The Case for Romance.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I don't see the point of romance without boobplate. Hell, I don't see the point of female NPCs without boobplate.

[ItinerantNomad]

This whole discussion over pricing is kind of pointless. It certainly wasn't budgeting that led to the exclusion of romances.

 

per josh sawyer, yes it partially was. he'd do a romance only if he could do it well and budget is a huge reason for this.

Edited February 13, 2014 by ItinerantNomad

[Auxilius]

 

 

But this doesn't change the fact that Obsidian has been involved in Romance implementations in the past that the vast bulk of promancers were happy with, so is it unreasonable to ask them to do it again?

 

People who were happy with...say, the original NWN2 campaign romances must be setting their expectations really, really low. 

 

Do it right or don't it at all, I say.

 

Handmaiden wasn't terrible.

 

Visas Marr, on the other hand, made me wonder about the mental health infrastructure in a galaxy far, far away.

 

You gotta cut the girl some slack since her people was murdered and she lived for years near a Force black hole who warped her values and core being.

I enjoyed Visas Marr for this very reason actually. The girl was so secluded, so left behind in terms of normal behaviour than once she met someone who were, say, Nihilus' complete opposite, her switch went off with the strenght of a Death Star and she started babbling about the universe and the longing and the echos.

 

If anything, it was good proof a character only designed to be rescued is a walking liability likely to go mental at every turn. In a way, it was advocating how romance for the purpose of romance is terrible. And I'm sure the writers had this idea in mind so it's not like it was a fluke.

Quite endearing, I say.

 

Now, if we're talking about mentally ill women in KOTOR, there is Bastila, her lunacy, her hypocrisy and her complete inability to deal in a coherent way with the PC. I think HK-47 had something to say on the matter.

[Monte Carlo]

^ Yeah, I honestly think people imagine writers do this stuff for free, either that or they don't deserve to be paid much (which, generally, they ain't).

 

Edit: Sry Auxilius you Ninja'd me, it was the post above yours.

Edited February 13, 2014 by Monte Carlo

[Auxilius]

 

Let’s turn to science. 

Alright, I gotta stop there, I don't know what's with people on the internet, but trying to justify adding romances in with Science! is just completely silly.

 

It's like the Talimancers who tried to use Science! to find how what their waifu's sweat tasted like.

 

[Hassat Hunter]

In video-game development (like many other kinds of development) bugdet is everything.

 

You fool yourself if you believe otherwise...

 

Also, nice post Monte! Hopefully making it clearer how complex romance is, unlike how many people think about it (or gamedevelopment in general).

[TMZuk]

My worry is that  the decision to not involve any sort of romantic involvement means that there will not be paid all that much attention to any sort of character interactions and development in general. Because it is not only romance that is difficult to implement, but ~all~ the stuff that makes characters in an RPG live and breathe.

 

I ~hope~ to be mistaken, and discover that PoE indeed has deep character interaction, but the focus seems to be more on creating a tactical war-game for six characters, than about the characters.

 

From all the updates from the past six months which I have read, it all seems to have been about classes and balance and game-play. Number-stuff and design. While I do enjoy a good looking game, I had hoped for more. It seems that PoE will be less BG2 and more IWD. Some people might enjoy that, but I am not one of them. IWD was never very interesting compared to character driven games like BG, BG2 and PS:T.

 

I know from NWN2 and especially MotB that Obsidian ~is~ able to create what I am looking for. They just don't seem to be headed in that direction.

[Monte Carlo]

^ Thanks HH. 'Preciated. Look at Dragon Age: Origins. A triple A RPG. Yet the only romances that converge significantly are Morrigan and Leliana (sp) where you get called out by one or the other (there might be others).

 

This is partly for the reasons I describe. Dave Gaider is a competent writer who knows this stuff backwards and won't bite off more than he can chew... and still DA is too modest on the romance front for the fans.

 

When you compare that to a smaller game like PoE it's a no-brainer.

[Monte Carlo]

My worry is that  the decision to not involve any sort of romantic involvement means that there will not be paid all that much attention to any sort of character interactions and development in general. Because it is not only romance that is difficult to implement, but ~all~ the stuff that makes characters in an RPG live and breathe.

 

I ~hope~ to be mistaken, and discover that PoE indeed has deep character interaction, but the focus seems to be more on creating a tactical war-game for six characters, than about the characters.

 

From all the updates from the past six months which I have read, it all seems to have been about classes and balance and game-play. Number-stuff and design. While I do enjoy a good looking game, I had hoped for more. It seems that PoE will be less BG2 and more IWD. Some people might enjoy that, but I am not one of them. IWD was never very interesting compared to character driven games like BG, BG2 and PS:T.

 

I know from NWN2 and especially MotB that Obsidian ~is~ able to create what I am looking for. They just don't seem to be headed in that direction.

 

No. I think the developers have made it clear that this isn't the case.

 

I am sure the NPCs will have deep, almost PS:T-esque story arcs.

 

Read my post (it's long, I'm sorry). Romances complicate those story arcs, ironically by not having to worry about the different permutations of story arcs impacted by romances you might actually see *deeper* NPC interaction.

[Tale]

So, please bear that in mind when you ask for content like this.

From what I've gathered in various interviews, the basic process is that they get something like a month to write a script if they're lucky and then they spend the rest of development implementing it. They're doing things like dialogue trees, triggers for events related to their script, they may even be scripting out sequences having to do it, providing feedback for other writers especially when it involves their characters or relates to their material, and necessary revisions.

 

And all that work ends up amounting to sometimes 2 characters and 2 sidequests. For like a year or more of work. I can see that being intimidating. And having spent my share of time with multiple attempts at mods that never see the light of day, starting off with grand ambitions, then actually getting down to the work, always scoping down and cutting material until it actually becomes something that can work. Two months in and I finally have like two actual plot driving scenes implemented and I hate them.

[NanoPaladin]

Get 50K and get back to us...

 

And... Science is useless in gameplay development... it's all about... Finance

 

Are you naive? Do you have any idea about the research that goes into a game in pre-production? Without science you wouldn't even have video games to play. So before saying something like that think a moment. 

 

Sure it might not be a modern or sci fi setting but you can guarantee yourself that there is some science behind the game.

 

 

 @Monte

 

Thank you for actually joining the conversation. Anyways in regards to your post there I will definitely agree that writing for games (Especially with choice trees and all that jazz) is not easy. Every enabled decision for the player costs money, so yes it comes down to budget and writing ability. I would think that something like romance in an RPG should be a concrete decision within the pre-production and idea stages of the game. That way they are planned for and can be implemented better.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 13, 2014 by NanoPaladin

[Hassat Hunter]

I am pretty sure research and pre-development can hardly be called anything remotely to "science"...

 

Or are you talking about actually physical components of a PC for "without science no video game"... on which I would say you're grasping rather far...

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I don't care about science or realism in a fantasy game where everyone uses soul magic.

 

I do care about chainmail bikinis, golden codpieces, and boobplate though.

[NanoPaladin]

I am pretty sure research and pre-development can hardly be called anything remotely to "science"...

 

Or are you talking about actually physical components of a PC for "without science no video game"... on which I would say you're grasping rather far...

 

 

Alright man, its obvious you know best. You are 100% correct there is no science or ideas of science explored and implemented into video games at all.

 

[Hassat Hunter]

So sayeth the person who could explain romance through science!

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

 

 

Forgotten Futures - The Scientific Romance Role Playing Game.

http://www.forgottenfutures.com/

 

The internet is now complete.

Edited February 13, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[NanoPaladin]

So sayeth the person who could explain romance through science!

 

I was explaining it through psychology and biology. You might not quite understand why I did that, but think about it a moment.... games are just something people play for challenges and memories. Both of which link up to your head, so in reality that was actually the best way of explaining it as opposed to a pity party about wanting romance. Which again if you read the post fully you would know that is not what I was even remotely doing.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Holy ****. Forgotten Futures game now!

Edited February 13, 2014 by KaineParker

[coffeetable]

 

All they have to do is hire a person experienced at writing romance who has a talent for it.  Also doing that costs far less both in time and money than say..... developing an interior for a blacksmith shop.

FALSE.

Unless of course you make romance an out-of-the-blue option after 5 dialogues without any buildup like BioWare.

 

If you want romance you need to pay;

* Writer for a full year (say, 10K)

* Actual gameplay dev(s) to implent said writing (triggers, script, writing) (another 10K)

* If aside from just the writing you want more (say, a quest)... add 30k minimal (for a short one)

 

Total cost; 50k (and as stated, this is a low estimate). Feel free to pay OE that for the romances. I won't stop you... but I doubt you will.

 

 

lol

 

double fine shared their budget in one of the early documentaries. labour was budgeted at $10-15k per developer month.

Edited February 13, 2014 by coffeetable

[Chippy]

I've never cheated on Viconia.  Actually that's not entirely true - I've just never felt the inclination to.

[Karkarov]

 

Edit: Actually to be fair it might take 2 weeks.... maybe 3.  If you got one person doing all writing and one person doing all triggers and it takes them more than a month to put one romance in game your development either has too much red tape and editing or you hired incompetent people.

 

 

You're operating under an impression that the resources are unlimited. Whereas, in reality, it's a question of allocation.

 

Obsidian simply chose to employ the writer talent, which they have at their disposal, differently - and some people (I count myself among them) are happy with this decision.

 

Like I said in another post which none of you will read because you don't like not having something to nitpick.  If they had said "We did not consider romances a top development priority and we had to cut things due to time and money constraints.  As a result Romances were not going to be included because of those issues." It would be one thing.  What they said was "I don't like writing romance" and "even if everyone wanted it I don't think we can do it at a high quality so we aren't doing it."  So frankly budget never entered into it from the get go from Dev statements they just didn't want to do it.  I was merely responding to idiotic posts by people insisting that the inclusion of any sort of romance would somehow make the game worse nor am I the one who started inventing budget numbers or saying writing one romance would take a full year. 

 

Thanks for the Mass Effect 2 comment though, I am glad to know a bunch of completely optional romances that you could play the whole game and never see somehow ruined one of the best games made the year it came out for you.  Also I wonder how that game even saw release, what with one romance costing 100K+ and taking at least 1 year to write.  It had like what a dozen of them?  It should have taken at least 6-7 years to see release based on you guys who are so "in the know about game development".  Funny thing it only had like 6 maybe 7 writers.  Funny how they managed to write all those romances, all the game dialog, all the buddy party member dialog, all the branching dialog based on things from the first game, and all that other nonsense in just 3 years, apparently they had to code it all too since all writer must also write their own code and set their own triggers.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

For someone who is accusing others of nitpicking, you seem to be doing the same and taking quotes out of context. I get the impression that even if you had Obsidian do what you're asking, it still wouldn't be enough and you would find fault with them. I call it the sliding scale of explanation and butthurt. The more one explains or apologises, the other person becomes more butthurt.

Edited February 13, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[Lephys]

Depending on themes/settings/plots I don't feel as if romance always has a place within it, just like I don't feel as if every movie would benefit from having a romantic subplot.

While this is definitely true, I can't help but point out how noticeable it is when a film/story arbitrarily ignores any semblance of "romance" whatsoever. It's almost like never ever seeing any food, or even hearing any mention of it (not even troops rations, or talk of having had lunch, or any footage of anyone putting any food in their mouth, at all).

 

As I said, there are some plots that just don't really have any room for it at all, but those are pretty rare. Most are quite a bit strange to be completely devoid of any and all formation of emotional attachment between characters throughout crazy, life-threatening situations and dire circumstances.

 

It's not like there's got to be some huge emphasis on romantic endeavors, and some huge, arduous process of falling in love, concluding in people doing it, OR absolutely no feelings at all.

 

That's one of my biggest complaints about the treatment of this subject, in general, in terms of its actual implementation into stories (film, book, game, etc.). It's just this binary decision of "will we put in a dating/marriage sim, or won't we?"

 

I think any time it's done, it definitely needs to be optional. I hate it when opting out of flirting and extensive emotional attachment is really just choosing negative romance options. That's what's most dumb. The FOCUS hardly ever needs to be romance. It's just a different type of bond, is all. It can go really far, or it can just be a lighter one. I want characters to be able to care about each other on an individual basis, and not just "well obviously you're my ally and friend, and I wouldn't save you any harder than I'd save some random stranger who probably also doesn't deserve bad things to happen to them."

 

*shrug*. As with most things, the majority of legitimate complaints on this topic are all about bad/flawed implementations of such things. The biggest thing is that there's not just ONE degree of "romance" that has to go into the game. I think we use the term pretty lightly/generally in terms of game aspects, which is why they're called "romance options" and the whole thing isn't called a "romance game." It doesn't define the game. It's like... combat. Even adventure games have combat in them, a little. But that doesn't make them all about combat. It's in where it fits. Sometimes there's more of it, and sometimes there's less. Sometimes you fight-and-kill people, and sometimes you just stave things off and/or escape situations.

 

Same with romance. It's not just dating options, sex, and marriage. It's merely the representation of interpersonal attachment in the situations and circumstances. Maybe you have your character care more about one companion than others. Or maybe you just treat them all as friends. It can actually affect different things in interesting ways, instead of just being an arbitrary "huh huh huh, you can dating sim if you want, as a complete afterthought and side thing to the story."

[Karranthain]

Like I said in another post which none of you will read because you don't like not having something to nitpick.  If they had said "We did not consider romances a top development priority and we had to cut things due to time and money constraints.  As a result Romances were not going to be included because of those issues." It would be one thing.  What they said was "I don't like writing romance" and "even if everyone wanted it I don't think we can do it at a high quality so we aren't doing it."  So frankly budget never entered into it from the get go from Dev statements they just didn't want to do it.

 

Here's an exact quote from Josh:

 

Even if 100% of fans wanted them, I don't believe we have the time and other resources to implement them well.  I am not inherently opposed to romances, but I don't want to spend time implementing something I'm not confident we will be able to execute at a high level of quality.

 

You've omitted the highlighted part. Time and budget constraints are actually cited as the main reason, contrary to what you've posted.

 

 I was merely responding to idiotic posts by people insisting that the inclusion of any sort of romance would somehow make the game worse nor am I the one who started inventing budget numbers or saying writing one romance would take a full year.

 

To be fair, you've actually claimed (in this very topic), that:

 

Also doing that costs far less both in time and money than say..... developing an interior for a blacksmith shop.  Funny thing, there won't be one player romance in game, but I bet you there will be 4-5 different blacksmith shop interiors.

 

Which was proven to be false by BAdler, among others.

 

Thanks for the Mass Effect 2 comment though, I am glad to know a bunch of completely optional romances that you could play the whole game and never see somehow ruined one of the best games made the year it came out for you.  Also I wonder how that game even saw release, what with one romance costing 100K+ and taking at least 1 year to write.  It had like what a dozen of them?  It should have taken at least 6-7 years to see release based on you guys who are so "in the know about game development".  Funny thing it only had like 6 maybe 7 writers.  Funny how they managed to write all those romances, all the game dialog, all the buddy party member dialog, all the branching dialog based on things from the first game, and all that other nonsense in just 3 years, apparently they had to code it all too since all writer must also write their own code and set their own triggers.

 

You've missed the gist of the post - those romanceable companions had significantly less content if you didn't pursue their relationship paths. So, answering your question - in order to include so many romances Bioware had to simply cut corners elsewhere. Obsidian, which I'd hasten to add, had to do the same, but they obviously have different priorities.

 

Naturally, it should be acknowledged that we may have different opinions whether it was the right thing to do or not. Personally, I think they've made the right call.

[Ganrich]

I am neither for or against this. That said, if it were included then I don't want it done in the current Bioware-style which is tossing leisure suit Larry under their game's core story. I don't want the penultimate of a romance arc to be a cheesy sex scene. I would want a more in depth conclusion. I liked the romances in BG2. Some were better than others, but that is how things go. I loved the love triangle in PST between TNO, Annah, and Fall from Grace. It was well done. Say what you will about Bastilla as a character. I won't argue her flaws, but I will say that this was a decent romance arc. The end was well done, and most definitely not over the top. I consider it, and Tali's ME2 romance, to be the last decent romance arcs from Bioware. Everything else is just "say nice things so you can bed the NPC by end game." It has no relevance to the story at all. I would hope if Obsidian did romances that it would have a part to play in the story.

 

So, I say that it needs to be done to a high caliber and tastefully or not at all. Obsidian isn't Bioware, and I hope that remains to be the case.

 

On the note of MCA and his not wanting to do romances. If Sawyer or Feargus felt they had the resources to do romances well then they would happen. Whether or not MCA likes writing them. I am sure that there is someone at Obsidian, other than MCA, that would be up to the challenge if romances were with Obsidian's resources for PoE.