Lephys

Behold, the WEREPLATYPUS! You laugh, but watch out for those poisonous claws behind its rear feet! POISON-ROUNDHOUSE TO THE FAAAAACE!

Are you kidding? They probably won't use the metric system. It'll be a tele-ounce. Oooh! OR they could carve it into a stale graham cracker.

... I dunno. There's just something about the way they jut out into the ocean and are sometimes treacherous to sail around... Ohhhhhh, caaaaapes. Right... o_o

Much appreciated. I just try to be useful. I know I'm not always useful, but I have no interest in being un-useful. Well, except for the occasional morale-boosting pun. Of course, I think that's useful in moderation, @Others: I quite understand, and even value, the counters to people claiming extreme things. Anyone who's claiming that PoE NEEDS romance and is crap without it could obviously benefit from a perspective adjustment (I don't think they're considering all the things they should be, etc.). What I don't get is why a handful of people making extreme or ill-considered claims suddenly means that a whole thread is useless because even the people just reasonably discussing things are somehow now magically as useless as the extreme claims. It goes both ways. Some "pro-mancers" are going a bit overboard, but that doesn't make romance advocacy, itself, inherently preposterous or extreme. Likewise, some anti-romancers are going a bit overboard, and those particular comments should be addressed as such. They don't mean anyone who's against romance doesn't have a valid point. The point of discussion isn't to figure out which overall stance is right and which one is wrong. It's to uncover the useful reasoning behind both stances (and weed out the irrational feelings of both sides that aren't helpful). To discuss romance and its potential, its pros and cons, what it should do and what it shouldn't. Then, we can all make up our subjective minds about it in our own spare time. And, honestly, if you're sick of romance discussions, then that's great. Really, that doesn't make you bad. But, how's about simply abstaining from taking part in them? Unless you become a moderator and just slice them all off the forums, or develop the power to will them out of existence, posting the textual equivalent of an exasperated sigh every page isn't doing anything but making the thread longer, and wasting your own time (you're not really wasting anyone else's, because they're already here to read the thread.) If you're here in the PoE forums, you probably don't care too much about discussing Call of Duty all day. So, do you go sign up for Call of Duty forums just to post "OMG!!! STILL talking about CAll of Duty?! SHOOTERS ARE SO LAME!!"? My guess is no...

Psst... *leans in close*... He's saying you have cheap kidneys! o_o

Might I just add that when determining what to put in a game and what not to, you're not really "adding" anything. You have to formulate a blueprint of how many floors you're going to have before you can add or remove anything. Granted, I think what BruceVC is saying still stands, mostly. I'm all for romance, in concept, but the fact is that they can only put X number of different things into the game, and they've prioritized others over romance. And that's perfectly fine. Obviously people are welcome to their opinions, but I encourage the demanders of romance to give the game a shot, nonetheless, as I really don't think the existence of romance forms the linchpin of the entire game's design. I'm all for discussing the possibilities and impacts of both the implementation of romance and its absence, but these things can be considered without unnecessarily insisting that romance simply MUST be in the game.

Then your girlfriend is forever cursed to be devoid of such truth! Clearly, u_u... Also, who said YOU were immune from the obligation to craft boots? Sexist! o_o If only one of you crafts boots, how do you expect the romance not to fail? Gyah...

Oh, THE IRONY. Oh, THE BASELESS CLAIMS. I hope they make you feel better at least.

Yep, they're on an island of their own... with faction associations... and pretty much any other ongoing, mutually-exclusive components. Exclamation point.

Stop strawmanning. Please. Video game romances are like video game crafting. I didn't compare them to the actual act of artisanry, and you know I didn't. Also, for the record, your example points out exactly when romance is literally affecting nothing important outside of your own personal desires. You want to hang out with dudes and watch the superbowl, but you also want girlfriend happiness. The game version of that is The Sims. In The Sims, the whole game revolves around your sim(s). In an RPG like PoE, there's an actual story going on, in an actual game world, and your character(s) simply interacts with it. Thus, how they feel about each other can actually affect things to some significance. Maybe you become romantically involved with a character, then people need to be delegated to go on little missions/split up to take care of some big situation. Maybe the best person for the job is that character, but you've decided to roleplay a romantic attachment to that character (and the game mechanics/writing support the potential for that character to become romantically attached to you). Thus, you send someone else (or she refuses to go because of the attachment, etc.). Different things happen because of who went. Etc. It's functionally no different from the effects of any other particular relationship between any two characters: friendship, father-I-never-had, contempt, respected leadership, etc. It's simply another regard in which characters can hold one another. Making examples of pointless things that are technically labelable as romance does not make romance inherently just a bunch of pointless things. The crappy afterthought romances in existing games that you're choosing to reference are very much like your girlfriend wanting cuddle time while you and the guys are trying to watch the superbowl. That hardly means that "romances are like that." I don't know how to emphasize that any harder. I'm discussing "romance," and you're countering advocacy of specific romance implementations of your choosing. Which is fruitless. You have plenty of valid points, and yet they have nothing to do specifically with my words, because I already acknowledge that crappy romance is crappy.

Stun... you're completely missing the point. You're quite right, but the only point you're driving home here is that a simple mechanic/skill is just as inadequate at handling romance as it is at handling speech/persuasion. Which is a point I already made. Everything you've just said about romance is equally as true about "speech" options in general, and/or relationships between characters in general. A character can want to help you for oodles of reasons, just just because they like you. Thus, a game's writing can oversimplify that to "if you get the character to like you, they'll help you out." That's allllll writing. Which yes, can suck, or can be done well. How is any of that unique to the mere aspect of romance as opposed to anything else that's writing-dependent?

*sigh*... I understand that. What I meant was, for the purposes of Strength's impact on the physics of weapon/force damage. Either Intellect was dictating that facet of strength, or that facet of strength simply didn't exist. A 20-foot giant versus a 3-foot human child? Oh, they both have 15 Intellect? Then their damage is the same. And if their damage ISN'T the same, that difference is not being measured at all by a stat, even though a stat is measuring Strength, and the Strength of the giant is blatantly far greater than the strength of the child. Apparently, that's just a coincidence though. All that's been said before, too. This was a clarification of my reference.

1) Why would you *need* an early beta access key? 2) If you enjoy good RPGs, why do you feel it necessary to steal them as opposed to supporting the creator and thereby ensuring newer, more innovative, RPGs in the future? Gaming is not a right. There is nothing heroic, admirable or even remotely acceptable about stealing content because it doesn't meet some arbitrary price standard. Seriously. There's not even the excuse of "Oh, well I like what this developer is doing, but don't advocate the way this publisher is, to me, just milking them for a product for profit and detracting from the creative quality of the product's potential, u_u". Which still isn't really an excuse to pirate, but it's at least a valid point sometimes. This game was Kickstarted, directly by the development team. Pirating this is like telling your neighbor you really like all the time he spends on his paintings, then stealing one in the night to get a high-quality copy of, then hanging that on your wall. Instead of just buying one from him, or commissioning one or something. "I really like what you're doing, but don't really care about you getting paid for your effort and costs. K THX BAI!"

What?! That's way less cool than my assumption that you were using juju magic to somehow establish a connection to this forum AND type and view posts, without so much as a keyboard. Darn...

True, yet irrelevant. I was talking about dealing with aspects of speech, in comparison to dealing with aspects of romance (both of which are, themselves, aspects of inter-character interaction). Comparing writing a skill to writing a good romance is pretty useless, since using a mere skill to handle Speech was pointed out as being inadequate to sufficiently represent that aspect of interaction, in a very similar manner to how having "How Much Do You Like Me" points, with simple "Make This Person Like Me More" dialogue options and gifts and such to reach "Sex Victory!" is inadequate to sufficiently represent feasible romance. The situation for the both of these things is almost identical. Both are aspects of inter-character interaction and reactivity that involve proper writing and such, and both have plenty of horrible, horrible implementations in existing games. If anyone does think that, then yes, you're very right. But, I really don't think many people are thinking that. Are a lot of people thinking that romance = an aspect of interactivity? Sure. And rightly so. It's like... crafting. Imagine you could craft all kinds of stuff in the game, but you could never craft boots. Would that be the end of the world? No. But, there are boots in the game. Obviously people in the game wear boots, and you can make all kinds of OTHER things out of leather and various materials from which boots are also made. So... why can't you make boots? It's just a tiny sub-void. Doesn't mean the game doesn't have crafting. But, it's lacking in one aspect of crafting. In fact, I'd argue that the sheer concept of romance is, functionally/in terms of mechanics, almost just an aspect of reputation. It's already been said that NPCs and such will have both group faction reputation factors at play, as well as individual "how this person feels about stuff" factors at play. Thus, put simply, your decisions and actions can and will affect how individual people feel about you. I don't think we want that mechanic oversimplified or done crappily, regardless of whether or not the inter-personal relationship at-hand is romantic or platonic. So, is it not a bit strange that game mechanics specifically represent a boatload of individuals' feelings regarding you, but that absolutely none of those feelings can be regarded as "romantic" in the least? As others have brought up, if the world's all alive with verisimilitude-sparking code, and you ever enter a village in which two youths are courting one another, or any kind of romantic relationship is ever involved between two NPCs, then obviously romance is possible in the world. Meaning that characters, just like real humans, develop romantic emotional attachments under various sets of circumstances. So, is it not a bit strange that the game specifically represents a plethora of specific interpersonal feelings, while at the same time completely ignoring any and all feelings of the emotional attachment kind? See, that's the other thing about this thread and this discussion. People keep saying "there aren't romances, it's confirmed," but, what is actually meant by that? Because, everyone keeps bringing up awfully specific meanings for the term "romances," like there's gotta be specific, separate arcs JUST for romance, as if "Romance" is an invisible character that joins your party when you choose it, and has its own quest arc that doesn't have anything to do with anything else. I think if they're representing the regard of individuals towards you, in various ways, they'd be remiss to simply ignore any shred of romantic emotional attachment whatsoever. Thus, "romance" could very well be in the game, without specifically-written "romances" (entire romance-centric arcs/content chunks a la existing games, such as Bioware games) being in the game.

I just realized that our acronym is "OOoE." I now feel compelled to strongly petition for our official slogan to become "Oooh-ahh-ahh, ting-tang, walla walla bing bang!"

Ahem... *points* Methinks that covers all states of muscular/ligamental decay, a mere skeleton being the most extreme extent of such. u_u...

It's really very similar to Speech-skill type options: Obsidian didn't say "Ohhh, we're not putting any persuasion options in the game, because those are always horribly done, and high skill = win options" (much like Romance tends to be build up some points by saying/doing the right things, then get some kind of victory/reward for it). No, they said "Oh, we're doing Speech, but we're gonna make it not-suck. Scratch that skill, and your options come from the various properties of your character; stats, skills, knowledge, race, reputation, etc. And different people react to different things in different ways. There is no jedi-mind-trick 'persuasion' or willed diplomacy that makes what you say just automatically sooth the target." Putting "romance" in the game is simply writing in emotional attachment reactivity, much like writing in diplomatic or persuasive reactivity. I know it's different, but it's similar. Yeah, it's been done like crap in plenty of other games. So has Insta-win Speech. They're doing Speech better, rather than jettisoning it. They could, conceptually, do that with Romance. I get why they're not. They have their reasons. But, it's not because Romance is stupid or an inherently terrible thing to have in any form in a role-playing game.

I get that. I was specifically referring to aluminiumtrioxid's comment about Intelligence/Intellect governing both things (physical AND magical potency), which is where the "mental" stuff came in. Plus, yeah, D&D did it that way, so a lot of people might refer to it, defaultly, as mental power, so I was just trying to cover that reference. I'm not saying the capacity of your mental processing power has to govern your magical potency. Honestly, if I were going to split magic damage off from Might in terms of PoE stats, I'd put it under Resolve. Of course, I realize it wouldn't work to just take the current system and put Magic Damage on Resolve, all else unchanged. So, yeah, point taken that Strength isn't exactly governing mental capability. I didn't really mean to suggest that.

Yeah, sorry, I was confused. I've never really heard the phrase "eat up" be used like that, either. So, I was doubly confused. Figured maybe there was some revolutionary change to Reflexes announced in the AMA or something.

Just glad to be of some help. Also, this may sound silly, but I recommend sort of cross-referencing the specifics of traits/mannerisms/perspectives with people you know/have-met in real life. Obviously, it's possible that you just haven't met anyone who thinks/acts like what you're thinking of. But, if you think to yourself "Suzie's one of the most malicious people I know of, and even she wouldn't quite do something like that," then it can help you decide what's overboard and what isn't, for example. It can serve as a check, AND as inspiration from which to draw (especially specific experiences and/or stories as told to you by others, or just experienced by yourself, that relate to that character's mindset/behavior/personality/situation.) Also, maybe run her through scenarios you could imagine occurring in PoE (even if they're not super specifically fitting to PoE, since we really don't know enough to make sure that's the case anyway), and see what you think of the outcomes. Kinda like running a car some laps around a track, then running performance diagnostics. 8P Annnnd I'll shutup now.

Reflex is a stat?

Just give her some anchoring attributes. Don't make her 100% stereotypical lusty bimbo. Make her surprise people who assume they've figured her out after 30 minutes in her company. Pretend you're that character, and imagine how you would react to how everyone thinks of you, and what you'd play up as strengths, and what you'd hide as weaknesses, etc. I don't think having a flirty, gold-digging character is automatically sexist or actively offensive or anything. I mean, some people are going to be offended by the merest existence of any particular thing, but I realllly wouldn't worry about that. Just... like I said, round her out a bit. Think Transformers. She's apparently single-layered, but that doesn't mean she's actually single-layered. Why does she have the attitude she has? No one's just hot and likes men and gold, and poof, becomes a one-dimensional hot gold-man-loving sorceress. How does her magic/ability affect things? How did affect her growing up (even if just brief/specific snippets of her past, and/or general descriptions of spans of formative years, like at some academy, or before a parent's death versus after, etc.)? What led to her current perspective on things? *shrug*. I'm not trying to imply that you haven't thought about any of this. I don't really have any info on your character, specifically, so, I'm just trying to toss brainstorming notions out for fleshing her out a bit. There's a character that's very much like that in the Stormlord Trilogy (by Glenda Larke), and she's ULTRA manipulative. Borderline "evil." She doesn't really wish anyone else harm. She just simply puts her own comfort and position of power at the top of her list of priorities in life. She's actually QUITE intelligent and capable. But, she definitely could be described as a gold-digging lusty bimbo. Well, maybe not "bimbo." But, yeah... she's even a "sorceress" of sorts, as she's one of the people in that land with what amounts to powers of hydrokinesis (they can control water). *shrug*. I'm no expert or anything, but, if you'd like someone to bounce ideas off of, I offer whatever help I can. But, if you ask me, the flaws of character design (in terms of "oh no, is this character just sexist/offensive/shallow?") lie in extremes rather than just in characteristics/style: if she's TOO (proportionately) gold-digging, and TOO lusty and TOO bimbo-ish, then you've got a problem. She doesn't have to be devoid of these properties to be approvable.

I don't mind even the cliche flavors, to be honest. What gets me is that they seem to all be independent for each individual option prompt. Like the witty one. There's no coherence. It's not like you're being witty towards some end. You're simply being witty. Super ultra serious stuff could be going on, and you get the arbitrary option to dickishly joke about it. "Well, that's one less child to worry about, HAHAHA! 'Cause that child burned! Guys, I'm not being evil! I'm just making a joke!" Or the good ones. It's as if you're good because you say that, rather than that you say that because you're good. "Dude... everything's on fire. We can't save everyone. What should we do?" "(good response) SAVE EVERYONE!" "... I just TOLD you we can't! You're going to have to pick some course of action here, or everyone's just going to die." "No, I'm good, and the good thing to do is to save everyone. So, I choose to stand here and will everyone to not-die! *focuses really hard*"... You get a bunch of good points, because you got to be good. Or, better yet, you run into a bunch of bandits, and you always get that like Jedi mind-trick "good" response of "Hey now, let's all just hug and stop fighting, yeah?". Like you just will good to happen, but you don't really apply rational thought to how to achieve it in a real-ish world. So, yeah, I think the point is to have a style of responses actually chain together in coherence.

So I guess it was false advertising to sell BG2 having magic/spells, since Fighters and some of those other classes didn't have spells?