Merin

Well you get achievements for romancing each character that can be romanced in DA and ME. That's a pretty much open admission as to how important Bioware thinks these things are. In Alpha Protocol you got an achievement if you slept with all the women in one playthrough even. But, to be fair, you were given the option to play James Bond, so...

I wonder if anyone else caught early in the livestream tonight (well before the drinking got heavy, like maybe an hour or so in) Chris Avellone answered the question of "was Neeshka supposed to be romanceable" with "I wanted her to be." The "out of your mind" bit was uncalled for, but I can sort of understand it as a gut reaction. There is no "love" in PS:T. But if you plan on finishing it some day, I'll not spoil it for you by revealing the truth behind "relationships". I'll probably fail at staying interested in the game and end up reading a wiki or something about it. It took me 5 times to get through the NWN OC, and 3 times for Arcanum... so I've a good gauge on what it would take to get me to finish a game. PS:T wasn't one I would have tried again, except, you know, PE is happening so why not. I watched Phantom Menace 4 times trying to find something redeemable in it, I can play PS:T one more time and see if the magic finally catches me.

Big congrats to Obsidian! Now make the best Project Eternity you can, shut up all the naysayers, and become the name that everyone will say first when asked "Who makes the best RPGs?"

Why do I even let myself get dragged into these discussions, especially wishing for rational discourse? Every time it boils down to ad hominems, straw men, and eventually image spam... I don't know about MotB, but PS:T? Are you out of your mind? The entire chain of events of MotB, the reason to defy gods and try to upset the natural order of the planes, starting whole cosmic wars, is the love of two characters. And it weaves all the way until pretty much the end of the game. For PS:T, I'm not far in. I've never gotten far in - this is my fourth attempt to play the game. But from initial flashbacks, to journal messages, to meeting your eternal love who solicits a pledge from you to either save or join her... yeah, I'm out of my mind for seeing this romance as central to the game so far. Again, not far in... but it's a big theme so far, as big as anything (immortality, death, and eternal love I'd say at this point.) But, yes, thanks for saying I'm out of my mind for that interpretation. Out of my mind. Nice. I don't desperately want romance. Your evidence of this is, what, that I posted in this thread? That I created a poll to fix the fact that I contributed to the closing of the previous romance thread? I don't fundamentally believe that it is required for a good story either. Where do you see me say that? Straw men. Please, if you are arguing at me - and the all caps "YOU" sure seem to be you addressing me and not people arguing against your tastes in this thread - at least give me the common courtesy of not making up arguments for me that I am not putting forth.

Is this really that absolute? Roleplaying doesn't intrinsically mean that people roleplay themselves. They roleplay a character with a distinct personality which isn't their own. Where exactly is identifying yourself with the character comes in? For a lot of players, they seriously do play themselves in the game world... or project themselves onto the character. It's not how I see role-playing, but many, many people DO see it this way.

There is likely a difference in the eyes of developers (and part of the fanbase) between PC romances (as in, in which the PC takes part) and NPC romances. MotB has love as one of it's central themes, but it would lose nothing of Safiya wasn't a romanceable character. I don't think that's true. Safiya's feelings for your character, her justification for sticking with you, and whether it's because of who their past selves were or because of who your current selves are, is pretty central to MotB's themes. If your character couldn't embrace or reject her feelings, I think something significant would be lost from the story.

That's ok, I really hate having to play a guy (I'm looking at you PS:T / TW / AP). We all have our battles. And I really dislike playing games where I'm forced to worship a god, or work with evil people, or accept assassins and thieves as "legitimate choices." We all have to accept that not every part of a game is designed just for our own personal and absolute tastes.

Having just finished MotB not long ago, restarted PS:T (again to try and finish it for once), and also playing SoZ for the first time... not to count the numerous plays of AP and IWD - I can say the only games where romance isn't at all a big part of the game is the ones where you make your parties (SoZ, IWD - and this is assuming a lot since I'm not that far into SoZ.) Romance is a huge, central parts of MotB and PS:T. And there are plenty of romancing to be done in AP, James Bond style if you like. I find it odd that Obsidian fans ignore that the majority of Obsidian games have romance as central to storylines. How does MotB's plot make sense, AT ALL, if you take love out of it?

I agree with "better, not bigger" and hope they settle on that. Game is big and awesome looking enough as it is - now let's make it work like no Obsidian game has worked before to shut-up that stupid meme.

My signature has a link to the last romance thread, including the poll. I'll leave my stated answers there as my answers for here. EDIT - here it is, in case you can't quite find the word "Romance" below - http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60688-romance-in-project-eternity-how-important-how-much/

I like dlux, but let him go if he doesn't want to back the game. One person (or four, or forty) is not worth the community getting twisted in knots over, nor for Obsidian to twist their plans to make happy. I seriously doubt that anyone, including any individual dev, is getting EXACTLY the game they want out of PE. Each person has individual likes and dislikes, tastes, opinions, foibles, experiences.... no one person will find the game PERFECT. Each individual will be able to nitpick things they would do differently. If the majority of the Project Eternity game sounds like something that dlux can't support, that is dlux's right to not support it. Don't try and drag him back if he doesn't want the game Obsidian is designing. You are backing Obsidian and their vision - not your nostalgia and your vision. If you don't want to support Obsidian in this endeavor because of one gameplay mechanic that you don't even have a real clue how it's going to actually pan out in the finished game... well, if that's your breaking point, stick to your guns I guess.

I didn't believe it could raise so much. I am very happy to be wrong. Congrats, Obsidian!

Not sure if serious...

Seeing as only 4 people out of those 177 are against the idea, we can say with 99% confidence level that less than 10% in the whole "population" share their opinion. Math FTW. And that's assuming that the sample is uniform, which it's usually not, in favor of those unhappy with something, as we all know. It helps the minority if they only see people who agree with them.

Or, here's the thing - when are "goals" assigned? It doesn't have to be by a quest giver, a la WoW style. You stumble upon Firkraag's lair - and suddenly you have a new goal "Discover what's inside this lair" that appears in your journal. You continue to follow the goal, and it ends with you in Firkraag's lair and you are trapped! You either have to talk your way out, sneak your way out (?) or fight your way out. Once you do, you get the XP... and then (if he lived) Firkraag blocks you from entering his lair again. You can have "explore to find" goals, and "random encounter" goals without them being pre-assigned by NPCs like quests. It just takes a few seconds of thinking outside the established cRPG / MMORPG design. Or, more accurately, look at some outlier games in cRPG design.

Compromise for how many, though? I think there are like, what, four of you in this thread disliking this? Why should the devs compromise with such a tiny group? I'm not saying your tastes and opinions aren't important - just that the developers have a vision, first off, that they should stick to despite what the community wants, and that, secondly, if they tried to compromise with each and every small group advocating for something you get a monstrosity like Dragon Age 2.

From my perspective, it's more like severing a Gordian Knot. In the places where I've seen it employed (e.g. the NWN module Witch's Wake), it worked very well. I attacked/fought with creatures I couldn't avoid or who had things I actually wanted (or if I just hated their guts), but when I came across creatures that had nothing worth taking/weren't worth the hassle, I just avoided them. It think it's weird to see people describe this approach as "elitist" when it's actually a response to extremely popular behavior I've seen player after player after player engage in. Complete quest via stealth, double back and kill everyone. Complete quest via conversation, double back and kill everyone. Complete quest via environment interaction/skill use, double back and kill everyone. Moreover - if you read any walkthroughs, strategy guides (profressional or amateur), you will notice one common thread - maximum XP and loot being the goal. And they all tell you to do what you are decrying here. My "favorite" is the Fallout 3 kind of example - get the password from dialog, pick the lock, then hack the password - do all three to open the safe door as it gets you the most XP! It's silly. People CAN avoid doing it, yes. Some players aren't out the max their XP, yes. But from a game design point - don't make this possible. You should get the XP when the safe opens, not when you hack the computer or pick the lock. Hence - goal / object XP as opposed to what I'll call "action" XP. Don't get it per orc killed - get it for dealing wih the orcs! Don't get it for picking the lock - get it for opening the chest that was once locked!

Which isn't healing surges from 4E, per se, but is a similar attempt to give "so many heals per day" before you can't be healed anymore by any means short of rest and time.

Nice update. It seems to me less that some of the people are having problem with the game mechanics and more with the game mechanics not being 3E D&D. *shrug* That could be my own biases showing but... Many different games have used many different mechanics. Here's one way to think of Stamina and Health - Halo. Stamina is your shield. It gets chewed up in a fight, but afterwards you can take a moment and it recovers. If you stamina is wiped out and you keep getting hit, then your health starts going down. Your health won't recover right after a fight with a breather. It's just another way of trying to show damage in combat, not have characters need to sleep for five days after a fight where they get hurt to recover naturally, but not include healing potions and magical cures. Seriously, I've never been a fan of cure potions and endless healing. One of the things I loved about 4E - a Healing Potion did you no good if you didn't have any healing surges left. I must say I truly like this attempt to be different than D&D. I'll have to see it in practice to know if I like the mechanic overall in execution, but for now I like the design goals it represents. --- If you wanted not exactly IE but 2nd or 3rd ED D&D, you really should reconsider your pledge - you aren't going to get D&D. If you are okay with that, this update shouldn't upset you.

I disagree with the design philosophy that games don't need manuals. I prefer to have a great deal of preparation done before I even start the game. I like having a party designed before I even start up the game. I like having levels planned out. In-game tutorials should be optional. I dislike hand-holding NPCs, pop-ups and tool-tips.

Great update. Looking forward to the gaming livestreaming!

As another history major who is also creating his own fantasy world... I see your education peeking through.

With a nice, leather bound hard cover? How about as a $100 add-on?