Romance for our commanders!

[Caro.2730]

I would love to see the more "human" even if it is not techinically a human side of my commander in the story. I would never expect it to be RPG style romance, but at least few fancy dialogues, text dialogues even! Or mere flirtation. It would make our characters feel less like a killing machine everybody relies on. Imagine the mental state of such a person! A psychopath?

[coso.9173]

I'd love any kind of character depth for our characters. romancing NPCs, personal questlines, class quests, anything would be awesome. But I feel ANET is going further and further away from the RPG part in MMORPG and more towards games like LOL where it's just a bunch of people doing skill combos over and over again.

[Cuks.8241]

The first step would be not calling him/her commander. It is such a professional rough title you can't really get any personal involvement with someone you and everyone is calling commander.

[hugo.4705]

I think, that, when saying "side quests" it's implying more voice acting. But I think I wouldn't be shocked if those are implemented just with speech bubbles without voice. There are programm and doftware that generate audio from text without actors or dubbing. Take google translate, you can make it read anything you write with several voices (by selecting a language or another).

 

The issue is, that this thing would kill jobs, if you are automating it by using audio generators instead of real dubbing. But, can't only the main charactors be dubbed and all the npcs generated through those kind of softwares? exemple: https://www.nuance.com/omni-channel-customer-engagement/voice-and-ivr/text-to-speech.html#!

 

I would like more side quests, involving our character creation choices, races and professions. But simple math, 3 x 5 × 9 x 2 (male/female) = 270. Yeah, 270 voices lines. Just to be very personalized for everything. If only profession, still 9, if in addition, race, it's 45.

 

That is why, I wouldn't care of the voice, would be ok with just the speech baubles / a software generating their audio. The story is just go kill everything with the edge of morons.

 

I really miss the lvl 0-40 stories and events, even the living world when we had choice like the election with kiel and evon.

[White Kitsunee.4620]

Okay, but only if the community gets to name our offspring, and our offspring goes on a long charecter arc where no one likes him but anet keeps trying new ways to make people like him.

 

Cast your votes below.

[Dawdler.8521]

> @"White Kitsunee.4620" said:

> Okay, but only if the community gets to name our offspring, and our offspring goes on a long charecter arc where no one likes him but anet keeps trying new ways to make people like him.

I call him "Raid".

[AgentMoore.9453]

Sorry, but the Commander is destined to be starved of love and sympathy for the entirety of their lives, so desperate for that spark of romance that they're willing to [go to literal war](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Jormag_Rising_(achievements)#achievement5367) and [travel across actual continents](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Searching_for_Inspiration) in search of scruffy old copies of Snargle Goldclaw smoochybooks in the hopes of inspiring some vestige of emotional security in time to meet the next threat to Tyria.

 

At least there's Canach.

[Caro.2730]

I'd love to romance Canach. He's my type!

[Trise.2865]

And what happens when the story they write doesn't gel with your internal fantasy? Mass Effect 3, that's what.

 

There's a reason player-insert characters aren't the most interesting by themselves: because they're blank spaces for the player to be inserted. But, by the same token, that means you can have any character relationship you want, because it's not restricted by in-game storytelling.

[Hannelore.8153]

I'd look into the works of Snargle Goldclaw. Specifically, *Commander of My Heart*.

 

Also, if you're Charr, you're basically had Rytlock as your mate since the game's release. That's why there's so much subtext in the later seasons, (like "Rytlock's fur is sooo soft..") because the devs like to poke fun at how much we're around him.

 

In PoF, he literally says to you "alright, try not to fall in love", referring to seeing him without a blindfold.

 

And alot of NPCs do flirt with the PC in the game, some of them quite heavily.

[coso.9173]

i think even a blank character can have some development, I mean the commander is in many ways similar to the inquisitor in Dragon age inquisition, we make our own story, but in DAI being a single player game, we get a lot more of options on what to do, who to romance, and how to change the story. even with MMO limitations (and gw2 limitations) there is room for some commander character development, without messing too much with the world or story.

[lokh.2695]

The reason something like that won't happen lies in the sad truth that MMO PCs have to be some sort of bland, vanilla, simple. It leaves as much as possible to your imagination, and most people can identify with that and fill in the blanks with their head canon.

 

Just imagine the outrage should ANet write a story about "the commander" falling in love with another NPC.That NPC could have the "wrong" gender for some, could have the "wrong" personbality. "I'd never date a [enter whatever]!!!!! Why is ANet forcing my character to?!?!?!?!?!?" would be probably the more polite comments to the issue. As it is now, you can fantasize your relationship with whatever NPC floats your boat and it's prvate, your very own fanfic and no one has to care about it. But as soon ANet would make a relationship canon, there would be outrage. There already was outrage for "having to play the good guys" just think about how upset people would get if ANet would take away this freedom of RP as well.

 

tl:dr You don't want that to happen, just trust me.

[coso.9173]

> @"lokh.2695" said:

> The reason something like that won't happen lies in the sad truth that MMO PCs have to be some sort of bland, vanilla, simple. It leaves as much as possible to your imagination, and most people can identify with that and fill in the blanks with their head canon.

>

> Just imagine the outrage should ANet write a story about "the commander" falling in love with another NPC.That NPC could have the "wrong" gender for some, could have the "wrong" personbality. "I'd never date a [enter whatever]!!!!! Why is ANet forcing my character to?!?!?!?!?!?" would be probably the more polite comments to the issue. As it is now, you can fantasize your relationship with whatever NPC floats your boat and it's prvate, your very own fanfic and no one has to care about it. But as soon ANet would make a relationship canon, there would be outrage. There already was outrage for "having to play the good guys" just think about how upset people would get if ANet would take away this freedom of RP as well.

>

> tl:dr You don't want that to happen, just trust me.

 

they could easily leave all those options for sidequests or collections, so people get to choose who they want to romance without affecting much the story.

[lokh.2695]

> @"coso.9173" said:

> > @"lokh.2695" said:

> > The reason something like that won't happen lies in the sad truth that MMO PCs have to be some sort of bland, vanilla, simple. It leaves as much as possible to your imagination, and most people can identify with that and fill in the blanks with their head canon.

> >

> > Just imagine the outrage should ANet write a story about "the commander" falling in love with another NPC.That NPC could have the "wrong" gender for some, could have the "wrong" personbality. "I'd never date a [enter whatever]!!!!! Why is ANet forcing my character to?!?!?!?!?!?" would be probably the more polite comments to the issue. As it is now, you can fantasize your relationship with whatever NPC floats your boat and it's prvate, your very own fanfic and no one has to care about it. But as soon ANet would make a relationship canon, there would be outrage. There already was outrage for "having to play the good guys" just think about how upset people would get if ANet would take away this freedom of RP as well.

> >

> > tl:dr You don't want that to happen, just trust me.

>

> they could easily leave all those options for sidequests or collections, so people get to choose who they want to romance without affecting much the story.

 

So they would have to develope how many sidequests exactly to satisfy everyone? 5? 10? 50? How many different romances would it need?

Also, be careful with the word "easily". Making a game is harder than imagining "cool stuff" to put into a game.

[anninke.7469]

My commander's got all the romancing he needs, thank you very much. I prefer this kind of personal stuff to remain untouched by the official story so we have space for headcanon.

[Pockethole.5031]

If my asura would have romance, it would be Rytlock...

[Smoosh.2718]

Dibs on Kas! ;o;

[Batel.9206]

My commander wouldn't know what romance was if it punched him in the face. (And the only lady he *may* have fallen for wound up dying. To this day he still doesn't know *what* his feelings for her were - only that they probably weren't platonic. Maybe. It was very confusing.)

 

Romance in a game like this would work if it was like SWTOR (for an MMO example) - where you are in full control of who you want to romance and *how*, through the dialogue wheel giving you a variety of ways to respond. But we don't really have choices in dialogue here unless it's in unvoiced dialogue, and for a game that otherwise features full VA, that's probably not very satisfying.

 

Besides, headcanon is more fun! What do you mean, Canach isn't attached to anyone? [slaps one of my alts to his side and superglues them together] Now he is! :D

[Naxos.2503]

At that point, all characters are so long established that such a drastic change would be instantly weird to any old player.

 

 

On the vote for offspring's name : I vote Chunky. Dont judge, I'm a charr.

[Caro.2730]

> @"Hannelore.8153" said:

> And alot of NPCs do flirt with the PC in the game, some of them quite heavily.

 

Oh really? Which ones? I might have missed them.

 

 

[kharmin.7683]

I would rather development resources be spent elsewhere.

[Yggranya.5201]

> @"Caro.2730" said:

> I would love to see the more "human" even if it is not techinically a human side of my commander in the story. I would never expect it to be RPG style romance, but at least few fancy dialogues, text dialogues even! Or mere flirtation. It would make our characters feel less like a killing machine everybody relies on. Imagine the mental state of such a person! A psychopath?

 

It's true the story can't get much worse than it already is, but adding some pointless "romance" would do it. If they just force some "romance" on you, you still don't actually get to choose anything. The killing machine comes from the fact that most games makes the main character a blank slate that just does as they are told, and this is no different in GW2. At least the commander pretends to be more than that, because of the simple fact that they have a voice.

 

Still, just a mindless puppet being led on some idiotic "prophesy" story as the chosen one. Well to be honest, the commander is not the chosen one, aurene is. The commander is the chosen pet(champion) of the actual chosen one. Hah!

[TheUndefined.1720]

So, I've totally seen a relationship in the works with my human female commander and Logan. Look, I know that's me and like 100s of others, but I just see a real wounded, vulnerable, yet still very confident character in Logan that my commander has really come alongside with. Logan definitely deserves a break, and I feel like with everything my commander and him went through together, it could really work.

 

Less specific, it would be nice to have more character depth with my commander. I was so frustrated I didn't get any option to respond to Bangar when he was trashing humans, but I just wrote it off as, she's being diplomatic. Either way, nothing super complicated or complex, but fun and insightful instead would go a long way - no need for voice acting, chat bubbles work great. It'd be nice to see our commanders get a short side break and explore characters that have been totally dropped off b/c of other bigger stories (Pale tree, Blish, Caithe, Canach, etc). I want my commander to be an adventurer again and watch her have fun :)

[Westenev.5289]

One thing that irked me about Jessica Price's comments (as a member of the story team) about the commander a year ago was the insinuation that the commander was a silent self insert protagonist that was impossible to write for. I still think this is the wrong choice in an RPG story where we don't feel in control of our actions.

 

Gw2 is a story about the commander, but when you try to write the commander as some cardboard cut out with no personality at all, everything falls apart. No matter how well the side characters are written, or the plot twists you write, nobody will care if you can't immerse people in the role by showing us how the commander acts or thinks, like any regular character.

 

Either give the commander a personality, or go back to the Personal Story days where we had the illusion of choice over the actions we have on the world.

 

> @"Cuks.8241" said:

> The first step would be not calling him/her commander. It is such a professional rough title you can't really get any personal involvement with someone you and everyone is calling commander.

 

Commander [insert name here] Shepard didn't have a problem sleeping his/her way throughout the galaxy while only being referred to as "Commander" or "Shepard".

[CaelestiaEmpyrea.2617]

I love the idea of a romance subplot/option, but I don't want one. No matter what story the GW2 team comes up with, it won't be the right choice.

 

As things are, you can decide for yourself who the Commander is in a relationship with. As long as they don't get killed off, every NPC in the game is an option. Now imagine the story team writing a romance subplot. They would almost have to create a whole new npc (actually huge set of npcs). Voice acting? For something this important, definitely. Think the writing team will manage to cover every romantic option that every player (or even just MOST of the players) want? Very unlikely. Not to mention there are some players who just flat out don't want romance in their game.

 

Then there's the localization issues. Not all the markets that play GW2 are accepting of all romantic choices. Wrong though this may be, it's the reality of international business. Introducing a romantic plotline that is ok with all of the countries GW2 is played in will wind up being just a bad mess that satisfies almost no one.

 

Romance in GW2 is a no win for ANet, and I'd rather they spend their time and effort on stuff that more people will enjoy. Its a no win for players because no one will get what they want and everyone will be unhappy with the end result.