LordCrash

It's actually no "proceeding" definition of mine. I rather guess that you didn't read my other posts in this thread in which I talked at length about my vision for emotional storytelling and the possible inclusion of aspects of love and human affection. Yes, but all that stuff happens to other characters. There is no real emotional integration of the PC into the world. What's he caring about? And more important, whom is he caring about? Whom does s/he love? It's very fundamental question to establish motivation. And I personally think that PoE was pretty thin here and that it was never able to show that the PC really cared deeply for other people. Sure, there were some quests with personal decisions that included an emotional level like you mentioned above. But I don't think that this is enough. Every deep story is about aspects of love at its very core, not about some abstract philosophical questions or obtuse motives. A hero's call without real, personal emotional affection isn't really believable. That's not how people act in reality. I think there are many different people here having many different ideas, visions and expectations in mind. After all, we all want to discuss ways in which the game could benefit from including romantic topics. Some want "simple" romances that lead to sexual encounters others want a deeper integration of emotional storytelling and love. I don't think there is anything wrong with discussing different aspects here. Everybody is free to ignore my comments anyway.

You read good novels that include no aspect of love? I doubt that such a novel exists, really. Love and affection cover a much broader topic than "romance and sexuality". As a matter of fact, aspects of love are everything the human experience is all about. It's the core motivation of doing almost anything that you don't only do for yourself (and even then you could call it love for yourself). Again, I don't only mean "Bioware romance", I talk about the whole range of human emotions that are connected with the overall term of "love". And I'm still convinced that PoE is way too shallow on the topic. It missed to really connect its high-flying philosophical questions with down-to-earth personal motivation, coming from within.

Snarky remarks without saying anything of substance on the topic won't ever support any of your points... Sorry, but your arrogant (talking about yourself in the 3rd person and using the pluralis majestatis for yourself) posting stlye disrespects other users. At least that's my opinion and how I feel while reading your posts. But that has nothing to do with any of my (or your) arguments and I never claimed that. I still don't think so. Please, stop trying to lecture other people all the time. And pleae, spare me your derogatory remarks. It's also pretty funny that you question MY posting style here, given the fact that you told me above that it wouldn't make my argument stronger if I questioned yours. I guess the same applies to you, mate.

You misunderstood me. I just don't think that "Black Isle Bastards" is the perfect solution for marketing the fundraiser . It's hard to grasp the concept for outstanders if there is neither the game nor the company directly mentioned in the name. Of course do I know that Feargus once worked for Black Isle and so did Josh but not everybody knows that or makes the connection instantly. Back for PoE we included both Obsidian (Entertainment) and (Project) Eternity in the name of the fundraiser gruop on purpose in order to make the whole thing not only fun but also as accessible as possible. Just my 2 cents, I don't want to criticize anybody or spoil the fun. If you're happy with the name, by all means take it and begin to collect some dollarz...

We can argue about the very denition about aromantic but it's not relevant. I think we both know what I meant. Of course. The question is whether it's a good idea to dogmatically exclude all aspects of a core experience of most human beings from the game while stating at the same time that you wanted to tell a deep and complex story. That's imo a contradiction. I know that options are always limited and there is no freedom to do anything you like. But if all aspects of personal love and affection are just excluded from the game there is a core aspect of human life and a core aspect of human motivation missing.

Yeah, whatever, I don't want to spoil the fun. Go on, filthy pirates, ah, bastards.

Who is we? I don't think so. I didn't know you played the game in its original vision before the crowdfunding campaign even took place. But it's funny that you think that Obsidian just changed stuff because some boardies wanted it. They don't. They listened to feedback which is always a good idea and then they decided whether the feedback could result in a better game. And they tried stuff and iterated on it. That you think that the game had certain flaws just because some boardies wanted to have exact these flawed systems is rididulous. You just don't like certain stuff and that's ok. If you want to blame anybody blame Obsidian, not other boardies. And that's exactly the way it happened. Of maybe they realized that the game was actually pretty good but not perfect? Maybe you should start to realize that your opinion is no actual fact... You and ...? Anyway, I don't think any different. I just trust Obsidian enough that they want to make the best possible game. In no way did I make the claim that they should automatically include stuff that is demanded by anyone on the board. The difference between us is that you think that Obsidian did so for PoE in several topics. I don't. If you lost that trust simply don't buy their games anymore. Simple.

LOL at the result so far. You guys really want to go with a name that has no direct reference to either the game or the company or the theme? Ok...

77,000 backers, and we only ever say a dozen or so folks demanding such on the board. we never made claims o' the total folks wanting vancian, but reason for the change were protests, and the number o' board protesters were never large, even when compared to total board traffic. "small number o' vocal protesters." again, reading skills is useful. "Small vocal number of vocal protesters" reminds me more of yourself (and your second personality). Actually, you could say that about ANYTHING that is discussed on this board and elswhere... And I don't know any (tactical) magic system that is LESS broken than the Vancian one but maybe that's just me...

Not really. If I go hiking with my university hiking club, and I'm not attracted to anyone on the trip and vice versa, no romances are going to happen. This doesn't make me aromantic. True, but that's the wrong angle to tackle the issue imo. What happens if you find somebody on that hiking trip pretty attractive and you'd really like to go forward, trying your luck? That way of roleplaying human relationships is impossible in PoE because it's pretty impersonal in general. You simply have no chance to establish a relationship that is based on any real affection, so you have to act like you were interested in nobody. And yes, not being interested in establishing a relationship doesn't make one aromantic. Maybe all your mates are just not interesting. While not being aromantic in general, you don't act in any romantic way in this situation only. But that's the way PoE deals with the issue in general. You have to act aromantic in PoE all the time because you simply have no other choice. And that's a severe limitation to roleplay IMO.

I actually prefer a Vancian system (Grimoire included) in which the available resting spots are predefined and limited by the devs - and they should be quite rare, to offer some tactical challenge. And you could of course make that a special difficulty level to turn on/off in the settings to give the player more choice how challenging they want the game to be. I never understood (mechanically) why you could only rest in inns while being in town while being allowed to rest anywhere in the wild. Of course, from a narrative perspective it makes at least some sense but from a mechancial (gameplay-wise) perspective it would be better if resting spots were limited everywhere.

Well, there is a certain contradiction here: If you dogmatically exclude everything about love and mutual affection you automatically make the PC an aro-ace character for everybody. Including the possibility to evolve different human relationships and emotional states (including love and mutual affection) gives the player the choice to roleplay their PC on a human level without having to play a character that seems to have no interest at all in everything romantic. You could still roleplay an aro-ace characer by just not following any possibility to deepen certain relationships. Fair enough. I didn't really think of it that way. You are still able to talk to prostitutes, flirt with the delemgan at Elm's reach and such which is why I thought about it this way. If anything they should exclude prostitutes from the game. It's almost cynical that Obsidian included love for sale while excluding anything about real love. Just saying...

Yup, and that's why I like Vancian. I'm not saying it doesn't have issues (low levels suck), but now we will mostl likely just rinse and repeat every combat. Also, spells tend to get more homogeneous when you move to the more "modern" systems. Which is something that disappoints me. PS. Thing is about low levels is that in 30 mins or so in the first game... you were level four, iirc. I'm not following the differences. Vancian = memorize <x> number of spells per level that can be cast. Grimoire = Contains <x> amount of spells per level that can be cast. Why does the Grimoire method force the "spamming of the same spells"? Each method allows the user to choose which spells to memorize. Hm. I always thought that Grimoire was a part of the Vancian system, but maybe I'm wrong here. Please add proof to your claim that this was only a minority. I guess you can't...

Well, there is a certain contradiction here: If you dogmatically exclude everything about love and mutual affection you automatically make the PC an aro-ace character for everybody. Including the possibility to evolve different human relationships and emotional states (including love and mutual affection) gives the player the choice to roleplay their PC on a human level without having to play a character that seems to have no interest at all in everything romantic. You could still roleplay an aro-ace characer by just not following any possibility to deepen certain relationships.

You can get around that by limiting the number of available resting instances. In (the rogue-like) Darkest Dungeon you have to buy campfire-sets before you go out exploring a dungeon. And you can only rest a certain amount of times before you need to head back to town. A mechanic like that really adds strategy and tactical depth to the game because you have to think about whether you'd already rest again, risking that you might run out of your lont-term supplies and health later on, or whether you just head on a bit, risking to die because you might run out of your short-term supplies and health right now. Another viable possibility to limit resting is to only allow resting in certain pre-defined places. That way you kind of force the players to carefully manage their available skills and resources until the next possible resting spot. It's the same basic principle that was used for the campfire system in Dark Souls, for example. There is already a variation of that limitation in place in the old Infinity games by the way. You could never rest in short distance to enemies and you got the message that enemies were nearby. Another mechanic that added risk to resting was the possibility that you could get raided while sleeping (a mechanic that was also applied on travelling in order to make it riskier to just head back to town all the time). I agree with you that a Vancian magic system without any limitation to resting could end in endless resting activities after pretty much every minor combat encounter. So yes, a certain limitation to this ability is needed. But I have to say that I don't like cool-down systems either (also true for "cool-down inspired" systems). I think a Vancian system with well made limitations to resting always trump a cool-down system in respect to tactical depth and player choice (and well, that's something I really value). And it makes certain shenangians of cool-down systems like running around in circles until you can cast again impossible which is imo always a good idea gameplay-wise.

Having such a companion could be interesting though - of course only in the case the topic is narratively covered in the game.

What's "aro ace"?

You don't need Obsidian for that. You just need somebody to take over the initiative. Aarik (while being really nice and helpful) isn't your mama.

Yes - and no. The core issue I have with this whole topic is that it is so hugely dominated by such a narrow view on a very complex and actually broad issue of human life. I'd really love to have as many aspect of human relationships covered as possible, especially the important ones most people really care about. Love and mutual affection is one such aspect. So is friendship. Or rivalry. Or betrayal. Or dependence. Or domination. Or disdain. Or a combination of various elements in various forms, following a dynamic development. But everything some people seem to want is still a white knight in shiny armor who kills the bad guy and rescues the damsel in distress... Although - driving back the snarky tone a bit - I've made the experience, especially with Bioware and Witcher games, that there is one particular group of gamers who are really heavily invested into these "romance plots" - women. You almost can't find more dedicated supporters for "romances" in RPGs than women. That might sound surprising at first because many romances in video games seem to cater to the male nerd's dream, so to say, establishing the power fantasy of the white knight above. So why do they find so many firm supporters in women? I think one answer to this question is actually one that many men don't want to hear: because it's one of the few elements in modern AAA video games and RPGs in particular that is not at all about open violence and war but simply about love and affection. In my personal opinion I'm pretty convinced that many firm supporters of Bioware's romance plots - and especially many women among them - would love to see a broader approach to human relationships and aspects of love (and hate). They love these things and the only reason why they demand romances is that this is the only known element in modern RPGs that caters to this wish to play more games that explore topics that are not about combat, war and fighting, but about human relationships. And yes, many people and especially women (often secretly) long for consuming clichéd relationship stories and clichéd love stories where in the end the hero always gets their love interest. If you only looked at which novels are read by men and women respectively, you'd probably see the pattern (on a general scale of course). So ironically a more "mature" game like PoE is actually catering even more to men than to women by making it even more "serious" and more focused on combat and on pondering on high-flying philosphical context and by taking out love and reducing personal emotions and close relationships. The latest Bioware games might look a bit immature to some people (especially around here) and they might disdain their simplified romances (I'm not without guilt here either) but they at least achieved to interest quite some women into video games and RPGs (Witcher 3 did the same, by the way, there is huge fanbase of women for the White Wolf). And that's a good thing imo. Women (and all kind of different people) should be allowed to have fun with "our" video games as well and we should be open for their interests. If anything we should be curious about getting to know more about their perspective on various topics and how it could enrich the experience. I'd like if Obsidian reconsidered their approach to close personal relationships and put a bigger focus on that. Not necessarily by including romance plots like Bioware but by acknowledging that many people - and women - would like to have a more personal, emotional experience that offers a "good time" and that offers ways to bond with the characters, be it due to friendship, due to love or due to complex, troubled but somehow working relationships. In the end, most people want to experience something they can't have in real life - a happy end.

Did it take a long time for "The Obsidian Order" to get named? Not really. We made it up on the fly on the kickstarter comment section, with only about 5-10 people involved. That cut the whole "let's discuss this whole thing to death" out. You really just need one or two or three people taking over the initiative. That's better than having a lot of people talking about what could be done if only somebody would finally decide and act upon it... The thing got "official" on day 5 of the campaign, but we actually started it during the first days. We were a pretty active bunch on kickstarter back in the days, writing hundreds of comments each day... http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60483-the-obsidian-order-of-eternity-wants-you/ Edit: At about day 10 into the campaign we also had a website (made by Alper), a great founding document (made by BatNat), a crest (made by me) and a small bunch of people who heavily marketed for the effort in the kickstarter comments. So everything was made by individual dedicated fans while Obsidian only delivered the technical backend for the funding. Just as an inspiration for you guys what could be possible...

I wonder if you guys will find a name before the campaign is over...

It would be really cool if they had something like a filter that could be used on any traditional portrait. I mean, there are a ton of picture filters for software like Photoshop, so why not a "PoE watercolor" filter that is implemented into the game? That way external portraits might not be a big issue after all.

You don't really want to come up with the old but flawed argument that just because it's fantasy everyting is possible/arbitrary, do you? Because that's not how fantasy works at all. But yeah, I doubt most people believe that real life is that simple. That's not the issue I have. The issue is that I prefer believable characters that act like real human beings and interesting and meaningful relationships between complex persons instead of just stuff that is full of clichés and flawed concepts about human relationships, even in a fantasy setting.

Yeah, it's like in real life. Just say some nice things, be a bit cheesy and make the right presents and every woman will adore you and let you **** her in instant. Life is so simple. /not But the dream lives on, thanks to Bioware...

You forgot the mysterious kraken to the far right. Returning character. I could imagine him as a villain in PoE2...