Gromnir

There's no such thing as an unrequited romance. That's like saying "this is a solo duet!" You're discussing love. Don't confuse the two terms. *sigh* you is imposing your own definition, and your definition conflicts with romance as attributed to henry james, vitor hugo, f. scott fitzgerald, louisa may alcott, george elliot, kazuo ishiguro and literal thousands o' other authors who has penned stories described by literature professors and casual fans o' the written word the world over as ROMANCES. for chrissakes, don't be so arrogant. you can't honestly think you got some kinda perfect notion o' romance that is more accurate than the multitude. HA! Good Fun!

We don't doubt Ravel loved The Nameless one. We wasn't arguing otherwise. We were pointing out that there was no romance between Ravel and the Nameless one. 'cause there wasn't. Romance is a shared thing. And the love wasn't shared. Edit: And for F*cks sake, this isn't a difficult concept to grasp. Millions of little girls Love Justin Beiber. They'd die for him. But that doesn't mean that Justin Beiber is involved in a romance with millions of little girls. Does it. do you really want us to list all the tragic love stories in history? how many you think include unrequited or fraudulent romances? *snort* you can yell that such stuff ain't romance all you wish, but you is gonna be wrong. HA! Good Fun!

Wow, that's an obtuse misunderstanding of the story. First off, He did NOT 'charm her'. He wanted to become immortal, but since you can't just walk up to a fiend from the Gray Wastes and politely ask them to make you immortal, he decided to manipulate her emotions. And, NO, those emotions were NOT love. Or charm. They were Ego and Pride and Vanity. He posed a challenge to her. He taunted her by saying that even she isn't powerful enough to make someone immortal. And so she jumped at the challenge. Second, we're not told the how's or why's of her infatuations with TNO, but the clues we are given suggest that the ritual may have caused Ravel to love TNO the same way that a Mother loves the children she gives birth to (Mabbeth is a mother figure, remember?) Third, and most importantly, what does this have to do with ANYTHING? We were discussing Romance. Romance is *shared* love. And there's no such thing going on between Ravel and the Nameless One. There never was. what a horribly shallow notion o' love and romance has stun. love can be one-sided and romance is all the more tragic when it turns out that one person were simple using the other. ravel knew she were used and still gives up everything for tno. is saddening that you missed so much o' ps:t, 'cause it were a better game than what you seem to recall, or at least the story were more complex. "better" is, after all, subjective. btw, there is a reason chrisA almost invariably (we haven't played south park, alpha protocol or ds 3) adds ravel into bis/obsidian games. if ravel were simple and shallow, we doubt he would invest so much time into her. ps it would be a terrible joke on promancers, but with critical path storytelling we can see a very compelling & tragic romance that does not have a happy ending and the romance is one-sided. the promancer invests his heart into wooing Bert the Bulge only to discover that *gasp* Bert were a man-wh0re who were only using the protagonist. can be a romance without being happy. in fact, most classic romance stories ain't happy. sure, we made Bert a joke, but the developers need not do so and should not do so. is nothing wrong with making love hurt in a story. in fact, am not certain we see a point in writing about love that doesn't hurt. if shel can make a kid's story that shows painful side o' love, then why not obsidian or bioware? HA! Good Fun! edit: is a bit longer than what we first posted, but we found the shel narration o' the giving tree movie short.

which is exactly the problem. romance such as ps:t is different than tangential and optional companion mini-game/side-quest romances. sadly, or perhaps inevitably, the ps:t romances appear to have become mutually exclusive from the biowarian-style romances. it is a bit unfair to argue the viability o' romance in poe and future poe games by use o' ps:t. Gromnir used ps:t to show what is wrong with the tangential and optional mini-game/side-quest romances and you is, somewhat disingenuously, trying to use same such stuff to show why romance is good and right for crpgs. naughty boy. HA! Good Fun!

If somebody does all the sidequests, he should have more opportunities to spend in addition to more opportunities to loot. I don't agree there is no solution, and I've actually proposed a few. most of your solutions cause new problems. shops with better gear creates a whole new set of problems for the developers. yes, as a player you want to be able to spend your 1007 to buy improved gear, 'cause let's be honest, that is the only stuff worth buying in a crpg. is not like you need save for your kid's college education. improved gear results in the game being easier. the more sooper gear the developer makes available in shops and side-quests, the more likely they functionally make the game easier for anybody that does the side-quests. paying to progress? bg2 did that, but obviously the cost to do so must be kept relative to what is capable for a critical path player... which brings us back to our earlier comments about critical path players v. completionists. paying to access side-quests or the tollbridge jokes is actual not a complete bad idea, though we would likely handle different. pay for maps that open actual game locations on the world map? pay for a ship's captain to take you to a location inaccessible by land? there is reasonable ways to access game locations, but they is ultimate doomed. at the locations you need pay to access, you will find 1007. sure, the player will happily pay excess gold to reach the Graveyard of Dead Gods, where after terrible and epic battles they is able to recover the ________ of __________, a weapon/shield of great power... which only increases the gear problem we identified earlier. gold needs to a sink, not a well. if you can draw forth gear or more gold from the sink, then you don't actual have a sink. sadly, most folks is gonna be dissatisfied with an obvious sink. people want something o' value for gold they is dumping into the sink.... which largely defeats the purpose o' the sink. the only way the sink works is if the player doesn't get value other than cosmetic or aesthetic from his investment. HA! Good Fun!

some folks like to quibble over nomenclature. obsidnaties spoke more than once o' not having the resources to create quality romances in poe. is not, strictly speaking, the same as saying they didn't have enough money. josh sawyer is writing pallegina. now don't take this the wrong way, but based on josh's writing contributions in past obsidian games, we wouldn't want him to write a romance arc. (sorry josh) give obsidian an extra $100,000 in kickstarter funds and that won't make josh more capable o' writing a romance for pallegina. so, do you hire somebody else to do pallegina? does that make sense? hire a dedicated romance writer to help obsidian writers with their romance characters? how much time do you lose hiring a romance writer or do you have a capable obsidian writer take josh's character from him? the hypothetical obsidian writer who takes over for josh is now doubling-up his/her workload? obsidian no doubt recognized the writing talents they had available as well as the man-hour limitations they were facing in their attempt to release the game by end of 2014. obsidian reflected and realized that they couldn't do quality romances with their resources. call it money v. resources is hardly important, but somebody wants to have a laugh at your expense... somebody not Gromnir. HA! Good Fun! ps perhaps josh is a closet jane austen or emily brontë. if that is the case, we apologize for our implication that mr. sawyer is not an ideal romance writer.

for a crpg that provides optional side-quests, excess 1007 is a given... period. the developers necessarily needs provide the critical path player enough 1007 to make the acquisition of 1007 worthwhile. the player who explores the game more fully will acquire proportional more 1007 than the critical path player. if the critical path player has enough, then the completionist will have more than enough. this ain't rocket science. *shrug* most o' us want the developers to provide additional side quests, yes? is any number o' gold sinks the developers can add to a game, but that ain't gonna change the fact that the more optional content the developers provide, the greater the player's surplus o' currency will be. the developers can come up with dozens o' gold sinks, but they must needs be careful as the completionist can quickly find themselves buying themselves outta a challenging experience. buy better gear is appealing but ultimately self-defeating. the developers need find ways to satisfy the player with largely cosmetic benefits. pay 100,000 gold for an ultimately meaningless title? pay $50,000 to custom create a coat o' arms that will be displayed on the player's shield and w/i his keep? is it worth developer effort to come up with such stuff? perhaps. regardless, the "problem," if it is a problem, is ultimately unavoidable and practically insurmountable. we want more side quests. we want rewards for doing side-quests. we complain that the game is too easy once we find/purchase/craft the best gear in the game, which were only possible 'cause we did all those optional side-quests? gold sinks is fine, but they should be mostly empty ego stokes... which will inevitably disappoint folks. *shrug* if Gromnir were an obsidnate, we wouldn't lose too much sleep over this, 'cause it is not a problem with a solution. HA! Good Fun!

hairstyles: at least three... maybe four? robes: a garment you wear after getting out of the shower? sadly, there are robes. ascots will be dlc. combat: am considering linking the kickstarter page for poe 'cause this is kinda fundamental. *shrug* there are numerous auto-pause features you are able to select, but otherwise, combat can be paused at anytime, much like all the infinity engine games. the ability to pause combat was part of the obsidian sales pitch for poe. respawns: am not understanding how respawns allow you to take your time, but sorry, your deal is broken. should we bother addressing the last few? romance: the story is about a boy's love for his sled... oh crap, did Gromnir spoil the ending? modding: modders will be free to mod, but obsidian is not supporting mods. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity you will likely get better answers from the link. HA! Good Fun!

the question identifies the problem: why equip a larger one-handed weapon? there is gonna be some few situations in which Gromnir has weapon focus X but the weapon we typical use is poor for overcoming a particular foe's dt... or are we calling it dr this week? regardless, in most situations, Gromnir is either dual-wielding the fast one-handed weapons, or we is gonna choose a two-handed weapon. ruffian is ideal for dual-wielders because you get stiletto and clubs, and if absolute necessary you can switch to a sabre when you need a slash weapon. noble is arguably an equal viable option with both rapier and daggers for your fast weapons covering pierce and slash damage and a mace for crushing stuff. adventurer appears ideal for 2h folks... ridiculously ideal. estoc is a pierce weapon. the poleaxe is slash/crush. well golly, this is gonna be a difficult choice when we compare with every other focus that at best has a single 2h option that does a single damage type. dunno, were this a trick question? HA! Good Fun! ps please note that as soon as we know the actual weapons in the game, the answers is gonna change. find out that the best 2h weapon in the game is a greatsword, and that the second best 2h weapon is a distant second at best, would considerable change the debate.

we will observe that our perfect party o' five would likely use all six slots, and there would be no room for neve campbell who made an art form outta mouth-breathing long before kristen stewart got her first starring role. that being said, am far more concerned with the companions than with power, but if we can't get a satisfactory stealthy trap disarming guy using obsidian's joinable npcs, we may needs make one o' our own. as of this moment, our main is likely to be a dual flail wielding hearth orlan priest o' eothas. if we need a stealthy trap guy too, chances are we go with a poleaxe wielding hearth orlan rogue. gizmo and stripe? HA! Good Fun!

as an individual with near crippling dyslexia, am suspecting that Gromnir writes rouge and rogue interchangeable without even realizing it, and 99% o' the time our reading o' the word will depend on context rather than spelling. HA! Good Fun!

better yet, read the Bible. not only is it chock-full o' anti-heroes, but knowledge o' the Bible makes you more likely to recognize oblique literary references and allusion that is so often tied to Bible chapter an/or verse. regardless o' your opinion o' religion, any fan o' western literature should have the Bible at the top o' their reading list. OR we might recognize that the kinda stuff the genesis poster used as examples o' what he were hoping to read more o' would likely preclude the prose edda, beowulf and gilgamesh. HA! Good Fun!

the impact of heavy armour on chanter's chants and invocations is negligible. chants work much as do paladin auras and is unaffected by armour recovery time, yes? invocations are used infrequent. therefore, armour concerns for chanters is almost identical for chanters as they is for paladins. paladins have better health than chanters, but deflection and accuracy for paladins and chanters is identical. am admitting we haven't played a chanter in a few months, but unless something has changed dramatically... *shrug* chanter is one o' the few classes we can imagine that could benefit from sword & shield style, unlike virtual every priest build we might consider. if you is less concerned with chanter doing melee damage, give him a hatchet and go sword and shield route. personally, we would likely use a morningstar or some other 2h weapon if we went the heavy armour route. regardless, a heavy armoured chanter is gonna suffer fewer deleterious effects related to armour than any other caster. HA! Good Fun!

rouge/rogue is way behind to/too/two, their/they're/there, your/you're, accept/except, than/then and its/it's. HA! Good Fun!

we would prefer if the AAA guys would adopt such a model. the romances invariably feel tacked on because they is tangential and optional. so, why pretend? tack 'em on as day 1 dlc. sure, folks would initially express RAGE over having to pay for an otherwise essential (*snort*) feature, but on the positive end o' the spectrum, folks could finally get the romances they genuine wished to explore. vote with dollars. spend $40 extra so you can romance all the possible companions offered by bioware or __________ via dlc? sounds like a fantastic idea. HA! Good Fun!

I agree 100% with this, but I also disagree 100% with this response of therefore excluding them altogether. I'm not advocating taking a leaf from Inquisition's book and the politics of their developers. What I am saying is that throwing out romances from an Infinity inspired RPG is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Bioware only came to that political stance after years of being hammered. So...romance makers take warning. You better pander to a large set of people. am thinking the lesson is that bioware pandered to a small set o' folks that were very loud and persistent. and it didn't hurt that many biowarians were already sympathetic to The Cause. the folks asking for romances started out small. the folks that wanted alternative romances were an even smaller subset. we recall silvermoon's Ladies of Neverwinter site. most o' the romance discussion by gaider and romance fans were happening off-site from bioware a considerable time after the release of bg2... years after bg2 release. even now, regardless o' how ubiquitous is promancer threads at bioware, the total number o' posters involved in such threads compared to the number o' actual bioware game purchasers is negligible. the thing is, the promancers is a disenfranchised group nearly everywhere save for bioware. the promancers, starved for love, found it at bioware. *shrug* in any event, the thing that prevents the tangential and optional companion romances from being anything more than pap for the slobbering promancers and the gibbering sjw crowd is the thing that makes 'em acceptable to Gromnir: they are tangential and optional. try and think o' a decent story with romance wherein the romance were complete tangential and coulda' been optional. ask a rpg writer to create a good romance arc. fine. now tell him/her that he must complete the entire arc with a half-dozen dialogue encounters and the entire romance must be optional and tangential to the main plot. ... @#$%. @#$% U. bioware has the resources to spend on romances, so we don't begrudge the promancers their digital titillation. as we is not compelled to endure the romances, we is finding little argument to oppose their inclusion save for 2 points: 1) the existence on romances decrease the likelihood that we will see critical path love. am not particular caring if the writers o' a crpg develop thematic love that would engage jane austin or chris avellone, but the presence o' the romances, we suspect, diminishes the likelihood we see an exploration o' such fodder in the main plot o' crpgs. for anybody who does engage and explore the romances, a critical path love theme would/should seem redundant. no more ravel 'cause instead you were able to consummate a love triangle with fall-from-grace and annah... or given the current trend we see at bio, the likely triangle would include fall-from-grace and dak'kon. we lose ravel love 'cause folks wanna sex-up a succubus? & 2) the resources spent on creating romance dialogues coulda' been spent on other, and necessarily more meaningful, dialogue encounters. tangential and optional romances is, by their very nature, unnecessary. that is axiomatic, yes? critical path dialogues, on the other hand... *shrug* even so, where developers have resources enough to appease the vocal minority without punishing Gromnir save by our awareness o' lost opportunities for core game development, we is accepting o' the presence o' romances. HOWEVER, obsidian has stated many times that they didn't have the resources to do romances well. end of story. but hey, Gromnir is about constructive solutions. "no" to romance is constructive enough, but somebody suggested dlc romance, yes? HA! that would actual be fun to see. torment had a recent funding campaign to expand the Bloom... or was it the gullet? do the same for romances. we don't want romance to be a stretch goal, but a separate dlc goal? fine. assuming there is obsidian writers with the time for such piffle, have a complete separate funding goal for tacked-on romance dlc. only the promancers need contribute to the funding o' such dlc. everybody wins that way, yes? HA! Good Fun!

some people is giving you their favorites w/o considering your actual query. bad forum junkies. bad. is not necessarily a Gromnir favorite, but given your list we expect that you would enjoy the caine books by matthew stover. https://www.sfsite.com/01b/hero49.htm david gemmell were noteworthy for writing anti-hero protagonists, but you is rare gonna see that protagonist for more than a single book. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/618177.Legend old skool lankhmar books by fritz leiber would be worth considering if you wanna impress nerd friends with your knowledge o' the masters o' the genre. is sci-fi instead o' fantasy, but we would consider the stainless steel rat books by harry harrison. http://www.goodreads.com/series/94586-stainless-steel-rat-chronological-order got a smart rogue protagonist but if you don't like dark humor, the stainless steel rat will fail. ... am hesitant to mention steven brust... oh well. before any o' the books on your list were popular, brust were writing first-person narratives with a smart assassin protagonist who gots a personal code if not an admirable sense o' morality. his vlad series is long, but each volume is relative short. http://www.goodreads.com/series/40334-vlad-taltos am not a fan, but the books is having a certain harmony with the books from your list. check the reviews and some o' brust's free on-line short stories for a painless introduction. HA! Good Fun! ps aluminum had already mentioned glen cook, but we will second his recommendation.

well, am not complete sure we understand what you are saying about using spells needlessly, but there are poe spellcasters that do not require vancian rest-to-recall spells. ciphers are a prime example. however, ciphers has poor deflection and accuracy on par with priests and unlike priests, ciphers' do not have a favored weapon ability to boost accuracy. ciphers is a poor choice to put in heavy armour and melee. oddly enough, chanters is likely the one "caster" that would most close achieve what you is saying you is looking for in a character that can wear heavy armour and dish out some hurt while also having spellcasting powhaz that ain't vancian. chanters get some bonuses to endurance and have higher deflection, so even w/o heavy armour they is a bit more durable. am not 100% sure what you are looking for, but am admitting some confusion given your comments regarding chanters as they do seem to most closely fit your desires if not your expectations. HA! Good Fun!

our experience with the priest and chanter is reversed from yours. build up invocations can be painfully slow... you almost wish combat would last longer just so that your genuine benefits from invocations and layering o' chants would have had a chance to manifest. the casting time for priest spells is much quicker, with heals being some of the quickest casts in the game. a fraction o' a second difference in casting times is far more meaningful when applied to a short cast time than a long one. chanters also have better deflection and accuracy than priests. yeah, you can makes a priest o' skaen that will dual-wield stilettos, but regardless o' the combat build, chances are that heavy armour won't be particularly efficacious. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

don't think of classes in d&d terms. the poe priest can be played a few different ways, but making a heavily armoured priest actual makes less sense than a heavily armoured wizard. wizards got a few powerful defensive spells that when coupled with armour allows the spellcaster to wade into the front-lines clad in plate. such defensive spells is largely absent from the priest catalog. the priest does have some powerful damage causing offensive spells, but they is having far smaller aoe for such spells than the other casters, so generating aggro appears to be less o' a concern for priests. also, for obvious reasons, there is a rather keen motivation for wishing your primary healer (if your priest is your primary heals) to be able to cast and cast quick, particularly in hard mode wherein the combat is typical frenetic. most casters can be built to benefit from heavy armour, although doing so may not be the most efficacious use of the character's abilities. however, we have yet to see a particular useful priest-in-plate character... which is kinda ironic seeing as how cadegund were the first poe priest character the obsidian developer's revealed. http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Cadegund HA! Good Fun!

I dont think the argument is pure semantics. In some games you had to give up combat ability for trap/lock/stealth utility in one or a few classes. Now you can choose from all classes, not compromise combat ability and still have that utility. fair observation, but very different from the genesis poster's observation. you is still gonna need a sneaky trap disarmer in poe, and most likely that character is gonna be a character who gots inherent bonuses to stealth and mechanics. so, how much has actual changed regarding the need for a character with traditional rogue abilities? now, on the positive side, rogues is no longer sacrificing combat efficacy for trap disarming. the ie vanilla thief was a handicap once combat started. sure, you could fix a thief by making it a multi or dual-class, but thief = crap in combat. if the genesis poster had observed that it were a boon that the rogue/thiefy character were actual combat viable in poe we woulda' agreed w/o reservation. it were jack-arse stoopid that old ad&d vanilla thieves were so inept once combat began. even 3 and 3.5 d&d were only a limited improvement as absent prestige class requirements, it rare made sense to take more than a few levels of rogue for your rogue character. 'course that ain't what the genesis poster were talking 'bout. HA! Good Fun!

even so, am admitting more than a little curiosity about adding one o' these to the 3rd zumwalt destroyer. destructive power and range aside, the fact that the ammo is non-explosive makes it so the chance o' a magazine explosion is, well, zero? HA! Good Fun!

well, given how the musashi and much o' the japanese fleet went down, perhaps the next logical step woulda' been a space-faring version o' this would be a better choice instead o' a japanese battleship with antiquated fire-control and a woefully insufficient anti-aircraft suite. HA! Good Fun!

the suggestion that some kinda islamaic extremist group is responsible for the murder is difficult to believe... 'cause islamic terrorists/extremists is notorious for maintaining a low-profile with the media and avoiding publicity whenever possible? http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31691727 list at the end of the article should raise eyebrows. HA! Good Fun!

as an aside, our stated dislike o' crpg romance is specific tied to the companion romances that became common after the release of bg2. optional and tangential side-quest/mini-game romances is what we find to be... puerile. on the other hand, we thought ravel's love for tno, romantic or otherwise, were essential for our appreciation o' ps:t. the single most moving dialogue encounter we can recall from any crpg we has played is the one we had with the mebbeth incarnation o' ravel 'pon our return to sigil after plane hopping. is not what promancers consider romance, but before the release o' bg2 we woulda' argued that the ravel's love for the ps:t protagonist were likely our favorite crpg romance, though perhaps there is a my little pony crpg we has yet to play that would dislodge ravel for our favored spot. the optional and tangential side-quest /mini-game romances has reshaped the nature o' the debate, perhaps for the worse. one wonders if the existence o' the companion romances actual decreases or inhibits the possibility o' a more mature kinda exploration and expressions o' love in crpgs. even developers reference game romance in terms more familiar to the promancer than what we woulda' seen back in 1999 or 2000. has the romance question irrevocably changed the nature o' the games? we hope that is not the case. HA! Good Fun! ps am gonna once again observe that questions o' companion romances in poe is about as moot as moot can be... just in case folks hadn't noticed.