redneckdevil

I'm not denying that flings or relationships happen in stressful situations , I will say that not ALL stressful situations over time will involve the want of flings or romances. And I think that's what it boils down to. Some people see that there is that sometimes it happens and see the need for it in every game or it's just badwrongefun and some people see that it doesn't happen all the time so why include it or it's just badwrongefun too. My opinion is once both sides accept that It can happen and that it can also not happen and be happy with a great game with or without "a well written" romance in it and not simply write it off because it does or doesn't have it in the game, the need for these threads won't be needed. A game doesn't have to have romance in it to be well written or a great game. A game can include romance in it and be still be a great game as long as it's optional.

I dont believe they are trolling, more like viewing it from the other angle. They are viewing it as "stress" being said is whats bringing people together and while they have given examples of stressful situations without any thought of romance, stress is also why alot of relationships ends because its to much for them and the desire of romance is replace with dread and stress. I think the other side is using stress not as the reason, but motivator to overcome obstacles which i coukd see the need to overcome obstacles and being with someone thru that could like they said bring the need of "romance" but then again it can so be attuned to be seen as a lustful moment which i have encountered or can be viewed as thats someone i can depend on, need to keep them. Stress by itself can either shut people down over a period of time or can make people motivated to see it as something to overcome. So no i dont think they are trolling, both sides are saying something on the 2 sides of a coin and are both correct.

Take the books they have done so far and make a free app on android and iphone with the name of the game. A player did it with the TES books and very well coukd grab new people while also being entertaining.

I finally got it and it was a hit with some and a miss with others. Still trying to get all the rules down but definitely need a "storyteller" to make it more engaging but its imho still fun without.

U know it just hit me but theres a way for obsidian to get some nice exposure and reach more people. I was thinking if they put up an app on android and iphones that was free andu could read the books they have written. I know someone did that on android for the books that were in all the elder scrolls (which quite a few of them are very good) and could draw in a crowd that it seems they are focused on. But to the OP, yes i love reading the books they have available so far and they are very well done. They make me more excited about the game

They are not against the "important theme in art" as alot of their games do have romance and love stories in them, hell fonv had quite a bit of them. What they are against is involving the player themselves into the romance. They can write very good romance/love stories, buts it different and id dare say easier to write a romance/love story with npcs because its set in the options because they already know who the npcs are and what type of character they are. Players on the other hand, they have no idea what the players character is and what their personality or what they are looking for or expecting so that makes it alot more difficult and why most romances are simply miss instead of hits because so far the ones ive seen are designed around a certain character. The player isnt that type of character and the wholething doesnt "fit". So no, they are not "against" romance or love stories and i would bet money we will see some types of romance or love stories in POE, they are against romance or love stories involving the player and centering it around the players. I mean really, if u follow the thread and think of how many games have come out since the bg series, and so far really really only 2 or 3 games are being toted as examples of romance done right and i believe only 2 of them let u create ur own character. A few of the games that are being toted as examples had a set character where the developer was already a good bit in control in designing the backstory and motives of said character that it isnt like a blank slate such as ff7 or mass effect or even planescape. The only 2 games im seeing as herald as examples for good examples of romance with a blank slate character is dao and bg2.

Tyvm!

Also a point as well, alot of people preordered and bought the game day 1 because of the companys history of games. Sadly for alot of people, u have to buy it to see if u like it, BUT because alot of people cant refund the game (steam users for example), weither they liked the game or not cant be factored into sales because since u cant refund, the numbers shows "only" happy customers. Just food for thought when looking at sales. I liked skyrim at first, but coming in expecting they took cues from writing and c&c from fonv and getting into arguements with morrowindnites and eventually trying the game out....well the appearance of handholding, lack of c&c (seriously, take the guard banter out and u woukd literally take most of the c&c away from the game), and the quality of writing necame very glaring to me and my like for the game dropped. now as a rpg, id say it suffering very much and if i go in expecting a rpg with rpg mechanics then im usually unsatisfied. If i go in expecting an action game with exploration with borderlands rpg mechanics sprinkled in and heavy doseage of cyberLARPing...then im usually having fun. i guess with skyrim, if i enjoy it or not depends on my viewset of the type of game it is before and while im playing.

Mmm ive been reading him for years and own all his books. I know theres alot written about the unknown, things from outer space and beyound, things that are beyound our understandings and that we dont even matter or important enough to be acknowledged by other than food etc. But from reading his books, the common theme besides the nonhappy endings, is the human trying to deal with something they cant comprehend. Things and ways that goes against our natural laws and physics and the interaction with minds that cannot fully comprehend. i guess a single word insanity is pushing to far, but its what the overlining common effect with the characters, either by actually going that route or feeling like they are because they can perceive whats going on. I guess its the label of someone who able to understand or on their way to trying to or prevent themselves from trying to understand or cope with whats going on. Going out and actually reading some Lovecraft would be a tremendous help in dispelling such misconceptions.

I thought lovecraft was about insanity and that u could never escape it whatever its sourse (spells, confronted with something ur mind could never handle, not knowing u were insane, etc etc) and that we are not important enough for a neat wrapped up like a christmas present happy ending. Hell pyramid head is simply a personal demon created by that persons mind, but neither henry mason nor the guy from the second one ever truely escape it (henry in the 3rd and while the second one ends up accepting and coming to terms, hes still bat**** crazy) i wont go into the rest since they went downhill. Its always out there and u never know what sourse it will come from. You can never truely be rid of it in the world, it will always be there til way past the final ending.

Was just wondering what campaign it was gonna use when its first released? Will it be RotRL or SaS or will it be a new campaign?

Ow im not saying its not sonys fault with the ps3, im just saying that due to limitations it shouldnt be ONLY blamed on the ps3. I was stating the 360 has a hand it in it as well simy because of it designed onit first and while it is better friendly hardware than the ps3, being designed on a hardware that is 10 years old does have its place in the blame as well. Tbh i just yearn for the old days when the ganes were designed for pc first then ported to consoles and things cut to fit on that hardware. But i see why having everyone has the same game is seen as a good thing though.

That is actually what I wanted to say. Didn't put it well enough, my bad. Look, there's nothing wrong here. Games designed around concept of "fun" (whether they should be or not - another question), but fun is deeply subjective thing. Not every (wo)man finds reading to be fun. Even fewer find thinking to be so. If you are developer/publisher and seek to sell your game to as many as possible (and you have to, even if only to get back gargantuan development funds of "next-gen graphics") you ought to take a lowest common denominator and divide your game by it. You or me (the gamer) can like it or dislike it, but it is logically right. There were no other ways games could go. AAA titles cannot be intelligent by their own nature, so why keep accusing them of this? You can say that there's Obsidian, who manages to make AAA-games tolerable in this regard at the least and good at the most. But Obs was working only on sequels at first, therefore had strong base in every aspect including technical to begin with, lots of work already done. And even with that every AAA-game they made was severly broken at release in many regards except narrative. For the very first game they want to make without casual gamers in mind they had to go to KS. Moreover, inspiration plays a great role in creative work. I just cannot imagine developer being seriously passionate to make something like Skyrim. More like earning his/her money according to directives from above. Maybe I'm wrong on that one, though. ...The more I see of this guy Volourn, the more looks like his rep is well deserved. Odd. I've said this before but... I think Skyrim came at odds with it's own design due to a lot of different factors. That horrid gamebroke engine, limitations of the PS3, etc. Mods make it so much better, I won't play it without them, but I still get the feeling that a lot of corners had to be cut from the original vision. I like Skyrim but I'm not an FPS guy though, I never liked FPS until the first Half Life came along, and then I saw how a developer could create a compelling story there, along with mechanics and enemies that tell stories of their own. It really is a shame that I rarely see any other FPS noted for its story and atmosphere. I tried that Last Light game and found myself bored pretty quickly. Games shouldn't always be designed around fun, the flash show Extra Credits covered that and did a pretty good job I thought. For some reason that show seems to be haunted by some controversy in its past, but I've never bothered to dig into that. And yes, Volourn is great... We definitely don't agree on everything, but interesting conversation comes from differing perspectives, not ones that are more or less the same. Edit: Come to think of it, part of why I like TES is probably because I started playing at Daggerfall, where as most people discovered the games when Morrowind hit the scene. I also played the Might & Magic series, which is sort of in-between games like the Gold Box RPGs and the first person perspective of TES. It was first person, but party + turn based combat, had really odd puzzles too. The end of book 2 was a surprise, but also made you wonder WTF it had to do with the game. I agree with the limitations part but i wouldnt lump it solely on the ps3, remember the game was designed for the 360 and then ported over to the pc and ps3, so limitations should rest on the 360 part. Bethesda has a terrible track record porting to the ps3 and while all their games are a buggy mess, the best port of a bethesda game to the ps3 was oblivion and bethesda had paid another company to port that game to the ps3.I blame the limitations on the 360 and the ps3 for skyrim and even fonv. It really shows in fonv when the base game without any patches has more content in it and alot of stuff had to be snipped because the 360 and ps3 couldnt handle it. But now that the newer bethesda titles will be on the newer consoles which are basically high end pcs 2 or 3 years ago instead of the outdated machines that were 10 years old, hopefully we will see a huge difference. But tbh i think they will focus more on the sandbox and graphics than actual mechanics and story. They need to start hiring writers again instead on relying on programmers writing the storys. Flame me but i really think they need to bring back the acid tripping, chain smoking, alcoholic writer MK since he basically wrote most of the lore and the last game he was part of was the last TES game that had a decent Main Quest instead of having the guy who wrote the DB quest line in oblivion writing most of the content like they did in Skyrim.

Flame me if u must but i thought Morrowind was the "best they could do" as far as combining character and player skills together. It wasnt perfect but it had that "player is the director and the character is the actor" feel to it. The player would direct the actions but how well those actions played out was up to the character. Plus the lore, atmosphere, and culture oozing out of every thing u seen and interacted with. The main story i loved as well with characters of Vivec and Dagoth Ur and the history behind them. Sigh i coukd go on but i understand its not everyones cup of tea.

Ill be 33 a couple days after it releases

Apparently its going "good" because Obsidian has partnered up with Paizo (a tabletop gaming company) to release card games AND pathfinder crpgs in the future. The reason why the card game is being done first instead of the crpgs is because the card game would be quicker.

Havent been able to play yet because its gonna be a christmas gift BUT no matter how good the game is, if Sandal isnt in it then it aint getting a perfect score.

Tbh i dont "think" its because the players have forgotten patience, its more along the lines that a very good bit of them who was there at the beginning have grown up and have jobs and familys and real life that now dont have the time to sit all afternoon tinkering and retrying and etc like they did back then. teenage years, played all afternoon and all night til i had to go yo school. Now?.......im lucky if i get an hour or 2 back to back within a few days. And thats the double edged sword i fear. I think that is the problem with games now a days because they are designing around that mentality but with a younger age bracket. No longer are trying to test our brains and imaginations but trying to market to people who can just pick up and go and put it down and come back (and sadly they are semiright in that design decision). The older gamers who are lacking in the time they once used to be able to spend, designing around that imho has hurt the younger generation who has to go back in time to find these type of games. So whule a company needs money to CONTINUE, sadly there is reason why games have been being made the way they are. Do i think its right? Hell No! But i do see the reasoning behind it from a finacial continuing to exist train of thought.

Carrion crown all the way tbh.....just an idea for yal

Mmmm im gonna have to say alice madness returns ost and morrowind ost. Silent hill 1 gets an honorable mention because it was very nice mixed with alice madness returns for my carrion crown campaign and my players loved it

I dunno bout that. Apparently sun spiders can grow to the size of a human...

Cant be done, the end. Thread was baseless from the very beginning or at least since we have known there will be no romance in poe. BALDERDASH!!! (Shakes cane from rocking chair) This thread was created so that we could flap our gums back and forth in a caved pin about romances or the lack there of without getting all ghe other threads all hot and bothered by the content of what is going on! Without this thread to cage it in, can u imagine all the other threads getting crazy ideas such as holding hands and (gasp!) dancing and shaking their bums to try and attract other threads! I mean. An u imagine what the threads would look like? People cant stop talking about it so this is here to keep all the talk in one place...so SHHHHHH. Or else all the other threads will cant on and ull see "romance this" "romance that" all over the dagum place. Keep it locked tight and rdy tbose gates so we can shove all of it in here. And yes i have been drinking!!!

Yeah if you do the plot of the games there are not usually a ton of choices to make. Daggerfall stands out as an exception of sorts. Even with that bizarre way they got out of how the game world was effected. And also morrowind, hence why i called oblivion and skyrim because in those games, main quest and side quests u could only do them 1 way. The quests were very on the rails. Most people see them as nonlinear because they give a sandbox world with places to explore and u can roleplay in ur head whatever u want, but the actual quests u do are very railroaded.

Well said. How about some clear examples. Linear Story = Baldur's Gate 1. There are side quests but they have no effect on the main plot and you have to do the main plot in order. Partially Linear = Mass Effect 1. You don't have to follow plot in a specific order.... but you do have to do all major plot events. There are some side quests and they have slight influence on the story. Non Linear = Elder Scrolls. Yeah there is a story, but it is pretty weak. Most people ignore it, and would rather just run around and do all the faction/side stuff which can have a big impact on the game world. Meanwhile the main story in many ways can be done out of order and you can even accidentally wander into some parts of it. Some Elder Scrolls games are even so open on plot you can kill key storyline npcs and still clear the main plot. Meanwhile.... who hired you to get all that bear ass exactly, what is wrong with them, what do they need all that ass for, and how exactly are you carrying the 20 bear ass in question? Ok elder scrolls though with oblivion and skyrim are actually VERY linear. Most people see them as nonlinear simply because they chose to do the quests or not BUT if they chose to do so its very much on the rails. It just hides it by being a sandbox world butbu ae still "stuck" at a certain moment in the storyline if u do not follow the rails.

Deep npc interactions and romances do not contradict one another. Romances can be a "form" of deep npc interaction, but doesnt mean that every romance will be a deep npc interaction or that the effort/ability is the same. Just because someone can do a story with deep npc interactions doesnt mean they can do one using romance as a tool to do so. I GM and i consider myself lretty good at story telling and i can create characters the players will hate, will want to protect and stick up for, be intimidated by by just wlrds alone etc etc. I CANNOT come up with a great or interesting love arch/romance at all. It pisses my woman off because she sees my notes and characters and stories i write and gets mad because for the life of me, i cannot write or come up with something romantic for her as often as i can with stories. imho its a helluva lot easier to come up with an epic tale, a horror story, a good mystery than it is to create a decent romance story for me. reason is because action, epicness, mystery, and even horror is so much easier to conjure up because i have seen and/or felt those emotions and tales whereas a romance to be done well, u have to have insperation for, a well to dip from. And while i have alot of love in my life, its more simple than something complex because thats i view/like romance. The torrent of emotions and how and the steps that lead up, during, and after are hard to capture to me in something on the same level as the rest kf what i can do. some people are really good (or think they are at romances) while others arent. Doesnt make them less writers or story tellers, people just have their niche. Romance authors will find romance easier than horror, and so on and so forth. So ill end by saying, it is not a contradiction. Romance is a vehicle a writer can use to create deep relationships between characters, its just not all writers/storytellers have the license much less that vehicle of their own to try to drive. They just use other vehicles to get to the same place, doesnt make it all the same or that everyone can all drive the same thing.