Stun

Faulty analogy. You're not describing the rock's potential, you're describing civilization's potential. Romance is not a tool. You cannot do anything with a romance but present it as it is. And therein lies the problem with your analogy. Romances suck. They're like turds. You can Sugar coat them, or gold-plate them, but they'll still be turds. And I'll say it again. Romance has a far bigger potential to ruin the RPG genre. It has already evolved enough to ruin Bioware games.

^I'm not so sure. Neverwinter Nights 2 also used several spell icons from the Icewind Dales.

It's also a graphic: ^see that little green thing in the upper right hand corner? That's a pig-monster. It's on all the tiers from $50 on up.

Pen? Well, there isn't. Potential is a mental concept that cannot exist in the absence of any sort of suggestive proof. You can walk up to anyone in the country and tell them that they have the potential to become the president of the United States. But such statements are meaningless unless that person shows some signs that he/she is heading in that direction. Problem: We've got no such proof to point to with video game romances. They suck just as badly in today's games as they did in games that came out 2 decades ago. It's far more accurate to say that Romances have the potential to ruin the RPG genre.

I think there's been enough repeating on this topic. The forum has a search function. Done. Like I said in my last post, your side has either suggested things that have already been done terribly in the past, or else they've suggested really annoying, overly constrictive, stuff that most people wouldn't want regardless of whether it's tied to a romance (like bruce's example of the LI never being able to leave the party) Yay! Metaphors! No. Romance is like that annoying ball point pen sitting on your desk that always stops working when you're in the middle of trying to write with it. Best that you just toss it in the trash so you don't keep accidently grabbing it when you need to write something.

Show me examples that other people have given.

Question: does the floating text also appear in the combat log window? Because that's how the IE games did it.

Yep. Not to mention the fact that if you look closely at Adam's tactics, he simply did everything wrong. Almost as if he was trying to demonstrate that this is a game that will punish stupidity. Kudos for that! That's the kind of game I've been begging for for a decade! I saw his mage engaging on the front lines and get killed as a result (the mage was the first to die) I saw one of his characters using a bow against an opponent in melee range (I'm not sure about PoE, but in BG2, that's a terrible thing to do. Using a bow against a foe who's engaging you in melee will cause you to suffer a -4 AC penalty) I think this was all intentional. And it worked on me. I think I learned more in 20 minutes here than in the last 6 months of updates.

It saddens me that we have just been shown something as unique and awesome as an ingame-implementation of an evolving monster manual(!!!), yet the focus of the discussion is about friggin boobs on the 3in tall female avatars.

See, this is one of the reasons why I'm having trouble containing my excitement! Say what you want about the value of nostalgia, but it totally dictates perception. I just watched this video. Just saw Adam's party get wiped. And while he was fighting, the only thing that was running through my mind was memories of IWD's and BG's tough battles, and all the strategies I used to use to get through the nastier encounters in those games. As it stands, even though I've never played PoE, I STILL immediately saw all the fundamental mistakes Adam was making. He had a party of 5 but never once employed focus fire. His mage had Fireball - AND - the enemy was clustered together at a distance....but he never cast it! (edit: well he cast it once, but his party didn't take advantage of it) He let his party get surrounded, over and over. I did not see his rogue use a single activated rogue skill. Nor his fighter using the knockdown ability. These are the same kinds of mistakes that will cause total party wipes in the IE games. God Damn, I can't wait to get my hands on the beta! And after I play it a few dozen times, I will PROVE it can be soloed on any difficulty.

Not really. In the rare times when anyone has suggested some "new" idea, its logic has been shot down, or else it was shown to be not new at all. Case in point: So I take it you don't subscribe to the long-held romantic notion that absence makes the heart grow fonder? This isn't new. It's how BG2 does it. And, IIRC, it's how DA:O does it. ^this one isn't even a suggestion. It's just a criticism of how previous video game romances handled things. This is not new either. Event-based Romance triggers are how DA2 handled it. And how MoTB handled the Safiya Romance. And it was terrible. It was gamey, and felt fake. ^I don't understand this one at all. Are you suggesting that one way to do romances correctly is by deception and manipulation?

I'm game. As you say, my side has certainly stepped up to the plate and cited a bajillion examples of video game romances from the past to demonstrate how bad they really are. So I guess it's time now for your side to do your part. Show us how romances in video games can be done well. Sound fair? Because if you can't, then don't expect the discussion to ever deviate from its 'circular' nature. I'm certainly not going to suddenly change my stance just because someone waxes all philosophical and asks me to "have faith" that "maybe one day", some team of developers will come up with the "perfect design formula" that makes video game romances the opposite of what they've always been: bad.

I agree. The only thing I really liked about DA:O's combat was the bloody, visceral feel of it. The decaptiations; Being able to thrust your sword into an opponent's stomach and then pull it out as they fall to the ground. Blood on combatants faces and armor that lingers after the battle; unique finishing moves on bosses.... etc. But everything else was so very mundane - as it must be when you impose such a limited system where there's only 3 classes, a pitifully limited list of weapon and spell choices and a ridiculously small, unimaginative bestiary. PoE is going to blow DA:O away completely on the combat front.

What about situations where you don't actually do the killing? You know, like sacrificing Anomen to Demogorgon's shrine in the underdark. Or having Aerie 'prove' her Bravery by sending her ahead (and alone) to clear out the Beholder Lair? Or letting Jaheira invoke the so-called power of nature by having her try and eliminate the Mindflayer outpost in the Sewers with only Sylvanis as her helper. I find that these things allow you to kill off unwanted party members without guilt. Hell, you can even argue that you didn't kill them at all. They killed themselves.

Bingo. The "it's optional" retort has several issues associated with it that prevent it from being a very good argument. For one thing, Romance tends to encompass the NPC's personality. The result is that if the player chooses to opt out of the romance he/she must either 1) not talk to that NPC; or 2) endure the romance build-up until they're given the option to reject the NPC's flirtations/advances (which is often an uncomfortable situation, depending on the NPC's response to being rejected) Also, unlike other game features (such as crafting) where you can choose to not engage in it and suffer zero ill effects, there's no such thing as "optional" when it comes to romances. If an NPC is romanceable, then that is what they *are*. There's no toggle for it in the game options screen. So anyone wishing to enjoy a deeply written character's personality (or even their combat skills) has no choice but to endure the romance elements that come pre-packaged with that character. Of course, someone can always come back with: "just because this has always been the case, it doesn't mean that it HAS to be that way...etc". Sure, I suppose that's true. It's not impossible to simply give all romanceable NPCs 2 separate personalty sets and then actually make romance a toggle in the gameplay settings. So if you choose the "romances occur" option in the settings, then all Romanceable NPCs are given "Personality A", and if you choose "romances don't occur" then they're all given "personality B". But I can't think of anything more retarded and gamey than such a design. Or anything more costly (double the writing). You put it in your backpack for some time, until you find some phat loot and remember that it's totally filling up your space. It somehow still lives although you forgot about it for some time (probably ate some crumbs lying around in your backpack) but you decide it's way better to carry another iron sword you found on your enemies and leave it at the next best floor in the church of some priest that prayed to the god of death. Then you go to the romance thread and brag about your superhuman sperm that got the girl to deliver a baby in just 33 days. You open the door, get on the floor and everybody walks the dinosaur. LOL Yep, and as pointed out in the other thread, PoE has a bottomless Deep Stash. You could just stick the baby in the deep stash and forget about it for the rest of the game.

And... the realism argument returns to the discussion....again. Ok, should the player character be allowed to rape an NPC who spurns his/her advances? Should an NPC be allowed to Rape the player character? What about sexually transmitted diseases? Should they be implemented? How about enforced moral/ethical codes for paladins, monks and priests? should the game prohibit those classes from Romances? What about the accurate consequences of face/body generation in the character creation screen? If you create an ugly old, wart-faced character, should the game recognize this and reduce/eliminate the player's chances to successfully romance any NPCs? What about pregnancy and pregnant female player characters resulting from having sex with your LI? Should such characters suffer dexterity/constitution penalties starting at the second trimester and increasing to the point where they can no longer engage in combat until a few weeks after they give birth? And what if they do give birth? Will the game force maternity leave on players who are playing female characters in order to stay at camp/home to nurse their kid? And what happens if this maternity leave coincides with the end game? Will Birthing mothers be unable to be present for the final boss fight?

This is actually a terrific idea. If I was Obsidian, I'd demand a AAA budget in exchange for the implementations of Romances. Say... $50M-100M.

This won't happen anyway, even if PoE did give out XP for kills. There's a level cap.

Just to be pedantic.... Durlag's tower was 8 levels (9 if you count the roof, where the greater Basilisks are). It is not inconceivable that PoE's megadungeon will be designed similarly, where some levels are above-ground floors of a small tower structure.

I think it's a type of cheese. Or maybe it's a slutty wizard. I keep getting that term confused.

<sigh> A portrait did that? I hope this game's lack of romances is blatant and deliberate enough throughout the course of the game to finally shake loose ^^this^^ segment of the fanbase from the IP once and for all. You guys are just as bad as that small group of Turn-based fanatics that came here at the beginning of the kickstarter and raised a ruckus. No I take that back. You're far worse. At least the TB'ers got over it.

As someone with passing knowledge of both Oblivion gameplay mechanics, and Elder Scrolls lore that predates that silly cartoon pic on the last page by about 20 years, I'm not going to concede that it was a mistake. First of all, *Nords* in Oblivion (ie. White people) also receive a -10 Intelligence penalty. It is precisely as Lephys pointed out: Bethesda's lore dictates that these races not excel at magic...which is reserved for white and black ELVES. Second, Redguards are heroic warriors with strict moral codes. they're basically the game's Paladins. This is a significant point, because their white counterparts (NORDS) are routinely portrayed in the gameworld as the opposite of that. They live for battle, then they go back to their mead halls and get drunk.

The Dunmer would disagree with your notion that Redguards are the only race of black people in the Elder Scrolls. If Bethesda was really trying to backhandedly play off of racist stereotypes, I'm not seeing it. For one thing, those Intelligence and Willpower penalties no longer exist (skyrim does not use an attribute system). Also, Redguards are not portrayed as muscular brutes. They're more like Exotic Middle Eastern warriors who employ finesse-based fighting styles (they dual-wield their scimitars...and they wear head scarves) Lastly, We're talking about a world that has Beast Races. A dark skinned human brute still looks human. The same cannot be said for Muscular Lizardmen assassin brutes, or...you know...Furry Cat People who stab you in the back then burglarize your home.

Demon's puke, even.

In Elder Scrolls lore, Orcs are a race of Elves. They were created when a Daedric prince (Boethiah?) ate another Daedric prince and then puked. Malacath came out. Orcs are his offspring. Just thought I throw that out here.