Sir Chaox

We're using different meanings. I don't disagree with you. The reason I said "technically" is because you cannot replace romance options with not-romance options and somehow maintain the quantity of distinct option types, is all. Imagine you have 7 different foods on a table. If you take one of the unique dishes away (say... I dunno, salad), and you replace it with a second plate of another dish (Mac and cheese, for example's sake), then you've still got the same amount of food, but you could still say the table has "less" food than it did have, since it had 7 foods, and now it has only 6 foods. I wasn't trying to argue with you. I was just pointing out a technicality of the meaning of "less interactivity," because I'm a defective android. 8P Sure I can agree with that. We lose some variety and gain some quantity in other categories. I probably would have liked romances if Obsidian wanted to do them well, but since they stated they cannot output any at a high enough quality level given the time and resources, I am totally fine with them being omitted. And who wants salad when you can have another steak?

... Technically, it will. All the things you can do to a person that would feasibly be represented as interactive options in-game minus romance is quantifiably less than all those same interaction options plus romance. Subtracting romances as an option will free up those resources to be put towards other content in the game; so we are losing romances, but gaining more resources for everything else (more reactivity within the plot, with NPCs, or with companions (excluding romance options)). So, technically, there should be no change in the amount of interactive content in the game; they are going to put in as much of it as their resources will allow.

What? Seems like someone isn't able to understand the difference between love and sex. Romances don't need to include sex cutscenes like Mass Effect does and I don't really understand why sawyer reasoned like that. Too bad, but I can live without romances in my game. The only thing that makes me a little sad is that the "Anti romance trolls" have won their battle. They are talking about maturity there, not romances specifically. He was stating what he regards as mature themes (or rather, what he does not regard solely as a mature theme).

Hooray for conspiracies!

...Are we still talking about video games?

Page 4. Hilarious. Thanks for the heads up, I tend to skip around.

Pillars of Eternity: The First One

Will the screen fade to black? No deal unless the screen fades to black!

Romances can be good sometimes... but I feel some people are really overreacting here. The game is not going to have less interaction because there are no romances; if anything it will be more reactive because they are not spending effort on making a romance for multiple characters that span the entire length of the game and alter plot at certain points (like DA:O and BG2 did, which I consider to have good romances). Romance is not something to tack on; it should intertwine with the story and effect major choices. And this would be too large a drain on their time and resources, which is what Josh had stated (more or less).

Fair statement Junta, but I also fear for the overall quality of writing if Sawyer thinks not one writer on their staff is capable of writing a decent romance. Which is basically what he just said in blunt terms. I suppose it could be interpreted that way, but I believe he meant it more like "I'm not confident we will be able to execute romances at a high level of quality due to time and resource constraints." I mean it takes time to write something good (no matter how experienced you are), and I'm glad they are focusing on more important aspects of the game from a writing perspective (overarching story and overall companion interaction). The writers on this project, including MCA and Ziets, are mostly not interested in doing typical fantasy fanfare; it is against their M.O. ... "Decent" romance would not be one of their goals.

Maybe romances will be in PE2. For now, they have enough on their plate with establishing this brand new IP.

BY WHAT I MUST KNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW OMG, cliffhanger posts are the WORST!

Not really against romances but I'll give it a shot. Not really interested in sim-romances, but they can be pretty funny sometimes. If the writers do not want to do romances, definitely do not do it. If they plan to half-ass the romances, definitely do not do it. These are a given. Romance options done well would take up resources that could be better spent on fleshing out story or companions in other ways; if they have the bandwidth for this, then no big deal, but if they plan to add more companions, then maybe they won't have the time for (good) romances. And romances are fine if they are done well. BG2 did a good job of it because, for the most part, it spanned throughout the game and effected the plot here and there... it felt more integrated into the story. Could it have been better? Absolutely. DA:O had good romances as well because, again, it felt like it intertwined with the story and changed aspects of it in large enough ways to make it feel different and relevant. It also spanned the length of the game (IIRC). So if they plan to make romances in this similar light, then there's no issue IMO. Otherwise, it is a waste of resources and they should worry about fleshing out other aspects of the story/characters. Romances should be all-or-nothing, not tacked on.

The farmer's wife (standing in the field SE of where the armor is) tells you that her son broke the plow blade on something while plowing that field. The armor is at the end of the final partially plowed row. That's how I found the armor the first time. Cool, I know there are other pixel pockets in BG (can't name them specifically), maybe they all had hints/rumors around that lead towards them. I first played BG when I was in sixth grade... didn't really pay attention to details back then.

I expect, nay demand, more Tim Cain, especially once he starts heading the next Obsidian Kickstarter: Arcanum 2 Be cool, Activision...

I actually messaged their support about this. Darren Monahan replied:

I think those who enjoy the pixel-hunts probably also enjoy adventure games; similar idea of finding that special object/space from a static outlook. The difference of course is that pixel-hunting in BG can be totally random (finding that plate armor in the middle of that field in Nashkel... WTF?), while an adventure game should mostly make sense. Considering the type of game we're dealing with, I think it would be better to approach hidden treasures with SOME clues, rumors, even really ambiguous hints, just to make it have some sense... Please don't do what BG did (although it was awesome finding that plate armor so early...). Side note: I'm not actually sure if BG had some kind of rumor or hint towards this hidden armor spot; maybe someone could clarify, if they know!

Honestly, I don't mind him saying the gameplay and characters were better. What gets me is the story. DA:O's story was essentially "Kill the dargon"; maybe the universe and subplots were more interesting, but it never became anything bigger than that. BG isn't amazing either, but it has an epic-style personal story that escalates into a highlander scenario: a little more interesting to me than DA:O. Not exactly comparing games with great stories here but whatever! It's all opinion anyway. Just wanted to also add, I did not dislike either game's story. Much better than most RPGs anyway. But DA:O was sort of disappointing, it could have been more. It really felt like an introduction to the DA world than anything else.

Just get the guy from BG1. That would be awesome.

Burn the heretic.

I like the system in place now; it sounds like it will be interesting and have good balance. But just a thought. Couldn't we utilize starter traits like Fallout, Arcanum, Avernum, etc. where you can gain some special positive/negative passive stat effect that works for/against another particular stat effect provided by the default attribute system? So you could get that fighter that has high strength but crummy immune system (low Fort. saves, I'm guessing). Now, I don't mind gimping a character to make the game interesting, but for those who want balance, there would have to be some tradeoff there. Maybe the reason why they didn't do this was to keep focus entirely on balancing all of the attributes and having the player wholly focus on utilizing this system to produce interesting characters. But just throwing it out there.

If you are referring to a Bethesda type game, where NPCs walk around and say the same things or have the same conversations all the time, then I agree. If you are referring to party members being repetitive because they only cycle through a small list of sound bites, then I have one thing to say to you: "Who. Wants. Some?"

Sounds like a really bad premise for an anime.

I'd like to see maybe slightly more loot variety than BG1 in PE. That or less but not more. I want getting my first set of plate mail to be exciting and meaningful, even if it is not magical.

The idea is to also hide XP on the character sheet. Basically, no specific numbers on your party's experience anywhere. Maybe the console will tell you when you've received XP but not how much.