@red-leader said in On the romance options:
I'm going to guess its story related why they aren't going all bi. That is the impression they gave me anyway. We will see if that is a good enough reason or not.
I'm always skeptical when a dev makes that claim, because it's inherently weak--there are no "story reasons" that I'm gay in the real world, I just am. Orientations run the full range of people. At 35, I've yet to see a single compelling "story reason" in any media to tie a character to a specific orientation.
I've never found that logic compelling from content creators; it's a signal that the writers have preconceptions of what kind of people comprise each orientation, and that's a very ugly path to go down. At its most basic, it communicates immediately that the writer just doesn't understand orientation at all, and I'm left waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's a red flag that tells me I should wait to buy until I can see some Lets Plays about the romances, because I'm likely to see a caricature instead of good representation.
And in some more high profile cases, like Bioware's explanation of why Jaal was made bi (apparently an alien with different gender norms is more believable as bi than the average human man in a culture with North American gender norms--and they didn't think that communicating this was offensive), attempting to create story reasons usually trends towards homophobia.
@fortune86 said in On the romance options:
I have mixed feelings about all bi-romances. I mean yeah it's fun to be able to romance whoever you like but it also makes me uncomfortable to change how people feel and think just so my character can date them.
But that's just it, isn't it? The ways in which romances are coded, you're always "changing how people feel and think just so your character can date them." There's no way to avoid it. That's essentially the point of the feature: to get your fantasy. Fundamentally, that should be available to all players, just like any other feature.
No one is attracted to all members of the sex they're attracted to--I have yet to see any RPG where you can use the character creator to come up with a design that the romance options find physically repulsive. They're attracted to the player character regardless of physical attraction; so that's railroading the character into feeling and thinking something just for you.
In most RPGs with romance, your character's personality isn't capable of repelling the romance option. Always choose the rude dialog option? Doesn't matter, the character is still forced to think and feel a certain way to appease the player-character.
They rarely have minor pet peeves that ruin their interest. They really hate green because it reminds them of a childhood trauma, you designed a 100% green outfit, and hey, they're madly in love with you. They don't like pets, but you've added every possible one to your collection? You're getting married! Did you add scars to the character because you imagined them in a really nasty bar fight? The romance option never judges you for it. You couldn't possibly code for every scenario that a person would lose interest for another person--and of all the possible ones, gender is the least believable from a gameplay perspective.
I have yet to see a point against bi-towards-the-player (which is slightly different than just being bi) that isn't immersion-breaking. At its essence, the point of the feature is that you get to be the hero who rides off into the sunset having saved the world with your chosen lover at your side. Romanceable characters are just a prop to complete the fantasy--but it doesn't work that way if they're selectively unavailable for a few arbitrary reasons, but not for others.
On another note, I wonder if companions are the only characters you can romance or if there are any non-party options.
I definitely want more info, too. Though since we're also talking about wishful thinking and the things we want out of games, I'd really like to just see more of us in these worlds, too. Not just in the party, not just romanceable side characters, I want to see us living in the world beyond the player's little social circles. We're everywhere--except in our media.