306 réponses à ce sujet

[Anarya]

Estelindis wrote...

How much more subtle can game romances get?  Or do some people just miss the initial cues / hints?  (I did read about someone playing a male character apparently having sex with Zevran by accident.  I facepalmed.)

I find this completely hilarious but I guess some people are much better at reading social cues than others. It figures that these people would be no better at this in a video game than they are in real life.

[M8DMAN]

Kordaris wrote...

M8DMAN wrote...

The game doesn't force you to romance anybody. Its optional, so if you dont want it dont do it!

I find the fact that people are complaining about fictional romances with fictional characters hilarious!

Read again. It does actually. And I am spending my free time
with the game that I bought from my money. I don't want to waste it on
something I find annoying and distasteful.

I got through the game just fine with my dwarf and i didnt get hit on once.

Maybe if you hadn't blazed through the dialog options you wouldnt have ended up in a romance.

Modifié par M8DMAN, 24 juillet 2010 - 07:07 .

[Saibh]

Estelindis wrote...

Kordaris wrote...

M8DMAN wrote...
The game doesn't force you to romance anybody. Its optional, so if you dont want it dont do it!

Read again. It does actually.

I found it easy to avoid romances with Bioware's various characters when I didn't want to engage with them that way.  There is *always* an option to let them down (gently or otherwise) relatively early in the game.  Sometimes, you don't even have to come out and tell them you're not interested - for instance, when Leliana complimented my Warden's hair, taking the option to affirm the friendship between them instead of choosing the romantic responses meant that the topic never came up again. 

On the flip side, romances have only ever continued beyond the initial inquiry/hint stage when I actively tried to advance the relationship and made the appropriate choices.  Sure: Zevran flirted with my Warden in all playthroughs.  But only in the ones where I was looking for romance with him did it go beyond that.

How much more subtle can game romances get?  Or do some people just miss the initial cues / hints?  (I did read about someone playing a male character apparently having sex with Zevran by accident.  I facepalmed.)

They were impossible to avoid in ME1, if you romanced Kaidan or Liara. Like, really impossible, unless you wanted to be a b!%$#. Still, in DA I found it easy to avoid triggering the romance. You were generally presented with a romantic dialogue and a friendship dialogue--if couldn't manage to tell them apart...well...I guess that's life?

[AndarianTD]

Estelindis wrote...

I found it easy to avoid romances with Bioware's various characters when I didn't want to engage with them that way.  There is *always* an option to let them down (gently or otherwise) relatively early in the game.

And:

M8DMAN wrote...

I got through the game just fine with my dwarf and i didnt get hit on once.

Maybe if you hadn't blazed through the dialog options you wouldnt have ended up in a romance.

I'm going to have to differ on this point, at least in some cases. Being a modder with an interest in writing romance plots, I studied the romances that I encountered in DA very carefully -- and the conflict I experienced between Morrigan and Leliana in particular. And carelessness in roleplaying a companion dialogue is not something that I'm even remotely prone to.

I just went back and re-played this scene to remind myself of what happened. In the interest of keeing possible spoilers out of the forum I'll just describe it in general terms. There is a specific dialogue choice that triggers Leliana's romance, in which your character expresses empathy in a situation in which she's hurt and upset. It's not one in which the player encourages her romantically. Even if you chalk it up to "Leliana getting the wrong idea" and tell her that you want to be friends and that "there's someone else in my life," it doesn't matter. Both she and Morrigan then start to excoriate you for playing them when you did nothing of the kind.

I was annoyed, but chose to "go with it" as an example of my companions misinterpreting the situation and jumping to conclusions. Taken that way it gave interesting flavor to the the roleplaying dynamics. But there's no question that it's an example of her romance "intruding" into the play experience when the player didn't necessarily either want, expect, or encourage it. That's not an an argument against romances so much as in favor of making sure to give players a clear way to avoid them.

Modifié par AndarianTD, 24 juillet 2010 - 11:03 .

[mopotter]

joriandrake wrote...

Kordaris wrote...

joriandrake wrote...

Kordaris wrote...

Yes please, have a possibility to turn off romance in options. It wastes the game time.

... fascinating



People really don't know that simply not initiating romance will solve the "problem" of "wasting time"?

Sometimes it's very difficult to not initiate romance. I Mass Effect 2 I couldn't ask about coffee without somebody jumping on me.

You can always just say NO to avoid misunderstandings and then the romance ends before it even begins

Is it a guy thing, that some have never been taught to say no, while most women grow up having to say no?  Just wondering.  

[mopotter]

LyletheBloody wrote...

That's the main reason I don't like Dragon's Age as much as Mass Effect. I think the story, graphics, music, are all GREAT in DA. I like them just as much as Mass Effect's.. but I'm just not a fan of the BG type gameplay with the 4 person party; I just don't like it. Mass Effect's TPS is much more up my alley and to my liking. That's the reason ME 2 is my favorite game EVAR and DA probably doesn't crack my Top 25... even though I REALLY enjoyed playing it.

I don't always take 4 with me.  One of the things I like a lot about DA and wish I could do in ME is chose the number of companions I want to take with me.  

[mopotter]

Saibh wrote...

Estelindis wrote...

Kordaris wrote...

M8DMAN wrote...
The game doesn't force you to romance anybody. Its optional, so if you dont want it dont do it!

Read again. It does actually.

I found it easy to avoid romances with Bioware's various characters when I didn't want to engage with them that way.  There is *always* an option to let them down (gently or otherwise) relatively early in the game.  Sometimes, you don't even have to come out and tell them you're not interested - for instance, when Leliana complimented my Warden's hair, taking the option to affirm the friendship between them instead of choosing the romantic responses meant that the topic never came up again. 

On the flip side, romances have only ever continued beyond the initial inquiry/hint stage when I actively tried to advance the relationship and made the appropriate choices.  Sure: Zevran flirted with my Warden in all playthroughs.  But only in the ones where I was looking for romance with him did it go beyond that.

How much more subtle can game romances get?  Or do some people just miss the initial cues / hints?  (I did read about someone playing a male character apparently having sex with Zevran by accident.  I facepalmed.)

They were impossible to avoid in ME1, if you romanced Kaidan or Liara. Like, really impossible, unless you wanted to be a b!%$#. Still, in DA I found it easy to avoid triggering the romance. You were generally presented with a romantic dialogue and a friendship dialogue--if couldn't manage to tell them apart...well...I guess that's life?

I didn't really have any problem with being Kaidan's friend, I just said I was interested in someone else, but I did have Ash pick up a vibe that wasn't there and I didn't want to use the "out of line" option.  I should try and and see what it says.  

I do wish they had a strictly friend option in the middle that you could always use with any of them if you just wanted to talk.

[iNZoW]

If Bioware removed different races selection because some people hate them and just want to choose a human, is that a good thing?



Options are options, the more the better.



P.S: i dont mind DA2 removing the other races, it was just an example

[Estelindis]

AndarianTD wrote...
Being a modder with an interest in writing romance plots, I studied the romances that I encountered in DA very carefully -- and the conflict I experienced between Morrigan and Leliana in particular. And carelessness in roleplaying a companion dialogue is not something that I'm even remotely prone to.

I just went back and re-played this scene to remind myself of what happened. In the interest of keeing possible spoilers out of the forum I'll just describe it in general terms. There is a specific dialogue choice that triggers Leliana's romance, in which your character expresses empathy in a situation in which she's hurt and upset. It's not one in which the player encourages her romantically. Even if you chalk it up to "Leliana getting the wrong idea" and tell her that you want to be friends and that "there's someone else in my life," it doesn't matter. Both she and Morrigan then start to excoriate you for playing them when you did nothing of the kind.

...That's interesting.  Maybe it's harder for those playing a female Warden to trigger Leliana's romance by accident?  If I recall correctly, only girls get the "nice hair" dialogue path as the gateway to the romance (and, in that path, choosing the friendship response means that Leliana never makes a romantic hint again).

That being the case, I suppose I stand partially corrected, though I can only speak from my personal playing experience.  ;-)

Modifié par Estelindis, 25 juillet 2010 - 02:35 .

[sonlockdon]

i dont get it whats the problem you could just break it off. theres not much of a difference between being a rely close friend and being in a serious relationship, besides the fact you get to have sex but whatever.

[Saibh]

Estelindis wrote...

AndarianTD wrote...
Being a modder with an interest in writing romance plots, I studied the romances that I encountered in DA very carefully -- and the conflict I experienced between Morrigan and Leliana in particular. And carelessness in roleplaying a companion dialogue is not something that I'm even remotely prone to.

I just went back and re-played this scene to remind myself of what happened. In the interest of keeing possible spoilers out of the forum I'll just describe it in general terms. There is a specific dialogue choice that triggers Leliana's romance, in which your character expresses empathy in a situation in which she's hurt and upset. It's not one in which the player encourages her romantically. Even if you chalk it up to "Leliana getting the wrong idea" and tell her that you want to be friends and that "there's someone else in my life," it doesn't matter. Both she and Morrigan then start to excoriate you for playing them when you did nothing of the kind.

...That's interesting.  Maybe it's harder for those playing a female Warden to trigger Leliana's romance by accident?  If I recall correctly, only girls get the "nice hair" dialogue path as the gateway to the romance (and, in that path, choosing the friendship response means that Leliana never makes a romantic hint again).

That being the case, I suppose I stand partially corrected, though I can only speak from my personal playing experience.  ;-)

As I recall, these were bugs. Nuff said.

[langelog]

Romances have always been OPTIONAL, so if you don't like romance don't do it. I don't believe romances were intended to be the main selling point anyway, in fact I'm positive. Although, Miranda's romance in Mass Effect 2 definitley strengthened my level of want, coupled with great gameplay and a legendary story written by some of the best talent I've ever seen. I say, romance=BONUS!

[CrybabyXD]

for full game i want romances...expansion i dont mind no romance.

[joriandrake]

Romances are optional, and they add so much to the games, they improve the feel that the game world is living, is one doesn't like specific romances then just don't initiate it or end it if it comes up.

[Nazomi]

Banon Loire wrote...

No romances would make DA2 go from good to amazing. I know they are optional but you often can't really get to know party members without pushing the romances.

Romances in recent Bioware games, in my opinion of course, are the most cringe-inducing and poorly executed content of games I have ever seen.

'Hello member of other sex'
'Hello'
'I agree'
'Let's start a hilarious yet for some reason highly controversial cutscene'

No Thanks.

Also I find the fanatics on the ME2 forum somewhat disturbing.

I wouldn't mind it if you could have friendships with party members and weren't forced to pursue them to find out more about your party members. Also they wouldn't be as bad if the options weren't: a) be a nice guy and be forced to romance them or be a jerk.

To be fair the  DAO forum  also has it's fair share of creepy, (verbally assault you if you say anything remotely negative about their digital lovers) types.

[AndarianTD]

Saibh wrote...

As I recall, these were bugs. Nuff said.

Of course they were bugs. But as a modder I don't get a pass from my players for doing something that pisses them off just because I "made a mistake" and had a bug in my implementation. As I said it isn't an argument against including romances, but it is an argument for taking care to get them right. And it does mean that people who complain about it aren't necessarily playing stupidly or blowing smoke.

Modifié par AndarianTD, 25 juillet 2010 - 05:29 .

[joriandrake]

Nazomi wrote...

Banon Loire wrote...

No romances would make DA2 go from good to amazing. I know they are optional but you often can't really get to know party members without pushing the romances.

Romances in recent Bioware games, in my opinion of course, are the most cringe-inducing and poorly executed content of games I have ever seen.

'Hello member of other sex'
'Hello'
'I agree'
'Let's start a hilarious yet for some reason highly controversial cutscene'

No Thanks.

Also I find the fanatics on the ME2 forum somewhat disturbing.

I wouldn't mind it if you could have friendships with party members and weren't forced to pursue them to find out more about your party members. Also they wouldn't be as bad if the options weren't: a) be a nice guy and be forced to romance them or be a jerk.

To be fair the  DAO forum  also has it's fair share of creepy, (verbally assault you if you say anything remotely negative about their digital lovers) types.

this is true for everything, book characters and movie/anime characters alike

[AndarianTD]

Estelindis wrote...

...That's interesting.  Maybe it's harder for those playing a female Warden to trigger Leliana's romance by accident?  If I recall correctly, only girls get the "nice hair" dialogue path as the gateway to the romance (and, in that path, choosing the friendship response means that Leliana never makes a romantic hint again).

It is harder, yes. For one thing, a female character cannot also be romancing Morrigan, so the whole conflict thread I got caught in can't happen if the player isn't male.

That being the case, I suppose I stand partially corrected, though I can only speak from my personal playing experience.  ;-)

I think that's true for all of us.  It probably pays to remember that there are many different paths through a well-written CRPG. Each of us typically only sees one or at most a handful of them, unless we make it a point to systematically replay with different options. That's something I'll do with important dialogues like the romance triggers to study the RP design.

[SirGladiator]

It depends, if you're playing on the PC you can be romancing Morrigan as a female character, it was one of the first mods to come out, as you might imagine . Nobody liked the idea of being limited to just one choice when you could have two, so now we do . I like romances, the more the merrier for me, if you somehow 'accidentally' end up in one you didn't mean to you can end it pretty easily, it's not a problem. Of course I would also support making it easier to avoid accidentally getting into one, if that is actually a challenge for some people.



I also like the idea of more challenge in the romances. Why, for example, do they never use the Conversation skill when doing the romance? How about making some of the dialogue choices slightly harder than "I like you" vs "I dont like you" type stuff? Its all so unbelievably easy, it'd be like one-hit-killing some major bosses, sure I want them to be not insanely hard, but I want it tough enough so that when I succeed it feels like I actually accomplished something. Make the romaces more difficult to do, that would probably solve the whole 'accidental romance' problem as well as make the romances seem more meaningful.

[GwaR9292]

you know, its called Romance OPTIONS... if you dont want to romance, dont do it.

[Relshar]

Simple if you dont want a romance in the game do not follow that line of conversation.

As for me if the game is played over a 10 year period... well what about kids ? Its not as if there are contraceptives in Thedas... unless you do an.l.

[Vaeliorin]

Personally, I've argued against romances in any pre-release forum I've ever been on. Why? Because I've yet to see a game (with 1 possible exception) that I felt did romances well and made them feel natural. I don't think you can do romances well unless the entire game is centered around a single romance (and while I wouldn't object to such a game, it's certainly not something that would be at the top of my "Must Buy" list.)

We had this discussion on the DA pre-release forums, and there was some discussion of a (theoretical) game that centered around a married adventurer, and was about his adventures and how it affected his wife and family, how it affected his relationship, etc. and that actually sounded like an interesting game, but I don't think it really falls into the "romance" zone that most people are looking for.

In the end, I'd rather the zots be spent on better friendships, and deeper interactions between the PC and NPCs, and between the NPCs (I'd certainly not object to NPCs having a relationship...you could even have moments where they slipped away for romantic moments and they were either unavailable to the PC, or you had to go find them or something.)

I guess what it all boils down to us that, to me, a handful of conversations followed by sex do not to me a relationship make, and so I can't help but feel that the relationships in games are anything but artificial.

Edit:  To be fair, with a full 10 year time span to cover, it's entirely possible that DA2 will actually have the downtime to have romantic moments, that first date, real arguments, etc., that would allow the romance to come across as a real relationship instead of the characters just being "friends with benefits."

Modifié par Vaeliorin, 29 juillet 2010 - 02:52 .

[yodasmith00]

Want romance? Buy a book.

[sinthetic17]

I liked the romance option. I hope they keep it in DA2.

[Sable Rhapsody]

AndarianTD wrote...

Saibh wrote...

As I recall, these were bugs. Nuff said.

Of course they were bugs. But as a modder I don't get a pass from my players for doing something that pisses them off just because I "made a mistake" and had a bug in my implementation. As I said it isn't an argument against including romances, but it is an argument for taking care to get them right. And it does mean that people who complain about it aren't necessarily playing stupidly or blowing smoke.

Excellent point.  A well-implemented romance is very difficult to pull off, but very rewarding for the player.  A poorly executed one is just goddamn painful.  And the trouble with romances is that you have to balance roleplaying subtlety so the CHARACTER doesn't come off painfully obviously (like in ME2), and cueing the player.  The PLAYER has to know 100% whether they're getting into a romance or not, and how to cut it off.  The PC, however, may not necessarily know.

And having fiddled about with a fair number of mods myself (as a player, mostly), I can say that nothing is more frustrating than a badly done romance NPC.  Or alternately, nothing is more hilarious than one either.  Oh, Tsujatha.  You're my favorite punching bag