Namutree

Speaking as a young married man, I have to say that the inability to cast yourself as a married person(even if your spouse is never depicted in the game and remains abstract) is a little unfortunate. Or as a widow/widower if that's more convenient and economical from a writing standpoint. I don't think this would be applicable because Romance is optional, so I'm battling understand why you would want to be married in a RPG but never meet your wife or have no interaction with her? If this is a reason to not Romance then the solution should be to just not follow any Romance options? It could simply be a biography choice. Early in the game where you are asked about the past you could say, "I've got a wife/husband back home." Then once in a while you could receive a letter at your stronghold from your wife/husband. Heck, that would be pretty neat. I think I might add that via mod. It would certainly be a unique romance mod.

I disagree that Jade Empire would fall into the mini-game category. The primary focus in the Jade Empire romances was whether or not you convinced the love interest to remain open-palm, or become closed-fist. Actually getting them to love you was pretty much a given.

Don't get me wrong, I understand wanting to shake things up a bit because the current format of romances doesn't really work. But... NPCs are supposed to be their own person. Is it really such a problem that they might not like you? That would be funny if in poe2 they let you start what seems like a romance, but then the npc just says he/she just doesn't like you. It's wouldn't be a good idea, but it would make me laugh. I'd call it a Trollmance!

In the case of Jade Empire; the Sky romance fit the mood pretty well. After you defeated Death's Hand; you get to kiss Sky all dramatic like. It really made that moment of triumph feel even more epic. It was perfect timing; a dramatic kiss in a dramatic moment. If Bioware had managed to keep that level of quality in its future romances; romances would have a much better reputation.

I am now a backer and will be playing the BETA! Hurray! Thank you again Obsidian for Pillars of Eternity!

December the 14th is a Sunday. The only countries in the world where video games are released on Sunday make kids go to school on Saturday. Otherwise Western corporations frown on the practice of having a truck deliver a crate of video games to a store on Friday, and telling the store they absolutely mustn't sell any of them on Saturday, their busiest trading day of the week. Well done thanks for playing. My time Machine was damaged; I'm sorry everyone. It's fixed now; so don't worry. I rechecked and poe will not be released in 2014 at all... It will be released on June 9th 2089. Get ready for a long wait.

On the 1st of August,; I will make pledge some money. I don't know how much, but it will be at least enough for the beta. Thank you Obsidian for making a successor to the IE games.

Everyone who didn't say December 14th is simply wrong. It's December 14th. I used a time machine and checked.

I doubt darkening the wood pattern a bit so the white text would stand out more will take much time. I bet it would take five minuets. Maybe less.

It will be December 14th.

An outline could make the text easier to read.

It makes sense to not give xp for killing. They don't want you to feel punished for resolving a situation peacefully, or encourage you to fight just for xp.

There is an interview between Pc Gamer and Josh about poe and other stuff on youtube. Lucky for us the description allows us to jump strait to the poe content. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3vDQaUnNo8 Check it out if you haven't yet! BTW: IT'S COOL!!! Great opening Josh!

You may be disappointed that Josh said adding new areas via mod was going to be difficult. New Npcs and quest shouldn't too hard though.

I friggin loved Sir Roderick Ponce von Fontlebottom the Magnificent Bastard! I wish asking him to join you could have been a reward for his quest, and then... ROMANCE!

There are certain RPG I have never played before and Jade Empire is one of them. I want to play it and soon because people talk about it fairly regularly. Do you recommend it? Absolutely! It can be a bit too easy, but if you play on grand master difficulty you at least need to try; unless Storm Dragon gets involved. The plot is great. The romances are good. The action is fun. The Chinese theme is cool. The enemies are interesting; except those dang Horse Demons! The games is awesome, but for some reason when you beat it; you need to wait at least two years before you play it again. Also, Furious Ming. He looks so furious in the closed fist ending.

Bruce, did you like the way romances were handled in Jade Empire, or did you not play it?

Well Throne of Bhaal was the expansion so yeah; a part of BG2.

I seriously doubt that there will be long distance attacking familiars. The threat of using them is if they take damage; so do you. Distance attacks seriously reduces that danger and thus making them over-powered; unless the distance attacking familiar is very weak, but that comes with its own issues.

I think Josh would use kickstarter for poe2 if he needed to, but he doesn't want to.

I want double shields.

My Mod history continued... After the torture device known as the Tzar editor was behind me I moved to a bit of Rom Hacking: It was a big hurdle for me and I really struggled with it. I had tutorials, but dang that stuff was a challenge to get into. I don't know how quickly other people pick up hacking roms for mods, but it took me a while. I have 150+ hours making my first functioning and completed romhack. I don't know if that's good or bad. I REALLY wanted to get it done right. Shadowrun for the sega genesis was my first romhack. I replaced a few useless weapons, and changed some of the dialog; along with some other changes. After that I played BG for the first time and loved it. I did the super simple stuff like add in my own portraits, but never really messed with it. Next came BG2; which is my favorite RPG ever. I was going to Mod it, and even did some research on how, but while getting the tools and gleaning information I realized that everything I wanted to do was already done. So I mostly acquired mods rather than make them. IE modding is not something I have ever really done, but as I said before I did do a little research to get an idea on how tough it was. Some of the knowledge on modding translates to other mediums; so I expect I'll be able to figure it out. If there's a will; there is a way! To answer how much time and work is required to mod something; a lot usually. That said, games that come with editors are MUCH easier than games without them. Also, some people figure out how to do stuff much faster than others. I feel I am a bit slower than usual, but I make up for it with determination. If I do manage to mod poe; it will probably be the hardest modding I have ever done. Don't expect anything from me for at least a year. Sadly, all my mods with the exception of my Starcraft mods are gone. They were on old computers and they broke. I posted my Starcraft stuff on Battle.Net; so it remains on the internet. BTW, does RPG Maker count? I have experience with that too, but since the whole thing was meant to be worked on it isn't very impressive.

I have never created a romance mod before, but I do have some experience modding. I have also read a lot of literature and do some writing as a hobby. Combining my mod abilities and my writing skills shouldn't be too challenging. That said; I'm not an expert on the unity engine. It could be a while before a mod made by me comes out for poe. That's very interesting, what games have you created Mods for? The reason I ask is I don't really know any Modders personally who create Mods for games I play and I'm interested in how long a Mod takes and how much work is involved? I know this is a very broad question as it obviously depends on the type of Mod. But if you don't mind maybe you can share the logistics and timelines around a Mod you have been involved in? I love using Mods and I have huge respect for people who are prepared to spend there personal time enhancing a game for the benefit of others. I'll tell you the whole story of my modding/game making history: I have create Mods for a few games. At first I started with the incredibly simple, "HACKED Star Craft Editor"; I would make alterations to popular Battle.Net game modes. Often I'd add the title "Glorious" to new versions of the game types to signify it was my creation. I'm not sure if that would count as modding, but it helped me get started. After that I got a game making program called, "Game Maker", it was pretty simple, but helped me figure out how to make good content. (By good I mean fun; not graphically or technically impressive.) My first self-created games were maze games. Followed by side scrolling shooters, platformers, strategy, and finally adventure games. All this gave me a small amount of scripting skills. After that I got Elder Scrolls 3:Morrowind. I made changes to the game using the game editor and changed the game to suit my tastes. It wasn't very hard thanks to Bethesda making the editor user friendly. I did learn a little about working with 3D though. The next one will probably be unknown to everyone but me. I worked on the editor for Tzar: Burden of the Crown. This editor was super easy for making maps, but God help you for making decent events. I made a few campaigns for me and my friends to enjoy (They were coop campaigns) together. Working with Tzar editor will give you the patience to handle real modding. Tzar Editor still gives me nightmares... Part 2 Still to come...