Rink

I am refering to the last page of part 2: @jarpie I would like to see a bromance too. Would really look forward to seeing that and indeed don't remember that being a topic in a game before at all. I think if you made a non-biased vote about romances in the game u would get more votes in favour of them than the paladin and bards raised in their vote I also don't think that it will be a minority trying them if they are implemented, of course ALL people in this topic would try them, some to say they suck, others to really see what they have to offer. The fact that romances are such a big topic imho shows that people are using the feature. That alone is of course no reason to implement them. Has to make sense with characters and story. @Loranc I am sure the information will turn up sooner or later. There is so much emotion here, someone has to find it. And your information about the main character only makes me even more curious, because now he sounds like the nameless one. *sighs*

@Jarpie I think alone that fact that nobody said that they hate writing romances makes your question a bit biased. But if you want me to answer a biased question with a yes or no: no, I wouldn't force them because I am a buyer of their product and I have no way of forcing anything on anybody. But maybe you misunderstand me: I do not want romances just for the sake of having them in the game. I want interactivity with companions and thus not having all romantic aspects (and other emotions) artificially removed when they make sense.. @Loranc, thanks I am very curious now. Maybe he will add a romance with the monk at least just to shut us up now though :D

@jarpie I already answered that question of yours #484 and you even quoted it It doesn't sound like he wants to exclude romances. Actually it sounds exactly like what I and others wanted in this topic. :D Thanks, I am happy now.

@Loranc I share your view about low intelligence writing, because usually you have to forfeit too much if you want to play such a character and then have to search the changes, because often it isn't the whole dialogue that is changed but only bits and pieces. I still think romances can be handled well and I would consider the P:T-"romances" (if you want to call them that) to be exactly that Also since many will not really call them romances at all, maybe there is a place for something similar in the game, who knows :D any sources where was said what you quoted here, anyone? Because I am sure someone would have rubbed that in my face pages ago :D @Jarpie No I did say if you take your "ressources"-argument seriously, then you would shoot against other features than romances, like for example the low-int-dialogues. My diagram would look like this, so for me both reactions are with emotions to what you did. For me romances can be exactly that. Minsc: Hamster in microwave yes --> Friendship reaction angry --> dialogue accordingly Hamster in microwave no --> Friendship reaction happy --> dialogue accordingly NPC2: Comfort when sad yes --> Friendship reaction affection --> dialogue accordingly (possible romance much later) Comfort when sad no --> Friendship reaction distant --> dialogue accordingly

Of course if you are right about the devs telling that they dislike to write romances then the whole discussion is futile, not because of ressources or anything but because there will not be any :D You are correct, low int and low charisma dialogue will affect the whole game, but it is like romances in the way that it is optional (you don't have to play a character like that if you dont want to) and is even more redundant than romances because you have to redo all dialogue accordingly and you will never see both things in one playthrough (thus reducing content for people that play the game one time only). That's exactly why it costs so many ressources to do and romances compared to that are nothing in terms of ressources. But what I wanted to say is: if you have a solid npc-pc interaction then it is strange not to implement romances. Because let's say you have Minsc in your party and you decide to take his hamster and put him into a microwave, then this character will because of your actions be very different to you in future, will he not? That will affect the dialogue as well, does it not? How is that different from someone that is different to you because he/she likes you? I think IF they want to make good companions then this kind of reactivity for your actions or dialogue-choices has to be there anyway and ressources for writing the dialogue have to be invested. Do you want to cut all reactivity of npcs? Or do you just have something against the romantic emotions but are fine with others? ... I love boo and no hamsters were harmed during the writing of this post. I promise.

@Jarpie, well thank you. *awkward silence* Aaaand what part of that post was dealing with my arguments and statements ? To take your arguments - well the ones I can see as arguments: - they have to plan it: sure they have to plan it just like any other kind of human relation it comes from the character of the npc if a romantic relation is something this person would tend to and if so under what circumstances. But that counts for every other thing the npc-pc-relation can include. If you want to make that npc argueing against your good deeds then u have to forsee that as well. How is that an argument again? - it takes time and ressources: yes it does, like any other dialogue this also takes time. Like any npc dialogue, like main story dialogue, like low int and low charisma dialogue. - It takes time and ressources because of .... : see above. - First of all nobody said they hate writing romances. Secondly if ressorces really are your argument there is no way you can support something that takes this much more ressources than romances and is clearly optional as well even if they like writing it.. If you do not shoot against it, then it shows that your argument of ressources isn't that important to you.

I also would suspect that beta-testing 1 month before shipping may be a bit short. Or is that normal if you want to fix the bugs before shipping the game? I think they said that preproduction/production/postproduction takes 1/3 of the time each, so I guess your postproduction falls short. Hmm and I guess they will close the physical tiers on paypal but leave a selection of non-limited non-physical awards open, because they do not need to have them produced. Other kickstarterprojects also left that open and I guess in 1.5 years time there will be a lot of people buying the game with us as marketing-people getting updates all the time.

Well in the end Obsidian will have to see if it is worth it making the people happy that are pro-romance or not. If a decision against romances would make you "anti" guys happy (what it probably would), then I can just scratch my head and ask myself if you are not just against it because you want to do something against the people that like that kind of feature. It is like the (now probably sad) anti-paladin fraction, if you don't like it, don't play it, but if so many people like it, throw them their bone (that sounds wrong now but you know what I mean :D). If you really worry about ressources in optional features go where a lot of ressources are needed - for example redoing whole dialog for low int or low charisma. probably 50 times more dialog affected, right? I see it like Uomoz or Estelindis. Romances are just one possibility of human relations but not the only one. Most people here that I read just want the companions to behave believable and develop interesting dialogue and maybe emotions of all kind for each other rather than being a IWD-party of artificial robots. And I am fully on that side. Romances are not a must but in a "grown up RPG" it would maybe be strange if they didn't happen naturally. They do everywhere else.

If they decide on this I can live with it. But I didn't like the board in the witcher games because you had no motivation to read the text and get into the story why you had to fetch that things. You knew it was just about fetching X of Y right away when you searched something on the board anyway. I think that is much better done if told in person by an NPC imho, where u can tell a story and "disguise" the fetch-quest with something interesting.

It is true that it is a problem in rpgs that women are often not wearing much or armor that is too revealing to be practical. I wonder if it would be really different if lots of women played RPGs though. That doesn't mean that there is any relevance for this topic in P:E. Ever seen Annah from Planescape Torment? She looks like this. Doesn't really matter if she looks like in Docs signature the whole game long, right? And the question I would ask is: would you be able to identify her as a woman at all if she didn't look like that? :D

It is strange to feel so "mainstream" here in this forums :D Planescape: Torment is my favorite RPG and I would like P:E to be something similar, mixed with some elements from BG2. I also liked the Chrono series very much for story and music and Vampire: Bloodlines for the races and characters (and the ghosthouse!) but this are different type of games.

I would have agreed with you when I was first playing BG2, because BG1 gave you a sandbox-feeling of "I can go everywhere" in a very big world and I could master my adventures while I am not in a dungeon (I thought that to be a small revolution back then). On most of those maps you would have died if you did though and you had to find out what maps are for you buy trial and error but that was part of the thrill and it was a freedom I liked a lot. But then most places were very empty and there were only between zero and 1 quest on a big map and you than had to find that one quest or just get lost in hordes of monsters. I didn't care, because the maps were so beautiful and I wanted to get every secret there is. But today, so many years after, I think BG2 actually made it a bit better. I would have loved to have more maps on the main map where you can just explore, but the maps that were there were filled with content, the characters you could find filled with story and dialogue and there were still enough secrets and quests to discover, dungeons to find and artefacts to be looted. I think I would like both to have regions that are there to explore but even more places that get "unlocked" by the story. For me the bg1-style degree of freedom appered again in other games like Guild Wars 2, Skyrim or Fallout 3 and Fallout NV and I still like it but there are just so many games like that nowadays that I need more reason to still have fun exploring than just great graphics. I need more story bound to exploring. I am very curious about what others think though.

I also have nothing against some fetch quests here and there when it is done nicely with a story like in the games of old. I don't mind collecting iron ore and a magic artefact so the smith is able to make me a new shield he always wanted to make. I also don't mind collecting roses so a bard that is currently busy writing a crappy song/poem is able to give it to his loved one just to see him fail miserably and being rewarded with the music instrument. I even go out and get a lot of wolf-pelts if I see a family that is freezing under a bridge in winter. Not every quest has to be very well written, but I think if a quest makes us think about a problem or a reward and not the fetching itself, then we wouldn't even notice that it is one :D

yea, if most people cannot enjoy it, then there shouldn't be a lot of time spent on it. So I myself would just take already animated animals (that are needed in other contexts), give it different color than in the game and make it walk behind you. I think they said, that there will be just the pet and no comments in game or gameplay elements whatsoever with it (What I guess makes it quite worthless, unless you like to talk to yourself about Kassiopeia the mute turtle that is crawling behind you the whole game long) and nobody seems to notice. I would rather see having a bit more reactivity to it and including it for all people though. I personally just want a way to put the thing somewhere when it is going on my nerves because it always steps on my death body with one foot and grins in triumph after I was killed by a fireball and it was not.

@Loranc of course there may be some parts where the romance wasn't perfect but I found it remarkable in a game-relationship that if you jump into bed too early with someone that has been abused a lot in her life, this may have bad consequences (granted: it was a bit "unfair" though). Especially because I also chose the wrong turn there and had to reload.. You couldn't finish the romance in your first half hour, because there was a "cooldown" after romance and some romance-steps where programmed to be in certain chapters, so you had to wait until you were in that chapter. For me the romance really was something that was parallel to the game (and lived longer than the final boss!) and I was always eager to see it develop and had to wait for next step never knowing when it would arrive. I loved that, because it gave me a second independent storyline to the other one. Of course it is great if they put all other games to shame with their romances. With my gaming experience my expectations are lower I think: I personaly am happy if they are able to make something like P:T or BG2. Something that is creative, feels right for the character and deepens the experience without being a cheap (if sex and a family doesn't make sense with a character, then don't do it or let the character live through a struggle accordingly) and they put 99% of all other games to shame already.

@Loranc Can you show us a romance that is well written in your opinion to compare? I thought Aerie romance was quite well written and I think I have never seen better execution in games (apart from the relationships where people do argue over if it is a romance at all or not). You may or may not like the kind of character she is, but the romance just fits her character. Of course if you take out just some lines it may seem strange, but if you go through the dialogue from start to finish.. well maybe I just have a different opinion.

That is what I would like as well. I would like party-NPCs to be more than straw-puppets and develop some sort of relation with the main character, with romantic relationships being one of things possible with some of the companions where this makes sense. I think this does not only have to be depending on what I do as main character though but should depend highly of what NPC that is, his character and what he wants for adventuring with you. I also like it when the party develops s dynamic of its own. For example: one partymember reacts like an "omega", many things you will decide as leader will be wrong for him and he will tell you and other partymembers just that and that he knows better and would do a better job (clearly this guy would need some advantages as well to make him tolerable, maybe if he is really funny?) or that he slays more monsters than you and you are just lazy. Now another partymember may also be sceptical if you are up to the task and if you have both in your party, they will not as much shoot at you and your decisions but starting a war against each other to who the better leader would be. Or one female character may not really be interested in you but if you have another female partymember with you that respects you very much (maybe too much to be interested in a romantic relationship), then this character will start focusing on you more because it gets a competition. Things like that would make the game feel more real, because then the main character wouldn't always be the center of the universe with what he does but it would seem like they react on each other as well as you. I think opposition may be that extensive, because there were lots of romances in games that (although they probably didn't cost a lot of ressources) weren't good. I like things like with Fall from Grace (or slightly less with Annah) in P:T where u don't even know, if this is something like a romance or not, because it is just a very complicated (but very uncommon and interesting) relationship between Nameless One and them and there isn't a popup "this is a romance dialogue, so be careful what you are doing" like in bg2 with music and all. Enjoyed Aeries romance as well though The ressources thing: Of course most content should be there and visible in every playthrough to avoid having lots of ressorces invested in parts that many players never will be able to see. Now they already confirmed low intellect and charisma dialogue (something most of us probably will never see, because we don't play the game a second time - and we were branded by P:T and Fallout not to take a character with Int. below average on those adventures) and multiple options to solve quests. Maybe they make a timebudget of all those things that you will only see one part of it in the first playthough and splitting those ressources up between them depending on how often they will be used and how important they are to the gameplay. That would make sense so the game will not end up being to short because of too many options.

If I calculated correctly it should be at 14 levels. Not that it really matters anymore :D

If others are curious just go here and click on posts: http://forums.obsidian.net/user/42180-dlux/ I also don't see the problem. Sure it is sad if someone leaves the project that contributed a lot to the community, but there is just no way to please everyone. I personaly will still kill many monsters, because even if you don't get xp, you can still get drops from them. And I surely would not want to miss them

I don't like ads at all. I can understand if ads appear in free versions of a game where u can buy the game to get rid of them (like in games for the mobile phone) but that is where my tolerance of ads pretty much ends. There may be some games, where I think it isn't a big problem (like in soccer-games, also in real soccer matches there are always ads on the sideline), but still I would rather see gamedevelopers making fun of ads instead of taking money for making real productplacement in their games. so I hope they will check all names that are implemented in the game very carefully for hidden advertisments.

I think the problem will solve itself in some hours, because then kickstarter will be over. Everyone paid for the not yet existing "game" how the developers described it and people here have no way of using their pledge money to reinforce their ideas. Of course it is a bit a new thing with people seing themselves as shareholders instead of customers, although they/we are nothing else, we buy a product and the possibilty to say what we think and want and NOT the right to have our ideas in it. But I am sure the devs can handle it and I don't see any difference if the demanding person is a Obsidian Order member or not.

Well I am sure that publishers will wait for the release of the games to see how sales will be and I myself also do not know how big the market is for such games and if all the fans already bought the game now or if there will be millions of copies sold after the release as well. I hope it is the case, but I just do not know. I am not sure, but I think that publishers do also invest more in a game than just development costs and I imagine that this other costs usually are quite comparable between different games. So they have their own costs (people that work together with the developers, bring in their own ideas, make quality control of the game, make budget control, marketing (presentations, interviews, development of sales concept and documents, development of parts of the game that will just be early marketing for webpages and gametesters, production costs of boxed copies of the game, upholding who makes sales where in the world etc etc). And if those costs are 3 M for the project with development budget of 50 M they may still be 1.5 M for the game with 2 M investment. So the profit %age would be a lot higher with the game with 50 M development budget. Of course bigger may also be better than 10 small projects, but I think there would be small publishers that would also take a project with less potential if it also has less costs IF the predicted profit-% was high enough.

We can still dance, goal is reached with last numbers of 106'000 Dollars on paypal Also didn't think goal was possible, but feels great to have reached it. Thanks to the community, and thanks to the developers. I expect beards and cats as a thank-you-gift! And can't wait to see the pnp-round I missed this night.

I would make it like this: when you create your own character, you have the possibilty (with warning or something) to access the adventures hall with a button and just hire other guys for free (so basically the icewinddale-system, you knew that guys before and want to adventure with them), as soon as you are in game there will be consequences if you want to hire guys from the adventurers hall like costs or quests so it doesn't break immersion and people will not just be like dogs that waited for you all their life to let you take them to their death for free. If people want to break immersion, because they want to rock through the game with powergaming they can be able to, I don't mind. But if I come across the hall in game, then I would like it to fit the game and be logical.

I would like to see some ways to specialise your mage. I don't care if this is done with creation of the mage (like partially in BG) or with a skillpoint system (like in many other games). It just would be nice to see mages differ and not every mage have the same spell arsenal and being able to use all spells. I am not specially fond of magic myself (i am more of a lotr guy that thinks magic should be used a lot less than in classic RPGs) but I think it adds a lot more to the game if you know what you are fighting against by looking at spell arsenal, of course the opponent mage shouldn't be totally predictable through that, but it is just more interesting if you then can talk to your friends about the crazy necromancer or illusionist below the bridge on the graveyard instead of the "mage" below the bridge if you get my drift. I would like to see specialisations that make sense (I never really got the difference of all the schools in d&d, like others said here, the classification of spells isn't always easy) and add a lot of variety to the game. For me heal/nature is speciality of clerics and druids, wouldn't include that here. So I would pick (ideas taken from first post): For all magic users: Basic magic (magic missile, magic field, magic weapons) - Dark Magic (out of combat ability: talk to the dead. Combat: cursing attacks/weaken souls, steal lifeforce if it fits to the setting, horror attacks, summon dead (as zombies), call skeleton, zombie, demon, shadow) - Elemental Magic (out of combat: make fire. Combat: storm (lightning, snow, water, earthquake), fire, ice, call elementars) - Control/Mind/Illusion magic (out of combat: force to tell the truth, make people forget. Combat: manipulate and take over people, stun/confuse people, fear, control people, and illusion magic, because that has to to do with the mind of the opponents as well for me: timestop, become invisible (gate), disguise yourself as an opponent and thus not being attacked, multiply (mirror/duplify with controllable second mage)) - Creation magic (make potions, make magical traps, make better magical weapons (temporarily), increase strength of weapons (temporarily), make golems) But I am sure I can live with whatever they come up with ^^