After reading previous threads about the subject, i know its a pretty sensitive topic but i am not interested in getting this locked because a few people can't debate without insulting people which dosn't share their view. So please keep it civil, alright?

When i first played Oblivion, and later Morrowind, i didn't miss a romance option because i didn't know what i was missing out on. But now i see how much such options can help define your character, how much depth it can bring to your experience. If done right that is. But what is the right way to implent such a thing in a open world RPG? Though, BioWare and Bethesda games might not be completely comparable, i think BioWare is on the right track. The wrong way is when every single NPC, or atleast way too many of them, is a potentialy romance. The problem is, if you have 1000+ NPCs to chose from, its not gonna be realistic enough, its gonna feel empty and superfecial. That's not what i want to see. At the same time though, you need to be carefull not to limit the player to only 1 NPC. Otherwise it could turn out to be a little too limited and one of the great things about WRPGs is the freedom.

Honestly, I don't want any romance in the Elder Scrolls.You say that a romance sub-plot, when done right, can help define, build, and add depth to your and other characters. I won't disagree with that; I'm very sure it could, just as romance in, for example, film can do so. Problem is, I've yet to see almost any game that is able to pull off romance well. It always comes off as feeling too forced and contrived, ultimately meaningless. I would much rather have good writing do the characterization work here instead of romance sub-plots.

Edit: and to add to that: I think BioWare is completely on the wrong track. Their seemingly sole purpose for adding these romance plots in their games as of late is to allow a bunch of teenage kids to have their characters be able to have six with alien space babes, a purpose I feel almost completely undermines any chance of serious character building. I wouldn't mind it if the six was done a bit more tastefully or even just implied, but I really don't want to see badly animated, and thus awkward, six scenes in my games.

I agree i loved oblivion and have done as much as i can in it but i still play it i think it would bring a nice element to it whats the point of having a home and all these rewards if your constantly alone


I dont think the next game (IF IT EVER [censored] COMES!) Would be ruined witout it and i dont think thats what this thread is saying i think its just important to realise that elderscrolls always push rpgs and dont force you to do anything you dont want to , but as im sure alot of people with agree with me when i played i wanted to do everything! every quest , every book every guild it goes on and on! but i think what makes oblivion special is that it added little touches to gameplay that i apreciated

And if people are worried that elderscrolls will turn into a sort of fable , even dragon age games seriosly think about it for five minutes it wont because elderscrolls gives you true freedom
Dont get me wrong i love those games but i think what defines elderscrolls and bethseda softworks is that they set the standerd and always improve

Its important to see why they remove and add new things to games you have to just wait to play the game to make your jugement and go in with a clean slate trust me im a massive Oblivion fan but i have no intention of playing the next game (Seriosly when the hell will they let us know its been years to be honest There taking the piss) complaining about how things are missing i mean even if they removed Dark brotherhood quest line for example my faviorite story and part of the game , if that wasn't in the next game id still buy it play it and love it its a [censored]in class series and New touches always make these games great so YEA give us romance , give us violince , give us maddness and just give us EVERYTHING YOUVE GOT BESTHEDA!!!!!

P.S A comfermation on ANYTHING Would be more than welcome seriosly even show us the bloody font and we will love you , put it this way make the next elderscrolls , make it twice as good as oblivion if thats even possible , And we the rest of the world wil make you really really really really really really really really Rich. And you can go WOW we made an even better game then the best game ever. Leave first person shooters to call of duty and lets leave Rpg's to you. Do it.

I'm not too interested in an in-game romance option. If they do include something like this I'd prefer an in-depth set up for a small number of select NPCs (with at least one guy and one girl). I'd point to Ahnassi in TES III as an example but I never actually went through her romance quest line.

The ability to woo most vanilla NPCs (that is, people like Caius Cosades, Hieronymus Lex, or High Chancellor Ocato would be off limits) could work. It would be a bit more generic but I can see the benefits. In fact strange as it sounds while I prefer the other method I may actually be more likely to do something low key like this.

Ahem.. I'll play my Bioware-card here: Romancing(or potensially letting someone else do the dirty work) Morrigan in Dragon Age. Not meaningless, neat plot-twist and IMO, rather good characterization.
But I agree; badly animated awkward six-scenes with alien space(or in the case of TES; fantasy) babes just for the sake of showing some pixellated skin is useless.

Sorry to post so much here guys but i think the most important thing to remember in elderscrolls is this You DONT HAVE to do anything!!!!


If you dont want to do the romance option....Dont but why not put it in the game , what is it going to ruin all that lore , story and action if some girl fancies you and wanders round your house!

We all know we dont care about those infamous dragon age six scenes but this aint dragon age! i cant really imagine peforming acts to a bunch of pixels wearing the gray cowl of nocturnal actully happening in this game! it will just be a nice in depth feature!

Not something I have any personal interest in or ever bother with in games that have it. As a concept I would support its existence; well done, it adds authenticity to the game world and allows more characterization options. A sandbox rpg thrives on options, after all. However, for the effort involved it rarely seems to even manage "okay," being stale, rushed, and ridiculous. "Oh, guy I've had five short conversations with! I can't resist you!" If it could be done effectively and without significant resource drain why not, but as it is, I consider it very low on the priority list of things I'd want added to the game.

Well one time has to be the first right.

"As a concept I would support its existence; well done, it adds authenticity to the game world and allows more characterization options. A sandbox rpg thrives on options, after all."


I tottaly agree

as i am a guy who obviously am mad about interactivity:Not that kind ! i would love to see you getting a wife or something,but lets not overdo it,there are plenty of games out there focused on love,you know,make it an ASPECT but not a MAJOR aspect

Sure. And if Bethesda could manage to pull something like this off, and do it well (well being the important word), I wouldn't mind it in the slightest. In fact, I'd support it. I just don't think it would be done well, and so, if it can't be done well, I'd rather it just be saved until a time where it can be comes. As it is now, though, almost every romance sub-plot I've come across in gaming has either been implemented clumsily and felt contrived, or it was basically just added for a cheap six scene.

I completely understand people who don't want it in the game, even if they don't have to use it. It is still gonna take up developing time which could have been spend on something else you would much rather see. Its for the same reason i don't want Multiplayer, even if i don't have to use it.

Yea i think its a little late to start worrying about devolping time and also i want the best game possible out of the next game not one that dosent have this or that and i think a romance option is a little diffrent from desighning a game with a multiplayer format mate multiplayer would be rubbish i agree , i also agree that bioware did make it a kinda Point A to point B situation but i have every confidince that elderscrolls would do it right.


Also because its a game for everyone they should put in whatever great ideas they have not just ones that please a few.
if it takes a little longer so be it its been like 5 years i can wait a little extra for an amazing game.

This!

That's the one thing about the NPCs in Oblivion (and I'm assuming earlyer TES games) they're rather flat after awhile. I remember starting Oblivion, being rather infatuated with all the stuff the NPCs had to say. All the new information and stories they told. But after awhile, there isn't much of a reason to interact with the majority of them at all.

I remember feeling lonely after my current fighter character, Renee Gade II bought her first house in Bravil. How she wanted some sort of interaction with someone else. A friend. Not just someone she can buy stuff from or listen to the next Rumor from. Yea, it sounds goofy, but it would definately add depth to the game (beyond just looting, killing, stealing, etc). Even back in my tabletop days we had rules for relationships.

As it is now, there's no reason for any character I make to just 'live' in a town. Not much interesting (after awhile) to do. The way Oblivion is now, it's fun to go looting and stuff, but there's something missing.

I guess I'm spoiled after playing Sims and Sims2, and being a female too. Not that I think TES should become just like a Sims game, but some steps in that direction would be really cool. The PC becomes friends with the NPC first, for instance (Oblivion's persuasion game is the first step for this). The PC doesn't just walk up to someone and get married within a day; he or she has to EARN this respect first.

I voted that it should be possible to try and woo any NPC by the way (even the most horrid orc) BUT I also think it should be possible for those NPCs to be able to turn such requests for friendship and/or love down! Some NPCs should be grumpy after you make an advance for instance; some of them should be asixual and find such requests too baudy; some of them may even get angry and attack you!

Overall: It's not 100% necessary in TES games to have friends & lovers; if TESV hasn't got them, I'll still buy the game. But it would add a higher dimension..."flesh it out" a bit more.

i agree the whole point is the depth of your charecters , why have tables and chairs you can sit on if you sit on them alone , why have pubbs and inns if no one comes over and has a chat with you , why do i have to find quests after becoming the Champion of cyrodill why when i walk in a bar dosent the NPC come to me and plead for my help not just expect it why if im fameous or infamous treated bassicly the same way the NPC's stay in the same place , they dont invite me in they dont try and push me out of there hous if i just walk in after dark sure they ask me to leave and stuff and people greet you nicer with higher fame but i feel for such a in depth game where the charecters are central i think i should have more of an effect

For example


If you have the shiviring isles exspansion you know what happens at the end if you dont want to dont read the next bit



Why if im the god of maddness do i have to go out and fight grummites why cant i leave my realm as the great sheogorath and when wearing my sheogorath outfit am recognized as Sheogorath in the same way the gray cowl of nocturnl does but the main part being why cant i go and turn people mad , invite people to my realm ect not just be an adventurer

so i think its important theres a stronger charecter concept for you and NPC'S

Theres so much potentiol lying around oblivion already its a shame to waste it

I'd enjoy it.

But I don't want it to be obnoxious. To add character relationships, they will also have to add character depth, or else it will be like Fable's relationships... have you ever had a relationship in Fable? Sort-of annoying, although I liked that you could buy a house and have your spouse move into it.

What would work is if characters that you can have relationships with had distinct personalities and histories, and unique interactions. I wouldn't want to have an in-game romance with a random NPC who never did anything or said anything unique. And I wouldn't want a romance option to make a mockery out of the character and make it awkward to talk to them because of some creepy romance scene.

Relationships shouldn't be something that you constantly have to monitor, I can understand that if you don't talk to a character for an in-game week or two they might become more distant. What gets annoying is when you have to give them a gift every in-game day or else they leave you and disappear from existence.

What would be amazing for relationships, and followers alike, is to have each character react differently to different parts of the main quest, and some side quests. I don't mean like in DA:O where if you tell a teenage girl to have faith in her brother's survival after a horde of zombies attacks, a cynical witch gets angry at you. If you were walking through an iced-over citadel with a character next to you who went "Wow, isn't this incredible... I wonder what happened to this place?" without dragging you into a time-frozen dialogue, and when a different character enters they say "It is FAR too cold in here, are you sure this is the place... it isn't somewhere warmer by any chance? ... Like Elsweyr?" It would give the character that little amount of depth that a lot of people look for.

Disposition should be used for more than getting what we want out of characters or making them feel more like processes run by a program. It should shape the way we play choose to play, just as much as our choices with quests should. We should feel for the characters, like you feel for a character when you read a book. It doesn't mean we're supposed to long for the person to be real, but it does mean that we should at least feel bad if they die, and perhaps feel happy if they have a personal quest that turns out well.

agreed. if bethesda thinks its a good idea and has the courage to add, romance/six it will be good. You can nitpick all you want but Bethesda hasnt let us down yet. By the way im not saying Bethesda is afraid to do it. They've made bold moves in the past and theyre one of the best in this genre because of it. Anyway they know what theyre doing, and a romantic aspect would no doubt be well incorporated. That said i dont think they will do it. Bethesda will make more people happy if they play it safe and dont add romance.

Its something i would like...if done right. Im with Septiego, there needs to be a distinction between a deep, well-written romance sub-plot and just pointless six scene's. If its the former, then go for it (possibly with a male + female option for each race, i dunno). If its the latter, please, no. I can go online if i want that kind of stuff, keep it out of RPG's like TES.

I would love a romance option. It would be awesome for my character to be able to interact with someone in a deeper and more meaningful manner. I want my character to have something outside of questing to do. Give me some incentive to return home, rather than simply dumping off my loot. It wouldn't have to be a huge part of the game (to be honest, I wouldn't really want to have to devote tons of time this), but I feel that the game world could really be enriched by simply providing the possibility of a love interest.

I wouldnt mind having a family like Fable 2.

Everything I wanted to say and more.

Considering all the features that Daggerfall had or was promised to have, Bethesda has a lot of work in front of them before they should even think about adding romance.

In theory it's a good concept. But the only reason why this would be useful to me is if I could take them to a secret location and kill them + loot their stuff. Good for other people who really want to get into roll playing, but I think it's too time consuming to develop a relationship with a NPC if I'm not getting something in return. It's good for people that want it, but I really wouldn't care if it was implemented or not.

I voted for the first option in all the voting options. I feel this way because of the simple fact that it's just a game. For obvious reasons it wouldn't go too far because of the ratings system and what not. Not to mention that romance is a secondary item compared to the combat, quest, and exploration aspects of the game.

I wouldn't really object to the presence of romance options in the game, provided it's done well, I suppose it would add a few more role-playing possibilities to the game, and would allow player characters to become seriously involved with NPCs, however, it's not high on my list of priorities for the game. If it were included, it would need to be completely optional, and the romance would need to be done well, by which I mean, the interactions between the player and the romancable NPCs should be well written, and those NPCs should be good characters on their own instead of just being shallow one dimmensional characters who exist only to serve as the player's love interest, because I'm not interested in getting involved with such a character. And while I wouldn't actually object to the presence of six as long as it was done tastefully and didn't seem to only be there for the fan service, it's not really necessary, and if it's just there to help develop the relationship, just implying it, or at the most having some suggestive dialog and then having the screen fade to black before anything you wouldn't want your children to see starts showing, I don't play video games for pormography. There should also be a few different options, but not too many, certainly not every character available should be an option, seeing as the more options are available, the harder it is to do a good job on all of them. Also, you'd have to be rwquired to have actual interactions with a character to start the romance subplot, after all, bribing someone for one hundred gold and then having that person become the love of your life doesn't exactly make for compelling storytelling. For this reason, romance is probably best explored in games where you'll be spending a lot of time with a character throughout the story, such as say a party based game, in the Elder Scrolls, while you'll be interacting with some characters throughout most of the game, for most quest related NPCs, you time spent with them lasts only until you've completed whatever quests they're involved in, after that, you might never speak to them again.

Also, I'm not interested in things like marrying and having children, for that sort of thing, there's the Sims, the Elder Scrolls games are about adventuring and doing quests in a fantasy world, not raising a family, whatever romance options may or may not be present should be ones that won't get in the way of that, it would be best if the character's in question are themselves adventurers, and could accompany you on your travels, though that would also mean Bethesda needs to create decent companion AI.

Considering that Bethesda's past games haven't done a very good job in regards to the interactions between players, I'm not confident they could do romance well. Firstly, they'd have to get rid of the keyword based speech system and use actual dialog instead, after all, it's not very romantic if someone's conversation's with his lover consist of him saying things like "Latest rumors!?" "Background!?" or "Metal Gear!?" (Okay, the last one probably won't show up in the Elder Scrolls, but the speech of the player character tends to come off as being like that too.) and the other responds in full sentences.

In the end, while if romance options were present, I wouldn't necessarily object, Bethesda should first focus on improving the gameplay mechanics or creating interesting characters and quests.