Stun

In the Bioware sense? No. What makes you say that? You can kiss her. You can call her lovely. You can assure her heart and tell her that she's the only one. You can ask her to skill-train you and she will. How is that significantly different (ie. not just semantics) from, say, The Lelianna Romance in DA:O, or the Nathyrra romance in HoTU?

Who's confused? Have we not established that Romances in video games can be any type of affectionate communication, or any type of love, professed or otherwise, be it via dialogue or otherwise, requited or not, reciprocated or not, with the player character or not...? If this isn't the case then by all means, lets revisit the Ravel-TNO discussion we had less than an hour ago. actually, you seem very confused. nobody suggested the following: "Romances in video games can be any type of affectionate communication, or any type of love, professed or otherwise, be it via dialogue or otherwise, requited or not, reciprocated or not, with the player character or not." we disagreed with your absurdest notion that for a love to be romantic it need be reciprocal and balanced, but that is far different than your increasingly ridiculous definitions. also, you didn't actual respond to Gromnir... and am genuine saddened that you either missed or ignored so much o' the ravel interaction with tno. HA! Good Fun! Third time: Can the Player Character Romance Ravel? Yes or No?

Who's confused? Have we not established that Romances in video games can be any type of affectionate communication, or any type of love, professed or otherwise, be it via dialogue or otherwise, requited or not, reciprocated or not, with the player character or not...? If this isn't the case then by all means, lets revisit the Ravel-TNO discussion we had less than an hour ago...and then ask again: Can the PC romance Ravel?

Oh, more than that! -Safana uses all manner of sexual innuendo to entice you to explore the shipwreck in the Sirine map - That's romance, according to [___insert classic literature of choice here____] -The Cloud Peaks Dryad Kisses you to death <----romance. -Then there's "hey sexy, do you want to take a look at me ditties?" <----- that's Romance. And it's a line spouted by dozens of NPCs in the game. If you disagree, then you're just a semantics-spouting scoundrel, and an avatar of Webster's dictionary! Icewind Dale had Romances. Read Evayne's Journal, or talk to Ginafae. or flirt with the 2 waitresses in Kuldahar's tavern. Icewind Dale 2 had romances- Check out the priestesses at the Ice Temple. They're a romantic bond to each other, plus their leader is romancing Nickadaemus. And then there's the story behind Isair and Madae themselves. But that's not important. None of this is. The important thing here is that PoE will have romances. We have graphical proof it does: So, what do we say to these Promancers who've been coming here for the past 2 years tirelessly complaining that PoE won't have romances? Do we tell them the truth according to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, Vitor Hugo, Louisa May Alcott, George Elliot, and any other writer we can think of? Or do we establish a *reasonable* definition of Romance and conclude that not every friggin reference to love, sex and affection means there's a romance"? I suggest the former! Otherwise, How else will I ever get myself to replay Tetris...the mother of all Romance games?

Like I said. Have it Your way. BG1, Icewind Dale and Icewind Dale 2 have romances. And PoE will have romances too (despite the fact that its developers have said it won't).

It's settled then. BG1, Icewind Dale, and Icewind Dale 2 had Romances. Have it your way.... Freak.

There's no such thing as an unrequited romance. That's like saying "this is a solo duet!" You're discussing love. Don't confuse the two terms.

We don't doubt Ravel loved The Nameless one. We wasn't arguing otherwise. We were pointing out that there was no romance between Ravel and the Nameless one. 'cause there wasn't. Romance is a shared thing. And the love wasn't shared. Edit: And for F*cks sake, this isn't a difficult concept to grasp. Millions of little girls Love Justin Beiber. They'd die for him. But that doesn't mean that Justin Beiber is involved in a romance with millions of little girls. Does it.

LOL You give the BSN droid army Way too much credit. Their tastes aren't so refined. They don't care about any of this stuff. BruceVC is on the record here admitting that even a crap romance is better than none at all. And that being the case, what do you have to fear? These masses will orgasmically accept any "romance", well written or not.

Yes? If we're going to just argue that any NPC friendship = Romance, then sure, PS:T had Romance. And so did BG1, and Icewind Dale, and Icewind dale 2. And PoE will have romance as well. But pardon me for refusing to agree with such absurd goal-post moving in this debate.

Yes. I honestly will. Maybe, Bruce, he doesn't engage them in romance because he has feelings for them? The game does not shy away from reminding the player (and the nameless one) that All of TNO's physical relationships end the same way: Bloody, and hideously non-romantic. Alynwyn, the Celestial you meet in the Clerk's ward, tells you a story about the time she courted one of your past incarnations...and then Mentally dominated him and ordered him to jump out the window to his death because he tried to force himself on her. And then there's the Deionarra thing... You know....murdering your girlfriend so that she can be your eyes and ears in the land of the dead. PS:T didn't have romances, Bruce. PS:T went out of its way to be anti-romance. There's even an element of developer concept mockery going on (you DID notice that Annah and Grace are both demons, right?)

<gag> Why don't you two actually friggin PLAY PS:T, before leveling such insults at it.

Wow, that's an obtuse misunderstanding of the story. First off, He did NOT 'charm her'. He wanted to become immortal, but since you can't just walk up to a fiend from the Gray Wastes and politely ask them to make you immortal, he decided to manipulate her emotions. And, NO, those emotions were NOT love. Or charm. They were Ego and Pride and Vanity. He posed a challenge to her. He taunted her by saying that even she isn't powerful enough to make someone immortal. And so she jumped at the challenge. Second, we're not told the how's or why's of her infatuations with TNO, but the clues we are given suggest that the ritual may have caused Ravel to love TNO the same way that a Mother loves the children she gives birth to (Mabbeth is a mother figure, remember?) Third, and most importantly, what does this have to do with ANYTHING? We were discussing Romance. Romance is *shared* love. And there's no such thing going on between Ravel and the Nameless One. There never was.

Are we still talking about Planescape Torment?

Well that is different. Very. As in... it's not a romance at all. There's no such thing as a non-reciprocal romance.

x

Right, but five uses per day is five charges followed by a day long cooldown, is it not? No, it's not. Unlike the vile cooldown mechanic you're trying to equate it to: -5 per day means you have a choice with that ability. You can spam it 5 times in five consecutive rounds, or you can spread it out through the day. The choice is actually yours. -5 per day means you actually NEED to rest. With a cooldown system you don't. -5 per day means you're not basing your tactics on a ticking clock. With a cooldown system you are Anyway, there's something that's rubbing me wrong about this game. I just watched the trailer and I can't help but feel that I'm being conned. It doesn't just look like Neverwinter nights 2 with DA:O's combat. It *IS* Neverwinter Nights 2 with DA:O's combat. They friggin stole the art assets from NWN2. Look at the UI. Look at the Area art. It's the same.

Well of course no sane person would support mandatory romances in an RPG. It would go against a core pillar of what makes an RPG in the first place: Choice. Never mind the fact that such a narrative would be condemned for being uncreative and cliché.

Then, what is a romancer? Someone who's Mancing Ro's?

Fine. Maybe 'story whore' is a bit harsh. How about... Storymancer.

Not cucumber, CHICKEN STRIPS. Try and keep up.

Gosh I disagree. I thought IWD1's story was probably the best one of all the IE games after PS:T's. It had BG1's delivery system (unfolding the mystery by climbing up the enemy ranks) Plus the added complexity when you discover that there's 2 completely different factions of enemies. And then there's the individual stories behind each of the Dungeons (how could anyone not appreciate the history of the Severed Hand?). The only thing IWD1's narrative really suffered from was that Belhifet wasn't very fleshed out. He was essentially a faceless Big Bad. Which is a shame since, if he's really akin to a named entity of the 9 hells, he should have an intriguing personality. I rank BG2's story lower because it's the exact opposite. There was no mystery. The Boss and his plans are pretty much presented to you in the prologue. On the other hand, This Boss is quite fleshed out. But... unlike a lot of people here, I'm not a story whore. When a game has a crap story, I can still give it a 9/10, and call it the greatest game ever - assuming it does everything else well, like combat, gameplay, atmosphere. Which is why I rank BG2 at the top. Nothing great about its narrative, or its NPCs, but it does everything else so god damn well that it wins...by 100 miles.

What?

Witcher 2 fails already. Geralt isn't your character. He's a character that's loaned to you to play the game with. But I suppose it would register a little less on the cringe scale than the traditional "clean slate" model, since the player can at least mentally separate him/herself personally from what's going on. Ie. "Well, it's Geralt who's in love with Triss/Ves/Yennifer, not the avatar of Me." Still, I don't see this, or the lack of the standard romance mini-game nonsense, as any consolation. We're still being beat over the head with the same, overused, tiresome, been-there-done-that, uncreative, heart-string tugging emotional manipulation. And it still feels like a minigame. I have a challenge to every RPG developer in the world: Try leaving your comfort zones just once and give us an exploration of a different emotion. One that isn't done quite as often. Suggestions: Horror. Fear. Detailed revenge. Even hunger. One of the things I loved so much about Mask of the Betrayer was that it explored hunger as both a gameplay element and a story theme. It was a rare thing.

I'm not an expert on this, but my gut is telling me that it's not really up to Paradox. I think it's up to Steam. And I'm not 100% sure how steam handles those global midnight releases. Do they stagger-release them worldwide so that the game is unlocked when it's midnight in YOUR area, or do they calibrate the release so that the game is released globally at the same time. Ugh, I don't have the mind for this kind of stuff.