PrimeJunta

@Stun: the cost argument isn't all that compelling to me, although in all fairness and somewhat to my regret I've used it myself. Thing is, I especially like games with lots of optional or, even better, branching content. The most common argument against including lots of optional or branching content is "most players will never experience some of it, so wouldn't it be better to spend those resources on required content?" My answer to that is "no, because that would necessarily replace choice and consequence with illusions thereof, which would cheapen the entire experience." I.e. treating romance as just another type of optional content and arguing that it's a resource drain is counterproductive, because the same argument applies to any optional content. There are better arguments against romance (in the BioWare/dating-sim sense) than that, many of which have been made in this very thread.

The way they were written, hell yes they would.

Make it a spinoff set in the same universe, but later, and I'm so in. Sequel... no thanks, because I'd like to see sequels still set in the same era, and it would mess with the continuity. Even better, make one that incorporates time-travel so we can explore change even more.

Not just the merits, @BruceVC. Drawbacks are also fair game.

This is what I mean by different definitions. Deionarra was the only plot device in any cRPG I've played that comes close to my understanding of 'romance' in the classical, literary sense. She, however, has nothing to do with 'romance' in the dating-game/harem-anime/dime-store-romance-novel sense. So at least some of us may be talking at cross-purposes. I.e., I'm all for more Deionarra, but dead against more Aerie.

But the thing is... it is a gimmick, and it does negatively impact games, like turning the warship Normandy into Love Boat. (Again, excluding Deionarra-style fully integrated into the story romance.)

@PieSnatcher I have the feeling there's a bit of talking-past-each-other going on here too. Perhaps people are using somewhat different definitions of 'romance.' I, for example, am categorically opposed to 'romance as dating game,' as in BG2, NWN2, the ME's, the DA's, and so on. However, I am not categorically opposed to 'romance as central plot driver,' as in Planescape: Torment. I haven't heard even the most ironclad antimancers object to PS:T's romance, to my recollection (@Stun?). On the other hand, I do get the feeling that most promancers seem to be talking about the former, what with talk of 'romance options,' comparing the charms of Viconia as opposed to Aerie or Leliana as opposed to Morrigan, and so on. I do feel very strongly that the 'dating game' style of romance is a bad idea and actively detracts from the games in which it is present. It's not a matter of better writing or making a better dating minigame; it's just fundamentally bad and wrong and shouldn't be done at all.

OP: Argue about romance, I'd expect.

I thought it was funny, but then I have terrible taste in humor.

If every character has the same number of weapon slots, why not assign hotkeys to each of those, and apply it to all selected characters? Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2, Ctrl+3, say. Then equip slashing or piercing weapons in slot 1, crushing weapons in 2, and ranged in 3. Ctrl+A, Ctrl+3 at the start of the encounter, then select your front line and Ctrl+1 or Ctrl+2 to switch to melee.

How many of our personal stories would make for fantasy RPG's you'd want to play? Mary Sue/Gary Stu protagonists make for terrible fiction. "Just base the main character on you, but give him piercing green eyes and an ancestral weapon." Blech.

To answer the question... I don't know how hard PoE is going to be at normal difficulty. I usually end up around one notch harder than normal these days, but back in IE game days I played at normal (i.e. standard D&D rules with friendly fire). Josh has said he's balancing it at Hard, and then tuning encounters down for Normal and Easy, and up for Heart of Fury. If so, I'll start out at that difficulty and adjust it if necessary. I'll go with Trial of Iron once I've figured out how not to die a lot, because otherwise I have a tendency to ruin games for myself with savegame abuse.

@semu I believe you'd lose that wager. Obsidian have hinted that they want to make the story a personal one, and that the setting is in a golden age of discovery and progress. That doesn't mesh well with impending end of the world. Impending end of the world is also incredibly cliché and I think they'd rather avoid that if at all possible.

I disagree. Greater scarcity, whether in loot, XP, or trading prices, is an excellent component of harder difficulty. Playing a game at a harder difficulty should be its own reward. If it's only enjoyable because it gives you shinier shinies, it's not very well done.

If I may... I haven't played DA2, but I am playing ME2, and I've developed a quite a dislike for Miranda, and a part of that has got to be the fact that she goes into battle wearing apparently nothing but stripper pumps and body paint. Blatant pandering is blatant. In highly visual games like what BioWare has been doing since Jade Empire, the way a character looks and what she wears is a big part of her portrayal.

Feargus has indicated that there's gonna be another Kickstarter sooner rather than later. I'm kinda hoping it'll be Hmmm Hmm Hmmmm Hm Hmmm Josh Sawyer's Personal Dream RPG Experience. I'd back that for sure, if only to see what would happen.

@BruceVC Nono, this thread is here to demonstrate how much the Obs fanbase hates romance so we can make sure they won't include it in PoE2. Perhaps we can resolve this with a dance-off. vs

All of the IE games except PS:T pretty much required hot-swapping weapons. Good luck fighting golems or some of the tougher IWD skeletons with swords or spears, for example.

Sorry, Hormalakh, but that sounds kinda dumb. "I want to play at higher difficulties but can't be arsed to figure out how to play the game most efficiently." If a game is balanced to be hard, then to beat it at higher difficulties you should be expected to do some work figuring out how to win. If you don't want to do that work and just want to enjoy the ride, then play at the lower difficulties, that's what they're there for. FWIW I won't start out at hard difficulties. I'll start out at Normal, and will only crank it up for replays, when I know how the damn thing works. Manuals are good though. Also, as far as I can tell the thing seems pretty commonsense -- a rapier won't work against heavy armor but an estoc will, but an estoc will be kinda bad against a nimble, lightly-armored enemy. The other adjustments seem eminently sensible as well -- a single one-handed weapon is more accurate, a shield makes you harder to hit but slower, some weapons are good all-rounders whereas others are designed for specific purposes. I don't think you'll need to do a lot of arithmetic to be able to play reasonably efficiently.

@BruceVC and others -- IMO you're discussing the wrong question. "Should romance be a part of cRPG's" is too general. "Which cRPG's should feature romance" is a better question. IMHO romance does not fit most cRPG's. It did not detract horribly from BG2 or NWN2 OC because it had so little impact; it was just a half-dozen glued-on dialogs per character scattered through the game, which you could easily ignore. OTOH it has made a huge mess of every BioWare game post Jade Empire. Take Mass Effect for example. Because they had to put in scads of romance, they turned the Normandy into a high school summer camp. I've recently been playing ME2 (finally) and it's actually impossible to play Shepard in the most obvious, natural, logical way -- a tough-as-nails warship captain requiring discipline and military etiquette, as in, crew snapping to attention when s/he enters the room, addressing him/her as "sir" or "Commander," and not taking every opportunity to share details about their sex lives/species-specific mating rituals, plus awkwardly-written flirts. (Never even mind overt disrespect. I should've had the option to throw Miranda in the brig for the remainder of the mission--or, hell, space her--over the way she talks back.) That's a direct consequence of romance-centric party interaction writing. The disciplined military atmosphere would not have been conducive to romance, so they didn't write in that atmosphere, even though the damn thing takes place in a war, or a warship, with everybody in uniform. The only role-playing options that writing added were options to romance different crew members. If you're not interested in romancing any of them, you're left in the cold. I would not object to a cRPG where romance was written in from the ground up, i.e. where it was a fundamental plot driver and motivation. PS:T was arguably just this and it was brilliant. I do object--strongly--to shoehorning romance into games where the fundamental plot drivers are something completely different--a curse, defeating the ancient evil that has risen again, finding the McGuffin, destroying the McGuffin or whatever. The Lord of the Rings would not have been improved if Sam and Frodo had declared their undying love for each other while crawling up Mount Doom.

Man, Obsidian just can't win. Change something from the D&D formula, like add firearms, howls. Make something obviously derivative from the D&D formula, like klonebolds or spiderflayers, howls. Although it's probably not the same people howling.

But all those stories were entirely linear, and had no impact whatsoever on the world at large. You could do all of them, become master of all guilds, complete all quests for all factions, and none of it affected anything in the least bit. That made the whole thing feel hollow and pointless. If none of it makes any difference and there's nothing to discover but another dungeon that looked just like every other dungeon, and more monsters and bandits just like the other monsters and bandits you've fought, why bother?

@namelessthree in #165 -- I strongly dislike empty choices in cRPG's, like the dialog lines that sound different but end up in the same place. This is one reason games like Oblivion or Skyrim leave me completely cold. The only way anything in them means anything is through make-believe, yet it's still so constrained that there's no room for genuine creativity. I enjoy make-believe role-playing tremendously if other people are involved, which is why I play tabletop RPG's. I find it pointless in a computer game, and beyond pointless in a single-player computer game. It's also lazy design; giving the appearance of breadth and depth when in reality there isn't any. This is why I like the sound of P:E's reputation mechanics a lot. While the immediate consequence of your hypothetical dialog would still be the same, the line you chose would feed into your personal reputation, and that personal reputation would have an impact down the line. That suddenly makes the exercise worthwhile again.

If they want meaningful feedback on stuff like talents, a certain amount of character advancement has to be in. You could do that with an "arena" type demo, or you could have a section with optional quests and accelerated XP awards. (I'm looking forward to the commentary but won't play the beta. I prefer to go straight to the real deal.)

@Prince of Wales, that's usually known as "rape," not "getting laid." I mean, I had heard that some people have difficulties making the distinction, but still...