The Escapist Issue #43 Now Available
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Category: News ArchiveHits: 800
"We went forward with the concept because, during Baldur's Gate I, many players assumed such romances were already in place. After adventuring with characters like Imoen for hours on end, the perception that relationships were forming between members of the party just seemed to be natural. We wanted to explore that without obstructing the importance of the main plot."
It also wasn't cheap. "A follower who has a romance is typically about twice as expensive as a basic follower," explains Martens. "There is a significant amount of testing, [voice-over], scripting and, of course, writing in order to do a romance properly. Despite this cost, I wouldn't call the romantic storylines extremely expensive, because we often get more player experience out of them than what we actually write in. The goal of a romance is to add a layer of immersion beyond the moment-to-moment gameplay, and this tends to lead to emergent storytelling that the player writes him or herself. In the feedback that we get from players, they fill in a larger experience or personal story with the romantic character beyond what we've written."
Martens and Kristjanson say it enhances the experience of roleplaying in the game. "Romantic plots, whether a player goes all the way through them or not, tend to add to the world or game experience by offering a deeper level of interaction," says Martens. "If you can get a player to be more invested in the fate of his followers, then you can underline the seriousness of the decisions that the player makes, because they will be more personal."
