nocoolnamejim

If only this was a year ago this announcement would be greeted with applause.

So.... Now that Obsidian's bribe from Epic to have a year's worth of exclusivity is over and I've bought the game at half the price on GoG, I'd like to revisit this topic.... And to reiterate how weird (and frankly utterly absurd) the argument to have "no player choices on romance options in order to expand player choice is". Yes, over a year later I'm revisiting this forum to tell Obsidian both how much I hated your decision to give the Epic store a timed exclusive for a FULL DAMNED YEAR was and also how much I hated your decision to remove romance options for "player choice" (translated: these are hard to do right and take actual effort). The actual game is good so far, about 12 hours in. REALLY GOOD. So I don't want this to come across as just bashing on Obsidian. But, yeah, I'm thread necroing because both of those things (and also selling yourself to Microsoft) still bother me a year later.

lol Fair enough. I'm guessing though that while some people are single-issue passionate, just because we're on a gaming forum and you don't see their passion on other subject doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

The Syreen Commander Talana? Given that the ending of the game features the protagonist waking to her face, and then fast forwarding to telling their mutual grandchildren about their story I would consider it fairly important. Ironically for the anti-romance faction, it's a fairly thinly done romance for sure. But hard to argue that it wasn't important to the game given she ends up committing her race to joining the New Alliance of Free Stars then marrying and having children with the protagonist.

That's quite a broad statement based on.....?

But does this automatically mean that it's a good thing to have in a game? I would argue that many people seek things in games they cannot have in real life. It's escapism after all for many players. Firing guns and killing terrotists in a game might be more appealing to a player who wants to escape and office job for some time than it would for a Navy Seal I guess. So survival specialists actually like survival games? So... if you've had you fair share of romances in real life you might not be that much interested in romances in games compared to people who lack that experience. I know that romances in RPGs were ok for me when I was younger. But I went out to see the world, studied, met some nice ladies, got older, married, procreated... If I look at RPG romances now - they are often so cringeworthy and awkward. And silly, too. The dialogue options - jeez... So I'd prefer if developers put their effort into something else entirely. Like in general - in any game. Except maybe if it's about human relations and focusud on that thing in the first place. FWIW, I'm also actually happily married, although without the children. My wife didn't want to have them and it wasn't a deal breaker for me. But, just from my own personal experience (which is obviously anecdotal), I don't think it's necessarily true that just by having had romances in real life it makes seeing them in media (movies, tv, games, books) any less interesting. I do agree with your points that games are escapism to a very large degree, but not that romances can't be done well. Or that if they can't be done perfectly you shouldn't even try. That logic seems faulty to me because you can apply it to just about anything in a game. For example, at times in RPGs I've made "moral dilemma" type choices that lead to the game judging the response in a way that I didn't think was correct (or at least in a way I didn't anticipate). Like romance, morals and ethics are a pretty complicated subject and sometimes they can be done in a pretty hamfisted sort of way. At times I've found myself shaking my head trying to imagine what a writer was thinking. But I don't think the logical conclusion to them being done poorly is not to bother trying! My argument is that developers should just try and do romance options better, not to just figure that it can't be done or that it'll just be hard. I can understand how you personally no longer find them interesting. That's fine. But you earlier asked the question on whether or not having them is inherently a good thing to have in a game. To that, I would answer that it depends on the genre. In an RPG, I personally think a glaring lack of romance is fairly immersion breaking. But naturally I can't speak for everyone else's immersion level based on this factor so YMMV. Edit: Sorry for the slow response by the way. Was sick over the last few days.

Its a good thing when The creators aren't interested in implementing it The narrative doesn't support it in a way that isn't contrived The development of romance options would take resources away from creating other interesting role playing opportunities The development wouldn't support the creation of romances within the scope of the project in general I'm sure there are more reasons we could come up with. Don't get me wrong, I think there is a place for a well implemented and thought out romance or romances in a RPG, but that doesn't mean it has to be present in the game anymore than, say, swords or relationships with your parents. I understand your points, and perhaps my opening post was a bit sharper than it should have been, but here's my take if you don't mind a bit of a rebuttal. Romance is one of the biggest and most important aspects of the human condition. Some might call the search for love and acceptance THE single most important factor in that human condition. So completely divorcing this aspect of playing a role from a role playing game is essentially removing one of the biggest aspects of playing a character. Love, and the search for it, is one of the biggest motivators out there. Romance done well can add far more to a story than romance done poorly can detract from a story. (IMO of course.) Some of the best video games of all time have featured love as a central component, and I have a hard time listing a bunch of all-time great RPGs that completely ignored this aspect. A short list of my favorite RPGs of all time: Planescape: Torment - Has romances Witcher 3 - Has romances Jade Empire - Has romances Mass Effect Trilogy - Has romances Dragon Age: Origins - Has romances Kotor - Has romances Kotor 2 - Has romances Neverwinter Nights 2 - Has romances Dragon Quest VIII - Has romances...really, really bad ones but they are there. Star Control 2 - Has romance Final Fantasy IV - Has romance Final Fantasy VI - Has romance Final Fantasy IX - Has romance Persona 3 - Has romances Persona 4 - Has romances Fallout 1+2 - No real romances to speak of tbh. The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind - No real romances to speak of. Chrono Trigger - Has romance, but very little. I do get that romance in video games can be a challenge. I get that they can be poorly written. I get that they can be expensive and time consuming to implement. But the list of all-time great RPGs that ignores this side of the human condition is pretty damn short. This is obviously excluding games that fall more into the "action RPG" trope than actual RPGs. I like From Software's games but there's precious little roleplaying even if they are labeled as "Action RPGs" because it has stats and leveling up and stuff. I consider most of them to be all-time great games, but I don't consider them to be RPGs.

Why on earth would a lack of romance OPTIONS be considered a good thing? It's literally less role playing in your role playing game? The key word is of course optional. Have romanceable characters but not a requirement. If players decide that they don't like any of the options, they're free to friend zone them all. This is making a pretty important role playing decision for everyone.

No, people who pre-order Anno 1800 on Steam are getting it on release day. It's actually a better deal than what I suggested earlier (which was giving people Steam keys that don't activate until a year after release). The Outer Worlds was in the top 3 most wishlisted games on Steam. Private Division could totally have demanded something like this from Epic and gotten it. It's some kind of compromise, but I'm not sure it's a great one from a customer standpoint. It's offshoring the developer's risk at the expense of the customer. In return for the game being available in a timely manner on their preferred platform, they assume all financial risk that the game sucks. It works GREAT for the developer. They get those sweet, sweet Epic store bribes without looking quite as ****y to the people who aren't a big fan of Epic AND they likely juice preorders all in exchange for the low, low price of making their customers buy something before the reviews are out unless they want to read the reviews first and then either buy on an inferior platform or wait a year. It gives you two lousy choices.

Having exclusives does the precise opposite of forcing competition and innovation, except for competition on buying exclusives, which is nothing the consumer benefits from. Competition happens when several stores offer substitutable products. Then the consumer can pick one over the other because the overall package appeals to them the most. Well aware of all of that. Check out some of the other posts I've made. I definitely agree that, in the short term, the way Epic is choosing to "compete" only benefits them and not the end customer.

It does not, unless by "more competition" you mean "more games going exclusive." In fact, the SMART move by Valve would be to immediately tank any and all projects it has going to improve Steam and funnel that money into getting exclusives themselves. I mean, there's literally no feature Steam can implement to have me buy TOW with them before the exclusivity year is up, so why would they try? In fairness, Epic has stated that they intend - at some point - to stop buying exclusives and HAS put out a roadmap towards adding new features to try and draw closer to parity with Steam. Clearly it's light years behind at this point on both fronts, but it is at least saying the right things. I agree with you that the smart move for Valve would be to stop sitting on their hands, although I think a better approach would be to reduce the cut they take for hosting games on their store vs. what Epic does of outright buying exclusives. That's going to get expensive quick if both storefronts are running up the bidding. But if these moves by Epic do force Steam to innovate, reduce the amount of revenue they take from developers, etc. it could be a good thing in the long run. It's hypothetical at this point that it will be healthy in the long run, but it does have the potential. Light years is putting it mildly: it's a digital storefront WITHOUT SO MUCH AS A SHOPPING CART*, which is so absolutely ridiculous that if it came up in a work of fiction it would be called out. To be honest, I don't really care what Epic says, because I don't trust them anyway (and even if I did, everything the head of Epic says starts as insulting as goes up from there, so it's not like there's a stellar record there). When they start DOING, then we'll talk; unfortunately, all they've done so far is screw over consumers. There's no lower cut that Valve can take to change this: Epic is guaranteeing minimum sales, menaing what they're offering is guaranteed profit, which is something lower cuts don't do. And, again, this gives Steam no reason to innovate, because Epic isn't doing "look at this awesome feature we came up with," they're doing "haha, features are for suckers, it's our way or bust," and there's no feature that can change that. *The lack of shopping cart doesn't really affect me, but it's an example of how the EGS fails at even the most basic of functionalities. As someone who plays on two computers, though, the lack of cloud saves automatically means I'm not touching it, anyway. But outright guaranteeing profit is not sustainable. It's probably being done in the short term to A) Try and get their foot in the door and B) Give them time to try and get their storefront even remotely respectable. Eventually it will be put up or shut up time because Epic won't be able to just buy up exclusives indefinitely. That part has to be a short term play. Regardless, Steam and GOG for me remain the way to go until someone, anyone, shows me something better than either of those two.

It does not, unless by "more competition" you mean "more games going exclusive." In fact, the SMART move by Valve would be to immediately tank any and all projects it has going to improve Steam and funnel that money into getting exclusives themselves. I mean, there's literally no feature Steam can implement to have me buy TOW with them before the exclusivity year is up, so why would they try? In fairness, Epic has stated that they intend - at some point - to stop buying exclusives and HAS put out a roadmap towards adding new features to try and draw closer to parity with Steam. Clearly it's light years behind at this point on both fronts, but it is at least saying the right things. I agree with you that the smart move for Valve would be to stop sitting on their hands, although I think a better approach would be to reduce the cut they take for hosting games on their store vs. what Epic does of outright buying exclusives. That's going to get expensive quick if both storefronts are running up the bidding. But if these moves by Epic do force Steam to innovate, reduce the amount of revenue they take from developers, etc. it could be a good thing in the long run. It's hypothetical at this point that it will be healthy in the long run, but it does have the potential.

I think Sterling did a fairly balanced take there. In the short term, there's absolutely nothing good for us, the customer, with regards to the Epic Game store. To call it "threadbare" would be generous. (Lacking even a shopping cart feature? lol) Publishers and developers taking a game to Epic exclusively can make sense from a financial standpoint, but it blows from a customer experience standpoint. A game launching there is objectively worse than a game launching on Steam because of all the missing features like cloud saves, mod support, forums, etc. In the long term, yes, it could be a force for good in the industry if it forces more competition and more innovation, but there is the risk of over-fragmentation of the industry where everyone has to maintain 12 different launchers/storefronts for each game from the various major publishers.

The point missed in your tale is that other people still had the OPTION to go to their preferred place to get the game when Steam was not liked, unlike now with the Epic Store. With your analogy, it would be like if Steam were the ONLY place you could get your games in its infancy when it had problems because it had bought out the game from every Gamestop and other store, everywhere, and there would be no PC copies available to buy for a year.

I did include the feature comparison between Steam and Epic. Don't get me wrong, I'm not just bashing on Steam here. But there IS a belief out there that Steam has not innovated as much as they could/should because they have not had to. One example for me personally is in customer support. They lack any sort of phone number for people to call to get customer support. Admittedly that could get expensive, but it sure would have helped with a recent situation I had. (Long story. I'll spare the details.) But for a company that made an estimated $4.3 billion dollars in revenue in 2017, the ability to speak to a live person if necessary seems like something that could be invested in as an improvement to their service.

It's short term pain, no doubt. But I view it similarly to the backlash that CDPR experienced when they announced that Cyberpunk2077, previously marketed as having a choice between third and first person perspective, would instead be all first person. There was a backlash. A large one. Their forums were pretty unpleasant. But CDPR representatives were there taking the heat, explaining their reasoning and I suspect people walked away feeling that they had at least been heard and their concerns listened to. Even if their decisions could not be changed at this point, just the act of making the effort goes a long way. That's not the same situation though, since CDPR both made the 1st person in C2077 decision and was also explaining it. Here two different companies are involved, and you want the one that didn't make the decision to explain it- which may not even be possible, depending on what the publishing contract says. It's extremely unlikely that Obsidian is anything less than extremely disappointed in the situation, but it would be very difficult for them to say that publicly. To an extent, I agree. The degree of control that Obsidian had over this decision is unclear. (Another thing that they could just come right out and say though isn't it?) I do get where you're coming from, but I also have kind of come to the conclusion that "the developer isn't responsible" has just gotten to be to easy of a crutch over the years. Shadow of War adds microtransactions and a grindy end game? That's not Monolith's fault. That's all Warner Brothers. Payday 2 adds microtransactions years after the game was sold after explicitly promising, in no uncertain terms, that they wouldn't? That isn't on Overkill. That's all the publisher. Bioware sells itself to EA and gets progressively and progressively worse? It's all EA's fault. Etc. etc. There are dozens of examples. Bottom line: Either negotiate better contracts or choose better publishers! When you've been around as long as Obsidian has been, along with it's rather checkered past with publisher choices, then it becomes progressively harder to just handwave away that it is all the publisher's fault. Do better negotiating contracts or do better sticking up for yourself. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice comes out tomorrow. So far all of the reviews look amazing. It's being published by Activision...one of the worst offenders where publishers are concerned. But From has been able to insist on certain things not happening.

Still is no benefit, is just going to have to deal with jackals not interested in anything they have to say explaining their decision. You overestimate the players here. Politely, I disagree. It's short term pain, no doubt. But I view it similarly to the backlash that CDPR experienced when they announced that Cyberpunk2077, previously marketed as having a choice between third and first person perspective, would instead be all first person. There was a backlash. A large one. Their forums were pretty unpleasant. But CDPR representatives were there taking the heat, explaining their reasoning and I suspect people walked away feeling that they had at least been heard and their concerns listened to. Even if their decisions could not be changed at this point, just the act of making the effort goes a long way.

So, because they've had bad history you think they can decide which store their game will be sold? When they are owned by Microsoft and the publisher is basically Take-Two. In which universe do they have much say in the matter? Because I sure as **** don't see them having any voice on the matter. They will do as they are told to do. They had the say on who they sold themselves to. They had the say on who they chose as a publisher. Microsoft and Take-Two are not companies that nobody has ever heard of before. Obsidian CHOSE to put themselves under that pair of thumbs. I believe the point Voss was making is that when a company makes bad decisions on whose control to put themselves under time and time again it becomes less easy to have a lot of sympathy for being "forced"(?) into those bad decisions, and after a certain point, they share the responsibility. A decade after the fact, people still try and excuse Bioware for bad things that happen by claiming it's all EA's fault. Less people buy that as time goes on.

No benefit to engaging with people angry about it.Oh I dunno about that. It may not be PLEASANT to engage with angry people, but having a presence, explaining as much as they can how the decision happened, maybe noting what additional features gamers will get in the game as a result of the extra cash infusion going exclusive means down the road, showing understanding of why not everyone is thrilled... Going radio silent isn't the worst kind of damage control that can be used (that would be, for example, Diablo Immortal's "Don't you guys have phones?"), but it's not exactly optimal either. Right now, it's pretty clearly understood what the benefit to Obsidian and Take Two is, but the benefits to the customers are less clear. What are they supposed to say exactly? "explaining as much as they can how the decision happened, maybe noting what additional features gamers will get in the game as a result of the extra cash infusion going exclusive means down the road, showing understanding of why not everyone is thrilled..." Some of this for instance. Like, for example, "Because of this extra cash infusion, here is the additional things we're going to be able to put in the game without charging" or anything close to that. Essentially, show how this benefits ME, the customer, rather than just YOU, the company who has just taken something away from me for your benefit while giving nothing back. Yes, because Obsidian is clearly getting a cash infusion seeing as they are self publishing this game...oh...wait... Private Division made the deal, Private Division profits from the deal, Obsidian is clearly at fault. Woe to humanity since this mindset is popular. I assume that there is a revenue split between developer and publisher. It is not unreasonable to assume that Obsidian is getting a portion of the revenue from the deal that Private Division made. I could be wrong. But if I am, then that right there would be a great thing for Obsidian to say. "We are not receiving any additional revenue from the decision our publisher made to be a timed exclusive and were not involved in the decision making process towards granting the exclusivity deal." Transparency goes a long way. I don't know, and you don't know, how much or even IF Obsidian profits from this decision or was involved in the decision.

No benefit to engaging with people angry about it. Oh I dunno about that. It may not be PLEASANT to engage with angry people, but having a presence, explaining as much as they can how the decision happened, maybe noting what additional features gamers will get in the game as a result of the extra cash infusion going exclusive means down the road, showing understanding of why not everyone is thrilled... Going radio silent isn't the worst kind of damage control that can be used (that would be, for example, Diablo Immortal's "Don't you guys have phones?"), but it's not exactly optimal either. Right now, it's pretty clearly understood what the benefit to Obsidian and Take Two is, but the benefits to the customers are less clear. What are they supposed to say exactly? "explaining as much as they can how the decision happened, maybe noting what additional features gamers will get in the game as a result of the extra cash infusion going exclusive means down the road, showing understanding of why not everyone is thrilled..." Some of this for instance. Like, for example, "Because of this extra cash infusion, here is the additional things we're going to be able to put in the game without charging" or anything close to that. Essentially, show how this benefits ME, the customer, rather than just YOU, the company who has just taken something away from me for your benefit while giving nothing back.

Ideally, competition should benefit the end customer. Epic Games IS competing against Steam, but in a way that makes things worse off for individual gamers. Restricting the choice of platform that a game can be purchased on to a platform that lacks a multitude of features that Steam has is objectively bad for individual gamers. It may be a form of competition, and certainly the fact that many people have a huge number of games already on Steam and are in no hurry to fracture/split their libraries with another launcher is a large roadbloack to Epic to try and compete on a level playing field, but the way to solve that roadblock should be to make the Epic Launcher objectively better to use than Steam. In other words, to make gamers WANT to switch over by offering better pricing, a better user experience, etc. rather than FORCING them to by holding a metaphorical gun to their heads. "Use our launcher or don't get to play (fill in the blank) game." Simply buying up exclusives is the easier route to go, certainly, but it's not the way to win friends and influence people among ordinary gamers IMHO. With Steam having a monopsony, mostly being the sole provider, on PC games Epic is trying to gain a foothold through exclusivity. They already have a better product in that you actually own the games you purchase, no DRM, and offering free games; they just lack the user base. Steam forces DRM and you are basically "renting" every single game you've bought, and Steam also has exclusives (Total War, previously Bethesda, the Civilization series, etc). If the end result changes any of Steams anti-consumer policy then this is great, if it doesn't then hopefully EGS will take over. The Steam monopoly doesn't exactly hurt the end customer though. If people were actually that upset about Steam's current service, then you'd likely see a lot more support for other platforms. But for the most part, people tend to like Steam and GOG and range from indifferent to hostile to competitors like Origin, Uplay, Battlenet and so on. There is a sense out there I think that Steam has gotten complacent and not improved as much on their shortcomings as they should, but it still remains a pretty superior platform relative to, say, Epic, as a feature comparison shows. Most notable example: mod support. The Outer Worlds is EXACTLY the sort of game that benefits the most from mod support and it's now going to be exclusive to a platform that does not have that feature.

No benefit to engaging with people angry about it. Oh I dunno about that. It may not be PLEASANT to engage with angry people, but having a presence, explaining as much as they can how the decision happened, maybe noting what additional features gamers will get in the game as a result of the extra cash infusion going exclusive means down the road, showing understanding of why not everyone is thrilled... Going radio silent isn't the worst kind of damage control that can be used (that would be, for example, Diablo Immortal's "Don't you guys have phones?"), but it's not exactly optimal either. Right now, it's pretty clearly understood what the benefit to Obsidian and Take Two is, but the benefits to the customers are less clear.

Ideally, competition should benefit the end customer. Epic Games IS competing against Steam, but in a way that makes things worse off for individual gamers. Restricting the choice of platform that a game can be purchased on to a platform that lacks a multitude of features that Steam has is objectively bad for individual gamers. It may be a form of competition, and certainly the fact that many people have a huge number of games already on Steam and are in no hurry to fracture/split their libraries with another launcher is a large roadbloack to Epic to try and compete on a level playing field, but the way to solve that roadblock should be to make the Epic Launcher objectively better to use than Steam. In other words, to make gamers WANT to switch over by offering better pricing, a better user experience, etc. rather than FORCING them to by holding a metaphorical gun to their heads. "Use our launcher or don't get to play (fill in the blank) game." Simply buying up exclusives is the easier route to go, certainly, but it's not the way to win friends and influence people among ordinary gamers IMHO.

A few people who are devs are supportive of it. Do you mind posting a link? I am not one who likes to read only one side of a particular story so I'd be curious to see what those devs are saying and thinking through their reasoning. I would, but I feel like the devs supporting it was kind of trolling those upset (This is over at Resetera) No worries. I admit I'm a touch upset with it myself, but you've given me enough hints to do some Google-Fu.

A few people who are devs are supportive of it. Do you mind posting a link? I am not one who likes to read only one side of a particular story so I'd be curious to see what those devs are saying and thinking through their reasoning.