Andwit25

Apart from completly leaving out PC sales both retail and download and being made by a company who is well known for having numbers that are barely more accurate then reading tealeaves. Sure. Low DLC ? DA2 has the same amount of story DLC as ME3 will recieve and only one less then ME2 had. If anything EA acknowledged that the production time for DA2 was far too short and that Bioware better should put the resources in the preproduction of DA3. As far as sales go more accurate numbers come from here:http://www.ign.com/articles/2011/04/05/dragon-age-ii-sales-top-1-million And here: http://investors.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=574530

Strange considering that the romances are pretty much the oppposite of what you described. Two of the four LIs will break it up after the sex in act two and only if the player does not romance someone else will give you the achievement (I personally hate romance achievements, but this is another topic). None of the LIs bend their life around the players wishes, even the two who move in with Hawke, don´t give up their hopes and ambitions and you still have to deal with the fallout from that. Not to mention that all romances come with two paths so sweettalking is not actually required. Also if you describe the culmination of e.g. the Anders rivalromance as fan-service and egostroking I don´t think we are thinking the same when using those two terms.

All of this... times a thousand. I'll be honest, if MCA writes a romantic subplot into the game I almost want to see the whole thing get turned on its head. Have the NPC object of desire turn into a psycho stalker or have them deliver the "I just want to be friends" speech, or claim chastity. Anything but the detestable, give gifts, talk sweet, subjugate and "win" the relationship garbage that most cRPG romances have devolved into. Maybe this is my problem with people vocally and persistently asking for romance able companions. I can only presume that they've enjoyed the kind of shallow fan service romances we've seen from companies like bioware and others. I'm hard pressed to think of any games that have handled this kind of thing in a nuanced or compelling way. Strangly enough Bioware provided all the things you have asked for in DA2. Aveline won´t be intrested no matter how much the player flirts with her. And Sebastian will insist on keeping the relationship chaste on the friendship path.

I'd generally agree with you, the difference here is that we've seen inklings that the game's aesthetic decision making process may have already been affected by this small band of what are effectively wandering internet protesters. Badmojo makes what I think is the fundamental point: LET OE DESIGN THEIR OWN GAME. This project may have been community funded but it should not be community designed, and that's what this particular crowd seems to be doing: demanding that OE conform its design decisions to their real world political needs. Now, perhaps OE would have done this naturally, and great. But what if they have been second guessing their art department because of this? Or second guessing their aesthetic/artistic options in general? Would a real gamer want this? Someone here solely for political activism might, but a gamer would - in my opinion - respect the creative process that is just now being set in motion without trying hard as they might to restrict or redirect it. Are these the same gamers who protest game endings because they don´t like them ? (FO3,Divinity Ego Draconis, ME3) The same gamer who start threads discussing wheter the game should have bows or pistols ? The same gamer who start threads demanding that the setting will get a Forgotten Realms like pantheon ? I could write a much longer list of gamers demanding that the game will be adjusted to their personal likes and dislikes. And by the way it is not only the pc crowd who wanders the internet the same is true for the anti-pc group. Personally I don´t care for being pc, but I do care for equality. So I am advocating that either both sexes get sensible armor, or both sexes get the early 80´s fantasy treatment and the women run around in fur bikinis while the men wear a leather loincloth (e.g. like in the old masters of the universe cartoons)

I completly agree that there is nothing wrong with sexy armor. However if platemail on a female looks like the illegimate offspring of a string bikini and a frying pan, it is only fair that the males of the setting should charge into battle wearing nothing but a full metal speedo.

To give an example of what I was talking about. In DA2 both your mother and your uncle will give a remark regarding your romantic status fitting to the choosen love interest. Other partymembers will occasionally bring it up when talking to Hawke and banter will be adjusted. All that are only little changes to the dialog tree each one barely more than a sentence yet they deliver the feeling that you are in a relationship with one of the four possible Lis rather well. And as I already wrote according to the BioWare dev´s all this was a relatively little amount of resources.

Hey there! I wrote a post talking about that three pages ago, right here. You might be interested in rereading it, and it would make me happy because it takes me time to write stuff like that. I mean, it's just four paragraphs. It's not even that big of a wall of text. Could you do me that favour, please? Thanks! If you reread it, you will notice that what you said is patently wrong. You can't just "change a few lines", because the entire character has to accomodate for these new lines if you want them to feel natural. I read it and I already pointed out the logic mistake you made. A character who is planned from the start with a romance does not need much more resources, than one who is planned from the start with an optional (platonic) friendship. The only way a an optional romance would really increase the amount of work needed drasticallly is if character interaction is set on rails and nothing you say to NPCs really matters. Because if your interactions with a companion matter you already need several dialog branches so that the romantic branch is only one amongst many.

I can´t completly agree here. While too little interaction with the NPC in question and too little regognition of the relationship is definitly bad (like in Skyrim,Fable,..), the same is also true if you have too much. Small subtle things, like changing the sound the character makes if you click his/her portrait, small one line long remarks by other character and so on, are a much better way to communicate the relationship to the player. This also has the benefit that the player has enough space to fill in gabs with his/her imagination.

Sure, but I find the behavior of several of the anti-romance crowd highly hypocritical. Afterall more than half of Obsidian´s games have this feature, starting with their very first game in 2004, yet they act as if promancers were asking for some new thing that was never a part of an Obsidian game.

Well then the question is, Why do you have an issue with romances if so many games that you like have them ?

First just because you are in a relationship with somebody does not mean that you talk about nothing else. The relationship status can be easily expressed by changing a few lines, e.g. how the character responds, how he/she adresses the main character. Second you definatly don´t need 50% more dialog for this. E.g. on the BioWare board a developer postet that cutting the four romances (dialog, cutscenes, dialog and banter by other characters bringing your relationship status up and more) would have not freed enough resources for an additional companion. Seamingly you and all the other antiromancers don´t seem to realise that even without romance a character needs more then one dialog path. Third why are posting on the Obsidian boards ? NWN2, AP, MotB, and FO:NV all had romantic content of some kiod (Ok FA:NV is a bit of a strech and I don´t know about DS)

While everything you wrote is true and I doubt anyone would argue that, it is also true that the amount of work needed for a non romanceable companion is not significantly less. A character does not become any easier to write and design if he/she is not a romance option. A romance that is planned within the first stages of NPC creation, in other words right now regarding P.E, might increase the time spend on the NPC in question by about one week. I find it rather strange considering that several, if not most, Obsidian games feature romantic content of some kind there still is so much opposition to this kind of content.

I replayed DA2 several times and there are more quests that have a different outcome depending on the players actions, Like Fenriels quest, or practically all of the companions questlines. DA2 was a horribly rushed and suffered for it, but they also did many things right, (E.g the relationship and interaction with the companions).

As opposed to the number of "major publishers" of AAA titles? Not counting platform-specific publishers (since by previous argument that makes them automatically not AAA titles) that leaves us with what? EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard/Activision, Take-Two, Square? There are a few others in there that are "up there" but I'd say those are likely the publishers of the vast majority of AAA titles released... I am pretty sure that e.g. Ubisoft can pay for the development of several big titles simultaneously. On the other hand no matter how talented Mr. Avellone is, I still have a hard time imagine him working on more then one game at a time. Also the big publishers have options to cover for loses something that Kickstarter simply can´t do. Not to mention that as soon as the fund-raising for P.E.2 starts people would wonder what happened to all the revenue P.E brought to the developer, so Kickstarter is only a one time option for a company. If a project truly succeeds and makes profit, few would be willing to back the successor because the first game proved that it could stay on it´s own two legs. If a project fails there is even less reason to pay for a second attempt. So either way developers just get one chance. I am no fan of the big publishers at all, and really think there should be better ways (not that I can think of any) but crowd-funding is simply no alternative for the top price segment. It works for the niche market and might actually even give impulses that affect the triple A segment but believing that it will ever being anything more than that is delusional.

Well in that case round about page 30 one team will give up. And the rest of the thread will be filled with fan-art of shirtless male NPCs. (Must remember to bookmark this thread in case any of the fan-art turns out to be hot)

And that is exactly the reason why crowdfunding will not work as future model for game funding. The only developers who get enough money to compete with the publisher-funded projects can be counted with the fingers of one hand. Everybody else does not have any realistic chance to even get close to such an amount of money. And even those few, who right now have enough credit with the players to raise the money for a big project will be dropped like a hot potato once they either screw up or are perceived as going to mainstream. It might remain around as a way to fund smaller niche games but as model for financing big games there is simply no future in it.

So, just one question: why are you even posting in those forums? I mean, in a best case scenario you are a troll. In a worst case scenario you are paid for these . Well let´s see I could like Obsidian´s games. Some of them might even be amongst my favorite games of all times. I might actually even be looking forward to P.E. and be therefore reading and posting here. Seem pretty good reasons to spend time on the forums. If you check my first post in this thread was about how I am hoping that Obsidian will spend the money well. After that I just kept answering to people who responded to my doubts about Kickstarter being the future of game funding, not that I understand what one has to do with the other especially now that the campaign has ended. Also if you know anyone who does pay for forum post such as mine please give me their email-address I really could use the extra money.

I don't see how there is zero risk. Read this. But I want to talk about the part of your post that I bolded. Have you even participated in the Project Eternity Kickstarter campaign, or any Kickstarter campaign for that matter? Check it out - any pledge of 25$ or more (or 20$ but those were limited) has the game itself as a reward for the backer. No I have not participated and I won´t in the future either. Nice that in this campaign the backer will get the game, if it will be released which as your own link proves is not guarantied. Also there is no monetary risk for the developers, and no rights or securities whatsoever for the backers. Kickstarter might be a nice dream but just like Onlive and SocialGames it will not be the future. Crowdfunding might (and most likely will) remain but only as tool for smaller and/or charitable efforts. But as a source for big games it will not work. Heck even the guys at Obsidian seem to think that way considering that they are planning to found the next game with P.E.`s profit and not to return to Kickstarter.

Just to point out that the same was said about Facebook. Mind you, it was also said about MySpace, which turned out to be largely correct. Plus the sorts of things as Prodigy and Compuserve competing with AOL. Or direct publishing for eBooks, which led to things such as the Kindle and Nook. Not all of them survived, and Kickstarter itself might not either. But I'm fairly sure that the concept of crowdfunding and even crowdsourcing is one that is only going to grow, not shrink. Because Facebock stocks are doing so well. Facebook is the WoW of social networks. By a little skill and pure luck they have been at the right place at the right time but their success is already waning. Crowd-funding is essentially what is called an arbitrage in economics. That is to say a way to get money with zero risk. And just like any arbitrage in the stock market is dealt with, so will be crowd-funding. Soon the first serious exploits will happen, and once the first games get released that to not live up to the backers expectations, not to mention that backers understand that they still have to buy the game regardless the amount of money they donated, the willingness to donate will sharply drop. Kickstarter might stay as a way for Independent games but it will never last as a way to finance big titles.

my god, you people just don't give up, do you? why do you keep pushing this agenda of yours is beyond me. aren't there games with romances already? why can't you replay those if you like them so much? why try and shove romances into every new game? You are so right. And since there are already a ton of games out there with magic, I say it should be left out completely too. While we are at it there are a ton of games with the ability to define the PC´s skill-set through some sort of leveling mechanic, better too get rid of that too. (Plenty of other games for the Codex crowd out there to replay no need to put those RPG elements into this game.) Note this comment is not supposed to be taken seriously and just serves to point out the logic mistake in the post I quoted.

Kickstarter is a bubble. A temporal abnormality that will either burst or fade. Right now it is still a novelty but in a few months when the sensation of newness fades and the first mayor setbacks, like failed and disappointing projects, have occurred the readiness to trade money for glass baubles will fade. Even today you really need big names or tons of luck to get enough money together and this will not improve with the years.

Is 4 millions enough ? To make a good game ? Yes defiantly. To make a triple A RPG game by todays standard ? Defiantly not. And this is a good thing. Nowadays many developers and publishers think that a game can be improved by superlatives. Like the best graphic, the most famous voice actors, ... . One thing that many big games, especially those in the triple A category, today are missing is a soul since you can´t buy it. But working with a limited budget, forces a ( good ) developer to focus on what they can do, and not waste time and other resources on superficial stuff like extra shiny graphics and so on. Often such games are far more rewarding to the player and I really hope that Obsidian will live up to the trust many have put in them and will deliver something that might not look as good as it´s more expensive siblings but will be of much greater worth.

No there is far to little disturbing fan-art in this thread to pass as BSN romance thread. To really reach that level folks around here need to stop just dreaming about a zombie harem and need to start drawing, or at least photo-shopping it. The bickering here is nice though and I really hope that the moderators will not ruin it by being over-eager.

I want to see romances in game. If I understand correctly P.E. will feature a completely player created character, who has been more or less a blank slate until the game start. And in such a game a single predefined romance subplot with a predefined NPC simply does not work. In a game like Alpha Protocol or the Witcher, with their predefined characters, such restrictions make sense. In a game that lets you create o toon from scratch, which/if any romance a player pursues should be left up for them, so options for all common tastes should be available, and feel about equally important. Considering that romances increase the replay value of a game immensely (I played DA2 four times just so I could see all four romance arcs available to a male Hawke) while at the same time being rather cheap to make ,about the quarter the amount needed for a whole NPC if I recall correctly (and in an Infinite Engine game they are even cheaper since you need less animations/VO) they seem to be resources well spend. The only things that I don´t want are forced romances or that deciding/being unable to complete a romance robs the player of a big percentage of a NPC´s interactions. (DA2 was actually pretty good in this regard no matter it´s many shortcomings)