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

[qloher]

We all know what happens when you don't care much about combat in your game altogether. And I absolutely love this particular result.

As for the "pot", can you find a better argument than clinging to typos? That's just low.

PST having a bad combat system, doesn't help your argument about sacrificing combat for romances.

I made arguments against yours. If you are offended by a light hearted joke at the end, you really need to man up, boy.

Skyrim in your opinion having some problems with spell system (I personally haven't even played Skyrim and am not interested in doing so), doesn't help your argument as well. There is no at least half-decent romance in Skyrim as far as I know. And this absence didn't help TESV game at all.

Your argument was a colossal miss from the get go, you see.

There is a difference between the two crowds tho'.We have better informed arguments.

Simply saying so doesn't make it true. Really, you guys (Living One & kenup), you have opinions but you are not good at arguing with facts at all.

jarpie on the other hand have what it takes to lead an interesting discussion, I give him/her that even if we disagree about the subject at hand. Watch and learn.

[Gurkog]

I hope any romance included in the game is like Memento... it revolves around the character constantly reliving the final moment of his lover's life- as he watched, helplessly while she is murdered! That would be awesome. Generic Bioware trash romance is rather boring. Obsidian needs to show them how to make one with impact.

[kenup]

We all know what happens when you don't care much about combat in your game altogether. And I absolutely love this particular result.

As for the "pot", can you find a better argument than clinging to typos? That's just low.

PST having a bad combat system, doesn't help your argument about sacrificing combat for romances.

I made arguments against yours. If you are offended by a light hearted joke at the end, you really need to man up, boy.

Skyrim in your opinion having some problems with spell system (I personally haven't even played Skyrim and am not interested in doing so), doesn't help your argument as well. There is no at least half-decent romance in Skyrim as far as I know. And this absence didn't help TESV game at all.

Your argument was a colossal miss from the get go, you see.

There certainly are tons of romance options in Skyrim. That's what you want right? And the negatives from sacrificing combat choices and mechanics can be seen in DAO, DA2, ME2 and ME3 as well(and PST which was already brought up), those just from recent memory. I brought up Skyrim, because their spell system was already a big disappointment to the fans pre-release. My argument didn't miss anything, I argued your points about combat vs romance sub-plots; it was a little joke at the end, that wasn't attacking you, and you got offended by it.

 

And you ignore Living One's other half of the argument, OE aren't fond of romances either. Care to guess why?

Edited October 21, 2012 by kenup

[Loranc]

I hope any romance included in the game is like Memento... it revolves around the character constantly reliving the final moment of his lover's life- as he watched, helplessly while she is murdered! That would be awesome. Generic Bioware trash romance is rather boring. Obsidian needs to show them how to make one with impact.

 

I agree, one of my favorite romances was FF7, with Cloud and Aeris. It was interwoven into the story and the interpretation of the whole theme was left up to the player. (Some people say there was nothing between them, others say there was.)

 

Avellone also said companion mechanics in Project Eternity will be “a little bit more subtle,” as there’s a whole spectrum of interactions and personality traits available in character development than just ‘go romance this person’ or “evil is always psychotic.”

“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,” he said. “Romances end up being an easy target, but I think there’s a lot more you can do with companion relationships. Also, I think a lot of games have fallen into the hole of the evil choice is always a psychotic option. There’s a whole spectrum of other stuff you can do in conversation that I’m looking forward to doing. Sometimes depending on the franchise it does make sense that you have these really extreme morality bars, because that’s the nature of the franchise.

 

“With this world I think it’s going to be a little bit more subtle. The whole premise of the lore and the magic system is that souls get inherited, and then when you pass away the souls wait for a time and then come back to another body. The question is how much of your own behavior is being governed by your own free will or the influence of the soul inside you and all of its history? I think that can raise some interesting questions for both the player character and the companions.”

 

They already plan on doing so much with companions, and there was a statement sometime back where I believe Chris said that romance just wouldn't fit the main character. Now while I'm all for a PS:T style romance, I honestly get the feeling that if it's added into this game, it will be due to pressure from backers and not something that they wanted in the game.

 

But, we'll just have to wait and see.

[Living One]

 

There is a difference between the two crowds tho'.We have better informed arguments.

Simply saying so doesn't make it true. Really, you guys (Living One & kenup), you have opinions but you are not good at arguing with facts at all.

jarpie on the other hand have what it takes to lead an interesting discussion, I give him/her that even if we disagree about the subject at hand. Watch and learn.

Except we have.The fact you couldn't find any good arguments to counter our points from our posts above(no arguments about romances being bad if not relevant to the themes of the game?)and go all 'you don't have arguments' is proof.As well as all previous pages and threads.

 

But,you know, I'm starting to think you are just trolling.I've already countered your point about 'romances allowing roleplaying' probably within this same thread before and both times you couldn't argue.You can't have such reading comprehension problems.Next time if you don't have any new arguments I'll report you for trolling rather than answering.

[Lurky]

I see that there's been some discussion regarding the time it takes to write a romance, versus the time it takes to write a character. For this, remember that the process of writing a character is not just typing dialogue on the screen. There's a whole process that comes before that.

 

First, preproduction: you have to decide on the high level concept of the character, basic roles it will fulfill in the story and so on. Then you have to start designing the character, by fleshing out its personality, background, the interactions the PC will have with it, possible quests and so on. Only when you have all this nailed down you go into production, and start writing actual dialogues and actual game content, which also has to be iterated on and peer reviewed before it's considered finished.

 

Deciding whether a character will have a romance or not is a design decision, which comes before starting to write dialogues. But a well-done romance develops with time, which means that all the dialogue before the "hey, romance trigger here" moment has to accomodate for it, so that it doesn't come from nowhere. In other words, the romance cannot be isolated from the rest of the character interactions if it aims to be believable, just like a friendship or a hidden secret or other types of relationships need to have some basis to build on. This means that the decision of having romance dialogue permeates the entire character. And writing and designing all that takes much more time than the few romance-only lines would take to write.

 

Granted, the final game dialogues can be written subtly, so that if you don't choose to activate the romance the alternative route flows smoothly. I think that's the best way to go, because that way the impact of the romance can be ignored easily for those who don't want it. But saying that romances take little time to create because that small portion of romance-exclusive dialogue takes little time to create is simply not true. That's just the tip of the iceberg; everything before it has to account for the romance, and that takes much more time to write. Comparing the 2-3 months it takes to write a character to the time it takes to write a romance might be a much more accurate comparison than you think it is.

[Shadeling]

I agree, one of my favorite romances was FF7, with Cloud and Aeris. It was interwoven into the story and the interpretation of the whole theme was left up to the player. (Some people say there was nothing between them, others say there was.)

 

Mine too. It was so sad. I haven't played FF7 in ages and I didn't realize just how much their story struck a chord with me until I saw Advent Children recently and when the Aeris music started, my eyes actually misted up. Embarrassing! I'm not sure I would even call what happened between them a 'romance' but it was meaningful regardless and that's what I want out of companions in PE.

[Loranc]

I felt as though no one was ever going to tackle this and though it wasn't directed at me but at another poster, I figured I'd add my 2 cents into your comments and questions towards the other person.

 

 

 

If you pulled the 10% out of your behind and then again argue the same percentage? I remember there being more romance-dialogue than 10% but I guess we have to believe you since you just threw the percentage out of your behind...oh wait, we don't.

 

10% of the dialogue between you and the companion would usually mean in games maybe 2-3 or 5-6 conversations tops. Since you loved BG2, let's take Aerie for example, there were first what, 15 or 16 friendly-conversations and after that you become lovers - with the whole two or three conversations after that, and those conversations were all short with only couple lines for each.

 

Wow, you sure are happy for little content, you can really make deep romance with that.

 

I have to agree that the romance was quite lacking in depth with this one.

 

The actual loot in game like PE is actually a very very small part of what modelers do since the items won't be very large in the gameworld or in the inventory and certainly wont take one modeler to make them - they would have to remove helluva lot of models from the game to pay salary for one extra writer.

 

Actually loot can take quite a long time, depending on how they tackle it. If you want to talk about different variations of the same weapon/armor, different textures, etc etc. I think you'd be surprised with the amount of time it can actually take to make items, unlike the massive trash Diablo 3 threw at us. I'm expecting a more refined approach from Obsidian.

 

Kenup already answered this well enough but I'll reiterate this; on one quest you can add depth to the whole game world, all your companions, antagonist, your own character and give him to do some real choices and consequences, you know things what actually makes the difference in the plot or sub-plots and actually lets you choose how your characters behave vs. different moral dilemmas or ideologies. How many quests would you willing to sacrifice for truly well written and deep romance? one fourth? one third? maybe half?

 

Quests wont have to be just stand-alone quests, they can be used to tell over-arching subplot/-story where you can make before mentioned Choices and Consequences, you know things in which RPG can truly excell on giving you chances to build up your own role in single-player RPG.

 

Depending on the quests.... I'm just hoping PE can make them interesting again. Of course main quests normally always are, but as of late, side quests seem to be nothing but a way to gather exp, and add absolutely nothing to the game itself.

 

True but still not excessive amount, it's been reported that Baldur's Gate 1 cost 3-4 million and Baldur's Gate 2 cost 5-7 million, and that was when salaries and expenses were lower.

 

Keeping in mind that once again we have no idea how much of that money went where. Seeing as it was published by interplay and black isle studios who knows what 'stupid' demands they made for the game. A lot of that money could have went towards advertising, or anything else. (Fun fact; black isle studios just recently revived itself after being shut down for 9 years, Chris Taylor is now head of the team. Being one of the two remaining members from the past.)

 

Those polls are made by professionals who excell in doing actual polls - They combine them from different demographies so that they can get the fairly balanced view on the poll. They go to actually ask from the people (either from the street or calling them) and not just put poll into some corner on the street.

 

There's a big difference in forum poll and the actual political polls made by professionals.

 

I have to agree that the polls on this forum really do account for nothing. You figure at least 50% of the people who play and buy this type of game will never visit a forum. And 50% is a very minimum number.

 

There are about 20 members on each page, 1,828 pages, totals out to 36,560. Now if you take out multiple accounts, people who didn't actually back the project, etc etc. You get an idea of how many people actually post on a forum. Far less than half who paid for the game.

 

Actually in single-player RPG you are put into the situation the game developer decides to write you, and you choose what you do as well as game developer can write the different alternatives how you act - these are usually called Choices & Consequences - you watch things unfold as the writers have written them and sometimes but rarely the world reacts to what you do.

 

"Living in their fictional world" would be much more akin to the MMO roleplaying server or RP server in Neverwinter Nights - in which I played for 3-4 years playing different kind of characters with different kind of personalities with different kind of players who had their own different kind of characters with different kind of personalities and our characters interacted as we played the roles as well as we could.

 

I have to agree with this as well.

 

Sure, there is actual genre for romantic films, they are called romantic films, I presume you know them but you know why they are called romantic films? could it be because the whole films are devoted to the romance.

 

Better comparison would be...let's say some actiony film or somekind of suspense or something and tell me how many of those films have some romance tacked onto them and it's either been just a unnecessary addition which had been felt forced, and sometimes very forced, and how many times it has felt very lacking without any substance?

 

T&A Hollywood/Bioware style. You see it a lot in tv shows as well, random sex scenes for nothing other than eye candy enjoyment. Though I will admit it doesn't bother me while watching a movie or tv series, to see the random flash of T&A. With that being said, I'd prefer they kept that filth out of my rpgs, and leave it on the big screen.

 

Both are solid arguments as I replied to you earlier in this message about the polls, but as you just admitted that the poll is biased. Better way to ask about romances would be to ask from all pledgers if people wants romances if it means for cutting quests, choices & consequences, loot, other dialogue and sub-plots or branches from the main story.

 

There's always a possibility that it wouldn't cut anything from the main game either. They already stated several times it won't be added if it's not in the budget. Looking past the main game and the amount of money that's left, it would depend on what they'd decide not do to add it in. Of course we'll never know, because that decision is up to them. It would be interesting if they did post something like 'after the main game is completed we have budget left over to do a few other things, would you guys prefer x, y, or z.'

 

You brought up low-intelligence dialogue which has been asked a lot by people and devs actually -likes- to write low-intelligence dialogue, and where did I agree that it's not just about time or budget? I asked about disregarding low-intelligence dialogue because you brought it up and devs have actually said that they like to write it.

 

So I ask again since you brought it up, if writing romances would mean to disregard low-intelligence dialogue which they like to write for romances which they don't like to write, would you still want them to write them in and dropping something what they want to do?

 

Once again I don't think any of the main game will be disregarded, I believe that if it's added into the game it will take place of things that would have been added after the main game was completed.

 

But to answer the question anyways, no it shouldn't be disregarded.

[jarpie]

Actually loot can take quite a long time, depending on how they tackle it. If you want to talk about different variations of the same weapon/armor, different textures, etc etc. I think you'd be surprised with the amount of time it can actually take to make items, unlike the massive trash Diablo 3 threw at us. I'm expecting a more refined approach from Obsidian.

 

From the screenshot we've seen from PE it will be much closer to IE games where the actual items on ground were small like I said than Diablo 3. Even if every weapon would have different look they still wouldn't be very big and the changes on existing models wouldn't be huge.

 

Keeping in mind that once again we have no idea how much of that money went where. Seeing as it was published by interplay and black isle studios who knows what 'stupid' demands they made for the game. A lot of that money could have went towards advertising, or anything else. (Fun fact; black isle studios just recently revived itself after being shut down for 9 years, Chris Taylor is now head of the team. Being one of the two remaining members from the past.)

 

Brennecke wrote in this very forum that advertisement and marketing expenses are not counted as the budget for the game and they are separate so marketing probably wasn't counted for those, and what is your point again?

 

T&A Hollywood/Bioware style. You see it a lot in tv shows as well, random sex scenes for nothing other than eye candy enjoyment. Though I will admit it doesn't bother me while watching a movie or tv series, to see the random flash of T&A. With that being said, I'd prefer they kept that filth out of my rpgs, and leave it on the big screen.

 

I wasn't talking about sex- or nudescenes, I was talking about written dialogue, scenes and characters which are usually lacking in the films like I mentioned where the romances are usually just unnecessary fluff without substance.

 

There's always a possibility that it wouldn't cut anything from the main game either. They already stated several times it won't be added if it's not in the budget. Looking past the main game and the amount of money that's left, it would depend on what they'd decide not do to add it in. Of course we'll never know, because that decision is up to them. It would be interesting if they did post something like 'after the main game is completed we have budget left over to do a few other things, would you guys prefer x, y, or z.'

 

Once again I don't think any of the main game will be disregarded, I believe that if it's added into the game it will take place of things that would have been added after the main game was completed.

 

Read the Lurky's post in here and I agree with it, you have to devote almost everything you write for the character with the romance in mind if they decide to add it or it'll just feel tacked on artificially. You just can't go "Oh we have extra money to do something, let's write romance dialogues for one of the chacters" because then they would feel completely separate from the rest of the character and feel lacking without substance unless they would write most of the character again from the ground-up and I doubt they would do that.

[Bos_hybrid]

Ok, 2-3 months for a companion from the ground. Romance is what, like 10% of all said character interactions at best. And that makes 6-9 days to write. While also writing something else simultaneously. Doesn't look all that expensive.

At worst it's 5% of all interactions if not less, which is even cheaper.

 

Wait what?

 

Well that has just thrown out the deep and well written romance claim folks have been asking for. I would be willing to bet ME/DA romances take a lot longer than a week to write. You know the type everyone has been saying they don't want.

 

I actually don't think it's bio's inability to write 'romances' that leads to bad or shallow romances, and more of good multiple choice deep romance doesn't lend itself to RPGs. No offense to Obs, but I don't think they can pull it of well either.

[argan]

If it has to be there, it should be central to the storyline, somehow. They shouldn't make characters romanceable if it's not, a'la Bioware.

[Estelindis]

I would like reactivity to actions by the player to be visible in romantic subplots (and also in other relationships with companions and NPCs, such as friendship, rivalry, family, student/mentor, etc.). I don't just refer to player actions that are directly part of those subplots. I mean that characters should not romance you, be your friend, or admire your wisdom and guidance, if at any point in the game (of which they are aware) you do something that clashes profoundly with what they value most in the world. I'm not just talking about a situation where opposites attract or where each character learns and grows from the differences of the other. I'm talking about an action that would horrify the character and/or show a profound difference between the two of you that it would seem nothing could overcome. I really think that there should be no way of giving "gifts" to make up for something like this. The only way would be for the player character to actually come to believe that they had done something wrong and try to make up for it.

 

Of course, this is a general rule that can be broken in interesting ways at times, such as Deionarra's extreme self-sacrifice in spite of the way that the Nameless One used her. But I think that's really only interesting when contrasted with those who aren't so hopelessly in love that they've lost all their other senses. It shouldn't be the norm.

 

This kind of thing can, at times, lead people to roleplaying inconsistently. A person doesn't take a particular action because it would upset the character they want to romance, not because they are actually roleplaying someone who would be opposed to such a thing. However, to this, I raise two points: 1) nothing can stop people metagaming if they really want to, and 2) one could write the relationship subplots in such a way that the game gives the player a chance to incorporate this motivation, actually explicitly stating "my feelings for you stopped me from doing something that I knew would hurt you."

 

That's all for now. More thoughts later, perhaps.

[Monte Carlo]

Astute analysis of writing process

 

Dude the promancers aren't overly interested in fact. They just want romances. And they only take 6-9 days to write.

[Estelindis]

Astute analysis of writing process

 

Dude the promancers aren't overly interested in fact. They just want romances. And they only take 6-9 days to write.

I am in favour of well-written romances (as well as other relationships) and I found Lurky's post extremely interesting.

 

Having had some experience writing romances in the Neverwinter Nights module I've been working on for some years, I would agree that whether or not a character has a romantic aspect should be part of their initial conception and be structured into the planning phase of their plot and dialogue. The same is true of any other significant relationship. Maybe a romance only takes 6-9 days to write (though I would doubt that), but it matters a huge amount when those days happen in the writing process!

 

In my opinion, this should be quite obvious.

Edited October 22, 2012 by Estelindis

[Andwit25]

I see that there's been some discussion regarding the time it takes to write a romance, versus the time it takes to write a character. For this, remember that the process of writing a character is not just typing dialogue on the screen. There's a whole process that comes before that.

 

First, preproduction: you have to decide on the high level concept of the character, basic roles it will fulfill in the story and so on. Then you have to start designing the character, by fleshing out its personality, background, the interactions the PC will have with it, possible quests and so on. Only when you have all this nailed down you go into production, and start writing actual dialogues and actual game content, which also has to be iterated on and peer reviewed before it's considered finished.

 

Deciding whether a character will have a romance or not is a design decision, which comes before starting to write dialogues. But a well-done romance develops with time, which means that all the dialogue before the "hey, romance trigger here" moment has to accomodate for it, so that it doesn't come from nowhere. In other words, the romance cannot be isolated from the rest of the character interactions if it aims to be believable, just like a friendship or a hidden secret or other types of relationships need to have some basis to build on. This means that the decision of having romance dialogue permeates the entire character. And writing and designing all that takes much more time than the few romance-only lines would take to write.

 

Granted, the final game dialogues can be written subtly, so that if you don't choose to activate the romance the alternative route flows smoothly. I think that's the best way to go, because that way the impact of the romance can be ignored easily for those who don't want it. But saying that romances take little time to create because that small portion of romance-exclusive dialogue takes little time to create is simply not true. That's just the tip of the iceberg; everything before it has to account for the romance, and that takes much more time to write. Comparing the 2-3 months it takes to write a character to the time it takes to write a romance might be a much more accurate comparison than you think it is.

While everything you wrote is true and I doubt anyone would argue that, it is also true that the amount of work needed for a non romanceable companion is not significantly less.

A character does not become any easier to write and design if he/she is not a romance option.

A romance that is planned within the first stages of NPC creation, in other words right now regarding P.E, might increase the time spend on the NPC in question by about one week.

 

I find it rather strange considering that several, if not most, Obsidian games feature romantic content of some kind there still is so much opposition to this kind of content.

Edited October 22, 2012 by Andwit25

[cosmin haraga]

_{okay - allow me to be the most imature here :}

_{how about one romance not canceling the other, quite the opposite - jade empire style? you could get both girls - major romp in the hay there!}

 

_{dao2 had isabela - major orgy player in dao 1 than in 2 she goes saint and you had to jump hooks to get her as romance ?!?!?}

 

_{now I know they said they'd do around 8 characters ....}

 

_{yet with a party of six and 2 major cities - baldur's style I'd sugest something on the order of 15 chracters - 3 full parties}

_{don't ask me how many bg series had , but I do remember I kept swithching all sorts of combinations to get the banter - and I'm positive a certain heir to a planar sphere was courting a mage girl (minsk was her bodyguard)}

_{so there was romance among them too.}

Edited October 22, 2012 by cosmin haraga

[Monte Carlo]

Seriously...

 

While everything you wrote is true and I doubt anyone would argue that

 

Early indicators of comprehension dashed by...

 

might increase the time spend on the NPC in question by about one week.

 

Haven't you really read the post? Please, where does one week come from?

 

It might be helpful to understand that when you write a romanceable character, you are writing at least 50-75% more. Why? To cater for the players who don't romance that character. Or do you think that if you don't romance a character they should be virtually mute? It's more or less like two separate story arcs, an either / or in many instances.

 

If you can do that in a week you need to get a resume together and send it in. Writing is a job just the same as putting together art assets or programming. It's not just drinking coffee and tapping away at the keyboard now and then. It's graft.

[kenup]

Go MC! Get your blood back!

[Monte Carlo]

Sorry, it's just that I write and get narked by this idea that you just throw words on a page and the content fairy rearranges them into a compelling story.

[NeoDragon]

10% of the dialogue between you and the companion would usually mean in games maybe 2-3 or 5-6 conversations tops. Since you loved BG2, let's take Aerie for example, there were first what, 15 or 16 friendly-conversations and after that you become lovers - with the whole two or three conversations after that, and those conversations were all short with only couple lines for each.

 

Wow, you sure are happy for little content, you can really make deep romance with that.

 

I have to agree that the romance was quite lacking in depth with this one.

 

1. Aerie's romance not deep ? I have to disagree. Just to get things right: Aerie has (ToB included) about 60!!! so called "love talks". I builds up slowly and is deep for that very reason. Additionally, you can end the romance at various points with the wrong decisions. In comparison: Bastila in KOTOR has about 10 such dialogues.

 

2. It's pointless to discuss percentages. 10%, 20% or 25%... that's no what really matters. What matters is: Friendship comes before romance. That's why it's important for the romance to build up SLOWLY to be realistic.

[jarpie]

The point me and other "anti-romancers" has forgotten to make is that they also have to write the dialogue lines for the main character as well so it's not just the companion's dialogues.

 

The potential romance-route for main character would basicly double the written dialogue-lines for the PC and between the companion unless you want just sudden "Hey, let's be lovers!"-throwaway at some part of the dialogues.

 

As many have said, it's not just the case of "Hey, I'm going to quickly write these lines!", you have to take the whole backstory, which NPC the PC is discussing with, potentially who else is in the party if they chime in and if there are more than one potential companion you can romance, the lines from the PC to them would also double.

 

If there'd be for example three romanceable companions, they would have to write three times more dialogue for the PC than without romance-route.

[Loranc]

The point me and other "anti-romancers" has forgotten to make is that they also have to write the dialogue lines for the main character as well so it's not just the companion's dialogues.

 

The potential romance-route for main character would basicly double the written dialogue-lines for the PC and between the companion unless you want just sudden "Hey, let's be lovers!"-throwaway at some part of the dialogues.

 

As many have said, it's not just the case of "Hey, I'm going to quickly write these lines!", you have to take the whole backstory, which NPC the PC is discussing with, potentially who else is in the party if they chime in and if there are more than one potential companion you can romance, the lines from the PC to them would also double.

 

If there'd be for example three romanceable companions, they would have to write three times more dialogue for the PC than without romance-route.

 

Don't think anyone really needed to make that point as I'm pretty sure it was well understood that if the PC had a romance option that they'd have to add in dialogue for it.

 

 

10% of the dialogue between you and the companion would usually mean in games maybe 2-3 or 5-6 conversations tops. Since you loved BG2, let's take Aerie for example, there were first what, 15 or 16 friendly-conversations and after that you become lovers - with the whole two or three conversations after that, and those conversations were all short with only couple lines for each.

 

Wow, you sure are happy for little content, you can really make deep romance with that.

 

I have to agree that the romance was quite lacking in depth with this one.

 

1. Aerie's romance not deep ? I have to disagree. Just to get things right: Aerie has (ToB included) about 60!!! so called "love talks". I builds up slowly and is deep for that very reason. Additionally, you can end the romance at various points with the wrong decisions. In comparison: Bastila in KOTOR has about 10 such dialogues.

 

2. It's pointless to discuss percentages. 10%, 20% or 25%... that's no what really matters. What matters is: Friendship comes before romance. That's why it's important for the romance to build up SLOWLY to be realistic.

 

More like 14 lines from when the flirtation starts, and about 33 lines all together, which most would be considered friend dialogue. Not sure where you're getting the 60 from, it's barley half that.

Edited October 22, 2012 by Loranc

[Monte Carlo]

@ jartpie

 

Exactly. And I've learnt you need to keep making the point forcefully to even stand a chance of a promancer noticing. Mainly because it's an inconvenient truth.

 

They need to accept that their preference is going to be resource-intensive. To be fair, a couple of them have and simply said they'd rather get rid of other aspects to support romances. I don't agree with the position, think it's nuts, but at least it's a position.

 

The other lot, the "hey, how long does it take to write a romance?" brigade... sheesh.

 

@ Loranc

 

Please. Read. The. Posts. You are playing the worst sort of "it's only sixteen lines" game.

Edited October 22, 2012 by Monte Carlo

[Rink]

I would like reactivity to actions by the player to be visible in romantic subplots (and also in other relationships with companions and NPCs, such as friendship, rivalry, family, student/mentor, etc.).

 

That is what I would like as well. I would like party-NPCs to be more than straw-puppets and develop some sort of relation with the main character, with romantic relationships being one of things possible with some of the companions where this makes sense. I think this does not only have to be depending on what I do as main character though but should depend highly of what NPC that is, his character and what he wants for adventuring with you. I also like it when the party develops s dynamic of its own.

 

For example: one partymember reacts like an "omega", many things you will decide as leader will be wrong for him and he will tell you and other partymembers just that and that he knows better and would do a better job (clearly this guy would need some advantages as well to make him tolerable, maybe if he is really funny?) or that he slays more monsters than you and you are just lazy.

 

Now another partymember may also be sceptical if you are up to the task and if you have both in your party, they will not as much shoot at you and your decisions but starting a war against each other to who the better leader would be.

 

Or one female character may not really be interested in you but if you have another female partymember with you that respects you very much (maybe too much to be interested in a romantic relationship), then this character will start focusing on you more because it gets a competition.

 

Things like that would make the game feel more real, because then the main character wouldn't always be the center of the universe with what he does but it would seem like they react on each other as well as you.

 

I think opposition may be that extensive, because there were lots of romances in games that (although they probably didn't cost a lot of ressources) weren't good.

I like things like with Fall from Grace (or slightly less with Annah) in P:T where u don't even know, if this is something like a romance or not, because it is just a very complicated (but very uncommon and interesting) relationship between Nameless One and them and there isn't a popup "this is a romance dialogue, so be careful what you are doing" like in bg2 with music and all. Enjoyed Aeries romance as well though

 

The ressources thing: Of course most content should be there and visible in every playthrough to avoid having lots of ressorces invested in parts that many players never will be able to see. Now they already confirmed low intellect and charisma dialogue (something most of us probably will never see, because we don't play the game a second time - and we were branded by P:T and Fallout not to take a character with Int. below average on those adventures) and multiple options to solve quests. Maybe they make a timebudget of all those things that you will only see one part of it in the first playthough and splitting those ressources up between them depending on how often they will be used and how important they are to the gameplay. That would make sense so the game will not end up being to short because of too many options.

Edited October 22, 2012 by Rink

[Osvir]

I've got really one thing to say:

 

Make P:E's relationship like these Romance/Friendship threads. They sometimes show flames of war, and sometimes compassion of understanding. Sometimes they are filled with respect, sometimes with disrespect. Something love, sometimes hate.

 

However, I think Obsidian already got this covered with their great writers. Maybe these threads are simply a place to look for... inspiration? :')

 

Peace.