Dear Bioware: Romance =/= Good Character

[Infinite_Burnout]

Often, the Bioware Corporation has prided and promoted itself for its “Character development” and “Attention to character”. However, playing such releases as “The Old Republic “and “Dragon Age 2”, I can say emphasis is being placed on all the wrong traits. While Bioware claims that this is character development, I say it is a rather cheap attempt in order to gain more attention and sales from a broader audience. The ‘traits’ Bioware is so deadly focused upon are not those of a complete character arc, but rather pronouncing traits more in common of an idealized male or female. In other words, they are wish fulfillment characters.

 

For example, take a look at this profile of Corso Riggs, a starter companion for SW:TOR.

 

"Corso Riggs is a cheerful, disarmingly optimistic mercenary soldier. Raised as a rancher's son on the rough frontier of Ord Mantell, Corso developed a mixture of naive innocence and primitive toughness, wrapped with old-fashioned chivalry."

"In addition to his gung-ho enjoyment of a good, dirty fight and his encyclopedic knowledge of weapons, Corso remains a ray of sunshine in even the worst circumstances. He has no sense of his own mortality and is absolutely convinced he's going to live forever. Corso also has a soft spot for damsels in distress, even when it's clear they're up to no good."

"Likes: Protecting the weak, being nice to ladies, punishing bad guys"

"Dislikes: Hurting for profit, hurting women no matter what they did, working with Sith or Imperials"

 

Notice how some phrases are coined: “old-fashioned chivalry” “ray of sunshine” “soft spot for damsels in distress”. Does this sound like a character fit for a space opera, or rather a character meant to cater to a female audience? Now, I won’t say that his morality is questioned, however, said morality is never questioned enough.

 

Other characters, such as Torian Cadera, have their arcs eliminated by their recruitment, rather than giving said character to expand on. This puts their role on the party and in the game.

 

“What about Dragon Age 2? Those characters have complete arcs!”

 

While true, Dragon Age 2’s romanceable characters emphases traits that are either half-thought out or do things that are impractical for a regular person. For example, Merrill chooses to restore a mirror that essentially puts her entire clan at risk. Hawke, at a certain point, can either help or refuse to help Merrill in this task, gaining her favor or distain. However, such act almost has very little to do with the overarching conflict and is solely focused on her character.

 

That’s not to say that romances shouldn’t be implemented, but should be supplements to an already strongly established character and rather adds to their arc, rather than replacing it altogether. For example, I believe Kira Carsen from The Old Republic is a fine example of this. Her struggle with darkness is complex. She clearly has a jaded view of the world, but reacts positively whenever the MC responds with a helpful tone. It adds to her background, and the romance is simply there, adding to an already established arc.

 

In short, I’d rather see a well-developed complete arc of a character that isn’t romanceable anyday over a romanceable, wish-fufilling character that puts emphasis on all the wrong traits.

 

I welcome all arguments, counter-arguments, opinions and debates.

[Uruare]

I think it would be neat to see a deeper involvement between the MC and the NPC's that are supposed to be at least potentially important to them. Almost all of the interactions our characters have with even romanceable companions are a handful of soundbites.

 

All in all, compared to the elaborative conversation trees you can have with companions in the likes of Dragon Age 1 or even 2, what we have here in SWTOR feels, at least to me, like RPG Lite-mode, heavy on apologetic brevity lest anyone with a 5 second attention span be reduced to a vein-throbbing "Why my doodz alwayz talk so much W T F!?!".

 

That is, at least, the impression I'm recurringly and strongly given. The Jedi Knight opening area of Tython, for example, and your new Knight's involvement with your new master from there and beyond; all I can ask is, what involvement?

 

Spoiler tagged bits for those that haven't played the Jedi Knight arc and don't want spoilers.

 

 

You're taken as a padawan, you run around and do a couple of obligatory establish-the-plot-framework things and next thing you know, there's nothing more he can teach you and bam, you're a Knight. Much later, when dramatic things happen with your old master and he dies, if you're me, you're quite possibly left wondering why you, the player, should really care, as you don't actually know diddly wozzit about him anyway.

 

 

Almost everything of substance in developing a lot of these characters, romanceable and otherwise, is left off-screen, implied and largely handwaved. What we're presented with and given to see are only the obligatory indicators that persons A, B, C and D are supposed to be important because of reasons.

 

Now, I can see a possible reason for why it was done this way. It could well be that a lot of that was left off-screen (and I'm not just talking about romance-oriented affairs here. Minds out of the gutter!) as an invitation to the player to fill in their own blanks however they like with the bare framings presented while, at the same time, not forcing more than 5-20 second soundbites on those that would prefer to be playing Spreadsheet Wars: The Other Raidgame and get a neurotic twitch nearabouts the corners of their eyes if anything not optimally conducive to improving their gear is thrust upon them.

 

I imagine that the devs have good cause to try to not alienate anybody no matter their playstyle (within reason) and I can well see how deep, winding and elaborate character interactions could exasperate some.

 

However...that's still fairly well the tone they've set, in my regard of SWTOR. Heavy reliance on story, narrative and characterization as a primary draw is a stated selling point, though if you scratch the surfaces too much, you're likely to find that there's not much other than those surfaces to begin with.

 

All in all, it looks to me like a classic case of trying to please everyone and offend no one resulting in everyone getting a rather hollow shell of whatever they might be here for.

 

That's just my take on it, of course. Those hollow shells might gradually take on more than one thin dimension as the game matures, of course, but I'd realistically consider the timeframe of that becoming noticeable to probably be years, and done in tiny, tentatively tested increments so as to be sure that nobody is alienated somehow.

 

I don't know if I'm being realistic or cynical in that expectation. I suppose I see no reason why those would be mutually exclusive either though, so, that said, there's that for that; my opinion.

Edited June 18, 2012 by Uruare

[Niv_Dralshya]

What's especially criminal about this is with Jedi and Sith, , Kotor two huge areas dedicated to both Jedi and Sith learning. you learned to be a Jedi on dantooine, and on Korriban, you learned to be a Sith.

 

I wanted to see that kind of thing, more depth to the Sith and Jedi philosophy, more things to learn and grow from in the early stage. I do appreciate though later in the inquisitor story learning more about how to actually be a Lord of the Sith, how to gain power and the like. That I appreciate, but it feels like so little actual meat is there.

 

Bounty Hunter however seems starkly contrasted as you get a very clear image of what a Mandalorian is supposed to be, how they are supposed to act. the honor system, the resol'nare (through Torian) and their philosophy is firmly established, while it is somewhat the case with Sith ,not to the extent I would like, and very little actual Sorcery is explained.

[Mutive]

To be fair, I thought that Corso was pretty well integrated into the story....more so than some of the characters anyway.

 

A lot of it, I think, comes down to the MMO nature of the game. Everyone needs 5 companions. Everyone needs at least one DPS (probably two - ranged and melee), one healer, and one tank (probably two - ranged and melee). So there's a bit of fiddling with the story to get you all these characters. Silly? Sometimes. Contrived? Yes. More so than "guess what! Suddenly you've hit 25 and need to go to Tatooine!" Probably not.

 

I do agree that "forcing" a romance can be a bit goofy. (Although with Corso it felt more natural than with some. I mean, there's a legitimate reason for Corso to be on your ship - he's your shipmate. And he seems very eager to attach himself to anything that moves, either as the smuggler's new BFF or as her boyfriend.)

 

If I was going to change something, I'd probably let people get rid of their companions long before much else. But, of course, that causes problems too when people are like, "I told Quinn to space himself...and now I really need a healer."