Diogo Ribeiro

You assumed i didn't understood what you meant, when in fact, the next quote: ...is precisely what i had infered from what you wrote back there. And my point was that romances should not be dependant on the plot, or related to it; they should be side events, unrelated. In my opinion, they shouldn't be forced into the main plot of the game. I guess we could go off on what is considered to be a plot, and what plot we're talking about (the main plot, or a would-be specific character plot). For reference i have been talking about the main plot. While not exactly good, it's apparently much more tolerable than Annoy-men. I know. That's why i mentioned my preference over the Torment romances (which weren't perfect, mind you; they just had the bonus of letting me decide when to move the romance forward, which, although not the perfect solution, was less irritating). I know that these romances don't force the player to follow them trough, but they use oftentimes annoying gimmicks. There isn't much criticism that can be pointed at KoTOR's romances (except, perhaps, their writing, or the "It seems character X wants to tell you something" dialogues), but Baldur's Gate 2 had annoying timed events with dialogues, which ruined the experience. I'm in a dark cave, half my party is near death, with few spells ready, and i'm about to confront a dragon; i don't need to listen to that wench whine about her freakin' wings for the 734th time. Even if i tell her to shut up, she keeps coming back. Again, i don't have to follow them trough, but i have to put up with inconvenient interruptions until she finally gets the message. And then some developers find it funny to have my character's love interest to be placed in dangerous situations, trying to make me develop more feelings for the character, an example being Bastila's rescue from the hands of Brejik. Its not romance related, but situations with a love interest are being forced on me.

Ah, the memories. I personally prefer to lead-fill the prostitutes, but hey, you gotta start somewhere; might as well be with the elderly.

Whoa, did someone implied Baldur's Gate 2 was as immersive, or more immersive, than Ultima 7? My mind is boggled. Anyway, i would vote for: NPCs more responsive to alignment, bigger areas, and more roleplaying options. I would vote for more options regarding immersion, but that field is usually broader and up to each one's interpretation, and i wouldn't want to vote for something which was the opposite of what i was thinking.

I've seen ocasions where the pro-romance stance wins more often than the more negative side, but never saw an absolute majority victory. Granted, i don't keep track of all threads in their boards (though i try, nonetheless).

I'd appreciate it if next time you'd think of your response before typing something and fixing it every five seconds. It just delays the process of giving a quick response. That it adds something that's apparently worth to many people is not what's at stake. Romance elemenents aren't even exclusive in whatever perceived worth they might have - as it would seem, many people also think that elements like jumping, climbing, horse-riding and swimming also add something to a game. So, why aren't they included more often? Likely, because any of those gameplay elements, tends to carry a marginal weight in a game to justify their inclusion. Even in the event of it adding something for a fair majority of people, i haven't yet seen much of a consensus in that regard. Most of the boards i visit - including Bioware's - happen to have disagreements over the worth of romances, and of the characters included in them. I'm sure you can. However, i'd like to know what game are you talking about, and when did the discussion of the quality of a game's plot entered our part of the discussion? Are you asking me to indicate anything that would indicate good plot in what - KoTOR2? If so, for what purpose? No, that's far from what i'm saying. Nowhere back there did i state they have to be contrived when included in a game; only that most of them end up being so. I wouldn't call the romance elements of, say, Planescape: Torment, bad or even contrived, because they were well done. Sorry, but i don't understand your point of view. You seem to be arguing that since a story has to (apparently) be contrived, than other elements are also excusable of being contrived? I would likely argue that, just because one element would *have* to be contrived, that it doesn't mean other elements have to be equally contrived. There's no reason to think otherwise that i can see, really. Of course it had to do something for the plot; it was integrated into it, and was pretty much unavoidable. I thought it was blatant i was giving my opinion. If you believe it necessary, i can lace all of my opinions with a big shiny IMO tag. Nice try at being condescending, but i understood what you meant from the beginning. Well, if none of the above was clear enough, then suffice to say that i don't think romances should be included at all in RPGs. Most of the time, the game's premise doesn't even lend itself to their existebce, as you're supposed to develop feelings for characters who have only been traveling with you for a very short time (and which you can barely relate to), and have to pay attention to their calls and needs while simultaneously defending yourself from attacks coming from all sides. If they have to be included for some reason - like pandering to loveless teens who want some virtual nookie - then they shouldn't be taken lightly, and should be mature elements.

I don't know if this was directed at me, so apologies if it wasn't. I'm not against character development, i'm against elements which are perceived as being means of character development, but which in the end are not. Being against a romance element isn't the same as being against character development. A main character can be developed in multiple ways, wheter in the statistical or social/interactive aspects. I just feel romances are perhaps the most pointless elements of character development. I think of them as being usually forced and contrived, and some are shoved into the plot in a way to make players feel like it's taking them somewhere with it. And have you asked yourself why this appears to be so? They're specifically made so the plot usually revolves around them if they are active. It's smoke and mirrors. This is similar to how the plot of Baldur's Gate 2 worked. When you confront Bodhi after the Underdark, if you were involved in a romance, the character in question would get abducted, thus throwing at the players another forced, additional concern in the game. Yet, it didn't changed the plot one bit; you were just given another element to add to the plot, a sidequest, so to speak, which was of little to no relevance. It's shallow, at best. Beats me, specially when Bastilla was a very ill-devised character.

Character development still exists. Real life situations are still depicted in games. Romance isn't the only real life situation in existance, after all, and there isn't much of a point in including it in every game. Why not? Why do you believe that if a man does not feel attracted to a phisically attractive woman, he's not human? I'd like to know the reasoning behind that one. Most of the time, it's because games are finite, confined things which cannot faithfully recreate everything you see in real life (and therefore, shouldn't try to). Not only that, romances are an element which is not important to a game, and as such, devs don't spend enormous time in it. They're simply distractions for some gamers, not a necessity.

Curious, because most people consider her one, due to her constant whining and holier-than-thou attitude troughtout Shadows of Amn.

At a point, Grom's writing style pissed the hell out of me and i couldn't get most of it. Now, it's all sun and flowers.

Quite the truth. Greece has been a surprise. While i'm supporting Portugal (despite their glaring flaws), i'm also following Greece with curiosity, and somewhat supporting them as well.

Portugal >>>> Russia. It's a fact.

That this is Star Wars shouldn't excuse the theoretical absence of a 'grey' path. Morality is always a wide spectrum, and trying to simplify it to Light and Dark, or Good and Evil, isn't right. There will always be people who will, to the best of their ability, try to remain neutral, even in the SW universe. If they achieve it or not is a different matter. And if they do achieve that neutrality, it shouldn't be by a clearly defined 'path'. That's one of the problems with assuming that everything must follow a path. Morally ambiguous situations can arise, and black and white situations can present a grey result, instead of a simple black and white result. Good intentions can go to hell and make a person lose faith in themselves, while evil intentions can place characters in a situation which would make them be perceived as good.

Two of the Gameboy titles are not Final Fantasy titles at all. One is a Sa~Ga title, and other is the first Seiken Densetsu (Secret of Mana) game. They were just renamed to Final Fantasy.

If you are interested in the Elder Scrolls, i'd suggest playing the second chapter - Daggerfall - first. It's the best of the series as far as i'm concerned, with Morrowind and Arena following it. The series is primarily designed to allow the player to be immersed in a gameworld, though much of that did not succeed in Morrowind. You do get a large world to explore, and many character creation possibilities, along with several quests and factions. The main problem is that it gets overly repetitive soon, and the character system is easily abusable (the skill-based system has it so skills increase the more you use them - need i say more?). The majority of NPCs have the same dialogue structure (understandable, if you realize that creating custom dialogue for every single NPC would be a daunting task; but still a detriment to the experience, nonetheless). Most quests revolve around killing or fetching (though to be honest, sometimes you do get some variety, like quests which involve fetching and killing). Combat is overly simplified as well. I recommend the game to people willing to spend hours exploring and gawking at landscapes and surrounding wildlife, but don't expect the initial awe to hold much longer. The winning ticket for Morrowind is that it is moddable. If you're one of those people that doesn't mind downloading free content to make up for the money you spent on an uninspired product, or doing the developers' work yourself, you might like it more.

CRPGs are far from being limited, as far as i can see. It's not a problem with CRPGs themselves, it's a problem with developer and consumer mentalities. They are the only ones responsible for those types of limitations set upon CRPGs. I believe this is wrong for two reasons, one being the fact that real life does actually give you complete freedom. You are always free to decide what you want to do and how to do it. However, complete freedom does not exclude or excuse the consequences of your actions. Second, because a sense of near absolute freedom in games has already been done in the past, the quickest example being The Elder Scrolls series. Absolute freedom in a gameworld isn't achieved more often because gamers (and subsequently, developers) developed a preference towards story-driven games.

The Portuguese team's failure seemed to be caused by their lack of knowledge of themselves. It's as if they had not trained together. We had the individuals, the method, the play style - just not the team. Not only that, when you see things like Fernando Couto dodging the ball that gave Greece their first goal like a fat cat being shooed by their owner, with no effort into trying to stop it, you can't shake the feeling of wrongness with the team. On better news, Denmark rocked the house today.

Yes. If you helped the plant by finding it a new spot, it would tell you the required chess move. When you used it against the radscorpion, he'd go ballistic, cursed the plant (if i recall correctly), and attacked you.

Splinter Cell. Thief 3: Deadly Shadows also has a similar lockpick mini game. Wizardry 8 also has one, one that i find more entertaining than the other two examples.

Actually, the cheater was the player, as he/she could be told the chess move that would vanquish the radscorpion.

Hence, why i dispute it. Truth be told, i'd dispute it anyway, even if some unnamed group of people claimed it was something undesputable, so i'm just playing the part of the opinionated ****. No doubt. My point was not to imply or claim otherwise, but rather, point out why player-driven elements like mini-games aren't usually associated with an RPG, and are usually something alien to them. EDIT: Fixed the url tag, which i have no idea how it got there.

And yet, you point out yourself that it was, quote, an "FPS with RPG elements", not an RPG.

Why can't they be? Likely because most 'mini games' are elements which rely upon a player's skill instead of a character's skill. Success in a mini game is mostly achieved by you, not the character; and a given rule about RPGs is that success in them should be achieved by a character's possibilities and skills, not 'twitch skills'. The thing with mini games like a swoop race is that you're not winning the race because of your character's skill; you're winning because of your reflexes as a gamer, because of your own personal skill. Watching the race being played by itself wouldn't be an attractive feature for gamers, but that's not quite the issue. You can draw comparisons between two different types of minigames, the one that's player-driven and the one that's character-driven. The player-driven is the one that exclusively relies on what you, as a player, do, and it does not matter what character you're playing. This type is likely what Drakon is against. The character-driven type is the one that takes into account your character's possibilities and skills. Examples would be Neverwinter Night's drinking contest, where the higher your character's Constitution score, the more he can drink. Another example would be in Fallout 2, in Broken Hills, where you test your character's skills against the mad scientist's radscorpion. Your character's perception, agility and intelligence (and gameworld knowledge) are tested. As far as i can tell, Drakon is against the type of mini game that disregards, or is not built to take your character into account; in essence, purely player-driven ones.

Javelin Chameleon. Eh? Straight outta Rockman games, 't seems....

Shapeshifter. Hmm.

Don't forget orgies and dancing midgets.