Morality Games

But aren't "bad" and "good" ultimately subjective? Which is the problem with arguing absolutes with writing - again to me. Don't let me change your posting style with my comments, certainly not my intent. What is subjective about good writing? Apparently some people like James Joyce's ULYSSES. I kid. Well kind of. There's a technical aspect to writing and a creative aspect. The technical aspect is I'd agree objective to a large degree (and yet writers can subvert it to effect as well, so it's not always clear cut); the creative aspect is, however entirely subjective. At least that's how I see it. That's because SHEPPARDS DEATH with respect to the plot is an element of the story, not necessarily the point of the story. That said it is an element of character since being brought back by CEREBUS effects the character interactions that Sheppard has. To me a romance could serve as a good element of defining character between PC/NPC or NPC/NPC but only if it fits the context of the story and fits the characters involved and fits the developers vision for the game in general. It just moves the time forward! And it isn't an element of sheppard's character, because he doesn't care about it, nor does anyone else. You don't just ****ing kill the protagonist, only to bring him back to life minutes later. Sheppard is a brick. We don't see what he experienced, if anything, while dead. We don't see that traumatizing, hell lethal, experience. progress him as a character. And it doesn't matter to the plot either, the time jump was not needed, sheppard's death was not needed. Same with "romance" minigames; they don't serve anything. 'Anything' is extreme. They don't serve the main narrative. Neither do side missions or the mega-dungeon.

You are missing the point. RPGs are not only about a story, they are also about role-playing, that is about doing what you want to do, behaving the way you want to behave, having priorities you have chosen to have. More like you don't understand that it's a designer to decide what options to role-play you get because a game will obviously have limitations since it has to be finished and then released. And since games are always limited obvious that some content will get in and some other won't. Now,how do we decide wich gets in and wich doesn't? Player demand for fanservice or artistic considerations? It really isn't so hard to understand. Also lol,to quote myself(and from this same page too!!!): The point you were trying to bring up has already been criticized several times in this and others threads,yet you brought it up regardless without bothering to bring up additional arguments to support your stance. Nice try but, again,you'll have to wait to try again.Maybe 5-6 pages should do it. Has anyone here ever worked on an elaborate, narrative-driven RPG? The notion that romances absorb excessive time and effort from the developers is speculative at best. If it takes Avellone to write one companion two-three months at least, I'd say it's pretty damn excessive time and effort. Have YOU ever worked on writing elaborate, narrative-driven RPG? An elaborate, narrative-driven RPG? No. That's why I said "has anyone" (including myself) and "speculative" -- if I knew for certain, I would just tell you, instead of asking a rhetorical question. As for the other question: does "writing a companion takes two-three months at least," even make sense in a game where dialogue and narrative blend together with an open persistent world that is being worked on until the last second? Is Avellone writing those companions concurrently with other stretches of the game? If two-three months were spent on writing companions to the exclusion of all else, then based on the number of projected companions, Avellone wouldn't be able to write anything else for any other part of the game before it is released. Right. So how much does time does writing and editing for romance add? One week? Two weeks? Another month?

You are missing the point. RPGs are not only about a story, they are also about role-playing, that is about doing what you want to do, behaving the way you want to behave, having priorities you have chosen to have. More like you don't understand that it's a designer to decide what options to role-play you get because a game will obviously have limitations since it has to be finished and then released. And since games are always limited obvious that some content will get in and some other won't. Now,how do we decide wich gets in and wich doesn't? Player demand for fanservice or artistic considerations? It really isn't so hard to understand. Also lol,to quote myself(and from this same page too!!!): The point you were trying to bring up has already been criticized several times in this and others threads,yet you brought it up regardless without bothering to bring up additional arguments to support your stance. Nice try but, again,you'll have to wait to try again.Maybe 5-6 pages should do it. Has anyone here ever worked on an elaborate, narrative-driven RPG? The notion that romances absorb excessive time and effort from the developers is speculative at best.

This is a big reason why romances do not work. Equity. Soon, all npcs must be bangable because the player must have equitable choices. Frankly, I hope OE avoids this pitfall entirely. If not, the entire slate of npcs will be little more than contestants on some fantasy dating game show. If equity is the issue, then Dragon Age: Origins has the right concept. Two straight pairings (Morrigan and Alistair) and two wild cards (Leliana and Zevran). Not quite fair, but reasonable given the demographics. Yeah but you see that's the point. Trying to appease to every demographic doesn't make anything more mature or deeper. It takes a feeling like romantic love and turns it into choose your own adventure minigame. Imagine if every movie had alternatives about every romantic relationship in them. NO matter how good or bad they might be on other accounts, the subject would change to "go and see your favourite x movie OTP doing it" or "see your OTP having a Happy ever after", even if the author never wanted this as the primary attraction. Admittedly, the masculinity of the Nameless One probably figured heavily into how Annah and Fall-From-Grace perceived and responded him. In that context, either equity should be abandoned or there should be one pairing a piece. Although it may be hard to swallow when the female elf is only interested in women, perhaps that is for the best. Alternatively, they can try harder to add depth in other ways to make up for it. Even in Kotor II, if the Exile was female, Visas Marr would still find them compelling regardless of romantic indifference. I'm not opposed to conservation of content in principle, but it has been over used in Bioware's most recent games. Ultimately, we'll just have to trust Obsidian to implement such features in ways that engage the players.

This is a big reason why romances do not work. Equity. Soon, all npcs must be bangable because the player must have equitable choices. Frankly, I hope OE avoids this pitfall entirely. If not, the entire slate of npcs will be little more than contestants on some fantasy dating game show. If equity is the issue, then Dragon Age: Origins has the right concept. Two straight pairings (Morrigan and Alistair) and two wild cards (Leliana and Zevran). Not quite fair, but reasonable given the demographics.

You know, I had not considered this and it's a good point. Considering Obsidian's limited budget and timetable, it might be difficult to accomodate both. How about a compromise, then? Romance for low INT characters only. Historically not every dialogue option reflects the low intelligence. Its more of an added when possible for laughs thing.

Not going to lie. I liked Fall-From-Grace more.

Sometimes you just go along with the ride. My response to anything Obsidian wants to put in the game is, "Win me over."

Hear, hear. Maybe a little more participation from the player.

That would be fine by me. The Annah romance wasn't part of the main story, because Annah wasn't an obligatory character. It was just blended well with the main story because of good technique.

I agree that there are several different ways to express and convey emotion, but let me ask you this. If the romance did not include sex and was in no way intrusive or a major part of the storyline (meaning that you wouldn't notice it unless you were looking for it) and done in a way that truly did enrich the character(s) it was implemented for, would it bother you to the point of still being 100% against it? This wasn't directed at me, but I'm fine with this kind of implementation with the only caveat that non-romance content must be at least equal to romance content in the parallel/exclusive sense--it's a problem if a character is written with a romance path taking up 50% of its content, then someone who pursues it gets twice as much content as someone who chooses not to pursue it. A much better implementation is to have that 50% generic content that branches as a "Y" into two equal and exclusive paths, one of "romance" and the other of "bromance/best friend" or whatever. And this cannot be dismissed with "just ignore it" because we only have eight companions. Eight. Not eighteen. For a party of six. Honestly, if we were going to have over a dozen companions of considerable depth, I'd have much less of a problem with this overall, but that's simply not within the scope of the project. Companion interaction is critical for PE, and that means everyone should have equal opportunity to experience it in both quantity and quality. The only other fundamental disagreement I have with some people who want romances is the idea that "romance" somehow brings higher objective value to a character interaction. To repeat myself, since I doubt most would read the earlier parts of this thread: I don't believe stories "benefit" or not by inclusion of romance but rather that such stories are either designed to be such from the outset by virtue of genre application or the plot mechanism is specifically added to hook proponents of said genre--thus romance is not something I see as having additional intrinsic value in a fictional work, but is either the underlying nature of the story itself already or is used for marketing. Either you like the genre and reactive positively to the audience targeting, or you don't care for it (for whatever reasons). There are many other aspects of a relationship that give depth and meaning, and romance isn't by default any better than them. Well, I broadly agree. As I said earlier, the inclusion of the platonic dialogues alongside the romance track in Swtor didn't do much for the narrative's immersion. I might add though that it doesn't have to be a straight 50/50. Some platonic dialogues could be in the romance track, though preferably with minor alterations.

Then don't. There is the Adventurer's Hall and the friendship routes.

Very few people are arguing for it in the "biotard" sense of the word. They want to see what Obsidian can do with the concept.

Perhaps 'filler' was too strong -- the "4,000,000" concept was a substitution for the idea that any amount over 3,500,000 would contribute to polishing the features already added. It could have ended at 4,300,000 and the result would have been comparable to 3,800,000. There was no critical need to get to 4,000,000 exactly. For example, we "probably" could have gotten the fortress for 2.85 million, but not for 2.75 million, as it would have strained the limits of development to be too generous. Enhancement we could have gotten for any amount over 3.5 million.

The last stretch goal was filler anyway. "Any" extra amount would have been spent editing the features already added. No. Failed payments aren't included. Trying to get into the economics behind Project Eternity is difficult. In the end I imagine they have between $3,000,000-3,400,000 to spend on developing the game -- they lose $400,000 immediately on payments to Amazon and Kickstarter (%5 each), probably spend $200,000-$300,000 on prizes and shipping. If "trends" hold (I only have the Banner Saga to compare it to), then failed payments should be small -- maybe as low as $10,000-$25,000, though it could be as high as $50,000-100,000. I'm pretty sure Unity is paid for out of their profits. In accordance with median salaries in the gaming industry, thought ought to be able to employ about 40 people over 18 months of development (assuming they start immediately). All very rough and easily mistaken estimates, particularly concerning development.

$25. The fate of a budgeted existence. I thought about busting for another $20-$25 for the expansion or the beta keys, but it didn't seem right with Shaker hurting.

Hear, hear. Without a doubt the latter is more friendly, although for the sake of narrative, I wouldn't characterize it as a free conversion so much as ending the romance on good terms I can indulge most designs, but Swtor left me believing that blending platonic and romantic dialogue tracks together is sub optimal unless the platonic conversations are altered perceptibly to indicate that a relationship exists between the two characters. The romance neutral conversations in Swtor were mildly immersion breaking when they took place in a romance, although some worked better than others.

I seem to remember a decent number of well-known NPC mods with romance for BG2, but it's really been a while since I played anyway (or looked at the modding scene). People who keep saying it's optional don't realize that romance can easily unbalance available companion content for someone who doesn't go down that path; this is much worse when there are only 8 companions to choose from, not the 18 in BG2, for example. If it makes it into the game, I just want it subtle and not overpowering anything, ever--character content or main storyline. If it turns out that a party NPC's content is half-locked behind a romance path, and I end up not choosing that path, and the party NPC ends up being very quiet with little else to say halfway through the game, that's just an awful waste and boring as all hell. I might as well just get a mercenary spot from the Adventurer's Hall. Companions must be equally compelling to both romancers and non-romancers. (I'll still never forgive a friend who exclaimed that all the companions in PE should be pansexual and romances everyone, any sex or race. Really?) LOL, maybe I should mod a romance. Coming from someone who studied the sociology of unhealthy relationship and role expectations arising from Western popular media. My feelings are more open ended. I just want them to win me over in anyway Obsidian can get them to.

Well, there's a party going on. I imagine we'll see an update in the morning. Late in the morning.

It really does seem more appropriate for modding, and an iso game with no stupid full VO 3D talking heads is going to be far easier to mod for NPC content. Depending on the toolsets the fanbase can create (since there's no word on an official kit) and since Obs is going to leave the content data transparent, I'm sure someone will figure out the necessary triggers. The plus side of leaving any romance content "simple" is that it shouldn't cut into that character's non-romance content too much nor hook into the central plot; but if the companions are going to be around PS:T depth, I doubt romances must exist for someone to figure out dialogue variable use for a particular path, anyway--it's just a road map to particular ends, possibly with math. 0s and 1s. I'm certainly not one to blast mods, but between an Obsidian written romance and a fan written romance there is little comparison. Truth is, the most famous mods were applied to the technical aspects of games, not so much the story, unless it was to restore lost content.

There is likely a difference in the eyes of developers (and part of the fanbase) between PC romances (as in, in which the PC takes part) and NPC romances. MotB has love as one of it's central themes, but it would lose nothing of Safiya wasn't a romanceable character. This argument doesn't apply to Torment as well, but meh. Also, as Avellone wrote in one of his interviews, romance (and friendship) exist apparently to "ego-stroke" the player, which actually implies a lot of things about the mindsets of people playing RPGs, which I would like to think are simply not true. What is this supposed "ego-stroking" anyway? Attempting to instill the player with the feeling of self-worth because NPCs like him/her? The PC, mind you, not the actual player. I'm afraid your mistaken. Video games are intrinsically ego-stroking for the player, especially RPGs. The whole idea is to identify with a character who does great things. Is this really that absolute? Roleplaying doesn't intrinsically mean that people roleplay themselves. They roleplay a character with a distinct personality which isn't their own. Where exactly is identifying yourself with the character comes in? Identifying with someone ultimately means appreciating the logic behind their goals and choices. A fictional setting automatically alters our capacity to appreciate certain kinds of logic. Even a Chaotic Neutral Half-Orc who beats farmers senseless and robs them after rescuing them Kobolds because the player finds it amusing is being identified with, not because robbing people you've rescued is a decision you would make in the real world, but because in the logic of a fictional setting it is a choice some aspect of your ego -- your sense of humor for example -- can identify with, that is, appreciate the logic of. Identification isn't necessarily straightforward as becoming a great hero, but it is always a factor where there are goals and choices.

There is likely a difference in the eyes of developers (and part of the fanbase) between PC romances (as in, in which the PC takes part) and NPC romances. MotB has love as one of it's central themes, but it would lose nothing of Safiya wasn't a romanceable character. This argument doesn't apply to Torment as well, but meh. Also, as Avellone wrote in one of his interviews, romance (and friendship) exist apparently to "ego-stroke" the player, which actually implies a lot of things about the mindsets of people playing RPGs, which I would like to think are simply not true. What is this supposed "ego-stroking" anyway? Attempting to instill the player with the feeling of self-worth because NPCs like him/her? The PC, mind you, not the actual player. I'm afraid your mistaken. Video games are intrinsically ego-stroking for the player, especially RPGs. The whole idea is to identify with a character who does great things.

That's ok, I really hate having to play a guy (I'm looking at you PS:T / TW / AP). We all have our battles. That's a good point, games forcing you to play Male characters. Not to mention 'The Witcher 2' opening sex scene, forced romance in your face! I wonder how many people hate/enjoyed that game? Not talking about gameplay or combat, just simply the whole Witcher/Merigold theme. Didn't like being trapped in the Witcher/Merigold theme all that much, especially since it was a hard counter to my Shani romance in the original game. But I accepted their logic in the end.

In fairness, you buried your own grave when you made it as long and elaborate as you did. Brevity and catchy phrases carry the day on the Internet.

Most of their narrative-driven RPGs do. Exploration-driven RPGs like Fallout stylistically preclude them.