Outside-game mechanics

[Ladon]

My question is simple:

 

What am I going to do with my wife and kids when the game is released?!

 

My wife is going to be particularly pissed when I suddenly disappear into a computer game for a couple of months. I'm trying to prepare her for it as good as I can, but it is like she doesn't really understand it. I think it will come as a shock to her when it becomes real. I think it is going to be quite a fight when it happens.

 

Does anyone else have a similar situation? How will you deal with this? How will Obsidian take its responsibility, will there be a spouse program of some sort to help taking care of suffering families due to their game release?

 

Please help!

[Bli1942]

Just play from 11pm-6am and never sleep

[Osvir]

I'll bite.

Design your own life brother, Obsidian isn't responsible for your actions in your life. If fights start in your family it isn't Obsidian's fault, but probably something on your end.

But aaah, some ideas... you have many choices but I'll go through 3 rather basic ones. Pick one or combine as you please:
A) Neglect your family, play the video game for 24 hours a day and isolate yourself in the basement and hide away. Fights will ensue no doubt.
B) Invite your family to the experience. Reward your children by giving them the controller if they do their homework. The wife should like that (possibly). Oh, and help your children with the homework too for bonus points. Make choices in the game with the family. Take turns playing. Make it into an optional family "event" for those who are interested in joining in ("Game night" or whatever). Maybe even "Bedtime Gaming" for the children before bed, making it into a "Bedtime Story" but with the game instead of a book (I don't know the age of your children though, PE might be rather gritty, gory and dark).
C) Play a couple of hours a week. 1 hour every other day maybe. Make sure that you are clear that this is your alone time for meditative reasons or whatnot. Do you have any hobby already that you spend time with? Can you replace it with PE for the duration you are playing? Because I wouldn't believe you are glued to your wife 100% of the time anyways. Combine with . Play extra when you have time and/or is free (if you get home before the family or whatnot). Lay the bricks day by day.

Finally: Discuss with your wife when the game has actually come out, I suppose, and you are actually playing it. Make sure you prioritize in a logical way depending on your situation in life and depending on the day. Play reasonably, eat your vegetables and don't forget your real life friends and family.

Baldur's Gate had a reminder during the loading screen sometimes:

"Just because the characters in game doesn't need to eat, doesn't mean you don't have to!" or something like that xD I suppose there could be some messages like that during loading screens?

"You have played this game for 53 hours straight! Have you eaten anything yet?"

[Fluffle]

B) Invite your family to the experience. Reward your children by giving them the controller if they do their homework. The wife should like that (possibly). Oh, and help your children with the homework too for bonus points. Make choices in the game with the family. Take turns playing. Make it into an optional family "event" for those who are interested in joining in ("Game night" or whatever). Maybe even "Bedtime Gaming" for the children before bed, making it into a "Bedtime Story" but with the game instead of a book (I don't know the age of your children though, PE might be rather gritty, gory and dark).

 

 

This seems to be the best option for me. Include your family if they want to.

 

I remember growing up with games like BG(2), IWD and such and I value this experience very much.

So to my eyes if you include your children under the conditions that:

 

a) they are interested at all

b) in a responsible way (balancing school vs video game time)

 

you could actually give them a nice gift.

 

 

On one playthrough you could include your family as NPCs from the Adventurer's Hall.

Let your wife and your children create themselves as characters and ask for their opinions on certain ingame decisions.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I'll agree with the others about including your family. Admittedly, I've never had a wife or kids, but from what I know of women they like it when you try to include them in things you enjoy and exposing your kids to a game like PE will be better than letting them play a shooter. If that doesn't work out for you, take your time with the game, you won't pack in 20 hours in the first week, but you will be able to play a more polished product due to patches.

[Gfted1]

Many years of WoW raiding made my wife accustomed to me disappearing for hours on end. No worries here.

[Lephys]

One word:

 

Hologram. Get on that! *clap clap!* o_o

[Pipyui]

We are the amazons, from a land without men.  It was not always such though, here and there can be found remnants of our other half, long gone.  A crushed beer can, a football, a morning glory calendar.  One day they took themselves to all the basements beneath the earth, and never returned.  We can only guess at what they found down there, for fear impedes our own investigations.  An awakening evil?  Was the Y chromosome home to a genetic timebomb inducing such madness as to make one bury themself alive in the dirt away from the sun?  The hypotheses range from the absurd to the only-slightly-less absurd.  The fact is that they are gone.  Perhaps some day they will reamerge, though as better or worse men we cannot know; or perhaps it will be the evil they could not stop that will arise and take us.  But we cannot await such a fantasy -  we must be strong and carry on this half a world we have left to us.  We must be strong, and we must pray, and we must hope.

[JFSOCC]

Get rid of your family, you don't need them.

[Lephys]

Get rid of your family, you don't need them.

Haha.

 

*creepily places hand upon shoulder* "You have a new family, now..." *lifelessly smiles*