MReed

Just to be clear, I'm not arguing against a text-heavy game -- in fact, however far they end up going in this direction is probably not going to as far as I'd prefer. However, it is true that more dialog (especially dialog that has consequences elsewhere) is very, very expensive relative to just about any other element that you might care to name.

Another vote for "Wait until after it is released, then consider porting it to the tablets". I do think that the tablet market both from a UI perspective and an audience perspective is likely to be the source of a commercial renaissance of old-style RPGs of this sort -- but it won't help much from a fundraising point of view (tablet users aren't likely to know about or find out about this game), and they are already splitting their focus (Max / Linux) more than I would like given the budget.

I don't have any personal experience, but... Yes, that's certainly the impression that I've gotten from reading developer posts (both professional and amateur) and playing around with NWN1 and 2 The difference is in integration testing (when everything comes together as a finished whole) -- classes, monsters, encounters, and areas don't require much in the way of integration testing, but dialog requires lots of integration testing. A new class, for example, is fairly easy to test: You have a well defined list of abilities that the player might choose, and while the specific combination of abilities that any end-game PC might end up with may vary, each ability is used independently of the rest, so you can test them individually. Dialog, on the other hand, is much harder -- if a flag gets set incorrectly in dialog X then it may not have any sort of gameplay effect unless three other flags are also set and even then, not until the last 10 minutes of the game. That's much more difficult to detect than "Ability X says it should do 3d6 damage, but actually does 2d6+3 damage", for example. The same applies for areas, encounters, or monsters -- all you need to do is test one instance, in isolation, and you can have a large degree of confidence that the asset will work when combined with the game.

Actually, dialog is likely one of the most expensive things to add -- at least, in comparison to say, a new combat encounters, extra classes, more monsters, and the like. Writing dialog requires that it be written (ask any book author how easy that is -- and a game on the scale of PS:T contains just as much text as a mainstream novel) and then it has to be edited (for spelling, grammar, etc.) and tested extensively. By comparison, adding a new area is a piece of cake.

Ehhhh... Maybe. I didn't play ME3 at all, and wouldn't have played ME2 if I didn't get it for free with DA2, so I can't speak about those titles, but my feeling is that DA2's "powerless / irrelevant PC" was likely an anomaly that won't be repeated. But yes, if that trend continues then that would be another reason to avoid Bioware games.

I support romances, and I think this poll is a reasonable way to address the romance question. I'd also consider these to be fair questions. Just for grins, my answers: Sacrifice swords in favor of other combat features? Well, until someone pointed out that PS:T actually did this, I would have answered "No" -- however, in light of that information, I'd say "I would be willing to sacrifice swords for other weapons, but not, for example, for a dozen extra feats / perks". Sacrifice spells in favor of other combat features? Nope -- I'd take more spells over more weapons, feats / perks, classes, and the like. Sacrifice trees in favor of other area features? I don't really have a strong opinion here one way or the other. Sacrifice a companion if it drew significant resources from other game features? Absolutely positively not. To put matters in perspective, "Sacrifice a companion in return for having any sort of combat system at all" would be something that I would have to think long and hard about... Frankly speaking, my "perfect game" would only include non-dialog interactions (including, but not limited to, combat / quests / area graphics) to provide an excuse to write interesting dialog / character interactions. As long as the other gameplay elements aren't actually unpleasant to me they don't bother me one way or the other. To address some expected response to this comment: * "Go play Bioware games" -- I'd love to -- but the gameplay direction of Bioware titles is moving in a direction that I actively despise. Bioware is moving in the direction of 3rd person shooter-style gameplay, which I actively despise. If I thought that there was even the slightest chance that Bioware was going to reverse directions on this, I'd be active in their forums instead of here... * "Go play a relationship simulator" -- in my experience, these games lack any sort of story or dialog -- I can't understand why people play the Sims, for example. I want lots of dialog / story, and relationship simulators simply don't provide this sort of gameplay in my experience. * "Go play a visual novel" -- I do, in fact, do that -- I played and enjoyed greatly both "Cinders" and "Analogue: A Hate Story" and would strongly recommend these to others who are looking for dialog heavy games to play. But VNs tend to be very short, very mixed quality, and the lack of other gameplay elements (combat / quests / etc.) limits the amount of growth / change that can occur over the course of the game. I suspect that I'm very much in the minority here, but hey, that's my opinion.

I voted "Yes", but mostly on the general principal that if the game isn't ready it shouldn't be shipped rather than any expectation that they are going to break $5 million. I already expect the release date to slip at least once, and probably by more than 6 months -- honestly, has any game come out any near its initial release date? And most games don't announce a release date until 2-3 months before the expected release date in any case.

I'd say that this is a fairly naive statement which the mods are going to prove wrong quite soon. Plus until the kickstarter is over noone actually donated anything. True enough, and I hope your right.

There is a report button. Just ask the mod who deletes this to cut the data and copy it on a cd, then burn(literally) the disk. Unhappily, I'm afraid that only the ban-hammer will do the job, and I don't think that's an option in this case (realistically, people who donated to PE can't be banned from the forums... ). I'd love to engage in a rational debate with the romance opponents -- I'm certainly willing to be convinced that romances would be bad for the games -- but they don't seem have any arguments beyond "Games in the past have included badly done romances -- therefore, including a romance in a game makes it bad" and "If romance is included in a game, it isn't a RPG but I'm not going to tell you what I think an RPG is, either." Ah well, hopefully Oblivion will step in and settle this debate one way or the other soon.

I hope for 20 hours on my first play through -- I suspect 10-15 is more reasonable, though. Either way, I expect to get another 5-10 hours out of a single replay, and that will probably be that (until the hoped for expansions / sequels, obviously). And what Merlin said (if you are donating to Kickstarter because you want the goodies, you are totally missing the point).

Agreed -- and I would consider IWD (1&2), all the Wizardry games, all of the Might & Magic games, and probably Fallout 1 (my memory is a little too fuzzy to be sure) to be "hack & slash" RPGs. And let me be very clear -- I enjoyed these games. However, I enjoyed BG1/2, PS:T, and KOTR1 & 2 more, and the reason that I enjoyed them more is because of the companion interactions rather than, say, improved mechanics. This, on the other hand, I disagree with -- hack & slash RPGs are, indeed, RPGs (as opposed to, say, Call of Duty). Action RPGs (such as DA2 and ME3) on the other hand, stretch the definition further than I'm really comfortable with. And yes, Visual Novels (and the text only games put out by "Choice Of Games") are also RPGs, even though combat is trivial in these games. in my mind, a game qualifies as an RPG if it meets three criteria: 1) The player selects actions -- success or failure of these actions is determined exclusively by "stats" associated with the character, and the player can choose which stats to increase on a periodic basis ("level up") 2) The player feels that the game is telling "his/her" story. Generally, this means that the player can influence events, at least in a minor way, but not always (for example, the Final Fantasy games are definitely RPGs, but the player has zero influence over the storyline). 3) The players interaction with the game is channeled through an avatar that represents a small, "named & numbered", set of beings. Its a rather broad definition, I'll admit, but that's my definition... Chess wouldn't qualify under this definition because there is no level-up mechanic, and the pieces aren't "named" (as individuals, at least) by the game. RTS games wouldn't qualify, because there is no well defined avatar. HOMM games are close to qualifying, but I don't think the story is important enough to meet the #2 criteria. Obviously, this is my definition, and I'm not saying that it is the only definition, nor even that it is better than anyone else's. But when I say "RPG", I'm talking about a game that meets these three criteria. I don't understand why the folks that don't support romances can't offer their own definition of "RPG", however...

Because most of that 100K budget is for writing resources (85k in the example given, but the number made up anyway ). If you wanted a non-playable race then perhaps you could get that in place of a romance, but the writers aren't going to be able to implement a playable race -- that takes a programer, and (depending on how unique you want the race to be) a fair amount of time on their part. Now, obviously you could fire a writer and replace him/her with a programmer, but that's a rather extreme option, don't you think? Project staff (and ratios of programmers to writers to artists to VO talent and so forth) are generally set in stone very early in the project lifecycle. We might be early enough in the project lifecycle that there is some flexibility with these decisions, especially given that oblivion has several projects underway, so instead of firing a writer you might be able to reassign him to another project. But even then, project managers generally don't like to reallocate talent on the fly if they can avoid it, as you have to deal with ramp-up time / ramp-down time each time you do so. So, dropping a romance would get you lots of dialog / lore / similar material, but it isn't going to get you very much in the way of new artwork or new features (feats / spells / races / classes / etc.), simply because the resource mix is wrong. The same goes the other way -- dropping a class wouldn't free up enough resources to enable the addition of a romance.

A fair answer (although 1, 2 and 5 definitely wouldn't fit into the budget left over by cutting a romance -- these are all "programmer heavy" jobs, and romances aren't). My list would be: 1. Adding a companion side-quest. 2. Adding more interjections from companions during quest dialog (especially critical path, but also on side quests). 3. Adding dialog / arcs that change the personality of a companion (e.g. corruption / redemption) 4. Modifying existing quests to offer more choices (e.g. alternative resolution paths, "evil" choices) 5. Modifying existing dialog to take into account character "features" (e.g. attributes, skill / feats / perks, spells). 5. Adding additional companions 6, Adding additional quests 7. Adding additional areas 8. Adding additional abilities (spells, "feats / perks", etc.) Generally speaking, I would prefer to add more content to companions (making them as unique and critical to the game as possible) rather than anything else. I suspect that many of the people advocating for romances feel the same way -- its just that "Romance" has become the default way to express this desire.

I agreed that the definition of RPG is fuzzy-- I was just trying to get at your definition of what the key elements of an RPG are. That would help make the debate more meaningful... Try looking at it this way: For the sake of argument, lets say that implementing one romance costs $100k, and that breaks down to 85% to the "writing" budget (dialog creation and related scripting, voice over work, etc.), 14 % testing (making sure the scripts work, etc.), and 1% as Other. Other includes monster / equipment / area design ("art"), unique programming, and so forth. If you were in charge, what would you spend that $100k on as opposed to romances? Keep in mind that resources aren't "fungible" -- for example, "I'd like several new areas" isn't a valid answer, because that would require lots of "art" resources and not much in the way of "writing" resources. Cutting a romance might get you a quarter of a new area, for example, and still leave you with idle writing resources that aren't doing anything. Adding three new quests, though, might work -- if no new areas / equipment / monsters were part of the new quests.

I don't think this is correct -- more accurate would be "The game would cease to be a traditional RPG (...and PE is supposed to be a traditional RPG)." A traditional RPG is about combat -- finding combat [quests], preparing for combat [buying and equipping stuff], doing combat, and recovering from combat [selling stuff, claiming rewards], and clearly relationships (romantic or otherwise) are irrelevant to this discussion. On the other hand, PS:T and (to a lesser degree) KOTR:2 and BG games were notable because they broke this traditional RPG model. The only two infinity engine games that truly fit the "tradition RPG" mold are the IWD games, and it is quite obvious that IWD isn't a significant part of the inspiration for this game. So... Obsidian has already indicated that this game won't be a "traditional RPG" in the sense that you mean -- it will very likely include a large amount of content that doesn't revolve around (or even impact) combat. Whether or not that will include romances is unknown at this point, thus this thread.

The scenario you described would definitely qualify as evil in my book -- but only if you knew about the sword in advance. I'd probably prefer that you tell the game your motivations up front, when accepting the quest as well (a dialog option that reads something along these lines: "Yes, I'll save the town [THINKING: ...in return for your prized heirloom sword]", as this may be relevant in the resolution of the "Save the town" quest. For example, rather than saving the town outright, you might want to suspend the thread (rather than stopping it completely) to provide leverage in later discussions with the mayor. In any case, though, the point that I was making is that people who say "I'm doing good, but with evil "long-term" plans" generally don't actually have any concrete evil long-term plans, or whatever their plan is isn't something that can be done within the framework of the game. In my judgement, that's not really "evil".

Well, in other games it is pretty straightforward: Whenever you perform a public action that benefits / pleases a factions, you gain points with that faction -- whenever you do something that hurts / displeases a faction, you lose points. Only actions that the faction learns about matter, obviously, and it is very common for a single action to please one faction while displeasing another. A positive reputation with a faction functions as a key to enable access to better stores / prices, as well as enabling quests and the like. A low reputation with a faction may result in faction members refusing to sell to you, refusing to give you quests, or even attacking on sight. I would expect the model in PE to work along these lines as well.

I can support this model... If and only if you can both clearly identify to the game why you are doing this and you are obliged to follow through and abuse the reputation that you've gained for the PCs evil goals. Most commonly, though, when I see statements like that what is truly mean is something along the lines of: "An evil character can save the town in order to get the best rewards (XP / items / future quest possibilities) possible, then (well after the game and all possible squeals ends) he / she might do something that is slightly naughty, but only if there is no risk that he/she would get caught. Something like stealing a pen, perhaps. But regardless, he / she is evil because he / she is thinking really evil thoughts!!!" If the game can't distinguish between your actions and the actions of a paladin, either the game doesn't support playing evil or your definition of evil is very different from mine.

@Kirottu is correct -- the developers have already confirmed that there will not be an alignment system of any sort, but some sort of measurement of the player's reputation with various factions. With that being said, if there were an alignment system, I would support a "start at neutral, then evolve your alignment as you play" model over the "You choose your starting spot and your alignment is adjusted during play" or "Your alignment is static, regardless of actions" model.

I'm sorry, but I don't think time limits (no matter how long) are going to fly -- they've been tried (Fallout, anyone) and they always end up causing problems. Soft time limits might help (complete in X in game hours or it is harder / you get less benefit), but... Really, I don't see this as being viable. Far better to provide positive reinforcement (extra rewards / more content) to encourage efficent play than to penalize the player for taking his/her time.

I (midly) support romances, but regardless: It is completely silly to segregate people proposing doing something and those opposing it to seperate threads. The whole purpose is to debate the merits / costs of a proposal as each individual sees it so that the developers can amuse themselves determine whether or not to include the featuring being discussed. It would be a very short (and boring) thread if the only people allowed to post were people that were for romances.

I was curious, and checked this out -- this is correct, but only just. Currently, those contributing $35 or less constitutes 50.89 % of total funding (and 35,874 backers). This assumes that nobody contributer more than the bare minimum required to qualify for the reward tier, which is probably close enough to true to make the analysis correct. If you were wondering, the top 25% starts at $140 (77.04 % -- 2361 backers), and the top 10% starts at $500 (91.82% -- 272 backers).

The only way that I could see this as working is if the slave(s) were employed at a business / house and never joined the party. It just doesn't make any sense to bring along a slave in a situation where you might be serious injured -- any "slave" that is worthy of the term would take advantage of such dsiability to try to escape (and / or kill you / the party). If a slave wants to serve his/her master, then that's not really slavery. With that being said, I don't have any objection to including something along these lines, as long as it fits within the gameworld and has realistic consequences -- in particular, there should be positives associated with slave ownership in addtion to negatives, and it shouldn't be clear that one route is necessarily better than another (in terms of gamplay / mechanics / etc. -- morally is a different question altogether).

In my opinion, closing off content as a consequence of your actions is, by far, the worst penality that can be levied in a game and should only be used as an absolutely last resort. Much better is to offer alternative content that is equivilent (at least in terms of play time & word count) for all options. Of course, that's more expensive, but frankly very few game players are going to be hardcode enough roleplayers to not want to see as much content as they can on each playthrough -- and, as a consequence, they will complain that their character type (whatever it may be) is getting screwed over. This is less of an issue with evil characters, as it is commonplace for evil characters to be treated like this, but good characters are never obligied to sacrifice to follow their moral path, and I'm quite certain that they would complain lots and lots and lots if this situation arose. See the discussion on this thread for examples.

Um, no, thank you very much. There are two points: 1) Purely and simply, the idea of beta access is to encourage people to contribute more than they otherwise would to the kickstarter. 2) People who have invested more have a more vested interest in the game's success, and (hopefully) are more likely to treat the beta test as a beta test and not an "ealry demo". That is, they will execute test cases provided by Obsidian, report bugs, and realize that this isn't the final version of the game. Now, I wouldn't object to allowing anyone who donated or not to participate in the beta test on an inventation basis (e.g. someone who is active in the community and has been involved in the developement process), but it is reasonable to only automatically invite those who have put their money where their mouth is.