple studios took huge risks with some films which flopped gloriously almost bringing them down but even then they were doing the smaller films but publishers aren't doing that almost at all.
The indie film movement basicly started to flower in the 80s and 90s with the rise of the vhs and couple film festivals such as Sundance but I'm not talking about indie films, I'm talking about studio films which are done with moderate budgets - which they have always done.
You are missing much about the history of film. The film industry is over a hundred years old, the video game industry is just about forty or so. Hollywood went through the studio system and all those problems, and then the rise of the big six, and the decline of movie sales in the 80's and 90's that, because of the growing focus on blockbusters and mainstream markets, caused the explosion of the indie film movement. Which went from truly indie to truly corporate by the mid 2000's... with the newest wave of innovation and breaking from the control of the big studios happening due to the internet and growth of platforms like YouTube and Kickstarter.
If you think the game industry is where complaints about formulas and sequels is bad, but the movie industry is a beacon of originality and diversity....
you must not spend a lot of time talking to groups about movies.
-
If you read my post you would know that film studios also makes films with average budgets which potentially won't sell that much alone but when you combine their profits they make as much as one huge film and that's where game publishers are doing wrong; They are only concentrating on huge AAA+++ titles and not doing what film studios do.
Games haven't gotten there yet. The movie industry went through a "crash" and adjusting to the burgeoning indie film movie, creating "indie studios" and funding such films to try and control that market as well. Largely because they want Oscar bait, but that's beside the point.
When the game industry creates an award show that doesn't pick best sellers but picks things that at least pretend to be avant garde and sell less but get huge critical acclaim, sure, but for now don't expect there to be too much impetus for the game industry to follow Hollywood in this just yet.
-
Now, my taking all of ten minutes to find over a half dozen examples from the last five days alone doesn't constitute "a wall" necessarily, which is why I called it an "exaggeration"... and no one exactly said "LOLOLOLOLOL BIOWARE LOLOLOLOL YOU FAP TO CARTOONS" hence me calling it a "paraphrase" -
but, yes, I'd call what he said there a fairly accurate representation of people saying, oh, "to little disturbing fan-art in this thread to pass as BSN romance thread ... folks around here need to stop just dreaming about a zombie harem and need to start drawing, or at least photo-shopping it" or "This is clearly a BSN thread with BSN moderating standards".
And even if people said anything like that, why do you or HS care? If you do something that others don't like, man up and take the insult like a champ. Why does he bring those up instead of finding real arguments to support his side of the debate? And if you don't do those things, again, why care? They are not that serious insults anyway. Prove that you are above such things, if you feel they are low, don't cry about them.
Because such things destroy civil discussion? Because they break the forum guidelines? Because it is impossible to have a sane and rational debate when one side resorts to logical fallacies?
But, seriously, pax? Can we let the thread return to romance in PE and not who's doing what? I'm at least as guilty as anyone in the thread of derailing it this way... but I'm stopping for today (at least today - hopefully longer.)
and I'm just going to get back on topic this way -
I don't need romance in Project Eternity. I think it'd be nice if it is part of the story and characters in the game, and I pretty much expect it to be somewhere in the background if nothing else... but I don't need it.
And for what I WANT from PE, I'm far more "demanding" (read - desiring, advocating for, but not "my way or the highway") of being able to make my own party.
If I got my biggest desire - making my whole own party from the start, and having few (if any) recruitable companions - I couldn't possibly have "romance mini-games with party companions", could I? So I must not want romance mini-games so badly...
oh, wait, that's right...
I don't want romance mini-games, nor do I think PE should have companions be romanceable.
With the caveat of - if Obsidian's story for the P.E. and plans for the companions already include this, so be it. I'll probably enjoy it. But I'm not advocating for them to consider doing such if they are predisposed AGAINST it.
...
can we continue the conversation from there?
-
What I want to know is why publishers spend all that money into AAA++++++++++++++++++++++ titles, when the games definitely have less effort put into them? TOR is certainly the best example of that.
The same reason movie studios do it?
Because they are looking at the bottom line, and the bottom line for them is big budget movies make bigger box office?
Same with games?
I don't agree with the reasoning, but that's what it is.
-
1
-
-
At the most basic level one side represents the other fairly accurately most of the time (anti-romance people don't want their game ruined by what they consider pointless and poorly done forced in game aspects)
Just one example from the VERY POST YOU QUOTED:
Here's my thing, I personally enjoy romance. I'm not saying it -HAS- to be in the game, I am saying that there shouldn't be this wall of people going, "OMG YOU WANT ROMANCE LOLOLOLOLOL BIOWARE LOLOLOLOL YOU FAP TO CARTOONS, LOLOLOLOL ETC". I'm saying they shouldn't leave it our BECAUSE of these people.
Fairly accurate representation? Because if you sincerely believe that then there's nothing further to debate here.
Just a bit above you in the thread here - don't know if you bothered to look at the quotes - http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61768-unofficial-pe-relationshipromance-thread-pt2/page__st__300?do=findComment&comment=1255537
Now, my taking all of ten minutes to find over a half dozen examples from the last five days alone doesn't constitute "a wall" necessarily, which is why I called it an "exaggeration"... and no one exactly said "LOLOLOLOLOL BIOWARE LOLOLOLOL YOU FAP TO CARTOONS" hence me calling it a "paraphrase" -
but, yes, I'd call what he said there a fairly accurate representation of people saying, oh, "to little disturbing fan-art in this thread to pass as BSN romance thread ... folks around here need to stop just dreaming about a zombie harem and need to start drawing, or at least photo-shopping it" or "This is clearly a BSN thread with BSN moderating standards".
No one is constantly bringing up BioWare as a pejorative nor are they casting aspersions on people's perverted romantic tastes. You're right.
-
1
-
-
Dang. Merin's decidedly concise and well researched can of whoop ass. Very impressive.
Hello, Merin.
How odd.
Moderators, I'd like to "report" myself as clearly I must have made two accounts. evdk says so, must be true!
-
Just to give some context, these are my favorite cRPGs -
1. Wasteland
2. Icewind Dale
3. Pools of Darkness
4 .Freedom Force
5. VTM: Bloodlines
and near that list are Knights of Legend, Alternate Reality: The Dungeon, Alpha Protocol and (yes) Dragon Age: Origins. If the inclusion of that last game somehow disqualifies my "cred" with the previous, so be it.
-
Other than at points misunderstanding what I was saying, I mostly agree with all of what you said.
It's funny - among friends and on other forums, I'd be in your position arguing against others.
-
Wow... just, all but that last one? It looks to me like maybe you don't understand what certain terms mean. You really mischaracterized A LOT.
Ok. Merin, even if I accept your points about romances as the best ones on the matter, if you can't see that HereticSaint is just getting aggressive, uses ad hominems all the freaking time, generalizes etc., don't get angry if no one you debate with takes you seriously. He never debates or argues a point. He just attacks the presentation and never argues our points. That's ad hominem.
First off - I think most of my "points about romances" are that I enjoy them in games and while I like them in games I can live without them.... I guess that can be the best ones, but okay.
----
Second - I don't think I've been defending HereticSaint. I guess this last post could be taken as doing such, but let me clarify... I was calling out Minttunator for what he was saying, not defending HereticSaint's points. Here, let me take JUST the first two on Minttunator's list as doing more would be ridiculously long-winded (this will be bad enough) -
FIRST
HereticSaint, meet Strawman:
Here's my thing, I personally enjoy romance. I'm not saying it -HAS- to be in the game, I am saying that there shouldn't be this wall of people going, "OMG YOU WANT ROMANCE LOLOLOLOLOL BIOWARE LOLOLOLOL YOU FAP TO CARTOONS, LOLOLOLOL ETC". I'm saying they shouldn't leave it our BECAUSE of these people.
Exaggeration in the paraphrase, but not a straw man. There have been endless posts of "go out and have a real relationship", "you want to wank while watching pixels"
You would have to show me the context - so it COULD be a straw man if directed at one person who never said as much, but... here you go on this happening ALOT (random sampling of the last five days in threads about romance) :
http://forums.obsidi...ost__p__1254080 - "romance for some people is the possibility to sodomize every thing in the game. Seriously there is some waifu simulators to fulfill your loneliness, ... just some sorry excuse to get in a virtual character pants because you are too socially awkward ."
http://forums.obsidi...ost__p__1250125 - "You are squee-laden obsessives with a creepy level of interest in relationships with virtual characters that defy rational behaviour. You despoil every environment you touch. You write bad fan-fiction. You need to stay on BSN."
http://forums.obsidi...ost__p__1248225 - " the" I WUB MY WAIFU!" crowd decend upon every social media platform and demand more. For gods sake they spent more time making sure you could shack up with people then writing a coherent ending!
You put in party banter and flirts, and they want harems. You put in a peck on the cheek and they want full blown orgy sex scenes.""
http://forums.obsidi...ost__p__1247170 - "No to virtual masturbation, yes to quality writing. Biodrones go home."
http://forums.obsidi...ost__p__1242506 - "Absolutely no. You freaks already have your mass-market virtual "relationship" simulators with Bioware games. Start playing japanese dating sims if you need more virtual relationships with nuance and drama and "tasteful" sex.
Virtual **** puppets you can dress up and validate your lonely basement-dwelling existence - hell no."
http://forums.obsidi...ost__p__1251692 - " boards are being flooded with an excessive amount of BioDrones who think this game is going to be some kind of 3D wet dream ... these dumbasses need to go back to their Dragon Ages"
http://forums.obsidi...ost__p__1250715 - "This is not a dating simulator. ... But the last thing PE needs is to degenerate into an adolescent vehicle aiming to satisfy lonely people who want their player characters to awkwardly flirt for a few minutes and then totally do it. Forcing romances into the game to tick a bioware created expectation box would be a poor choice. ... I would strongly recommend any one of a thousand creepy Japanese dating "games"."
That's not all that's out there. Just the last five days, what I could find with a ten minute search. Now find me an equal number of insults towards RPG Codex or anti-romance people. Not saying it doesn't happen - I'm saying it's ridiculously uneven.
SECOND
Because rape is cool:
But people are so conditioned to find rape such an abhorent crime that its even worse than death and cannibalism and I don't think that's going to change anytime soon, no matter how mature a world they want to develop.
He isn't saying that rape is cool - THIS is a straw man. He's saying (accurately) that society is such that rape is a much more taboo subject than murder or cannibalism It clearly is. Can you murder people in Fallout 3? Yes. Can you eat people in Fallout: New Vegas? Yes. Can you rape people in ANY game? One that I know of by controversy, and that game is all but perma-banned everywhere. So, I think saying rape is considered more abhorrent than murder or cannibalism is pretty much a given, at least specifically in video games.
To be clear - this is like saying shooting someone is considered worse than punching someone. Both are "wrong", no one is advocating either, but clearly one is a greater crime than the other.
----
That was much too long, but if I gave like two examples in the first point they'd be dismissed easily.
This isn't a "pox on both their houses" issue. There isn't equal culpability. One side is drastically ruder to the other. Does it go both ways? Yes... and any analogy I try to come up with is insulting, so I'll just say that it isn't anywhere even.
At the most basic level one side represents the other fairly accurately most of the time (anti-romance people don't want their game ruined by what they consider pointless and poorly done forced in game aspects) while the other side too often falls on libeling the former (bidrones want pixel sex and should get real life relationships.) Not everyone goes that route, but enough do... and they get the "likes" of many others.
----
kenup (everyone else), don't you wish I had just left it at the original two dozen word response?
-
2
-
-
We'll compare who results to ad hominem first, the most and who actually posts constructive, intelligent, well thought out, legitimate posts that don't reek of self importance. I already know who's going to sound more reasonable and mature out of that pile.
You of all people accusing others of passive aggressive behaviour and ad hominem attacks is frankly hilarious.
Wow... just, all but that last one? It looks to me like maybe you don't understand what certain terms mean. You really mischaracterized A LOT.
-
1
-
-
Why is it so bad opposing "modernizations", like quest compass and arrows above NPCs head "I HAVE A QUEST!" or opposing magic map markers like in Skyrim? Or what's so bad opposing small party sizes, opposing cooldowns like in MMOs. When they revealed how exactly the cooldown will work, the complaints quieted down because it wasn't idiotc MMO cooldown.
If you don't like those things in games, there's nothing wrong in opposing it. I'm not sure where you see me saying it was wrong for anyone to oppose it.
The post you were quoting was showing a rough division of "two opposing forces", which itself was a very over-simplistic look at the dynamics of a customer, or worse fan, base.
How do they satisfy the extremes of their "base?" By not catering to either side overtly, doing what they were going to do anyway, and depend on the end product being good enough, and enough of what enough of their base will enjoy, that not directly engaging with the extreme sides won't matter.
Unfortunately, like a politician.
We from the RPGCodex have seen basicly entire genre been abducted, beaten, tortured, shot back to the head, dissected, pissed and shat on and then finally cremated in the last decade mostly because of so-called "modernizations" and appealing for lowest common denominator - we now have a chance of getting a grand rpg from one of the best RPG developers of all time without publishers meddling.As much as I might dislike certain aspects of more "modern" games (I want turn-based (not real time with pause), six party member parties that the player creates, and I want graphics to be like the year 2000 never happened (cursed NWN and other games moving into "3D")) I accept that mediums change over time. Tastes and trends change. Game design doesn't happen in a vacuum... companies are trying to cater to their audience. Do they misread trends and tastes, see the wrong things in market research and polls? Often, sure, but they try - and when things don't sell, they change their tactics.
The sad truth is that FPS and Madden will always outsell cRPGs. Always. And that, for about a decade, MMORPGs were the best selling PC games. You don't have to like this (I don't) but you kind of have to adjust. You can sit on your mountaintop and remain pure, crusty and upset at the world...
or you can try and enjoy the best of what exists out there, encouraging the games closer to what you want. I'm sure THIS is what you all believe your are doing, and are trying to do. Or most of you. Benefit of the doubt?
We are (sometimes) abrasive because we are passionate about our precious genre and we dont want the game compromised because small subset wants it to be like those other modern rpgs with melodramatic relationship dramas - and what I read from the MCA's interview, the game wont be like that, none of the Obsidian's games have been melodramatic but we still dont want to see the forums filled with people who demands that kind of romances and romances for every possiblity.But a small subset is exactly who your are. What's the Codex's membership levels? Hundreds? Maybe a few thousand? Games have to sell (even for indie titles) tens to hundreds of thousands, if not millions. A few hundred die-hards who wish it was still 1980 (and, again, I'm here - I want that, too, for video game design philosophy) can't be a target audience.
Be glad that Obsidian is full of people who at least want to bring back a bunch of lost design mechanics from the early 2000's.
That being said I do trust Obsidian to make the best game they can and make it how they want it, and according to MCA's interview it'll be more like PS:T than BG1 and BG2 from the story point-of-view.
Not just MCA, but their KS pitch. From BG - exploration and companions. From IWD - tactical combat and dungeon delving. From PS:T - themes and story.
Just, you know, I don't think for most who LOVE PS:T a removal of Vancian magic, the addition of cooldowns, or even adding more overt romance to the companions, would have significantly "lessened" their love for the game.
-
1
-
:banghead: 
stupid DA2
Unofficial P.E. Relationship/Romance Thread pt.2
in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Posted
I have spoken on this before, but one more time -
the "romance" relevant part of that quote is this
Again, all that says is that he believes there is so much more you can do with a companion relationships in these games than "just romance."
It reads that there will be more to relationships with companions than romance. Or, even more exact, that he believes there is much more you can do.
It only says "romance is an easy target" and "there are more options."
You read more into that at your leisure, but it neither confirms nor denies romance in the game.