romance, hell no. however if the next game is set in skyrim by definition they will have to include drinking and wench chasing games.

if you play as a female then your goal is to find a strapping nord warrior with several heads of cattle and get him drunk enough to bed you but not so much so that he cant bed you he then falls in love and you get the cottage, kids, cattle etc.

if you play as a male your goal is to get the wench (or wenches) drunk enough to go to bed with you and you have to play the "sneak out before dawn" minigame.

Human interest and emotions cannot be simulated. Though, It would be nice (like in fable) to be able to have a spouse and children.

It would be quite a challenge though. I don't think that it can be done with all of the features that oblivion had to offer without being too massive.

You would have to make sure that the children are logical (no blonde-haired blue-eyed 10 year olds from brown haired-green eyed parents), then there would be a whole plethera of scripts and topics that pertain to "romance" that bethesda might have to limit other aspects of the game.

Other than that, I cannot begin to fathom having a system that would have your children grow up, and, since Bethesda is big on details and to a real good job with them, it would just be too much.

Another reason is that they would have to add children all over the game area, thus the controversial thing about child-based crimes (infanticide, etc).

Also, humans are too infinately complex to even use a "random" function to make motives, interest, rivalries, etc.

This is my opinion

I'd say thats nearing too much towards fable.

I dont agree with romance options in any game tbh, if you want romance.. go and watch a film, games should really steer clear of any sort of romance option unless it adds to the plot, and then it should be less sixual, and more structured in the story.

Voted: Not sure, 4-6, and "just fun".

Essentially, I think a well-done romance option that is about RELATIONSHIP, not six could potentially add... something... to the game. On the other hand, there's crap I KNOW we need and would rather see.

Then, if you do add romance, you need to have interesting people of different persuasions and genders to romance, but not so many that they become just another face. 4-6 is doable, overall. Maybe upping that to around 10 would have been a good choice for gender balance, but... I went by strict "how many COULD be well done" and let the options come out as they may.

Finally, the most important aspect of a game is fun. Fun is subjective, but the intent should be for the game to be fun on some level. The most important aspect of a mass-market game is "fun for a massive range of people". That solidifies the concept somewhat: TES has historically been about allowing as many players as possible to be who they want to be and do what they want to do. Therefore, the target is likely somewhere between hardcoe RPers (a dedicated and passionate group) and people who just wanna score with someone in-game. Lopping off the latter folk, because of my complete and utter lack of sympathy for them, we get people who want complete freedom to romance whoever their character would love and we get others who would just choose Saralina because she has a head for business, or is cute, or whatever, or they'll go after Ingrid because she's a fiesty battlemage who adventures with them, and they cant a companion, or just whoever "just because the option exists". The basic problem is that "to grow a fanbase, you can't push hardcoe on the new guys", and there's a big difference between how I game and how someone roleplays. I don't have a fixed personality for my character, nor the desire to spend four hours creating a backstory and detailed personality for a character. I simply roll a set of stats that works best for how I'd play by default, then spend the next 200 hours acting on whim (visiting random caves/forts/tombs/ruins), or with coldly calculated purpose (like stealing a copy of every book I can in Oblivion), but never once asking "would this character feel bad about doing this?"

No, that would just waste their time and money.