Let's talk SWtOR!

[SapphireIce101]

Well, I say french voice because we aren't just traversing Ferelden. We're also going to be walking around Orlais. So a voice with a french accent would make a lot of sense there too. However, I totally understand that it might cost too much money for another voice actor.

 

As a person who doesn't like Revan, I find Revan to be a bit hypocritical, and his followers are too.

[Kulyok]

Fleet or Alderaan cantina both work for me - I usually am in my stronghold, anyway. I'll go to the cantina, then.

 

Hope Harbringer will be all right, and you'll be able to complete your warzone points and everything! And Makeb, and DK, of course.

 

@SapphireIce101 - I completely forgot we were going to travel in Orlais! I hope it's not just Orlais, though, and we'll visit other countries, Orlais isn't all nice: the Assassin DLC for DA2 always gave me the creeps; Orlesian royalty and aristocracy are kind of nasty people, mostly. (Though I love real-world French history, Orlesians are another thing entirely. Besides, they nearly destroyed my beloved Ferelden! And I like Loghain, so. Heh, wonder if we see him again!)

 

(Btw, please do tell if Storm of Z turns out to be interesting! I tried beginning it once,but got too bored without NPCs and romances and banters).

[SapphireIce101]

From what I understand, we only get to go to Orlais and Ferelden. Hopefully we'll get to go to somewhere new in a DLC or expansion. I was actually okay with Mark of the Assassin. . . . Okay that isn't true, I didn't like it when Hawke was basically a NPC follower in Tallis' adventure. Its still a good DLC, but blegh, Hawke is the protagonist, not Tallis.

 

Imo, SoZ is like Icewind Dale before the NPC Project was made. So, yeah, it'll be kind of boring if you aren't supplying the romances and banters in your head. At least until you get a couple of Cohorts. Some of them like to randomly talk sometimes.

 

Like for instance, the Wood Elves are brother and sister. Brother is CG, and Sister is CE. So yeah, there's some squabbling going on since the Brother is leading the group. The halfling is neutral, but given that she's a halfling, she kind of acts like Alora, and is completely happy most of the time. The Yuan-ti Pureblood...She's a ranger, so like most rangers, she's just there to stand there and look pretty while shooting those arrows, or if you want more detail, she's the survivalist guide. Thats right, I made her archery-style combat. Someday I'll make a ranger that is two-weapon styled, but it is not this day!

[Domi]

From what I remember of SoZ, it was relatively strong plot-wise. But I never got into it. I thought about Cohorts dialogues expansion, by rigging dialogue scripts to the existing area nodes. IIRC I had a trial code that worked. Now, with those marvelous area scripts they do nowadays you can do it no problems whatsoever. But I believe it would have even less of a player base than IWD's proper. It's dated, but has no potential for making it as a classic work of gaming history. Obsidian yet again failed to understand with the SoZ, that for every vocal "I don't care about your stupid joinables at all and just want to create my own UBER-party' player, there is 10 silent ones sitting in the wings, who want as much interactions and dialogue as the company could possibly cram in, and do it without the sniffy attitude BI and Obsidian always showed towards romances. It only took Bio one game to learn that lesson.

[SapphireIce101]

Yeah, meanwhile, Obsidian, is making PoE. There won't be any romances despite the huge vocal majority cry for them.

 

Now, IWD. There's one thing that I'm against with Icewind Dale, and that would be joinable NPCs, like Baldur's Gate joinable NPCs. Icewind Dale was never made for joinables that are scattered around. In fact, there was a person suggesting using NPCs like Hrothgar, and Erevain as joinables. The problem is, if those two don't die then the story for IWD changes, and in the case of Erevain, the Xan mod has to change in order to accomodate Erevain not being dead, or the Xan mod will be completely inaccurate when it comes to Erevain.

 

P.S. I'm fine with IWD NPC Project. They aren't really scattered around, and you can easily find them if you want to use them, and in chocolate IWD they're easily importable.

 

Now, back to doing my crafting stuff on my JK.

[DavidW]

Yeah, and we got a fairly long and impressive explanation why Revan'd want to get rid of the Empire entire. But why would he hate the Republic? I haven't been given an explanation yet, Darth Arkous/colonel said nothing, so I'm a little baffled.

I agree that it's hard to see why Revan would want to physically destroy the Republic's worlds and people, but (especially given that Revan's sanity is a little fragile) it's relatively straightforward to think of reasons he might want to break up the Republic's political structure and replace it with something else. If I recall correctly, some of Darok's dialogue vaguely hints in that direction.

[Domi]

Revan's is an equal opportunity destroyer. He's been trying to be everything for everyone for so long, so when he turns to arch-enemying, he has to do it properly. They really should have made him a male on the Pub side, and a female - on the imp side. Yeah. That would have been great.

 

 

 

Yeah, meanwhile, Obsidian, is making PoE. There won't be any romances despite the huge vocal majority cry for them.

 

I know, mind-boggling. That argument was relevant in 1998, and was resolved once and for all by 2000. But, no, instead of actually trying to do something good with the cards we were dealt, we prefer to throw them under the table. Even more ironic, it was Obsidian who did the best romantic scene I have seen in the entire gaming carrier.

 

Totally random thought, seeing we are on Obsidian and I am again thinking bao-Dur. I was playing paired with Eric's male Con, and I found myself drifting in the "oh, I so wish..." land - I wish they would have the guy who voiced Bao to voice Male Con! I would play him in a jiffy! right now, the voice is downright unpleasant.

[SapphireIce101]

Again, Revan is a dang hypocrite.

 

Oh, the reason they aren't doing romances is because they don't want to. Which, I suppose I could respect that.

 

Mmm, The Male Consular is voiced by Nolan North. I try so hard to not make Assassin's Creed jokes. I really do.

[Domi]

 

 

Oh, the reason they aren't doing romances is because they don't want to. Which, I suppose I could respect that.

 

I don't. Can't respect stupid.

[Kulyok]

I think that's really a rash decision. They may change their minds, but by then it'd probably be too late. An RPG game, spiritual successor to Bioware/Obsidian games, without romances in it? Really.

 

Looking forward to Rakata Prime. I think we'll see Xan... I mean, Revan voiced by Xan, then - it's going to be in 2.10, right next Tuesday, right? REALLY looking forward to it! And any possible explanations of Revan's motivations and thoughts, naturally.

[Twani]

The Obsidian authors just don't like writing romances: they feel people obsess over them as opposed to story, they prefer a more tragic arc then most romance lovers enjoy, they think they have other stories they can tell better then they can tell romances, and they think the time that could be used for romances is better used in a feature that will be played by everyone (romances generally are only enjoyed by a minimal part of the playerbase, though Bioware would argue it's a very important part). (Honestly, after all the screaming ranting, Gaider, Allen, and Mark all posted about not doing romances in later Bioware games, although they say that every time.) I can respect that. You shouldn't have to write something you don't like to (ugh, I hate when I'm put in a position where I have to), and it's not something they feel they're good at. Honestly, considering their record... I can't blame them. Obsidian romances haven't been really liked, especially by the main male straight population (KOTOR2, Mira was the popular one, Elenee was constantly referred to as a creepy stalker, Safiya wasn't 'pretty enough', Alpha Protocal everyone wanted Sis- New Vegas is probably their best game, and it has no PC romance), so why make something that isn't very popular? Tons of great RPGs don't have romances, and it's specifically a spiritual successor to Torment, in which romance was a very small part of it (in which your character was loved, but mostly due to manipulation- the 'romances' were not very romantic; at best you get one kiss with Annah and to lie to a love martyr once more). I think focusing on game story rather then romances is a good move for them, as romances have never been their speciality.

 

I have absolutely no interest in Revan, who became to become too big of a Mary Sue in my eyes in KOTOR2/the Revan novel (especially as the Exile was basically suddenly reduced from a badass general to 'Revan's little apprentice' who gets stuffed in the fridge). Trying to destroy the majority of the imperial population at least helped bring him down a notch, but I have a bad feeling that this whole thing will be 'Why Revan Is the Greatest Thing Ever and your PC should be in awe of him' (and that despite him trying to kill them, my Imps will be forced to work with them because He's Just That Special). Yeah. Can I just try killing him again, please?

 

 

The Councilor voices are just horrible, which is a shame as Nolan North is usually awesome. But the male JC sounds like he's reading from a phonebook usually, even during the romance with Nadia (which is actually sort of funny, but it's probably not supposed to be), and the female JC over emotes and usually seems to be feeling completely random rather then what-a-sane-person-should-feel. Still, the female is much better then the male. Eugh.

 

 

SoZ has the fun trade deal (although following around caravans protecting them from he wildlife gets old after a while), a relatively decent light hearted adventure story, opportunities to go completely evil or good (now that's something Obsidian is generally good at- writing decent 'evil' paths; from sacrificing Visas, joining the Legion and senticing Arcade to slavery, to screwing over *everyone* in AP, to the totally awesome 'Eat Myrkul, destroy everything the Betrayer ever wanted, hunt gods' MotB ending (Also, One as Many -> More evil then Sarevok and Dorn combined any day, and much more creepy)), and the usual fun NWN2 combat. Lots of opportunities to use the social skills too, which I liked. On the other hand, it is definitely like IWD or BG multiplayer. I modded it so I could just make a six person party and not have to use the henchmen at all. Still, some of them do have some special dialog just for them besides the gender/race/class/skill (the Doomguide will totally FLIP if you allow his ex to unleash an army of undead on a town)..

 

...Unfortunately, none of the 'henchmen' were interesting enough for me to remember their names. There's an elven favoured soul, a tiefling warlock, an aasimar shadow thief, that doomguide dude, a ranger and druid in the first town (and the druid calls his dino Yoshii), the halfling swashbuckler, and... like, none of them are that interesting. I'm trying to remember... a halforc paladin? A bard who keeps losing his hats? I think there was an evil gnome. There was also an Illthid who totally saw Cyric punking Mystra and went crazy, but you sadly couldn't recruit him in your party. I think an Illthid would have been awesome...

 

The big bad parts of the game were that lack of henchmen interaction (but I just made up interaction between my characters- I love creating characters), those stupid quests that would be like 'Go find five dinosuar livers' and one out of twenty dino's would drop the liver, and I found the 'must... raise... party members' rather then wait for the losers to just come back to life tiring. As you can only control one character at a time, inevitably someone is being a moron (in that stupid Path of Evil campagin, I don't know how many times I would tell my stupid rogue companion to go flank someone with his daggers only to find him plinking away in a corner with his bow, argh!), and then they are going to die, and then in early levels I need to get a coin by trekking all the way to a temple to raise them. Much easier once your cleric can raise the dead, but... ugh. Annoying.

 

 

The Dragon Age boards are much calmer today... I believe because quite a few bans happened last night (and quite a few posts mysteriously disappeared). Also, straight guys and bi/lesbian gals can also romance Jo... um, Josephine? That doesn't have a red line under it. She's your diplomatic adviser, and looks to be a 'traditionally pretty' (if with slightly dark skin, the horror /eyeroll) Spanish girl. I hope she has the accent... Cass doesn't. I dunno, I sort of want to see her and Cullen and fight over me. /loved Zev's accent

 

Also, I WANT. Leianna can have the nug, I just want the mabari!

 

(I can't believe we don't get a mabari pet! The mabari pet was totally my bro (I always downloaded the extra dog slot for Origins so I could have him with me at all times). And he always loved me, even when my character was a gigantic jerk who alienated everyone else.)

[Domi]

The Obsidian authors just don't like writing romances: they feel people obsess over them as opposed to story, they prefer a more tragic arc then most romance lovers enjoy, they think they have other stories they can tell better then they can tell romances, and they think the time that could be used for romances is better used in a feature that will be played by everyone (romances generally are only enjoyed by a minimal part of the playerbase, though Bioware would argue it's a very important part).

 

And that's why I say it's stupid. The easier way is to bring on a couple of people who could add romantic content without breaking the 'tragic' story arc. Gods see, it's not that hard. Honestly, seeing Obsidian keeps writing and re-writing the same plot (and getting utterly lost in it half the time)... it's not like they have much to boast in that department tbh. Elaine wasn't stellar, but was NWN2 as a whole? KOTOR2, where they made an effort, actually was well-received by the gaming audience romance-wise. It had its moments of brilliance, and its utter face-palms. Work on both, your char development and your story, instead of making excuses. That's what Bio does Instead of high and mighty crap. I beg you to differ with romances being a minor thing. Honestly, what is the first thing do you check about a joinable NPC when you look at the info that is released about him/her? Who are the most popular environmental characters and what people ask to add to them? (Shrug).

 

As for Torment, who was the fav character of 90% of the players... that one who gave them that grudging kiss. The only thing that ever compete with a romanced character in mass-adoration is a good comic relief.

[Twani]

Grr.

 

I have to meet my lawyer (...I can't believe I have a lawyer) tomorrow at 9:00AM. Going from prior meetings, I strongly doubt I'll be able to escape in less then an hour, so I'll be missing this week. I'm sorry, but... meh. This is important, I suppose.

[Kulyok]

Okay, then, let's meet next week! My Russian Imperial guild is conquesting, so I'll go help.

[Domi]

No problems, the game is not going anywhere. Good luck with the lawyer!