Sex and Romance Poll

[Crosmando]

Planescape: Torment (none)

 

Incorrect.

Ahhh, that kiss

[BasaltineBadger]

Will anti-romance crowd get back to the 80's please.

 

I think you mean 90's and yes, that is exactly what Project Eternity is advertising itself as attempting to do.

 

Project Eternity is advertising itself as a return to IE games, many of which had romances in one form or another. It was never advertised as a hardcore no-bull**** super-serious combat only RPG.

[Bos_hybrid]

There are not a huge strain on the budget.

 

If you repeat it a thousand time it won't change the fact, they are. Otherwise bio would have 20 of them

 

By using that logic we should remove every element not everyone is going to see and not everyone is going to like that somehow costs money: item descriptions, sub-quests, every companion beyond the maximum companion limit, minor NPC dialogue, hidden bosses and the rest of party banter entirely. But for that reason? To include a newspaper many players won't like or even notice either?

 

That's what you want, you want the risk of losing branching pathways, quests, companion, a class, just for something you want. You can claim many people, but the facts are this, you want them.

 

 

Mass Effect had a huge budget, to even compare them is a joke.

 

I was comparing the percentages not the whole. Why do you think that romances will somehow make up more of party dialogue in a game not focused on romances and probably with loads of in-party dialogue than in a game that was focused on romances and had very little party dialogue.

 

Mass effect was almost love boat in space by the end. The amount of romances and continuing romances it had, was quite frankly astonishing. Perhaps if they had spent more time with other areas of the game, it might of not been so..... Well you know, what we ended up with.

 

 

Betrayer. Mask of the Betrayer. And it was more than 3 million. Plus they where very, very minor and there was only two of them. I somehow doubt this is want people are suggesting when they request romances.

 

Sure, everyone here want 18 romances, each with 10 hours worth of dubbed dialogue and 4 endings.

 

Would not surprise me.

 

Lets do math shall we, 1 Straight male, 1 straight female, 1 lesbian and 1 gay male. So that's four, then people will cry about lack of choice. So to be equal Obs adds another 1 of each, now we have 8 romances.

 

8 romances that have to be written, by a writer, 8 romances that have to implemented properly by designers, then 8 romances that need to go through QA to make sure the don't screw up the game.

 

 

I couldn't care less about what bio does. This is Obsidian.

 

Obsidian makes romances. This is a fact.

 

Obsidian can make romances, they don't have to, unlike bioware.

 

Time is money, money = resources, resources are better spent elsewhere.

For you, I and probably many other people would do without a newspaper telling me what I just did. You are just asking them to carter to a minority for no reason at all.

 

Numbers people, you have proof, there are 40,000 backers. You have over 35,000 with your opinion? No, didn't think so.

Edited September 18, 2012 by Bos_hybrid

[TwinkieGorilla]

No, I did not.

 

Yes, you did. I asked you to name a revered cRPG and you named a popular console Action-RPG game.

 

And it's just your opinion on ME, you can't pretend that the game is not revered for romances and as a good cRPG because you don't like it. I just showed you that the whole question is pointless.

 

Yes, the game is revered for romances. No, it's not a revered cRPG. It is simply a popular console Action-RPG game.

Edited September 18, 2012 by TwinkieGorilla

[TwinkieGorilla]

Project Eternity is advertising itself as a return to IE games, many of which had romances in one form or another.

 

And again I ask you: Do you feel those IE games are revered because of those romances?

[JediMB]

There are not a huge strain on the budget.

 

If you repeat it a thousand time it won't change the fact, they are. Otherwise bio would have 20 of them

 

You're comparing something that would likely consist of only text-based dialogue and simple scripted movement to the BioWare romances that require tons of work on character models, voice-recording and cutscene animation. BioWare's romances are restricted for the very same reasons that character interaction in general is restricted in modern RPGs, and that's because they're made in a style where content takes much more time and is very expensive to produce.

 

Adding dialogue in an unvoiced isometric RPG is mostly a matter of adding a few lines to a script (depending on what sort of scripting system the engine uses, of course). These things were often done much more spontaneously in the isometric RPG's golden age (circa 1998), but that's simply not possible for modern "cinematic" games.

[Continuity]

Luckily, the Obsidian devs doesn't have as bad taste as the pro-romance people so we have nothing to worry about anyway.

[BasaltineBadger]

If you repeat it a thousand time it won't change the fact, they are. Otherwise bio would have 20 of them

 

Because Bioware wants nothing but romances and the only reason the didn't include more was because they are super-expensive. There is no possibility that they wanted few romances and put those into their games.

 

That's what you want, you want the risk of losing branching pathways, quests, companion, a class, just for something you want. You can claim many people, but the facts are this, you want them.

 

Number of companions is set in stone. And resources needed to make and balance another companion and class don't outweigh the resources needed to create romance sideplot. You want fancy newspaper, I want romance, why pretend that some of us is the true RPG gamer while the discussion is mostly about tastes. None of those things are objectively more important than the other.

 

Would not surprise me.

 

Lets do math shall we, 1 Straight male, 1 straight female, 1 lesbian and 1 gay male. So that's four, then people will cry about lack of choice. So to be equal Obs adds another 1 of each, now we have 8 romances.

 

8 romances that have to be written, by a writer, 8 romances that have to implemented properly by designers, then 8 romances that need to go through QA to make sure the don't screw up the game.

 

I want one romance. Baldur's Gate had 4, MoTB had 2 and nobody was bitching about that. This is a strawman argument. Of course making numerous romances would be affect budget but that's not what either side wants.

 

 

Obsidian can make romances, they don't have to, unlike bioware.

 

 

They weren't in NV, they weren't in DS3, they weren't in SOZ.

 

There were no romances in MDK2 or Baldur's Gate 1, your point?

 

 

 

Numbers people, you have proof, there are 40,000 backers. You have over 35,000 with your opinion? No, didn't think so.

 

The pool results are in favor of pro-romance crowd. But probably that doesn't convince you. But from the developer's point of view it's better to include romances. There are many people who like them and would be more inclined to buy the game if they are there but to this day I've never heard about one person who decided not to buy an RPG just because romances were there.

 

@Twinkle gorilla:

Mass Effect is revered as a great RPG, often being place on many "best RPGs" ever list, and action RPG is still an RPG. And I still don't understand the logic of removing everything the IE games weren't revered for.

Edited September 18, 2012 by BasaltineBadger

[TwinkieGorilla]

Luckily, the Obsidian devs doesn't have as bad taste as the pro-romance people so we have nothing to worry about anyway.

 

Of course.

 

It boggles my mind that out of all the things which made old cRPGs classic and brilliant, people are clamoring for the same next-gen, consolized, popamole, virtualLARP that they can easily obtain from any number of BioWare or Bethesda games (or heck, Second Life while we're at it).

[Crosmando]

Bioware also pays professional (although still terrible) voice actors for every line of dialogue, meaning they don't have the budget to pay for scripting of more choices in dialogue, more quests, a bigger world, more of everything. I think some in Obsidian would even argue that the demand from publishers to voice every line of dialogue to make the game more like a movie, is the major reason for the decline of RPG's.

 

Also, anyone who says romance dialogues are inexpensive has never tried to learn C++ out of a book, I lasted about a month before giving up....

[Hagen]

I simply want Obsidian to do their thing. If that includes a romance I find appealing, great. If it includes a romance I don't find appealing, no problem! If that means there won't be any romances at all, I won't complain. If they can include an optional and mature love story, by all means, they should go right ahead.

 

However, the inclusion of romances tends to open some cans of worms, and I want *none* of those.

 

First, the people with the checklist. As soon as a dev confirms the inclusion of romances, there WILL be people who'll let the devs and writers know which sexual orientations absolutely need pandering to and how many romanceable characters are required for them lest the game be branded as non-inclusive. And if worst comes to worst, you'll find yourself running around with a gaggle of PC-sexual companions in tow who are just waiting for you to mis-click the heart icon.

 

Second, romances can lead to characters who are obvious romance-bait and are either uninteresting or downright annoying if you are not into their respective romances. Yes, I get that some people are totally into the "fix the broken whiner with tru wuv" sub-plot, but all those of us who are not are still stuck with the broken whiner. Luckily it has been stated that all companions in PE will be optional, yay.

 

Third, I really don't want this forum turn into some kind of BSN enclave. If we all wake up one day and find that the thread "Storyline discussion" has 200 pages, but "Fenders - She's a keeper" has 3000, then - in my opinion - something has gone wrong.

 

I want this to be an Obsidian game, and I want them to handle story and potential romances as they see fit. I do NOT want another twilighty trainwreck like DA2.

Edited September 18, 2012 by Hagen

[Bos_hybrid]

That's what you want, you want the risk of losing branching pathways, quests, companion, a class, just for something you want. You can claim many people, but the facts are this, you want them.

 

Number of companions is set in stone. And resources needed to make and balance another companion and class don't outweigh the resources needed to create romance sideplot. You want fancy newspaper, I want romance, why pretend that some of us is the true RPG gamer while the discussion is mostly about tastes. None of those things are objectively more important than the other.

 

It's all about opinion. When have I said otherwise?

 

Would not surprise me.

 

Lets do math shall we, 1 Straight male, 1 straight female, 1 lesbian and 1 gay male. So that's four, then people will cry about lack of choice. So to be equal Obs adds another 1 of each, now we have 8 romances.

 

8 romances that have to be written, by a writer, 8 romances that have to implemented properly by designers, then 8 romances that need to go through QA to make sure the don't screw up the game.

 

I want one romance. Baldur's Gate had 4, MoTB had 2 and nobody was bitching about that. This is a strawman argument. Of course making numerous romances would be affect budget but that's not what either side wants.

 

:lol: :lol:

 

Do you know this **** storm it would create if only males had romances and there was no homosexual ones to boot?

 

 

Obsidian can make romances, they don't have to, unlike bioware.

They weren't in NV, they weren't in DS3, they weren't in SOZ.

There were no romances in MDK2 or Baldur's Gate 1, your point?

 

Well done compare Obsidians latest games to bio's first two games...........

 

 

Numbers people, you have proof, there are 40,000 backers. You have over 35,000 with your opinion? No, didn't think so.

 

The pool results are in favor of pro-romance crowd. But probably that doesn't convince you. But from the developer's point of view it's better to include romances. There are many people who like them and would be more inclined to buy the game if they are there but to this day I've never heard about one person who decided not to buy an RPG just because romances were there.

 

Of course not, it's like me posting this poll in the codex and bringing to you the response as proof of people not wanting romances.

 

Anyone that doesn't make a pledge for this game because of lack of romances............. Well that's just sad.

Edited September 18, 2012 by Bos_hybrid

[TwinkieGorilla]

@Twinkle gorilla:

Mass Effect is revered as a great RPG, often being place on many "best RPGs" ever list, and action RPG is still an RPG. And I still don't understand the logic of removing everything the IE games weren't revered for.

 

What are you not understanding here? Mass Effect is an Action-RPG designed for consoles. It is not a cRPG. This is a fact.

 

I'm not talking about removing anything. I'm talking about not including frivolous and unnecessary LARP-oriented nonsense which will not add anything substantial to the game.

[BasaltineBadger]

It's all about opinion. When have I said otherwise?

 

The point is that the discussion is meaningless. In the end you consider them a waste I consider them good, and discussing how much work it takes to make them is meaningless because you won't want devs to spend even one man-hour of them. We should stop before we waste even more time on that discussion.

 

Do you know this **** storm it would create if only males had romances and there was no homosexual ones to boot?

 

Frankly I don't care. The good thing about Obsidian being low-profile was that they could do whatever they wanted without causing the ****storm.

 

Well done compare Obsidians latest games to bio's first two games...........

 

The point was that Bioware also don't have to make romances.

 

Of course not, it's like me posting this poll in the codex and bringing to you the response as proof of people not wanting romances.

 

Anyone that doesn't make a pledge for this game because of lack of romances............. Well that's just sad.

 

Yeah, it's not that convincing, and I'm thinking more about other people who would be interested in buying the game after the release, the ones who didn't play every Obsidian RPG ever released.

Edited September 18, 2012 by BasaltineBadger

[hackdirt]

In my first playthrough of BGII I didn't even realize there were romance plots. As long as romances are not forced on you and don't play a major part of the game and don't have poorly written/animated sex scenes, I'm fine with it. I want the devs to focus on gameplay and storytelling, not pandering to fanboys/girls and worrying about being all-inclusive.

 

If you want virtual lover, Bioware has plenty for you, and there's a plethora of Skyrim mods for that too.

[Enclave]

es had romances foisted on them by the publishers. Several of important developers are on record saying that they dislike them.

 

 

Link ?

 

So far I have this:

 

http://forums.obsidi..._120__p__725311

 

Not entirely what I had in mind but still informative.

 

Yes, very informative. J.E. Sawyer doesn`t hate romance in games, he just hates how it`s portrayed in games usually. Seems he agrees with me based on his post in that thread.

[Wintersong]

The fact you would compare romances to a mac version is.......... well let's say silly. Mac user and Linux user are people that will pledge for this game that might otherwise not. They are not a drain on resources, because they have been budgeted as stretch goals. Romances are a drain on resources, an unnecessary one.

Silly? As silly as demanding not to have romances so you can have other in-game features instead? Or less silly because Mac version doesn't add to the content of the game itself and a Mac version can be considered after the release of the Windows version?

 

Everything in the frakking game is a drain on resources. Are we ok in that? Or do we disagree?

 

It's not about if Obsidian should do tacky romances or porn movies. It's not about if Obsidian should make romances the centre of the game. Some people don't want any kind of romances, some may want them to be the central part of the game, some want lesbian orgies and some wish that they could had romanced the mabari in DAO. But the real issue is about if in a game that is supposed to be mature, and which happens to be an RPG, romance has a place as one of the interactions (not necesarily with the companions, normal NPCs need love too ).

 

If the devs consider that it really has place then it's a matter of treating it the same as any other in-game feature. Which means checking if in addition to having a place it's also doable. If it's doable, then to which degree and all that boring stuff that game developers have to fight against, juggling numbers and different features fighting for a limited resource pool of money (and time).

 

Devs do make mistakes and sometimes add features that in the end aren't so good or cost too much or harm other systems. That is not always the case, obviously. But the case of this and many other threads is resumed in "I don't like it therefore don't spend a cent in it". Which is silly. Devs are the only ones who can really judge if a feature has a place or not and the associated topics to its possible development. But hey, let's go back to the interaction of characters level in Eye of the Beholder!!!

 

Sorry if sometimes I forget that I'm naive. Obviously fireguns shouldn't even be in the game because they take resources and some people don't like them, huh? Why waste resources in male/female PC? Let's use some of those androgyn japanese characters and lets save resources for more item descriptions!!!

Edited September 18, 2012 by Wintersong

[evdk]

es had romances foisted on them by the publishers. Several of important developers are on record saying that they dislike them.

 

 

Link ?

 

So far I have this:

 

http://forums.obsidi..._120__p__725311

 

Not entirely what I had in mind but still informative.

 

Yes, very informative. J.E. Sawyer doesn`t hate romance in games, he just hates how it`s portrayed in games usually. Seems he agrees with me based on his post in that thread.

I hate repeating myself but do they have the resources to make such better romances? We'll see how much money they managed to cajole from the faithful.

[TwinkieGorilla]

As silly as demanding not to have romances so you can have other in-game features instead?

 

Do you regard romances as a "game feature"? Would it make or break your decision to purchase a cRPG?

[dlux]

Hmmm, lemme see, lemme see .....

 

Nope, nothing new here. Just the few romance haters constantly repeating themselves and ignoring facts while arguing with the whole PE community.

Edited September 18, 2012 by dlux

[Crosmando]

I'm pretty sure what Bioware does doesn't even classify as "romance", even stretching the definition.

 

I think it's just pushing a few flashing dialogue buttons to trigger a computer-generated soft-porn scene/

[TwinkieGorilla]

ignoring facts while arguing with the whole PE community.

 

Give me a few "facts" and I swear I'll pay them attention and respond.

[dlux]

ignoring facts while arguing with the whole PE community.

 

Give me a few "facts" and I swear I'll pay them attention and respond.

You are welcome to read what has been written in this thread.

[Carmentis]

Hmmm, lemme see, lemme see .....

 

Nope, nothing new here. Just the few romance haters constantly repeating themselves and ignoring facts while arguing with the whole PE community.

 

Pretty much this. Aside from me missing Torment actually having romance options they ignored my list and post apparently.

 

I find it funny how they automatically equate romance options to 'soft-core porn' and such. How old are you to think romance equals sex?

 

ignoring facts while arguing with the whole PE community.

 

Give me a few "facts" and I swear I'll pay them attention and respond.

 

If you may look back on the last page, you did respond to my post by saying Torment actually had romance (which I sadly can't edit that post anymore) but you nay gave a respond aside from that.

Edited September 18, 2012 by Carmentis

[Darji]

@TwinkleGorilla

People look to Mass Effect as one of the leading example of video game romance, and to NV as the leading example of good portrayal of gay in video games, but what exactly does it prove.

 

No they are not. Almost no one wants a Mass effect like romance option. Again look at Baldurs gate 2 for example. That is the romance most of us want. Not the Bioware one.