Karkarov

It is based on Unity, they will find a way. I do agree with others though that the lack of official mod/toolset support is actually a far larger foul than the no romance stuff. If you are looking for something to turn into a stretch goal to get more funding forget more outdoor areas, put a modding toolset on the table and I will up my pledge.

No that's exactly what he said. If he wanted to say "we could write a good character romance if we wanted to but we decided the funding would be better spent elsewhere and it did not fit the vision we had for any of our npc's" then he should have said that. Not this, and I quote "... but I don't want to spend time implementing something I'm not confident we will be able to execute at a high level of quality."

Fair statement Junta, but I also fear for the overall quality of writing if Sawyer thinks not one writer on their staff is capable of writing a decent romance. Which is basically what he just said in blunt terms.

And if their main byline had been "we are remaking a game just like Icewind Dale" and not said a word about Baldur's Gate or other good IE games that weren't just long drawn out combat puzzles I would be fine with that. Coincidentally I also would not have backed them for even 1 dollar.

Yeah junta this is my big concern as well. Obsidian has never been good at making my blank slate character feel like an actual character outside of like BG if you ask me. I guess they did okay in planescape but I hate that game for a laundry list of reasons so I can't really say much nice about it. As far as the witcher goes I hope for more of 2 with maybe even more tightened up character and a ton less of 1. I recently started reading the actual books and frankly.... Geralt in the books is a much better character than Witcher 1 Geralt. The games also give you this weird whacked out idea of him as basically being a nympho or something.... in the books you see him actually brush Triss off and say "no not interested you know I am into this other lady shove off...." where as in the games he will basically get it on with anything that is female and says "yes".

You said it. I personally don't really care that much. All evidence says we are playing a "blank slate" already (a character concept I am tired of seeing in story based RPG's) so forcing romance in there may not even work well cause face it... our character will have no real personality. There is not even an indicator that we will get to make background choices that will have minor effects on the game such as a Hill Dwarf getting treated differently from a Forest Elf etc etc. So yeah it doesn't bother me. However. If you asked me to vote in a simple poll no BS no nonsense, "Should romance options be included for the main character in Pillars of Eternity?" Yes or No, I would vote yes. While I don't particularly care and may or may not try such a thing in game many many players DO care. Alfiriel is also dead on correct. BG2 is the king of the IE games and the benchmark most backers will be looking at. BG2 had romances didn't it? In fact BG2 was the game that started the whole RPG's should probably include a romance option thing on PC. Obsidian baked it's own cake on this one I personally think they should perhaps have a slice. Meanwhile the idea that removing romance relationships from even being an option for the main character does not compute to "better and more in depth character relationships". Again, I am sorry many romance haters seem to confuse one sided NPC's and bad writing with "romance is the problem" but no.... the problem is bad writing and bad NPC's. Taking one possible relationship type totally out of the game for the main character actually eliminates an entire "character interaction" option from the game. That is the opposite of "more in depth relationships with characters."

I still don't get why people are so hard core against this? Why is it IE game fanboi thinks romances are always bad when all you ever do is complain about romance options you felt were poorly written? Romance options in Eternity can definitely work, lots of players also like having them around. I just don't get why you would purposefully not include something that WAS included in some of the IE games like the much vaunted BG2. Especially when that something is considered an integral part of the experience to some people. Just make sure they are well written and play out well, make it so it can be more than just your npc followers, and of course let it be optional. That and give it to a writer who actually likes that sort of stuff obviously. That said.... yo Alpha Protocol's romances were awesome, your character clearly was just doing whatever he had to to score and half the other characters were getting it on basically because they just liked cheap sex. That is what a spy movie romance is supposed to be about gents!

Come now Hassat this is a poll with less than 1500 responses. I doubt it is an effective measure of that. Sure europeans are into RPG's, sure the Wizardry license is held by a japanese company.... But let's not forget D&D was invented in America and Wizardy (as well as every other first person RPG) started in Canada/the US as well. Meanwhile I personally am from somewhere that is definitely not Sweden.

As long as they don't push it back out of 2014 I am fine with it showing up in november or december. But if they start talking 2015 release I am going to do some hefty chin scratching.

Just to pull this part out specifically... This is people being wrong, not the games problem. There is no such thing as an "evil" Commander Shepard. Renegade Shepard is simply a guy who knows his goals and his mission and is willing to do some occasionally crazy things to achieve that mission. He is not going to nuke an entire city because it might delay the reaper attack a few hours. He is not going to outright shoot a random Salarian in the head because it was just easier to do that than ask him to hand his security card over. Super duder Renegade Shepard isn't evil, he is just kind of a jerk. Big difference. That said my favorite D&D character I played and fleshed out more than any other was quite frankly one of the most evil dudes you will ever meet. The funny thing is on the "street" level most average people in his stomping grounds would have called him a hero etc etc. They don't care that he once thwarted an assassination attempt on his life by using a town drunk as a stand in (resulting in the drunk dying), they don't care that he found the bandit hide out by brutally torturing 3 guys, it doesn't bother them that he got rid of the barbarian tribe near the border by poisoning the small lake they drew water from and their food supply killing tons of of their children old people random wildlife.... They only care he killed the assassins, took out the bandit group, and drove off the barbarians. Not to mention lots and lots of other dodgy things he got up to.

Well my concerns... 1: Totally agree on balance. Playing MMX recently really enforces this. I have a character I switched to duel wielding when I found a relic sword even though I started him as a two hander character. Eventually I found a relic two hand sword and tried to switch back only to fine out the damage/power difference was huge. I literally did like 25-30% more damage if both my duel wield weapons hit versus the two hander and with how blocks/missing works duel wielding is better as well because it is rare for both swords to fail to connect. Where as with the two hander if I miss or get blocked that's it, no second try for partial damage. Duel wielding is flat better unless you have a bad ass two hander and junk one handers. I definitely hope they avoid this sort of nonsense in Eternity. 2: Loot..... well sorta maybe. I agree BG2 went too monty haul especially in the expansion. BG1 though? Way too sparse. Seriously if you were a say.... long sword specialist you could find Varscona like 4 hours into the game and guess what? It was the best long sword in the game. I think they need to find a happy middle ground. I shouldn't be changing my gear dungeon to dungeon but I shouldn't only be upgrading my weapon twice for the whole game either. 3: Ending/pacing.... We know this is meant to have a sequel. It is absolutely fine if the game does not "end" but simply cuts and says "and now their adventure REALLY began!" aka like Mass Effect 1, BG 1, etc etc. The story of game 1 needs to end, but the over arching plot needs to be unresolved you feel me~??!?!?!? That said I hope they can build it up like the fights from those previously two mentioned games. Both of those battles were against antagonists you had plenty of scores to settle with and had been dealing with most of the game... you should know your enemy. I do not want to down The Big Bad only to find out he was actually working for Vegeta the whole time. *cough*final fantasy9*cough* 4: Talents/abilities just need to be about purpose and use. I would rather have a mage with 15 spells that I use every so often than a mage with 30 spells where half of them I go the whole game and maybe cast 2-3 times. If an ability is not going to see regular use don't create it, it is just too situational and a waste of time. Likewise we don't know enough about Talent trees yet but lets hope they leave some room for depth so the Armor Wearing mage is viable with the two hand axe fighter tank and the crossbow rogue.

I like Dragon's Crown as much as the next guy, hell was playing it not two hours ago. That said I cant be the only person who is mildly perturbed by the direction this thread has taken? Let's stick to armor instead of idiotic arguments trying to justify why a Japanese guy likes draw chicks with big breasts.

I always find this stuff sort of funny. You do know Dragon Age Origins is (unless ME3 topped it) the highest selling Bioware game to date... I am willing to bet it sold more copies in it's first three months than Baldur's Gate did in it's first two years.

In all fairness if it takes a rote copy paste of BG2 to be "in the spirit of IE games" I don't know why anyone feeling that would back Eternity. The D&D license was never part of the deal so D&D rules were never going to be used. Also different does not = worse. To me it isn't even about real time with pause or isometric nonsense. It is about the sense of place, the world building, the story, the party dynamic with unique characters, and the small adventuring party based strategy combat. Frankly the IE games didn't even deliver all that well on the last one since I won almost all fights with the same 2-3 tactics every time. Is this going to be game of the year? Will Gamespot laugh at the Witcher 3 in it's rush to praise Eternity? No, probably not. Bear in mind that doesn't mean it won't be a good game that delivers on what the kickstarter promised. When you guys see real evidence to suggest the game is a flop feel free to post, but all we have up to now is some unknown "journalist" making iffy not even that bad comments based on a alpha.

Well here is the problem... The names are already fine. The only one I could see people arguing over is Rogue but until someone comes with with a legitimately better choice (not easy) I would stick with it.

By "clear majority of the backers" you mean the less than 1% of backers who commented/voted, right? As Tony Montana once said; "don't get high on your own supply". Also, I totally support golden bejeweled codpieces. Hell, Im wearing one right now. Well when that vocal 1% is almost 100% behind "realistic" then yeah, I think it is fair to say that's probably what most want. There is also the fact that obsidian has already said that's what they are doing. *looks at your codpiece* Compensating for something ?

.... I feel like I am at a hair salon in a Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Obsidian has stated repeatedly they are going for realistic armor designs for Eternity. This is good and what a clear majority of the backers wanted it seems like if you look at that massive huge old thread. Just let em do their thing. Will there be boobplate? No. Will the female armors look slightly different than the male armors? I hope so because realistically speaking they should have slight design differences.

You're missing the point; it's more like calling something "red" but it's green with some purple tint on one side Didn't thought that my humble remark would become such a fuss. People do that all the time in the real world though Messier. They just happen to be color blind.

You guys know Stan Lee just called the stuff that made Bruce Banner the Hulk Gamma Rays cause it sounded cool right? Don't be so anal. This is a fantasy universe made by Obsidian they can call the dwarves whatever they want it is fine, our real world definitions don't apply.

I love the elder scrolls games myself but people need to remember there are different types of RPG's. Skyrim is not about the lore, story, or even necessarily the world around you. Skyrim is about simulation and becoming immersed in your character in that world.... it is literally a game about your character. The goal is to get you involved in that role and get you active in the game world itself without limits so you can do and be anything you want because really the game is about you. Any story beats you might see are just backdrops to encourage you to get involved they aren't really "the point" of the game. Eternity is not about character simulation. It is about the world, it's lore and history, and the overall story arc that is taking place and your characters place in that story. In Eternity the game is not about you, it is about the story and how you progress through it. Hence it makes a ton of sense to have gated content where if you choose X then it means you can't do Y. It is more logical from a story perspective and it gives good reasons for a replay. The trick for the devs is to make the choices compelling and not simply brain dead "this is clearly the better/more interesting path" decisions many games that go this route do wrong. As long as you have solid fun gameplay and and the story/choices have real impact and weight people will come back for a second look most of the time. Even if they don't it still leads to a better game upfront for a story driven RPG.

So what you are saying is that Ben Stein is actually Ferris Bueller?

I was going to say you may be blaming bad coders/programming on the engine. No engine has more respect out there than the Unreal Engine from Epic for example but that didn't help Too Human did it? You want to look up a game with a crap reputation and terrible reviews look no further than that one. It's problems definitely weren't from the engine. In MMX land.... The people making those reviews must have crap PC's. I see some drags in the heavy forest areas of the overworld that's about it. I certainly get no lag in shops. The worst bug I have run into at this point is fairly often now I will get in combat, with the fight, etc.... but the combat music just keeps playing. That sort of gets annoying after a few minutes and sadly has to be fixed by quitting the game and rebooting from scratch.

I concur with this but I still don't think Class Specific quests would hurt. Obviously we all get a stronghold though so that won't be involved in this case.

I will admit I am a little scared my dream of a tanky and dangerous two hand sword wielding plate wearing monster may not be possible in this game. Dragon Age Origins will forever have my gratitude for actually letting me pull it off, the IE games less so because you couldn't really be "tanky" in those games in the traditional sense. We will see. Funny thing is in Guild Wars 2 I played a guy in poofy pants who duel wielded ;\ They were still swords though!

Actually I am playing Might and Magic Legacy and it performs just fine. Too many people bought it when it was in open beta and reviewed based on the beta. I never played more than an hour or two until the final version was out. Other than a strange audio bug I ran into last night where sound effects stopped and some funktastic textures on a couple book shelves I have had no issues. As for double fine.... There is a reason I didn't back their game and it isn't due to it being an adventure game. They can't budget for crap, their games are historically niche/highly average, and they prioritize being internet cool, hipster, and trendy over things like.... good gameplay. I am sorry, they suck. The reason they had to go to kickstarter is because the business people/publishers have long since realized Tim Schafer has great ideas but no clue how to make a game under budget or manage a project. Giving him money is literally asking for a profit loss.