Stun

That's probably because "diluting the gaming experience" is not what romances tend to do. Instead, they just change the experience. They turn it into something wrong and out of place. I'll give you a quick example. Not a great one, but it gets the point across. BG2. You're deep in Fiirkrag's dungeon and the game did a wonderful job building up the tension and the atmosphere. You enter Fiirkrag's lair. You hear the low rumbling..... THEN SUDDENLY, OUT OF THE BLUE, VICONIA SPEAKS UP: Viconia: I'm wondering this. Have you ever entertained the notion of marriage? WTF. I'm about to fight a dragon, and the game just destroyed the mood for me. Wait, check that. the ROMANCE just destroyed the mood, as they almost always do.

Or, it's an attempt at an intellectual discussion of the aspect of romance in a cRPG, which *gasp*, is what PoE is! Fallout New Vegas and South Park Stick of Truth are also cRPGs. So why is this thread here, instead of on one of those forums? Oh wait. I know why. Because the OP's point was to whine about Obsidian's decision to not have Romances in PoE and to put up an "intelligent" argument for why PoE should have them. There's a huge and obvious difference of course, between discussing weapon and armor concepts for a game that will have weapons and armor, vs. discussing Romances for a game that will not have any Romances. Duh.

In other words, the thread's subject is nothing more than general gaming discussion. It has nothing to do with Pillars of Eternity nor is it meant to have anything to do with Pillars of Eternity. So... why's it here in the Pillars of Eternity forum?

Thank you. Watching Lephys take this already mind-numbingly mundane topic into a tangent even less interesting, was getting pretty annoying. Yep. Exactly. And we got hints of that a little while back during the big backer site roll out when Josh was being interviewed by the various gaming media outlets. Whenever they'd ask a story or companion related topic he'd give a quick smile and say: No comment. They really ARE deliberately keeping a CIA-like silence on PoE's story. Good for them. I love every kind of spoiler when it comes to an anticipated game....except when it comes to story plots.

That is precisely what he's saying. And what other people here and on the other thread have been saying: No romances means we're gonna get shallow NPCs and weak interactions. As ridiculous and demonstrably false as such a claim is, it's still being made repeatedly by many people on this forum. I remember debating with someone on the other thread who swore up and down that no one is really arguing such a thing, even as we sit here and watch a bunch of drama queens making such claims every time they post.

No. Romances are more than that because to be done right they must linger and be NPC exclusive They're an island of their own. Period.

LOL No, man. Video game romances are not like crafting. They're like... your girlfriend wanting "cuddle time" with you when you've got your friends over and you're watching the super bowl. Doesn't mean you can't have a girlfriend, Or that you can never "cuddle" or that these things aren't "interactions". It just means you don't do cuddle time with your girlfriend when you've got your friends over and you're watching the super bowl.

Again, huge difference. You can design the best interaction mechanics implementations in the world, but if the romance dialogue itself is poorly written, then the romance fails. This is why video game romances almost always suck. The Devs will either nail the writing and fail the mechanics. Or they'll nail the mechanics then half-ass the writing. Or they'll nail the writing, nail the mechanics, then produce something that conflicts with the existing lore, or the setting, or the character's personality. Or... they'll get everything right.... only to realize the Obvious: Romance-types are not a one-size-fits-all. Instead, They're like flavors of Ice cream. Not everyone likes mint chocolate chip. Some people prefer vanilla. or chocolate. or Neopolitan. So then, to fix that problem a game would need to have several different romances. And suddenly you're looking at a budget and word-count that no Kickstarter RPG can ever meet.... unless it's actually a dating simulator. And that takes us right back to what Josh said on this thread: They're not doing romances because they don't have the resources to do them RIGHT.

There's a HUGE difference between correctly implementing a skill and writing a good romance. The former is just a matter of dealing with tangible, dry mechanics across the board, while the latter is an extremely arbitrary task for creative writers that must depend on correctly tugging emotional heartstrings and navigating the billion different, and conflicting social norms to produce something believable and within the existing personality of the NPC they've already written. This is why Brothels work so well in RPGs. You don't have to do any of that. Everyone knows what a good Harlot does.

Because these people would rather have crappy romances than no romances at all. I was going to write up a giant post about this, and about how this very mindset of adopting and accepting low standards is a cancer on the entire industry, but I found myself no longer caring about this beat-up dead horse.

No, the reasons I refer to BG2's romances as Primitive and trivial is because: 1) the mechanics are very basic and one dimensional (you cannot initiate dialogue; you cannot influence the relationship in any way other than picking the right dialogue options when the game presents them to you. The romance's pacing and direction is entirely scripted based on time and 100% dependent on the NPC in question) Also, aside from the romance dialogues, which the game forces, you cannot talk to the NPC at all. and 2) Trivial. They're really nothing more than flavor. The NPC does not act any different, nor do events in the game change in any way. (for example. Jaheira will still have issues with the Harpers, will still get cursed, will still get visits from Elminster, etc. if you DON'T romance her. Don't get me wrong. I thought BG2's romances were great, and at the time, they bordered on revolutionary. But lets call a spade a spade. BG2 style romances would be mocked by Promancers themselves if they came out in a game today. YOUR tastes and expectations have evolved and changed, whether you admit it or not.

First off, they cited ALL the Infinity engine games. That includes Icewind Dale, not just BG2 and Torment. And despite your apparent distaste of it, Icewind Dale was an all time classic - loved and cherished as such by the same fans who sing praises for BG2 and PS:T. PoE can only gloriously benefit from an IWD influence. Second, a cross-breed of NWN2 and Icewind dale would be a decent game, IMO. But that's not what we're getting, mainly because both of those games are strictly linear RPGs and PoE will be focusing on exploration. Third, what exactly makes you think we're not getting a BG2 influenced game? Oh wait let me guess: No romances. Because there's no romances then it can't be anything like BG2.... right? LOL BG2 was SO not about its primitive (and trivial) romances. It was about everything else. Or to put it another way: BG2 was not a love story. It was a combat centric, high-fantasy RPG.

LOL what you're describing is more like the NWN2 experience. Because that's exactly how they approached the issue when that game was in development. They made no mention at all about any romances during the development cycle and the pre-release hype up. Then the game came out. Then we all started playing it. Then we started noticing that Neeshka was getting jealous whenever we'd talk to a Female NPC, so people began thinking that she must be a Romance option. But then the game throws Shandra at us. It makes her the obligatory "damsel in distress" AND the mandatory party member, AND you get to buy her a gift (her portrait). So suddenly people began thinking that she must be a romance option. But then she gets killed. Then before you realize what's going on, Elanee comes out of nowhere, informs you that she's been stalking you since you were a baby, then asks you to go to bed with her. And everyone is like: WTF!

Oh, I've complained about Badly designed friendships. One game in particular (a Bioware game, even!) was filled with badly written friendships: Neverwinter Nights. Sharwin, Linu, Tiomi, and a few of the other cohorts (which I can't even name because I've completely forgotten them) were all terribly written. Each of those characters had their own quests in every chapter. Each had the standard "thank you for helping me out and being such a good friend! blah blah" lines that they repeated over and over.... yet it all seemed hollow.... due to mediocre writing. But we don't make it a point to talk about those things because... well for one, no one's actually done a thread here entitled "The case for friendships" and two... because they're really not worth talking about. When an NPC friendship fails, one simply dismisses that NPC as "boring" or "not interesting", and moves on. This doesn't happen with Romances because romances attempt to go deeper with the emotions... so when they fail, they end up annoying the player a bit more. if that makes any sense.

There isn't going to be one of those either! lol

To be fair, the only reason it "seems" that way is because the updates from the last 6 months have been specifically devoted to displaying game art, game UI, class and combat mechanics. It's deliberate. Josh and co have been clear in their intentions to stay tight-lipped on narrative and story details. And by the way, Bioware did the same thing during BG2's development. We were told that our party members would have "feelings".... and NOTHING else. It was only after the game was released that we all discovered just how different from IWD and BG1 the game really was.

You probably weren't aiming this at me but this statement of yours is unequivocally untrue. My dislike of Bioware is a relatively recent phenomenon and is the sole result of Dragon Age 2, which was such a dismal failure and an insult to the genre in so many ways that I forgot it even had romances. But time heals wounds, as they say, so instead of flat out declaring that I'm not going to ever buy DA:I, I'll simply say that whether or not I get DA:I will depend on how good PoE is (since they're both scheduled to come out at about the same time). If PoE ends up being the game I've been waiting for then I won't bother with DA:I. Won't need to. (The only reason why I Bought Dragon Age Origins in the first place was because they advertised it as the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate. And the only reason I bought Dragon Age 2 was because Dragon Age Origins was actually pretty good.) But on the off chance that PoE ends up being a cheap dud, then yes, I'll probably find myself wandering off, looking to get my RPG fix somewhere else, and that will probably cause me to go out and buy DA3.

It's a valid Observation, but I'm not sure it's universal truth that Romances automatically = more memorable characters. People will remember NPCs who are well written and who are prolifically represented in a video game. (read: lots of lines either spoken or text) Whether they're romanceable or not makes little difference. Romances are certainly a way to make a character memorable. I don't think anyone would disagree with that. What IS in dispute is whether it's the best way. I happen to be in the camp of people who say it's not. And for my argument, I can say this. In my years of gaming the characters I remember most are: 1)Irenicus 2)Morte 3)Fall-From-Grace 4)Serevok 5)Neeshka 6)Viconia 7) Roche ^And only one of these is romanceable.

Bah! Don't need an NPC romance for that. Many of us who backed this game, and who have waited years and years for it will be getting a huge Dopamine shot to the aorta the moment we get our hands on the game itself. No, It's a neutral statement. They neither promised nor hinted during the kickstarter that they were going to do Romances. And for those of us who have been following Josh's comments on Mindspring/twitter etc. It was pretty obvious very early on that this game likely wouldn't have them. BTW, only 1 (one) of the IE games had Romances (two if you decide to define the Annah Flirt session as a romance in PS:T) so even citing the IE game name drops as an "inference" doesn't work.

^the difference between that one and the other two is that at least the Saints Row one is trying to be funny. So it works. The other two are just...bad. They fail so terribly at what they're trying to do that it just feels embarassing.... What's that term? Uncanny Valley?

It's twice as cringe-worthy when viewed in context. Bioware messed up horribly, like they did with everything in DA2. They put a threesome in DA:O and it worked rather well, so their mindset of course was "hey, lets do it again for the sequel, but lets make it more in-your-face awesome so the kiddies will love it even more!" IT FAILED. It induced nausea instead.

How in the world does one conclude that since there's no romances then that means there will be less group interaction? That doesn't even qualify as pessimism. It's just a flat out complete red herring. Romances in video games usually do the complete opposite. they tend to LIMIT group interation, not add to it, since by definition, a romance is a series of personal interactions between TWO people, while Group Interaction thrives when there's more than 2 interacting.

Deionarra doesn't count. It's not a romance. It's a memory of a romance. And yes, at that moment (in the crystal, after you deal with your other incarnations) when Deionarra appears and you tell her that you've "grown to love her", it feels.... Cheap. The emotion isn't Really LOVE. It's remorse masquerading as love. The game does a brilliant job clubbing you over the head, over and over and over, with guilt from what the Practical incarnation did to her. Yea, but that's the thing. No one can do romances well in video games. In fact, I've been burned enough to become fully disillusioned. I've come to the realization that if given a choice between a superficial "sex-based" video game relationship, and a romance-based video game relationship, I'll take the former. Because with the former, there's at least the eye-candy factor to fall back on. Case in Point: Witcher 2's sex vs. Mask of the Betrayer's Romances. Winner: Witcher 2. I'll take my experiences with Ves and Trish, over anything Obsidian gave us with Safiya and Gann. Well, I can't speak for the others, but that doesn't apply to me. I've given my specific reasons for disliking the Romances in the RPG's I've played and ultimately the reasons I didn't like them is that they felt either forced, or mechanical. Forced: The LI confronts you and flat out says: "I love you... do you love me? Please answer with a Yes or No. Mechanical: The system in place is what determines the success or failure of the romance. (the more gifts you give, the more they love you) ^there's nothing else. And it's interesting to note that People are citing PS:T as having "Good Romances". But if that's your citation then you're in the Anti-romance camp and you don't even realize it. PS:T didn't HAVE romances. It had 2 flirt sessions and an EX-romance that had to be resolved.

Now that's a good question. It probably will. The theme will be... souls. And I suppose they could work Romances into such a theme. You know, where you fall in love with an NPC and then you become "soulmates", and then some wizard does soul magic on your LI, and you two wake up in the morning and suddenly start arguing like enemies until you have to draw your weapons. :::cue combat music::: lol

Contributed to the story? No, my opinion wouldn't change, except for maybe changing to be more anti-romance. Moving Romances to the front and center, to the point where they become elements/branches of the main plot... well, that IS what Bioware's been doing in their games these last few years. And the so-called "anti-romance" folks have already voiced their opinions on Bio-romances in this thread. I have a better question. Why does it have to be a Romance? Why aren't we asking for better friendships instead? Is a close friendship/bond with a fellow party member simply not "cool" or "interesting" enough? Does it not count unless there's kissing, "love" and other tropes that work better in chick-flicks than they do in combat-centric RPGs?