Sylvanpyxie wrote...
I would personally rather the entire "Sex Scene" stopped being the main focus for an entire romantic story arc.
Call me crazy, but I would like the actual emotional connection between PC and NPC to be the main focus of the arc, not the 10-30 seconds of awkwardly animated fumbles that we received in Dragon Age Origins.
Romances have become too dependent on these romantic climaxes (pardon the pun) and lost sight of the ultimate goal - To achieve a closer emotional connection to a beautifully written character.
The Dragon Age 2 Romantic Scenes I consider to be the best compromise of my opinion and that of the Pro-Sex Sceners. There's a romantic climax wrapped up in a fumbling scene and yet the emotional attachment is still the key focus of the relationship.
Editting to clarify cause i'm half asleep and not doing a good job:
I consider "Sex Scenes" to be unnecessary. They're window dressing to the foundations of strongly written characters and equally strong dialogue and general interaction(or at least they should be). An excellent addition for the people who want them, but still ultimately unecessary.
The problem I have is that Sex Scenes are rapidly becoming the only focus of romances in Bioware games and as a result they're becoming the very foundation of the entire romantic arc, forsaking the deeper aspects of the sub-arc like character writing and dialogue.
There should be a rich and deep foundation of well written dialogue, romantic interactions and character evolution and growth before Sex Scenes are even considered a requirement. The foundations of the sub-arc should be the writing, it should be the dialogue, it should *not* be the 10-30 second awkward fumbles at the climax of the relationship.
The writing needs to be the foundation of these romances, it needs to be the solid concrete platform on which to improve. It is only with a solid foundation that we can continue to build and we simply do not have that at the moment.
Written dialogue and character personality and evolution are suffering because the shift of focus has moved to these "Sex Scenes", these Romantic Interludes are quickly causing quality to deteriorate and that is not acceptable, not to me.
Sex Scenes are not a requirement and they should not be the foundation of romances and if that hasn't cleared up my opinion then i don't know what will.
Apologies in advance for any confusion my editting may cause.
I'll state once more that I really think I do the romances entirely because they're just there. But this answer's been the best of the thread so far.
On the 360 DA2's 'You Got Laid' achievement actually unlocks in a dialogue in the Gallows. That's actually cool because it showed that for DA2 at least they didn't think the sex scene ended the romance. It continued all the way to the Gallows. Which I feel is true for Fenris and Isabela. A little less so than Merrill but it's there. And...again I don't romance Anders. I tried once and abandoned the character.
I felt Alistair was the same way. And kinda similar was Morrigan. A little less for Leliana and Zev but the game kept your relationship with those characters past the sex scene.
It's really the Mass Effect series where there's: Flirt a bit, talk, wait until the last mission, have sex, you've completed the love story. Rinse and repeat for the two sequels.
CaptainBlackGold wrote...
Personally, I do not want
explicit sex scenes. Now sex is a part of the human condition and in a
"mature" game needs to be represented in some fashion. But seeing it is
just unnecessary in my opinion.
Take for example the difference
between the books and the TV adaption of "Game of Thrones." In the
books, sex is there, often a powerful motivating force that drives the
plot and tells us important things about the characters. But Martin
never goes into intimate detail - it's just there.
However, in
the HBO series, we are treated to basically, soft core porn. The sex is
used to titillate and arouse (and IMHO often simply gratuitous). The way
it is portrayed changes the entire atmosphere of the story.
A
"mature" game ought to deal with mature themes - and sexuality is
certainly something that can and should be explored. Who is sleeping
with whom, and why and the consequences are all things that can enrich
the world and "flesh out" the characters (pun intentional).
But I really do think that "less is more" applies in this case.
And
one final comment that is slightly off topic; Thedas is not a modern,
Western, secularized society. If Bioware is going to deal with sexual
issues - why presume that our current morality would be the norm? If
they are going to have "scenes" depicting sex, why not actually explore
how a different culture might understand sexual relations in regards to
marriage, family, STD's, or unwanted pregnancies?
I mean,
wouldn't it be great that after the mandatory passionate tryst, the next
day, the girl's father and brothers storm into the room and beat the
living daylights out of the man for "defiling" the family name? How
about forcing the man to marry the girl at sword-point? Or maybe a
jealous previous lover tracking you down and exacting vengeance? Or that
a high official had been pining away for your love interest and once
you have consummated the relationship he/she starts working actively
against you?
Carefree, casual sexual activity has not been the norm throughout most of human history, why should it be so in Thedas?
I do not need to see the act itself, but I would love to see the consequences of it.
There
was a sex scene in the second book with Theon Greyjoy that, to me, just
showed how much of a horrible little **** Theon was. When the series
got to that scene it turned into a 8 minute damn scene that just
thinking about time/cost/pacing concerns there's more important things
in that book that could have used 6 minutes of that sex scene's run
time. The goal for the scene would remain the same, show Theon's a
horrible little selfish ****. But you could show that entirely with how
he treats that girl AFTER they had sex. You didn't need to just derail
the entire story for a while to show a sex scene on a boat.
I
agree with you with the less is more comment.
As for having the brothers
of your lover beating you up or pregnancy scares. I can only speak for
myself but that feels like a little too much realism in my escapism.
That
being said, I'm not strictly against having an actual consquence for
having sex in a video game. As long as it isn't like the STDs in Fable
where it's largely lip service at best or weird trophies at worst
("Yeah, my Fable 2 character has 866 STD's. He's awesome.")
I
think it's worth noting that in Origins you can sleep with a foozy in
the Dwarven Noble origin and she gets pregnant. When you return to
Orzammar your child is casteless and you have a side quest to fix this
problem or tell the mother to get lost because it's not your problem.
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