Amentep

First time I played DA2 it was very effecting when I got Bethany killed (I'd originally planned on leaving her, then after she complained when the PC's mom suggested she stay, I decided to take her and since I'd rather lance boils than have Anders in my party she died. Oops). I don't think that romance is unique in its ability to connect the Player/PC to the game. My point is, realistically every romance, every friendship, every rivalry should feel (as much as possible within the limitations of cRPGs) like the NPC is really reacting to the player's choice and definition of the PC. I think this is part of why the constant flirting was received so negatively in DA2, it challenged the player's ability to define their character.

#2 gave me motion sickness. But then I tended to not be able to drive and keep to a road either which meant a lot of bouncing around. Had to give up playing.

Well I think romance can add a unique connection to a story or character; I think a well written other relationship can do the same. A lot of it, from a storytelling perspective, is that its going to depend a lot on the player's definition of character and the definition of the NPC. To me the important thing for any relationship is they're well thought out, well implemented and ideally such that they do not sublimate the NPC to work.

I suppose, they could be looking at the sales curve relative to an average sales curve and the current sales curve is trending to a lower day to day sales decrease so appears to be an increase over average sales decreases. Still it'd be a bit wonky to describe it that way and sounds like publicist speak.

Nah, I don't agree with that. A friendship bond is important but a bond where you actually have a Romance relationship with someone is always going to be deeper and generally more meaningful. Its obvious really? So...wouldn't that mean you're being cheated of the obviously superior PC-NPC relationship if you can't romance every companion at the same time (as exclusivity would require that you miss superior romance relationships)? In a RPG this shouldn't make a major difference as the dialogue options are more or less similar if you Romance or don't Romance. But if you choose to not Romance someone or you attempt to Romance someone and fail you may be cheated out of certain quests or developments, like the Lolth attack on Viconia in BG2 that I believe was Romance initiated But end of the day the Romance option is more of RP development that shouldn't penalize a person who chooses not to participate O..kay? So a romance is "always...deeper and ... more meaningful" but it "shouldn't make a major difference" and "shouldn't penalize a person who chooses not to participate"? Isn't that contradictory? Its either deeper and more meaningful - and thus superior, or its just a different, equally viable alternative relationship, surely?

Nah, I don't agree with that. A friendship bond is important but a bond where you actually have a Romance relationship with someone is always going to be deeper and generally more meaningful. Its obvious really? So...wouldn't that mean you're being cheated of the obviously superior PC-NPC relationship if you can't romance every companion at the same time (as exclusivity would require that you miss superior romance relationships)?

Well personally, I played it because it was a fun game. So it wasn't all for nothing, it just didn't matter to the bigger EU.

And then the adventurer takes the ex on the Jerry Springer show, where he throws a chair at the new boyfriend and the ex reveals she's actually a lesbian.

In post #107, Sophrox states "I'm probably missing something very important..." which from further statements he's made was his appeal, essentially, to tell him what about the game is it people like. In post #108 he was asked why he didn't like what he'd seen of the game. In post #115 he clarified what he'd seen that he didn't like After this, instead of being about why it is that people like the game and/or countering his views with evidence from the game, the discussion seemed to center on how Sophrox's was wrong to dislike an RPGs if he didn't play it for 20+ hours. At least that's what I got out of it. Hope this helps. I'm in chapter 2 right now with a mage character. My fireball kills the minor enemies, damages a decent amount the more healthy foes and send a lot of those off their feet. Boss characters seem to have high fire resistance or high ice resistance (but not often both). I'm not on a hard difficulty though, so maybe that matters a lot.

But will anyone go up and ask "Hey Torquemada, whadda ya say?"

I gathered that from the little tag on the video when I watched it. Still well done other than the voice sync.

I seem to recall IRONMAN mode being asked for a lot when most new games get announced. I imagine its the virtual equivalent of walking the tightrope without a net - it tests one's skill with the game. Man vs virtual nature, or something.

I can assure you it's not. A game can have easy-to-use modding tools that allow even a N00b to create new stuff in the game, like textures, meshes (nude bodies), clothing, weapons, and even whole area maps. But no toolset I've ever seen can turn someone into a good writer. And without good writing, what's a modded romance going to look like....besides a giant ugly mass of seemingly deliberate e-graffiti that doesn't add to a game as much as ruin what's already there? I never spoke to quality, only to ease to the modder with respect to its relationship to creating a longer game (something that, say a nude bodies mod or a better cloaks mod wouldn't do). Certainly from what little I played around with the IE tools various people created and the NWN tools, creating dialogue - while not trivial - was not like creating a new area map (which was particularly difficult with IE). Edit - Of course that's always a good emotion to work with, betrayal. But about betrayal and then possible redemption? So in your example they take some items ( not XP ) and then you can track them down, find out why but still forgive them. Good Romance arc idea Malc I don't see why a "LI" in a game couldn't actually be playing the PC. Much like being able to flirt with Aveline in DA2 doesn't lead anywhere, the PC should be able to ignore signs that he/she is going to get burned in a relationship and suffer the consequences. If Romance is going to move past just being an ego stroke (fner-fner) then they really need to plan it to have multiple different resolutions based on the NPC, not just all roads lead to a sex scene prior to the final fight.

Yeah, I have no clue how you'd prove popularity of romance mods in reality. But I'm not surprised most modders go for the low hanging fruit; seems a natural consequence of desire to mod vs ability to code.

No, what's done with is using the five Chinese elements for the sole purpose of not using the occidental four elements. What game has used the Chinese elements? I can't say I've ever seen Wu Xing in game form (Water, Wood, Fire, Earth and Metal) and often wondered how it could be used as opposed to the classic elements (fire, earth, water, air) or what typically shows up in games - fire, earth, water, air, light/life, dark/anti-life. Which I guess if you added time/universe to it would be closest to the seven chakras... Prince of Qin Well to be fair, Prince of Qin was made by a Chinese developer about the final years of the Qin Dynasty as I recall, so it'd make sense for it to use the Chinese elements...

Except some of the dialogue (particularly Morrigan's) didn't match her mouth movements (was it unsynced for anyone else or just me?)

All that proves is a lot of mod makers are lonely weirdos, really. Actually I think a lot of the mod makers are about extending the game; adding longer/new relationship strands is probably easier than trying to program something new into the game.

This is not really true of the games - at least, not in my experience. When I first went through Dark Souls, (without having ever played Demon's Souls), the biggest challenge were the controls, not really the enemies/bosses. I beat, I think, after the few three or so when I was finally got a decent grasp of the game, roughly 4/5 bosses on my first try. Dark Souls (on NG - that is, before beating the game at all) is really actually decently lenient...there's just a really steep initial learning curve. Once you understand your own character, and how bosses *tend* to move, (all the "giant" bosses are pretty predictable after one or two, if you care to notice - only the smaller, faster ones really leave any surprises), it's generally pretty easy. Well my experience may very well be tainted by never really understanding the character(s) I tried in either game or the systems involved. Ultimately I gave up on both games. Really don't see the appeal as, for me, progression just seemed to be remembering where everything was so you could live through it the next time after you'd gotten killed this time.

I agree, having established it in ME1, they should have stuck with it through ME2-3. Or have not established ME1 with the armor in the first place.

Zero G wouldn't be the problem. The problem would be if it was outside the ship and not on a planet, there's the temperature to consider (as well as unfiltered radiation); if they were on a planet there would be pathogens and microscopic life forms that could infiltrate through skin contact. I assumed the idea was that the "sci-fi personal force shields" was supposed to cover for that, but then why bother with the gas mask? Would have been better if they stuck with one idea (the full suit) or another (the shields and everyone wears whatever).

Its funny, I like action games, I really do. But I do not understand the love of Demon/Dark Souls. Its a game built on having foreknowledge of every fight, so you die every few minutes to give you the foreknowledge to go a bit further and die again. Just do not see the appeal. Then again I've never understood the appeal of the "die and your one save is wiped" gameplay either (typical ironman). No problem with their inclusion provided I'm not required to play it. That said, "fair but unforgiving" is a reasonable approach to a harder difficulty level, I think. Something where if you understand the abilities/skills and use good tactics and resource management then you're able to win, but if you're not really getting the most out of abilities/skills or use poor tactics/situational awareness that the game is able to exploit the inherent weaknesses in your game play and lead to examples where the goblins mobbed your wizard and chunked him. EDIT - I typically play on normal though, rarely explore the harder options unless normal is too easy. In some cases normals been too hard and I've went down to easy, but that's pretty rare and is usually more a sign I don't understand the system and will bump it back up when I have experience.

Technically US Federal tax law considers the money raised "income" for the entity behind the kickstarter and thus taxable as personal/corporate income; afaik it doesn't make a judgement on whether it is an income from purchasing something or not (ie, a sale of an item). Sales taxes are levied at the state level in the US and an in-state "purchase" is considered applicable to local sales tax laws. I'm not clear on whether this includes tiers that aren't receiving the product, though (like the common $5 thank you tier). From Kickstarter's perspective, a pledge isn't a sale which is probably what Bryy is referring to (this is, presumably, partially to cover themselves if a project never delivers anything). From a pledge's perspective, I think this makes the most sense to take the pledge as, to be honest. I thought the internet was ruled by the "Opinions are like ****, everyone's got one" addendum?

When the AI NPC goes down, you have to run next to them to "help them up". I think the button is "X" or something?

Yeah, but I was referring to the specific fix of unconnoing certain elements; sadly (or happily, depending on your feelings) its all gone now to the Star Wars multiverse or whatever. It wouldn't surprise me if there was a mandate to more or less clean the boards for TOR and anything that didn't quite fit was changed. Part of why I tried not to feel strongly about how KOTOR or KOTORII fit with the rest of the EU and just enjoyed them for what they are. Seemed like it'd be simpler for me, that way.

Torturing someone wearing armor, that must be new (I'll give them the benefit of the doubt though and assume that's placeholder material) Remember in DA:O where Leilana goes on about Orleasian fashion and liking pretty footwear? They're torturing her by messing up her shoes.