PaganPoetry

I'm a linguist!! I would love for PE to have a detailed, realistic and most of all consistent system of language since I think it's so rarely seen in fantasy games. I think the most important place to start is with the phonetics and the alphabet, since those are the most prevalent things one would come across. I don't believe that syntax would be as important, but... maybe a few morphological rules. I really don't see it as hyper-nerdy or even that time consuming; I remember speaking to someone at my school about how there used to be a class dedicated to creating artificial languages. Also, I for one am sick of Latin being the default language that people turn to. I think it's such a boring language compared to much more intriguing possibilities.

I personally didn't like multiclassing (I always felt like I was doing it... wrong, I dunno, and I'm a bit of a purist I guess) but I'm not opposed to its inclusion since I know a lot of people enjoy it. I agree though that I am more looking forward to potential specializations within classes.

The threads aren't "should romance be included?", that's a fraction of what they contain. There are also other questions posed, such as how it should be implemented, in what capacity, etc.

just a gentle reminder... If you feel like someone is harassing you or attacking you for simply stating your opinion on the topic, it is probably better to not engage them. If you feel it is particularly egregious, use the report feature. I know it's hard not to respond... but nothing good can come from it. Nothing is gained from commenting on each other's personal lives and levels of maturity. and now back to our regularly scheduled discussion... But clearly there's a lot to be gained by opening circle-jerking threads where you have to agree with the op and using the "Codexers made me cry" excuse to try to ignore arguments that might make look silly your request for asinine features. Meanwhile pretty much every romancer goes:"i swear the fact that i obsessivly post about romances is not an indication i'm obssessed about this feature!!1!see i even voted that option in the poll number159!1!!" Actually, this is exactly the type of post that Merin is talking about ignoring/reporting. It is one thing to disagree and it is another to specialize in these ad hominem, vitriolic posts. The issue is not people engaging in a dialogue with conflicting opinions, it's using these generalized statements to degrade the poster or devalue his/her contribution. "Nobody should take your opinion seriously since you're just an obsessive Bioware loving, sex-depraved basement dweller!" Something that occurred to me reading this thread: many people have stated they hope that if romance is included, it doesn't follow the Bioware model. To me, this actually goes without saying. Even if one likes the Bioware model (I personally am ambivalent towards it), this is an Obsidian game and I would not want them to squander their creativity by copying Bioware's model for romance progression regardless of the quality of said model. Innovation is key, and I think that in addition to maturity and relevance most people probably want to see something new and uncharted in regards to romance.

I would be fine with all of the above. I think that maybe an easy way to alleviate some of the people's concerns that have been voiced in this thread would be to keep the companions (or at least most of them) off-limits, so it ensures that they're "interesting" and "unique" or whatever the argument against romancing companions is, and maybe have a few options with random NPCs scattered around. Seeing other characters hooking up is always a great option, too.

You're right. I feel for all of the poor people who open the thread and see all of the comments against their will.

Actually I hope the final game will include some kind of murder mystery you have to solve. I kind of do too. Oblivion sort of had a murder mystery, except you were the murderer, and I loved how well executed that was. If they took it and maybe made it more serious, a genuine whodunnit, I would enjoy it a lot. Although I do feel like a lot of games have the rather tired subplot of murders occurring across a city. I don't find that as compelling as an isolated setting murder mystery.

That presumes that anyone who has a sexuality is immediately defined by it, Gurkog. Ever play The Longest Journey? Gay/lesbian characters in that were all over and they were hardly "defined" by the fact that they were gay/lesbian; instead, it was just another thing about them, no different than the fact that they had a certain hair or eye color. I hate this idea that including a gay character will make him DEFINED by the fact that he's gay? And of course, I will just say that for many people their sexuality is an important part about them... so there's that, too. It likely has to do with the culture/setting of the game though with regards to whether or not they'd even be interested in putting in somebody like that.

I would be fine with that mya, but I do not think that uniquely hetereo/gay love interests are very realistic only because it potentially alienates so many people. I would love to see it though since it really does potentially add a lot to the characters if they have more concrete sexualities.

I am 20, and my favorite RPG is the Baldur's Gate series (or more specifically, Baldur's Gate 2). It really changed my perspective not only on RPGs but on videogames in general. But I would have to add Morrowind as a very close second. I have also never played Planescape: Torment, so maybe I should get on that.

To anyone complaining: It's one thread. ONE THREAD. If you dislike the discussion then why are continuing to open it? Like..........? When a romance thread (because it gets too long, or goes off topic, etc.) gets closed, a new one is opened to continue the discussion. I think it's official: the people complaining about the BSN mindset as it concerns romance now outnumber the number of people supposedly adopting that mindset here. Like I said in the last thread, I am all for the inclusion of romance in the game. If it's included, I hope it's open to all types of players, not just the (male) hetero crowd. But it will never be a deal breaker for me. I think it's a very good way to explore some emotional and potentially moral landscapes, the latter of which seems particularly untouched (Bioware was almost... almost there with the Anders arc, but didn't quite reach the moral complexity I was looking for). I think it makes sense for a traveling party to see some of its members, who depend upon one another and are presumably fiercely loyal to one another (or else why would you be there?), take the next step emotionally and physically if they choose to go there.

The idea of good vs. evil and morality has been touched on a lot in this thread, but I am so over the way it is portrayed in games now and I hope to see a change in this one. One of my favorite TV shows is Battlestar Galactica and perhaps my favorite thing about it was the way that it managed to subvert the very nature of good and evil and questioned every action and showed the conflict between the need to survive vs. the means to assuring survival in ways that always were so morally thorny they were exhilarating to watch. You end up rooting for the characters you love to do all of these morally "bad" things and basically all arguments of good vs. evil were thrown out the window. I loved it so much. I would love to see that type of morality in a game, but too often they give you the "easy way out" option; that is, since it's a video game and not real life, the "not hurting anybody's feelings" option. I'm also all for allegories in games; I don't think there's enough emphasis on just how much fantasy can act as a mirror for real life. So many interesting contemporary issues can be tackled in creative ways due to the setting.

That's true, I thought about the lack of appeal but... it does seem like that region would be in the most need of a translation, since Europe is about 500x more likely to have the English competency necessary to play. No idea about how hard it is to translate though. That could be true.

Of course, but have professional translations really been that much better? I can't say since I always play games in English but I can just imagine European gamers getting an influx of "this guy are sick" in most of their translated games.

Contrary to popular belief, professionally minded people can be found online who are not caught up in the "drama" all of the time.