Wintersong

Why bother? You know that the white tunics will come ready to torch anyone who doesn't share their opinions while presenting themselves as paladins of what it's right. *shrugs* 4chan ---------------------------> We have no idea of what the game is about. No idea. So the romance must make sense in the game. Assuming that the game takes more than a few in game months and that the character gets to socialize with other NPCs, we could also assume that romance is not alien to the situation. It doesn't mean that there must be, just that it could happen. Romance has a place in the context of the game? Well, in that case I doubt very much that romance should be the main theme going on as there are other themes more interesting and unused. And it's importance as secondary theme may also be dependant of how really important it actually is for the story. Keep in mind that I'm ignoring the white tunics or the uninterest/bias of authors in the topic. The story elements are defined by the story*, not personal preferences of someone else**. Having the PC involved on some kind of romance supposes some emotional impact on the player (good or bad...) but romance doesn't really need to be about the PC. Having some secondary NPCs romantically involved and witnessing their relationship through the game can have quite the impact too while allowing it to be ignored easily (unless it's really important to the story development). Having an NPC and a companion involved makes it closer but also more difficult to ignore it (why bother with this case if not?). If the PC can ge involved with an NPC, it can be made quite easy to ignore if added as some side theme. But if the PC gets involved with a companion, that means more serious business. If the PC gets involved with a companion, you can keep if as side theme too or you can use it to bring the love theme with full force (for good or bad, should I refer to the Jedi again?). Altough if companions are not killable, truly sad ending romances (as in "Die, die, die my darling!") may prefer to consider sticking to PC vs NPCs romance. In any case, I'd expect to be something between adults, as in mature, and not something between teens that have no idea what it's about but they like to pretend they know anyways. Unless it happens between teen NPCs, then whatever. If the PC can get into romances, nothing like "Say a one liner and jack pot". These people that "fall in love at first sight"? Fakes. All of them. Hormones don't lie though. But sex, if present at all, shouldn't be the goal. Romances, as much as any other relation type in the game (be it with companions or Factions), must be affected by decissions in game. Basing romances just in some conversations is... lame. imho So yeah, if you go out to the country to pick some flowers for your love interest, that should/could create a reaction ("Aww, so sweet!" or "What the ****, man? I wanted diamonds!" or "I love you. As a friend." ). Killing someone from their family should create reactions too, and not just in the romance area ("You killed my father?" - Lea. "Yeah, well, technically..." - Duke. "You KILLED my father?" - Lea. "Ok, he was the bad guy, remember? Darth Badder?" - Duke. "YOU killed MY father???" - Lea. "Whatever. *force choke*" -Duke.) * in game mechanics can condition this but it's ok and expected. ** more or less like following the scientific method by Max Weber.

New Game+ sounds like ARPG and hunting for more higher level loot. I'm happy with ending the story of my character and leaving replayability to starting a new character.

Playable race of overpowered insectoids who don't fit any setting? Bad joke indeed. I also hope they won't go with some cheap fanservice. Like lizards and goddamned furries, as others here suggested. What? I thought that Thri-Kreen fitted Dark Sun quite well? Forgotten Realms also had some kind of mantis "people" but my memories are more from Eye of the Beholder than from monstrous compendiums. Not really sure how lizardfolk are "cheap fanservice". Not very "odd" but they have potential as race. Also, "furries"? What's this? A romance thread? Catfolk or Shifters wouldn't be "odd", much like the lizardfolk. I also find them interesting and with some potential but as I said, not "odd". Ratkins would be something I'd really want to see but same issue as the others. Or maybe just my perception about them. Mindflayers on the other hand... well, I wouldn't play one even if payed. But it's "odd" enough to be "Ewww". Does that count for Obsidian?

Should be in because of realism (I hate saying that word though). But not just for spells but also bows/slings/crossbows/guns/darts/javelins/chairs/... Option to disable it? I'm ok with that. Options are usually a good thing.

Considering that Obsidian already has its list... Well, whatever, just for silly fun: Romancescape: Torment. Not without my soul. Soul Predator. Alien Soul. Philosopher's Creed. Soul Raider. The Wheel of Souls. Soul Effect. Soul Age. Souls on a plain. Soul Empire. Alpha Soul. Echo Bay Nights. Soulcop. Soul of War. Soulcrusher. I know what you did last summer in New Heomar. Soul in the shell. Soul Sematary. The Shadow Over Telaneir. Soul Master. Obsidian Pie. Soul's Company. The Soul Saga. Romance, She Wrote. Souls of Future Past. Soulgate. Soulchaser's Song. Soulnauts. Charname and the Soul Factory. Fleshbound. The Gods must be lazy. Soul Wars. Thundersouls. Hypetrain 2014. Fortress Alone. Romance of the Three Factions. Soul Fantasy. Soul Crisis. Souls from the Crypt.

I must say that for me the NwN2 tutorial was quite "mandatory". The items for winning the competition were a nice addition (at least the healing toy). And if you wanted some reactions to your race selection like in the case of the drow, the tutorial was the only real place to get any (unfortunately). But otherwise, yeah, NwN2 style is fine.

For some people, it will be their first game. Yeah, gamers don't pop up out of thin air with lots of experience in older titles.

So a company has a website for their product. A very nice, clean and pretty one. Some people with a disability, in this case they are blind, are truly interested in visiting the website and check the information in it (they really really want to buy) but... whoa! Totally inaccessible! The website doesn't care about the Web Accessibility Initiative and their Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Those of them open minded enough (or really hardcore) may bother trying to decypher all the chaos that the pages' content is. The rest will just avoid the website with that it potentially can mean (not positive). The company has to choose: do they prefer to spend part of their resources adding new content to their website or should they try to make their website complaint with the WCAG? On one hand, how many blind people actually could go to the website and could become regular customer in addition of some extra good company image? On the other, why bother pandering to them when the company alrady has other potential customers that don't require them to spend resources in tweaking the website? If you were blind, what would you choose?

It's about accesibility and not about being better. I don't see people learning spanish to be able to read "The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha". And surely, the "You're fired" in True Lies is funnier than the "Estás despedido" of the translation, and translating Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels means losing some of the jokes. But that's not the point. I enjoyed watching "Raise the Red Lantern" in chinese with spanish subtitles but I'd have enjoyed it quite more in spanish because certainly I don't know chinese (any version of it) and subtitles suck (for movies, in games it's ok due to several reasons). I know because I did enjoy more "The story of Qui Ju" from a language point of view.

If they put the update up in the next 20 seconds, I'll raise my pledge by $1,000.

Any protagonist, no matter how humble in skills, would be special by the fact of being the protagonist. And he may start humble but inevitably will grow in power enough to survive and complete whatever must be acomplished. Speculating without basis, I'd say that our character for PE seems destined to be special with some kind of "special power". Maybe he had a regular broken soul or maybe a strong one. But the event that seems to trigger the whole game... Well, let's say that it wouldn't surprise me if some factions were trying to end our character's life using a huge bomb. After the event, maybe we can get/eat/drink/steal other characters' souls and/or alter other people's souls and/or destroy other people's souls... Or maybe we get a surprise and we are just witnesses of some kind of powerful event that reveals something about all the soul cycle and the gods. Knowledge is power and some may be ready to do what they must to adquire it or to destroy it.

Just here to say "Yay" just in case someone thouth that I had changed my mind since the last thread. Not bothering as to explain why because for saying "Yay", apparently and automatically I must be some kind of BSN fanboy, unable to have social interactions with other people (specifically related to tender feelings as love), a freak, a dictator trying to force my prefereces to Obsidian and the other usual stuff implied by some people.

Integrated in the beginning of the game but optional. Don't click on the checkbox for tutorial? You start in the big event and the normal game. You click it? You get a prelude, influenced by the character's background or some mumbo jumbo, were you get to learn stuff. Some little story stuff in it but nothing with any impact in the rest of the game.

It's nice gesture but not needed. Not needed at all. Plus Obsidian (Fergus?) is already backing some projects (with their money). The guys from The Banner Saga were the same in that regard.

So if guns are in, for some it's not medieval fantasy. If women are treated like in modern times instead of medieval times, that's ok though. Do I understand that an ingame "Good" society ruled by women and that has men as second class citizens would be ok? But an ingame "Good" society ruled by men and that has women as second class citizens would not be ok? I'd prefer having different types of societies with their different cultures and social structures. "Fantasy" world is "Fantasy". As long as there isn't any hidden agenda behind any of the stuff, I won't feel offended by social structures that don't resemble my preferences. And suffer any possible consequences of character creation in the process. By the way, Theoeau has "Obdisian" in his title? O_o

So much "hate" towards translations... I should post in castillian because, you know, the "spirit of what I say is lost in the translation". Common sense, the need to cummunicate and that the forum belongs to Obsidian, forbids that. Now seriously... I don't care about multiplayer at all. I don't play RPGs for multiplayer. If this were an ARPG, I'd not mind it but not being one of those games, I don't fancy the idea. If it doesn't truly affect the quantity/quality of the rest of the content, then I'm fine with it added. Mod tools can be quite awesome to have. Especially if it's somehow "easy" to add new quests, items... Translations? Glad that you are not following the steps of SWTOR in the voiceovers department so you don't spend bazillions of USA dollars. I know it is going to be lot of text but: you can do the translations after release. That can create a new peak in sales after release. during development, you can have some (trusted?) fans translating the game (more likely near the end of the cycle). Those translations wouldn't be included in the game (trust issues?) but you can always link to them in the forums for those who want to try them. I'll be playing in english no matter how much fake pirate talk (which I HATE) or different accents you add to the game beyond the "american english". Even if there is a translation to castillian. But I know that more than a few people from my country would prefer translation available. So if you go fan translation before relase, I'd consider lending a hand.

YOU BET YOUR ASS THIS IS! ... Hum, sorry, too much happiness to control. It should be over soon. I thought this was "Arcanum's Gate: Elemental Torment". Should we start a thread suggesting names for PE?

I do get the feeling that gods in PE are really powerful and really bored beings. They like playing "Sims" with the mortals of PE.

Playing PnP D&D several years ago as DM, my group of players had a female NPC join them (her skills as multiclass fighter/thief allowed her to balance a bit the small party). Through different adventures, the party's fighter and her bonded as companions and later as friends (they had similar aligment and some common interests, unlike the other members of the party). Eventually, the fighter started a romance with her and finally married her (they didn't have any kind of sex until after married, I mention this just in case someone need to know that... oh, and they gave life to two girls and a boy). Was that because the player feared cooties and needed to feed some kind of sexual fantasy in the game? Nope. The player was just a guy like any other, with some good social skills in the real world, that also liked to party and had his "adventures" with girls like any other guy. But the same as he at some point understood that his character trusted the NPC as companion and later as friend, at some other point after some in-game years he also understood that his character being romantincally interested in the NPC was natural. Fortunately for the character, the love interest shared feelings so it was happy ending... for about a decade. Then there was blood but that's another story. Meanwhile, the wizard of the party had developed feelings for a fellow female wizard of their city but being the "lone wolf" type (sort of), he just keep himself apart from his love interest. Oh, wait. videogames? That thing that lacks a human being that can dinamically react to the player's intentions? Well, I don't want romances as much as the possibility of them. If the game is truly to deal with mature themes related to the human being, feelings are a theme that must be in. Not just love. Friendship, rivalry, hate, love, envy... If the resources allow it (I mention this because it's the straw guy mentioned always) and it makes sense, I'd like romance(s?) to be a real possiblity with a companion or NPC. Or at the very least, between some companions/NPCs that are important to the story!! A serious treated romance. It doesn't matter if it ends well or not. Certainly, I hope that it's not this childish/ignorant notion of some people here that "Romance = Sex". If the romance is between a human being and a golem, I don't see much sex going on there. A Jedi knows how dangerous love can be.

Antartica in but Central America out?

I have never been into bodies that explode from a sword swing or dagger stab. DA2 was quite the offender in that department. Not against the system itself, just make sure there is an option to disable silly gore, huh? For the days I'm not in the mood for Flying Bodyparts.

If children are present and they are unkillable, can I have one as companion? I'd have them in game and killable. Not that I go killing innocent NPCs. Except maybe Noober.

Maxed Bluff Skill: "Hey, careful with that gun! I'm in your team, you idiot!"

Excellent update. The arcane Veil only works against ranged attacks? Some kind of bubble as shape? One has to wonder if magic users also develop similar tricks against melee attacks.

Won't that make it a bit one-sided? The usual bashers only keep saying "Burn it with fire" so why not? Edit: for the fans of adding pedophilia and zoophilia, I'm quite sure than GLBT is not GLBTPZ. But yeah, keep being not mature.