Romance Options: Please because you did it so great last time.

[Lucius Kern]

I am thinking of the Lohse Romance with a Generic Hero, it was brilliant and well done.

However the endings was abyssmal, at least the chance for a happy ending would be good, not just bad and less bad and least bad ending. I want the romance story to have something if not a lot to say for the ending epilogue.

Sooo aside from that good luck, I know you will do it justice.

[BloodDragon]

Nope DOS 2 romances were boring, even the ones in Dragon Age were better.

[Dixon Sider]

I got kinda angry at the DOS2 romances. It was so awkward and embarrassing to watch. I felt ashamed of myself for accidentally picking the romance option

[Lucius Kern]

Well I think the Lohse one was downright brilliant, however i agree that the others was dull. but not the worst ones i have ever encountered, but Lohse Romance -whistles- brilliantly done.

But then again I am a total sucker for Chick flicks, Romance Noveles and books.

[Dixon Sider]

I like games where I never know its there. Pathfinder Kingmaker apparently has romance options but I never had any options in 500 hours of gameplay. Having intimate conversations with NPC's popping up without me pursuing them is a fast uninstall for me. I dont mind rejecting someone who flirts with me once though

[Kiru]

Originally posted by Dixon Sider:

I like games where I never know its there. Pathfinder Kingmaker apparently has romance options but I never had any options in 500 hours of gameplay. Having intimate conversations with NPC's popping up without me pursuing them is a fast uninstall for me. I dont mind rejecting someone who flirts with me once though

I am honestly astonished how you can miss each and all of that content after 500 hours of Kingmaker unless perhaps you consequently killed Octavia and Regongar at the TL camp, ignored the wildcards and alienated your goody-two-shoes companions by acting like a comic book villain in every playthrough.

Of course they all can take the hint when you tell them you are not interested but especially Octavia and Regs will try their luck at least once if you take them into your crew and neither of them cares wether you are boy or girl for that matter. :P

[Lucius Kern]

The worst with Kingmaker "True Ending" is that you cannot romance anyone but the Dryad that sucks. But the Kingmaker romances are not bad, but I personally loved the Lohse Romance, I found it not only tasteful but also very belivable, but the ending was like "lets splitt up because the game is ending and we are doing different stuff" I hope that in the Baldurs Gate 3 they will give a bit more into the Romance, considering how awesome Baldurs Gate 2 Romacnes was.

I mean you could get a kid with the Avian Elf Cleric/Mage, Romance the heartbroken Jaheira which takes months in game or the Drow Elf Cleric, But unlike the current recipie of you need to deal with Chapter X to get romance to continue that wasnt the case in Baldurs Gate 2, it was based heavily on how many months you had been travelling also the Endings of the Romances was done well, like the Drow elf became your strongest cleric when you became a god.

Regardless I hope and wish for a mind boggling well written romance story or four.

[Dixon Sider]

Originally posted by Kiru:

I am honestly astonished how you can miss each and all of that content after 500 hours of Kingmaker unless perhaps you consequently killed Octavia and Regongar at the TL camp, ignored the wildcards and alienated your goody-two-shoes companions by acting like a comic book villain in every playthrough.

Of course they all can take the hint when you tell them you are not interested but especially Octavia and Regs will try their luck at least once if you take them into your crew and neither of them cares wether you are boy or girl for that matter. :P

Ya, I feel the same way lol. I was so shocked to find that there were romances in the game. I couldnt play an entire playthrough with Octavia because she is the most annoying one by far. And Regongar is my bro, if he ended up flirting with me I probably just turned him down without thinking twice about it because sex was all he talked about in camp anyways. I also didnt pick them up on accident on my first playthrough. (I was too scared of the Technique league and didnt know they had companions LOL!!!!)

This to me feels like well done romances. Romance I can avoid and never have to know is there by naturally playing. But other seemed to enjoy the options. Everyone wins

[Kiru]

In all honesty the original romance options in Baldurs Gate 2 (the first game did not feature any NPC relationships with your main character at all) have been controversial at best. Starting with the fact that male characters got 3 options (one good, one neutral, one evil) while females were stuck with babysitting Anomen in his delusional grandeur or stay single until the EE added Dhorn (only for the truly evil girls) and a terribly cheesy vampire romance trope to even the grounds. Im not even going to mention Rasaad here though Neera was funny in her own way.

Of course the game was brilliant for its day and age but the romance stories really were nothing to write home about today. If they choose to implement such a feature I sincerely hope their writers will aim for higher marks than matching the cheesy clichee of their two decades old prequels.

Romantic story archs in video games really have a long track history of cringeworthy execution (and yeah I know thats a terrible pun :P) because they are implemented as optional side plots. A good romance story never treats your potential sweetheart for anything less than the focus of attention. A proper implementation would require it to be part of the primary story arch and to its credit BG2 has been trying to do that in Bohdis lair... but unfortunately thats about it.

For most part of the game it did not matter at all wether you were in an intimate relationship with anyone or not until the epiloque thankfully picked up on that aspect again when deciding the fate of your former companions at the end of the tale.

We can heartily agree upon holding hopes to see good writing in the upcoming new game however romantic or not it may be to face an illithid infestation. :D

[jmvbento]

Originally posted by Kiru:

We can heartily agree upon holding hopes to see good writing in the upcoming new game however romantic or not it may be to face an illithid infestation. :D

At least you're gonna know really damn quick if your potential romance partner likes hentai. That's important information.

[Lucius Kern]

Kiru: The original BG 2 romance options was not the only ones you know, there is a ton of Player made mods with romances as well, that especially directed at Female options like a Drow Male and a few other things. Also you could get Veconia to have an alignement change and a lot of those things.

I personally "need" romance options in RPG's because otherwise I feel that my character becomes a mindless killing machine, when you run around saving the world from being destroyed and killing monsters and humans by the hundres, soaked in blood from your enemies you need a little love and romance to balance it out, or at least I think so.

For the Worst Romances in a Game I would say Mars Wars Log and Technomancer games, those are worse than Dragon Age 2.

[Dixon Sider]

DA2 had romances!!!!!?

And ya Red, that sounds like a good point. No need to justify wanting it in games anyways. I just play video games to avoid romance lol

[Kiru]

Well what can I say? Certainly there have been fanmade romance mods with far higher writing standard than the original game content. But I would argue that does not change my point. If modders have to fix it for you the original game was at the very least lacking if not outright incomplete or broken. :)

Lets not allow the nostalgia goggles cloud our vision here. Baldurs Gate 1+2 were great games and I had a lot of fun with them back in the day but they certainly were not flawless.

I do enjoy a decently written romance plot as much as I do any other story but generally speaking there are certainly far more poorly written romance archs in video games than good ones. Baldurs Gate 2 was decent for its time because there was no competition in that field whatsoever and having such romantic interactions with your crew at all was standing out on its own.

As this sort of thing has become something of a standard expectation nowadays the industry continues to feed us some of the laziest trash writing you could not even sell in a cheap teenager magazine outside of the gameworld just to fill in the checklist of having romance options too.

All things considered I often get the impression their story would have been less awkward if they had not tried to force a relationship drama into it at all cost because it was on that "obligatory content" marketing checklist. Some stories are simply not meant to feature romantic entanglement.

Just imagine someone had insisted on having a romance for Lt. Ripley in "Alien" or including a boyfriend for "Alice in Wonderland". The Nostromo was not the Titanic and neither was Alice a schoolgirl going to prom. There is a place for romantic story archs... and there are places where they plain simple dont belong. ;)

Wether Baldurs Gate 3 is going to be the first or the latter... we can only speculate at this point. But personally I would prefer they refrain from pushing it against all odds just to complete the checklist if it doesnt fit with the story they are trying to tell.

And yeah, you probably noticed by now but for me the story itself is the main focus of interest. I can deal with questionable game mechanics and odd design decisions in my games but I definitely need an engaging story to keep me going until the end.

[Coldhands]

Originally posted by Redhotviking:

For the Worst Romances in a Game I would say Mars Wars Log and Technomancer games, those are worse than Dragon Age 2.

DA2 still has my favorite RPG romance. Aveline. You click the heart icons, expecting to breadcrumb your way to the inevitable sexy times, and then ... "I'm not into you. Let's just stay friends."
I've always thought romances in RPGs were dumb and cringy, and a waste of writing/character development, so I really enjoyed that record scratch when clicking the heart options DIDN'T lead to sex like in every other video game romance.
It was better than seeing people cry about Cassandra and Josephine not being hot enough in DA:I.

[Lucius Kern]

I loved the Romance with Cass in DA:I, her warrior meets romance junkie was a fun aspect :D
Perhaps because she reminds me a bit about my own Romance story junkieness.

Also Yeah Modding new romances for female characters in Baldurs Gate 2 did fix the problem of the original designers/Writers thats for sure, But the three original romance stories for male was each very good.

And i agree I would rather the Romance stories was weaved into the storyline compeatly but i also wish for more than just "Now you have had sex so now you are done with the romance" I would rather have a complex romance story unfold with marriage, children, building a home and a ton of other events after that first waltz between the sheets. In general how the stories was in Baldurs Gate 2, they didnt end like they do in newer games with romance, they where longer, and pretty well weaved into the story of the main game, like the Harpers objection to Jaheira and the Bhaal Spawn doing their thing.

Also Baldurs Gate 3... should let you do some tutorial choices or something to choose how you ended things with the Bhaal spawn, either he/she became a new Good god, replaced their Father in the Abyss and the epilogue of the Crew you used in Baldurs Gate 2 that would be freaking sweet.

Also Perhaps get the chance to romance Imoen? She did get some of the Bhaal powers in the end but nothing to over powered not like she could turn into an avatar of Murder. But a few cure light, some slow poison and stuff the main character learned from Baldurs gate 1.

Regardless; I hope that they will spend the time to make a few decent romance stories with more meat on the storytelling bone than normally, In Original Sin 2 Lohse Romance was excellent but the ending was such a let down which i have mentioned before, but this time I hope for an excellent romance story that can be the romance story that beats all other romance stories in any previous games. Something trully mindblowingly good, just for us Romance Junkies :D

If you do not like romance and just want to focus on the main story that option is there for you :D but for us that wants it, it would be amazing to get a trully heartwarming romance.

[deltago]

Fun fact: David Gaider admitted that romances were tacked on after developing the character in all the BioWare games he wrote on.

Don’t do that Larian. Make them more organic from the beginning. Have each different character have their own desires and wishes when creating the character and if the player is able to fulfill those desires and wishes then allow the relationship to develop.

The press heart to continue mentality in video game romances needs to be scrapped completely.