Stun

Speaking of countdowns, I discovered something this morning. quite unexpected. The metacritic entry for PoE has a real time (like, to the second) countdown clock you can watch, if you want. http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/pillars-of-eternity As of this second, we've got 22 days, 15 hrs, 7 min, 13 sec until release!

Someone who Defines RPG as Role Playing Game, not Romancing Pixel Girls.

I'm not making fun of it. I'm approaching it with the dead-seriousness it deserves. You are right about one thing: Your viewpoint is legion. There's too many of your ilk around. The RPG genre as a whole has had no choice over the years but to give you guys what you want. And the result is plain for all to see. Bioware, the company that once gave us stunning time-honored Classics with unmatched gameplay like Baldur's Gate, Baldurs Gate 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, is now reduced to releasing interactive soap operas like Mass effect and Dragon age - Games with terrible one dimensional combat and zero gameplay depth. Why? Because they can't afford to spend money and time on such things. Because the majority of their budget is being spent on f*cking Romances and drama-filled relationships instead. You people aren't real RPG fans, so stop abusing that term for your own ends.

I agree. But we can't dispute what we're witnessing with our own two eyes here. Here, look. I'm going to copy and paste gurufabbes's first post on this thread, I will replace the games/companies he mentioned with "Buffets", and The word "romances" with Chicken strips, and you can judge for yourself. Here goes: --------- Hi all, I've been following this Buffet as Super Duper Buffet designer remains the top remaining hope for the genre. Like many of you, I'm a veteran of Golden Corral, Golden Coral Express, Old Country Buffet, Old Country Buffet 2, And the All-You-Can-Eat Series. Hearing about this New Buffet got me very excited, and I believe it has to potential to breathe new life into the genre. However, what these Buffets all had and do have, is also something that apparently New Buffet lacks: Chicken Strips, and lack of this is keeping me on the fence of whether or not to Eat There. It's an extra motivation to invest emotionally in the Buffet, in its Food, having normal Chicken and potential Chicken Strips... having a story that builds around this relationship. It's an investment that sets Buffets apart from Non Buffets. Even just one (or two) Chicken Strip choices would be something that most of the Eaters could get on board with, rather than doing a New Western Buffet: Inquisition, How about a DLC Chicken Strip or two? I wish this Buffet a lot of success, but I don't think I could do their effort justice without giving my opinion as an outside observer and potential Eater. This feature is clearly missing for me. ---- Yeah, not only does it fit, it's just as fickle and absurd as you'd imagine such a stance would be.

I'm overjoyed to learn ten thousand people agree with me, LOL How cute. It's more like 3 or 4 people.... spouting the same argument 3000 times each. This is not the 1st romance thread on this forum. It's the 10th or 11th since 2012. Opinion? It is not an opinion that BG1 had romances. It's demonstrative falsehood. We can pull up the dialogue files if we have to. And don't think for a second that anyone here is fooled by your silly bait and switch. You did NOT mention BG:EE in your OP. I'll repeat myself. Multi-player and First person shooter mechanics are more Popular. But that doesn't mean PoE needs them.

Oh no, you're not going to get away with dismissing your opponents' arguments as "nitpicks", when they aren't. First off, lets make one thing crystal clear. You're not making any "points" that haven't been made 10,000 times before on this subject. And one of the most common points (which you're making, right on cue), is to lump a bunch of old school classic games together, call them a "series", and then claim that they had romances. There's one obvious reason why a Promancer would want to do such an intellectually dishonest thing: It creates a wider net. It projects the illusion that Romances were "the series staple", and that they were the reason why those games were classics. The fact that Bg1 (ie. 50% of the entire series) did not have romances, is NOT a nitpick. It's PROOF that you can have a great, classic, popular RPG with a really good story without romances. Multi-player, and First person shooter mechanics are more popular. Doesn't mean we need them in PoE. And BG did not have a predecessor. It did have 4 successors though, and only ONE of them had romances.

For BG2, it is miniscule. The romances in BG2 are an after thought. (literally an after thought. they were squeezed in at the end of production) And they were a gimmick, neither meant to contribute to the game's story, nor do they succeed in doing so "by accident". But the fact that you're citing Dragon Age and Mass Effect is the real story here. It demonstrates your misunderstanding of PoE and its whole purpose for existing. If Obsidian wanted to do their own brand of Mass effect or Dragon Age, they would have done it, and probably wouldn't have had too much trouble finding a publisher to fund such a project. But that is NOT what they wanted to do. Instead, they wanted to make another game like the Infinity engine classics. And as far as the IE games go, only ONE of them (out of the 5) had romances, and even that ONE only included them....as a gimmick....an afterthought. So your talking point of "Be more like Mass Effect and Dragon Age!" is Noted.... And spit on. Stop asking the devs to copy the very games we needed an alternative to.

<sigh> Here we go again.... broadening the definition of romance so that any friendly/affectionate NPC interaction = Romance. You people have remarkably low thresholds. But there's good news about that. If this is your definition of romances then you can totally ignore what the devs have said about PoE. It WILL have "romances". in fact we saw "romance" dialogue in the game's prologue. Check it out: ^that's "romance", isn't it?

It's Bhaal! And Neverwinter Nights didn't have any romances in it either. And neither did its first expansion pack. Neverwinter Nights 2 did (Elanee and Casavir) but only the harshest of the anti-mancers would ever cite them, as they are the smoking gun evidence that video game romances are an abomination and should cease existing for the greater good of the genre.

Romances would ruin PoE. Why do you want PoE to fail?

Interesting you should say that. We've had quite a few thread discussions about PoE's Engagement mechanic. Yet not once has Bruce come to those threads to propose such a system for romances. I am disappoint, as they say.

Since "trying to make them right" involves game after game being tainted by the Trial & Error process, I'm going to have to disagree. I propose a policy of containment. Lets limit romances to Bioware games, and Bioware fans. And lets build a giant wall around them....no, a giant Dome/Bubble to keep the stench from blowing all the way over here to Obsidian.

The OP's argument was based on a comparison, which is why we're still here debating.

And the fix to this would be... Every class gets every vital skill? What's the point of having classes in the first place if you're going to do that? In any case, there are quite a few things that PoE improves upon from Bg1. I don't necessarily think the classes are one of them, though. But since that's a judgment call that will require that we play the entire game before confidently making, I'll withhold my final judgement. I will say this though, after playing the beta, I'm feeling that some classes are simply pointless because of this everyone-can-do-everything design. (why be a rogue, when barbarians are better in every way. Why be a mage when magic is so....dull and isn't nearly as useful as a chanter's chants? etc) That is what the devs themselves would call bad design. (they certainly didn't intend this)

Minor note: A dungeon that's "nearly impossible" to do without a specific party composition is NOT a good argument against the traditional AD&D class roles. It's a commentary about bad dungeon design. In my Pen and paper days, my DM used to design the greatest dungeons ever. And one of the reasons why his dungeons were so good was that he didn't assume any specifics about party makeup. Instead, he designed the dungeon to be fully self contained. if there was a challenge that needed to be overcome, then the tools needed to overcome it were made available to the party within that dungeon (locked doors had keys or they were bashable), and traps had clues to tell you that they existed, and then they either had switches to turn them off, or alternate paths to avoid them outright. Stuff like that.

I think the comparison to BG2 is completely valid. That is to say, I'd argue that Rogues in BG2 are just as un-needed as they are in PoE. As mentioned, Knock replaces Open Locks. (as does a bash from a high strength character). Invisibility (via spells or items) replaces stealth (and does a better job actually) Clerics can detect traps, and just about anyone can safely detonate them. Detect illusion? Mages, clerics, paladins, druids and bards all have the means, via their skillsets, of detecting illusions, and everyone else can find items like the Book of infinite spells to cast true sight. That leaves only 3 rogue skills. 1) Back Stabbing. 2) Pick Pocketing. 3) Trap setting. Backstabbing, as cool as it is, is merely a roleplaying novelty. Sneaking up behind someone and hitting them for 100 points of damage may be "awesome", but for practical purposes, wouldn't it be better to just cast finger of death or Flamestrike from a safe distance? Pick pocketing is another novelty. But in Bg2 it was next to worthless. You can count on one hand the noteworthy items to be gained from it. And BG2 does not let you pickpocket hostile entities (you can't, for example, pickpocket Celestial Fury from its wielder during the guarded compound encounter) so its strategic value is nil. Trap setting...is the unique one here, as it is a pre-fight, ambush-based skill and it's super useful in the game's biggest battles. Still, the result is not much different than a standard cleric or wizard Nuke barrage.... which unlike thief traps, can be done at any time (ie. even right in the middle of a battle)

I see this as a semantics argument. We know that we don't need a rogue in PoE. But do we know for a fact that we don't need rogue skills in PoE? Because that's what we're really talking about.If I make an All Wizard party in PoE, and I decide not to give anyone points in Mechanics or Athletics, will I run into a wall? Will I find myself locked out of whole swaths of the game? Or will it be exactly the same as it was in the IE games when you don't use a thief (ie. inconvenient but still totally doable)? As for the thread title. Bluh. in just about all RPGs out today you don't need a thief. D:OS? Nope. don't need a thief (scoundrel). Witcher series (what's a thief?) Dragon Age? Nope. Skyrim? (no classes in that game at all, and everyone has access to all the roguish skill trees.) Since PoE is a party based game, I kinda would have preferred a system where party composition actually matters, but whatever. I can just pretend that it does and take a thief anyway.

Hmm.... Let me answer that question with an analogy. I love pizza. Really. I'm a big pizza fan. But I hate anchovies on my pizza. It's a dumb idea. They're a mismatch. Taste-wise, they overpower all the other ingredients they're mixed with. Now, you could respond by saying: That's fine, Stun, Anchovies are optional. Just order your pizza without it and everyone's happy. Right? Yeah, Now lets suppose I'm at my favorite pizza restaurant and all I smell is that vile, fishy odor of anchovies.....from the kitchen....from the people at the table next to mine. And then..... the waiter comes to my table and hands me a menu, and I notice that they've doubled the price of everything. So I ask him: "Why did you just double the price of everything?" And he says: "well see, We're in the anchovy business now. Anchovies are expensive to import, and time-consuming for our chefs to prepare, so we're passing those costs on to our customers. If you don't like it, I'd suggest you go find a pizza place that doesn't serve anchovies." So... I do. I find a pizza place a few blocks away. As I enter, I see BruceVC and Lephys there with laptops and projectors, giving "logical" presentations, begging the restaurant's owner, assuring him of the profitability of incorporating Anchovies as a mandatory topping on all pizza-related dishes. At that point, I decide to eat lunch at the Mexican restaurant next door.

That's a terrible analogy (not to mention a geometric falsehood). A line can stretch infinitely. A triangle can't. In the context of these debates that spring up on this forum, there's never 3 sides. There's only 2 sides. People like you just publically sit on the fence in between and sometimes take thinly veiled pot shots at one of the sides. Oh how I take great pleasure in pushing fence sitters off the fence.

So you're... against taking sides Anti-side-taker. That's what you are.

An understatement. They'd hate them. They'd burn BSN to the ground with their self-righteous entitlement rage. And it would last forever. When David Gaider, Jennifer Hepler, Mary Kirby, Luke Kristjanson and EA's customer service reps got done calming down the SJWs who were e-lynching them from twitter to youtube for refusing to accommodate Gays, Lesbians, and "Others" by giving Viconia a p*nis, or making Jahiera go both ways, they'd then have to deal with the rest of the fanbase, who would blast them endlessly for what they did write. Content wise, the BG2 romances were very tame and way too fantasy-ish by today's standards. And they were.... hands free. You couldn't initiate them; you couldn't control them with approval points or "Heart" responses. And the biggest in-your-face of them all: Female PCs were stuck with...just Anomen. hahaha.

I'm totally willing to evaluate things on a case by case basis. But first we'll have to pick a game that actually has romances.

I will. Thanks. And You're right. There's nothing here. You know full well that he wasn't talking about any love triangle that occurs with the Nameless One in PS:T. He was flat out talking about the literary influences behind the game's 2 female companions. And the only thing I can really take out of this silly conversation is that PS:T went over a LOT of people's heads.

I'll repeat myself. The mere inclusion of ego stroking does NOT mean that a romance must be occurring. This is especially true in Planescape Torment, where it is made clear to the player that your companions are drawn to you, not because they admire you, But because they pity you.... Because your horrible, horrible affliction intrigues them. (you're eternally suffering, you're doomed, you're a bigger freak than they are, etc.). On the other hand, Bioware specifically employs its ego stroking because that's the easiest way for a writer to begin a romantic narrative.

No, they're not. And no, contrary to what you're trying to say, the mere use of ego-stroking does not mean that Romance is occurring. And different motivations. And different feelings. Can it be any more clear and obvious than that? Specifically, I said that they're only ego-stroking. And that's the difference. When Bioware does a romance, the ego-stroking is just the beginning of the process.