Romance and friendship?

[Tick]

And what about negative relations ?

 

If you have murderer and rapist in your party and you are paladin then he will almost allways disagree with you, and if he will got pissed enough even mayby try to kill you were you are alone or spleeping.

 

Roge when pissed may steal from you, pladin can atact you if he jump to conclusion that you are "evil" etc.

 

In NWN2 at the ending some of your comapniong might even join your nemesis to kill you. And even you can join Archevil agins whole your party i think that this was of biggest reasons i like NWN2...

 

I think that not onle romances and frinships can be done in eternity but also hatred.

 

I liked Alpha protocol desin in influence-system, everywon can love (npcs, enemys, friends etc), like or hate you and ALLWAYS you have some benefits from that Having enemy that likes and respect you (but still is you enemy) or hate you gave you diffrend benefits...

 

What do you think about that ?

 

Absolutely! I didn't think that negative status (and the results from that) with others, either groups or individuals, was even a question. It's especially great if the attitudes can change based on events in the game or one's (or another party member's) actions - it's the reason the reputation system in Vegas was so much fun. The more variety of character interaction and consequences, the better.

Edited October 16, 2012 by Tick

[ravenshrike]

Absolutely no. You freaks already have your mass-market virtual "relationship" simulators with Bioware games. Start playing japanese dating sims if you need more virtual relationships with nuance and drama and "tasteful" sex.

 

Deep characterisations for companions - yes, absolute.

Virtual **** puppets you can dress up and validate your lonely basement-dwelling existence - hell no.

 

Problem is that the two Black Isle/Obsidian games with famously deep characterizations had romance, although the form and style differed from Bioware's.

 

The reason being because romance can add another layer of depth to a relationship.

 

What games?

 

Probably MotB and PS:T. They're Avellone "romances" though. So they're really tragedies that aren't offensive. They were written to pretty much punish those looking for virtual love/sex because our good Lord and savior Avellone famously hates the romances we all loathe.

 

No, I meant Kotor 2.

 

MotB isn't tragic if you play it correctly. Its also the only good straightforward romance in an Obsidian game.

Well, Kaelyn is tragic, even her good ending, but that has more to do with the nature of FR than anything inherent in the romances. Somehow I doubt WOTC was prepared to let them destroy the Wall of the Faithless.

[ravenshrike]

Didn't that happen to Aerie in BG2 at some point? I never romanced her, so I don't know the details.

 

I think there was something with Haer'Dalis. I can't be sure as Aerie always mysteriously died in every single one of my playthroughs.

[evdk]

Well, Kaelyn is tragic, even her good ending, but that has more to do with the nature of FR than anything inherent in the romances. Somehow I doubt WOTC was prepared to let them destroy the Wall of the Faithless.

Sure, nobody is allowed to destroy FR but WotC themselves. But they did a marvelous job.

[Monte Carlo]

[Ieo]

Man, moving this thing to the general forum...

 

oh, ok. I thought we all liked to be able to pursue romances and friendships :S

 

Most of us do, there was a good poll that showed that most people wanted an element of Romance\Sex in the game.

 

But there is a small and vociferous group that jump on every Romance discussion and say things like " No Romance, an RPG is not about Romance" and aarguments start and the thread gets closed.

 

Now I am not going to say who is right or wrong, I support Romance/Sex, but I will not presume to tell you what defines your RPG experience by telling you " what an RPG is". This would be hubris, and who likes to be told they are arrogant?

 

Actually, I don't believe you're right on the numbers. Besides the usual "forumgoers are a much smaller percentage of blah blah." There's a small number who desperately want romances in, and then a contingency on the other side. Most people actually have preferences but can go either way no matter Obsidian's decision, just with the hope that it'll be done tastefully and without sacrificing the non-romance content of a given companion.

[Moirnelithe]

Thank you mods.

[Malcador]

Aw, why did they delete his post ? Was pretty funny. I've become of the mind there should be romances, but none involving the player.

Edited October 16, 2012 by Malcador

[DiabolicallyRandom]

I am OK with "romance" - but first things first - friendship - should be the first priority, and is far more important. I want to be able to build friendships. Romance is "secondary" to that, and I can do with or without it - if it flows naturally, fine - if it feels forced, then its going to break the 4th wall.

 

In addition, you can have "romance" without "sex" - To use an example from Dragon Age: Origins - I was completely enthralled by Leliana's song sung to the PC - but I found the "sex" scenes rather forced and out of place.

 

tl;dr - friendship first, romance only if it "fits" and makes sense.

[Merin]

My signature has a link to the last romance thread, including the poll. I'll leave my stated answers there as my answers for here.

 

EDIT - here it is, in case you can't quite find the word "Romance" below - http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60688-romance-in-project-eternity-how-important-how-much/

Edited October 16, 2012 by Merin

[Tale]

Personal remarks are unnecessary, people.

[Malcador]

Why would I remove my pledge just because their might be no romances in PE ? I like them and want them in PE -but they hardly make or break the game I want to support with my pledge. The only immature crowd in regard to the topic "romances" seems to be gathered in this thread here, covering their ears, stomping their feet, blubbering "noooooo" on just the hint of a suggestion that something that might, perhaps resemble romances might be in PE.

 

Eh ? Well this topic's been treaded over with you lot wanting romances to - I dunno, make you feel more immersed or adding depth to your character because some NPC really likes you and says sappy things - and people have made arguments against it more than your, heh, characterization of them as stomping their feet. Mainly a time/resource investment vs. the return on it (so for example, would rather them work on making a city's tale more engrossing as opposed to giving the player's ego some fluffing up).

 

Meh, at this point though I guess they have money to spare so that fluff shouldn't hurt. They should have put it as a stretch goal and milk you lot, but too late, heh.

[Loranc]

Nick K: “Romances, are you planning on developing them in Project: Eternity as well?”

 

Feargus Urquhart: “Romances take a lot of effort, and I don’t want to be cagey on romances at all. We don’t want to make them a stretch goal, it’s just a question of if we feel comfortable with the funding. We have to do them right. Some people were giving us flak about, you know, the goal to get to the first companion, class, race, and things like that. They weren’t completely wrong in their criticism, but we don’t have nefarious reasons behind it. If it’s a pretty in depth companion Chris Avellone, who is a pretty quick writer, is looking at 2 or 3 months just for writing it up.”

 

Not sure why you'd automatically assume that Romance options wouldn't be in this game or even bother comparing this community to that of Bioware. Just because the newest trend of game romance Dragon Age, Mass Effect has corrupted the Romance 'theme and idea' doesn't mean it has to stay that way. To be honest I felt BG2 and PST were both done extremely well with the way they handled romance. I could do without the sex aspect of it and the sex cut scenes. Always thought that was a stupid addition to an rpg.

 

I think the way that romance is handled in video games in this day and age has really soured and crippled people's view of it. Comparing it to a JRPG dating simulation.... is very sad. It's not that romance in PE is a bad concept, it just seems to me that the community has been completely mislead in the past years due to gaming companies trying to capitalize on 'sex', just as Hollywood has been since the start. For some reason the word romance in a game - automatically has the assumption that romance=sex=gifting for affection (like a dating simulation)=cut scene nakedness=multiple sex partners=.... you get the idea. Not to mention most of the romance feels forced and there's no way out of not having the romance theme shoved in your face.

 

And for this very reason I completely understand everyone's disdain and hatred of romance in video games. DA2 pretty much shoved the romance theme in your face every which way you looked. There was no way not to notice the romance in DA2, no matter what dialogue options you chose, if you were 'nice' to certain companions - they instantly fell in love with you and shoved romance into your playing experience. Not to mention that they didn't only toss romance poorly into your face but they also made it a MAJOR part of the game. In Mass effect you could 'save' your Romance, which than it carried over to ME2, and showed up again in ME3. Not only did they make it a major part of the game but they also diverted substantial amounts of funding to it with the amount of cut scenes and voice acting. Just imagine how much each individual cut scene and VO dialogue for every possible romance cost the company, and it explains why ME3 felt like a ****ty ass rpg compared to what we come to expect of rpgs.

 

So.. I get it. I understand everyone's reasoning behind why this is such a big issue. The main points I believe are these romance;

 

*Don't make it a major part of the game. (Example refer to post about about ME)

 

*Don't shove it in my face, and force me to have to experience it. (Some people would prefer to have the romance implemented in a way that they won't notice that it's even in the game.)

 

*Don't divert funding to it, K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple stupid, don't put in cut scenes or VO for it. If you're going to put romance into the game than at least do it right, focus on the RP aspect of it more than the eye/ear candy aspect.)

 

*NO sex scenes for crying out loud. (Sick and tired of hearing sex noises and fading to a black screen. That is NOT 'romance', that is pure Hollywood BS being thrust into video games because people have this idea in their heads that they want to see their companions nakkid so they can fantasize about them.)

 

*Keep it small. (Not every character should/needs a romance option, limit it to 1-2 companions and leave it at that. Makes it even easier for people to avoid it that way, by just avoiding those two companions all together.)

 

*Make it believable. (Just because I was 'nice' to you shouldn't mean that you now want to jump into bed with me. Or just because I showered you with festival gifts...... 'thank you for that one DA'...)

 

I'm sure there are many more points that I missed and several people will probably flame me, which is cool. But, my most memorable game has and will always be Planescape Torment, and one thing I loved in that game was the romance banter with Annah. In fact most people who have played that game didn't even 'notice' or know it was there, because it was really well hidden and subtle. It was never thrown in your face or forced upon you and it didn't detract from one's experience of the game at all.

 

The problem still remains, trying to break people of this 'new' concept of romance. And i'm sorry for such a long post but I'm really angered and out raged by the way companies have been handling this issue. It makes me wonder how much better of a game MA and DAO could have been if they cut out the 'sex' cut scenes (I don't believe they were ever needed.), if DAO removed the 'gifting' feature. (I doubt anyone would have cared.), and if romance hadn't been a major part of the story line for both games. (Some may argue that it wasn't a major part but keep in mind of the number of cut scenes - VO's that were in DAO, ME, throughout the entire game. This in of itself makes it a major part of the game/story.) That's 'Millions' of dollars diverted to 'eye candy', 'fan service', instead of what could have possibly been some of the best games ever created.

 

If people want nudity/sex in their game leave that to the modders. Games like Fallout and Skyrim have a modding community in which 'Full nudity' is one of the top downloaded mods, a long with 'real sexual actions'. Everytime I click 'top rated mods' that 'crap' so to speak is always on or near the top. You'll notice as time goes by though (sometimes as years go by) that the 'nude' mods vanish off the list and what ladies and gents are we left with; UI's, Enhanced Graphic Textures, Enhanced NPCS, Enhanced Companions, Weapon and Armor Textures, More Companions, Enhanced Night/Sky, Enhanced Monsters, etc etc. This gives us an idea of once the 'fan service' is over with what people actually want in their RPG experience.

 

An example of an amazing cut scene that was worth the money would be Leliana's Song. That's something that 'adds' to the game in whole and actually makes sense to have a VO and Cut scene for.

 

 

I am all for romance in PE but not the stereotypical nonsense that gets tossed at us in this day of age. So I beg of you Obsidian, if you do implement it, please please please, do it right.

[kenup]

An example of an amazing cut scene that was worth the money would be Leliana's Song. That's something that 'adds' to the game in whole and actually makes sense to have a VO and

No way, that was one of the things I skipped immediately. It didn't add anything, to the plot or the character.

[Aedelric]

Strangely Bioware are the people you can use as an example of how to do it right and how to do it very wrong.

[DiabolicallyRandom]

An example of an amazing cut scene that was worth the money would be Leliana's Song. That's something that 'adds' to the game in whole and actually makes sense to have a VO and

No way, that was one of the things I skipped immediately. It didn't add anything, to the plot or the character.

 

I would disagree - I think it added alot to the lore and background of the character, especially and including the discussions leading up to its eventual happening.

[Loranc]

An example of an amazing cut scene that was worth the money would be Leliana's Song. That's something that 'adds' to the game in whole and actually makes sense to have a VO and

No way, that was one of the things I skipped immediately. It didn't add anything, to the plot or the character.

 

That was a biased opinion on my part as I love 'music', so of course things like FF3 Opera song are always worth it to me, but you're right it didn't 'truly' add anything, but it did add character development for Leliana herself.

Edited October 16, 2012 by Loranc

[Loranc]

Strangely Bioware are the people you can use as an example of how to do it right and how to do it very wrong.

 

I agree, isn't remarkable how a company can do something so amazing well and at the same time so terribly wrong. It makes you wonder.... what the cause of it is.

Edited October 16, 2012 by Loranc

[kenup]

An example of an amazing cut scene that was worth the money would be Leliana's Song. That's something that 'adds' to the game in whole and actually makes sense to have a VO and

No way, that was one of the things I skipped immediately. It didn't add anything, to the plot or the character.

 

I would disagree - I think it added alot to the lore and background of the character, especially and including the discussions leading up to its eventual happening.

What lore? It's just a song. We knew Leliana was a bard, and not one of the funny ones either. She is not a key character either.

 

All we learned is that she had "angelic voice ooohhhh" while dealing with her victims.

[Nonek]

I'm sorry but that Lelilaalalana(shaana na naana) bit first made me laugh then slowly grow nauseous, please god don't do anything like that.

 

Ever.

 

In any universe.

[jarpie]

This is what I wrote in earlier topic, as I am lazy I'm just gonna copypaste it:

 

 

As I said before: "Like Monte Carlo said, the problem with romances is that writing a single NPC Companion takes couple months, and if you do one romance (for example if you play male-character and have romanceable female companion), then people would demand romances for female -> male, male -> male, female -> female and that's basicly six months of writing and takes basicly four companions, and even if you dont romance the said characters their interactions/dialogue/etc will be limited because writing time and resources were spend on writing romances of what only a portion would play.

 

The budget for this game will be limited already so Obsidian has to look and think where they put it and get as much as possible out of it. IMHO it's better to concentrate on maybe on a bit fewer things than to spread too thin."

 

So in short; if say like they have certain amount of time and words per companion set, they would be wasting probably half if not more of those words for romance which less players would actually play, instead of having all the resourced words and time for non-romantic relationship.

 

We're not talking just about one companion but four out of seven.

 

All players could enjoy the friendship-like content but romance-content could be enjoyed only those who likes them and IMHO it would waste of already limited resources.

[BSoda]

Why would I remove my pledge just because their might be no romances in PE ? I like them and want them in PE -but they hardly make or break the game I want to support with my pledge. The only immature crowd in regard to the topic "romances" seems to be gathered in this thread here, covering their ears, stomping their feet, blubbering "noooooo" on just the hint of a suggestion that something that might, perhaps resemble romances might be in PE.

 

Eh ? Well this topic's been treaded over with you lot wanting romances to - I dunno, make you feel more immersed or adding depth to your character because some NPC really likes you and says sappy things - and people have made arguments against it more than your, heh, characterization of them as stomping their feet. Mainly a time/resource investment vs. the return on it (so for example, would rather them work on making a city's tale more engrossing as opposed to giving the player's ego some fluffing up).

 

Meh, at this point though I guess they have money to spare so that fluff shouldn't hurt. They should have put it as a stretch goal and milk you lot, but too late, heh.

Sigh Arguing the "needs too much resources" angle is fine and factual. Dropping empty, inciting words like "dating simulator", "Bioware romance", or "(certain) japanese games" aren't however. The constant veiled insults -all some variation of "get a life"- don't help, either...and the later seems to make up a felt 95% of all the "arguments" anti-romancers seem to be able to come up with.

Edited October 16, 2012 by BSoda

[Monte Carlo]

LOLOLOLOLOLLLLLL

 

[kabaliero]

An example of an amazing cut scene that was worth the money would be Leliana's Song. That's something that 'adds' to the game in whole and actually makes sense to have a VO and

No way, that was one of the things I skipped immediately. It didn't add anything, to the plot or the character.

 

Same. Plus with the overall arrangement with this animation, ugh, it's just horrible.

(Not to mention the particulary white-trashy warden in the video)

[kenup]

An example of an amazing cut scene that was worth the money would be Leliana's Song. That's something that 'adds' to the game in whole and actually makes sense to have a VO and

No way, that was one of the things I skipped immediately. It didn't add anything, to the plot or the character.

 

Same. Plus with the overall arrangement with this animation, ugh, it's just horrible.

(Not to mention the particulary white-trashy warden in the video)

I didn't even notice the warden. The title was enough!

 

@Loranc FF3 was way back. Considering what modern technology and VO can do, I wouldn't call Leliana's song Opera level. And I have no problem if you like the song itself, none has the exact same tastes in music, it was a waste from a game and plot perspective though.

Edited October 16, 2012 by kenup