Chabneruk

In every RPG there are a few quests that simply stand out. One of my favorites is the (already often mentioned) "Half Ogre Island Conspiracy" from Arcanum. Not only because of what it did, but because of what it did not: It didn't offer you a cheap standard quest ending, giving some gold and xp and the feeling of having solved a riddle. No, this quest made you lose. And it made you lose in such a way that you regarded the gnomes (which seemed to be quite harmless small people up to that point) from a new and frankly terrifying perspective. Especially when you realised that no matter what you would do, you could not prove what they did - and that all other witnesses vanished... You could not even be sure that what you suspected actually had happened or if it was simply a conspiracy theory. It was a brilliant mind****. Other quests also come to mind. Wandering through the old dwarfen tunnels, fighting the darkspawn in Dragon Age: Origins and suddenly hearing that eerie rhyme... Or helping a street give birth to an alley in Planescape Torment... I think the best quests surprise you with something unexpected - which still fits into the world of the game.

I'd like to see it as an additional companion ala Dogmeat. Or, if it should not have any impact on the gameplay, it should be a nice joke like Boo, the Space Hamster. Maybe even have a miniquest Most importantly, it should be logical to have it - dwarfs might have an underground creature, elves a forest sprite, humans a dog and so on.

Gods are rarely almighty beings in a fantasy setting and while they may be unbelievably powerful, the presents of two gods with different interests already denies the possibility of omnipotence. Thus, it may be quite possible for a mortal to see them as not worthy of worship. I don't know how they would react to that, though. Take the discworld gods, for example, who tend to throw lightning at atheists. Who knows? Maybe the gods of PE would do the same, but maybe you would slip from their attention if you did not worship them, because of a dual-way connection between god and follower. Or maybe gods are only the manifestation of their believers minds/emotions like in Warhammer. Or they could be independent beings. We do not know much about them - and probably this is true for the inhabitants of PEs world. Because the gods would not give up their secrets easily, I think...

I liked Arcanums map, because you could encounter points of interest that would become important later on quite early in the game and gave you a lot of choice in which quests/cities to approach first. They kind of overdid it, though, because theoretically you really could walk from point x to point y through a very generic landscape - even if it took hours. Too bad railways and the like always ended directly after the city borders... Thus I voted for the Fallout 1 approach. Oh, and random encounters should be there, but well done, unique, maybe funny. Not only battles (but there should be some, never without a storyline behind them though - and if it only is that the highwaymen got desperate enough to attack a well-armed party).

There are lots of ways around fetch quests, though some of these quests may be unavoidable for story purposes. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Acting as couriers can be an interesting plot hook. First point in the conception of any quests should be: "Will this quest be boring or will it add something interesting to the game". Baldurs Gate 2 played with this, mercilessly. The quest you got when you uttered the wish (by magic spell) to have "a quest like I never had before" was utterly long and quite tedious, but funny in that, because these wishes were designed to really twist your words around. Standing before an adamantine golem + friends because you wanted more experience was... evil. And great. Some of these fetch quests can be made believable by embedding them logically into the game world. A village is starving because of cold winter? With the right skills you can go and hunt (maybe respawning) deer for them. After a few times they would have enough to survive (Experience Gain, if given for quests) but would still pay you for meat and pelts. Even better, if the game uses acts and you did not hunt for them, you return to find the village depopulated and the survivors desperate. If you hunted for them they survived and support you with later quests. And so on.

I fact, it was mostly not a discussion at all, after the OP merged the "Women in PE"-Thread with the one about "Feminism". Not a good decision... I refrained from restarting the Topic as "Part 2" because it was pretty obvious the trolling would keep going on. But its still a good thing that this topic keeps being discussed. Might send some signals to the devs (...which already had some good female chars in their other games. Before someone adresses this again. And again...)

The whole concept of Boreal Dwarfes looks and feels quite new, so I'd also vote for Sagani.

Very not interesting. Can we get back to the discussion now, without further discussing feminism or whatever that was supposed to be?

Germany

You are doing a good thing, adding another layer to this discussion. Funny thing is, I think there are a lot of men out there who like romance and dresses as well. Both things could be included in PE as well and would enrich the game, I think - as long as they are equally important to men and women both. For example: Having to participate in a festivity and having to choose an outfit/parade uniform, seeing as though adventuring clothes do not really fit the high society (or nobility). Or romantic subplots (but this is being discussed already...).

Once again: Comments like yours make this thread go "down the drain". Thankfully, they are not the only ones. I will adress your comment, though. First of all, this is not about sociopolitical beliefs, it is about a virtual world we can believe in. I can speak only for myself (though others have said similar things here): I want a world were women are diverse. Not because of political correctness, but because that's life. Women are diverse. Of course the developers could build a world where all women are sexy clad bombshells. And if you stretch it, you can find reasons for it, like "chainmail bikinis could be magical". I myself would not buy that, though. To be believable, the world I envision has beautiful women as well as ugly ones - and an average looking majority. There may be cultures in them were males and females alike run around in small pieces of leather and nothing more, because its a cultural thing. Fine by me But this cultures definition of beauty might vary from our own. They might like tattoos and body modification or regard being fat as a sign of wealth. What is important is, that they are believable. They would have to resort to guerilla tactics against heavy armored opponents, for example. They would have to live in warm regions. Their warriors would look trained, but not necessarily beautful. Their women might be equals or supressed - it might even be a highly sexist culture - as long as it is believable. They should not be clad in leather and physically beautiful just because some men (or women) like half-naked characters, regardless the circumstances. This has nothing to do with feminism, nothing to do with political correctness. Not that these are bad things, mind you. And I like that the women in this forum show their opinions - and make your latent sexism even more obvious. Strong female characters are a good thing (as are strong male ones). None of them should be reduced to their appearance. @Raccoon and other sincere posters: Maybe we should lead the discussion away from feminism while ignoring the obvious trolling. I have a few ideas for cultures and the depiction of gender therein. Take, for example, the abovementioned "leatherclads". Jungle people, I guess. Fighting against nature every day might give them some equality in genders, or not. Your thoughts?

Skyrim was really bad in that way. I remember playing with my stoic Nord warrior, who really despised magic because, well... thats what the nords do. And still, all the time there was this questmark in my log, having got stuck there after I used dialogue options that had no alternative. "Go to Winterhold, learn magic" it said. So, after long consideration and having played through most of the game ("Listen to Brinjolfs Scheme" joined its friend in my questlog after a while) I went to Winterhold, to tell them once and for all that this quest line was not for me, the warrior. And guess what? They accepted me into their college, before I could complain. After that I restarted with an Argonian Assassin, capable of fighting, stealing and magic. I guess it is the only way you can play that game with internal logic. I still like it though. No hard feelings. But if they could avoid that in PE, I'd be glad!

I still don't understand why the operator did this, seeing as though the feminism-thread was clearly trolling ala "can we have feminism in the game to laugh about?" and didn't add anything useful to the discussion. Before that, there were a few negative comments as well, mostly regarding "boobplate", because these people jumped into the thread, got stuck on the word after reading three posts and then blurted out some uncontrolled mix of rage and fear of being deprived of "sexy" in the game. But that was okay, because between these (largely ignored) posts there was a real interesting discussion going on about different views on beauty during the ages, cultural differences, the possibility of interesting and attractive female characters who do not have to be physically perfect or half-naked and so on. Now we get this: This is clearly not an attempt to discuss rape in violence games. This is pure and quite primitive provocation. Ironically its the same people who do this (and I am not talking about THIS poster for he only posted once. He is just an example) who demand the thread closed, calling others "white knights" and "feminists" while generally not adding to the discussion. And yeah, I am explaining trolling right here. Stupid me But back to the discussion... which is about disney now, I guess? And for redacting most of the cruel, dark parts of said tales and altering the morals of the stories to be stories of Walt's dreamland. I did not see the stepmother dancing to death in burning shoes in Snow White, nor was Sleeping Beauty gifted with two babies by the prince while sleeping... Disney characters are a good way to show female characters that are supposedly strong while clinging desperately to a role model that is defined by male superiority, I guess. I mean, Disney kinda screamed it out to the world with their princess line. But in Project Eternity such a character might actually work, if deconstructed, much like Sansa Stark in ASoIaF. A character who not only lives that role but actively wants it, despite being quite oppressed in it, is in for a bad surprise sooner or later - and can react either with shutting their eyes from reality (Sansa for a long while) or starting to rebel against it. But you would have to grow up quite protected to get there, at least in a society where humans are humans.

Wow, I really... wow... do you see a feminist political correctness conspiracy everywhere? This is utterly ridiculous. This is not about pleasing feminists or adhering to political correctness. This is about cultural diversity in regards to beauty, this is about a realistic approach towards the female (and male, for that matter) population in what will become - as we all hope - a great game. This is not about boobplate because boobplate has, well, boobs. This is because (as experts have pointed out) boobplate would be impractical. And why should anyone enchant a female bikini (given that such a thing even exists in a fantasy setting)? Its impractical. Spellbreaker and you are not only helpless, but also half-naked. Why not enchant a full plate instead, giving double protection? Many of the people in this thread who really want to discuss these things (and it seems many of them have given up because of the crazy) want an immersive, realistic world. That includes diversity in women, but also standartised equipment for battle. Others want to see their fantasy fulfilled, for a little escape from reality. Thats a valid point too, though I don't share it. And another group tries to combine these things, pledging for "teh sexy" (even if a bit unrealistic) where it can be put in, regarding the logic integrity of the world. Yes, many of those who posted are men. Does it matter? No. Because these men will play the game. They have paid for it on Kickstarter. They believe in it. And now they think about what the game should be like. What they would like to see. Whether its armor, whether its violence or whether there should be a giant kick-backside monster in the game. And here they discuss the approach towards the population (primarily the female one, but also men) and the diversity of beauty ingame and how they would like to see interesting characters that are not only defined by body feature. (And yes, Obsidian has done it well a few times already, so one can get his hopes up, but still discuss it - Planescape Torment handled Violence well and still it is discussed). Why shouldn't the players (even if they are male) not be allowed to do that?

Good thing we don't discuss that here, then. Could be interesting as well for the discussion Has been adressed. Both of them. Multiple times.

Pretty weak insult at all. Such weird terminology these days. Yes, it is strange... because all in all most people would identify as "cis" if they had to identify themselves as anything at all. Its the normal way of thinking, as far as I know. Cis-gendered is usually used in a negative way though, describing sexists and such.

Cis? Do I even want to know what does that mean? "Cis" is the opposite of "trans" in chemical processes and has since found its way into gender debate, describing a person who identifies himself strongly with his own sex and also accepts the traditional gender role unquestioningly (again, in comparison to "trans"). Its kind of a weak insult here, though.

Except you did just that, a mere few minutes ago, I even quoted you: From that sentence it's rather obvious that your issue isn't just with "realistic armor" as you seem to claim now. When I said "normal lifes" I meant "during their work day". I do, of course, exclude feasts and celebrations, the nobility in general and special occasions. Of course people wear attractive clothing during certain occasions but not always. By the way, my issue was a realistic distribution of attractiveness amongst the populace of PE, as well as body size and the like. Clothing came up later in the discussion, but still is - of course - a matter of realism as well.

Yeah. No. You did not bother to read the discussion and I will not repeat it all again. Just a quote from a few pages ago, mate: I am the last one to argue against attractive clothing given the right circumstance. Which has also already been said. On a battlefield, most people tend to go with practical and protective though. Thats not puritan, its pure survival. --- Which would be a good example - this armor would not have a high protective value, if any, though. But it would be logical to have a queen wear something stylish. Which, by the way, does not necessarily mean revealing and sexy. And by the way: If people reduce a womans attractiveness to the amount of skin shown they miss a whole lot of what makes people attractive.

Which is quite funny and might even be somewhat reflected in the game, but there are still differences between someone who fights naked to show his bravery (which was the reason as far as i know) and someone who wears uncomfortable mini-chainmail that does not serve a purpose in his world - if he can have full chainmail instead, which will protect him. About entertainment: Well, I can surely accept that there are people out there who don't share my opinion and who want half-naked ladies and men, just for the sake of it. I do not agree to it though and would prefer the aforementioned realistic and immersive world - which would be my kind of fanservice

I can see your point of view, though mine differs: I do not ask "What do the players like" but "What would be an interesting, realistic world". Yes, in Planescape Torment it made sense to have a Succubus wear revealing clothing. No discussion there. But why should people (i.e. men and women) wear oversexed, revealing clothing on a battlefield or during their normal lifes - if not for fanservice? The focus of the developers should be to make the world convincing, not to cater some peoples strange tastes in strangely oversexed characters. And YES, Obsidian has had some well-designed female characters in the past. Still, the change in Cadegunds Artwork (for example) shows that it is still a topic which is worth discussing.

I just wanted to give you a reason that has not been named already. There are plenty more hidden in this thread already, but since i have to repeat them over and over I try to vary it a bit. Short version: You can either participate in the brainstorming for making the game better by thinking about cultural diversity (in regards to beauty) and a realistic, interesting, non-standard depiction of women in games or you can do, what a few posters like NerdBoner and Jasede have done for pages now: Try to bring this down to a discussion about political correctness, accusing others of whiteknighting and, in short, spam this thread. I'd like to see you included in the discussion, though. Your choice

Because they did good work with these characters and thats a trend which should continue - and the developers should see that the players support diverse, interesting female characters. Loading screens, artwork, intro, character portraits...

I find it even more ironic that the people who find this thread ironic and want it closed are the ones who would be the main reason pro-closing if there was ever the question of it being closed. "It will lead to nothing good", seriously? Preventive closing of threads? So far it has brought forth a number of very interesting ideas, all centered around the question of the depiction of genders ingame. I support the idea of women playing the game without losing immersion halfway through because of male-centered dialogue as well. Still, Chainmail Bikini? That would kind of ruin my immersion in a believable fantasy world. I mean, where is the point? If they want to look sexy, they would dress in clothes, not chainmail. Its simply unpractical and would not make sense ingame - which is the one thing that should stand before everything else.

Once again, the term of "political correctness" springs up - while he have already established that, while this thread may share some common overtones with pc-debates, this is NOT about political correctness, it is about a believable world with realism where it is appropriate. This is also about hypersexualised female characters in other games, which are not sexy, which are not interesting, which are just there to sell a product. Once again: No one wants to ban physically beautiful women from the game, or seductive clothing for that matter. BUT to have a believable, interesting world there should be a majority of women who are NOT sex bombs. They can still be attractive, in an unique way or by character. And there should be some women who are plainly not attractive AND STILL be skilled in their way, not comic reliefs. And, again, that the game engine does not show a detailed 3d-model does NOT mean this is not a topic, because there is concept art, loading screens, trailers and the likes. But I will be happy to bring these arguments every three pages or so, because I find the discussion really interesting and I want it to go on Yes, those were strange. I would vote for Companion preferences (gender, race, behaviour) in these matters...