The Sharmat

There is no way to respond to hearsay that is a win for them. Silence is to be expected whether Avellone's accusations are true or not.

I'm not sure about the reputation. He may be a darling of the hardcore RPG crowd but I have to wonder if someone actually running a studio wouldn't just see a guy who publicly badmouthed his prior employer just before a major release, and whose prior most notable accomplishments were 1. One of the most infamously incomplete AAA games ever released and 2. A cult classic that was nonetheless a commercial failure.

RPG Codex is going to love you for this comparison.

Oh yeah it would be hugely costly to implement for the amount of content we'd get, I'm sure. It would just be kind of neat.

Gamers talk about demanding refunds and boycotts all the time. They almost never actually do it in any numbers.

I think Ryz explicitly said they were ok with that actually. That would count as an acknowledgement.

I'm pretty sure Sion was supposed to skeeve you out. He's a sick puppy. But understandable, not everyone wants to be skeeved out by fiction. I want rivalries and intra-party conflict more than anything from the relationship system, personally.

I was talking about companions' own interjections influencing their disposition, as if they were a player. Including them just starting stuff with NPCs.

Didn't they also do a much earlier interview with him where he pissed them all off because he said the main thing he'd change about Planescape: Torment was add more voice acting?

RPG Codex was one of the communities basically 100% guaranteed to want to believe every part of this. That's why it's there.

Different content is certainly better than less content, as long as it's truly different. To give an example that's somewhat related to this topic: KOTOR 2 didn't handle romance much (which honestly I think is for the best given how games tend to do it), but the player character's gender if male changes the tone of Atris's character and her relationship with the exile in subtle but important ways. Specifically, an implied inappropriate romantic relationship while he was still a student. If the Exile is female, then Darth Sion's interactions change even more markedly, with his pursuit seeming to be more about a twisted attempt at a mercy killing instead of just trying to torture Kreia. So you get content either way. Though I don't think this should take the form of "Male gets 2 romances, female gets 2 romances." It should flow naturally from the characters what the nature of the PC brings out in them. Romance is only one of many possible outcomes. I personally think if no attempts at pandering are going on this would lead to a pretty small number of "romanceable" companions period. Probably 1 or 2 at most. It's an important human drive but not every single story is about everyone making moon eyes at someone.

What's better writing, a relationship that's meant to be good but comes across terrible, or a relationship meant to be terrible that comes across as terrible. Also greentext doesn't work here. I kind of wish it did because 4chan's quote system is unironically better than this forum's, but still. Why the arrows?

There was a lot of that in KOTOR 2 and it wasn't even in the master manipulator way. It was just "make sure this NPC is here for this random sidequest". Getting Bao Dur's whole story required him just happening to see you fix a bike. I think that's fine to an extent but you need way more instances of potential companion interaction than KOTOR 2's development allowed to make it work and prevent really transparent metagaming. Hell, Mandalore didn't even actually have enough opportunities to influence him in the released game to get all his dialogue.

Wait what now regarding the bolded? That said I'm fine with romances as long as they feel like an actual partnership and not the PC bribing the LI into boning them. Those relationships end up feeling toxic as hell but no one admitting how toxic they are (which again I have no issue with toxic relationships but there needs to be some acknowledgement and those romances just pretend that's health and okay when it's really not) which skives me out. The main issue with video game romances in my opinion is they don't feel like 2 people that actually are in a relationship. It often feels forced/random or as a reward with your PC doing all the heavy lifting for the romance to happen which is just no. As for player sexual companions...I don't really care? I'm fine with a defined sexuality or player-sexual. My main concern is the relationship itself not being shallow. I personally prefer 2 bi companions because romances can be resource intensive and I'd rather get more quests and such than 6 different LIs but that's a take it or leave it scenario. > feeling toxic as hell but no one admitting how toxic they are (which again I have no issue with toxic relationships but there needs to be some acknowledgement and those romances just pretend that's health and okay when it's really not) Who would be doing the admissions or acknowledgements about how 'toxic' these relationships are? Who gets to define what is and isn't 'toxic' in a relationship? Why do in-game relationships have to be 'healthy'? You come off as very preachy here. You don't get tired of the power fantasy? I'd kill for an actually dysfunctional relationship in an RPG that was actually intended to be written that way. Would be interesting.

I agree with you in principle on everything but the bi thing. For whatever reason just the knowledge that a companion's sexuality was tailored explicitly for the player just takes me right out of the narrative. If the writer thinks a companion is bi fine. But just making them bi so more people can have their waifu/husbando fantasy in one playthrough bugs me. If a romance arc added a lot to the plot or themes but was unavailable because of my watcher's gender or sexuality, I'd just make a different watcher on a replay. Just like trying a different race or class. As for Avellone...well many won't agree with my take. There's a thread on the most recent drama in the Computer and Console forum on this site.

Deine Englisch ist besser als meine Deutsch...

Keep the current name then change some of the celtic vowels and consonants into ones used more commonly in Italian. Can just say it's the result of Vailians struggling to pronounce the name until it stuck.

I just hope all the romances were written by Josh. I feel like only someone that hates video game romance could write a decent one. The only other candidate in that regard was Avellone, and he seems to have gone insane.

..... It's a lot of dumb drama going back and forth, but Chris is totally right on one aspect: It never hurts to run paperwork by a lawyer and get their take on it. Agreed. Where he went wrong was in trying to trash his former employer in the public sphere. He is famous and may get away it if he doesn't make a habit of trashing former employers, but it is not a good idea for anyone who plans to get another job. Avellone will never work on a major project again. That might have been the case anyway, but this has basically guaranteed any future work in this industry will be as a stretch goal to random kickstarters.

I know it doesn't work this way and it would probably be a nightmare to implement, but that WOULD be a logical outgrowth of the relationship system.

Pallegina's conversations are pretty sparse and awkwardly placed though, it lends itself to a very obvious "do you the player want her to x or y" chain of events. The other companions may not be flashy but I consider stuff like the many subtle ways Kana can end up with radically different outcomes, that while not necessarily what the player intended, still logically follow the exchanges between him and the PC, to be something every video game writer should try to emulate.

I fear it never will.

From what I've seen of the parties involved I have no trouble believing that 1. Obsidian's management is terrible at running a business and screwed over employees as a result 2. Avellone is an insufferable narcissist that's making half of this up.

Not really: https://goo.gl/images/R4p1zL Cullen is a stereotypical chiselled adonis with a jaw so wide and square you could use it as a house foundation. Blackwall isn't too bad but that beard makes him look like he's got Cthulhu growing on his chin. Dorian is fabulous. Solas, not sure about him. Meh. The non cherry picked screenshots still make the dude look really weird and he's weirder in motion. it's an ugly game.

Maybe I just used them wrong then. I'll admit I gave up on them pretty fast.