Unofficial P.E. Relationship/Romance Thread pt.2

[Crusty]

I think I love you! We should totally implement a romance about it on this forum.

 

 

No. Go on a Japanese dating forum if you want that kind of thing.

Edited October 20, 2012 by Crusty

[evdk]

I think I love you! We should totally implement a romance about it on this forum.

 

 

No. Go on a Japanese dating forum if you want that kind of thing.

Why? It certainly can't be worse that what is in this thread now.

[kenup]

Now, my taking all of ten minutes to find over a half dozen examples from the last five days alone doesn't constitute "a wall" necessarily, which is why I called it an "exaggeration"... and no one exactly said "LOLOLOLOLOL BIOWARE LOLOLOLOL YOU FAP TO CARTOONS" hence me calling it a "paraphrase" -

 

but, yes, I'd call what he said there a fairly accurate representation of people saying, oh, "to little disturbing fan-art in this thread to pass as BSN romance thread ... folks around here need to stop just dreaming about a zombie harem and need to start drawing, or at least photo-shopping it" or "This is clearly a BSN thread with BSN moderating standards".

 

And even if people said anything like that, why do you or HS care? If you do something that others don't like, man up and take the insult like a champ. Why does he bring those up instead of finding real arguments to support his side of the debate? And if you don't do those things, again, why care? They are not that serious insults anyway. Prove that you are above such things, if you feel they are low, don't cry about them.

[Blackstream]

If the devs are smart, they won't get into the quicksand that is party romances. It screws over the whole game. Here is an interesting quote by Mister Chris Avellone:

 

There's been a lot of focus with companion mechanics in terms of like "how do I romance this person?" I'd like to think that there are other types of relationships that you can have with a companion, whether it's friendship, rivalry, hatred, or revenge. Romances end up being an easy target, but I think there's a lot more you can do with companion relationships.

 

http://www.gamesindu...-on-kickstarter

 

You tell em, Chris. Leave the romances in the teen novels and the japanese dating sims.

 

Even though I'm pro-romances, I agree with Chris's statement, but I think I'm reading it differently than you. I read that as, he wants to encompass all sorts of relationships with his writing, just not romances. Whatever makes sense for the character they are writing. Which I'm totally for. Basically I read that as, they want to write real, complex characters with incredible depth, and if that leads to companions having a rivalry with the MC, or some kind of possessive jealous relationship, or some kind of little sister like thing, or teacher/mentor, or yes, a romance, then he'll write that. But he doesn't want to shoehorn it in. Which I don't want either. I do hope there's some kind of romance that I can get into, however, but if it doesn't suit the character designs, then I'll deal with it. Personally, since they're trying to hit themes they wouldn't touch normally, I'd like to see a real triangle of some kind. Similar to Aerie/Haer'Dalis, but better and with more depth. Or possibly, the romantic interest cheats on you, and you gotta deal with the changed party dynamic afterwards. I dunno. There's a lot of interesting possbilities.

[Merin]

Now, my taking all of ten minutes to find over a half dozen examples from the last five days alone doesn't constitute "a wall" necessarily, which is why I called it an "exaggeration"... and no one exactly said "LOLOLOLOLOL BIOWARE LOLOLOLOL YOU FAP TO CARTOONS" hence me calling it a "paraphrase" -

 

but, yes, I'd call what he said there a fairly accurate representation of people saying, oh, "to little disturbing fan-art in this thread to pass as BSN romance thread ... folks around here need to stop just dreaming about a zombie harem and need to start drawing, or at least photo-shopping it" or "This is clearly a BSN thread with BSN moderating standards".

 

And even if people said anything like that, why do you or HS care? If you do something that others don't like, man up and take the insult like a champ. Why does he bring those up instead of finding real arguments to support his side of the debate? And if you don't do those things, again, why care? They are not that serious insults anyway. Prove that you are above such things, if you feel they are low, don't cry about them.

 

Because such things destroy civil discussion? Because they break the forum guidelines? Because it is impossible to have a sane and rational debate when one side resorts to logical fallacies?

 

But, seriously, pax? Can we let the thread return to romance in PE and not who's doing what? I'm at least as guilty as anyone in the thread of derailing it this way... but I'm stopping for today (at least today - hopefully longer.)

 

and I'm just going to get back on topic this way -

 

I don't need romance in Project Eternity. I think it'd be nice if it is part of the story and characters in the game, and I pretty much expect it to be somewhere in the background if nothing else... but I don't need it.

 

And for what I WANT from PE, I'm far more "demanding" (read - desiring, advocating for, but not "my way or the highway") of being able to make my own party.

 

If I got my biggest desire - making my whole own party from the start, and having few (if any) recruitable companions - I couldn't possibly have "romance mini-games with party companions", could I? So I must not want romance mini-games so badly...

 

oh, wait, that's right...

 

I don't want romance mini-games, nor do I think PE should have companions be romanceable.

 

With the caveat of - if Obsidian's story for the P.E. and plans for the companions already include this, so be it. I'll probably enjoy it. But I'm not advocating for them to consider doing such if they are predisposed AGAINST it.

 

...

 

can we continue the conversation from there?

[Malcador]

Shame forums don't have the equivalent of loop invariant code motion

[l3loodangel]

When people from both sides have been doing that since before I even made my first post on these forums. So it's rather silly to complain about that, especially when I just pointed out an example and I could do that fifty more times if I really wanted to.

 

A story definitely worth it's weight in words. I come roughly a month later and I see same people use same rebutted arguments in the 10+ thread. Should I felicitate you heroes on not wasting bandwidth?

 

It starts with polite discussion on romance.

 

Then tough, but reasoned debate on romance.

 

Somewhere along the way, people's feelings got hurt and the points being made started to repeat themselves.

 

Despite mod prompting every once in a while, both sides of the debate continue to pot one another and the thread eventually degenerates into accusations of logical fallacies, intense focus on semantics, passive aggressive sniping and a reiteration of points we've all heard before.

 

Nonsense

This is how it goes:

 

a) I want romances, because they add depth...

 

b) Then the points made by A get rebutted.

 

a) Then some other guy makes the same points again and completely ignores or is unable to understand the points being made by opposition.

 

b) These points made by side A get rebutted again, but in less polite fashion.

 

a) Then the same points get used again without any regard to previous comments and etc.

 

b) Side B understands that it's pointless to argue with special people and starts using ad hominems.

 

a) Side A starts yelling: All those those against romances are impolite imbeciles that resort to ad hominems!

 

Mods come and start cleaning...

Edited October 20, 2012 by l3loodangel

[kenup]

Because such things destroy civil discussion? Because they break the forum guidelines? Because it is impossible to have a sane and rational debate when one side resorts to logical fallacies?

Loop here I come. If you think it's not civil, why do you think HS, or anyone else, makes it better by making inaccurate extreme representations? I'll say it again: If you think it's low, don't advocate those that make it more low because they are on your side, prove it by being civil and rational and stopping those of your side that derail the thread.

 

And you care about forum guidelines that much? And you get offended by someone not following them? The moderators must be proud!

Man up! You don't see Vargr Raekr giving a **** about others' opinions about MLP.

Edited October 20, 2012 by kenup

[ravenshrike]

I find everyone throwing around the Avellone romance easy target quote as evidence that romances WON'T be in the game pretty amusing. All that quote says is that Avellone wants other relationships besides romance in the game. Not that he didn't want any romance in the game.

 

 

In any case, their best bet is to neither confirm or deny ANYTHING on the subject of specific relationships until after 2014 rolls around and the options available are more or less set in stone. This way we don't have 18 months of neurotic posters trying to make sure their special brand of relationship, romance or not, gets in the game. Not that the threads will stop, but this way the people posting in them will have no solid expectations of which to base a temper tantrum on.

Edited October 20, 2012 by ravenshrike

[l3loodangel]

I find everyone throwing around the Avellone romance easy target quote as evidence that romances WON'T be in the game pretty amusing. All that quote says is that Avellone wants other relationships besides romance in the game. Not that he didn't want any romance in the game.

 

So he says that he wants other and interesting relationships, rather than sexual minigames. Then he said in previous interview that he dislikes writing romances.

 

Yay it means that the Romances are in!!!!

[Jasede]

This thread:

 

Fitting, isn't it? Project "Eternity" indeed. History isn't the only thing that repeats itself.

[Ieo]

In any case, their best bet is to neither confirm or deny ANYTHING on the subject of specific relationships until after 2014 rolls around and the options available are more or less set in stone. This way we don't have 18 months of neurotic posters trying to make sure their special brand of relationship, romance or not, gets in the game. Not that the threads will stop, but this way the people posting in them will have no solid expectations of which to base a temper tantrum on.

 

Really, I think the opposite would be true: It'd be better if Obsidian made a top-down design decision about it much earlier, but then I'm also of the mind that any publicized decision (very hard or impossible to take back, as it were) cannot and should not be questioned on its face, rather the discussions could move on to more granular topics around the fuzzy edges. For example--Obsidian made the high-level decision to not include consoles, multiplayer, or full VO. There are very tangible technical and content reasons for those decisions, but that they are made and thus attached to the label of "game nature" means to me that mature people should understand there's no point in arguing. Some passerby with no knowledge or who can't bother doing a search might start up again, but it's easier to shut down noise with a high-level decision or divert the statement to the granular--and IMO more interesting--levels.

 

Edges are fuzzy on many design decisions like cooldowns, kill xp, "romance" content. I don't believe the former two should be removed from the proposal, for example, but there's whole lot of room to make them work broadly so most people will be happy.

 

The same applies to romance content, IMO. There are ways to fully compromise with equal bromance/romance content both in quantity and quality, but it's up to Obsidian how they might want to implement; if they came right out and said "Party romances are in but they will not be a major section of content at all," then at least discussions could move towards the nature of that content whether in dialogic text or quests. Same with "Party romances are out, but there will be other NPC content concerning love and the like." (Well, I suppose the biggest risk is spoiling anything.)

 

There have been plenty of more granular posts in the various locked romance threads and this one that get drowned out by either side wanting or not wanting it on its face, but that never goes anywhere. I will never ascribe higher intrinsic value to "romance" versus other forms of love because of media's immature take on human relations (genre problem), but if Obsidian could assure everyone that they would equally balance content quantity and quality, that would go a long way to making the Romance Ouroboros go away.

 

Edit: Dammit, Jasede! LOL. Also, grammar FTL.

Edited October 20, 2012 by Ieo

[kenup]

In any case, their best bet is to neither confirm or deny ANYTHING on the subject of specific relationships until after 2014 rolls around and the options available are more or less set in stone. This way we don't have 18 months of neurotic posters trying to make sure their special brand of relationship, romance or not, gets in the game. Not that the threads will stop, but this way the people posting in them will have no solid expectations of which to base a temper tantrum on.

The thread is not about whether they should confirm or deny anything. Threads like these won't stop being created if they avoid saying anything or not. They will keep coming and unfortunately with the same repeated pro-romances arguments that have no substance. When some back story on Cadegund or someone else will come out, you bet we'll have a romance thread for them.

Edited October 20, 2012 by kenup

[sparklecat]

Seems to me from my own experiences with developing characters in any work of fiction, that going at it from the perspective of "there will be romances, and now I am going to write romanceable character #1" is only going to hurt the development of good NPCs that are interesting in their own right. I'd like it if romances made it in, because they're one aspect of the range of relationships that can help define a person (i.e., the PC), but I'd prefer that they just write the NPCs and see how they turn out before deciding what roles they may be able to fill with our PCs.

 

Have romances, sure, but don't have them exist simply because I'm a PC who wants one and they're a romanceable NPC. Have them exist because it turns out (once they've already been mostly created) that the NPC is open to the possibility of that kind of relationship with a PC of a personality type that my character fits. But don't put them in simply to fill some quota.

[Sykid]

Seems to me from my own experiences with developing characters in any work of fiction, that going at it from the perspective of "there will be romances, and now I am going to write romanceable character #1" is only going to hurt the development of good NPCs that are interesting in their own right. I'd like it if romances made it in, because they're one aspect of the range of relationships that can help define a person (i.e., the PC), but I'd prefer that they just write the NPCs and see how they turn out before deciding what roles they may be able to fill with our PCs.

 

Have romances, sure, but don't have them exist simply because I'm a PC who wants one and they're a romanceable NPC. Have them exist because it turns out (once they've already been mostly created) that the NPC is open to the possibility of that kind of relationship with a PC of a personality type that my character fits. But don't put them in simply to fill some quota.

 

Totally agree. I also think that relationships help define NPC's as well, as expressions of their emotions and personality.

[Forlorn Hope]

It'll be very interesting to see how the devs will handle this romance issue.

 

Well, obviously. Maybe we should just assume they'll do romances for you people to enjoy but not make the core of the plot revolve around it, and then we can all shut up about this bloody topic.

 

Heh.

If romances are in - fine. If the devs think romances won't add anything to the game or take too much time to write properly or whatever and create something else e.g rivalries, revenge etc. that is also fine by me. It's all good. However, I do hope we'd get an official statement (when OE knows which direction they're going to take) about the topic so (some) people could move forward and use their time for something else... maybe something more constructive?

[Eldmore]

Interaction really gives life to NPCs so romance is just a + Just one thing... don't make all NPCs romance for male & female cough* cough* Dragon age 2

[Seboist]

Unless "romance" serves a narrative,thematic or gameplay purpose Obsidian shouldn't waste it's time on such fluff. Apart from being a waste of resources it caters to the crowd that couldn't care less about quality story or gameplay mechanics and will give the game and company a bad reputation(like a "certain" other company).

[Vargr Raekr]

 

Vargr Raekr: Could you please tone down the size of those MLP pics? They're obnoxiously large and I find myself more prone to skipping past your posts in order get them off my screen rather than reading what you have to say.

 

Thanks for asking nicely. I'll comply. There will be no more pics. To be fair, I've tried to do exactly that in every post I've made. As I have pointed out to a mod already, the "resize" feature of this board does not work. As they did not stretch the screen beyond its normal format (which is the usual etiquette cutoff for such things), I left things lie.

 

Especially since no one said anything about the equally large paladin pics, the Odin pics, etc. etc.

 

Not that it will matter.

 

After today I will not be coming back. I don't think any of this - my own contributions included - is worthwhile.

[Kane_Severance]

I hope if they add them it won't be formulaic like the more recent Bioware romances. My favorite game romance was probably Viconia. She wasn't falling over for the PC from the get go. She was difficult to please and didn't like being pandered to. She was an extremely interesting character and when you won her over you honestly felt you did so by gaining her interest and respect, rather than her just waiting to fall for the PC if he's nice to her.

 

I like romances when they feel like part of the story and the partners feel like they have personalities. You should feel like the PC should develop a rapport with the romantic interest. It should not be simply: ask all the questions you can -> pick all the nice responses -> do the npc side quest -> romance fade to black. Also, once you've established a romantic relationship dialog should reflect that. They shouldn't have the same basic cardboard responses that are available if you didn't have any kind of relationship.

Edited October 20, 2012 by Kane_Severance

[Meshugger]

I just came back from the club, nice lasses all around, but no one seemed to be interested to talk about romance. Why do these things happen?

 

Damn im drunk...

[Shadeling]

Vargr Raekr: Could you please tone down the size of those MLP pics? They're obnoxiously large and I find myself more prone to skipping past your posts in order get them off my screen rather than reading what you have to say.

 

Thanks for asking nicely. I'll comply. There will be no more pics. To be fair, I've tried to do exactly that in every post I've made. As I have pointed out to a mod already, the "resize" feature of this board does not work. As they did not stretch the screen beyond its normal format (which is the usual etiquette cutoff for such things), I left things lie.

 

Especially since no one said anything about the equally large paladin pics, the Odin pics, etc. etc.

 

Not that it will matter.

 

After today I will not be coming back. I don't think any of this - my own contributions included - is worthwhile.

 

Hmm, now I feel bad. I didn't mean to drive you off, Vargr Raekr. I didn't realize that there was a resize issue with posting pics in threads and just thought I'd ask if you'd make them smaller. I haven't seen the paladin pics or the odin pics you mentioned but I'd probably get irritated with those too. Sorry you won't be coming back. I really hope it's not on my account.

[bobobo878]

So does anyone know when Obsidian will announce which companion characters can be romanced? Sagani, is like, super cute. I want to nom her head hella bad tbh.

[ComradeGoby]

So does anyone know when Obsidian will announce which companion characters can be romanced? Sagani, is like, super cute. I want to nom her head hella bad tbh.

 

Go back to Mcdonald's Hepler

[qloher]

I've done some math on the matter and came to a conclusion it take a week to wright one romance while also writing something entirely different on the background. I do not think one week per one author is such a terrible cost. Also considering the budget issue, from $4 millions on Kickstarter I'm pretty sure at least $2 millions came from the romance crowd. Even if only $1 million, still don't you think those people may deserve some slack to be cut? $50.000 from $4.000.000 maybe? That equals 1.25% from the budget. Is that too much to ask? (To ask, not to demand - an elaboration just in case someone is thinking to go there again).

 

I'm really interested on how you came up with the "week to write romance", especially if you want it to be substansial.

Here.

Most of what goes into writing characters is actually the dialogue and since romance is what? I think it's dialogue and there can only be so much dialogue per character it's bound to limit on how much other kind dialogue there will be.

No. Throwing more dialog into X doesn't automatically means throwing less dialogue into Y. Something else might be sacrificed instead. Like doing less loot. I personally don't care 'bout loot.

and how do you know who pledged and what they want?

Because polls on this very forums show 75% of people are pro-romance. Here. So you are in fact a vocal minority as cliche as it sound nowadays. And don't say polls are not an indicator. They are the closest thing to an indicator that we have.

Also they wont get the full 4 million since Kickstarter, Amazon and Paypal will take their cut so the budget will be 3 - 3,5 million at most, depending on whether they pay the rewards from the pledges or from their own pockets, if they pay the rewards from the pledges, it'll cost them probably about 500k, possibly more (it cost about 700k for DFA to manufacture and send the rewards).

Kickstarter, Amazon and Paypal will take 5% at most. $4,163,208 - 5% = 3,955,047. So it's 4M basically. But, yeah, there are also phisical revards to make.

And explain to me also how would romances make this game perfect? Would it be less perfect if it doesn't have romances and romances wouldn't fit it?

A game about choice should have a choice for as much people as possible. We don't want it to be lenear. We want it to be an epic advanture as personal as humanly possible. No romances = not perfect for me. When we are talking about a party based RPG that is. Still may be great and awesome, but not perfect, no.

For the record, so far there are some great and awesome RPGs for me I love to bits out there, yet the perfect one is still to be made.

And how are those bad arguments? The second one in particular.

 

Care to explain how romances make characters more deeper than say..."Brothers in Arms"-camaraderie? Would characters actually be any deeper if one of them would have romance instead of friendship or rivalry? What makes having romance for companion more special than say... friendly competition between friends (you and companion)?

Well, if you don't see how love is a special kind of feeling yourself, I don't think I can fix it with words.

This comes to my first point in this reply (and several postings before this one), the writers basicly have to devote any given companion to one route; be it friendship, rivalry, romance etc and if they do several routes which player can choose from, they can spend less time writing all given routes and they all will be dilluted.

 

Would you rather have companion which is shallow with many different possibilities or deeply done in one?

No, not true. I would not be happy with only one rout per character at all. So you basically want them to be as streamlined and nonreactive as possible? So the player character is running around robbing people, excavating graveyards, kicking puppies and eating babies, still a lawful good paladin from the party is a PC's best buddy simply because the only rout he has is a rout of friendship? Not good!

If devs write romance for one character, they have to also write another route or the players who doesnt want to have romance have no reason to interact with the said companion/NPC.

 

Lot of players can enjoy the friendship-route but those who just enjoy romances are much fewer.

Not so much fewer as you think according to the the polls.

Goddamit, they have already confirmed low intelligent player character dialogues will be included in the game!! It is not something most of the players are gonna see in the end and it will take 90% more time to wright than the all theoretical romance dialogues put together! Something everyone here seems to miss.

Edited October 21, 2012 by qloher