But I'm not controlling the novels. Plus, I don't read romance novels.

I don't read "romance novels" just like this isn't a "romance game".

I've read nearly all the Drizzt novels, which have a metric ton of romance.

I've read all but the most recent Wheel of Time novels, which have a metric ton of romance (even multiple girlfriends at the same time).

I've read almost all of the Seeker novels which centers around Richard and Kahlan and their relationship.

^^^ those series are best sellers, have romances, are not completely centered around said romances, yet are extremely popular.

I don't read "romance novels" just like this isn't a "romance game".

 

I've read nearly all the Drizzt novels, which have a metric ton of romance.

 

I've read all but the most recent Wheel of Time novels, which have a metric ton of romance (even multiple girlfriends at the same time).

 

I've read almost all of the Seeker novels which centers around Richard and Kahlan and their relationship.

 

^^^ those series are best sellers, have romances, are not completely centered around said romances, yet are extremely popular.

I get that but its different when you're controlling your character and flirt with a fake fantasy character. Each his or her own I guess but it just seems weird.

I'm not sure what they could do - how would Elara having kids work? I really don't want to be without a healer for my Trooper for 9 months (even in accelerated game time). Would that essentially mean that she is replaced from my crew?

Yeah, I think this would be hard to do, but if they some how pulled it off it would be epic! I mean it would be cool to see some kids in the corner of the ship playing or whatever. Also change C2-N2 to be a nanny so Elara can keep going out on missions.

Heck, then have missions where they are kidnapped and you have to go rescue them! (Bioware, you can have that one for free, but I may start charging for additional cool game content ideas LOL).

As far as being pregnant, I think she could roll with you for the whole time, but then they should make her unavailable for a certain duration where you'd have to use another companion (trying not to give a spoiler out, but it already happens once in the game). Once again conflict makes for a good story.

I'd be happy with some repeatable for emotional support (daily/weekly hugs), some different "phrases" for her to say while on the ship when you click on her and while she's in the field with you. Someone else suggested that she says, "honey, are you okay?" instead of "let me heal you" when targeting you. At the very least, please move her to my quarters in the ship and change her name from Dorne to my legacy name.

Yep, with Elara I totally think her standard responses should change to reflect a marriage/relationship. Changing the companion name text is another easy win. Of course programming wise they would still have the audio as "Elara Dorne" in speach and stories, but that's all good.

Aside from that - the crew should have some interaction. I can't believe Jorgan didn't have a dialog with me to "caution" me on having romance with Elara, a fellow officer in the squad. I could see Tanno having a dialog congratulating me (in typical military manner) on my "conquest". Either way - the other companions should react in some way to the romance as well.

I think this would be more difficult, but definitely do-able. I mean lets keep the voice actors and animators employed!!

Note: I don't want it to go so far as for her to start losing affection if she's not the one with me as my current companion though.

I think they would have to keep game play realistic meaning if in future content you need a different companion then she should be "fine with it". However, again a little challenge is good. Maybe you might lose some affection but then you can do a "romance" mission and get it back. Or the cheap way out and just buy gifts.

I also think affection should be like "social" and "force" levels. Meaning there should be an affection level 2, 3 etc.

Can you imagine though, if while running through Coruscant, she came off with a remark like, "honey - what would you think of getting an apartment here when we retire?"

Hey, this would be a cool response to the normal ones all the companions give. Like in when you first get to Coruscant, Aric says something about the scale of the city etc. I'm all for the subtle changes as well.

I get that but its different when you're controlling your character and flirt with a fake fantasy character. Each his or her own I guess but it just seems weird.

It's no different than those alternated ending novels that were popular some years ago. You know, those books where you made decisions and then turned to the appropriate page to continue the story based on your decision?

"Do you take the left path?", turn to page 32.

"Do you take the right path?", turn to page 67.

We make a multitude of decisions for our character, involving life or death or moral choices aplenty - why not romantic ones too?

I get that but its different when you're controlling your character and flirt with a fake fantasy character. Each his or her own I guess but it just seems weird.

You are weird. You aren't controlling the character; you are selecting pre-written options within the existing story.

Not only that, but dude. Open your mind a little. Is an author weird when he writes about how his female character is enjoying sex?

It would be totally epic if kids or offspring could be part of the marriage.

Yes it would - though is suspect not as epic as the task of making it happen under the game's hood.

I also would like to see the romantic interest move up to your quarters on the ship. Sorry, but Nadia and Elara are going to be in my guy's quarters, at least after marriage - I ain't making them sleep in the medical bay.

Doc's first post-marriage email to the female JK is entirely comprised of

Well they do allude to future kids in the conversations and from the looks of it the letters from all of them, so maybe they do have plans for having kids in the future.

Legacy system. Your alts are your children!....or padawan or apprentices etc.

Looks like a lot of us are on the same page when it comes to the "simple things" in regular interaction. SilentKitty's metion of a "hug" is cool, I like that idea! Mostly because it's just something "different". Another idea I had is the "emote" function. For instance if I click "rally" in a group of players/NPCs they all jump, clap and cheer. I think it would be cool if I targeted my companion (and if married) I could do a /hug or /kiss and it would do it.

 

I also agree with Applesauce on changing or adding to the "canned" responses", when just clicking on the companion. "YES SIR!" Just doesn't seem like the appropriate response for my wife LOL! I think these are small things taht could be implemented. Someone also mentioned to just change the scenery. For me, my entire "Romance" took place in a med bay. A MED BAY?! How drepressing!

 

As for future content, I think mini-games/stories that are REPEATABLE like flashpoints would be cool. I'm not looking for XP or credits. Outside of being married and romance in general, to do repeatable social stories with otehr companions would be cool too, for example:

 

As a Trooper you had to destroy the "Gauntlet", that story (even though it was action based) totally rocked because ALL the companions were in on it. Totally fun. Now if that was repeatable (with maybe a couple other possible out comes) that would be cool.

 

I'd never thought I'd be a guy on here arguing for more "romance" content LOL!!, but after hours of killing and killing and killing, it's totally a different change. I'm just glad I'm not the only "weirdo" that wanted more "romance"!! It's nice to know others want this content..

Glad to see that I am not the only one who would be happy to see just a little extra something with your LI after you are done with the main story =) A weekly or daily hug would be so great. I would be so happy to just go back to the ship after finishing a few dailies with Corso and get a smooch. Pretty sure that my buddy who romanced Elara with his trooper would be happy for it as well, he's pretty much done with the entire romance-arc so not much left of the Elara-time for him.

Daily hug/kiss or just something along that line could be your reward for reaching the end of your romance-arc and story, perhaps gated to lvl 50. Much more fun than a mute LI. It would make me go back to the ship for extra LI-time and make the relationship feel more alive.

You are weird. You aren't controlling the character; you are selecting pre-written options within the existing story.

 

Not only that, but dude. Open your mind a little. Is an author weird when he writes about how his female character is enjoying sex?

I guess I just like to kill stuff in an MMO and have it end there. My character is a Sith, evil as they come. It just doesn't seem logical to flirt with a Jedi who is now my companion. "Sorry honey, I'm going to kill these republic dudes who were once your friends", lol.

I went to a social/story forum so I know I'm not the norm here.

Never understood why someone had to get romantically involved with a fantasy character? Seems kind of creepy to me..

You are weird. You aren't controlling the character; you are selecting pre-written options within the existing story.

 

Not only that, but dude. Open your mind a little. Is an author weird when he writes about how his female character is enjoying sex?

I definitely wanted to throw my 2 cents in on this: I think games in general get a bad rap. If a girl cries at a movie, or if a good novel stirs emotion it's totally ok, but soon as it's a "game". People think its "odd". With games becoming movie-like quality and the stories start to have the depth of massive novels, PLUS the addition to partially control the unfolding story. Its crazy that more people aren't playing!

I was like a lot of other people, I just wanted to play a character and mostly destroy things (Im a commando, so a LOT of things). I'm a very light RPG-er so I took on the attitude of what I think a commando would be. But the real kicker was that as I was spending way too much time playing SWTOR, as I went through the story (remember I'm a huge SW fan) I started getting more and more into my characters and companions. I was amazed that they actually effected me on some level, like a good book or movie.

People are entitled to play however they want. Some people mash the spacebar through the stories. Some log on only to PVP, some like to solo, etc.

I don't think there is only one way to play. My only issue is this small community of Story and Lore fans (especially the romance fans) "might" get overlooked for future content. But I have a plan brewing to try and make sure that doesn't happen!

I totally agree with 99% of whats been said here so far, (Only got upto page 6) A few thing's I would like to see.

The companion your married to taking your legacy name as his/her last name. (This should be Obvious)

The random quotes changing as you go up in affection and once you get married. (maybe every 3k affection or so), Heck not evan all of them need to change, I like the one where doc says he enjoys being shot at .

Companions responding to /dance /kiss /flirt ect would be good. (Heck fixing the /flirts ect would be good they don't work)

A daily or weekly mission with each companion, (Or heck each week a random companion gets kidnapped or goes missing and you and the remaining companions go to find them)

Heck why not just pinch idea's from the SIMS 3 ground works done, just a few VO recordings and a bit of animation.

And of course same gender romance/marriage.

OOH how about if you are romancing one, and try romancing another with the first around they get jealous. (yes like in the sims but make sure the damage is REPAIRABLE)

This sort of stuff makes a nice change from go here kill this for me for whatever reason, Doing somthing for your companion just feels different than when doing it for "Another" Commander.

I guess I just like to kill stuff in an MMO and have it end there. My character is a Sith, evil as they come. It just doesn't seem logical to flirt with a Jedi who is now my companion. "Sorry honey, I'm going to kill these republic dudes who were once your friends", lol.

But that's the cool part: you can play it like how it seems like it should be (per SW lore), or you can create your own story. This one is hard though, because if you truly introduced children, I think just legally you couldn't be extremely mean with them. Like beat them into becoming a Sith!! LOL! But then in GTA you can kill an old lady with a crowbar, so maybe

I went to a social/story forum so I know I'm not the norm here.

That's whats cool about a SWTOR MMO, each area has their fans. I went to my class forum the other day looking for spec suggestions and it was 90% PVP! I rarely PVP. I craft too, but the crafting forum is really hardcore.

Everyone likes different things. I just hope Bioware can keep everyone happy!

I think (I hope!) that, just as with Chapter 3 leading to "Interlude", that what we've seen is the just the marriage proposal part, and that later content patches will allow us to build on this -- getting "married" in a sickbay is well, depressingly bad.

I certainly also agree on getting better dialogue responses in combat and when you click on them than the generic ones from when they were at 0 affection...

There's so much potential..dunno what possible to implement in the game..for example since my Sith is female..she would be the one who got pregnant I suppose..if that would be a plausible scenario even..[working on Andronikos really!] Im really curious on BW-devs view's on this?..More love to companions & story is greatly appreciated by me anyway

Might be a rare for a sith to marry, especially marrying a pirate/ ex-republican ^^ but heck I sure enjoy the dialogue we're having.

There's so much potential..dunno what possible to implement in the game..for example since my Sith is female..she would be the one who got pregnant I suppose..

Well, certainly for a Sith, I imagine a Surrogate mother is quite viable -- some rich women do it in real life these days. Or, if Cloning technology exists in the SWTOR era (When exactly did the Kaminoans develop their stuff?), you could probably also have full in vitro gestation...

I'm happy with the romance arc for the most part. It lasted, at least on my trooper, just long enough to get me to 50, plus some follow-up e-mail. I imagine that any major story developments between my toon and her mate will take place when there are more major story developments in general- future content patches, expansions, etc. The only thing I'd like to see in between is for those little e-mails to keep coming once in a while. they're cute and not too hard on Bioware resources to add into the game every couple of weeks or so. But honestly, I'd like to keep getting followup e-mails from other NPC's too, so that's more of a general story thing.

The one thing I will agree with that a lot of people have said, is that I would like the things said when I click my romance companion during gameplay, to better reflect what's going on. If I had been doing my job for years, and gotten several promotions, my husband was still saying "I guess you'll do alright. You've gotten this far," I might possibly injure him :/ Also, "Sir"...meh

Sounds like you paced things just right. On the other hand, Doc became Mr. Cymae Masani about fifteen minutes after I got back to my boat at the end of Act II. I got almost a full level from the backlog of conversations with him that triggered (and rightly so, the man can be difficult! ), but to have the emotional progression go from having made out in the medbay once to a full-on wedding and talking about kids in that timeframe was...a little jarring. Level-wise, I think I was 42-ish. I wonder if some tinkering with the requirements for a quest to trigger could fix some of that.

I'm enjoying the occasional emails that happen after you've finished a romance progression. Also totally in agreement that little things like swapping out a piece or two of the standard dialog or combat emotes, having your LI display your legacy name, and a repeatable, affectionate cut scene would go a long way to tide me over between updates.

Yeah, sounds like marriage to me!

nonsense! i am too much man for just one woman!

-- getting "married" in a sickbay is well, depressingly bad.

/AGREE!!!!!

I mentioned that a few posts back too!!!! It sucks to think my ENTIRE romantic relationship, from star to finish took place in a med-bay

Also Elara eluded to:

I would like to see that added. Also like many have said in this thread, just moving the location of the conversations (like the captains quarters) would be more appropriate.