Gromnir

In fairness to Luckmann, that was me. I did that. I may have been remembering incorrectly, or just conflating TVTropes hearsay with reality. Not sure. your error doesn't let luck off the hook although the error both o' you perpetuated is common. am not certain how it got started, but it is not unusual for folks here and at codex and even on the older bio boards to accuse josh o' hating romances. is the internet being the internet? josh says he doesn't like how other games do romance and that becomes josh hates romance. our personal recollection is that josh pov were similar to Gromnir (a rarity) in this instance in that we both like romance, which is precisely why we is disappointed with typical crpg implementation. many obsidian developers has noted that romance takes more effort than folks appear to believe, and that writing crpg is a fair bit different than writing short stories and novels. to us, bioware-style crpg romances invariably feel rushed and immature as they is necessarily tangential and limited. complete a full romance story arc in a half-dozen or so dialogue encounters? even so, while you can find quotes from Gromnir that we hate crpg romance, you will be hard-pressed to find any such from josh, and even if you did, that would still not be same as saying, "Sawyer hates romances himself." http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/65107-no-romances-confirmed/page-6?do=findComment&comment=1417049 is hard to see the hate. regardless, would be cowardly to blame on you. HA! Good Fun!

yeah, based on obsidian posts on the subject, we suspect that their plans for the stronghold were a bit more grandiose. the claim that implementation issues limited the stronghold development suggests to us that the obsidians blundered and then had to make hard choices as to how to actual implement the stronghold. regardless, we keep coming back to the zero-sum problem. most features can be improved if more resources is invested to make them better. however, this were an Optional feature and it is reasonable and rational to decide that optional features gets a different level o' consideration when resource allocation is being considered-- they get less. given the relative reduced priority o' an optional feature that many folks dislike, which resources shoulda' been stripped from other existing poe features/quests to improve the stronghold, and how? could the stronghold have been made more essential by making it a greater quest loci? sure, but again, it is optional and frequent disliked, so having additional quests tied to the stronghold is a questionable proposition. no doubt the developers were considering any number o' ways to improve the stronghold, and am betting that if feedback produced a suggestion that required little to no additional resource allocation to implement, the developers would be ecstatic to hear it. *shrug* we expected more from the stronghold. is all on obsidian that the stronghold were forgettable. however, am also recognizing that many/most suggestions for improvement o' the stronghold were not practical, reasonable or genuine helpful. HA! Good Fun!

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/65107-no-romances-confirmed/?p=1417049 further clarification. HA! Good Fun!

But shouldn't there be a degree of parity? Sure, the people that really hate strongholds, really hate strongholds, and those that hate romances really hate romances, but at the same time, I'm not seeing how the two compare to eachother as issues. Romances are significantly polarizing and was excluded under the rationale that they are very hard to do well, and have a lot of people that dislike them for various reasons (mostly because they are hard to do well). Strongholds are not nearly as polarizing, and I've yet to be in a discussion where even someone opposing strongholds cannot find some common ground (like Fardragon, even if we don't necessarily agree; I would love to see what he doesn't want, if done well), are in the game (the most important difference), and I've yet to see a significant number of people throwing fits over it. They are also not terribly hard to do at least acceptably well (BGII, DA:O:A). And no matter what, like I said, the most important difference is that there's a Stronghold in PoE, but no Romances, if either is in the game, same as any other part of the game, it's inexcusable to come afterwards and brush off the issues with an existing facet of the game with the argument that some amount of people somewhere, doesn't like that existing facet, to some degree, as a concept. They simply don't compare as issues, and in the event that they did, if either or neither was in the game, they still should be treated as important facets of an overall whole (or be disregarded completely). again, the specific context in which romances were analogized to strongholds by sawyer were extreme limited. "You're downplaying the aversion that people have to strongholds, specifically. If there's a "I hate big dungeons" bloc of significant size, I'm unaware of them. Stronghold aversion seems more comparable to romance aversion." you disagree? fine, but again, your basis is feel and extending the comparison is unwarranted. HA! Good Fun!

is yet another example o' folks other than Gromnir identifying your error(s) and your refusal to recognize which side o' the monkey cage you is standing. HA! Good Fun!

our recollection (edit: confirmed after reviewing the SA posts) is that josh only brought up romance in context o' strongholds to indicate polarization. were a recognition that those folks who dislike strongholds and romances disliked those features to a significant degree. HA! Good Fun! ps am almost hesitant to mention this, but your strawman use were a bit obvious. show us where sawyer has stated that he hates romance. "We decided we couldn't do a good, robust romantic system. They're very sensititve. It's very easy to do romances badly," Sawyer says. "So we decided to take them off the table." -sawyer rational. "I think that in this case, it's really just another representation of his irrational hangups that have marred the game." doesn't seem fair to make such a suggestion, eh? perhaps you confused sawyer with avellone "Not a big fan of romances. I did four in Alpha Protocol because Chris Parker, our project director, demanded it because he thinks romance apparently is easy, or MAYBE it’s because he wanted to be an **** and give me tons of them to do because I LOVE them so much (although to be honest, I think he felt it was more in keeping with the spy genre to have so many romances, even if I did ask to downscope them). At least I got to do the “hatemance” version of most of them, which makes it a little more palatable. "Also, the only reason the romance bits in Mask of the Betrayer worked was because George Ziets helped me with them since he was able to describe what love is to me and explain how it works (I almost asked for a PowerPoint presentation). It seems like a messy, complicated process, not unlike a waterbirth. Don’t even get me started on the kissing aspects, which is revolting because people EAT with their mouths. Bleh. "So if I were to implement a romance subplot in Eternity - I wouldn’t. I’d examine interpersonal relationships from another angle and I wouldn’t confine it to love and romance. Maybe I’d explore it after a “loving” relationship crashed and burned, and one or both was killed in the aftermath enough for them to see if it had really been worth it spending the last few years of their physical existence chained to each other in a dance of human misery and/or a plateau of soul-killing compromise. Or maybe I’d explore a veteran’s love affair with his craft of murder and allowing souls to be freed to travel beyond their bleeding shell, or a Cipher’s obsession with plucking the emotions of deep-rooted souls to try and see what makes people attracted to each other beyond their baser instincts and discovers love... specifically, his love of manipulating others. You could build an entire dungeon and quest where he devotes himself to replicating facsimiles of love, reducer a Higher Love to a baser thing and using NPCs he encounters as puppets for his experimentations, turning something supposedly beautiful into something filthy, mechanical, but surrounded by blank-eyed soul-twisted drones echoing all the hollow Disney-like platitudes and fairy tale existence where everyone lives happily ever after." oh and since this could be a learning moment, your fallacious attribution o' irrational romance hate to sawyer were not strawman because he never said such a thing. it became strawman when you then used hate that you cannot actual attribute to josh to then show how such irrational hangups were a detriment to poe development.

nexus is not run by bethesda, yes? http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/about/about/? HA! Good Fun! ps keep in mind that Gromnir were serious when he said he knows next to nothing about the modding community. am genuine not knowing how much connection bethesda has with nexus. bethesda is a publisher, and obsidian is not, so there is differences, but am honest ignorant 'bout most such sites save as an end user who has never even considered paying for a fan-made mod.

the voluntary nature o' the donations is not as meaningful as you might believe. particularly as obsidian is a developer and not a publisher, we can see potential issues related to mod-makers soliciting funds on an obsidian board. is less an issue with poe, but even so, solicitation and donation is not mutual exclusive. HA! Good Fun!

is a silly criticism, perhaps, but while we moderate enjoyed the final batman film from nolan, thomas hardy's bane were a bit distracting for us. is not that bane were a bad character or terrible acted, but rather that every time thomas hardy spoke, we heard auric goldfinger. is similar to how we found christian slater's character from heathers channeling o' jack nicholson to be a bit excessive... but at least heathers were meant to be over-the-top. HA! Good Fun!

I think that's a fairly good characterization of the issue. The Stronghold should have been a sequence of quests or even just a cool staging ground for your adventures, rather than a mostly-uninteresting minigame. "Rational" is a problematic word, because it assumes that all reason is some perfect guidepost by which all people can come to identical conclusions. It isn't. Reason is a tool, a set of methods by which you enhance your aims, not an aim unto itself (except insofar as reason is also a passion). Saying "I want x things, and the situation is y, therefore I should do z," is rational, but "I want x things" is just a statement of fact, and has nothing to do with being rational or irrational. You can't reason your way into a correct set of desires, except insofar as secondary desires are reasonably subordinate to primary desires. Furthermore, using reason to enact those desires obviously requires that you have access to and full understanding of things as they stand. Josh is rational? Sure, whatever. But that doesn't mean that what he wants is right or correct, only that with sufficient correct information, he knows how to go about accomplishing what he wants. Of course, that cuts both ways. Just because Josh doesn't want the same thing as someone doesn't mean he's unreasonable, and some folks could do well to remember that. Unfortunately, being the lead dev on a video game in the present day essentially translates to being a public punching bag. While the rest of the team is busy getting work done, part of the lead dev's job is to take the blame for ... everything. Honestly, going by the level of vitriol that emerges sometimes, you'd think Josh was responsible for apartheid or something. So, yeah, people could afford to cut him some slack instead of piling on. Given the legal ambiguities of Kickstarter commitments, that may or may not be technically true. Certainly it was from a PR perspective, though, so that's neither here nor there. we weren't speaking o' the legal necessity so much as practical. obsidian made the stronghold a stretch goal. failing to follow through on providing a substantial game feature that were paid for by the fans would result in, we expect, considerable disappointment and anger. is there disappointment regarding how the stronghold were realized in poe? sure. nevertheless, how likely is it that all those positive reviews obsidian received from professional sources woulda' just ignored obsidian failure to meet the paid-for stronghold stretch goal? how many fan reviews woulda' mentioned? we got no idea o' the numbers, but we would be surprised if professional reviewers had failed to mention the absence o' obsidian fulfillment. you? in any event, we do not believe that being rational is the best way to handle fans. look at luckman as an example, or any o' a dozen or so ardent supporters o' per-kill xp. stronghold is another such example. for chrissakes, luckman is trying to analogize to romances to make his... point. in the past, josh were a bit more colorful when dealing with obdurate fans. youth. am kinda missing those days. truth to tell, Gromnir would purposeful rile josh up a bit 'cause when he got angry or frustrated, he would be more likely to provide genuine interesting information regarding developments... got a peek behind the curtain. and yes, am agreeing that josh syllogisms depend on the validity o' his premise(s). obsidian is hardly perfect. josh says a considerable number o' players dislike strongholds. am not certain where his feedback comes from or how accurate is such info. nevertheless, how does fans rebutt? feel arguments based on their impression o' board feedback? yes? no? obsidian info can be wrong, but am gonna suggest that when it comes to the mechanical workings o' poe and the behavior o' the mythical average gamer, obsidian has access to information that we, the average boardies, do not. hell, look at all the time sensuki spent on the beta... he claimed over 200 hour, yes? now look at josh post from SA as an example. you can follow any o' the sa links above if you wish to see all josh posts in the relevant thread. is a goodly number o' posts at and immediate after release o' poe wherein josh is calmly correcting sensuki's misconceptions and assumptions regarding poe development and mechanics. even so, josh can be wrong or ignorant. when he is ignorant, he typical admits. when he is wrong, he needs be convinced, but as he is rational, he is gonna be comfortable with more than "feel " arguments. rational is hardly perfect. is many esthetic issues that defy rational. furthermore, while attempting to find a balance between the frequent conflicting desires o' the fanbase is reasonable and rational, doing so likely leads to mediocrity. we has suggested in the past that if fans is extreme polarized on an issue, then giving a middle-ground solution results in everybody being moderate displeased. unfortunately, we don't have any kind o' numbers to back that up, yes? we feel that certain features is polarizing, but that is all we got. how we gonna convince josh he is wrong if his viewing o' game tester's actual play tells him different? am not suggesting that rationality is the perfect approach-- far from it. however, we do note that while josh is rational, far too many fans believe that they are rational. this leads to conflicts. HA! Good Fun!

*snerk* Not hyperbole. I was being serious. that is what makes it funny. HA! Good Fun!

and those necessary portions were quite adequate developed in poe and will no doubt be developed in white march. developing the stronghold functions and features more than the critical path required is what folks is complaining 'bout, yes? hire henchmen and build a church and fight off intruders is all optional stuff beyond the scope o' the critical path. the stronghold is a significant feature, even if it is optional. makes sense that the stronghold would appear along the critical path to guarantee that all players became aware o' it, yes? HA! Good Fun! True again, Luckmann, but the Stronghold still feels to me like an unfinished project, a sop tossed to the backers, a token of the strongholds in BG II. Maybe I am being irrational but the place feels dead to me. I tried saying I just wanted to go to Defiance Bay and then spent an hour trying to see if by some chance another path opened. I had no luck. we likely already responded to you in our rather extreme edit... precognition on our part? we were disappointed in the stronghold, and in the future, we would expect better from obsidian. am not satisfied with the stronghold as-is. however, we get the reasoning and the rationale provided by obsidian as to why the stronghold were not more robust. a rational explanation for failure does not diminish the failure, yes? HA! Good Fun! Highlight by me. The fact that I failed to complete a project because I had a headache does not change the fact that I failed to complete the project. My boss would probably say that I should have reported being ill and turned the project over to someone else. If he/she is not very sympathetic I could even lose my job. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3706905&userid=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=5#post447063225 is obsidian's fault. no quibbles. however, given the implementation issues... *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

and those necessary portions were quite adequate developed in poe and will no doubt be developed in white march. developing the stronghold functions and features more than the critical path required is what folks is complaining 'bout, yes? hire henchmen and build a church and fight off intruders is all optional stuff beyond the scope o' the critical path. the stronghold is a significant feature, even if it is optional. makes sense that the stronghold would appear along the critical path to guarantee that all players became aware o' it, yes? HA! Good Fun! True again, Luckmann, but the Stronghold still feels to me like an unfinished project, a sop tossed to the backers, a token of the strongholds in BG II. Maybe I am being irrational but the place feels dead to me. I tried saying I just wanted to go to Defiance Bay and then spent an hour trying to see if by some chance another path opened. I had no luck. we likely already responded to you in our rather extreme edit... precognition on our part? we were disappointed in the stronghold, and in the future, we would expect better from obsidian. am not satisfied with the stronghold as-is. however, we get the reasoning and the rationale provided by obsidian as to why the stronghold were not more robust. a rational explanation for failure does not diminish the failure, yes? HA! Good Fun!

and those necessary portions were quite adequate developed in poe and will no doubt be developed in white march. developing the stronghold functions and features more than the critical path required is what folks is complaining 'bout, yes? hire henchmen and build a church and fight off intruders is all optional stuff beyond the scope o' the critical path. the stronghold is a significant feature, even if it is optional. makes sense that the stronghold would appear along the critical path to guarantee that all players became aware o' it, yes? HA! Good Fun! ps keep in mind that Gromnir wanted more from the stronghold. we complained, as did many others, that the stronghold were relative disappointing. the thing is, the obsidians mentioned that there were problems with the stronghold development and josh further explained, in a rational way, why more resources were not redirected to make the stronghold better. we were disappointed by the stronghold. josh giving us rational explanations don't change the fact that the stronghold failed to match our expectations. the implementation problems related to the stronghold sure as hell weren't Gromnir's fault. we blame obsidian. nevertheless, we get it. we understand that the stronghold, an optional feature disliked by many, turned out to be more complex and difficult to implement than the obsidians expected. while all the functionality that obsidian wanted to include with the stronghold were prohibitive, we needs nevertheless consider the zero-sum problem for improving what we got in the core game. what would we have sacrificed to improve the stonhold? what existing and working functions would we have improved? we get it. still, we too want obsidian to do it better.

am admitting we hadn't considered the "donation" aspect o' mods... likely 'cause we weren't aware of such. huh. monetary transactions being functional facilitated by a developer or publisher's website, regardless o' whether they is called donations, is a curious problem we may explore a bit. HA! Good Fun!

is hardly handwaving http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/national/06-Jun-2015/no-one-is-getting-our-nukes-not-even-saudis http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/saudi-arabias-nuclear-bluff/2015/06/11/9ce1f4f8-1074-11e5-9726-49d6fa26a8c6_story.html but your deflections, mischaracterizations and flat-out irrational and self-defeating response is... tedious. again, a pakistan that would actual sell nukes makes the deal less appealing to the US and other coalition governments. am waiting for you to realize that the suggestion that pakistan would sell nukes to the saudis is one o' those scaremongering tales you is s'posed opposed to perpetuating. is genuine bizarre trying to discuss rational with you. HA! Good Fun!

josh is rational. this can be a problem because while every poster believes he is rational, most is not. one need only review respec and per-kill xp threads to see just how difficult it is for a rational person such as josh to communicate with earnest gamers who do not want to hear a rational response, or any kinda "no" related to their desired features. the stronghold is optional. once the developers decide that the stronghold is optional content, how much resource allocation is reasonable given that it is optional and a frequent disliked option based on feedback and actual viewing o' gameplay? we boardies regulars perhaps got a distorted notion as to what is the gaming behavior o' the average gamer as we are shouting back and forth with other relative hardcore gamers. josh, and obsidian, needs at least be aware o' the average gamer, yes? you may not agree with josh assertion that the stronghold is disliked by many, but he likely gots access to far more data regarding the ordinary habits o' the typical player o' crpgs than does anybody posting on these boards w/o a developer tag. so, the stronghold is optional and disliked by more than a few, and game development is zero-sum. to provide a more robust stronghold than what we got, additional resources that were invested in other aspects o' the game would need to have been reallocated to developing the optional and much disliked stronghold. so, what part o' the existing game does one trim to fill-out the stronghold? etc. josh is rational. people don't actual respond well to rational. rational comes across, as often as not, as arrogant and condescending. so, we got some sympathy for josh, even if we often disagree with him. am suspecting that we has disagreed with josh more than any current regular boardie. we can disagree and criticize. we will disagree and criticize. am not having any particular problems with josh as a developer save for his writing contributions, and such complaints is necessarily 'bout esthetic as much as (more) than they is rational. HA! Good Fun! ps the stronghold was a kickstarter stretch goal and as such were necessary, but optional and disliked by many and...

sports & music. maybe not as manly as golf though. ... ok, am forced to add the following two scenes is actually a better book, written back before "YA literature" became an insult. HA! Good Fun!

this bunch o' josh links is related to the stronghold. is msotly describing why the stronghold cannot/should not be made more pivotal http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3706905&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=576#post447867960 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3706905&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=576#post447869576 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3706905&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=576#post447870176 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3706905&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=576#post447871673 we should perhaps simple create a link to SA so folks can read the feedback that they get... and we don't. ... am not bitter. do we sound bitter? HA! Good Fun!

shadysands klingon war song in the music thread got us recalling such stuff. maybe rewatch this eve. were not a great adaptation from novel to movie, but we enjoyed it... for the most part. Gromnir ain't exactly a tolkien-level scholar when it comes to beowulf, but we did teach an art o' the narrative class that included the poem as well as tdkr (as well as other works.) got a soft spot for beowulf. HA! Good Fun!

am not certain why, but the klingon thing reminded us of the old rankin and bass orc war song from rotk is criminal that peter jackson didn't add it to his movie version. HA! Good Fun!

whew, please, no accidents, I just learned Magnanni makes Kenneth Cole look like a two-bit street cobbler. Neither of whom offer canvas Darth Vader loafers, so, only Vans for those morning walks to the driveway in a bathrobe to pick up the newspaper. they are nice shoes, but new leather, even custom fit, is a bit... uncompromising. within a few days these shoes will be as comfortable as an old pair o' bunny slippers, but today we can take our pulse simple by thinking 'bout our feet. and as far as accidents, gk vomit would need to have pH on par with alien blood to damage these things. is cheap leather you need worry about. the high quality stuff is durable. wish we had some bunny slippers. HA! Good Fun!

why on earth post a link that shows that pakistan did indeed reject requests for military aid from the saudis? sure, the saudis did ask for troops as well as airpower and ships, but the pakistanis offered NONE o' those things. weren't as if they were forced to make an all-or-nothing choice. the saudis, who did not commit to a land campaign, could not even get air power support from pakistan. again, did the saudis get air support from pakistan in their air campaign? no? well, ok then. *shrug* "There's a lot more evidence for that than there is for Iran having an actual and active weapons program" well, no, if you had read the links we offered, you would realize that iran having a nuke weapons program is a given. iranian protests regarding sites such as fordow http://www.nti.org/facilities/165/ is just as difficult to swallow as were pakistanian protests related to north korea. am not sure what your claims regarding china have to do with the current issue. did we miss you now proposing a 3-way deal between saudi arabia, china and pakistan to get nukes? but again, we already noted that surreptitiously selling tech is a whole different scenario than actual selling nukes or weapon-grade plutonium. saudi arabia, thankfully, can't do much with nuclear weapons tech. they simple do not have the infrastructure and the personnel to do anything with the kinda tech that north korea likely received from pakistan. and the fatwa stuff is actual kinda more complicated than you suggest http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2013/11/27/did-irans-supreme-leader-issue-a-fatwa-against-the-development-of-nuclear-weapons/ but all o' this is a matter o' us continuing to go in circles while you miss the point(s). if we assume that pakistan actual would sell nuclear weapons to saudi arabia based on conjecture that ignores recent pakistani behavior regarding much less controversial conventional military support, that only increases the danger o' facilitating an iranian nuclear program. HA! Good Fun!

https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/622122220987387904 saw this at SA. gotta give credit where it is due, eh? HA! Good Fun!

our interest is next to zero regarding a mod forum. oh sure, particular with an obsidian games such as kotor 2, as well as black isle's ps:t, we has made extensive use o' mods, but am pretty much end-user. such mods, from our pov, spring magical-like into existence and then we chose (or choose not) to risk downloading and installing. is an admitted myopic and selfish perspective. the thing is, it seems as if the modders is the folks least needing forum space. any game popular enough will eventual spawn modding sites, and the folks at such sites will then compete and/or cooperate far removed from Gromnir. the modding guys is, from a technical perspective, quite capable o' running their own sites and fora. yeah, a quasi-official modding sub-fora located in this place would be ideally located to bring together the mostest number o' potential modders, but am wondering how much o' a need there actual is. also, and we hesitate to mention this, but mod forum problems is... different. we saw with the recent pj and sensuki nonsense just how much questionable ethics can result in a spill-over onto multiple boards. well, as silly as were the codexian brouhaha regarding review ethics, modder ethics issues is more volatile. once you get modder A accuse modder B o' functional theft, there is no end o' headaches and hurt feelings. we do not have much genuine ethics concerns on a fan forum. is the inevitable free speech/censorship claims that don't have much bearing on a board like this one. perhaps less frequent, but more serious is the recognition that not all mods is impartial or objective... or complete sane. *shrug* you get what you pay for with unpaid moderators. even so, we don't have "ethics" issues. he stole my ______. is a whole different scenario and one we don't want the moderators to need deal with. HA! Good Fun!