Lost that Loving Feeling...
Baptor
Member Posts: 342
When I first played BG2 back in the day (gosh, was that 17 years ago?) I didn't even know there were romances in the game. I sort of stumbled into one with Aerie and saw it through to the end and a bouncing baby boy. It was a nice touch to the game when it happened.
In the years since though, as I've tried to make my way through the other romances, I've found them to be...annoying. As Alan Quartermain said in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen:
"My dear girl, I've buried two wives and many lovers... and I'm in no mood for more of either."
Now that I'm much older, I find the notion that a serious relationship can occur like that in a matter of weeks during a chase to the death followed by a massive war to be...unlikely to say the best.
Then there's Siege of Dragonspear which covers an even shorter amount of time and a game in which nearly every man and woman you meet wants to sleep with you within literally hours or days of meeting you. It's actually unnerving and creepy.
Can't we just go kill the bad guys?
Not sure if I'm the only one who feels like at least some of these romances are there just to be there and get in the way. Maybe someone will make a mod that takes out all the romances if you don't want them. If anyone knows of one please let me know.
In the years since though, as I've tried to make my way through the other romances, I've found them to be...annoying. As Alan Quartermain said in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen:
"My dear girl, I've buried two wives and many lovers... and I'm in no mood for more of either."
Now that I'm much older, I find the notion that a serious relationship can occur like that in a matter of weeks during a chase to the death followed by a massive war to be...unlikely to say the best.
Then there's Siege of Dragonspear which covers an even shorter amount of time and a game in which nearly every man and woman you meet wants to sleep with you within literally hours or days of meeting you. It's actually unnerving and creepy.
Can't we just go kill the bad guys?
Not sure if I'm the only one who feels like at least some of these romances are there just to be there and get in the way. Maybe someone will make a mod that takes out all the romances if you don't want them. If anyone knows of one please let me know.
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Comments
My comments were meant for the choir, as it were, and so I generalized a lot. Let me clarify.
Now I'm not sure what you mean with Aerie, because in my game there totally was sex and even a child that took up inventory space. But I've got a soft spot for Aerie. It's a slow romance that, while still not making much sense, makes a lot more sense than the rest I've seen.
I never romanced Viconia, but I was always told sex was involved in that one. But like I said, I don't know.
With SOD I should clarify some points. The issue I had with SOD was that Corwin starts talking serious within just a few days of meeting you and within a week is ready to take a big risk with you (her words) in a serious relationship even though she just left a really bad one. As far as sex, in the game I played, she wants to take you somewhere "private" to have a "private celebration" with you after the major plotline is resolved. Now to me, that's pretty darn sexual in nature. But you're right, it's not spelled out. Maybe she just wanted to have a nice long make out, but somehow I doubt that.
Then there is Glint, who I loved as a character, but who randomly tells you he watched you sleeping all night like a super creeper. At first I dismissed this as just some weird gnome thing but later on I learned this was actually the beginning of his romance line. For me, this would have been the start of a restraining order.
Now in SOD's credit, and I'm serious here, you have a graceful exit in the romances I saw. While I still think it's ridiculous that about half of the characters you pick up think you're hawt and want to hook up, the good news in SOD is that you have a nice "let's be friends" line that leaves everyone happy but stops the creepiness.
In BG2, the only way you can break a romance is to be mean. Basically you have to tell the love interest to shove off and while they do stay in the party I found this to be unsatisfactory.
My main point is I don't like the romances. My secondary point is I think they don't make sense: people in a crisis wouldn't be worrying about boyfriends and girlfriends, or at least smart people wouldn't. My third point is I think the devs should tone this way down if there is to be a BG3.
In real life I understand that, if I were studying for a hard test, it would be better to just focus and be on my own. But I would also seriously take breaks and hug my boyfriend or talk about my doubts on the test, as us humans are social species.
In SoD I understand that the romances are rushed, but I don't think they're *that* out of character because the dialogues follow as you advance through the game. In BG2 the romances may have certain flaws, but they're designed to make you help the npc grow as a person , and I believe that that kind of experience is much more rewarding than most quests in the game.
As I suggested before, Torment has way richer dialogues (and one very shy romance) , so I believe the devs should definitely learn from these . I respect your opinion , though. Perhaps in this matter we're both sides of a coin?
As far as SOD, we'd have to agree to disagree. They make no sense to me....unless we are going with the Wheel of Time ta'veren thing. That is because you are a child of Bhaal you have some kind of otherworldly magnetism that makes otherwise stable people abandon traditions and logic to follow you and perhaps get closer still. I could see that but they never really mention it.
I agree about SOA. The first time you play it the romances seem really important. It's the replays where it gets stale.
Yes to Torment. In that shy romance you speak of we see the "supernatural" romance I mentioned earlier play out well. Both females admit once you've had them in the party for awhile they are inexplicably drawn to you because of the way you are affecting the Planes. One of them manages to keep composure despite temptation. The other, being a bit more unstable, gives in a little to that temptation. But it never turns into anything, because NO has no time for such things. He's racing against the clock and the shadows that hunt him to find out the truth BEFORE ITS TOO LATE (queue music). To me, it all made sense.
But then again Torment has the advantage of having a set path for the protagonist. In BG you can play any race/sex/class you want and so multiple paths had to be created that don't always make the best sense.
I respect you as well and have enjoyed your perspective on this issue. And yes I'd say we are two sides of the same coin. Preferably an electrum piece.
There are quite self evident evolutionary reasons for that, and specie survival is also the reason why sex and feeding are so prevalent in our mental life (if S. Freud is not completely wrong...).
Charname and his lonely harts club band risk constantly to be killed the next day, and in RL soldiers in battles situations use brothels much more than would do in peace situations.
Imo is perfectly logical that romances happen in the quest for that only reason, as romance is the way that our specie use to grant sex, so the specie survival, other species, but not all the other species, are much more direct about sex.
I am not saying that we are completely dominated by sex and that romance does not have an inherent value, is not so, but the fact that in peril the sexual desire rises is widely reported and quite demonstrated.
To enforce your point it has to be told that there are long periods of time in the life of the party that we don't witness, when they march from one place to the other, time when they can chat and know each other.
We must assume that the real banters are much more than the ones that we, players partecipate to, is given to us only to know few of them, for characterization of the NPCs and romance purposes.
I couldn't resist.
back then, having romances in a game was kind of a neat concept because it was new, and it was quite fitting in bg2,
but no adays, it seems that romances are just shoved in games for the lols, and it seems to be a something that has to be implemented are else people are going to freak out
in my opinion, if you want a romance, go out into the real world and find somebody, and if you do, be grateful, be happy and be with them instead of a bunch of 1s and 0s
The common belief that video game romances are a substitute for real ones is kind of silly. I'm married and both my wife and I pursue romances in various games (in fact, she's bugging me to do Sera in Dragon Age: Inquisition since she romanced the character I was initially more interested in).
Love and sex are parts of the human condition and have driven many of the great figures of history. Most well-known stories include romantic subplots (or the romance IS the primary focus of the plot), in every genre. Why should video games be different? The only reason they are different than, say, movies (where a romance plot is de rigueur even if it has to be shoehorned in) is because of a history in the West of video games being treated as "kid stuff" - because violent content is somehow far more suitable for children than any hint of sex.
When there's as many games with romance/sex as there are with violence, maybe that'll be a saturation point. But we're pretty far from that point (despite Japan's best efforts).
But I think that for the majority of people the reason to RP a romance in a CRPG is just to have a little more characterization of the NPCs and a little more RP choice. My opinion on that is that the western culture sees sex as a big taboo, when is a very natural thing that almost everyone do.
To talk of it in many situations is considered not polite, and if a child or teenager is present the things get much worst. Many parents even lie to their children, telling them that they are born inside cabbages or other silly tings. Why they are so embarrassed to tell the truth, to admit that sex is an important and marvelous thing in adult life, the very thing that brings a new life to existence? Why other lies, like that masturbation can lead to blindness, have been told, and maybe are still told today?
I am obviously not talking of opening porn fruition to children and teens, nor of allowing adults to have sex with them. I just tell that I find utterly ridiculous the Western culture's way to deal with the "problem" that sex exists.
I think also that this taboo generates very strange things when dealing with CRPGs.
In the BG series maybe only in the Viconia's romance sex is explicitly nominated, usually only allusions at it are used, like sleeping together.
But for the western culture is perfectly fine that a teen RPs assassinations, that he chose to RP a really evil charname that helps Dorn in his utterly evil goals, with plenty of details about.
Why having a teen RP to be an adult doing things that are a beautiful gift of the life, that are the life itself that perpetuate, has to be addressed with so much care (and hypocrisy), when having him RP an adult that do things that are against the life, are the complete negation of life's value, seem to be no problematic at all?
I really fail to see any sense in that.
Considering you need almost 300 hours to pass the whole game，it's not that annoying to have 20 or 40 min of romance.
For me what I really like about bg is that he build a world to our player. if you only want to kill bad enemy, Diablo or other 3a game may more suit you.
What I really feel bad about bg, it's I would like to have more story about our teammates.
But I enjoy playing them at least one time, now I am in my first EE run and romancing Neera, in not EE is years that I was only romancing jaheira, and only for that pin...
EDIT: what I like of jaheira's character is the fact that you can drop her only one time. The fact that all the NPCs are so willing to follow you for a quest that is your quest is quite not realistic. the fact that you can drop them and take them multiple times break all the realism, they are people, not puppets.
http://torment.wikia.com/wiki/Annah
http://torment.wikia.com/wiki/Fall-from-Grace
The end result is basically getting a smooch (the smooch from FfG kills you) and some dialogue at the end of the game.
Baldur's Gate are games mostly centered around the fantastic concept of killing. You kill lots and lots of things in these games and when you don't, it's likely because you're talking to someone who will give you a quest leading to more mass murder. Romances happen in the form of banter interrupting whatever you are doing at the moment, which often means you're just done killing shit.
What I'm trying to say is that when you decide to play BG, you're not necessarily in the right mindset to enjoy romance. A lot of people play this game for the dungeon crawling/hack'n'slash aspect to the detriment of RP (something the game itself encourages sadly), and when you do that, romances (and banter in general) are just irritating wastes of time.
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I WOULD BE FLATTERED!!!
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Wait... Hang on... Are you really saying people in the real world don't want to actually sleep with me? After a few hours... Days... Weeks... *sob* Years...
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I need to play a game to live out my childish dream like fantasies...
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Hang on a minute...
The second complaint is how they are handled. The romance banter is often an annoying interruption of the game. I might be nervously navigating my way through a dungeon laden with traps when Jaheria chimes in talking about taking walks on the beach or some nonsense. Maybe getting it on during a long adventure is "human instinct" but talking about what we should put on the wedding registry is not when we are buffing for the dragon fight. And even if it is realistic...it's still annoying. My argument here is that romances need to be done better than they are now and it might even be nice to, going forward, make them even more part of the game. Remember the cutscenes with the dreams? Those only happened when you slept and weren't annoying interruptions. Maybe the romances could be done the same? I think that's a fine idea. These comments, on the other hand, represent my subjective complaint. When I first played BG2, the romances were kinda neat. Now that I'm on my 100th run, I am more interested in the main story: the escape, the chase, the confrontation. The romances only get in the way. Now not everyone agrees and of course there are the newcomers who need to experience that, and that's cool, I don't want the romances taken out. But it would be nice if there was an option to get rid of them or a mod that does the same.
"mommy, from where did I come from?"
"I found you in a cabbage in the garden dear"
But I suppose that in other countries similar silly things are used.
An other lie that I witnessed the consequences is
"when the father kisses the mother a little seed pass from his mouth to her mouth and then descends to her belly"
and I know for sure of a little girl that, having been kissed on the mouth by her little boyfriend, had a couple of weeks of nightmare, because she believed she was pregnant...
Only when she, crying, finally told to her mother of her "guilty" she finally knew that nothing had happened and how actually babies are generated.
About the romance banters triggering in the most disturbing and unrealistic situations I think that is because they are scripted to not trigger in areas flagged like dungeons, but other way only depending on their timers and other conditions. And that was done to prevent those things.
The problem is that not the battles happen in dungeons and, to a minor extent, that not all the dungeons are flagged as so.
"mommy, from where did I come from?""I found you in a cabbage in the garden dear"
You mean the stork doesn’t bring them?
This is what I was told.
What is common is the taboo on sex, shared by almost every western culture.