NanoPaladin

I will agree on this, anything that will not be done properly should not be done at all no matter what the implication is. That said the only way developers, or any one, can get better at something is through trial and error. Practice makes perfect. As long as it is something you want to practice. Was this really a needed contribution? I mean really man how old are we? 12? I understand this is the internet and all but come on there is no need to post useless things.

Who knows, I mean I can take a good flaming since I am tough skinned. Its like I said, I think that it needs to be something decided on early in the development process just like classes, combat style, art style all of that. Otherwise you risk botched writing.

The "problem," so to speak, at least on this forum, is that the topic of romance in PoE was beaten to death (and caused a lot of locked threads, heh) in the distant past, so it tends to be one of those touchy subjects for many, here, at this point. I personally don't have any issue with there being one or two romance options in a game, as long as it's not a forced-issue (eg I don't have to romance to progress). But on the other side, I don't care if there aren't any specific romance options, either. I can't think of any game I've personally played where I liked the way a romance plotline was handled. Although I do often find the non-committal flirtation moments between non-player chrs. really amusing or something, like Atton's jealous bickering re: Disciple in Kotor2. Of course, I know its a bit of a dead horse by now. I was intending to create a thread for actual debate on the topic and not just immature squandering on the subject. So far... mixed results. I think that this is "problem" that pops up in all up-coming RPG games forums. Step back and look at it a moment. One thing that is almost always brought up by the community is the question of whether there will be romance in the game or not. Something is there...

You see, this is the problem. Romance in games is not actual love. I am aware of that. It is still a reward-consequence though which is why I even put that section up. No one would have read this there, then again I am not even sure if they read it all here.

To explain human relationships? Ooookay... Oh boy... Then, there was a wall of text. Don't you think you're getting a little bit too much involved over a non-existent matter? I mean, turning to biology to explain a desire to see love relationships between 2 almost faceless bunch of pixels in a random video game, come on. Is this not enough to enjoy it when the writers want to do so and design the story accordingly? There are plenty alternate medium or even games to get your romance on. Why is nobody asieging CDProjekt or Eidos Montréal over this? The point of that was to show what the brain does. As they can be released under "simulated" events. Again I raised perfectly reasonable counter-points against adding romance into a game as well. That said, no I do not think I am getting too involved in this. I mostly wanted to bring up thought and debate over the subject. Not a roll of memes and initial flaming. At any rate I appreciate the input! Yeah thats respectably reasonable as well. I actually mentioned that later on saying they should be planned into the story line or characters and not just half assedly thrown in there at the end.

I don't think people understand the point of my thread here. I was not whining about there being no romance I was offering the point of view for each side to the opposing side... I guess all my effort there was for nothing really.

I am curious to know if they are going to make Godlike for each God in the IP.

Sadly, on a topic such as this I do not think that is possible. I mean look at the other thread... oh well just a nice reflection to look at.

I am glad... lol

The what?

This guy over here

The Case for Romance First of all let me say that this is not a whiny thread by any means. The hope here is to have intellectual discussion and not a flame war. Anyways I will be building an unbiased case over the polarizing topic of romance in RPG’s. Some people love it, some people hate it. Through this topic I will be using nifty things like science and well thought points and counter points about this topic. Buckle up it will be quite a read. Mods feel free to shut the thread down if need be. Romance is a good thing. Why? Let’s turn to science. What sorts of hormones are secreted in the brain during “love” as well as what they do. Testosterone: Think Male hormone Oestrogen: Think Female hormone Adrenaline: The word adrenaline is used in common parlance to denote increased activation of the sympathetic system associated with the energy and excitement of the flight, fight and fright response, even though this is physiologically inaccurate. The influence of adrenaline is mainly limited to a metabolic effect and bronchodilator effect on organs devoid of direct sympathetic innervation. Dopamine: The brain includes several distinct dopamine systems, one of which plays a major role in reward-motivated behavior. Every type of reward that has been studied increases the level of dopamine in the brain, and a variety of addictive drugs, including stimulants such as cocaine, amphetamine, and methamphetamine, act by amplifying the effects of dopamine. Serotonin: It is popularly thought to be a contributor to feelings of well-being and happiness. Oxytocin: Well, this hormone is what is called the “Bonding hormone”. It has quite a role in the neuroanatomy of intimacy. I won’t get too deep on this one but you are free to look it up! Vasopressin: It plays a key role in homeostasis, by the regulation of water, glucose, and salts in the blood. Now with that out of the way we need to ask the question, does any of that matter for a video game where the “love” is not “real”. Well perhaps we should examine ourselves first, do you not feel on edge during a horror movie? What about a horror game? Do you feel on edge when fighting an end boss that has been kicking the crap out of you? What sort of feelings do you have when you finally beat that boss? The answer to any of those ought to be yes. No matter how large or small the feeling is you are still feeling and secreting the hormones appropriately. That said NPC romances; while they may not be a “real” thing to some people they still feel the effects. We can most likely chalk up promancer attitude to Dopamine (reward-motivation). This brings up the next question, have romances in games been done right? Yes and no. I will get to that in counter-points though. Now I can offer up something I think would remedy this problem. Something like a romance subplot should not unravel in a mere 25 – 30 hours. They should take time to bloom and what that could mean is planting the seeds. Show the players that “hey, something could happen here but not yet.” Let the sub plot unfold over a series of games (assuming our characters are not dead) or in future expansion packs. This take on romance in games can be quite a new wind and might even solidify future sales. (Not necessarily a proven fact though). That said I do think that it can be taken with a different approach and not the normal approach we are used to. Romance is bad. Why? As we already know the developers have stated that PoE will not have romance in it. (Much to the promancer’s dismay). In the past game developers have often done a poor job in implementing romance to a story line. People seem to feel that it will detract from other aspects of characters and companions. The truth of the matter is that it very well may. I don’t know if people realize that each line spoken by a character, each choice in a decision tree costs money. PoE has a relatively small budget compared to most other titles made by a pedigree company. With an extremely tight budget something like romance might detract too much from a budget. Believe it or not this is just the cold hard truth. What does not having romances allow? Well it can be quite a bit actually. What if the total cost for writing a romance is equivalent to an entirely new companion? Well it is completely possible though I would imagine that is a well written romance. Does it detract from the overall story or companion’s character? It can, like previously stated dialogue costs time and money which is something PoE just might not have right now. In terms of an NPC’s integrity it very well could take a well-rounded character and turn them into a mindless drooly for the Player-character. Lastly we come to the Dev team itself. As we all know there are a couple of people in the Dev team that are outspokenly against romance. While they might be a minority among the team they are the ones that can make the difference. Let me ask you this, if you hate doing something, if it was not necessary to finishing a job would you do a good job on it if forced? More often than not the answer is no. As humans we want to do what we enjoy not bring in things we do not enjoy into that otherwise perfect mix. In conclusion... There are plenty of reasons why to add and why not to add something like romance into a game. In all honesty we should view it as something as big as character classes. Most often game developers fail to implement well written romances into games and that could very well be a product of not planning for them ahead of writing a character or the main story. It might also be the fact that WRPGs and CRPGs are not the best medium to express that aspect of humanity. JRPGs can get away with easier since we are playing a story from the eyes of a pre-written character. WRPGs are the opposite, they tell the story from our eyes, as if we were there. Any way that is all I have to say on this for now. I apologize for beating a dead horse now but this is something that has bothered me for some time. It feels nice to throw my thoughts on this out there. Please feel free to discuss and bring up opinions!!

Shadowrun returns is hardly a year old. don;t you think it's too fast to judge?Either way, if your base game isn;t good, no wealth of modding tools is going to save your community. As I understand Shadowrun returns was a bit of a disappointment for many people. Not at all, look at the modding response for Skyrim, even NwN.

That was so clever I forgot to laugh.

Some great ideas there that I did not even think about to be honest.

Not sure on my opinion to this topic just yet. I know that XCOM did not have any real modding tools yet it still has a small modding community. Then there is Shadowrun Returns, which has modding tools and all the like but its modding community is just as small as XCOMs.... so the question becomes this; will be modding community be big enough to denote a tools release? Or will it sort of... not really exist as it should? So after thinking on it for a little bit. I think tools would be a good idea but they should be released after the game.

Well as my last decently long post was ignored in a prior romance thread (before the announcement) I will try to keep this short. (most likely going to fail) Not adding romances to PoE is not a deal breaker by any means under the rainbow of RPG's, however, with the way a lot of popular RPG's are made it is a 'pillar' to the game type. It is something (no matter how well written) that sets the RPG genre apart from other genres. Shooters are now starting to implement more character progression into their games (IE Bioshock, Borderlands, CoD 2k14 ((thats a joke)) with multiplayer) in the form of levels/gear/magic. I understand that PoE is a new IP and so far has seen a good amount of success in terms of support. We do not know how the story in PoE will end or even turn out so if they want they can easily set the stage for romance choices in the game and then deliver on them in a later expansion pack or sequel. I think that letting a romance form over a multitude of games and expansion packs would be a nice refreshing method to the genre. I do not think that what the dev's said should be utilized as an excuse to not do something but utilize it as a chance to grow and develop skills. After all the game industry is always evolving and growing just like the technology industry. You have to set your game apart from other RPG's out there. I know that PoE is going to be a "small" game comparably to other titles but lets take a small look at what you are competing with this year; Dragon Age Inquisition and The Witcher 3. Both of these titles are huge for the genre and I am certain that both will be fairly great games. We are more or less guaranteed that one of the two will have romance involved. That does not mean it will be good romances though. At any rate as I said its not a deal breaker by any means but it can be a great device to utilize sales for sequels and expansion packs *wink wink*. (Not to sound greedy) Onto my next point.. I am a bit disheartened by the responses to this topic. I come in and look at the thread and all I see is a circus. Anti-Romancers are running around posting memes and rubbing it everyones faces as such a wonderful thing that it will not be included. I was hoping that the community here would be a bit more mature on these sorts of topics. As far as I can tell every forum for a game with romances confirmed we don't see promancers running around rubbing it in Antimancers faces. Sure they will swamp the forums with repeated topics but that can be a by-product of any aspect in a game. Like classes and combat systems or any other controversial topics. TL;DR Anti-mancers - Stop being trolls about it Promancers - Sorry, maybe next time. Obsidian - Look at my first paragraph.... seriously..... decent idea tucked away in there.... Sometimes you have to risk it to get the biscuit...

I am not sure about the general populous here but my impressions on XCom hold the game in high regard. My biggest wish for the game now would be to further expand on the soldiers, after all they are the core to the game. I am unsure if another expansion is in the works for the game but if so what sort of things would you like to see from it? Personally I'd love for an expanded equipment system in terms of armor and weapons as well as an expanded set of Genetic upgrades.

The game will be rated Mature and exploring Mature themes for a reason. People -shouldn't- be letting younger children play. That said look at TV, movies and even some books. Look at the culture in public schools now I do not think a game where people are calling elves knife-ears will really change a persons racism. Not when they could be steeped waist high in it already.

Well, spy game, genre tropes, etc. Yeah I understand that. I still think they were poorly written. Actually I really wanted a romance with the mute girl but she was the only one that didn't have one haha. I guess it would have been a little weird since she was like 16 though.

APs romances were handled poorly... they were more like one night stands than anything else. Anyways my stance on romance in games: People hate them, people love them. In the end they should be an optional sub plot for players since it will offer the chance of further character development. That said I cannot say for others but I do know that a romance sub plot can be an extremely powerful tool to utilize for creating hard choices and consequences. Especially if the plot is handled in a well thought out and written manner. Scenario 1: Your choice Let's say you have spent the last 30 hours learning about and getting to know a companion. This particular companion is one that you have grown attached to and hey cool there is romance sub plot there for you! Sadly a little later down the road a hard choice befalls you; do you sacrifice your companion so that they may hold the line for a bold escape so that you may survive them and finish the mission. Or will you decide to let the area needed defense fall so that you may save your companion that you have grown attached to? Scenario 2: Altering a companions choice Let's say that in the story there is a possibility of having a turn coat. Luckily or unluckily you have begun making an impression on the companion to sway them away from the original plan (Perhaps they are a mole for the big enemy). After a while they decide to say screw it to the whole plan in the first place and fully join your side in more than one way. Sure you don't -need- romance to utilize these scenario's. However you can say it adds a certain spice to it. Also you might notice that both of those are utilized in the Mass Effect Series. Which is arguably -the- space-opera of our time now. I feel that hating on the prospect of romances in games is becoming the "cool" thing to do. I could be wrong in that observation though, as a good deal of people that fight for romances in a game tend to come off as whiny and desperate. In short what I am saying is that if you are developing a game based around an intricate and well written story your should also write interesting and compelling characters for the game. There should be options for the players as well. Choosing to tell a person to go suck an egg and venture alone is all fine and dandy. If the player doesn't tell the to suck an egg and plays through their story lines and learns about them. Why not reward the player with choices on how the companion can perceive their character? After all the main purpose of Game Design is to design experiences and memories for the players. Why not give them something to remember?

Well the only problem I see with it is that it causes more dialogue to be written which may or may not be within their current budget.

I have never fully understood why people have to complain about female armor design. One side claims its not realistic and how would bikini plate defend someone. Who's to say she is not the Goddess of parrying? The other side complains that armor with no revealing features sucks. As dumb as it is some people play to see the skimpy mail. It all boils down to the art style in use. The characters we are looking in PE will be fairly small until we look at them on the character and inventory screens so honestly there is little point in bickering for one type or the other. I think CDRP does it great though, cover-able armor that also gives a little fan service. At any rate we will mostly be judging things like the detailed appearance of PC females and followers from their portraits. Those are what I am interested in seeing.

I think having a companion for each class would be awesome. However, I know how expensive that could run.

I, for one, would love to see a KS campaign for a AP 2.