[[Merged] Gods save us another romance thread]

I'd also cite DA 2 as an example of a game where other content was sacrificed due to limited resources and a romances-first outlook.

 

And you base that assertion on...?

[[Merged] Gods save us another romance thread]

EDIT: Callimachus, what about the questions do you find biased? If they are phrased poorly I'd like to correct them.

 

The purpose of the last question was actually to discern what percentage of people in favor of romances felt that "if you can have one, you should have them all.", if that makes snse.

 

You ask:

Are you willing to sacrifice romances as a feature if it drew significant resources from other story features?

 

 

Well... of course no one would want ANYTHING to detract from story features. But that antithesis is fallacious. A romance story is a story feature. And, if done well (as is true in regard to any story feature) can propell many diverse and complex plots. Think about the Arthurian tales and the way the plot is enriched by the tiangle of Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot, the adventure of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, or even the way the plot is started to begin with with Uther's love (or lust) for Igraine. Tristan and Isolde is a story entirely based on a romance plot, as is in its own way the Odyssey. The Iliad, the Argonautica, the Aenaid, the Kalevala, the Mahabharata, the tales of Cu Chulainne all contain stories of love and romance. These stories are not antithetic or detract from the adveturous heroic sides of the story, but instead intesify it. Even in places where the hero chooses to sever the romance early on (like in the Aenaid, or the Argonautica), that action serves to intensify the drama, and lit other aspects of the hero's destiny, agenda, goals, and character. So I think a better way to phrase this question would be: Do you consider a romance plot as important story within the game?

[[Merged] Gods save us another romance thread]

I'm sorry, but I think the way these questions are phrazed is so very biased. I think romance options (if done well) are a part of a story development, have the potential of making it truly memorable, and could easily be used as a means to propell many aspects of a plot (and I don't mean just a romance novel type of plot), certainly they are not antithetic or a hindrance to a good story. Think about the great epic stories of practically every culture - almost each and every one of tham had a romance at some point or another (even in those in which it wasn't the main plot line), and all of them are enriched by those plots.

As for me, I would prefer a plot that contains romance options over one which does not any day of the week, and in fact it IS a factor I consider when deciding whether to buy a new game.

As for the third question, it's phrazing is so odd (and potentially entrapping) that I cannot possibly answer it with a "yes" or a "no". I suspect it is aimed against same sex romances, so I will answer it in this way: While I wouldn't mind if not all NPCs/Companions have romance options, and while I wouldn't even mind if not all NPCs/Companions have romance options open to both genders (and let's face it, when I say that, I mean mainly that not all of them would have same sex romance options - I have yet to see an official Companion romance that was exclusively same sex) I would expect there to be AT LEAST one same sex romance option for each sex.