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Larian apparently thinks "romance" shit will sell more copies, and they may be right, but it might also alienate part of the customer base which got them where they are now, swimming in millions and expanding left and right. The " thanks for the dollars guys, we are gonna cater to the bioware freaks (and the inevitable sjw zelots soon) from now on, so see ya" attitude mildly annoys me. Well at least enough to cancel my ks. Apparently in the big leagues you need "romance" in your rpg.
Where does the need to roleplay in roleplaying games come from? In fact, where does the need to roleplay come from?
People wanting the be someone else, immerse themselves in a fictional world, be like the hero in a fantasy novel, experiencing new and different things? Why would romance not be something that people would like to experience in a fictional setting with fictional characters? Despite all the feigned surprise 'how people could only possibly want such a terrible thing', the addition of romance in RPGs is a pretty understandable and logical step. I am actually surprised its not been done more often. Romance is a very big element of the real world and of all our lives so it would be extremely silly to exclude it from video games and RPGs out of principle. Its not hard to see at all why designers would think how in theory romances could add a lot of drama and emotional depth to the experience.
Now the way romances have been usually implemented in games thus far, thats an entirely different matter.. But remember that video games are still pretty much in their infancy as a medium. If movies can do romances, and novels and can do romances, and operas can do romances, and stage plays can do romances, so can video games.
From the Codex MCA interview from a few years back:
Vault Dweller: Party-based gameplay, same question I asked David Gaider: Planescape: Torment vs Baldur's Gate 2. Both games featured strong, yet very different and distinctive party design & mechanics. What are your thoughts about BG2 party mechanics ? Did you see anything that might fit into and improve your own style?
MCA: I wished I believed in romance more than Bioware. I just can't write it unless one of the pair gets impaled on a pike, set on fire, or betrays the other and then impales them on a pike or sets them on fire. Generally, I prefer unrequited, melancholy, quiet suffering whenever possible, which really doesn't go over well with a lot of the role-players out there.
People wanting the be someone else, immerse themselves in a fictional world, be like the hero in a fantasy novel, experiencing new and different things? Why would romance not be something that people would like to experience in a fictional setting with fictional characters? Despite all the feigned surprise 'how people could only possibly want such a terrible thing', the addition of romance in RPGs is a pretty understandable and logical step. I am actually surprised its not been done more often. Romance is a very big element of the real world and of all our lives so it would be extremely silly to exclude it from video games and RPGs out of principle. Its not hard to see at all why designers would think how in theory romances could add a lot of drama and emotional depth to the experience.
Now the way romances have been usually implemented in games thus far, thats an entirely different matter.. But remember that video games are still pretty much in their infancy as a medium. If movies can do romances, and novels and can do romances, and operas can do romances, and stage plays can do romances, so can video games.
But romances ruin movies and novels as much as video games. It's exactly the same, you feel like you're playing/watching/reading something stupid and made for 9 years old, whereas when you play Dark Sun : Shattered Lands, a Gold Box game or EoB you don't.
EDIT : One good example is this recent nefarious second movie of The hobbit (EDIT2 : and of course it would still be horrible without that).
But romances ruin movies and novels as much as video games. It's exactly the same, you feel like you're playing/watching/reading something stupid and made for 9 years old,
Wat. Romance is stupid and ruins everything, you've heard it here first. Better pack your bags then, Shakespeare. The shy kids may feel slightly embarrassed.
You must be feeling quite old and wise, looking down on nine year olds like that, with your impressive apprently twelve years of life experience.
But romances ruin movies and novels as much as video games. It's exactly the same, you feel like you're playing/watching/reading something stupid and made for 9 years old, whereas when you play Dark Sun : Shattered Lands, a Gold Box game or EoB you don't.
EDIT : One good example is this recent nefarious second movie of The hobbit (EDIT2 : and of course it would still be horrible without that).
However, human beings evolved in a context where mating was fundamental to the power dynamics of the community. Romance is instinctively appealing and forms a huge cornerstone of fiction because our evolution programmed us to "watch" the romantic relationships unfolding around us in order to keep track of the implications such relationships have for our standing in society.
Thus the idea of "power couples" in reality TV, politics, etc.
Granted, the ways romance are represented in fiction depends on the demographics that fiction is aimed at, age being one of them. Children and teenangers have an "Old Hollywood" non-cynical, sentimental attitude toward romance because they haven't any practical experience of the amount of effort and emotional exhaustion involved in starting and maintaining a relationship.
For the record, video games tend to be aimed at 14 year old boys, just like Michael Bay films. Therefore.
Well, speaking for the minority here, a lot of people can't get laid. They may be eunuchs (i.e. castrated), asexual, medically sexually repressed, chronically depressed and thus sexually repressed, or just sexually repressed.
Some of these people find enjoyment in being able to experience things in games that they can't in real life, like a relationship or something similar.
People who have no physical desire to have sex aren't jonesin' for sex in their games, I'd imagine. That would make no sense. That being said... I think people often mistake the interest in relationships and connection for "lol put some sex in there". If anything, it's rather sad that Bioware's "romances" are just awkward cutscenes where models clip into each other furiously. And that that is some sort of industry standard.
Mod support - Could be good, but that depends on if a solid mod-scene manages to take shape.
Mask - The way they describe it, this sounds more like a cheat code from an older game, or DLC in a modern one, than a legitimate part of the game. Would need have a different kind of reactivity than just having the appropriate party member, but that would take a lot of work for just a single item. It's probably just there so that they'd have enough funds for the 'game master'.
Game master - I don't see this having ramifications for single-player, unlike their ideas about co-op, so this is irrelevant to me. Maybe modders could do something fun with this?
I'm a tad worried that mod support and game master mode will eat up more resources than they're anticipating, leading to it being scrapped or other areas of the game suffering for it. The mask is also the only one that is guaranteed to have some impact on the gameplay, which is kind of a bummer.
As for the controversial one, romance and rivalries could actually be a meaningful addition if they focus on a systemic kind of implementation, rather than the typical linear storylines you find in most games. Giving the player more social tools to work with, instead of a story that kicks in once you have the required amount of love/hate points, would be a really nice way to add roleplay opportunities and depth to these party mechanics. Stuff like seducing one party member so that they'll kill another one for you, allowing you to then stab them in the back and walk away with the loot. Or setting up rivalries between the two characters who might pose a threat to you so that they'll never effectively work together. Provoking someone into fighting you by sleeping with that barmaid they fancy. Hiding your undead-state from them with a glamour, taking them your room and then traumatising them when they see what your true self. All of that would be really fun to play with and would add the kind of P&P flavour that is always missing from these kind of games. There would have to be suitable consequences for these shenanigans for it to feel meaningful, though; especially dying. If there aren't, backstabbing would always disproportionally backfire in the long-term.
They could also just let your characters start an actual relationship, without the need for a bombastic storyline, and let this affect the gameplay. Such as giving you different dialogue options or making it easier (or harder) to convince the other character to do certain things. Or allow for characters who plainly don't get along, without going so far as to fight each other, and have this not just be pre-determined racism or disdain for certain backgrounds, but the result of what choices you make and how you treat others.
If done right, this could be a really good stretch-goal that moves the genre forward and away from the poorly written romances we often get. That heavily depends, though, on how serious Swen is about his dedication to having the game be about systems. Having them just stuff in some cookie-cutter romance stories would be a huge disappointment to me.
Wat. Romance is stupid and ruins everything, you've heard it here first. Better pack your bags then, Shakespeare. The shy kids may feel slightly embarrassed.
You must be feeling quite old and wise, looking down on nine year olds like that, with your impressive apprently twelve years of life experience.
Fun fact: I wanted to post a picture of the 60s Zeffirelli version or even just some random painting at first but I figured the plebs wouldn't have a clue what I was getting at. (even though it that original conception of this masterpiece of a post, I didn't actually name Shakespeare, so maybe I should just stop popamolizing my own posts for the unwashed masses.)
And what the hell is it with the >implying bullshit on the Codex lately, I have seen it several times already.
Fun fact: I wanted to post a picture of the 60s Zeffirelli version or even just some random painting at first but I figured the plebs wouldn't have a clue what I was getting at. (even though it that original conception of this masterpiece of a post, I didn't actually name Shakespeare, so maybe I should just stop popamolizing my own posts for the unwashed masses.)
And what the hell is it with the >implying bullshit on the Codex lately, I have seen it several times already.
I was never really interested in the romance of Romeo & Juliet while reading it, I thought the feud between the Montagues and Capulets, the Prince of Veronas solution, Mercutio's wordplay, Tybalt's deadliness and Friar Lawrence's mediation was far, far more interesting than the teenage yearning of the titular pair of dumbfucks. Better example of a tragedy than a romance.
Ancient greek mythology provided a few digestible romance stories during highschool. Of course these old greeks integrated enough cleverly hidden perverted stuff (and also tragedy) to make it semi interesting for a hormone driven teen (teacher was pretty hot too - iirc). After that i didnt really care for or connect with these type of stories.
Where did this desperate need for romances in every bastard game come from? I mean they're always teenage angst and fucking squee fodder for Twilight readers, almost every other form of interaction with companions is better, whether learning about Zerthimon from Da'akon or listening to Iolo tell of all that has happened in your absence from Britannia. I mean I don't mind em but there's a frantic need from the squeers to implement this shit in place of actual useful content.
Fuck me why don't the freaks just go to a club and get fucking laid?
I'd say that I'm surprised that romances aren't that common in video games as they are elsewhere.
You see, people want see games as a stories, especially RPG's. Swen may talk about systems as much as he wants but there still is story behind this all. I am the person who dislikes storyfaggotry but I won't claim that story never matters.
And what is story if it's not a slice of some character's/s' life?
And what is love if not an extremely important part of human's life? It may have been platonic, it may been repressed, you may have liked it or not, but I dare any person older than 12 here to say to themselves, with all honestly that they were never in love in their entire life.
Given the way it works on people(especially, you know - young, adventurous ones that happen to be often placed as main characters in stories) makes it a perfect basis for personal story in every single setting imaginable. If it's Greek coming back to his home(wife and kids) after loooong war and even longer journey back home, if it's a French fighting arabs in Spain, naive German courtier kicked out of his baron's castle just to reach El-Dorado once, 19th century adventurer who went all the way into the Congo river to get ivory and spread civilisation, love fits perfectly, love can be perfect way to explore the most sub-concious parts of their motives, their relation to this feeling can be wonderful in describing the way they have changed through his journey. As such, it is powerful tool in storytelling, making the character relate-able to obscene amount of people is a nice bonus. In non-fiction it's less prominent because non-fiction can't say a lot about people's internal struggles for obvious reasons.
The problem is that in video games, you can't really make the liebe und romance part convincing without taking control out of your player. Larian's systemic approach is the opposite of it, so I'm afraid it will boil down to minigames(ithey're systemic thing after all). I think they might be better off incorporating romances in-between of their companions rather than MC+someone, but then - people who want to...hmm... immerse into the pulp-novel level intercourse description(?) will be disappointed. And as we know there are some people who like this stuff.
However the potential dreaming in romances is big enough to attract a hell-a-lot-of people to your work, and not many can resist that urge to popularity.
It's perhaps the most emotional post I've written on codex or anywhere, I already feel like a faggot for it.
Fuck me you Europeans are an emotional lot aren't ya? I like emptying me bollocks as much as next bloke, but i'm not gonna rhapsodise on it, as for marraiges and relationships they're fucking years o torment, misery and compromise that no man should be put through. Fuck that shit.
It's an awful adaption(btw the moderntarding called it Romeo + Juliet) and anyone who likes it is the exact audience clamouring for Larian romances. Behead Luhrmann-fags.
Plus the Zeffirelli one had the best 15 year olds boobs caught on film.
For Dungeon Master mode, would it be possible to have more than 1 DM? I believe it would be beneficial in many ways. Such as, helping out a new DM, sharing the work load and making it a better live experience, allowing the party to split up and be able to focus on each group simultaneously, 1 DM could focus on the current fight while the other sets up more of the dungeon, etc.
I just can't write it unless one of the pair gets impaled on a pike, set on fire, or betrays the other and then impales them on a pike or sets them on fire. Generally, I prefer unrequited, melancholy, quiet suffering whenever possible, which really doesn't go over well with a lot of the role-players out there.
