Romance Packs DLC

[Algea]

 

To be fair, I can see what you're saying, and I agree with it in principle. To an extent. Personally though, I find romances in games tend to either fall into the BioWare "Here, let me buy your affection with gifts and/or just being nice to you - oh, now you want to jump in the sack with me? Cool" category. Or they're incredibly juvenile, awkward, or stilted. I can't offhand recall any that didn't make me roll my eyes at least a little bit or just plain make me laugh out loud (and I really liked some of the characters in those games). I'd far rather have Obsidian pour any resources allocated to DLCs go to many other things before romance.

 

 

Oh, I liked the one they wrote for one of the NWN add-ons. You know, with that demon guy. He had a very sexy voice and called me my lady or something like that. His name was Valen if I'm not mistaken.

 

Or maybe I was young and silly back then and it was just fresh and new so my judgement could be clouded. Anyway, I'm up for romances in games. I like playing as a female and romance males not because I don't have a partner, but because it just feels natural when party members or NPCs are written so great that they make me fall in love with their personalities.

[Longknife]

A waifu pillow would be cheaper.

[Gfted1]

If there ever are romances in game, then I feel its vitally important to earn xp from it.

[Amentep]

If there ever are romances in game, then I feel its vitally important to earn xp from it.

Would this be by adding the romance to the "Beastiary" or through Quest XP?

Edited May 22, 2015 by Amentep

[tinysalamander]

If there ever are romances in game, then I feel its vitally important to earn xp from it.

 

(crystal ball looking thing) You'll have to pay in blood XP every time you choose [Romance] lines.

[Spencinator]

It's funny, I get where both sides are coming from. On the one hand, the way romances have been handled lately by Bioware and other publishers have been hamfisted and sometimes distasteful, but on other hand romance is a natural part of the human condition and something people would want to play roleplay about (it's why we have all those Harlequin novels, dating sims, etc.) I think the creative minds at Obsidian, given the chance, could add a little romance and make it good character interaction. Some of these devs are the old Black Isle vanguard, who developed BDG I&2, which had great writing in regards to their romance.

[Ink Blot]

It's funny, I get where both sides are coming from. On the one hand, the way romances have been handled lately by Bioware and other publishers have been hamfisted and sometimes distasteful, but on other hand romance is a natural part of the human condition and something people would want to play roleplay about (it's why we have all those Harlequin novels, dating sims, etc.) I think the creative minds at Obsidian, given the chance, could add a little romance and make it good character interaction. Some of these devs are the old Black Isle vanguard, who developed BDG I&2, which had great writing in regards to their romance.

Well, the reason there aren't romances in the game now is because the Obs writers said they don't really enjoy writing them in the first place. (I believe Avellone said that, at least).

[abaris]

Well, the reason there aren't romances in the game now is because the Obs writers said they don't really enjoy writing them in the first place. (I believe Avellone said that, at least).

 

 

 

Well, better to leave them out than have another cheesy implementation. As I said above, I'm hard pressed to find any credible romances in recent games.

[Ink Blot]

 

Well, better to leave them out than have another cheesy implementation. As I said above, I'm hard pressed to find any credible romances in recent games.

 

Yes, that's been my stance all along as well.

[Uirebhiril]

At the risk of looking like a troll with a romance post being my first to the forum...

 

I like romances in RPGs, but with a game like Pillars of Eternity the long-winded romantic discussions and cinematic cut scenes of sexual situations wouldn't work. I agree there should be something there, and probably the best way to achieve that is a bit of marked dialogue indicating interest, possibly a conversation about "...when this is all over," and then maybe an epilogue slide mentioning adventuring together or the characters finally pursuing their feelings. It really doesn't need to be more than that, but would still be enough to appeal to people who like a bit of romance to their entertainment. Any potential issue of representation can be avoided by picking two characters of each gender who would be sensible choices and making them available to everyone. Yes, that's the dreaded "playersexual" way of handling it, but again -- a game like this, you aren't delving that deep into things, and you don't really need to.

 

Having a bit of text to flavor things would enhance the story. No need to smack people upside the head with it.

[Longknife]

I'll just say this:

 

Recently as a topic of discussion with my friends, I saw a youtube video where some guy, whose channel is devoted to anime, did a video reviewing all anime released this season and proceeded to say all of them are absolutely terrible and anime will never be recognized as a legit art form because it's got so much awful crap.

My friends and I started discussing what exactly is wrong with anime, why do we all hate it and why do even the people who like anime look at it and say "wow this is really bad" before watching it all.

 

We quickly noticed anime is very guilty of one thing: constant romance. It is incredibly difficult to name an anime that doesn't make romance a cornerstone of it's plot line, with the ones you can name probably being the ones that are recognized as being....actually good? Great example: Cowboy Bebop is not about romance at all and it's a great anime (hard to believe, I know) with lots of meaningful stuff to say, yet I remember when it first hit American television, there were LOADS of people who wanted to see a potential romance between Spike and Faye when it simply was not there. They insisted it was an actual thing, completely missing the point and the purpose of their interactions with one another, thus robbing themselves of understanding what the creator was trying to get across with those two. And for what...? For the sake of concocting another overdone romance story in their minds that's been done before and has nothing meaningful to say....wtf why? In short, it's kind of a very very cliche, overdone and predictable story plot that gets used ad infinium because, for whatever reason, some people can't get enough of "boy meets girl, there's sexual tension for a long time and then they finally confess their feelings and yay."

 

  I then started kinda watching an episode of the animes the guy listed as garbage from this season just to see for myself how garbage they were. And boy, were they garbage. There was one where the characters were actually realistic and believable, flawed and unique in their own way, (as opposed to the cliches that anime overdoes, like the tsundere and all the other character types) but I still had no interest in watching another episode. Why? Because the overall plot was romance, and it was predictable as hell. Even if the characters were likeable, they were going nowhere because I knew exactly where they were going without even watching. I ended up just looking up a synopsis for future episodes to confirm that yes, I knew exactly what direction it was headed, and that was that for me.

 

 

 

 

For me? It's simple:

 

I play games, read stories and watch shows to hear something meaningful. I like New Vegas because of all of it's philosophical and political insights. I like Binding of Isaac because of it's dual meanings that actually say a lot about the topic of depression and even religion's involvement with it. I like Dark Souls because of it's commentary about human resolve and life as a struggle in general. I like Rick and Morty because of scenes like this:

 

 

I like shows, stories and series that can manage to say a lot within the short little scenes, jokes and time that they have. I like stories that are multi-layered, thought-provoking and fresh.

 

Romance is none of this.

 

 

Romance is not a thought, it's an emotion, more or less. It's not something you can learn or experience from a story, nor is it something you can apply a ton of thought-provoking twists to to keep it fresh and unique. No, romance has been done and will continue to be done because for some reason, some people haven't figured out the boy will get the girl every single time. Romance feels like the fast food of stories: it's a guilty pleasure that all of us enjoy off and on, but how much actual substance is it really providing? None at all. I do not finish a romance story or sub-plot having become smarter or wiser for having done so, I simply enjoy watching it and going "SQUEEEE~ I hope something like this happens to me :3" and then that's that. This is made worse by the fact that romance stories are always abysmally untrue to how romance often works out in real life, for example with many romances in stories being something that manifests itself over time, when in reality no wtf dude tell her you like her straight up or you'll be friendzone'ed.

 

  All of this is made worse by the fact that this is a game. They need to somehow design a waifu that the vast majority of the community would enjoy. This is practically an impossibility, because all of us are individuals with different interests in women (or men). It simply cannot feasibly be done, and no matter how good you write your romance, there WILL be a large chunk of the audience that absolutely loathes it because it didn't click with them at all.

 

 

 

 

In short?

 

I will never understand the desire for romance in games, nor do I see it as realistically feasible to please everyone with it. Combine this with the fact that the writers of Obsidian loathe that ****? Yeah, it's probably not a good idea to force them to do it.

 

Maybe...just maybe...it's not that Bioware is bad at romance and needs Obsidian to "show them how it's done," but rather romance is the go-to for bad writers who have nothing meaningful to say, and Obsidian actually has meaningful stuff to say? Romance is to writing as **** jokes are to bad comedians. I don't know anyone who watches stand-up and says "yknow this guy really needs to tell more **** jokes I've heard before," so I find it kind of amazing that people still insist on romance-driven plots.

Edited May 23, 2015 by Longknife

[Tennisgolfboll]

KOTR had a good romance with Bastila. Better than most movies.

 

And to longknife.

 

I sure dont need a philosofy lesson from a game (something i know much better myself) and find it pretty simple standard questions thrown in there in games.

 

But i think new vegas is 10/10 for its very good gameplay, balance, story and feel.

 

Kotor2 had alot of philosofy and was worse than the first (worse gameplay than the first, less interesting npcs etc etc)

 

Bg 2 also had good romances.

 

Romance is a big part of storytelling, life etc. To just claim i cant write romance well then id say you need to work on that weakness if you are a wrighter.

 

I bet many of obsidians staff is married (like most of us adults) so they probably have some rl experience of it, atleast alot more than with talking dragons, ghosts etc

Edited May 23, 2015 by Tennisgolfboll

[GadgetSun]

I did a tldr to long post.

its not you, really, its me, my pure o hates walls of text.

 

Otherwise I would read it. ..and will.... eventually.

 

and romance is an ASPECT of story telling...

I always did wonder why I did like the whole romance part of a game the BEST, well, I decided that it can have heavy implications to story.

Like in DAO, if you were a human noble, you romanced Alistair or you could marry Anora thus, putting YOU on the throne and thus affecting story (though they didn't show off the choices well in ANY DA game ¬¬ ) because you could have put your tyrant on the throne or the benevolent kind ruler that is SORELY needed. :T

 

And in some ways the way I see it, obsidian could pull the same stunts with the companions like Aloth is an aristocrat elf, and to find someone he could go to his parents to find that person, and the only way he would reveal this path to you is if you're his super bro or romance, and romance gets extra dialogue..?

 

Something like that.

 

Also, and this maybe just bioware's doing.. esp in dao, but romance also hafly opens up another side of a person, like when I romanced morrigan with my guy playthrough, I saw that she was just awkward around people because she grew up in the wilds with just her mother and no one else, and then I saw that deep down she was really human.

 

Hmm.. XDD  just imagine romancing DURANCE like that... HOLY BABY.  maybe under all that man fur is a soft beating heart- (rejects me for the third time for asking him questions) NOPE. NOT GOING THERE. NOPE.

alskdjfasldk but he'd now have a PERMANENT place to place his *OTHER* staff xD

 

(cough cough cough cough)

BUT

that's why I say its *OPTIONAL* if it were to come out, not EVERYONE likes the romance aspect and for those that want it, they can buy they're romance and for those that don't can HAPPILY strum along to the pure beat of the asexual aromantic purely STORY DRIVEN ASPECTS of the game C:

 

If you wouldn't want it, then dont get it, for those that do. (cough cough) I would happily buy it.

..but seeing how coding is done these days.. (I'm still stuck in the mindset they wrote this like nwn2 style with adding lines and responses strings)

It *MAAAAAAYYYYYYY be* impossible..

.. buuut 

I can hope :D

and I could DREAM ;D

 

ALSO ALSO ALSO

'twas never intended to troll. ._. DESPITE what most people are saying.. lets just clear the air here. (swats hand)

 

I just like the aspect of romance in story telling. .. .. I blame the inner chick in me. >.>

Edited May 23, 2015 by GadgetSun

[tinysalamander]

Longknife, that's your personal anecdote, though.

[abaris]

I always did wonder why I did like the whole romance part of a game the BEST, well, I decided that it can have heavy implications to story.

Like in DAO, if you were a human noble, you romanced Alistair or you could marry Anora thus, putting YOU on the throne and thus affecting story (though they didn't show off the choices well in ANY DA game ¬¬ ) because you could have put your tyrant on the throne or the benevolent kind ruler that is SORELY needed. :T

 

 

I think, DA:O, as far as romances go, offered the most believable ones. Alistair was hard to get. The elven assassin Zevran swung both ways, which was also believable and in character. Which is always the most important question to me: does it fit the character? Morrigan, also pretty well done. Only Leiliana wasn't very credible. At least for my tastes.

 

I haven't played any later games in the DA series nor do I plan to do so, since the went that much into into the simplistic hack and slash domain. So I can't say anything about them. I never played KOTOR, so another blank. The worst solution of all the games coming to mind, offered Skyrim with it's tagges on marriage option that didn't add anything to roleplaying or gameplay.

[Althernai]

I play games, read stories and watch shows to hear something meaningful. I like New Vegas because of all of it's philosophical and political insights. I like Binding of Isaac because of it's dual meanings that actually say a lot about the topic of depression and even religion's involvement with it. I like Dark Souls because of it's commentary about human resolve and life as a struggle in general.

I've never seen a game that presents an original philosophical insight or anything of the sort. The ideas games present have been in books for a long time, often for centuries. What games do is take these ideas and extend the concept of a thought experiment: rather than just imagining what the impact of an idea might be, the game builds a simulated world around them.

 

Romance is not a thought, it's an emotion, more or less. It's not something you can learn or experience from a story, nor is it something you can apply a ton of thought-provoking twists to to keep it fresh and unique. No, romance has been done and will continue to be done because for some reason, some people haven't figured out the boy will get the girl every single time. Romance feels like the fast food of stories: it's a guilty pleasure that all of us enjoy off and on, but how much actual substance is it really providing? None at all.

If that was the case, why would it be so common both in popular culture and in works studied by academics? For one thing, it doesn't always end happily, but even if you were guaranteed that it did, the interesting thing about it is how it is done. If you completely ignore the details and strip it to its bare bones, then yes, it's not very interesting, but one can do that to almost anything with the same result.

 

For example, consider games like PoE. Even before you start the game, you know that you will create a protagonist who must necessarily be quite generic, but who will somehow stumble into a massive plot either due to a hidden and dormant component of the protagonist's nature or by simply being in the right place at the right time. You know that there will be various companions of different genders, races and temperaments. You know that there will be an antagonist (or at most several of them, but one is certainly more powerful and important than the rest) and that at the end of the game, the protagonist and the antagonist will meet in a climactic confrontation. You even know that the protagonist will prevail. Does any of this make the game not worth playing?

 

All of that said, I don't think romances would be a good idea in PoE. The overall tone of the game is just wrong for them. They work fine in the much lighter tone of the Baldur's Gate series and in the original Knights of the Old Republic, but PoE is too dark and takes itself too seriously (a serious romance is hard to do well). Also, DLC that one has to pay for is a terrible idea in general -- I greatly prefer expansions.

[Michael_Galt]

 

I didn't ad-hom anyone- I said I hated those replies.  And, those replies, are, by nature, ad hom attacks.  Let me quote for you, "Go to a dating website", "

Go outside and get a real gf."  Those all make assumptions about every single person that says they want romance options.  Which is utterly idiotic.  So, if I am happily married, I can't want romance options in a RPg?  If, hypothetically, I am straight, but want to play a female character that gets to romance a dude, that isn't a valid possibility?  Because, that, for instance, would be truly role-playing, since it is pretty unlikely I actually desire to go get a sex change and start trolling Navy SEAL bars, hoping to land some hot dude.

Yes I know. I was agreeing with you. That is why I said 'yep'.

 

I am on your side.

 

 

My bad- I read it wrong. 

[advion]

Part of me understands where the OP is coming from and I'm not opposed to it really if I think about it.  But the other part of me doesn't really care or want them to waste time on something like that.

[Exoduss]

If they ever introduce romance's there should be option to get double the buff if companion you sacrifice in blood pit is your romance aswell agreed?

[NightRevan]

KOTR had a good romance with Bastila. Better than most movies.

And to longknife.

I sure dont need a philosofy lesson from a game (something i know much better myself) and find it pretty simple standard questions thrown in there in games.

But i think new vegas is 10/10 for its very good gameplay, balance, story and feel.

Kotor2 had alot of philosofy and was worse than the first (worse gameplay than the first, less interesting npcs etc etc)

Bg 2 also had good romances.

Romance is a big part of storytelling, life etc. To just claim i cant write romance well then id say you need to work on that weakness if you are a wrighter.

I bet many of obsidians staff is married (like most of us adults) so they probably have some rl experience of it, atleast alot more than with talking dragons, ghosts etc

I'm reminded of a quote from JRR Tolkien from his poem Sir Orfeo in 'of all the things that men pay head, tis of love they sing indeed'

[GadgetSun]

just imagine though >_> if obsidian did write romances, oh man.

I would sweep the living crap right off of bioware's Goliath feet xD

 

Obsidian needs to be david for that giant slaying  ._. they're a bit up there *undeservedly*

 

Eh, anyhow, just the way aloth talks to you from the last few hours I played yesterday, it seems like already he's sweet talking you.

heh xD; 

 

Would like it here, would like to post a poll on the topic, but that doesn't necessarily represent the entire community as a whole. Plus I don't know how the hell most people post a poll here :T

 

But, these packs I had in mind where INTENDED *AFTER* the expansion pack, in no way am I trying to steal your sun, for I would *EQUALLY* LIKE an expansion pack. It... would... just.. be.. something nice.. for the other time it has.

 

But, if there was some way to mod this game like it was possible in nwn 2 and the bg series, I wouldn't complain as much.

because hell, *I* would write the lines in the game and that would shush my little mouth.

 

Hmmmm I wonder if there would be something that would do that...

 

because anyone wonders AT ALL how the HELL the baldur's gate *mod* ROMANCES were executed.

 

 

 

(edit)

also whhhaaat the fuf is "longknife"

Urban is NOT yielding CRAP.

Edited May 25, 2015 by GadgetSun

[Marky]

It's actually very easy to change the existing dialogue. it's just a bunch of text files.

[Fardragon]

 some people haven't figured out the boy will get the girl every single time. 

Not every time. Go watch Casablanca.

 

The point of which is the hero puts duty ahead of romance.

[Rosveen]

Yes indeed. The Arthurian legends, The Tempest, Crime and Punishment and Doctor Zhivago are all ****ty literature ruined by romance elements and the world would be better off without them. Deionarra was a complete waste of development time, Guybrush and Elaine were disgusting and To the Moon is the worst game I've ever played, 4 hours of my life I'll never get back.

 

Don't get me wrong, Longknife, I agree that romances are often superficial and predictable, but they don't have to be - and nobody is asking to turn Pillars into a dating sim, romance wouldn't be the main plot or even a main plot. Love is a powerful driving force and romance, as all human relations, can serve as a basis for exploration of the human mind. Sometimes it isn't meant to do that, it's there only to make the characters more relatable or as you say, make us go "squee!" And that's fine too, there's nothing wrong with a little fluff. Not everywhere and not always, but that's just the thing: can romance serve a purpose in this story or will it be purely a fanservice? This is a question only Obsidian can answer, it's their story.

[GrapeJam]

I don't see anything wrong with adding romances TBH. At worst it's a distraction, and when done right it adds a lot to the emotional aspect of the game. People shouldn't look at Bioware games think that romances in games are inherently bad. You should play a few good visual novels (G senjou no maou, Ever17, Clannad,.etc....but stay away from the Type Moon games), you'll see.