Lephys

My mistake. I guess they're not zealots at all, then. I misused the word.

They could call it "Baldur's Gate 3: Bhaal's Pawn." 6_u

Unlike video game development, which hasn't seen any progress since the Atari 2600? Problem: You're assuming they were good attempts, AND that their goal was to implement good romance (and not just "this'll draw in a good portion of people who just like romance content for the sake of romance content" attempts.) If Bioware romances are attempts to make "good" romances, I'd sure hate to see half-arsed attempts. Next you'll tell me that the recent Streak of MMOs has exhausted all possible design possibilities for MMOs. You know, because they've all been so drastically varied. You may be right about people using different definitions, Junta. However, no one's forcing anyone to arbitrarily apply an overly specific meaning to the word as it gets typed by others' fingers. I mean, I know all my posts are only like 3 words long, so it's really hard to discern any specifics from the sea of ambiguity I represent. But, surely, someone in here has elaborated at least a tiny extent on what they mean.

Yes... because this debate is about whether or not we should invent romance. *facepalm* Putting romance into an RPG is a goal and a process. Just like staving off infection. A goal, and a process (treat with things until infection successfully staved). It's got nothing to do with tangibility. Video games aren't tangible. They're just code. It's no different from putting anything else successfully into a video game. It is a problem to be solved, actually. Just like any video game design concept, ever. "How do we lay out this plan? How do we code this? How does it fit into the rest of the game's design?" Take your pick. Go ask Obsidian if video game development isn't largely problem-solving. The whole game is the solution to the "problem" of "My computer doesn't already simulate all this stuff. I have to figure out how to get it to do that, successfully, so that I can enjoy the results." And poof, you have a game if you succeed. @Hiro: I'm sorry my example and its explanation went over your head. I don't know how to clarify it for you, so I'm gonna hafta give up on that. Apologies.

I dunno. If no one had yet discovered penicillin, then why should anyone assume there's a good way to fight infection out there, and that they should keep looking? I for one am super glad they didn't go "Oh well, SURELY if there was a fantastic way to fight infections, we'd've found it in the last several hundred years. Better not waste our time and effort on something that's obviously impossible, u_u..." Why has anyone ever tried anything that wasn't already accomplished? You tell me. I'm sure if humanity had just always given up on everything that had been attempted a bunch but wasn't successful, we'd all be livin' great right now. 8D Okay... even after I already told you the purpose of that example, you're still acting as though its purpose was to really present a specific thing that should've actually occurred and would've been a splendid plan. Same with "why don't we get rid of religion," which you are answering, it seems, directly after a completely different quote (which is confusing). So, do with that info as you will, I suppose. But none of what you're saying has anything to do with my example's purpose. I'm done with that example, because all it did was make a simple point, and I'm not arguing that Romance should've been a $250,000 stretch goal. Yes. Yes to what I said. No to what you've, once again, arbitrarily changed the point to. That's great that you think there are too many threads about this, but the number of threads about something and their annoyance to you: A) Have absolutely nothing to do with the merits of game design ideas. (It's not like romance's quality as a concept would be higher, somehow, if there were only fewer threads about it.) B) Have absolutely nothing to do with the point I made, which is that "some number of people would consider that wasting development funds" can be said of almost anything in the entire game, depending on who you ask. So, unless we flip a coin or construct a Thunderdome to decide what makes it in and what doesn't, there's got to be some further reason to make such a decision. 8P Also, this thread was specifically created, by a mod, for the discussion of the pros and cons of the incorporation of romance in cRPGs. Not "Wahhhh, we're trying to overturn the decision to leave it out of this game!" So... No. False. We're not beating a dead horse. We're performing an autopsy on that horse. @Death Machine Miyagi: YES! The con-person example is great! See, people just have too narrow of a view of romantic content. And, honestly, I couldn't care less if the number of promancers who liked that was depressing. It should be done anyway, and the Japanese dating sim shouldn't.

Quite true. However, it was purely a hypothetical. I can't know the developer's initial thoughts on the story any more than you can. I was merely making an example. Maybe a better one would've been "what if they have infinite money?" My point is, at what point is it not a waste of money to not-spend the same money on something else? At what point is the rest of the game sufficient enough to allow for money to not-wrongfully be spent on something purely because some people would rather see any money spent, spent on something else? So many things that oodles of people say they could do completely without in the game "waste" this very same money, yet romance gets to be the poster child for some reason.

Our lack of knowledge is what "proves everyone wrong." This isn't about proving one thing or another. It's about what we know, and what we don't know. And, personally, I cannot see how it's at all reasonable to assume a good implementation doesn't exist when all our examples are of how games keep using basically the same BAD implementation over and over again. That's what I don't understand. No one's like "Man, check out this really great quality example of romance in a video game! Everything was done about as right as you can do it, and it still caused all kinds of problems and felt out-of-place, etc." No, pretty much every single example I've seen anyone put out there has been blatantly criticism-worthy. It wouldn't matter if it was romance, or combat, or crafting, or what-have-you. If ANY of that was done so after-thought-ishly, it would suffer greatly. You're right that there's a bunch of subjectiveness here, which is why it's pointless to contest any of these points unless we try to strip out what's subjective and leave what's not. The key word being "try." I'm not saying this is the most imperative discussion ever, and people simply MUST go through all the trouble of doing this. But, it's just useless to toss opinions back and forth, and try to decide whose opinion is the best. That's why I'm not sitting here trying to prove "Romance is GREAT and should always be in every game, no matter what, simply because it's romance! 8D!" I'm simply calling out the "and therefore, it's reasonable to simply shun romance" conclusions. No... it's reasonable to subjectively dislike it, and it's reasonable to point out all the flaws in the many, many implementations. But, it simply isn't reasonable at all to say that romance objectively shouldn't be bothered with, as a concept. I get your point about people's value of whatever extra money is put toward, but, my point still stands. They're really almost the same point, to be honest. All I'm saying is, there's got to be more of a reason than "some people like this" to put something into a game. Likewise, there's got to be more of a reason than "some people don't like this" to leave something out of a game. As I said, you could make the exact same argument about almost any other design decision in the game. Just look at all the threads we've had around here. "We need WAY more companions!" "No, we need fewer! I don't care about companions' stories and such! Just give me more combats and areas!" "No, we have too many combat scenarios and areas I wanna do a pacifist run!" "Blarg! There should be more levels!" "The whole game should be voice-acted!" Etc. I realize that, from a strictly business standpoint, you can't make a product with something that only 1% of your gamer consumers like, and that lacks what 99% of them like. It's not that it's wrong. It's just not going to succeed as a product. You're going to be broke. But, a bunch of people not really preferring something, and pretty much only pointing out horrible examples of its implementation to somehow conclude that obviously any and all designs that include it are going to objectively fail, is not really a good enough reason to conclude "yes, that's a bad idea, then." Especially not when there are a bunch of people who also would like to see it in the game. I realize you, specifically, are not arguing contrary to every single thing I'm laying out here. But, a lot of people on both sides of this have failed, miserably, to keep all this separated. One thing being a poor reason doesn't automatically mean there's NO reason not to always shove romance into a game, arbitrarily. Advocating the idea of putting romance into a game does not automatically mean "I thoroughly enjoyed romance in all the games you can possibly think of, and want to just copy-paste that over into this game, ^_^". Etc. I grow weary of everyone grouping stuff and shortcutting through arguments/debates. Half the posts here (and in similar threads) are just the tossing of assumptions back and forth, and the subsequent attempted corrections of those assumptions.

For what it's worth, the PoE Paladin is not religion-based, and is only a zealot for his own cause (and not for some deity or organization in particular).

Ehh, Guild Wars 2. Hours-played? I dunno... 60-100? I think I hit level 40 or so with one character. Mid 20's with some others. For what it's worth, I actually liked GW2 a lot better than most others I've played (Rift, WoW, Warhammer, etc.).

You might get enough intel from the beta, if you're partaking. Since it's supposed to be mostly mechanics-testing and hardly any story stuff. More about how things will work than about what will and won't happen, etc.

Which makes perfect sense, because new humans don't cost anything at all! 8D Haha. I know it's true, and I know why it happens, but it's really silly when you think about it. Or went out and LARP'd it. You know... if they're superlatively hardcore.

Isn't that very spectrum of perspectives (the "Perspectrum," if you will, ) sort of the heart of roleplaying? Maybe we should take out religion, because some people don't view it as important, but other people do. Totally understandable, but the same case can be made for numerous things: voice-acting, graphics, the stronghold, crafting, etc. Objectively, on a case by case basis, it's fair to say "I think, given this game's budget, etc., there shouldn't be any romance in it." But, there's hardly any evidence supporting "romance = bad, just as a sheer concept in RPGs." I mean, if it was a stretch goal, and they had raised an extra $250,000 for it, would it be okay, then, in principle? Since it didn't detract from the budget? Or would there still be sufficient reason for people to be upset with its inclusion (before even seeing how it's included, etc.)?

It seems like the only possibilities you're thinking of are just juggling existing stuff around between typical classes/builds. What I'm talking about is a system that doesn't restrict you to all that in the first place. You can do damaging stuff with a sword, or a bow, or some daggers, or spells, or martial arts, etc. You can control people with any of that stuff. Healing... well, it would be significantly lessened, most likely. But, there could still be stuff for everyone. And DPS wouldn't really be something to measure with such scrutiny, as you often wouldn't really be worried about getting a ton of hits in. Think of chess. You can be blocking with a piece one minute, then taking advantage of an opening and attacking with the same piece the next. Yet, they all still move in their own ways. You don't have a piece with the highest armor, a piece that's constantly de-damaging (healing) other pieces so they don't die before you get the enemy piece's health down from 1,000, and another piece putting other pieces to sleep and/or fearing them and/or nuking them. There are ways to build an MMO such that you don't just set up for a war of attrition every time you fight something worthy of a whole party. I don't know how else to explain it. It's fun, the way they're done now, in its own way. I'm not saying it's wrong or something. It's just wrong to think that's the only way to do it. There are other, equally interesting ways (more so, in my opinion, but I could be biased because I'm so burnt out on this current formula) of setting things up. Ways that allow for a much more actively tactical approach, than a "Okay, you're going to need to be doing at least 1,000 DPS for the next minute, and when this guy does his big AOE, I'm going to need to make sure the shield is up at that point, then we'll repeat, until he spawns a bunch of little guys. Then, you're going to need to root them all, and get some DOTS out there, or we won't do enough damage fast enough to kill this guy in 10 minutes. You'll have to jump in and support heal if people start getting hurt too much, and make sure to slap a bunch of regen on people or we'll take too much damage too quickly, instead of surviving a total of 70,000 damage with our individual 1,000HP health pools." That's a very specific design, and not some required box within which an MMO designer must work.

Yeah, good points. It's not that I want it to be strictly impossible or anything. It just may vary well be ultra tricky. Or, at the very least, it may just be that you're much more limited in what all you're able to do (big scary optional fights, certain skillset options, like you said, that may unlock other content, etc.). And yeah, this is a lot of speculation, but if we didn't discuss anything that required speculation while we wait for further project progress, this would be a quiet, place, riddled with tumbleweeds. Anywho, as for the objective XP thing, it's true that we don't really have info on what kind of ratios we're looking at here (combat-requiring XP versus non-combat option XP). They haven't really told us any kind of estimate on the amount of combats we'll be able to "circumvent" while still receiving XP (not from the combat, but for the situation that could've been "solved" with combat). In fact, a few times, when people have asked about that (usually it's questions about pacifist runs), they've stressed (albeit vaguely) that it will not at all be possible to do a pacifist run, and something along the lines of "combat is very much a huge part of this game." So *shrug*. They've sort of told us there's a border to the east and the west, but we still don't have a map showing us the land in between. 8P

I think if you explore thoroughly, you're bound to find a treasure chess or two. 6_u This is interesting, though. It's something that sometimes gets neglected in a fantasy RPG world. I mean, the generic stuff's usually in. But, I guess otherwise it's just assumed everyone's too busy being a peasant and shoveling poop. Or being drunken, well-fed, and corrupt. Or magical... Haha. Kinda makes me think of all those elaborate card games and such from the Final Fantasy games (after 7, I think). There were multiple card games, I think, (8 and 9?), then there was Blitzball, which was actually kinda fun. Annnywho... No need for minigames, necessary. It would just be nice if there was some Eoran pastime. 8P Or, you know... various culturian (that's a new word -- I want royalties u_u) pastimes. Especially unique stuff for the non-human races.

No, but you can blame the price when you don't buy their game.

I think the question brought up was based on the fact that 6X the EXP doesn't really help you if you can't make it through an encounter/objective. Also, the IE games (or most of them, at least) had repeatable random encounter XP. It seems PoE will not have any. So, it's a perfectly valid question of whether or not a single person will be able to make it far enough, on his own, for the increased XP gains from not-splitting XP between a whole party to make up for the fact that he's just one character who can't perform any ability/tactical combos whatsoever with himself. Thus, the question was raised, maybe it'll be pretty much impossible to solo the game above a certain difficulty setting or something? It's a perfectly valid possibility.

That's absolutely true. If only you'd ever actually do it. This is well beyond 3 strikes, so I'll not indulge your little game any further. If anyone else doesn't understand what I meant in that quote that's been hurled into this thread, I would be happy to clarify it. Otherwise, we'll just continue with the regularly-scheduled programming.

Sort of. I don't like to assume, which is why I've elaborated on my thoughts on the matter. See, I'd agree, with what you just said, only I don't know what you mean by "just not at the same time." I'd think a system in which one could fill multiple roles in a single combat encounter would be pretty great. So, I don't know if you mean that they'd have to re-spec and change gear to outfit specifically for the different role for a duration, or not. Put simply, nothing about virtual multiplayer RPG combat requires that one person only fill one role at any given point in time. I mean, sure, at that instant, while you're casting "Heal," you can't be dealing damage, because you're casting heal. But, I'm just talking about capability. At any given point, a single character should be able to choose from one of several objectives to complete with a given ability/choice in the midst of combat. The way MMOs are designed now, everything is set up specifically for there to be a trinity, or what-have-you, working together. If your healer falls, you die. If your tank falls, you die. If your DPS guy falls, you die. Etc. So, yeah, if you just had a mishmash of people who could all do various things at once, instead of a clear-cut role for each character, it'd be ludicrously difficult to make sure you had adequate effectiveness going on with any individual role. However, if the system were designed differently, then the same role structure would no longer be mandatory.

Servants can't always go everywhere, and can't freely search someone's room with someone else in it. And they could be orphans, or at least lacking in living relatives. Also, I never said anything about romancing them. Just disguising yourself and passing as that person. Plus, that wasn't in this thread. It was from a completely different thread, in completely different context. You're the one who ripped it out of context and brought it up in this thread, for the sole purpose of trying to make me look bad. So, *applause*. Why don't you actually try being constructive, for once?

No, unfortunately, it doesn't always come down to those things. I get what you're saying (or the underlying truth of what you're saying), but nothing requires that roles be so narrow that each person only does one thing. In a tactical system, a Wizard, for example, doesn't just spray out pure damage. They actually fire off functional spells that accomplish various things to varying degrees of effectiveness, depending on the circumstances. In a tactical system, that "DPS" dual-wielder can actually go attack someone he can't necessarily effectively harm a whole lot, and can "CC" them, and/or mitigate their ability to damage anyone else by buzzing around them like a bee. Why? Because someone designed him to be able to do a lot of things, which CAN contribute to maximizing DPS, and can also be useful in other ways. Rather than just designing him to dish out damage. Again I say, when the system isn't designed specifically around restricted roles that are expected to be filled for the entire duration of combat, things can get pretty interesting. Several games have soaked their feet in that pool, a bit, but none have been brave enough to dive in. It's just assumed that that would be horrendously complicated (if you didn't just have to worry about one thing at a time -- healing, damage, mitigation), and that only like 5 people in the world would want to play that game. So, based on a bunch of numbers on pages that they read in reports, companies are pretty sure that just copying WoW and redecorating is the way to go, despite the fact that like 5+ major MMOs have failed with that formula, just recently. *shrug*

They're probably too busy investigating it to have the time to answer. Rest assured that, while we ask "Are we there yet?", they're keeping their eyes and focus firmly on the road.

I'm pretty sure we've seen in-game footage of robed characters. So, I'm guessing yes, What do you call a full group of 6 cloth-wearers? ROBE SQUADRON! 6_u

I used to only ever play on normal (or, if it was an instance where there were like 50 degrees of difficulty -- Cakewalk, Very Easy, Easy, Luke Easy, Sub-Normal, Normal, A Little Rougher Than Normal, Not-Quite Hard, Relatively Hard, Hard, More Hard, REALLY Hard, Stupidly Hard, Literally Impossible -- heh... well, then I'd play a little above normal sometimes.) But, now, I've kinda gotten into trying out hard difficulties. I generally give a game a test run on hard, then fall back to normal if I need to. Really depends on the game, too. XCOM: Enemy Unknown? Not ever going to play that on Classic, probably. There's just too much ridiculousness to overcome (like the fact that aliens freakin' get to insta-move on YOUR TURN when you discover them from 3 miles away... that and too much RNG that screws you over). But, if it's just a matter of hard requiring you to actively be that much more careful/precise/efficient, it can often be pretty fun if it doesn't go overboard. A few things I'll actually play on the hardest difficulty. Mass Effect 3 is probably the best experience I've had with the toughest difficulty setting. I completed Mass Effect 2 on Insanity as well, but it was a little more ridiculous in place. Then, contrastingly, Dragon Age 2 on Insanity was one of the worst things ever. It wasn't even "difficult" anymore. It was just ludicrous. Everything had 9,000 health, and drank a healing potion of +8,000HP every time you got it down to that final thousand. It was all just attrition at that point. Not to mention everything was immune to like 3 magic types, minimum, so playing a Mage became an exercise in frustration.

Sorry, I should've cut the quote off before "just look at gw2...". You said that the trinity roles are pretty much required or it's just a straight DPS game and that's no fun. That's true, if you just take the current MMO mold and strip out classes/roles. If the game were designed around tactical choices in combat, instead of just the flow of damage, healing, and buffs/mitigation, things would be different.