clippedwolf

Previously I said my bit on what I thought of hearths, but I held off on repairing. Honestly, it makes me uncomfortable. I think the idea of it comes from the idea of being "realistic". But realistically blades could be handed down for generations. What would degenerate to the point that it wouldn't last the few years that might be the span of the game? Bow strings? Crossbow or firearm components? Boots? Any trained warrior should know how to care for his weapons and armor. A whetstone, oil, and rag aren't heavy and shouldn't necessarily be present for the player to look at. Crafting weapons and armor seems like it could be fun. A master crafter might be able to make blades better balanced (faster), hold an edge better (more damage), or make nicer pommels (prestige: alters NPC reactions [if you have a jewel encrusted pommel with gold inlays you have money and/or power]). However, arbitrary blade-degradation-to-be-fixed-with-a-few-clicks-on the-next-trip-to-town on the alter of "realism" is not fun or have a basis in reality.

If a hearth is just a camp fire, why shouldn't you be able to create one anywhere in the wilderness at anytime you make camp? To not allow this is an arbitrary limitation.

Shin Megami Tensei. JRPG. What people post on youtube is the amusing stuff, not the dramatic moments, if you bother to check. Don't know why I bother, your tone suggests you are quite wedded to your fixed-mindset and your preference, any post opposing your view only entrenches it.

Alright, you favor the interactive book approach. To say that the portrait approach can't have nuance is ignorant or perhaps simply close minded. The downside to expression portraits is that for every nuanced expression you have to make a new portrait, and each new expression needs to "read".

Before asking if a resting mechanic is "realistic", ask if it is fun.

I know in Skyrim the protagonist is mostly an empty shell for you to fill. When I learned you could marry in the game I spent a bit trying to figure out who he would marry, it made the empty shell more of a character to role-play. Having just completed the Companion quest line Aela was the most likely candidate, plus she wore war paint (cool points!) and as a follower her archery skills complimented my play style. Then the "marriage" AI took over and her character was gutted, the voice set was different. This person who was cool with you turning into a werewolf and butchering civilians in the woods at night was turned into a shallow and sickeningly sweet house maid. It was just horrible. Better not to have had it than half-ass it.

Is the question now, is it realistic to earn someone's love by buying them lots of shiny things? Bluntly, yes. Mind you, buying lots of crap may not make up for being a boring a-hole, but it helps show that you care. Hell, in a real relationship gifts are expected on anniversaries, holidays and birthdays.

In theater, the actors and director's fret over an emotion "reading" well to the crowd. Books can give the audience direct access to thoughts and motives. In film the script and the cast's acting are what gives the audience the motivation and emotions of the characters. Video games are a newer story telling medium, where do they fall in. Is PE, when it comes to dialogue and story, more interactive book or a theater stage? The OP seems to be a fan of the Sin Megami Tensei: Persona series (JRPG's with actual role-play, branching paths, multiple endings), and while I think the kawaii angle is a bit overplayed in this thread, I agree that using a similar approach to telling the story in PE could benefit the story telling if a theater approach was being taken. I don't think that a few pics do the system justice. Play Persona 4 on the PS Vita or PS2 (if you can find it), or find game play on Youtube and mute the video.

That seems like a slightly more developed version of the common"friendship" path, where the person wants your opinion and takes all your advice.

This... and no Jennifer Hale, thank you (overuse syndrome). I wonder what it would cost to hire Christopher Lee as the story narrator? What about Gilbert Gottfired, another famous voice? He's done voice acting before, and, who knows, he might work for cheap.

People have different interest than me? Dammit! Dude, be chill and laugh along.

The first guns had poor accuracy, but they could punch through heavy armor. Know what else could do that? Crossbows. Crossbows were more reliable, bows had more range. If you have the first generation of guns in the game I would expect that canons would also be in PE somewhere as well, but I digress. The guns I would expect to see in PE would be muzzle loaded: blunderbusses and matchlock pistols and rifles.

You need to account for the fact that people expect romance is going to be in the game, wether they like it or not. So they may still vote in the hope that at least it will offer some nuances other than classic romance. Have you heard of confirmation bias? I meant to say "there may be a lot of people wanting sexy-time romance in PE but the people who don't want it are louder hence they seem to care more." I'm saying seem because that necessarily isn't the case, however it may be exactly the case. That is my observation. My vote was for Romance, because I have had fun with those in the past. However, some have been awkward and absurd, and not fun. Keeping an open mind, and keeping faith that whatever the decision the developers make we, the players, will get some interesting characters.

Despite the anti-romance tone of the thread, the poll says differently. I find this curious. There is a quieter majority.

So, I've been playing SWTOR a bit lately. There are two quests that really bothered me in how the writers decided what was good and evil. Spoilers ahead. One of them is a quest where a group of Republic soldiers go AWOL. The lightside choice is to let them sneak away from the fighting and not report it; the darkside choice is to tell them it is not fair to let someone else die for your place. The second is in the sith warrior's story, on of the lighside choices is to not murder someone because "I follow the light". Instead you force a Jedi to break his own moral code and murder them for you. The darkside choice is to murder them with your own blade, sparing the Jedi the moral dilemma. Perhaps this is an inherent flaw with a two value "good" and "evil", however morally judging something as good or evil is human and shouldn't be discarded. There could be conflict in personal morals and ethics. One of the coolest villains in a game had to destroy a large bit of land, killing all of its inhabitants, in order to safeguard the future of the rest of the world in a far off but inevitable armageddon The heroes protect their friends and families when they defeat him, but in the end did they doom other people's futures? It is fun, however, to have the moral issue boiled down to simplicity. "Should I kick the puppy, or not kick the puppy?" Sometimes that way of playing is just pure, simple fun. It's late and I'm probably rambling, but there it is...

The Song of Roland defined the classical paladin. A warrior, a leader of men whose faith and religious devotion attracts the attention of the divine at his moment of death. Personally I think Roland sounds like an arrogant idiot who led his men into an ambush and got them all killed. But someone wrote an epic poem instilling all popular virtues of the time into a fictional character and attached Roland's name to it. I want Obsidian to run with their idea. I want to see their take on the archetypal religious warrior. And of course I want to play as him...or her...whatever strikes my fancy at character creation.

Wow. We are all RPG gamers here. All this hostility on one topic. The game is going to be moddable, right? There is a lot of talent out there. As a last resort someone will make romance mods. With luck (and a lot of work for a few)they might be good quality.

A poll putting dangerous ground to the question. A related topic. http://forums.obsidi...errain-effects/

120F to 130F actually. When you get aclimatized the 80F nights will have you shivering from the cold.

I have a friend who deployed to Baghdad and shared a room with her husband. Both were military police and did missions, but in separate platoons. In one very honest and open conversation she said something along these lines: "Everyone assumes that we had sex regularly. The truth is, at the end of our missions, we were just too tired." So in a traveling party there would be little opportunity, privacy, or energy for a regular physical relationship. Imagine a conversation that begins with, "Hey honey, I know I just force marched the party for 17 hours over rough terrain, eating the cheapest dry rations I could find to help afford that new sword I wanted, and you are probably still a little tender from getting shield bashed in the face from yesterday, but....you know...what about us time?"

Peter Van Buren described his Iraq war-time friendships amusingly. "(We) became close to one another in the intense but temporary way of relationships formed in war, like twelve months of one-night stands." Don Malarkey, WWII veteran, described the company he kept as "the most talented and inspiring group of men that I have ever known’. After healing from wounds sustained in combat, he described reuniting as returning to "a bright home home full of love." It's not Biowaromance. I guess this falls under bromance

Needing to carry around ingredients for spells does not seem like fun, it seems like unnecessary management. I think requiring ingredients to use special, unique spells is acceptable.

A sad ending can be good, a happy ending can be good, an ambiguous ending may be done well. A non-ending cliffhanger is not satisfying. Just my presences cause the poll was limited to two severely limiting choices.

No magically disappearing bodies please.

I'm partial to stream beds and riverbeds. In Infinity Engine all but shallow streams were impassable. Not to brag, but I've walked through slow flowing rivers brown with sediment up to my collar bone, waded waist deep for a few miles in a still stream covered with flowered lily pads, forced my way through a pond with mud sucking at my feet and kicking up black foul smelling muck in my wake, hiked hills using trickling streams in pebbly river beds carved deeply into hard rock with steep cliffs on either side. And there is something to be said about standing in awe watching an impassible raging mountain river right after the spring melt; it roars and you feel that power in your bones. No game can capture the wonder of being there, but it can present some fantastic tactical situations. If you were being shot at by arrows on the other side of a river do you break off the engagement, or do you wade through waist deep water (in armor nonetheless) to try to engage? If the party was traveling a deeply carved riverbed what do you do when enemies are appear on cliffs ten feet above you and begin showering the party with missiles and falling rocks? Summed up: I love wondering waterways and mountains. These were not originally listed, but the ones I'm most familiar with are in the pine forests of the United States southwest (Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona).