LucyZephyr

A pledged lack of chainmail bikinis. But no, really, all I have is $20. I'm very excited for the project, but all I can do at this point is bring up PE to my fellow gamer friends in hopes they'll pledge some more. Sadly, only one seems interested in the concept and she's waiting on more plotline details.

Well I did say a compromise in my second line, there can be ways to buy more time (or for that matter, lose it). Does depend on how strict the timer is anyway, I'm assuming some worst case where the developer badly misjudges how long the majority will take and people end up in a blind rush to finish the game and ignoring content. But then again, Fallout did it well, rush to get the WC and then ta-da : new antagonist. Hahaha, I actually bought FO1 recently from GoG.com and I find the WC clock extremely stressful. It's likely why I haven't finished the game. Every time I go to that menu screen, the timer is lower and it gives me unfun tension. I'm the kind of gamer that searches every nook and cranny of the world. In Skyrim, I put in a good 35 hours of gameplay before even going to meet the Greybeards. My fear is that if there is a concrete hourglass clock, that I'll be halfway through the game when it runs out and will have the restart the whole game because there's literally no way to make up for that time.

Yeah, Hive minds are always awesome. The problem with Geth and the Geth/Quarian dynamic is that it's basically Battlestar Galactica. I may be looking at this narrowly, but I really can't spot a narrative difference. It's all basically this writing style where you look everywhere to steal storylines and recognizable imagery and then just mix the results a little. Too bad there aren't any proper updates for PE regarding races. Meaning, if the next one's elf, that's not a good start. Or at least a regular one... I never watched BSG. I'm not much of a TV person, really. I'll have to take your word on it. That's the really annoying thing about BW games, that they touch on really great concepts, but never really follow through. The only narrative thread that I think they actually explored fully was Mordin Solus' ethics evolution (probably my favorite moment in gaming history, NGL). But things like the morality of a truly alien species, culture clashes, the nature of a battle between the cosmically small and the eternal, intersectionality of prejudice (DA2's biggest dropped ball, imo)-- I see BW bring light to a lot of fascinating issues, but very rarely do they follow through. Which makes me sad because I've literally had hours-long discussion about the aforementioned topics and how they could've been explored better/more interestingly. So that's what I want from PE, I guess. Pick a handful of complicated concepts, and really dig into them. I'm tired of RPGs that go through "okay, here is your three hour plotline about institutionalized racism, now we're going to drop that entirely and go into another topic for three hours."

Probably the best thing Bioware ever did, in my opinion, was the Geth and the narrative throughline about the dangers of imposing one's own morality on an entirely different life form. "Treating every species like one's own is racist. Even benign anthropomorphism." Since BW didn't want to explore that deeply enough (goddamnit Bioware), I'd love to see PE take a stab at that concept in depth.

I play non-human in every game that lets me. I think a big part of why I haven't finished DA2 is that I was shoehorned into playing human, and I just... no thanks. I've played Argonian (**** yeah waterbreathing), city elf (whoo, metaphor for institutionalized racism), orcs (screw tanking, imma ranged stealth build). I genuinely enjoy games more when I don't have to play human, but I like the roleplaying aspect of such games a lot, the way I can step outside myself and think not "what would I do" but "what would my PC do". I'd want ALL THE RACES, tbh. So long as, as others have said, they're not just reskins of the humans. And not vaguely appropriative cultural counterparts to real life peoples. Y'all have no idea how uncomfortable the Space RomaQuarians in Mass Effect made me.

Oh god, having flashbacks to leaving Morrigan in camp because MORRIGAN DISAPPROVES -5. I doubt this dev team would make such an approval system so irritating, and I like the idea a lot, but man, talk about bad memories.

That works for a hardcore mode, but as someone who can't play games straight through and often has to drop them for a week or a month at a time.... big no thank you. I rely heavily on quest logs in games to remember what I was doing.

I also want a complex system of gods and favors etc, but I hope there's an option to go atheist. I particularly liked roleplaying that in Skyrim recently after my friend explained to me "You can't BE an atheist, the gods really exist in TES" and I took that as a challenge.

Oh good, now a discussion thread has devolved into "lets use game mechanics to rape the other characters." That's it, I'm out. At this rate, I truly take back my original arguments: No romance options. Not worth it.

Torn between thinking an incidentally trans character would be a really great piece of representation for a group of people who get nothing too often, and not wanting the dudebros anywhere near such a character. I can hear the transphobic slurs already...

Sometimes I replay RPGs on Easy because I just want the story. And there are people who haven't grown up with this style of game who may need to tackle it on Easy first. And I have a friend-of-a-friend with a physical disability that makes console games impossible for her and PC games tricky (she does a lot of rebinding of keys). I think making fun of Easy Mode is cute in theory, but potentially alienating in execution.

That's a hugely reassuring Dev reply. Cool, cool. In the end: We all play games for different reasons. We shouldn't strive to exclude people, but to be as inclusive as feasibly possible. Some people play for the tactics. Some for the story. Some for a punishing challenge. If someone else plays differently than you do, what does that hurt?

I never implied they were morons. I just implied they were in it for the sex and to satisfy an emptiness inside them. I don't think that's unfair to guess from the how fanatical they are about it. Oooooor maybe we like stories that tell about the big picture and the small picture, and romance, betrayal, friendship, rejection, the search for contentment, etc-- these are all part of the human condition and they are a part of storytelling.

1. It's not about attractiveness, it's about whether the dev team can write a compelling narrative that involves romance. Not sex, not porn, not erotica. Those things have their place, but they are not what is being discussed here. 2. Considering "attractiveness" is an entirely subjective trait, one person's 5 is another person's 10. 3. Charisma shouldn't be a physical thing. It should be about someone's presence and leadership and their ability to garner sympathy. AKA: things that have nothing to do with physical attractiveness. 4. "Gagging for a virtual shag" = lol troll harder Not alone. I would hugely prefer no actual sex scenes.

Wow, no no no. Do not make it CHA based. If you're gonna do it, do it as a build-off of an already strong friendship. Please for the love of god don't make it about attractiveness. We're talking about a romance arc, not a sex arc. There is a difference. jfc, at this rate I want to change my answer to no romances at all. I just had it in my head that, hey, if anyone had a chance of doing it right, it was this dev team.

Replaying Fallout 1 recently (yaaaay GoG.com) made me long for something like that: specific characters who are vital to the story being voiced while the majority of the game world isn't = perfect compromise for me. And obviously the MC shouldn't speak. That's just common sense.

That's why the romance works so well, IMO: It's built on a friendship that's already there and intended to be one of the more important relationships in the game. Maybe that should be the way to do it? Build strong friendships and offer the option of romance, but more as an addition to an already good thing? That's been the problem with Bioware for me personally, that some romanceable characters often feel like that's the only reason they're there, and if you don't pursue the romance, you don't get any more interactions. (Thane is the worst example to me personally.) ETA: I've played both series and ME does it better for some of the romance options. DA was... not great, TBH. And while the ME dialogue system original seems bland, the genuinely think the ME series gives the players much stronger, obvious, and lasting choices than DA.

Oh, Reddit. Great. I try to avoid that place in case entitled dudebro-itis is infectious, but oh well.

I also enjoyed the Skyrim build-your-own technique. I really, strongly dislike games that tell me flat out that I cannot use any form of magic if I'm a thief, for instance. That is the only reason I am wary of classes: the exclusion of options. But really, as long as there is a stealth-debuffer build option, I will be happy enough.

I have to disagree with the last part. 'Done well', to me at least, is something that hasn't been done in any BioWare game I'm aware of. If you enjoy a love story based around the player being invariably good looking (because 'the player often agreeing with the love interest' has become either a rare trait or easily circumvented), and you make a thread after thread about the subject of 'which character you didn't get to bed in the last game', then I don't think the communtiy, as a whole, even cares wether romances are done well or not. The direction BioWare is taking their writing proves this. That said, every community has their focus. And wherever romances are implemented in a game even remotely related to Baldur's Gate, the community that's created around the game is often rather poor. That's why I'm wary of romances. And also resources. Okay, I will argue otherwise. I tend to romance Garrus in the ME series because IMO it's the best-written romance I've seen in gaming. It entirely subverts a romance based on the character being "good looking." There is, to me, a lot of nuance to each character. I played Paragon, so Shepard always read to me as the only influence keeping Garrus from going full vigilante. And in turn, he would do things that she wasn't willing to do (shooting the Virmire Survivor at the Citadel coup, for instance). Only Garrus ever feels like he's justifiably becoming more and more competent and dangerous. Throughout the games he learns to be a leader, and by ME3, he feels like the 2IC of the Normandy and the second best hope for the galaxy, should Shepard fail. And between them is awkwardness that feels realistic to me, a strong sense of familiarity, and a really awesome vibe of sex positivity. It's the closest Bioware has come, imo, to a really well-executed romance. Even outside a romance arc, their friendship is one of the strongest in gaming. You don't have to agree, as my experience is just as subjective as yours, but I'm just saying all this to point out that while a lot of Bioware's efforts fall flat, not all of them do, and some of them work. I think they'll get better as they try new and better ideas. In turn, I hope other companies try to write optional romance arcs and make them about more than some awkward-as-hell sex scene before the final battle. (jfc Dragon Age, what was that crap)

The bioware community isn't bizzare because biowarian romances aren't unskippable (at worst they are thrown at your face in a uncomfortable and cheesy manner that is only surpassed by the 'romance' itself) - but rather that the bioware community seems more concerned about this sort of thing than the game itself. A mere mention of bioware doing something (it can totally be closing itself) springs 10 threads about possible stereotypes for love interests. Not in an attempt to make the BSN forums seem less like a pit of voles (because it really is awful), but given that Bioware is the only company to put effort into providing high-quality romances (whether they succeed all the time is another matter), I can understand fans' fixation on the romances. Bioware romances are sadly above and beyond what any other RPG is currently offering in the mainstream market. So it's clearly something some gamers want, and they want done well. I also think it's a sign of the maturation of the medium, though obviously every gamer who just wants something to wank to is a step backward.

Well, this thread is excessively depressing. I see the critique of Bioware's methods, but since they are the only company that has made a strong effort to write for a demographic outside Straight Dudes, I'm always going to support them. If Obsidian wants to put some romance in (not a deal-maker or deal-breaker for me personally), I'd want them to either put a lot of effort into it or none at all. If you don't feel like you can sell a decent love interest, don't bother. And as "unrealistic" as some people find the Everyone Is Bi option, I hugely support it. I see absolutely no reason to take away queer romances from gamers in their escapist media when, believe me, they get that enough IRL. Nothing is more infuriating that enjoying a character, feeling a connection between your PC and the LI, then only to find out they're het only. Just. Don't do that. It's bull****. On the flipside, I do not think there should be any material bonus to romance in a game. The games where I've romanced someone just for the achievement/bonus item/extra quest/etc have been hollow ventures at best and painful at worst. If romance is going to be a thing, basically: 1. Keep all options open to players of either gender. 2. Have as many female options as male options. (And actual queer options, not like the asari in Mass Effect where they're incidentally female due to not having an concept of "male" in their species.) 3. Don't tie in-game bonuses to them. 4. Sex positivity is a rare thing, let's have more of that. 5. Either put some effort into it, or cut it entirely. Don't pull a Skyrim on me.