About childhood friend pairings... I only don't mind if the two actually remains in contact before the relationship begins. When two childhood friends lost contact for so long that they don't recognize each other the next time they meet, the probably of romance is actually low.

Say if a person was 3 and had a puppy love over a childhood friend. They separate and don't meet each other again until they are 17. A child have very short attention span; they would almost certainly not remember, let alone recognize, a friend they have never seen for more than a decade (especially since a lot of physical changes can occur during those years).

It doesn't matter how close the couple used to be when they were so young and naive- when they grow up, they'd usually change so much that you'd become a stranger for that particular childhood friend; and for the relationship to work, they have to start from square one. Both would probably have other new friends they are comfortable with.

I was thinking more along the lines of how two people were childhood friends, then they separate and meet as adults, and then probably through some coincidental twist in fate find each other attractive. And then later they find out they used to know each other when they were younger.

Ah! Childhood friend! I'd be totally interested if player is could choose between this childhood friend with the protagonist of the story. Especially if the developer can make those two stood at a same level so the player got to actually think seriously which one from them he's going after.

Foe yay between two characters with a childhood past is my current obsession. XD

I'm more into foe yay territory than childhood friendship.

Foe yay for me. Although I would like to see a childhood friendship then romance, like Junpei and Akane in 999. However, I'm kind of more into forbidden love (read: foe yay) - just because of the whole denial-and-stress feeling going for it... which is kind-of-sort-of also in 999. ^__^ Ah well. I don't mind much romance in RPG as long as it's done right. Also, choosing between old love and new love is pretty cool too... love triangle, haha. Just my opinion, of course!

I don't really like love triangles (or quatrangles or whatever), though- unless it's parodied. Again, rivalry between two or more people over someone simply escalates the drama of the romance- which I despise.

@Adept: I was once like that too but blame FF.net with its well-written angst stories and love triangles and whatnot. WELL WRITTEN BEING KEYWORD. I'm a huge sucker for drama now XD

@diamondmist: Er, no. We have to keep in mind what kind of medium we're talking about. Sure, it's fine in novels or comics or films and such. No drama in games, please.

There's only so much interaction you can have on screen without the game getting overly wordy. Any drama needs to be minimal and can be delivered with as little words as possible. Angst is hard to deliver visually without super-crazy-detailed graphics, otherwise it would deteriorate into wangst instead.

Good drama is hard to find, really. It's totally a Your Mileage May Vary thing. One man's treasure is another man's trash. A lot of the drama/angst stuff that I loved 3-4 years ago? Total junk to me now that reading them makes me ill. A fanfic that used to sound so epic to me when I was 14 makes me so angry today that I have this urge to scream every time I stumble across it when browsing.

Example: I don't think the type of angst you consider good is the type of angsty drama that I would have enjoyed looking at if your fanfic is a representation of what you personally like ಥ_ಥ Purple prose + going overboard with emotional stuff = wangst ≠ good drama ಠ___ಠ
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I think a "love train" would be interesting/lulzy, though. A likes B, but B likes C, and C is torn between D and an NPC. Something like that.

Or make it be like a VN with crazy load of switches and conditionals. There's potential for love polygons if you play the game in a certain way and crazy hijinks would ensue. And much fun would be had by all

Please make a bad ending/heel-face-turn foe yay option available, team Amaranth? Please please please please? If foe yay is not unconventional pairing then what is?

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True, especially games using scrolling text dialogues like Aveyond. The less texts there is, the better.

And I don't actually mind some Angst or drama here and there- just to spice things up a little; but what I don't like is when romance overdoes the dramatics. I've mentioned it in another thread before, but I find the way the way people wangsting about every little thing, and acting all mopey or drama queen about their love problems sickens me.

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Love dodecahedrons would be a new concept to Aveyond, and I'm actually OK with that idea. To spice things up, make a harem. Maybe a character got doused in pheromone potions and makes everyone who so much as looks at him immediately fall in love with that person- regardless of age, gender, race. Then hilarity ensues.

No, really, the less the romance is taken seriously, the better it is for me, actually.

@daeva_agas: I think you didn't understand what I'm talking about - I meant that I didn't like drama at first, but since I've read well-written drama ffs, I've grown to like it in all mediums. ^_^

Romance drama could work in a game, but only if sufficient work is put into it. Let's say there's a love triangle. Scenes would need to be written for how they all got into the triangle, the tension/limbo state, and finally the conclusion where one of the persons is rejected. It get's even more complicated if there are more points to this love polygon.

Since AV tends to treat romance as secondary (maybe even tertiary priority), I don't think AV can handle anything more than a single love triangle if even that.

I don't mind love being dramatic or the game getting wordy because of it, but the love shouldn't be dramatic if there isn't enough elaboration on it. Dameon/Rhen was one of those pairings that just seemed bad because it was supposed to be dramatic but there weren't enough words or scenes dedicated to it.

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EXACTLY! Even in the very little portion of scenes those two actually have together, the chemistry between them were very minimal, that the supposed tension/drama we have in the climax (you know, the one when Dameon betrayed the party) doesn't make sense- or even outright narmish.

Not counting the final battle scene, try to compare the amount of scene Rhen had with Dameon and the moments she had with Lars. Doesn't take a genius to find out why R/L is much more popular among fans.

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Then that is the writer's problem. And it is total bosh to expect to understand a person better just because you're longer with them. Minimal scenes but at least those 'minimal' ones aren't filled with verbal abuse.

I'm with KTC on this one, AV treats romance as second priority so the lack of details is to be expected.

Which is why I said that even in those minimal interactions, we don't see any chemistry or true understanding between the two. It's just one doing flattering and acting the gentleman, and the other just happily going along with it.

I concede that romance is not a priority to the main storyline, but just because it's not a major plot point doesn't excuse it's poor execution. If the writer can't write romance, then there's no need to force in the genre into the story, since it's just bound to mess up everything.

@diamondsmist: How did I not understand? I understand perfectly that it's what you said. You're the one who didn't understand ME.

I was under the assumption that shaz started this thread to see what we thought about so and so, in order to help Amaranth and other game developers (and probably creators of other media) to understand what we think of the subject (endings, side quest, pairings).

And so, because you brought up Drama, I said that the theme is a very YMMV thing that not everyone likes. That's why I brought up media.
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It's hard to insert WELL WRITTEN drama in a medium that is required to put as little text as possible and doesn't have the backing up from high-tech graphics like Aveyond. The pixels don't have faces, and there's only so much you can do with the text boxes and facesets.

Not many people can tolerate wordy games, so it's hard to set up the angst and drama right. Also, again with the one man's treasure is another man's trash. What one person consider good drama may well be what other people think to be utter nonsense.

@Ivana KTC: I thought this thread was for games/various media in general and not Aveyond specifically? That's why I brought up the zany love dodecahedron, because some games can insert that into the gameplay without treating it as primary issue.

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Lars stopped the verbal abuse really early on in the journey. For the better part? He just says quest-related things (e.g: hey, maybe we should plant the pomegranate seeds). BUT, he's the one who tells Rhen to be careful with the dragon in case it bites, and is the one who recommends a dress to Rhen when trying to go to Lord Gavin's ball. Dameon was just being sappily oh-so-polite and Rhen blushes at being treated so nicely. And Dameon saying Danny's appearance is not quite perfect. That isn't very nice.

Also, because Dameon started out as a mole in the group, you can even pass off those "sappy" interaction as fakery and then it totally don't count.

And Dameon's reaction if Rhen "rejects" him at the ending? Ditto Rogue on this: NARM NARM NARM NARM NARM NARM!!!!

"I thought this thread was for games/various media in general and not Aveyond specifically? That's why I brought up the zany love dodecahedron, because some games can insert that into the gameplay without treating it as primary issue."

I assume it was, hence why I put in a general gaming paragraph before the AV one. Romance dramas could work in games but you need to put in a lot of effort to actually make it good, especially if you have multiple love interests in the game. For example, Mass Effect 2 had about 6 Love interests and almost all of them were good. (Sorry Jacob, you're just not that interesting. )

AV isn't one of those games.

There's nothing wrong with wordy dialogues for me as long as it delivers the message well and is not in the intro or before a very hard battle (which you need to load a couple of times).

And him commenting on Danny is clearly him displaying jealousy. If he really was 'fake mcfaketon' then he would only just act on the gentleman part and leave out commenting on him (unless he's THAT meticulous). Plus Danny's sprite do look plain so can't blame him. *sips tea*

@Ivana: I don't really count jealousy as a worthwhile interaction because that jealousy only proves that Dameon's interested in Rhen personally. It doesn't prove that Dameon is the better man.

And Dameon actually says Danny's nose is long and that he is too short for Rhen. We don't know how tall Rhen and Danny are or how exactly did Danny look like, so... unproven statement is unproven.