Rahelron

Nice passive aggressive kung fu, do you have any other tricks up your sleeve? It would certainly help my selfish enjoyment of the game. The whining of disappointed romance fans is a music to my ears anyway. Hey man, you should stop. The OP clearly said that this topic was made for those who enjoy romance stories. It was made to discuss what we liked and what we didn't like about those kind of plots. This topic is not about wether or not including love stories in the game, it's about what we would like to see if the developers decided to include them. Do you know what this means? That you don't belong here. If you start posting comments saying that you don't want love stories you are the one off topic, you are the flamer and, actually, you are the one who's whining.

Why not? People would blow a fuse. "Why NPC A and not NPC B?" "I want to have an interspecies gay romance!" "NPC C is obviously in love with the PC as my mod handily proves" etc... You should just stay away from the forums. Let the flamers flame and complain with the developers asking why that NPC didn't have his own romance storyline. As long as you don't read their posts they can't hurt your feelings. BTW: do you think that the situation would get better if the developers didn't include a single romance story in the game? It would be just a way to make the flamers flame more.

The cold-hearted trolls managed to taint this topic too. Why they are still claiming that there's people demanding NPCs to have sex with is beyond me.

Please don't turn this game in a Diablo clone. The mega dungeon is a huge storytelling opportunity, it shouldn't become just a place full of chests to open and bosses to kill for loot. Powerplay and loot hunting is for other kinds of games, not project eternity.

First of all I'd be happy if PE's romances were good stories. Stories that I would enjoy if I read them in a book, with the only difference that, since we are talking about an RPG and not about a book, the PE romances should not be railroaded experiences. The player should be able to choose which NPC to approach, but the NPCs shouldn't fall in love with him just because he is the hero. The player should behave in the right way to make someone fall in love with him. With that I mean that if I was roleplaying (for example) an individualist character the altruistic NPC of my party shouldn't approach me. If the developers wanted to add some un-romanceable character that would be fine to me. Just please let the player approach that NPC and trigger a dialogue where he gets dropped. It would be good too see love stories between companions that can't be romanced by the main character. Letting a high charisma main character roleplay the womanizer with non companion NPCs would be amazing, but this would be just a plus. The game doesn't need a feature like that. BAD EXAMPLES OF ROMANCE STORIES (WHAT I DON'T WANT TO SEE IN PROJECT ETERNITY): The witcher 2: In that game the player is stripped of his freedom. The Geralt's default love interest is Triss, the player isn't allowed to choose. If he drops Triss because he doesn't like her he's forced to play the loner. If he stays with Triss he's stuck in a railroaded love story where he isn't even able to fully love her (because of Yennifer). Sex is also a major focus on the love story and is used without restrictions during the whole game. I don't need to say that Project eternity doesn't need to lure players in with the promise of soft porn cutscenes. Skyrim: In Skyrim the so called "love stories" are pretty much non-existent. Your wife is just something useful to fill your house and don't make it feel like an empty space. The NPC you marry becomes an ego-stroking puppet that gives you money and says that loves you, nothing more. Dragon age 2: In DA2 the NPCs are very detailed and well written from a tecnical point of view. I pretty much hated them all (except Varric), but it's just a personal judgement about their behaviour and what they believed in. The romance storylines are handled in an awful manner though. Everything is just reduced to a point management system: you need to bring your "affinity" with the character you want to hit above a given threshold, a threshold which is conveniently shown in that character's sheet. After you have done that you just have to hit the "flirt button" and the love story begins. Everything feels mechanical, just like a dating symulator, as someone said in other topics. The romance dialogues are very well written, but everything gets screwed by the mechanic that let you trigger those dialogues. CONCLUSIONS. IN PROJECT ETERNITY THE LOVE STORIES SHOULD: Be beautiful stories, with great emotional impact. Be integrated in the main plot and feel a natural part of the story progression. Be more than one to let the player choose. Force the player to do things right to make people fall in love with him. But to achieve this the developers shouldn't use cheap point management systems ("oh, I said that thing and I lost two affinity points with XXX, let me reload and say something else". This is wrong!) I would like to be able to marry my love interest and live with her in my stronghold. But, it's not a necessity.

"Planescape Torment" if you want something classic. If you want something more recent try "The Witcher 2". Its combat is pretty difficult, you have to get used to it, but the game itself is beautiful.

I think there's a fairly clear and substantial difference, at least in terms of character, between a system that says 'You spared the life of Old Ma Kettle. As a result, your companion Amelia Kettle is grateful towards you' and a system that says 'You spared the life of Old Ma Kettle. As a result, Amelia Kettle would like to have a conversation with you where she toys with her hair and asks if there'll ever be something between the two of you because she's been finding you attractive for some time now.' In short, I think having general reputation amongst your companions rise and fall according to this cause-and-effect system is simplistic but basically fine - it's a management mechanic that simulates the player character's leadership skills (or lack of), their ability to flatter and manage and control their team, and it can basically make logical sense so far as motivations go (you kill an orc. Your orc party member becomes unhappy. Fine.). Having a party member automatically become attracted to or fall in love with the player character as a direct result of a cause-and-effect system has nothing to do with how real-life love works and, really, it's rather odd. The party member turns into a kind of bridal Tamagotchi. I agree with you. Simplified friendships are less annoying than simplified love stories. But I dont think the problem is love, the problem is how the romance stories have been handled in games so far. The problem with (bioware) games is the fact that they make everything obvious and plain with those "affinity indicators" that show up in the NPCs character sheet. Raise the affinity above a given threshold and the love story will start. This feels too much mechanical and should be changed. When that threshold is really easy to achieve with some party management and some obvious dialogue choices it's even worse. If you want to romance your lawful good companion you just have to avoid bringing her when you have to break the law for example. This makes everything feel like a minigame where the reward is a sex cutscene and some ego-stroking line said around the main game. Love in games deserves a better representation, but this means that love stories should be deeper and handled with more complex in-game mechanics, not that they should be scrapped altogether.

Let's say I agree with your vision: every story-arc within your party is a relationship minigame then. What's the difference between a relationship where falling in love is the outcome and one where the ultimate resoult is becoming friends? The mechanics that handle that progression are pretty much the same. Your actions and your dialogue choices (and maybe your status in the reputation system) decide what every NPC thinks about you. Someone might leave the party because of your choices, someone might fall in love with you. Where's the problem? Why you think that love is the problem? Every game that involves relationships between PC and NPCs has a set of algorithms and scripts that handle those relationships. It needs them to make the story react taking the actions of the player into account. Those alorithms and scripts are needed to give agency to the player. If the developers take those out then the game becomes a movie where you have to fight or solve puzzles to see how the story progresses. It becomes a shooter, an hack 'n slash, a graphic adventure... but shurely not an RPG.

This is true for every interaction in every RPG that has companions in hit. You have to create a group and keep everyone loyal to you, so you have to choose the right dialogue options when issues arise. Love is not the problem, the problem is within the way by which RPGs recreate human relationships... any kind of human relationship.

Romance Minigames? Can you point me an example of that? Personally I'm talking about romances as subplots of the main storyline, as one of the many ways to interact with your companions. In my dreams romances should not be stuff like "you choose what NPC you want to date, hit the button, and then the storyline triggers". NPCs should fall in love with you only if you were the right person, meaning, you should fight for their same ideals, you should show to be the person they dream of and so on. An example: If I go around and take every task from every poor villanger asking for help my cynic and individualistic NPC companion should never fall in love with me.

I'd like to read a monthly update, but it's not necessary. I hope to forget about this game as soon as possible because It's becoming difficoult to do anything else than check the kickstarter site lately. In my dreams I'm forgetting about the game and then, in april 2014 I find a mail in my inbox where there are the directions to download it. Lol, it would be perfect: all the pleasure without the pain of the wait XD

Project Eternity can end up being one of two things: 1- A great revival of Infinity Engine based RPGs that will make die-hard fans happy. 2- A step forward for RPGs in general. Only in the second case PE will be a game able to influence the next RPG generation. To achieve this goal Obsidian has to implement brand new features and to steer away (at least in part) from the inifinity engine style of gameplay and storytelling. This could mean alienating part of the community and could be very risky, because in this case the community financed the project. It's a big risk, but it could be the only way to make PE a fertile franchise, appealing even to those that never lived the Inifinity Engine era. I think that Project Eternity needs to take the second road because if it doesn't it will never make enough profit to let obsidian finance a second chapter. Ok using kickstarter for one game, but if you find yourself in the need to ask money to the community for the second chapter, the third and so on then something is going wrong.

You know, that can be fulfilled perfectly with a deep friendship too. Why does that have to be romance exclusive? Seriously, that's a big reason why so many people dislike romances. They take all our close relationships and leave those of us who aren't interested in romances starving Yeah. Even in real life people can live without love. But it's not a good life, at least I think it isn't.

Eh ragazzi, mi sa che qui non si cava un ragno dal buco. Polacchi e Russi hanno avuto la loro traduzione solo perchè alcune compagnie di localizzazione dei rispettivi paesi si sono oafferte di fornire quel servizio gratis. Credo lo facciano perchè in quei mercati la distribuzione digitale su steam e similari va poco e dunque sono sicuri di vendere molte copie fisiche con un sovrapprezzo adeguato per rientrare dei costi di traduzione. Da noi non si è fatto avanti nessuno con un offerta simile invece, e vi assicuro che l'annuncio di una traduzione in italiano fatta da Obsidian con i soldi di Kickstarter causerebbe un sacco di flame su questo forum. Tutti gli utenti anglofoni che hanno contribuito si sentirebbero traditi e si lamenterebbero del fatto che i loro soldi vengano spesi per una caratteristica che a loro non interessa. E' dura e naturalmente non condivido la loro opinione ma è così. Ora come ora l'unica speranza che ci rimane è che qualche squadra di utenti si metta lì ed utilizzi il toolkint che Obsidian metterà a disposizione per fare una traduzione adeguata. Naturalmente ciò significa che non sentiremo mai ridoppiati i dialoghi parlati eccetera, ma mi sa che ora come ora è il meglio che possiamo aspettarci.

You know, even heroes sometimes cry and need a lovely hug. Well I'm not against the option(Having options in a game is always good), but hope its not throw in my face like certain games, make the hero take the initiative. Person : Oh you are so heroic while you behead those villains!All this blood makes me fall in love for you! Protagonist: Ahahah You are right. The way the NPCs hit on you in DA2 was really incredible. You just had to hit the "flirt button" once and they started loving you out of nowhere. I hope we will get something better with PE

You know, even heroes sometimes cry and need a lovely hug.

It seems to me that what the "no romances" party argues is: "Romance ruins characters and makes everyone less interesting". Do you really think so? I agree with you that romance-centered dialogues look pretty much all the same unless the writer is really good, which sometimes happens in book novels, but almost never in videogames. But characters are not necessarly restricted to a single romance story-arc. They can have their personal plot too. It's what happened in DA2 with all the 5 romance-able characters (pretty much the only thing that Bioware did right with that title). Merrill, for example, can be romanced, but at the same time has her personal story involving her clan and the Eluvian mirror.

I'm shure at obsidian will develop deep and engaging storylines for each and every companion. Storylines that don't necessarily involve love, but that will treat different subjects. A brother in arms storyline would be great.

I think obsidian has all the money it needs to deliver a great game. So don't worry about your pledge, you already did a great thing offering what you were able to offer.

Hey man... I don't think anyone here is asking for nude scenes and open sex in project eternity. I think the majority of the people in this post is just asking for good romance stories, the ones you can read in good books.

How much time do you think it took Bioware to create 10 spaceship models (which by the way are the main ship models just shrinked) the to include in the capitan's cabin? Those things don't take away time from the developers. If you were really concerned about such problems you should have complained about the whole Kickstarter prize system. Do you know how much time will take to collect all the NPC data sent by the backers and cram it into the game in a passable lore-friendly manner? If you want the developers to focus on player agency and player freedom you shouldn't complain about romance stories, because they give more freedom and more agency to the player. You should go in the gameplay forum and start asking to shut down some of the 11 classes and to avoid taking too much time into the combat system development. That's one thing that takes away a lot of time and resources, not some well written romance story. How much time did it take them to record all the VO work to take into account the various romance permutations in DA:O or ME? Your strawman argument won't wash here. They didn't just make the spaceships or the fish, they made cutscenes, voiced interactions etc. all which really served no real purpose but actually; in light of the supposed desperate plight of the galaxy or world facing imminent destruction from Reapers or Darkspawn; made it ridiculous with Shepard or the Grey Warden spending more time trying to get their leg over than dealing with an imminent threat to the world. THIS is why I despise the focus on romance in RPG games. I've already said that it's ok in moderation, as some minor interlude or if it's DIRECTLY relevant to the progress of the plot, but otherwise, why waste time on it? Sorry, my post wasn't clear. I was talking about the Mass Effect features that we have a chance to see in Project Eternity, not the ones we will never see. So I talked about the Spaceship Models because we will probably have stuff like that in the stronghold, I didn't talk about the romance cutscenes because the developers made it pretty clear that we won't have cutscenes in PE. Maybe something at the beginning and in the end, but nothing in the middle. It is true that creating 4 to 10 full voiced cutscenes for every romance story drains time for actual gameplay development. But we are not going to see such things in PE. Having romances is going to mean having some dialogue section, and maybe a fade to black implying a sex scenes that we will never see. How much time might a thing like this take away from game development?

I agree with you on this. I never agreed with angry joe when he said that including sex scenes in a videocame means "treating the player like an adult". It means treating him like an horny teenager. I'm all for romance stories in videogame, bu this doesn't mean that I'm for soft porn and jerking material.

That is great and all, but you've simulatenously missed my point and proven it at the same time. Maybe you should read it again. You're arguing for romances not because they have any specific narrative or thematic importance, but as a game feature for the purposes of wish fulfillment. Also, you're confusing plot with narrative thematics. Whereas games are able to have non-linear plots unlike the layout of typical films, the prevailing themes of a game's narrative can still be present regardless of plot divergence and player initiative. An example: Planescape: Torment. I'm not arguing anything that you said, and I'm perfectly aware of the difference between narrative thematics and plot. You have to understand that while movies and books use a linear story to deliver their narrative thematics games can't do just that, unless they want to become movies themselves. The developers can't scrap such an important feature just because it's not directly linked to the theme they want to express. If they want to create a true interactive experience that lets the player have real gameplay freedom they have to deal with the problem and find a fitting way to include everything in the game. In story driven media (books, movies, dramas, opera, story driven games...) romance is one of the main themes, so you can't just ignore it if you are trying to craft an interactive experience that aims to "give freedom to the player".

How much time do you think it took Bioware to create 10 spaceship models (which by the way are the main ship models just shrinked) the to include in the capitan's cabin? Those things don't take away time from the developers. If you were really concerned about such problems you should have complained about the whole Kickstarter prize system. Do you know how much time will take to collect all the NPC data sent by the backers and cram it into the game in a passable lore-friendly manner? If you want the developers to focus on player agency and player freedom you shouldn't complain about romance stories, because they give more freedom and more agency to the player. You should go in the gameplay forum and start asking to shut down some of the 11 classes and to avoid taking too much time into the combat system development. That's one thing that takes away a lot of time and resources, not some well written romance story.

You would be right... if we were talking about movies or books. But we are talking about videogames. Let me explain. In books and movies the audience is passive. You have to read or watch something that the author wants to tell you. After that you can judge if that theme (or message) was worth your time, if you agree with the author and stuff like that. In that kind of environment "giving what the audience wants" is a bad thing because destroys the artistic freedom of the author and always turns out in boring and cheap stories. But games are different. In games the audience is not passive, the players are the active force that drives the story forward. As the story goes on they make choices that change what happens, they shape their own experience. If the developers don't embrace this concept (which by the way is what makes games different from other kind of media as a form of art) then they create an interactive movie where the player has to fight his way thourgh dungeons (like in RPGs) or solve puzzles (like in graphic adventure games) to see how the story goes on. This is what every true RPG fan hates because limits freedom and doesn't take advantage of the strenghts of the media: the ability to provide interactive experiences. What I want to say is that the developers should give the players the possibility to shape their own experience with their actions. This doesn't mean "including romance stories for the sake of having them", it means allowing the people who want to roleplay a romantic character to be free to do just that. If the developers think that spending time with romance stories is something that should have negative consequences within the world and the story they are want to create (i.e.: you shouldn't waste time having sex with your companion while the monsters are conquering the world) they should add some negative consequences within the gameplay. But limiting the player freedom by erasing romance stories is just a pure loss.