To the devs: Please make romance options in these RPG games.

[Puffin]

OK somebody don't like it for sure but it is not a has to do thing it is an option in the game.
So what is the logical reason? Easy to answer. Because these are Role playing games and we play with living characters not with undead ones. So probably the characters have souls and almost every living thing has a desire to make a relationship with the opposite gender. Or they just what a fast one to fulfil their desire it depends on the type of characters of course.
So I really miss the romance options from these games what have deep well-detailed backrounds of the world and characters but I don't know why they don't have romantic life at all? So please give this option to this game with the (coming?) DLC or in your next game.

[♡ Katalina Aryze ♡]

Originally posted by iemander:

Bringing up that kind of nonsense is even worse than trolling to be honest. We're talking here about (classic) single player cRPGs, I hope you do understand the difference between that and an MMO like World of Warcraft.

If there is a law which says you cant only compare Crpg's with romances to other rpg's with romances on a thread in which the OP did not specify Crpg's only then you have my deepest gratitude.

[Jotun]

Originally posted by Jemolk:

Originally posted by Jotun:

It's because I'm not Swedish. ;)
I'm originally French and moved to Sweden some years ago.

Hahaha...Is Sweden not a reasonable place in that way then? Or is that just an overgeneralization?

I think most people over here are pretty reasonable and well educated, so it's definitely nice.

Is there a lot of SJW here? Sure. But they don't strike me as aggressive and stupid as the one in the US for example.

[iemander]

Originally posted by Daisy:

Originally posted by Jotun:

Some people don't mind about these things. How does that make them dumb? It's not because YOU come from a very conservative country where monogamy is the only acceptable thing to do that other people from other countries or totally imaginary worlds have to abide by your views. Being slutty in the universe of The Witcher is kinda ok as long as you're a bit discreet about it (look at Dandelion and all the troubles he gets because he goes too far).

Sure so is it totally acceptable if a game shows that to be slut is is okay, monogamy is something like a crap thing (by your comment), to f*ck every women on sight is okay too because they have no mind and easy targets. But if a game wanna show that to kill gays is a rewarding thing too I am sure many people would sue the developers.

I also don't really get the problem here. It's really live and let live, people (and game characters) are free to do whatever they want. As long as it doesn't bother you directly, why care so much about it? This is like when people were looking at my wife with disdain because she breastfed, why care so much about what others do.

I'm an individualist in the purest sense, so actually I applaud how the Witcher games encourage open relationships (Although I do realize it's mainly for male appeasement). What bothers me tho, is that the game does encourage unsafe sex. When looking at the age group the game is targetted to (boys and girls between 16-25), I would've preferred at least a little bit of a notion of health safety.

[iemander]

Also, for this thread, Obsidian never said they wouldn't do romances. They said that the current template of romances sucks and they want to do either less or more. So if they do romances, the game will probably be more dedicated to having it well written.

I do hope they're going to spend some more time in making their games more open, and make romance a choice. The worst thing they could do is make a game all about romances, I'm really not interested in that. IMO Dragon Age Origins struck the right balance, where the romances with Alistair and Morrigan had very high impact on the plot. But they did not dominate so much that they felt overbearing.

[♡ Katalina Aryze ♡]

Originally posted by iemander:

Also, for this thread, Obsidian never said they wouldn't do romances. They said that the current template of romances sucks and they want to do either less or more. So if they do romances, the game will probably be more dedicated to having it well written.

Source?

Because this is an actual quote from Obsidian and it says something totally different lol
https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61515-romance-and-friendship/page-14

[iemander]

Originally posted by DontBlink +_- UrDead:

Originally posted by iemander:

Also, for this thread, Obsidian never said they wouldn't do romances. They said that the current template of romances sucks and they want to do either less or more. So if they do romances, the game will probably be more dedicated to having it well written.

Source?

Because this is an actual quote from Obsidian and it says something totally different lol
https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61515-romance-and-friendship/page-14

We're talking about this quote from Obsidian? To me that looks exactly what I said.
Josh Sawyer:
I'll re-state what I wrote before: I want romance to receive either less or more attention in games. Anything worth doing is worth doing well, especially when it's something with so much emotional potential. But I certainly don't want to go the route of harem anime, which is total fantasy indulgence and gross pandering.

[♡ Katalina Aryze ♡]

I don't think Obsidian's ever going to put romances in their games again, at least not as long as Josh Sawyer is involved. He is sick of the way romances are portrayed in video games and the way the community reacts to them.

Originally posted by Josh Sawyer:

I don't hate love in game stories; I just hate reducing love to shallow, masturbatory fantasy indulgence. Maybe that's all love is to some people, but I think that's a pretty narrow view. Ego-stroking is very popular in CRPGs, which is one reason I don't feel comfortable doing CRPG writing anymore.

I appreciate that people wanted more romance options in NWN2, but sometimes I think that people want there to be romance "victory" conditions for all companions. I think that can diminish some characters.

I highly doubt his opinion on that will ever change and as long as i doesn't, there will never be romances in Obsidian's games.

[iemander]

No one really cares about what you think and what your interpretation is. I'm more interested in what he says.

I can understand it and I don't think anyone wants a harem. Neverwinter Nights 2 had a horrible romance setup and I can agree this formula being a turn off for a developer wanting to write nice characters. He seems to recognize the big impact romance can have and says that it's worthy to put a big effort into, but only then. Seems logical to me, though he should also focus on choice, not just good writing. A character shouldn't be a book with lots of pages, but something the player can interact with. When he says an author and their characters, alarm bells going off in me.

Anyway, I think what the team needs is investing in a few women that are interested in developing romance subplots.

[♡ Katalina Aryze ♡]

Originally posted by iemander:

No one really cares about what you think and what your interpretation is. I'm more interested in what he says.

Well your opinion is unsupported, you quoted him but left out a huge chunk to make a point without a cause. That huge part that you left out is pretty important to the context of the OP's question.

It's common sense that by what he said it means there won't be any romances in Obsidian's games. We'll say I'm wrong when Obsidian releases a game with romances

[iemander]

You're imagining things he did not write. He never said he won't do romance, he specifically said he will only do more or less than what was done in Neverwinter Nights (harem). He's very clear and obvious in what he means, there's no "common sense" needed to understand exactly what he says.

And a writer tends to write structured, the last paragraph is his take away. The main point driving his argument. The rest is fluff to support that argument

Here's the full text for people who are interested:

I don't hate love in game stories; I just hate reducing love to shallow, masturbatory fantasy indulgence. Maybe that's all love is to some people, but I think that's a pretty narrow view. Ego-stroking is very popular in CRPGs, which is one reason I don't feel comfortable doing CRPG writing anymore.

I appreciate that people wanted more romance options in NWN2, but sometimes I think that people want there to be romance "victory" conditions for all companions. I think that can diminish some characters. For instance, if Shandra and Qara had their own romance plots, I think some people would still want Neeshka to be "romance-able", regardless of how Neeshka's author felt about the character's place in the story.

That bugs me. I don't like the idea that you can "win" everything or get everyone on your side. I'm also not fond of the idea that romance always has to resolve with a "fade out" to implied coitus, but that's another issue.

I'll re-state what I wrote before: I want romance to receive either less or more attention in games. Anything worth doing is worth doing well, especially when it's something with so much emotional potential. But I certainly don't want to go the route of harem anime, which is total fantasy indulgence and gross pandering.

[Jemolk]

Originally posted by ;305510202679923700:

Originally posted by Jemolk:

Right. I think why a lot of us are wary is because it rarely is well-done and is frequently shoehorned in to meet some quota of features. It also seems it would be hard and resource-intensive compared to other features to make it both well-done and completely optional. And if it's not optional, I'd rather it not be there. If it is, no problem, but it's frequently not how I want my character development to go in RPGs.

Well, if you read a good book, you will naturally gravitate to what you find is interesting. I'm sure you're not the one grabbing romances off the shelf but denying they're not popular and can't be interesting is not fair. The reverse is also true, some people love romance stories but cares nothing for epics.

An RPG should be able to be all inclusive in this, a good RPG leaves choice to the player so that he can do whatever he wants to do. What makes RPGs a lot of fun is being able to play your character the way you want. Fallout was mentioned here too, you have any idea how much sexual content there was in Fallout? It wasn't there as a feature, it was there because it meant you had more choices, more possibilities, more directions you could go into.

Absolutely. And as I said, I have no problem with it being done that way. That said, I find it highly unlikely it will. I'm just trying to be realistic here, if you want good romances you'll probably have to look elsewhere. I think Obsidian is of the opinion that it's not worth it.

Originally posted by Jotun:

Originally posted by Jemolk:

Hahaha...Is Sweden not a reasonable place in that way then? Or is that just an overgeneralization?

I think most people over here are pretty reasonable and well educated, so it's definitely nice.

Is there a lot of SJW here? Sure. But they don't strike me as aggressive and stupid as the one in the US for example.

As expected, it sounds far better there than here. I hope I can move to that area. The US is getting beyond messed up economically and politically. In the mean time, though, I should be able to stay entertained and away from the nutcases.

[iemander]

Originally posted by Kallisti:

it would be good if romances in games were handled maturely

like if you could convince your significant other to enter a murder-suicide pact with you, and then going through with it would delete your save, permanently remove the game from your steam account, and reformat your hard drive

What's your idea of handling violence more mature?

[♡ Katalina Aryze ♡]

Originally posted by iemander:

You're imagining things he did not write. He never said he won't do romance, he specifically said he will only do more or less than what was done in Neverwinter Nights (harem). He's very clear and obvious in what he means, there's no "common sense" needed to understand exactly what he says.

And a writer tends to write structured, the last paragraph is his take away. The main point driving his argument. The rest is fluff to support that argument

Here's the full text for people who are interested:

I don't hate love in game stories; I just hate reducing love to shallow, masturbatory fantasy indulgence. Maybe that's all love is to some people, but I think that's a pretty narrow view. Ego-stroking is very popular in CRPGs, which is one reason I don't feel comfortable doing CRPG writing anymore.

I appreciate that people wanted more romance options in NWN2, but sometimes I think that people want there to be romance "victory" conditions for all companions. I think that can diminish some characters. For instance, if Shandra and Qara had their own romance plots, I think some people would still want Neeshka to be "romance-able", regardless of how Neeshka's author felt about the character's place in the story.

That bugs me. I don't like the idea that you can "win" everything or get everyone on your side. I'm also not fond of the idea that romance always has to resolve with a "fade out" to implied coitus, but that's another issue.

I'll re-state what I wrote before: I want romance to receive either less or more attention in games. Anything worth doing is worth doing well, especially when it's something with so much emotional potential. But I certainly don't want to go the route of harem anime, which is total fantasy indulgence and gross pandering.

People here can read, no need to treat people who come read this thread as if they're stupid.

Besides that, I am the one who originally posted the quote/link to this particular quote on the first page of this thread (go look) No need to act like a white knight on this thread just because you made yourself look like a creep and an idiot on the other thread. Thing is, Josh Sawyer did indeed say "We won't do romances in future games because we want to stand apart from Bioware" and other reasons so looks like you didn't do your homework...

https://youtu.be/iIgagWsSZd4

And

https://youtu.be/fup7P1k0wTQ

Both are PoE inteeviews and yet both interviews talk about the past ahd the future of Obsidian so take that into account. These videos will teach you alt so WATCH THEM so you can learn properly instead of filling the forums with more of your lies.

Lesson learned here? You should always do your homework before spewing bs which you have no idea about, and it's strange that in this thread you are doing the very same thing you did in the last thread lol

Of course Obsidian would do romances if they could be done a better way but problem is that it would take alot of time and resources to research the how to, so logic with reasons says it would be alot easier and rewarding to forget about romamces altogether and focus on creating a great core game for players to experience.

So it would be awesome if you stopped assuming you knew everything for just once and just heard out from someone who actually knows more than you!

[Jotun]

Originally posted by Jemolk:

As expected, it sounds far better there than here. I hope I can move to that area. The US is getting beyond messed up economically and politically. In the mean time, though, I should be able to stay entertained and away from the nutcases.

Don't know if you've ever been in Minnesota, but expect the same kind of climate (not as cold maybe... but darker during winter and lighter during summer).

Ok, now it seems everyone agrees that Obsidian would do romances if they had the time and money for doing it right. Good.

[Puffin]

Guys you act like you only saw romances in Bioware games. Sad. Probably you have never read "serious" or dark love stories before (or watched in movies). Some of you only see romance option like a funny thing in games.