Skyleaf

Since this will probably be a AAA budget game, I doubt it'll have that infinity engine look to it. So just yesterday I found out after 5 years of waiting and anticipation that CPR's Cyberpunk 2077 will only have a 1st person perspective outside of cutscenes. This really tore my heart to pieces not because I have a problem with FPS in general, but because I cannot for the life of me survive longer than two hours playing with this kind of POV without having to go to the crapper to vomit. Literally. So there goes the 2 AAA games I anticipated the most the last two years, ME:A and CP 2077, down the drain. I hope you guys at Obsidian will be more considerate to fans of your games like me and tell us as early as possible, what kind of game you're making. I, of course, prefer 3rd person, and I think you guys can make everyone happy if this future game has both 1st and 3rd person view. Kinda like Fallout at least. If you do this, then it would be my new most anticipated AAA game. But if it's regrettably FPS like, then at least it won't be such a monumental letdown for me when I finally find out.

What you say here is very informative. I do agree that BG2 is a one off and thus I did not attempt to connect that game to PoE & the Witcher series. Again, right now when talking about numbers we can only compare PoE with the original Witcher game. PoE 2 is still a long way away. I hadn't thought about all the advantages CDPR have by being a Polish developer with all the extra help and cash flows. In any case, if PoE 2 does a Witcher 2 and sales spike up exponentially, is it still that much more difficult to reach a Witcher 3 level of quality for PoE 3? I admit, I want Obsidian to reach AAA with PoE because it's their flagship title. This is of course an unpopular opinion but I'm ok with it not being an isometric RPG anymore because to me the story, the world, and the lore matters to me more now. It would be good for Obsidian too. They could use the success having struggled for so long. And shamelessly, I want another developer that is an automatic purchase for me the way Bioware used to be until today, lol.

Well, opinions aside, I'm talking about PoE growing into a brand as successful as the Witcher not be a carbon copy of it.

Surely you can understand from my OP that I'm comparing PoE to the Witcher and not to the Witcher 3. I am hoping that by the time we'd get to a PoE 3, Obsidian will have gained a significant budget increase to make a game closer in quality to Witcher 3. In terms of sales The Witcher did 300k copies its first year or something while PoE did some what 500k? 600k? In any case quite similar numbers. The Witcher 2 improved on this exponentially by selling some 1.5 mil or something it's first year? I can't remember. So if PoE 2 pulls in similar numbers can it upgrade into something like a Witcher 3? That is my personal hope. I pre-ordered, so yeah, hehe, I'm kind of devastated.

...and possibly become a mega mainstream hit like Witcher 3? PoE did similarly as the Witcher in terms of sales in its first year or so, maybe slightly better. The positive review scores are similar too. I'm a little shocked and baffled by ME:A mixed reception. Could have used that pre-order money to invest on PoE:D instead. All this talk about the Infinity Engine renaissance when we are actually slowly running out of quality AAA RPGs, sigh. I know that nostalgia gave life to PoE. But surely, most of us want this franchise to grow and eventually reach a bigger mainstream following like the Witcher franchise. Cyberpunk 2077 is the only guaranteed to be great AAA RPG in the foreseeable future. Dragon Age 4, sure, but those filler quests in DA:I and now ME:A tells me that Bioware will never be a sure thing anymore. P.S: Forgive me if that's not what most of you guys want. I'm just thinking out loud. Of course going mainstream can mean going from Fallout 2 to Fallout 3...

So I'm closely following the controversies regarding T:ToN and InXile while defending them when I can. Anyway I read this comment by a backer from their latest update on KS: Dunno if it's legit but it makes me nervous. I really don't want to see another debacle like this involving game developers that I like. Please research beforehand with every country that you guys are committed to do localization to avoid any potential problems like this. If you know early on that some localizations will be way more expensive than you thought, you can choose to have the community do it for you, and be forthcoming about it too since translation work done by the community will prolly not be as good as the professionals.

Yeah, it's like in real life. Just say some nice things, be a bit cheesy and make the right presents and every woman will adore you and let you **** her in instant. Life is so simple. /not But the dream lives on, thanks to Bioware... Stop it, you're quietly making me ashamed of myself... Yes, sometimes I do love me some corn to go with all that cheese , heck I've seen The Princess Bride 70 times or something. Well, at least the Inquisitor himself felt half stupid reciting all that pompous bit of poetry. He was like, uuuhhh, this is not working out for you? I thought you like all this casanova stuff?

I actually think that Cassandra's romance is quite nice. There's a whole lot of camp but the romance was fluid. She was the romanced character in my first playthrough, kind of like a test run since I doubted that I'd like her stiff personality. The cheese was the actual appeal in this one. I'm sort of reminded of those goofy 80s romance movies I would watch on TV when nothing else was on. She was the reason I played the game again after shelving it for more than a year. She was being stupid, talking in riddles and being indecisive but I was too curious to see where the game was going with this. Solas and Blackwall are heavy hitters, so something straight forward and lite like Cassandra is reasonable in my opinion. Now, Sera's romance I hear is pretty garbage so I'm avoiding that one at the moment. I'm doing Josephine next.

IMHO, Bioware is already making major improvements with romance in DA:I Coincidentally, I've just finished my 3rd playthrough with a romanced Blackwall. With or without romance, his story is really deep. There are 4 possible endings with him (2 romanced, 2 non-romanced). One astonishing revelation in the middle of it (at least when you find out the first time). One possible tragic but poignant epilogue when you romance him (which I got). A lot of gamers quit on this game because of time wasting filler quests so the romance part of it doesn't get a fair shake. I'm taking a break but will do a 4th playthrough. Hopefully, I'll finish in time for T:ToN, when it's officially out.

Seriously? Tyranny is running into the same problems as all those other Unity Engine RPGs before it? Now I'm worried. That's one thing I truly find frustrating with PoE. the performance problems. I'm running DA:I and Battlefield 4 with no problems but 3 hours playing PoE slows my PC down to a crawl. Although, in a way I was able to monitor my gaming hours better since when the game starts to slow down, I would simply decide to stop for the day instead of restarting my PC. Still, I hope the devs can assure us again like they did in the announcement video that they we won't have to deal with this typical Unity engine problem again. For me, PoE worked better than Tyranny. It took sometimes 5-8 minutes to load an area in Tyranny, I don't remember the exact times in PoE, because I haven't played it in a couple of times, but they were a bit shorter. Locations with edicts active had an awful performance, I could barely move the party because the game was lagging more than I could have imagined. PoE didn't have such demanding areas, but I'm anxious each time Obsidian announces graphic improvements. I have to mention that my laptop barely meets the minimum requirements, but such problems won't stop me from playing :D Oh well, I think I can understand the reason behind the awful performance for Tyranny though. Afterall, the requirements for that game are higher than PoE.

The thing is, it's obvious to me but not obvious to others. Or maybe I feel it and some don't. Depends on how emotionally invested you are in their stories I think. I feel a connection with Durance and Grieving Mother when they open up to my player character. Especially with Grieving Mother, her big reveal tug at my heartstrings. I understood Durance. I feel him too, but in the end I thought he was just an idiot. I consoled him nonetheless. This doesn't happen with every characters though. I got nothing from Kana and Aloth. Probably one of the few not that intrigue with Eder either although the revelation that his God lives and nearly killed the player character will make him ten times more fascinating I bet. Add a bit of romance, and who knows... Hm, you really think the act of opening up and telling you your "life story" is enough for a relationship to be called deep friendship? So if you went to the nearest nursing home and some grand daddy told you stories about his life and what he did during his military service you would magically become friends just because his story touches you? Hm, I don't know. Of course it needs courage and trust to open up to others, but that alone isn't enough for friendship. Friendship needs mutual affection based on shared experiences, shared interest, shared beliefs and an emotional attachment. And most of that usually happens BEFORE a friend tells you his deepest issues and desires. Imo there is no believable interaction evolution between the PC and Durance that build up enough trust, mutual respect and even more important, mutual affection, that serves as prerequisite for the act of opening act. But I respect that you felt differently. I guess there are quite a few differing concepts of what friendship acutally means and what it requires. I guess we can agree that the definition of good friendship can differ like night and day just like the definition of good romance in RPG. Don't we just love these games? On a last note, here's how I look at how my player character would view the evolving relationship with these two characters as friendship. They've been through many battles. They don't talk to you much. Slowly, they reveal deeper layers of themselves. Then they trust you enough to tell more. Then they let it all out, just lay it bare like they're emotionally naked. If I put myself in the player character shoes I would say, we've been through hell together and you've let me know who you really are as a person, you confide in me things you'd never tell anyone else. Thank you. I'll go to war with you anytime.

The thing is, it's obvious to me but not obvious to others. Or maybe I'm feeling something that isn't there, I dunno. Depends on how emotionally invested you are in their stories I think. I feel a connection with Durance and Grieving Mother when they open up to my player character. Especially with Grieving Mother, her big reveal tug at my heartstrings like how I suspect a friend would react. I understood Durance. I feel him too, but in the end I thought he was just an idiot. I consoled him nonetheless. This doesn't happen with every character though. I got nothing from Kana and Aloth. Probably one of the few not that intrigue with Eder either although the revelation that his God lives and nearly killed the player character will make him ten times more fascinating I bet. Add a bit of romance, and who knows...

This is weird but in my opinion PoE had two of the deepest, most well written friendship paths I've ever played in an RPG game with Durance and Grieving Mother. Zahua was pretty amazing too. That whole acid trip, wow. Goes to show that opinions can vary like night and day on pretty much anything. In which way do you think these were good friendships? What exactly made the relationship between the PC and either of those two a deep friendship for you? I'm really interested, especially I indeed have a very different opinion on the topic. Do we really have to talk about my opinion on friendship? lol. It's been a while, the dialogues were long. Like I said, it may not be obvious but I consider getting Durance to face up to the truth and then consoling him when he was crying out of his lungs as what friends do. Not as obvious as BG where you hit the ceiling of neutral goodness and all the good characters in your party think you're their brother or their sister, or they fall in love with you (yup, romance). If you go evil Edwin will remark that you've exceeded your low born heritage. Friendship right there.

This is weird but in my opinion PoE had two of the deepest, most well written friendship paths I've ever played in an RPG game with Durance and Grieving Mother. Zahua was pretty amazing too. That whole acid trip, wow. Goes to show that opinions can vary like night and day on pretty much anything. The Grieving Mother had very VERY interesting dialogues, I remember that much. And I found her to be one of the most interesting characters in the game. Did she really develop a deep friendship with the watcher? I may not remember, then I'm sorry. Or maybe I have a different idea of deep friendship. Hmm but then what about Aloth and Hiravias? Maybe I should replay the game before I rely on my bad memory. Sorry if I don't remember correctly. As far as I remember during my playthrough of Pillars 1, I always had the feeling that my group in Baldur's Gate (mainchar, Imoen, Aerie (romanced), Minsc, Jaheira, Sarevok) had grown closer together than my group in Pillars. But memory can be tricky I dunno if we'll ever agree on the definition of friendship, but I really got swept up in Grieving Mother's self torture due to her lies and I view the player character's attempt to make her face up to her sins or heal her wound as friendship. It's not as obvious as BG because of the alignment system. Basically if you follow the same alignment as certain companions, they will look at you as the best buddy in the world. When I hit 16 on the good scale or something, Minsc will go, "we are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere....rejoice!". So that's friendship for you. Nothing wrong with it. I loved hearing him say it.

This is weird but in my opinion PoE had two of the deepest, most well written friendship paths I've ever played in an RPG game with Durance and Grieving Mother. Zahua was pretty amazing too. That whole acid trip, wow. Goes to show that opinions can vary like night and day on pretty much anything.

I'm not looking for anything new really. Just a simple yes or no for PoE: Deadfire. Those old topics are flame wars and I don't care about them either. When PoE 1 announced no romance, I said ok and moved on.

Seriously? Tyranny is running into the same problems as all those other Unity Engine RPGs before it? Now I'm worried. That's one thing I truly find frustrating with PoE. the performance problems. I'm running DA:I and Battlefield 4 with no problems but 3 hours playing PoE slows my PC down to a crawl. Although, in a way I was able to monitor my gaming hours better since when the game starts to slow down, I would simply decide to stop for the day instead of restarting my PC. Still, I hope the devs can assure us again like they did in the announcement video that they we won't have to deal with this typical Unity engine problem again.

Considering what a volatile hornet's nest the topic is, I don't expect any of the developers to make an official comment until after the funding campaign is over. I wish they could be more upfront about it like Larian. They showed interest in adding romance to D:OS 2 very early in development and I've read no volatile topics on it since. The campaign went as smoothly as expected and now I read topics on romance talking only about the possibilities instead of the highly toxic pro and contra opinions.

You care to elaborate on that? I'd like to know more about those "easier ways to make deep character interactions", especially when you exclude the one human feeling that is both central to about 99% of all essential storytelling mediums out there and to human life in general... Agreed, purposefully avoiding normal human feelings between companions with whom you've been through thick and thin says something about writers' confidence in their work. PoE1 didn't even touch friendship properly. Sure. Nothing strikes me as more contrived and immersion-breaking than characters than the harem-like gravitational pull that makes the PC the object of romantic overtures by every other traveling companion, especially when they are on a life or death mission often bound together by alliances of convenience. Just like it is idiotic that every Hollywood movie has to have the Bond girl fall in love with Bond, and every male-female protagonist pair doing anything together involves them going to bed at one point, as if you're going to fall in love with anything you spend time with. I thought it was moronic when I was 10 and played RPGs; I think it's moronic now as an adult with multiple relationships over the years. In contrast, it is very engaging to find characters who are there to spy on you and never drop their wariness going through thick and thin (GO-TO); characters who do share a bond with you, but ultimately are compelled by people and events other than your precious self and main quest, such that you cannot simply bend them to your will (Hanharr). And yes, I do appreciate characters that delve into themes of romance and love - when it is explored without the need to make them fall in love improbably with the PC and then go through stupid sex scenes or whatever. I enjoyed Sagani's romance - the romance that she has with her husband, whom she had to leave behind. I enjoyed Eder's relationship with his brother, whom he loves very much, but struggles with the idea that he may have done things that cannot be answered for or that the brother may believe in things very differently than him. Even when you do have romance with the PC, characters who are written in this way tend to fare better. Jaheira's romance is one of the few not-terrible ones, partly because she is written as a level-headed character not swayed by idiotic hentai visual novel lines (or, even worse, gifting them crap like in DAO), and partly because her involvement with you is constantly complicated by her recent bereavement at the hands of Irenicus. Nobody that opposes romances in RPGs thinks that all romances are stupid or that love is a shameful or bad topic for RPG writing - that is only what some aggrieved romance-supporters imagine. Romances are already aplenty in RPG stories - when a NPC on a quest wants you to find his missing wife, when your traveling companion talks about the husband she left behind, etc. And yes, it could include the PC, in a similar fashion. However, when you have people demanding romance as a 'feature', which becomes announced as 'Lolita is a romanceable companion!', and when there is widespread expectation of a 'quest' with a 'reward', that's when things get stupid. Do I want Obsidian do include romances, involving the PC or otherwise? I don't care. I want them to write a good game with whatever themes and relationships that suits the situation. That means not pigeonholing them by demanding "romances" or "murders" or "family sitcoms", and that means developers not thinking of romances as a 'feature'. I think your opinion on romance is fair but when you start to talk about "aggrieved romance supporters", that's when things will quickly escalate into a flame war, which I'm really hoping I can avoid before getting real answers from devs. You'll be surprised how many times I've read people opposing romances telling supporters to get out of the basement or go to porn sites instead. Sure, it's unreasonable to "demand" romance as a feature which is why I'm trying as politely as possible to just ask about it, not demanding it. Hell, I wished someone else had opened the topic because I'd rather observe than have to defend my opinion. Expectations of quest and reward is stupid, but I've explained at length various times using examples in DA:I of how romance added depth to character without falling into that trap. I'm starting to worry that this thread will get locked before I get any answers.

Yeah that's not why I'm making the case for romance, lol, but I suppose there really is nothing wrong with that. In DA2, I wanted my Hawke to romance Isabela because she was hot as hell too, and yeah I wanted to see those hilarious threesome dialogue with Hawke, Isabela, and Zevran. My Hawke wouldn't go for it though since he's strictly into women. In DA:I, the romances added so much more depth to your companions. Solas romance was a whole nother level of romance imo. My elf romanced him in my second playthrough and although I already knew what he was going to do, I could really sense the anguish and the conflict of conscience battling within him as he was struggling between his love for the inquisitor and his life long ambition. I look forward to where Bioware is going with this in Dragon Age 4 because there should be major implications to the overall main plot of that game. Currently, in my 3rd playthrough and my character is romancing a companion who we later find out to be a mass murderer. It's no longer a surprise but I'm really intrigue as to how they can possibly move forward after the startling revelation. I keep talking about DA:I because I'm currently playing it. I was able to move past those dull fetch quest because of the fascinating character interactions. I see the same possibilities with PoE. Eder has issues. He was awaiting execution, he has questions about his brother, the God he worships is now wreaking havoc in Eora. Pallegina is already an outsider because she is a godlike and depending on choice she might be exiled to boot. A lot of potential for good romantic subplots here. I do agree that romance done right for these characters will take a lot of work and commitment so it's really up to the devs if they want to go down this path. I'm still waiting for a yes or a no. I suppose Obsidian is mulling over it right now.

Sounds legit... Not opposed to them, personally - can take or leave them. (And for the record, I was a big Bioware fan - far more than I was Obs, actually - until after DA:O and they increasingly blotted their copy-book (for unrelated reasons)). But as mumbogumshoe said earlier, Obsidian seem fairly opposed to them (and some of the fanbase can be rather... borderline obnoxiously negative about them). And it really has become a trigger-word now. I laud Bioware for at least making a well-meaning (at least initially) attempt to cater for everyone in terms of diversity; but that led to the backlash (of course), because there are people who didn't like the idea at all (for various reasons), people who rabidly didn't want that diversity and that games should only cater to their tastes*, people who didn't want every character to be player-sexual (which was kind of unavoidable, I fear, when trying to cater for everyone without a ridiculously large cast) etc, etc... So whatever you would do would be BadWrongTerrible to some vocal quarter. So it may be for the best (or at least a quiet life), all told, that Obs doesn't try it this time around. Maybe in another twenty years, when things have calmed down a bit (maybe)...! It didn't do PoE much harm, after all. That said, would WOULD unquestionably like to see is the sort of relationship in PoE2 that developed with the returning long standing characters over the course of ME trilogy. (Which, also for the record I though was fantastic right up to the last fifteen/twenty minutes of ME3 and any point With Kai Leng In It. Mind you, Obs, prior to that, you guys had the award for Worst Ending Ever with vanillia NWN2 with your "rocks fall" - a particular let-down after argueably the Best Final Boss Battle Ever...) Garrus still wins the prize for Best Companion in any RPG I've played - but he had, of course, about 150 hours of game-time over three games to work with. Here's hoping we get something like that with Eder (I say Eder, since he's a bit more... mate-y than Aloth, though he's also cool.) *I recall someone (might have even been around the PoE forums around the run-up to the first game, because it was afte DA2 and I don't think i would have been on a Bioware forum at that time, but I forget), who was rabidly furious that feminists had taken over gaming.... Because he thought one of the female characters in Dragon Age 2 looked masculine (not even sure it was one of the ones you could romance in that game). (So, basicaly, his objection appeared to be, in essence, there existed a female character he did not consider spank-worthy material. The mind boggles. And then sigh and shakes its head.) You've raised some excellent points there. To be totally honest with you, the first time I discovered romance in RPG, I was appalled by it, seriously. I created this female half elf character in BG2 with an elegant portrait and then Anomen starts hitting on her. I was thinking "what the **** is this sleazebag doing??" lol. Then I got to Viconia and I was surprised how romance could co-exist with video games. With ME3, while the ending was a bit of a mess, I thought the romance bit was spot on some of the best I've played. I replayed the goodbye scene between Shepherd and Liara/Tali over and over again, even though I had to go through those banshees to get to those cutscenes. I also agree with posters who say that romances doesn't always work. When we're talking about DA2, I am one of those who thinks that Anders & Fenris are incredibly obnoxious characters and they just add to the frustration of what seems to be a monotone game. But blaming the writer and creating a feminist issue out of it was pretty stupid too, I agree. So of course, romance is a risk. It can be rewarding, it can be taxing, just like anything else. Now with PoE..., well I've read about Avellone's opinion on romance, but I'm still holding up some hope because I really feel romance can work in PoE's sandbox. But I won't be too upset about it not happening given Obsidian's history and so forth. It doesn't hurt to ask. If it's a confirmed no then I hope this will be the only thread on the subject and we'll consider the matter closed. I hate the negativity around this subject myself. I'm already happy that Larian is deciding to experiment with romance even with Avellone on board. Given all the negativity when the subject was brought up in their first game, I'm surprised they're going through with it. But it worked out and nobody is swearing off the D:OS 2 just because it's got romance in it now.

I'm sorry, have there been a discussion on this before for PoE: Deadfire? I've searched and there is nothing. You can just say no or ignore this conversation altogether if you want. Once I get an answer from a dev I'll be out of your hair, geez.

Well as expected, any discussion on romance will turn into a circus...of mostly rejection in forums like this. Nonetheless, if I could get a clear yes or no from devs, I can happily move on. Thinking positively, good romances will get gamers talking. Like I said, I nearly gave up on Dragon Age: Inquisition because of all those damn filler quest, but I needed to find a resolution to Cassandra's romance so I got back into it and finally finished the game. In the process, I found a way to maximize my enjoyment of the game. Solas romance has a shocking ending or a cliffhanger that really got players talking, with many theories on how things will play out in the 4th installment. I also find the romance engaging in the Witcher & Mass Effect, so yeah, maybe I am that type of gamer. Not Skyrim though, and probably not Jade Empire. In any case, going back to the main question. Yes or no, that's all I ask. I can live with a no. Divinity Original Sin 2 is coming, then Mass Effect Andromeda, then Cyberpunk 2077. So there are plenty of alternatives. I just think that having played Pillars of Eternity, I think there is potential for complex romance stories in this sandbox. It would be a shame not to explore it.

I know, I know, a lot of people find the subject of romance loathsome but let me play the devil's advocate anyway and ask the question... will there be romance in this game? Having finally finished Dragon Age Inquisition two months ago after giving up on it 2 years earlier, I found the romance side story with Cassandra to be a major factor in getting me across the finish line. Now I'm just starting my third after finishing my second playthrough this week with a romanced Solas. A romance story done well can really put a smile on your face, happy ending or not. I finished my 2nd playthrough with Solas then I saw La La Land with Mia Both stories were touching and they stay with you for a while. Here's hoping I can get that kind of feeling with PoE: Deadfire.

I tried accessing the video and it says operation timed out. Anyone else?