ashtonw

I haven't yet insulted you personally. If your problem is that I don't take the subject seriously enough, that's too bad, because to me romances are fun additions and not something to be taken 100% seriously. You could reduce romances to a mechanic for boinking your party members. Or you could say that giving them noogies deepens your role-playing options by letting you have a fun, rough-housing relationship with them. Different types of relationships- again, neither is more valid than the other. Constantly bringing up BG2 and Torment means nothing to me; I've never gotten very far in Torment, and I always played a female character in BG2. My only option was Anomen, who was a jerk and an idiot. Not something I would hold up as a good example. Your concern was that having no romances would mean all the character interaction would be shallow and limited, because romance is somehow deeper and better than any other type of interaction, or at least that's how I interpreted it.

Okay from now on I will not bring up farting in any of the millions of "please let me get fantasy laid" threads. I disagree about it being a poor comparison, there are many different types of relationships and a romance is just one type, and not necessarily deeper or more valid than any other. And the idea that our characters will be asexual is also just speculation and no where in your opening post did you say "please let me express my sexuality," you talked specifically of "romance." Maybe I really want to act like a parental figure to an NPC, and not giving me that chance is also limiting my role playing options. Again, why is the option to date a companion any more important than mothering one?

Firstly no, not having romance does not make someone go psycho. Secondly yes you are being limited in a way, but again you are also being limited to playing the kind of person that doesn't, say, slap people upside the head or give them noogies and I don't see how one is any more valid than the other. Thirdly not having romances does not preclude having the option to put the moves on characters and be shot down or express your sexuality in some other way. josh sawyer if you read this plz give my character the option to fart at some point

I don't have to admit that at all because that is absurd. Probably my character will never get a chance to fart but that doesn't mean my character never does it. At some point you must concede that the game is an abstraction and not a complete life simulator and some of the role playing is going to have to go on in your own imagination. I could play my character as thirsty for Eder the entire game but maybe off on an adventure is not the right time to discuss these things, or he's not interested, or already has someone, or whatever. Or maybe I really want to slap him upside the head but the game won't let me do that either, so really, how is that any different than wanting to sleep with him? Also why would not romancing another person make you a psychopath, unless you think you will be able to try to force your attentions on someone. THAT would be psychopathic. Ain't nothing wrong with being asexual, either. And certainly nothing wrong with not being interested in the people around you.

Uh... it's called best friends.

Well you did start off by implying anyone not romantically interested in the people around them is a psychopath.

I feel the same way about noogies. Not letting me give noogies to my companions is severely limiting my role playing options.

Fresher in my mind is the 30 minute conversation with disembodied brains in Old World Blues, complete with ejaculation and **** jokes. But the VO was good so that's okay. For PoE, I'm not expecting much with the budget they're working with, so I hope the characters will be as quiet as possible. I get second-hand embarrassment from listening to bad acting.

A shame there won't be a huge overlap between PoE players and AngryJoe viewers.

I like romances in games too, but I've hated every romance in Obsidian games so far so I'm quite alright without them.

obviously the game is going to come out on December 25th, forcing me to choose between Christmas with my family or PoE

I feel the same way except I want to play PoE so badly I can't stand the thought of other people playing before I get to.

Yeah, they're descendants of Mormons but their religion did not remain unchanged. If I hadn't known anything about Mormonism beforehand I would have just thought they were Christians. I didn't feel like I had anything specifically Mormon shoved in my face. And I think what's his face's bible wasn't even the Mormon bible.

In a DLC for New Vegas there are members of an unnamed religion that is never specifically labeled as Mormonism and IIRC Josh Sawyer has said it wasn't exactly Mormonism. Yup... I painted it for fun.. I did Keldorn and Aerie too but Minsc's is my favorite.

...well, I'm done here. I mean, I never had any hope of getting anywhere with this intellectual giant, but still. Such a great example of feminism, to speak down to and right over me. :/ Idiotically I still feel the need to defend myself. I explore the "theme of sexism" all the time. In every book I read or tv show or movie I watch, I notice the imbalance of power, the poor representation, the flimsy stereotypes. I read news articles about violence toward women, wage inequality, lack of reproductive rights, etc. I can't NOT see these things. Do I want and expect PoE to represent different gender roles across the different societies of Eora? Yes. I thought Josh Sawyer did this well in New Vegas. Do I want to constantly be told I'm crap because I'm a female? Not really. Do I want to see women being sold as chattel and subjected to abuse/rape? No. ps every democracy ever is sexist as hell, so I guess democracy must be inherently sexist. it's totally not the fault of the men in power.

How about a pre-written biography full of blanks, like madlibs. "My name is blank and I am a member of the blank race. My profession is blank and my hobbies include blanking and blanking. My favorite snack is blank." No?

What is with this weird fixation on feudal societies. Seriously. I'm sure glad you find gender inequality "interesting." That's so "feminist" of you. I wish I could find it as interesting as you do but unfortunately experiencing it first hand makes it lose its appeal.

RPGs with 100% historical accuracy don't sell worth a damn. So you'll never see a company like Obsidian making one. Besides, can you imagine how *dull* such a game would be? That is so very irrelevant. He's arguing for something which would, if anything, increase the intrigue in the game. As for the other point being made, I would like to hear an actual woman's opinion on whether having the sexist environment in PoE that Barothmuk described would make them feel uncomfortable or not. Somehow I doubt it would. If it would make some women uncomfortable, should there not be racism in the game then too? It might make real minorities feel uncomfortable. Also, also. RPGs with historical accuracy can and do sell woth a damn, just saying. woman's opinion: video games are escapist fantasy so i would like a little break from all the crap that i deal with every day. If I want to experience sexism in a video game I will just go play literally any other game ever made.

My impression is that different cultures will have different gender roles. Like in New Vegas things in the NPR seemed (on the surface) to be pretty equal but Caesar's Legion had strict roles for men and women- which, as an outsider, the courier was unaffected by (except the guy in charge of the arena wouldn't let women fight, because women are not fighters). I'm expecting more along those lines. Gromnir brought up Arcanum and in that game I felt like I was being punished for playing a female character. So, yeah, no more of that please.

I love the new portrait, I really like the artist's brushwork. I'm happy they're holding off on a video right now, I think spending that coin too early would hurt the build up of anticipation to the game's release. And I don't want my brain over-saturated with info til I'm sick of the game before it's even out. that said.... i'm soooo excited and i can't wait. everyone working on this project is so great and you guys have all my faith.