[[Merged] Gods save us another romance thread]

Poll is ridiculously biased in assuming that the reader would want romances in a game in the first place.

How is it biased when the poll was just meant to poll people that wanted romance in the first place? There was already a general poll on whether or not romances should be in period. This is a different set of questions.

[A text heavy game]

Adding new classis, monsters, encounters, and areas all take more testing than new dialogue text?

[Will there be a transgender option?]

can't we have bee/ant style sexes? queen, drone, worker

 

I'm a haploid male and if my gender determinance isn't implemented I will be deeply offended.

[A text heavy game]

I'm pretty sure money is more likely to be the limiting reagent in this game than creativity or brainpower. We are talking about Obsidian. None of their writers are exactly short on that.

[A text heavy game]

Surely once the characters are already designed and implemented writing more dialogue is one of the cheapest forms of content to add?

[[Merged] Gods save us another romance thread]

Perhaps, but I think you and everybody else know precisely what the sentiment means.

Romance is yucky and girls have cooties?

[How about some luv for the iPad and tablets?]

I've heard it isn't too difficult to port a PC game to tablets. So, why not?

Time and money. Also time IS money. Something we're going to be short on no matter how good the kickstarter does.

[Will there be a transgender option?]

Fantasy is a setting where the real world laws of physics are broken as a basic premise of the setting. (As opposed to SciFi, where the laws of physics are bent or appended)

 

There. I defined fantasy.

[[Merged] Gods save us another romance thread]

I'm actually finding the trend in the later Bioware games is to ignore player choices both in narrative events AND in character interaction. Thus why the "go play a Bioware game" "advice" isn't terribly useful even for fans of romance.

[[Merged] Gods save us another romance thread]

It really is better for everyone to not have stuff like this at all in this game, with budget and scope this small, and focus something completely different.

I don't think that "because something can't please everyone you shouldn't include it at all" is any more logical than trying to please absolutely everyone, and could lead to a product just as bad.

[Killing companions]

If this was possible in Dragon Age then I would have probably klilled Anders and that leather loving gay elf. They were so annoying.

You could kill Zevran as soon as he showed up though. You didn't have to recruit him.

[Armour and weapon designs - a plea.]

Eh, I haven't been here long, but even at it's worst this place is a far cry from BSN...or most video game boards, for that matter. Given the sudden massive influx of traffic the moderators are performing wonderfully.

[Armour and weapon designs - a plea.]

That and similar pages have been posted in threads along these lines. There have been a few topics about female armor.

 

They...ended rather badly. Sort of along the lines of the current threads regarding romance discussions.

 

I don't think we have to worry much about bikini armor being in the game, though.

[[Merged] Gods save us another romance thread]

Having that layed out over multiple games and my characters lifetime would rock my world.

I love the implication of save imports and character development having time to mature over multiple games. It was something very promising in the Mass Effect series that I feel was very hit or miss. Not sure it's feasible to pull it off on a project like this where the future is so uncertain, though...

 

How about losing the Implication that romances would have a "significant" impact on the dev resources. Your poll is simply loaded with negative wording like "sacrificing" resources; as if they'd be wasted when used to create a romance.

I'm not saying that it inherently would. I'm saying that given a hypothetical where it would, are you willing to sacrifice it, and why?

 

Investing resources in ANYTHING sacrifices resources that could be used for anything else. That's unavoidable, because the game has limited resources. The question is the comparative value of what you get out of said resources. I feel that a well done romance or two could be a net gain, but it all depends on context. This poll offers several scenarios to gauge what people that want a romance arc value more than a romance arc.

 

I never meant to put such an implication in there, but I'll need more specifics on how to avoid it without changing the nature of the question.

[Armour and weapon designs - a plea.]

Some ideas here : http://forums.obsidi...s/#entry1190501

I approve of your ideas and wish to subscribe to your news letter.

 

How about some weapon related feats as well? Spend a skill point or whatever and certain axes/pole-arms could have a "hooking" effect, allowing you to temporarily negate the enemy's shield or parry?

[A thought on PE's graphics]

I'll be very interested to see what they come up with then. It sounds rather unique.

[[Merged] Gods save us another romance thread]

I'd also point out that PS:T was a single-protagonist game. Of course a single, dev-defined character is going to have a more fleshed out background than a player-generated character--at least as far as the game is able to recognize.

I think KOTOR 2 struck a nice balance here. The PC was customizable, but always had a specific background as a Jedi Knight that had left the order. This also allowed certain NPCs to have preconceived notions of the player as well as pre-defined relationships, at least from their side of the picture, while simultaneously not forcing the PC to have a specific stance. Atris always has a thing for the male version of the Exile, but the game leaves it ambiguous as to whether it was ever reciprocated, and it works for the story and that character arc in either case. Rational adjustments are made based on the choice of gender for the PC as well.

 

EDIT:BSoda, any ideas for a better way to word it?

[[Merged] Gods save us another romance thread]

I suppose I'm not explaining this well.

 

The purpose of the poll was to get an idea of the priority at which people put romance options vs. various other areas the same effort could be spent, not whether or not romances should exist. Thus why voters were supposed to only be from the pro-romance demographic, and the hypothetical situation that due to some specific circumstance romance WOULD take a non negligible amount of content from another source. Given that, which of these features was less important to you? Which would you feel more comfortable with losing attention in favor of a romance arc?

 

If this idea isn't getting across, I'd like help coming up with a better wording for the questions to accomplish what I intended, so perhaps a better poll could be offered.

 

EDIT: In a narrative RPG, story and gameplay play into each other. And a romance sub plot is most definitely part of the story. Thus the OTHER story features, and not just 'story features'.

[[Merged] Gods save us another romance thread]

Anybody that creates such a one sided poll has to be against romances. lol

But I'm not. Look at my posting record in other topics.

 

I'd hoped that a thread discussing specifics instead of broad statements could lead to more intelligent discussion and less pigeonholing, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Oh well. I'm sure Obsidian will handle whatever choice they make intelligently, romance or no.

[A thought on PE's graphics]

I thought there was an interview where 2d backgrounds came up specifically?

[Armour and weapon designs - a plea.]

I'd certainly love a diversity of sword effects, definitely. And more diversity than just Claymore=slow attack, high damage, Rapier=fast attack, low damage. At least if it's at all feasible.

[Will there be a transgender option?]

I have to say I really don't think it's fair to treat an entire sexual orientation/gender identity as being in the same category as a particular sexual kink. Not to denigrate homosexual or transgendered people or people with unusual fetishes, of course. They're just two different things.

[A thought on PE's graphics]

I'm excited about this very fact. There's a tendency with older games, where often the people that say "graphics don't matter to me" can only say that because they grew up with an earlier generation of graphics. Younger gamers can understandably be put off by truly antiquated graphics.

 

But...

 

Pre-rendered 2d back grounds age better than pretty much any graphical style, since a painting can never be obsolete. Older 3d models and 2d sprites might look terrible by modern standards, but with proper art direction there are pre 21st century games that still have gorgeous scenery. This can mean that Project Eternity can be very visually interesting without spending a ton of money on an expensive engine and tons of artists and modellers just to handle all the models and textures for every object in the game.

 

Plus, this way it can probably run even on my antiquated desktop.

[[Merged] Gods save us another romance thread]

I would point out that Planescape: Torment had only two swords in the entire game. Just to be annoying.

[It's a Kind of Magic]

The potential level of detail in a completely nongraphical PNP game is inherently going to be superior than a videogame developed by a study, in their defense.