jarpie

You are mixing issues. No one is arguing for or against character recruitment and the analogy you make is deeply flawed. 1) My argument is such: Games with romancable NPCs typically must have more than one romancable npcs to react to player sex choice and sexual reference choice (the one exception to this is games where they make the PC for you - like Torment). This leads to a significant perspective shift into how the player then views the party. The player soon makes a mental note of npcs as "sexable" and "nonsexable." This has little to do with people crying over why you couldn't recruit Drizzt. 2) If anything, NPC availability is reflective of developer intent to accomodate PC creation. In other words, devs tend to make enough npcs of varying classes to accomodate player's of any class. If romances are included, then the same philosophy leads to the issue described above. Umm, I don't quite know what you are saying there. But, Cain said thats how he wants low int to work EXTENSIVELY so... Give me a real argument and I might. Actually, no. Building friendships and rivalries is NOT the same as trying to find your next hot date. One could argue that one would NEED to build trust between party members to triumph. One cannot argue that you must attempt to bed every female in your party in order to defeat the dragon in the next room. You say I'm mixing issues, I'm not. You just can't understand what I'm trying to say, I'll put it in much -simpler- terms for you: The playerbase who enjoys Cowtipping and at least wants it as a potential option to pursue is large enough that it is a worthwhile time and monetary investment. Saying, 'you can't the absolute perfect cow for everyone' is not a valid reason to not have Cowtipping. Here's an anology for you, I'll reiterate this, it's like saying that companions shouldn't be in the game because not everyone is going to enjoy the companions that are in there. I'm doing what's called, 'drawing a parellel' in this example. You also, again, clearly don't understand the friendship example. The point I was making, was again, that everyone may not like the Cowtipping presented to them, that doesn't all of a sudden mean you cut out the feature. It's unfortunate that I have to be so redundant but you are doing the exact same thing.. so there you go. With same arguments one could easily claim that they should add Cowtipping to the game. Like I said earlier, not every fiction has to have romances.

Edit: obvious troll is obvious

You are correct. I should add "can be avoided" to the list. Add "can be avoided while still leaving enough NPC interaction" to the list instead. With mots of the companions in BG2 when you shot down the romance there really was not much to talk about. Yeah, BG2 isn't exactly good example because without romances there's very little other content for Jaheira, Viconia and Aerie when you shoot down the romances. I have noticed that some people are so used to having romaces in games that they dont have imagination to imagine RPG what would be done without romances, as I said yesterday there are examples of the very mature films and books which doesn't have romances, such as Clarke's and Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (both the book and the film), or The Treasure of the Sierra Madre by John Huston, or Fritz Lang's M.

I read all kinds of fiction and I must say the ones that can be considered mature 90% of the time includes romance even if it's a only soldier writing a letter to his fiancee. Can you please exemplify which mature fiction doesn't include romance "at all"? Or even better I'll give you 5 opposite examples for each of yours. What about Aflred Bester's Demolished Man? Or Philip K. D Ick's The Man in the High Castle? Those mature enough for you? edit: WTF, I can't write name D*ck? Both are invalid examples. I've read Demolished Man a few years ago and the story was full of sexual tension between Ben and her secret sister, not to mention the party (where the murder occured) with orgies and other erotic games. So that one is out. I've read Man in the high castle long time ago and I don't really remember names and stuff but there was a lot of sexual stuff there either. I asked wikipedia and found lots of it but one is enough: "Juliana, living in Colorado, begins a sexual relationship with Joe Cinnadella, a truck driver claiming to be an Italian war veteran." Been ten years since I read those so I my memory is fuzzy, and I was at work. Now that I am at home I can give better examples, what about 2001: A Space Odyssey? M by Fritz Lang, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre? Platoon by Oliver Stone, that serious enough for you? The Thing by John Carpenter?

I read all kinds of fiction and I must say the ones that can be considered mature 90% of the time includes romance even if it's a only soldier writing a letter to his fiancee. Can you please exemplify which mature fiction doesn't include romance "at all"? Or even better I'll give you 5 opposite examples for each of yours. What about Aflred Bester's Demolished Man? Or Philip K. D Ick's The Man in the High Castle? Those mature enough for you? edit: WTF, I can't write name D*ck?

They have to pay salaries to the dev team and calculate how much they can spend on any given thing, and because they still have pretty damn small budget (just about 3-3,5 million) they probably have to calculate very carefully how much they can spend on writing companions and dialogue. If they have (this is just rough example) say...4 weeks to writen companion, and if they write romance to the companion, it's away from anything else they write to them (such as friendship, their potential quest, their reactions to what's happening etc). I'm telling you that this information is incorrect. It doesn't in any way take away from the other companions, their original budget for the whole game they were going to make was 1.1 million. That's it, therefore anything else that's added is really just 'fan service' for us. But as far as the core of the game goes, nothing is going to be hampered or impaired by adding this. The 3-3,5 million for the scope of this game and development time (18 months) is very tight. 13-14 years ago Baldur's Gate 2 cost 5-7 million, and then salaries and expenses were quite a bit smaller than nowdays. 18 months for RPG is very short time. The original 1,1 million had just five companions, five classes and three races, now they have 8 companions, 11 classes and 5-7 races, two big cities and 15 level deep dungeon. When you have limited budget, when you put something in you have to take something out.

They have to pay salaries to the dev team and calculate how much they can spend on any given thing, and because they still have pretty damn small budget (just about 3-3,5 million) they probably have to calculate very carefully how much they can spend on writing companions and dialogue. If they have (this is just rough example) say...4 weeks to writen companion, and if they write romance to the companion, it's away from anything else they write to them (such as friendship, their potential quest, their reactions to what's happening etc).

So you want the game to do anything in order to sell more? FPS games sell as well, should PE change from it's current goal to become a MW clone? I think asking for well written romance dialogues between at least a few characters of different gender is far from anything. Hyperbole is bad. On top of that, if they have to sacrifice small things for them to sell MANY more copies, then the answer is yes. Because I want sequals. Obviously there's a line, but you rather exaggerate. Not everything has to have a direct sequel, but aside from that, No good writer makes sacrifices for the masses. They write what they want, and those that matter love it. You're part of a mass of naysayers in this case and you ask the P:E writers to sacrifice romance for other things. Then you come and accuse people of the same thing. What you fail to understand is we're not asking the next Fifa to include romance. What we are asking is a mature cRPG to include romance because mature topics include romance amongst other concepts. Not all mature fiction include romance at all.

They exist because there are people on the other side going "We want romances and melodrama! and it should be teh most improtant thing in any game!" and like me, many think that romances have never been very well done. Also quite many are wary that if Obsidian would go "Sure, there will be romances", it would bring that certain crowd who just obsesses about romances and would want basicly all companions be romanceable etc. I think that some people are so used to romances and personal issues being so prominient in Bioware's games that they can't think any other way of doing RPGs, or any other stuff put instead.

Two points: First, you're making an assumption. We really don't have a definite release date, and noone has allotted the money to development teams, nor are we likely to know when they do. If writing is prioritized, as I feel it should be, the getting a team of writers will make the entire project better. Romances included. Second point: If the Bioware games are so terrible, what should be done instead? What, in your opinion, is a good example of romances in a game? Edit again: you mentioned PS:T. I haven't played PS in years, but what I remember of the "romance" was very dark and emo. (god, I hate using that term, but it's what comes to mind.) I'm tired of dark and edgy. I can't remember the last time the hero of a game was just that. The goddamned hero. No dark and tragic past, no bleeding wrists love story, no sacrificial end. Just a person that is called up either by a higher power or their own initiative to fight against a rising tide of evil, save the day and maybe, just maybe, find someone that can understand them for who they are and what they've been through, because they shared the same experiences. How about something else what Bioware is doing? This is Obsidian's game, not Bioware's. Have you ever played any games by Obsidian? Is Fallout: New Vegas anything like what Bioware has done? That doesn't have any bearing on what I asked. I'm not comparing the gameplay, I'm using bioware as an example of romances in a game. I can tolerate romances like they were in PS:T for example and I wouldn't be against doing something similar in PE. What most of us are opposing is Bioware-style romances and what at least I'm against are the melodramatic personal drama (like daddy issues as an example, but not limited to) so I would like a game where lot of things are "toned down", or the take is "down to earth".

Yes, sure. But they clearly stated that they want it based on IE games, that were originally created by Bioware. Like Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale 1+2 were? Oh wait...no, no they were not.

Two points: First, you're making an assumption. We really don't have a definite release date, and noone has allotted the money to development teams, nor are we likely to know when they do. If writing is prioritized, as I feel it should be, the getting a team of writers will make the entire project better. Romances included. Second point: If the Bioware games are so terrible, what should be done instead? What, in your opinion, is a good example of romances in a game? Edit again: you mentioned PS:T. I haven't played PS in years, but what I remember of the "romance" was very dark and emo. (god, I hate using that term, but it's what comes to mind.) I'm tired of dark and edgy. I can't remember the last time the hero of a game was just that. The goddamned hero. No dark and tragic past, no bleeding wrists love story, no sacrificial end. Just a person that is called up either by a higher power or their own initiative to fight against a rising tide of evil, save the day and maybe, just maybe, find someone that can understand them for who they are and what they've been through, because they shared the same experiences. How about something else what Bioware is doing? This is Obsidian's game, not Bioware's. Have you ever played any games by Obsidian? Is Fallout: New Vegas anything like what Bioware has done?

That is exactly the thing we do not want in PE and I very much doubt, and I'd be almost certain that PE won't have stuff like that. Have you maybe tried Sims Medieval? But if it were a toggle-able option, you could choose to turn it off. For you, it simply wouldn't exist. Edit: Ah, so you want romances, just not those like in Bioware games. Fine, how would you want the dialogue to work? I only suggested the stronghold as a means of keeping the two things a bit separated. having a companion talk to you randomly is a novel idea, but it can get old and sometimes distracting. This brings back the argument me and others have been bringing; it takes the resources from doing the other stuff, such as writing non-romance dialogue and doing other kind of mechanics. As I have said before, I am not against romances like they were done in PS:T but I don't want romances like in Bioware games. Here's the problem, the stance you are taking on it is this: I get what I want, you don't get what you want is my ultimate goal. Here's the stance of at least some (most, if not all) people who want romances: We aren't asking for romances to be invasive, dating sims, or like what Bioware did, we want deeping, meaningful dialogue in intimate relationships that we can enjoy. Now you are saying that is unreasonable because it takes away from other parts of the game, well, what the hell do the parts you want do then? How about "Brothers in Arms"-camaraderie, the actual story and plot, deal with deeper issues - for example a game where main character is suffering from amnesia, it could deal with "Is the man more than sum of his memories?" - but PE probably won't go this route but something else like that would grand, antagonistic relationships with NPCs (not necessarely companions), a well written dialogue with NPCs and companions, dealing with the souls in the game meaningful way (as how they affect the personalities of people). Enough for you?

That is exactly the thing we do not want in PE and I very much doubt, and I'd be almost certain that PE won't have stuff like that. Have you maybe tried Sims Medieval? But if it were a toggle-able option, you could choose to turn it off. For you, it simply wouldn't exist. Edit: Ah, so you want romances, just not those like in Bioware games. Fine, how would you want the dialogue to work? I only suggested the stronghold as a means of keeping the two things a bit separated. having a companion talk to you randomly is a novel idea, but it can get old and sometimes distracting. This brings back the argument me and others have been bringing; it takes the resources from doing the other stuff, such as writing non-romance dialogue and doing other kind of mechanics. As I have said before, I am not against romances like they were done in PS:T but I don't want romances like in Bioware games.

By saying 'we' you mean yourself and your reflection in mirror? By 'we' who don't want Bioware-style romances in PE. You are obviously trying to suggest that I suffer from somekind of personality disorder, very decent of you.

That is exactly the thing we do not want in PE and I very much doubt, and I'd be almost certain that PE won't have stuff like that. Have you maybe tried Sims Medieval?

Naturally I can only speak for myself, but I like to hope that most of the people that want to see romance make it into the game, want BG/2, PS:T etc. style romances, and not the BSN kind that has made some people have an aversion to the very idea of romance in a modern RPG. Edit: Personally I don't hate on people who like BSN romances, to each their own and all, I just think obsidian could do better with this game. PS:T romances =/= BG2 romances.In the former the romances were subtle, delicate and tied with the story. They were more hinted at than full-scale sex affairs. BG2, on the other hand, had the precursor of modern ego-stroking romances. Cheesy, obnoxious and poorly written, not to mention completely separated from the plot. They also made the romanceable characters' dialogues (aside from the romances themselves) non-existant. Exactly, this is what I've been saying before.

Does it make principal difference that you made this comment? Somewhat yes because they were different companies ran by different people (in this case Black Isle was owned by Interplay).

Bioware of BG2 times and Bioware of DA2 times - 2 different companies. And about combatfag. Again, let us be honest. Icewind Dale was really very combat-oriented game. Very very different from PS:T. And both were created by Obsidian. Think about it. Wrong, they were created by Black Isle where lot of Obsidian's devs worked.

I don't think most people here gets why "no romance"-crowd are arguing. It's not just because we dislike romacnes in games, it's not because we're cold-hearted like Rahelron insulted us, it's not because we're nasty trolls (we're not), it's because you presume and act like romances are in by-default even though devs have not said that are they in or not. They have said that there will be different kind of mature relationships, and there are lot of different kind of mature relationships and does not mean necessarely romances. Lurky wrote a great post about possible relationships and how the topic should be handled. so again: it's because you presume and act like romances are in by-default even though devs have not said that are they in or not. Edit: link to Lurky's post

Why is this thread still open? Obsidian has said that PE will be PC ONLY so there's no point of demanding console-version.

Yes I can, I just take a brush and paint them over...*brush brush* Easy! But more seriously, there are many who have said that they want romances like in BG2 which are basicly like romances in the later Bioware games, are you denying that? Sure some have said they'd like to see romances like in PS:T and I could live with that. Fortunately I trust Obsidian not to do romances like that if they decide to do them at all.

I wouldn't want ANY voiceacting in Project Eternity, just waste of the small budget.

That's sticking a whole lot of words in a whole lot of people's mouths that have not, actually, been said. Just FYI. Lot of people wants romances like in BG2 which were basicly proto-ME/DAO-romances and they share lot of similarities with those later ones. Remind me again who made BG2?

I honestly don't know which RPGs are you using to make this statement. All Bioware ones did, yes, bust most certainly not an overwhelming amount of others. Tell me what other RPGs there are? Project Eternity is basicly first proper fantasy rpg in almost ten years and romance-crowd wants to turn it into Bioware game.