Jojobobo

Just throwing it out there - if romance were in the game I'd like to seduce someone to cheat on their husband or wife, which would be made more interesting if they had kids. I think it would add a compelling evil option instead of the usual "I steal stuff, I stab people in the back needlessly and I like to slaughter entire villages - roar!" pyscho characters - especially if you just sacked the person off after ruining their family life; and it would show that romancing can be used for evil ends rather then some trite sickly love-in (not that a conventional "happy" romance would be like that in the devs' fine hands, but I think that's what people are concerned about - that and resource/time wastage).

Personally I liked owning loads of property in Fable II, upping the rent and watching people suffer, so I'm for it. However not every thing in sight should be purchasable as per Fable II either - and if you were to be a landlord you need some non-profit venture you can sink your money into as a counter balance. EDIT: If you really wanted to get technical, owning shops could be used for greater roleplaying - you could get burglarised, then have to track down the culprits. Or maybe a serial killer takes an interest in the residents of a neighborhood you mostly own - even an evil character would feel obligated to put him down if they wanted to bring in more cash. Touches like this would really enhance the feeling that you were part of the world. You could also own other more dubious businesses - brothels, crack (or some P:E drug equivalent) dens, etc.

I stand corrected.

I think you're wrong Hellfell. I think the real reason people are desperate for romance in this game is Forton. Just look at that bald shiny head, those slightly rheumy eyes - I defy you to find a stronger image of raw sex appeal.

I'm sure this would be easy to do, a little check box with "party spokesperson" somewhere attached to a character screen, with only one character being able to have the box checked at anyone time. But yes, it's a good idea.

I wouldn't worry to much, I really wouldn't think they'd bar whole quests or areas of the game if your IN/CH wasn't high enough. Usually diplomatic options allow for easier gain of information through dialogue, but that doesn't rule out breaking into someone's bedroom to steal a diary and gain the same information, or killing them and finding a letter on their body - that kind of thing.

Cheers! I guess I feel so long as these issues are dealt with using sincerity, the dev team would be fine covering any topic they want.

Actually I used it in english essays in high school, don't make assumptions. I used the word because it has a more subtle meaning than realism - from the wiki page it means that a setting has a "likeness or semblance" of truth in a literature or art context; whereas realism to me is attempting to mimic directly the real world. To clarify, the setting should have verisimilitude (akin to, but not directly copying) in terms of governance, in game literature, social issues, culture, geography of a region and lots of other more factors that are lore intensive; but it should have realism (mimicry) in terms of things that have a practical and physical basis in real life for being as they are - i.e. ship design, weapon design, basic architecture, etc. So you need both verisimilitude and realism in a game to give a setting polish IMO, and though the meanings are similar they are not the same. You're not coming from a position of strength when you're arguing against proper use of the english language, and though I do love to argue semantics all day long I'd rather get this thread back on track. This is the thing though, the A Song of Ice and Fire series is dramatically popular - and I'd say that the main reason this is for beyond the compelling characters is its high levels of realism and verisimilitude. People like the setting because they find it relatable and not too abstract as can be the case in some fantasy settings. I know that the series of books is perhaps lighter on fantastical elements then say Lord of the Rings, but they are hardly thin on the ground either. My point is having a fantasy setting does not mean that things do not need to be realistic; and honestly even if we did have magic, gods, psychics and 4 other alien races I believe in broad strokes civilisation would have developed in a pretty similar way to what it did do in our world - fantasy elements do not radically alter human nature or the natural progression of technology or society. Even the other races will have ideologies that are relatable to us otherwise no one would be able to get a handle on them or want to play them, so they'll likely develop in a similar fashion or they'll remain undeveloped (e.g. tree hugging elves who hate industrialism) - yet that is still similar to bronze age societies. Ergo, realism and versimilitude are not necessarily irrelevant to a fantasy setting. I'd go so far to say the more similar a setting to our own the more the fantastical differences are thrown into sharp relief and the more interesting they become.

I understand your point, but then what about racism? I'm sure at least someone who plays this game will have endured severe racism at some point, so is having racism in the game - even if it's between fantasy races - acceptable because of how it may affect that person? I'm sure rape - if it were to be included in the game - would probably be between fantasy races too, but as you point out that wouldn't stop a person mapping it to their own trauma if they had suffered. In fact, for any one of the mature themes (severe deprivation, sadistic torture of violence, sexism, etc.) a case could be made - and if the main yard stick used as to why a theme is included in the game is "How many people would this deeply upset" (with rape I'd imagine it would be significantly more than other themes) that probably isn't the best way go about things. I think as long as the themes are handled carefully and correlate strongly to real life examples, then the inclusion of any theme is acceptable. For me I don't need to find all concepts in the game fun to find them enjoyable, and if something does unsettle me slightly then I'll find it interesting because it has made an emotional impact. Really that's the whole point of using a mature theme in the first place, to challenge and possibly slightly disturb the player because it resonates with them. If the devs really wanted to muddy the waters about these themes, then they could have likeable characters being racist and quite possibly former rapists. Say you had a really likeable Paladin NPC, and you build a strong relationship with him and become interested in his character, only to find out that he only took his knightly oaths because he raped someone and felt remorse and wanted to turn his life around - to me this would be very compelling as it would challenge me on a very big level. Rape is without a doubt wrong, but does that mean a rapist is forever without redemption - very difficult to judge and very interesting. I'd like to see some horrible characters in untouchable positions of power too. In so many games you get some slimy unpleasant character but it's fine because you can kill them, or ruin them, or whatever. In real life things don't always work like this, and you sometimes get a complete sleaze that you can't do anything about (for example a serial killer who is wealthy, well protected and has all the local constabulary in his pocket). Though this would leave a bad taste in some people's mouths, it is realistic. As a final point, many people are focusing on the fact that witnessing something horrible is the worst thing possible in a game - for me it is not. Witnessing a racial attack for example, though unpleasant, is at least a simplistic observation. Hearing a voice actor however tell the character of something truly unspeakable they did in lavish detail, you can practically hear the actor drooling, for me would be far more unnerving. Point being, there's more than one way to relay an event and make it horrible than simple visuals.

I think subversion of what common use of mature themes are about (boobies, graphic displays of dismemberment) might be fun, in a dark way. Say there's this really tasty elf in the game, and she's putting the moves on your character. You think, well why not - I'm sure my character would want a bit of hey-hey. The elf then, during some sort of sordid activity, castrates the character and whilst they're in agony robs them blind. Perhaps a bit too much of a slap in the face for most players, but you get the idea.

True, but still there's probably somethings that could be put into to increase realism without being resource and labour intensive. Threads like this might just reveal a couple that aren't immediately obvious - but perhaps my fully fledged civil service is a bit far fetched.

I'd like to see rogues have backstab, but not so that it would one-shot a tough enemy with the right character build (as with a fully armoured enemy, even if your rogue targeted say a joint in that armour, joints don't lie over vital organs and daggers don't give enough penetration to kill someone - no matter how magical they are). Even if they could kill a weaker enemy in one shot, then there'll be all his buddies to put the hurt on the rogue (so no magic invisibility that can be used in combat either, or at least if there was it should have a long cool down). Maybe something like smoke bombs might be a nice touch, but obviously they'd cause everyone to fight blind (i.e. other party members) even if they do allow the rogue a getaway. I'd like to see the rogue better being able to spot environmental factors that could put the hurt on an enemy (he spots that a patch of ice is thin and makes an enemy cross it, or make a pitfall trap out of a natural hole in the ground etc.). I'd also like to see them use traps and poisons in conjunction, but without a fatal poison or trap combination that could be used to win most situations (so you may have a poison that prevents a mage from casting and put it on a trap that you lure a mage into - great - but this combo is situational, may be difficult/costly to make and may be heavy to carry around as well). Finally I'd like to see use of traditional rogue skills, i.e. thievery, used to spread dissension in enemy ranks (say you have a group of goblins with a leader and his right hand man with obvious designs on leadership which you observe from the shadows, you take a ancestral charm from the leader and stick it in the second in comands belongings - then wait for the fireworks to start). Maybe a soul based ability would allow them speech mimicry (to again spread dissension - "What did you just say to me?!"), but I'd imagine mimicry and voice-throwing would probably be the purview of the chanter. Ultimately what I'm after is non-combat skill use to whittle the enemy down, then maybe backstabs to off the remaining weakened members of the group. To me, this is the perfect rogue.

Well in that case maybe some cultures should remain "pure" so to speak, especially the less developed and less materialistic ones.

I think the relations that a town or city develops towards you that they have said are in the game will cover consequences pretty well, so I wouldn't worry on that account. I think it's perhaps important to say that mature themes shouldn't be in adundance all the time - fantasy games I think inherently should incorporate at times a sense of hope and wonder - but they should be there, lurking in the dark corners of society; waiting for the character to look a little deeper into a situation they do not feel is all that it appears to be. That way people could choose to be ignorant if they wanted, just like how some people turn a blind eye in real life to things they perhaps shouldn't.

Being as broad and open ended as possible, what would you like to see in the game to establish verisimilitude or realism? People have already stated things along the lines they want armour to have a historical basis, this is only a tiny portion of what could make the world feel more organic to you. To get the ball rolling I'd like a working civil service that did things, at least for certain civilisations. Maybe you could gain access to their parliament and witness a political debate, and you could see whatever version of their police force (or town guard, whatever) in action; apprehending muggers and breaking down doors to drag a murderer into daylight, what have you. Firemen would stop blazes caused in bakeries from getting out of control, the juidicary could been seen sentencing people and they may even have an organised delivery service running letters around the city. Ultimately I'd want something where you could believe if it was ripped out of the game and plonked in medieval Europe it would be a workable system, with all bases covered and no gaps in logic or continuity as to how does this work or that. The activities of these services would be on a long loop, so yes you might witness the same thing twice if you played the game long enough - but there would only be a small chance of catching the loop at the right time and seeing a similar occurence twice. Towns should basically feel like even when the character isn't there they are living, maybe developing (and not in a story state dependant way), without you - having a feasible model for how the civil services work is quite an important feature in that.

I couldn't be bothered to paraphrase so I thought I'd just self-quote: I'd like to see this, and I think forming an abusive relationship would be a great way of exploring mature themes because it's relevant to contempory issues and it would get under a lot of people's skin. Sexism and racism are fine but they are all variations on what is at it's simplest being unpleasant to another person; targeting and actively abusing a PC requires a lot more participation then a character going around saying "You Orlan have stupid ears and like to kiss your sisters", etc. Also having to comit a crime or work with a particularly malignant criminal organisation to achieve a good goal might also be interesting (such as how an under cover cop might have to witness unspeakable things yet maintain his composure and not do anything about them in order to crack a particularly difficult case).

I think a language barrier might be interesting to introduce, forcing you to maybe hire a translator or have a certain companion to understand anything of what another culture is saying. I think culture specific, rather than race specific, language barriers would be the best - but of course some cultures could very well be entirely homogenous when it comes to races.

Thinking about it a bit more, if Obsidian really wanted to play with fire they could allow the character to develop abusive relationships (I'm thinking verbally, not physically) with others or even develop a romantic relationship with someone just to have sex with them and then sack them off. The trouble is people seem to think if these things are options in games then the game itself is advocating it as a lifestyle choice, which it simply is not - people are often mordibly curious (as in interested, but not wishing or desiring to mimic this behaviour) about these choices for exactly the same reasons as people are interested in watching a gory horror film or researching a particularly inhumane historical government. V:tM~B allowed the player to create a ghoul (essentially someone who becomes slavishly enamoured with the PC because the are - in a way - drugging them to feel that way) who you could abuse verbally and kill any time you chose, they also allowed for torture at a few moments in the game (but not with a character you were romantically involved with) so it's not like there is no prior examples of content like this being in a game. It depends how far down the rabit hole of mature themes the dev team want to go. I for one would like them to reach the bottom. EDIT: Just thought I'd mention being abusive should not be without consequences, like a companion eventually getting sick of it and trying to kill the PC.

Hey whoa, Team Rocket cut off Slowpoke tails - that was pretty intense. *Sheds a tear for the poor Slowpokes*

Just like Harry Potter. On a serious note, I think all the top three forms of relationships are viable but I must stress that developing a meaningful relationship should be difficult. Far too often in RPGs as long as your character is nice to someone in the opposing gender they'll fall in love, or if it's of the same gender they'll make friends (or start a gay relationship, etc.). In real life people are often more guarded than that, it takes time to wear down defenses people have made whether those defenses stand in the way of more personal relationships or simple friendship. Or to throw things on their head, maybe you'll form a relationship with an NPC easily that you believe is genuine and they'll cheat on you/reveal they have been manipulating you all along - leaving you feel burned as the player if they succeeded in sucking you in. Relationships should be allowed to crumble sourly just as they can in real life, maybe a former friend and party member could end up being your greatest enemy. Sex on the other hand I guess should be more easy, people have sex plenty of times on real life for various other reasons than to build a meaningful relationship with someone. But it doesn't need to be made a huge deal of or glorified (eyes on you Witcher) and perhaps cultural beliefs should stand in the way (or you know, general unwillingness - not everyone should be promiscous). Furthermore maybe the player character will get a come-on by someone they find unattractive (old, ugly, etc.), not anyone who seeks sex from the character needs to be a bombshell. Lastly though relationships should be available for party members, I'd like to see them with non party member NPCs. Some PCs I'd imagine might get pretty tired of their other half being there all the time, just like some people do.

I don't think all villians should be charismatic. Some people are just stupid and mean, even those in leadership roles, and have obtained power by fear and bullying their way to the top. A couple of charismatic villianous characters are fine, but not every bad character should be so charming that I think if I was playing an evil character I'd give them a high five right about now. A degenerate brutal pyscho can be at times more evocative than a debonair devil's advocate style smooth talker.

I don't think these encounters necessarily shouldn't exist, just that there should be reactivity (and not in the way of pure level scaling). So say some scally comes up to you and goes "Give me your stuff!", if you turn him down and your average level is a lot lower than his then he'll attack - he's an opportunist, why not? On the otherhand if your party is clearly superior and respond in a way that is essentially "Would you look at us, you're embarrassing yourself" he would say something along the lines of that he was only joking and please could they not hurt him. Then later, when all your characters (or the majority) are asleep in the local inn and have taken off all their equipment he'll come into their room with 10 other burly thugs and say "These are those people who thought they were far too strong for me, let's gut 'em" and as such a much more challenging battle would ensue (so the game has reacted to your level, but not in the cheap way of slapping more powerful equipment or greater skills on a single guy). I guess a third option would be asking the mugger for work as he seemed like your sort of guy, you get the picture I guess complexity and reactivity are the key to making these sort of things special, but these things do take time so level scaling may be the easiest answer resource-wise.

I think it would be interesting to have complete free choice as to which one you go to first, but have both being important in the main quest. It might mess with quest states a lot, but it would be very interesting.

Reminds me of Jaime Lannister, so I like this idea. Sort of like there is an expectation of how knights (or Paladins) should behave, but how closely they cleave to this expectation and how well they keep the fact that they are not living up entirely to their oaths hidden from their peers or the public remains to be seen. In this regard, the majority Paladins would have to start out with good intentions to begin with to take such oaths but over time it allows for cynicism and flexibility as to how they interpret their oaths to creep in - instead of them being morally inflexible saints like they are in a lot of IE games. Also some could become Paladins so that people assume they're chivalrous, when really they're anything but and they're now in better situation than most to manipulate others. They would be your "evil" Paladins. I'd also like to see a conflict between class and some backgrounds - in this case say a Paladin takes an oath to be celibate but comes from a society that's freely polygamous, when they return to that society later in the game they'll receive a negative reaction from others who believe they've turned their back on their past.

Having to split your party up and have them perform different tasks at once to solve a quest - is this a good idea? Something someone said in the unwinnable monster thread made me think on this and I thought it would be pretty cool; say you're trying to open a door to mysterious dungeon, and all at once you need your thief to enact some complex dexterity focussed manoveur with switches in one area, your mage to cast a spell on an occult engraving on a wall in another, and your fighter/barbarian/combat monkey to make a sacrifice on an altar somewhere (or less class focussed activities, but you get the gist). If this is not done simultaneously, there would be no other way to gain entrance. I think this would be interesting, too often in party based games does one member have all the focus and the rest are just there - existing but not performing any function. In a broader sense, as others have suggested, sending party members off to do something specific (gather intel, etc.) or having party members on separate maps you can navigate to would in my opinion be cool. Thoughts?