More diverse relationship options.

[RadicalRod]

OK, here's a radical idea, because if I see another 'RPG' that can't get it's head out of it's crotch I'll puke.

Instead of everyone and their dog moaning about how they want included, this predilection and that perversion, for the next year or so.. How about we don't have any at all?

Huh, Huh? How's that for an idea. How about if we test these writers abilities to tell us an entertaining, thought provoking and even controversial story, without actually regressing into who's got what appendage stuck in which particular hole, just for the sake of the jackasses who can't go two minutes in their particular choice of media without having a fumble at their bits? 'Cos d'you know what.. sex in games now is so passée.

Yes, sex exists, the media is full of it, the internet is choking on it, and nowadays our so called 'mature' (heh, that in itself is a laugh, I'm pretty sure only immature children think it's edgy at this point) games can't get over themselves for falling over it. Is more of the same, simply as an excuse to pander, really necessary or has it just become 'expected'? If you are one who says 'necessary', is it possible that you are lacking in something and it's simply you 'projecting'?

Yes. yes, I know this thread is about 'relationships' and not 'sex', but unfortunately for most of you it's the same damn thing just with a different colour of hat, and no, variations on a theme "to deceive me, or dishonour me" don't count as 'something different'.

I'd actually like to see platonic relationships tackled for a change, see those actually require a bit of competent writing, something that can't be brushed over with a few boob, penis, hole in the wall, references . Give us some good stories about brotherly/sisterly/non-specific cuz I can't make up my mind, bonding or deception or (insert better ideas than I can think of, writers) tales, because at this point, that would be unusual and edgy. The best game I've played for a while and it didn't yank me out of the game with piss poor nudge-nudging, Dragonfall DC, damn fine storytelling and NPC's I actually gave a damn about and nothing below the belt level mentioned or even hinted at.

So there you have it, my 'opinion', and before you all jump to tell me how much my words have offended you or broken your poor fragile little heads, understand that I'm every bit as offended with the opinions of those who do want it included just to fill something that is missing in their lives.

How's that for a first post.

 

[Sardukhar]

OK, here's a radical idea, ....

So there you have it, my 'opinion', and before you all jump to tell me how much my words have offended you or broken your poor fragile little heads, understand that I'm every bit as offended with the opinions of those who do want it included just to fill something that is missing in their lives.

How's that for a first post.

Amusing. I laughed at "the internet is choking on it" because phrasing.

On the other hand, be nicer.

Yep!

"how much my words have offended you or broken your poor fragile little heads, understand that I'm every bit as offended"

Doesn't matter in terms of courtesy if you've been offended first. Two wrongs don't make a right, not here anyway. Sooo, if you are offended, either bring it up politely and preferably with humour or bring it to a mod's attention. Don't start fights, counter-attack or try to even things up.

On a thread-related note, I'd have not much problem with what you suggest, except Cyberpunk 2020 has lots of sex, relationships, kink and what have you. The cybernetic options include just what you'd expect.

SO although many games do it now, in 1987 or so when R. Tal was writing Cyberpunk 2013, that kind of adult material was really, really rare in role playing games. And that's the world we're going to be playing in.

 

[RadicalRod]

So another 'just because'?

Not much of an excuse these days. However if it's justification is 'just because' it was 'that way' to begin with and it's a given that it was 'that way' to be edgy and different, because there is no merit to it otherwise, then how about we strive for it's intent rather than a literal interpretation and we aim for what is edgy and different today?

Being 'what it was' then, isn't the same as being 'what it was' now, different context, different connotations. We wouldn't be getting an exact representation of yesteryear's product anyway, those days and those naiveties of society don't exist any longer. it'll be updated for today's (lack of) sensibilities so any arguement justifying it on those terms is rendered moot, and it simply becomes another exercise in titillation without the moral gravity yesterday's players would have experienced.

However if we are to simply accept that that's what it is, then I have no interest in it. Another base level product at this moment in time is redundant.

The state of this forum and the clamouring for such a thing has sapped my considerable enthusiasm for the project, I hope the children are happy with it.

 

[Sardukhar]

However if we are to simply accept that that's what it is, then I have no interest in it. Another base level product at this moment in time is redundant.

The state of this forum and the clamouring for such a thing has sapped my considerable enthusiasm for the project, I hope the children are happy with it.

Pretty happy, yep!

 

[wisdom000]

You are far more patient than you should be sard.....

 

[Sardukhar]

You are far more patient than you should be sard.....

Well.

We have YEARS to go before I get to snipe you from the top of the Afterlife using my Militech Anti-Matter Rifle.

Errr...

Snipe "with" you. I meant. Of course.

 

[testsubject013]

I would love to see a more complex relationship mechanic than the usual like/hate game mechanic that’s use In so many games, maybe add variables for respect and fear. I would love to be feared in the game

 

[Poet_and_Gentleman.598]

I hope not.

Video games are extremely poor at emulating social relationships.

Games are better at straight up storytelling then this mess of social relationships that is found in Western RPGs.

 

[Sardukhar]

Oh, I dunno.

Something like this would be totally fine with me!

[video=youtube;rr8-5Fn_6XY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr8-5Fn_6XY[/video]

Funny AND kind of sweet!

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

Hah. Scenes like that one are right on top of the reasons why I wouldn't want player driven (random) ego-romances in the game.

It is funny, that's for sure, but not in the way it is intended to be.

 

[Sardukhar]

Hah. Scenes like that one are right on top of the reasons why I wouldn't want player driven (random) ego-romances in the game.

It is funny, that's for sure, but not in the way it is intended to be.

...what? How did you not find that hilariously amusing? And they absolutely wrote it to be so. Scenes like that are a great reason to have player romances in game. The opportunity for comedy is great.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

...what? How did you not find that hilariously amusing? And they absolutely wrote it to be so. Scenes like that are a great reason to have player romances in game. The opportunity for comedy is great.

I did see it as hilarious in how cringeworthy and bad it was. A sort of parody of a parody.

It would've been funnier like this, but then... I don't know if that's the sort of fun it was looking for.

 

[Poet_and_Gentleman.598]

Oh, I dunno.

Something like this would be totally fine with me!

[video=youtube;rr8-5Fn_6XY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr8-5Fn_6XY[/video]

Funny AND kind of sweet!

It was well acted ( a rarity in games) and very well written. This is clearly a lighthearted if cringeworthy joke relationship.

At the level of KOTOR , I would quite enjoy it.

My main gripe with "complex" relationships is that you have to replay the game several times to get maybe the remaining 5% cutscene that will make a character whole.

It was a while since I played it but in KOTOR II, I got the feeling you were missing a major part of character development if you didn't do the right thing, and there were not clues as to what were the right things.

I never knew that G0T0 was an AI in my first playthrough and I thought he was a reaaaally lacklustre character due to this.
Pacing is extremely important in games. I might spend 1-2 days learning and "getting" into a game (far far more if it's a strategy game), but if I'm 20 hours into a game, and I'm not hooked or I'm spending it with a character that looks undevelopped because my coin landed tail, something is wrong.

 

[Harthwain]

It does indeed look more like a comic relief. Mostly due to the reaction of the trio who walked in (animations and acting are great in this scene). It's not bad. If that's intended to be a comic relief. If not, then it's bad.

 

[Poet_and_Gentleman.598]

I also wonder whether it was intentional.

I'm certain the deadpan delivery wasn't meant to add to the humor because Commander Shepard delivered ALL of his lines in this boring,monotone, completely deadpan fashion.

Gosh, that was awful.

But to paraphrase Napoleon, I'd rather have a lucky actor then a good one.

 

[Garrison72]

Oh, I dunno.

Something like this would be totally fine with me!

[video=youtube;rr8-5Fn_6XY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr8-5Fn_6XY[/video]

Funny AND kind of sweet!

Ughh. No. More like saccharine and juvenile. I'm sure the writers can handle the topic but the degree to which they want it taken seriously, the more care those scenes require, especially in this medium.

 

[Helmic]

The Witcher series isn't really known for treating sex maturely. I don't even mean actually having nudity, but the whole idea that it's there to titilate the player rather than use it to make a point. The god-awful sex cards from the first Witcher come to mind, there's pretty much no point to them. Could have had Geralt bang whoever he pleased just fine without turning it into a tacky collectible.

Sex in the Cyberpunk universe is supposed to be really devoid of meaning, so I'd like to see that reflected in the romance options. As in really shallow romance options. Drive home how meaningless sex is in this setting, make sex a commodity. Love should be utterly divorced from the act, and that might mean no romantic options whatsoever, or never having sex with that romantic interest despite drowning in sex with everyone else.

And hell, this is a hyper-augmented setting. Make people think. Let the player lay some hot whore or whatever, then let them learn the whore was originally the opposite sex. That would actually get a reaction and force people to think about the difference between sex and gender and whether it should even matter. Use sex to get under people's skins and make them address their own prejudices in an uncomfortable situation.

 

[Decatonkeil]

The Witcher series isn't really known for treating sex maturely. I don't even mean actually having nudity, but the whole idea that it's there to titilate the player rather than use it to make a point. The god-awful sex cards from the first Witcher come to mind, there's pretty much no point to them. Could have had Geralt bang whoever he pleased just fine without turning it into a tacky collectible.

Sex in the Cyberpunk universe is supposed to be really devoid of meaning, so I'd like to see that reflected in the romance options. As in really shallow romance options. Drive home how meaningless sex is in this setting, make sex a commodity. Love should be utterly divorced from the act, and that might mean no romantic options whatsoever, or never having sex with that romantic interest despite drowning in sex with everyone else.

And hell, this is a hyper-augmented setting. Make people think. Let the player lay some hot whore or whatever, then let them learn the whore was originally the opposite sex. That would actually get a reaction and force people to think about the difference between sex and gender and whether it should even matter. Use sex to get under people's skins and make them address their own prejudices in an uncomfortable situation.

Being so "offended" (mind the quotation marks) by the sex cards and then demanding that sex in cyberpunk is devoid of love... kind of clash to me. I don't think that the way they handled sex in the Witcher is so bad or that some elements like the sex cards are out of place. The Witcher game is a game that came to the world of videogames at a concrete moment in game development trends and history. Videogames are quite a young medium, and they had or have to experiment some of the same stages of evolution as other modern arts. Comic books or animation which are both relatively new and share with it that they still haven't reached a point where maturity is so unanymously attributed to them by the general public or critic. Both went through a lot of stages to mature, and some of them included the treatment of sex. Before the artists in these fields really got the hang of how to portray things like sex maturely in these, they had to first reach a stage in which they braved just showing it in whichever light: first it was raunchy humour (which predates comic books proper, in satirical pamphlet illustratin), then sexy, then grim and grit with stories that tackled rape, etc.

The videogame public, especially those of us that demand maturity are extremely voracious in that we want a 30 something year old medium to mature much faster than pretty much any other medium. But see, the Witcher already did a lot of things right, especially with a way of handling morality that hasn't been matched in any other game that isn't the Witcher 2. Sex wasn't treated much more maturely than it was treated in an 70s/80s underground comic book from Metal Hurlant/Heavy Metal... but that doesn't mean it's offensive or sloppy by any means or that you can't get enjoyment out of the raunchy element of it. We've discussed a lot about how in this game you roleplay a badass who is dashing, sterile and immune to illnesses such as STDs in a fantasy world that I would describe neither as low fantasy (as there's a lot of magic and magical transformations typical of classic fairytales abound) nor as high fantasy (as the epic and heroic make way both to more human, realistic stories and a magic that has more to do with tradition)... I prefer the term popular (adult) fantasy, because it also tackles modern concerns.

Demanding that all sex in cyberpunk has to be devoid of meaning... I think is too much. Pretending that any kind of bleak future would be completely devoid of love, honesty, integrity... is too cynical, and cynicism, even if it's a very popular current of thought nowadays, is overdone in media and, if you ask me, quite infantile. I'm in for a representation of the world were moral values are for the most part forgotten, both by the people whose behaviour our contemporaries would find offensive and by "nostalgics" that enforce values they don't understand nor uphold themselves. But we're also going, as in pretty much any RPG, going to be able to play an "exceptional person". I don't mean a chosen one or a member of a long lost race with any birthrights, I mean someone with the will to make his mark in the world or try to change it, maybe even for the better. The game will probably be full of cool supporting characters which will desireably have their own personalities and interests, but that may share ours and our struggles, go through very epic shit with us... people our character can connect with.

That's another thing: it should be our character that tries to romance them. The game should make it pretty clear, and gamers have in mind that this is neither substitute for real relationships nor a masturbatory experience of ego-stroking. Even if we project our morality through our character and our likes, this should be clear to everyone.

I'm with you though in that the game should try and challenge us with unexpected things like those... although maybe not bombard us. And there may be a lot of other things they can try with us that aren't just gender identity or sexual orientation: realism, she has children, etc.

Also, I have to say, games are still maturing in how they portray A LOT OF THINGS, not just sex. I mean, with ebola outbreaks constantly in the news... how have videogames as a medium really been able to treat disease this far: Resident Evil 5: Africans have parasites, let's mercy kill them... seriously...
And oh, well, in RE4 it was my fellow countrymen that had the parasites and had that treatment given to them... countrymen who hadn't heard of the Euro, wore clothing from the 1940s rural Spain and spoke with a mexican accent, buy countrymen nonetheless. I mean, those games, at least RE4 which I own and have finished A LOT OF TIMES, are a lot of fun but... games have a long way to mature in how they portray a lot of things.

EDIT: Wow! What the actual fuck! I wrote this WALL of text?

 

[Helmic]

Being so "offended" (mind the quotation marks) by the sex cards and then demanding that sex in cyberpunk is devoid of love... kind of clash to me.

They clash because you assume incorrectly. You don't need to be offended by something to think it's a terrible way to represent sexuality. They didn't bring back the cards for 2, so I think CD Projekt got the memo that the card idea was just dumb. Straight up showing sex would have been a better way to handle that than putting pinups on cards so that you could collect women. It was a horribly thought out mechanic that didn't express anything about the world. That's why you don't see sex cards in the sequel.

wooooooords about the witcher

Shock value isn't maturity, and the pursuit of maturity through "adult" material is misguided at best. It's one thing to not let censors prevent you from addressing a topic (such as sex), it's another to stick that stuff in as a shortcut to be considered "adult." When every other word is "fuck" it comes across as juvenile. When a character that rarely curses starts dropping f-bombs, it actually has impact. This is just basic creative writing here, has nothing to do with someone being a prude or not a prude.

Demanding that all sex in cyberpunk has to be devoid of meaning... I think is too much.

It's hardly a demand. The setting very much revels in the fact that sex is as meaningless as that cheap fast food burger you ate for lunch. That is hard to make personal to the player unless that view of sex becomes an obstacle to a romantic relationship. It'd be refreshing to see characters having sex not mean those two characters are actually in love, and having sex with a romantic interest not be a guarantee that they return those feelings would make for a pretty interesting subplot. It pushes the mores of the setting and makes it clash with the players' ideas about sex and love. It'd hurt.

Pretending that any kind of bleak future would be completely devoid of love, honesty, integrity... is too cynical

The "punk" in cyberpunk is supposed to be hypercynical. It's partially why people moved past it in favor of post-cyberpunk and transhumanism. This game, however, is supposed to revel in its cynicism.

I'm with you though in that the game should try and challenge us with unexpected things like those... although maybe not bombard us. And there may be a lot of other things they can try with us that aren't just gender identity or sexual orientation: realism, she has children, etc.

Those are things that aren't as likely to make the viewer uncomfortable, nor do they really take advantage of the setting. The whole point is to get under the player's skin. Learning someone you slept with wasn't born as your preferred sex should push people outside their comfort zone, for reasons other than sheer shock value. Does the player accept it? If they don't, do they just avoid having sex in fear someone isn't what they say they are? What are the attitudes of other characters in the setting, who've probably been dealing with this for well over fifty years, at the least?

games don't do a lot of things well

Exactly. The Witcher is no exception, to be honest, at least regarding sex. There's actually a pretty good opportunity to explore sex in this game, though, in ways other than just sexually exciting the player.

 

[Garrison72]

Sex in witcher and sex in cyberpunk have a lot in common.