No romance!

[AeonsLegend]

Well there's a difference between true RPing or just going along for the ride and make some choices along the way. If I'm completely honest I don't want to have to RP my way through a poorly designed story. I rather have a fleshed out story with meaningful things happening. This means things happen to you, rather than you choosing to RP something happened.

[BruceVC]

 

 

Don't forget that you never actually have to do anything to win someone over. All you need to do is use jedi mind trick and then you're golden. Romance in these games is a gimmick, it's not rewarding. It doesn't even feel like romance to be honest.

Yes but  remember the whole point of Romance in RPG is to actually succeed in the Romance, this may sound obvious but it has nuance 

 

If the Romance could fail, and they can fail, then you cant RP or imagine  that aspect of the RPG  journey. So for example lets say you wanted to join the Dark Brotherhood in Skyrim and you go on these quests that possibly  allow you to do this but then you are denied actually joining the DB your character is simply not part of the DB so on the rest of the journey in the Skyrim world you cannot RP this development 

 

Romance is a small part of the character and party interaction in almost all RPG but it still should exist so we can explore this avenue of immersive party and or follower interaction 

 

But you could RP somebody who failed to join the DB and now has a vendetta against them for not recognizing your greatness. Or any of a million other things related to failing to join the DB. In a romance, you could roleplay unrequited love, or that you hate them because of rejection, or a million other things.

 

RP isn't limited by failure to achieve a goal.

 

True and I agree with the logic 

 

For example I would prefer to destroy  the DB than to join them 

Edited April 23, 2019 by BruceVC

[daven]

ROMANCE?! It's for puffters! Come on lads get a grip.

[Katarack21]

Well there's a difference between true RPing or just going along for the ride and make some choices along the way. If I'm completely honest I don't want to have to RP my way through a poorly designed story. I rather have a fleshed out story with meaningful things happening. This means things happen to you, rather than you choosing to RP something happened.

True, but what I'm saying is you can RP in both positive and negative spaces. The players RP is no excuse for ****ty writing, but you can adapt your RP based on what does *or doesn't* happen with your character.

[Gizmo]

On 12/12/2018 at 1:28 AM, Epaminondas said:

I tend to think that these things are important because we make them so. If someone played the game without knowing or caring whether there was a romance, he or she would most likely be put off by a bad effort. ...Or impressed by a good one. I agree with the folks who don't want a romance and for the reasons they don't want one. ...But demanding a ban on romances because catering to the public for a romance denies creative authority to the design team is the same as demanding inclusion of a romance. 

It'd be nice to have a check-box that omits them entirely from the narrative.

On 12/10/2018 at 4:11 PM, cheesealmighty said:

Well I'm appalled by the fact they're not supporting Windows XP, the best one.

Nope  ; W2k:SP4 is the best version of the OS to date. All later versions started becoming their own video game, as the OS stopped being a shell, and intrusively began trying to become a 'user experience'.    The only reason I went to XP, was that FO3 arbitrarily required it—and it was not worth the switch.  Later I moved to Win7 because the Blender team dropped support for XP. [jerks] 

Edited May 15, 2019 by Gizmo

[nocoolnamejim]

On 4/19/2019 at 12:02 PM, Chairchucker said:

 

Wait, what? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I sure don't remember it, and you're gonna have a hard time convincing me it was important to the game.

 

The Syreen Commander Talana?

Given that the ending of the game features the protagonist waking to her face, and then fast forwarding to telling their mutual grandchildren about their story I would consider it fairly important. 

Ironically for the anti-romance faction, it's a fairly thinly done romance for sure. But hard to argue that it wasn't important to the game given she ends up committing her race to joining the New Alliance of Free Stars then marrying and having children with the protagonist.

[Edvin]

Wow !
I have to say I am really surprised how stupid the arguments of some people are.
It seems to me that most critics do not understand anything...

Let's take a look at three most popular arguments:
 

1) "I hate romances!"

No one forces you to have one.
In the vast majority of cases, romance is optional.
Implementing romances will not hurt you.

 

2) "Romance should be done properly, or not at all!"

Really? Okay, here's my counter-argument:
Games should be done properly, or not at all!

All developers should immediately stop working on all games that are not great.
90% of all independent studios should be closed because their games are not top quality.
If it can't be done great, it shouldn't be done at all. Why even bother?
(Does it still seem like a great argument?)

 

3) "Romances are very costly and time-consuming. Time and resources should be used for better things."

Okay, this is one of the biggest bull**** that has been refuted many times, but people (for some reason) keep repeating it.

If you have an interesting character with own opinions, emotions, meaningful past and life goals, writing a romance is not difficult. Do you remember the Bastila from Kotor 1? How long was her romance? Something about 50 sentences (if you don't count a few dialogues where you intentionally teasing her to make fun of her). And it was more than enough because her character was well developed. You can't have a well-written romance unless you have a well-written character. And well-written character IS costly and time-consuming feature. But if you have such a character, writing a romance is nothing hard, time-consuming or expensive.

 

Besides, people should finally realize that

Romance ≠ Sex !!!

Yes, sex CAN be included in romance, but it's definitely not a condition.
Already mentioned Kotor 1 has sexless romance, but it was still an excellent romance.
Everything depends only on the quality of the character and quality of the writer.
( More examples: Arcanum, Planescape Torment, Mask of betrayer, all games with good sexless romances )

Edited June 12, 2019 by Edvin

[rjshae]

Perk: Start the game married to a Toasterix fembot by Ronco. No romance, but you get hot buttered bagels for lunch.

[Chairchucker]

20 hours ago, Edvin said:

Some words in favour of romances

One or two of the 'stupid arguments' that you think you're refuting aren't simply reasons that people think games shouldn't have romances; they are reasons that the developers of this game have announced that there will definitely not be romances in this game.

[daven]

Romance is overrated. 

Girlfriends are a pain in the arse more than anything. If it was realistic in a game they would be nagging you to do the dishes half the time. 

[Amentep]

Quote

1) "I hate romances!"

No one forces you to have one.
In the vast majority of cases, romance is optional.
Implementing romances will not hurt you.

Implementing the romance can hurt the end user, if much of the character content of the NPC is locked behind the romance (note this doesn't hurt just the romance hater, but it effects all users presuming multiple romances 

 

Quote

2) "Romance should be done properly, or not at all!"

Really? Okay, here's my counter-argument:
Games should be done properly, or not at all!

All developers should immediately stop working on all games that are not great.
90% of all independent studios should be closed because their games are not top quality.
If it can't be done great, it shouldn't be done at all. Why even bother?
(Does it still seem like a great argument?)

Some can - and have - made the argument that a proper romance is beyond the scope of current games.  However your argument here is a strawman, because you're abstracting a specific point of gameplay to the larger idea of the game itself.  One only need to look at any game with a maligned minigame (which right now, Romances are treated as) and you can understand the idea.  If you can't implement your lockpicking idea without it being frustrating to the end user, why implement it?

Quote

3) "Romances are very costly and time-consuming. Time and resources should be used for better things."

Okay, this is one of the biggest bull**** that has been refuted many times, but people (for some reason) keep repeating it.

If you have an interesting character with own opinions, emotions, meaningful past and life goals, writing a romance is not difficult. Do you remember the Bastila from Kotor 1? How long was her romance? Something about 50 sentences (if you don't count a few dialogues where you intentionally teasing her to make fun of her). And it was more than enough because her character was well developed. You can't have a well-written romance unless you have a well-written character. And well-written character IS costly and time-consuming feature. But if you have such a character, writing a romance is nothing hard, time-consuming or expensive.

They keep repeating it because

• Developers have made this point.
• people who aren't developers keep saying this point is invalid.

I also find it charming that you think "writing a romance" as not being difficult, when its as difficult (or not) as any other thing you write.

But as for resources, lets look at a theoretical implementation of a romance choice.

Romance Option (RO) needs to be a fully fledged character whether you romance them or not

• This means RO needs to have two dialogue trees, one for the romance, one for not having the romance
• For RO to be a character (and not a puppet of the player), there needs to be conditions for a started romance to fail other than the player failing it.  This means that some way of tracking this must be created and implemented
• Any reaction that RO has to story elements needs to have two reactions, one considering a non-romance option and one considering a reaction consistant with the progress of the romance
• The world itself needs to recognize the romance; what does the rest of the party think of the romance, if you stay at an inn, do you need a different rate because of a private 2 person room, do people recognize you as a couple.
• Should there be romance specific quests, what happens with these quests if the character doesn't romance RO?
• Does the scope of the game make a romance make sense?  If you meet RO today, and the game only covers a week of life at best, is there enough time to develop a full romance?
• Should RO get mad if they are left out of the party?  If you don't talk to them?  Are they jealous of other ROs?
• Does the PC get affected by what happens to RO in combat and vice versa?
• Are there any systems that need to accommodate the romance?  

Probably much more to think through, but I hope this points out a romance is not a trivial thing tossed into a game at a whim with no cost to other parts of development.

Quote

Romance ≠ Sex !!!

Yes, sex CAN be included in romance, but it's definitely not a condition.
Already mentioned Kotor 1 has sexless romance, but it was still an excellent romance.
Everything depends only on the quality of the character and quality of the writer.
( More examples: Arcanum, Planescape Torment, Mask of betrayer, all games with good sexless romances )

I don't believe anyone has been advocating that Romance = Sex.  I have seen many people dismayed, in fact, with the lack of romance options that don't give a gratuitous sex scene before the climactic last fight, bioware style.

[Edvin]

On 6/14/2019 at 4:10 PM, Amentep said:

Implementing the romance can hurt the end user, if much of the character content of the NPC is locked behind the romance (note this doesn't hurt just the romance hater, but it effects all users presuming multiple romances.

So you practically saying that romance haters will be upset that they don't have access to romance content.
Don't complain about not having something you didn't want.

And regarding content and multiple romances, BG2 had a huge amount of character content in romances and you could only have one.
No one has complained, and everyone still praises BG2 for a great romances.
 

On 6/14/2019 at 4:10 PM, Amentep said:

Some can - and have - made the argument that a proper romance is beyond the scope of current games.  However your argument here is a strawman, because you're abstracting a specific point of gameplay to the larger idea of the game itself.  One only need to look at any game with a maligned minigame (which right now, Romances are treated as) and you can understand the idea.  If you can't implement your lockpicking idea without it being frustrating to the end user, why implement it?

Bad comparison.
You can't compare the optional "bonus" content such as romance with something like opening locks.
Anyway, I just wanted to show that arguing with the style "Only great things or nothing." goes nowhere and is used by people who do not have any good arguments.

On 6/14/2019 at 4:10 PM, Amentep said:

They keep repeating it because

• Developers have made this point.
• people who aren't developers keep saying this point is invalid.

I also find it charming that you think "writing a romance" as not being difficult, when its as difficult (or not) as any other thing you write.

I had the pleasure of playing a lot of amateur mods for games like BG2, Dragon Age, Skyrim or Shadowrun.
I know a lot of people who have been able to write a better and more sophisticated romance than most romances that are in today's games.
( In the past, I also created a few mods, including an NPC with romance.)

Everything depends on the writer. Some are more talented than others.
Some writers can write good romance easily and some fail even if they really try.
It's not difficult with the right people.
 

On 6/14/2019 at 4:10 PM, Amentep said:

Romance Option (RO) needs to be a fully fledged character whether you romance them or not

• This means RO needs to have two dialogue trees, one for the romance, one for not having the romance
• For RO to be a character (and not a puppet of the player), there needs to be conditions for a started romance to fail other than the player failing it.  This means that some way of tracking this must be created and implemented
• Any reaction that RO has to story elements needs to have two reactions, one considering a non-romance option and one considering a reaction consistant with the progress of the romance
• The world itself needs to recognize the romance; what does the rest of the party think of the romance, if you stay at an inn, do you need a different rate because of a private 2 person room, do people recognize you as a couple.
• Should there be romance specific quests, what happens with these quests if the character doesn't romance RO?
• Does the scope of the game make a romance make sense?  If you meet RO today, and the game only covers a week of life at best, is there enough time to develop a full romance?
• Should RO get mad if they are left out of the party?  If you don't talk to them?  Are they jealous of other ROs?
• Does the PC get affected by what happens to RO in combat and vice versa?
• Are there any systems that need to accommodate the romance?  

Probably much more to think through, but I hope this points out a romance is not a trivial thing tossed into a game at a whim with no cost to other parts of development.

Good systems build romances around a character not a character around romance.
Fully fledged character is first thing you have to do before you can start thinking about romance.

Also, you forgot to mention:
 

• System that will measure the progress of romances
• Possible custom made romance related cutscenes
• Different epilogues

Edited June 17, 2019 by Edvin

[Amentep]

Just a few thoughts -

• What I was saying regarding locked content, is that several romances are written so that the character is only interesting if you romance them.  This means that if there are 7 NPCs and 4 of them are romance options, than in a 4 NPC party you'll have the possibility of picking a party where only 1 NPC is interesting (because you romance one of them; the other 4's interstingness is locked in their romances).
• I'd argue that a relationship is more important than a lock-picking mini game.  You can always abstract the lock-picking to just be a dice roll based on your statistics, the romance is always going to need the player's input excepting in situations where the story is built so that the romance is part of the narrative (as in many jRPGs).
• Fan mods can do a lot of things that developers run out of time to achieve.  The end result if I'm a fan and I don't complete the mod I'm working on is that I wasted my time; not so for developers.
   

[Kevin R Ruiz V]

It would be nice to at least have one meaningful relationship like possibly maybe even a dog companion. Something that the player can become attached to, that would emirs them even more. or have a designated partner for them already or something, of that sort.

just a friendly opinion! because i know theirs those people that take it to heart.

[Kevin R Ruiz V]

On 6/12/2019 at 10:40 AM, Edvin said:

Wow !
I have to say I am really surprised how stupid the arguments of some people are.
It seems to me that most critics do not understand anything...

Let's take a look at three most popular arguments:
 

1) "I hate romances!"

No one forces you to have one.
In the vast majority of cases, romance is optional.
Implementing romances will not hurt you.

 

2) "Romance should be done properly, or not at all!"

Really? Okay, here's my counter-argument:
Games should be done properly, or not at all!

All developers should immediately stop working on all games that are not great.
90% of all independent studios should be closed because their games are not top quality.
If it can't be done great, it shouldn't be done at all. Why even bother?
(Does it still seem like a great argument?)

 

3) "Romances are very costly and time-consuming. Time and resources should be used for better things."

Okay, this is one of the biggest bull**** that has been refuted many times, but people (for some reason) keep repeating it.

If you have an interesting character with own opinions, emotions, meaningful past and life goals, writing a romance is not difficult. Do you remember the Bastila from Kotor 1? How long was her romance? Something about 50 sentences (if you don't count a few dialogues where you intentionally teasing her to make fun of her). And it was more than enough because her character was well developed. You can't have a well-written romance unless you have a well-written character. And well-written character IS costly and time-consuming feature. But if you have such a character, writing a romance is nothing hard, time-consuming or expensive.

 

Besides, people should finally realize that

Romance ≠ Sex !!!

Yes, sex CAN be included in romance, but it's definitely not a condition.
Already mentioned Kotor 1 has sexless romance, but it was still an excellent romance.
Everything depends only on the quality of the character and quality of the writer.
( More examples: Arcanum, Planescape Torment, Mask of betrayer, all games with good sexless romances )

facts!!!! BTW majority of people are either virgins or old folk that when they were teens got heart broken awwwww! you'll never get a good argument on the internet. good things you said tho loved all of it. left a like.

[Spamwagon]

One has to wonder,  is it REALLY that bad to NOT represent the gay community in your game?   Would it be so bad if you were setting up a pal on a straight date?

It seems like pandering to me - because the liberal media is such a big fan of the fringe / identity politics.    Only 3.5% of Americans are gay according to the Williams Institute.

I don't understand why entertainment producers are so hot to put gay relationships into their media.  Is it just because its the "in" thing with liberals now? 

I ask, because for me - pursuing a gay relationship in the game is not fun , as a straight person and a member of the other 96.5% of Americans.   

Why not have straight material for straight folks, and gay material for gay folks?  OR  maybe make material slanted towards the OVERWHELMING majority?

Edited October 30, 2019 by Spamwagon

[Puce Moose]

One thing I was impressed with was how gently they portrayed an asexual character - I can't remember a game where such a lifestyle (in the rare event it was even mentioned) wasn't presented as a punchline or a thing to be ridiculed/pitied. I experienced quite a few feels vicariously, helping her through a rather silly (but sweet) line of quests to woo her sweetheart. 

[daven]

Deleted

Edited October 30, 2019 by daven

[Daidre]

3 hours ago, Puce Moose said:

One thing I was impressed with was how gently they portrayed an asexual character - I can't remember a game where such a lifestyle (in the rare event it was even mentioned) wasn't presented as a punchline or a thing to be ridiculed/pitied. I experienced quite a few feels vicariously, helping her through a rather silly (but sweet) line of quests to woo her sweetheart. 

Blowing up her swetheart's head at their romantic evening and seeing her "You just destroyed only thing I was living for!" is probably funniest and most gratifying moment in the game. 

It is so cool, I am afraid that Obsidian will patch it out after seeing videos.

Edited October 30, 2019 by Daidre

[Mikeymoonshine]

11 hours ago, Spamwagon said:

One has to wonder,  is it REALLY that bad to NOT represent the gay community in your game?   Would it be so bad if you were setting up a pal on a straight date?

There really aren't that many lgbt+ characters in media, and the majority of them are minor characters. It's just when they show up a bunch of cishet guys get upset about it. All while accusing other people of being "whiney crybabies".

 

Also studied have shown that more diverse media leads to less bigoted attitudes. Simmilar to how more diverse areas tend to be less bigoted towards other groups. So it is important, it also helps minorities feel less alienated. 

[daven]

38 minutes ago, Mikeymoonshine said:

There really aren't that many lgbt+ characters in media, and the majority of them are minor characters. It's just when they show up a bunch of cishet guys get upset about it. All while accusing other people of being "whiney crybabies".

 

Also studied have shown that more diverse media leads to less bigoted attitudes. Simmilar to how more diverse areas tend to be less bigoted towards other groups. So it is important, it also helps minorities feel less alienated. 

I think its how obvious and ham fisted most of it usually is nowadays which annoys people.

 

[Mikeymoonshine]

44 minutes ago, daven said:

I think its how obvious and ham fisted most of it usually is nowadays which annoys people.

 

Like I would agree that stuff like the trans characters in mass effect Andromeda and that Baldur's Gate expansions by beamdom were ham fisted. Trans people don't tend to just announce it in that way. Both resulted in massive disproportionate backlashes though. 

There's also the person in this thread saying including lgbt+ people at all is unnecessary pandering and you agreeing with them so what can I say? I don't believe you? 

[Daidre]

12 minutes ago, Mikeymoonshine said:

Like I would agree that stuff like the trans characters in mass effect Andromeda and that Baldur's Gate expansions by beamdom were ham fisted. Trans people don't tend to just announce it in that way. Both resulted in massive disproportionate backlashes though. 

Indian girl asks for a help with her asexual lesbian crash for Chinese older lady. 

It is epitome of ham fisted. Like 4 minorities in one couple. 

Edited October 30, 2019 by Daidre

[Wormerine]

3 minutes ago, Daidre said:

Indian girl asks for a help with her asexual lesbian crash for Chinese older lady. 

It is epitome of ham fisted. 

Why? Because both parties aren't white or because both parties are female? If one character was white female and other was white male would anything change about the conversation? Would that make it alright to you?

[Mikeymoonshine]

10 minutes ago, Daidre said:

Indian girl asks for a help with her asexual lesbian crash for Chinese older lady. 

It is epitome of ham fisted. Like 4 minorities in one couple. 

Exactly what I was saying, minorities existing in media is "Ham fisted" to you guys. You'll always find some problem with it. 

Edited October 30, 2019 by Mikeymoonshine