Amentep

That's actually why I was suggesting removing it from being hard scripted to being down to party influence. Ie certain character may / may not betray you due to low influence with them. In fact I used Yoshimo so little after his betrayal, I forgot he betrayed the PC when I was making this thread...

One thing that happened from time to time in PnP games I've played is one player or a NPC hireling might decide to betray the group - sell them out for gold, steal items while everyone was asleep and run off. In cRPG when PC influence with the NPC gets below a certain level, usually the character just leaves the party. There's also morale failure in battle where the character runs off. Betrayals might happen due to hard coded script - doesn't matter what the PC did, once that story point is hit, betrayal happens. I haven't really played a cRPG where NPCs who become disatisfied who could leave during a rest period with part of your belongings. Possibly this is scripting / resource intensive, but seems like it could create a mini-quest (to retrieve your stuff) that isn't static within the context of the games story. So the question is, if resources weren't an issue, would this kind of behavior be interesting for NPCs to possibly have? Or would it just be too frustrating?

Lawsuits just aren't possible with pie. I'm not sure I'm holding fellow fans with disdain. However people being argumentative, people taking the same information and reading positive / negative connotations, people being upset over trivialities...that's my experience with people - myself included despite my efforts not to microfocus on things.

Just because its stupid and pointless doesn't mean people won't try...

I'd argue that's poor design though; POOL OF RADIANCE: THE RUINS OF MYTH-DRANOR (or whatever) had that problem. I stopped playing it because....everthing...mo....ved.....so......sl........o............w There's no real reason for TB combat to be slow, as far as I know, other than not thinking through how to implement it.

You may not care. But Johnny and Susie care. And they may care so much that if they feel their funds are being misused that they sue Obsidian over it. If Johnny and Susie find out that the X amount of dollars designated for character design didn't all end up going to character design and thus they felt their funds were being misused, they could sue Obsidian over it. Yeah, the lawsuits might not amount to anything - might be laughed out of court. But it could create severe headaches for Obsidian without any real benefit to the community beyond satisfying a mild curiosity, IMO.

Well yeah. But within those bounds, there's still room to make choices when the game gives choices to you, so my question was how do you make that choice as a player - on how you as a person would make the choice, how the character you've defined should make the choice, which one seems the funniest at the time? Right, I'd agree; to me having romances created simply for the sake of equality of relationships is moving into the developers metagaming; they're not creating a situation out of the who the NPCs are, but they're forming (or forcing) the NPCs to conform to a situation they want to have happen. I'd argue this isn't the proper way to form NPCs. I guess when I see fanservice, I'm thinking more of "everyone gets a sex scene with semi-nudity for their jollies" since most of the time when I see fanservice its about some vaguely skeevy sexual element in something. I'm - and I believe others - are not demanding romances in the game, I'm not demaning romances for every type of interest. I do like PC-NPC interaction and I'd like to see more of that (I also like NPC-NPC interaction as well). I want these interactions to go beyond a few dialogues and to have some meaning within the party / characters / reactivity with people around - whether its friendship, rivalry, love, hate, indifference, brothers-in-arms, or whatever. I'd like the decision for what kind of relationships the PC might have the the NPCs to be decided in NPC design so that it makes sense with the character created, and I agree that in a limited time and resources situation, longer developed inter-party relationships - which I think would have to have time / resources to develop properly - might not be in the scope of design.

Okay, thanks. So really its less that "ROMANCE = Shallow character and no personality" but more that you don't believe the resource outlay for this game (with very limited time and resources) would be worth it to "do right" compared to what wouldn't get done because those resources were used this way and that if they can't do it right they shouldn't do it? Personally I'm for not including romances if Obsidian doesn't have the resources to do it right as well. It just seems some arguments - to me at least - have come from a 'romances will always be "bad" in games even wtih unlimited time and resources to design them'. EDIT: To clarify, what I mean is that it seems like that the argument is that romances will always be bad and never justify the time/resources spent on them - that might be a better way of putting that. I'm not sure I agree because, again, I think the creators should be free to define the NPCs and that might validly include a romance.

Which raises the question, how do you make the choices on how the story progresses? Is it based on what you the player would do? Or what you think your character would do? Because if the later I'd argue you are role playing within the constraints set out by the game. In essence you're the lead actor and you're method acting as best you can. If its the later well...either you're playing yourself or the PC/story isn't that important to you perhaps (which is completely valid since with video games I still think gameplay is the important thing)? I'm not sure. Okay, first off romance /= sex and vice versa. We're back to the "romance-derps want to get their jollies off and that's the only reason they'd want romances in a game" argument. Second...if the game had a romance in it that the world, people and story could recognize...then doesn't that mean by what you're defining here that it does work with the plot and narrative? I understand the argument that resources are limited, and have said often that if its not the in the scope of the game, the character and stories or just not worth it from a time-investment standpoint on limited resources that's okay. I (and consequently I believe others although not necessarily all) are not arguing that there MUST be romance, only supporting romance as a possible PC-NPC relationship amid all the other possibilities. Who is asking for "romance as fan service" though? Again this seems to come back to flawed logic IMO that romance in a character and story driven game only can exist if its part of some sort of sexual gratification thing. There is some overlap, I think, with RPGs and written works. A novel is character, plot and setting. An RPG is (or can be at least) all of that with an added gameplay component on top. A game is a failure if the gameplay sucks and the nature of "choice and consequences" alters the inter-reaction between character, plot and setting. I'd argue this alteration makes video-game RPGs more modularized (which may be why I have no problem with large human emotions - revenge, romance, friendship, enemity, etc - being handled in a more modular fashion and not tightly interwoven within the main quest fabric) Why can't a deep character NPCs with different personalities and motivations not - under specific circumstances - be romanceable IF it fits the character (and PC), story, etc. I'm not sure I understand why NON ROMANCE = deep character with personality and ROMANCE = shallow character with no personality by necessity (not saying that games don't end up this way, but I'm not convinced this is at the feat of romance vs. creators not being able to realize a romance in an interesting way)? I'd disagree with this, but then I'm of the opinion that NPC design should dictate the appropriateness of a romance. I disagree with making NPCs for the sole reason to make sure there is equality in romances. I'm not entirely sold on the idea that there should BE equality in romance with NPCs (and I certainly don't think THERE MUST BE ROMANCES). Again to me the litmus test should be based on whether it makes sense for the NPC to have a romantic interest in the PC? Does it make sense with the story being told? Shockingly I also think romances should be able to fail for reasons other than the PC decides to fail it. I'd disagree with a design that always allowed success of a romantic relationship (however you want to define success - I certainly wouldn't define it as "having sex in a cut scene") since part of what I think is fun in RPGs is the ability to not succeed on "plot crititcal" game elements and have the game still react to that.

I love some turn based games. I love some non-turned based game. So I'm happy either way so long as its "good".

Lo Pan Style...lol that's kinda awesome.

TSR specifically does not give the Lady of Pain stats in the Planescape Campaign setting (or in later materials) to address the first point; they also specifically point out to DMs that the Lady of Pain should be treated as unchallengeable to address the second point and players doing so should be killed. That does solve that for the setting, yep. I've never read Planescape stuff so I didn't know that. And yet... doesn't that just confirm my defending Cultist's point that BIS couldn't allow the PC to kill LoP due to, you know, fiat by TSR/WotC? Well I never disputed that argument (that BIS would need WotC permission to alter the Planescape setting / kill LoP), just that it didn't (to my mind) relate to talking about PE or my suggestion (since my argument was doing something similar to another game, not why that other game did it that way) or at the very least was a side point. Nothing but theology and theological concepts...AND THE ABILITY TO PUNCH THEM IN THE FACE!!!!!111111one* *and possibly die when doing so. How sad.

....eg, I love exploration, but there is such a thing as too much pointless, empty, "exploration potential." And on the other side, there's also such a thing as too much focus on density. I don't want to encounter stuff every 20 feet. When I want that, I'll play an action-rpg. imo. Pretty much this sums up the situation for me; locations didn't seem to exist in BG2 unless something happened (or was going to happen) there. I'd like something in between, something with open areas to encounter but more general focus than BG1. I mean I enjoyed BG1 exploration, but really that was partially "fog of war removal OCD" than anything else.

Definitely picking up a "Dear God - how is this going to all work?" vibe from this video And in the back of the minds of everyone at Obsidian creeps in an ugly thought: "Did gamers really pledge 4 million dollars and make the game as big as it could possibly be...simply because they secretly hate us and want to see us suffer?"

I liked the backgrounds in Arcanum.

I didn't know who Malukah was, and I don't know what Dubstep is either. You crazy kids and your new fangled fads! Now get off my lawn!

I think this ties a bit into the TABULA RASA thread; while I like to define a lot of the major parts of the PC - well they had to have a childhood somewhere, so I don't mind the idea of presenting a character who is a childhood friend provided the game allows us to not be forced to be friends with them as adults. They also have to be careful if they add the ability to define character backgrounds to the PC like Arcanum. It wouldn't make sense to have a childhood friend if I have a "feral child" background and grew up in the wilderness, or if I was playing a female PC with a "Tomboy" background but was treated as if the character wasn't a tomboy when establishing the "childhood" material. Someday games will have that kind of reactivity to play out the details between the character background and establishing a less vague (or utterly irrelevant beyond stats) but effective PC past that the game can react to, but I don't think we're there yet.

I figure they know what they're doing and will put the resources where they need them to come close to their expected target date. There may be some date slipping, but I don't see it as being drastic; so I figure sometime in the 4-7 month of 2014.

I dunno, player families might work in a game where the scope was started with the idea of being a multi-generational saga. But I don't get that impression of intention for this game and fear it'll turn into baby-as-inventory-item ala Aerie / PC relationship in BG2.

Two fields for first name last name. If a player only wants one name, they should be able to enter it as the last name. No real point in symbols since its a single player game and it doesn't matter how many "1337Dudes" are on the server. Spaces, hyphens and extended characters (so you can have diacritics) though should be included. Not really sure the best way to handle players who might want a name like "Hoagrin the Grim" or something though...

Just when I think I'm out, the thread pulls me back in again. TSR specifically does not give the Lady of Pain stats in the Planescape Campaign setting (or in later materials) to address the first point; they also specifically point out to DMs that the Lady of Pain should be treated as unchallengeable to address the second point and players doing so should be killed.

no problem with it so long as it fits game, character, etc. Some of the jRPGs have dealt with this idea - Namco's TALES OF GRACES f for example; more or less with 4 main characters Asbel, Sophie, Cheria and Hubert all as kids where they have an adventure (that goes wrong) and then later as adults who end up coming together to deal with some further issues that tie into that original ill-fated adventure. Great...jRPGs... next thing you know folks will demanding that we be able to make heros that look like effiminant teenage girlish boys (with bare midriffs and low cut pants) with blue/pink/yellow spikey hair and carry swordguns. They can have a romance in game with their childhood friend. You will have to deal with an evil imperialistic power. In the end, the government of said power will be ruled by an evil church or a cabal of rich jerks or both. You will travel about till you get a boat and finally an AIRSHIP! You will use the airship to go to a large flyng castle where you will rescue your childhood friend/hopefully future wife from the big bad evil guy with long hair. He will kill her but your righteous rage will fuel our powerful revenge in righting all wrongs before you awake and realize it was all a dream... or was it? Ya... I love where this thread is going.... Obsidian... ignore these people. Romances are a very bad idea. Most of the relationship ideas have been abyssmal. Wow, I gotta admire your knee-jerk reaction. I also like how you bring it back to romance when neither of us were talking about romance. We were talking about stories where childhood friends meet up later in life like in Stephen King's It. I brought up the "Graces f" game because, shockingly, its about a group of childhood friends who years later end up meeting again later in life and have to deal with the things that they couldn't as kids - similar to Stephen King's It.

Actually whether BIS could/would/should kill Lady of Pain or Elminster is irrelevant because it (a) wasn't suggested in the thread and (b) has nothing to do with the idea of making the gods of PE unkill-able since there is nothing preventing Obsidian from doing what they want with their own setting. But rather than derail the thread further, I'll just bow out.

Actually it isn't the point, because I wasn't talking about the Lady of Pain or the Planescape setting. What I specifically talked about was "if its the direction they want to go - the gods [of PE] being treated like the Lady of Pain in Planescape - you can challenge her but its End-of-Game & reload to do so." It was a comparison to how that character was treated but contextualizing it within the gods of PE framework. In short I was suggesting making the gods of PE (if the Obsidian devs so choose) beings who the PC could never kill but that the foolhardy could try to (and die). Which is exactly like LoP in both PST and the Planescape Campaign setting. What you're arguing is that Cultist was responding to my argument about how to treat the gods in PE (as "unkillable") arguing that the LoP was "unkillable" solely because BIS would have needed permission from WotC to kill her since Black Isle didn't own the setting and presumably that Obsidian could kill its gods because they owned them. This is irrelevant to what I was arguing since I never made my argument under the idea that Obsidian could do what they wanted with the Planescape setting or even that the couldn't do what they wanted with Project Eternity. Note that I do agree that BIS would have needed WotC permission to make the Lady of Pain "kill-able". Also note that I'd think WotC would rethink their license granting if the first thing somebody did when starting work on a Planescape based game was suggest violating one of the major elements of the setting. Certainly WotC could change that setting aspect if they so chose (some thought they might with Die Vecna, Die! but that didn't pan out) since they own the characters and setting. Just like Obsidian owns Project Eternity. So if Obsidian wants to make the gods unkill-able...they can. And they can also let the PC and party challenge the unkill-able gods and get killed. Just like getting the Lady of Pain's attention was a death sentence in PST. Which was my point all along and I'm vaguely confused as to why we're here.

Some of the jRPGs have dealt with this idea - Namco's TALES OF GRACES f for example; more or less with 4 main characters Asbel, Sophie, Cheria and Hubert all as kids where they have an adventure (that goes wrong) and then later as adults who end up coming together to deal with some further issues that tie into that original ill-fated adventure. I was hoping for a western style cRPG. But, yeah, jRPG's like this concept. Cloud and Tifa, childhood friends. I don't remember character names, but Golden Sun I think did very similar things, too. Oh I think its fertile ground to play with. I suppose Fallout 3 toys with it - by giving you the ability to "play" parts of your childhood and bringing you back as an adult. But it ultimately is a minor part of that game. I could see a game in a less hard defined plot (like most jRPGs) having a lot of room to do some early choice / consequences to really give your character a more defined (yet still creator defined) background.