What do you think will happen with the old romances in the new expansion?

[Ellyria]

Personally I think it would be interesting to have the ability to separate from our romances to potentially pursue new ones in this new expansion, not that i would ever leave my current romances just saying the option would be nice.

 

Hell, I'd be happy with the option to break up with our current romance even if it's not to pursue a new romance. Not having a 'break up anytime' option is terrible, once you're past the point of no return, you're stuck and it's not cool. I didn't YouTube the romances and did them all, and I regret about half of them. A friend of mine actually put in a ticket to customer service saying he had romanced Vette and he wanted it disabled because he didn't like the romance at all. So... break up options, please!

 

I knew Torien was young -- just looked way too young for my hunter -- she's a mom -- a "few" years ago lol ( of my JK)

so no, I did not romance him -- just didn't "feel right " to me -- go figure !

 

; ; It's so sad because Torian is my favourite romance, plus he's voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch, my favourite voice actor. Seriously, why did the Bounty Hunter get stuck with 'the kids' as romance options? (Mako is only nineteen.) At least Torian, to me, doesn't seem like a kid, other than that godawful Bieber hair. Who in the design department thought that was a good idea?!

[Dayshadow]

This... is actually pretty cool. I had no idea you could find this so easily. And also I'm surprised. I would have pinned the oldest male romance as Aric Jorgan. I can't believe Talos is younger than Andronikus. That's actually very surprising.

 

Cocaine.. er, SPICE is a hell of a drug.

Edited July 4, 2015 by Dayshadow

[Dayshadow]

Hell, I'd be happy with the option to break up with our current romance even if it's not to pursue a new romance. Not having a 'break up anytime' option is terrible, once you're past the point of no return, you're stuck and it's not cool. I didn't YouTube the romances and did them all, and I regret about half of them. A friend of mine actually put in a ticket to customer service saying he had romanced Vette and he wanted it disabled because he didn't like the romance at all. So... break up options, please!

 

 

 

; ; It's so sad because Torian is my favourite romance, plus he's voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch, my favourite voice actor. Seriously, why did the Bounty Hunter get stuck with 'the kids' as romance options? (Mako is only nineteen.) At least Torian, to me, doesn't seem like a kid, other than that godawful Bieber hair. Who in the design department thought that was a good idea?!

 

Young, but at least they are adults and can be viewed as such.

 

Male consular gets Nadia who looks like a kid, sounds like a kid and acts like a kid. Every time she says, "Great! More exploring!" I think I have Dora the Intergalactic Explorer as an apprentice. It would seem very pedo to me to romance. The more so given the secretive nature of Jedi romances. And she's fugly to boot. I don't dig the space geishas.

[SithKoriandr]

I guess the Consular could be a teen, but it doesn't fit with their image as a respected diplomat. Maybe younger twenties?

 

Well Leia was 18 in New Hope. Amidala was 15 in Phantom Menace. Both young and both very much respected. I see the female Consular as very much Leia/Amidala like.

[Damask_Rose]

Male consular gets Nadia who looks like a kid, sounds like a kid and acts like a kid. Every time she says, "Great! More exploring!" I think I have Dora the Intergalactic Explorer as an apprentice. It would seem very pedo to me to romance. The more so given the secretive nature of Jedi romances. And she's fugly to boot. I don't dig the space geishas.

 

Somehow my consular ended up in a relationship with her and I don't know how! I had decided long ago not to flirt with her since I think their relationship is creepy. To the best of my knowledge I never once hit a flirt. I chose options that seemed to try and discourage her rather than be mean.

[Phyreblade]

Wow. Well, this made the romance really awkward for me, since my Smuggler is 29-30 at the start.

 

Also, where does it says that Torian is only 17? I'm curious, never heard of that one before.

 

Edit: nevermind I just saw the link to the Encyclopaedia. Dammit, Torian is too damn young.

 

Hey, the encyclopedia says 18. Not 17. But that's me, being nitpicky. A single year isn't so big a deal, lol.

 

But this constant "he's too young" still drives me batty as heck, sorry. Mandalorians expect their youngsters to take on the rite of passage for adulthood at the age of 13. A Mandalorian who's reached 14 without enduring his Verd'goten is considered strange.

 

Martial training for Mandalorians starts even more EARLY, with mothers pressing weapons into their toddlers hands, mind you. Real in-the-field training takes place once a Mandalorian reaches the age of 8, and it's not even vaguely weird to see youngsters following their fathers in real-world missions. Akaavi Spar tells the Smuggler she started HER training at the age of 3, mind you, shortly after her mother died.

 

Mandalorians typically become married around the age of 16, in standard lore. Torian Cadera is considered unusual, having reached the age of 18 without any real romance prospects. Until you consider that he's faced undue and unfair judgment as the son of a Dar'Manda pretty much his entire life and may have been shunned by many/most Mandalorian women. That particular challenge is also what inspired him to be not some regular Mando warrior but as exceptional a Mandalorian as he possibly can be. Everything, for him, is extreme in terms of Mandalorian honor. He won't choose a life partner who isn't just as strong and Mandalorian as he is, and it's not even surprising he sets his eye on the Champion.

 

I always give Torian the chance to regain his personal honor on Taris, mind you. He's fighting to finally be recognized as the Mandalorian warrior he's always been, to stand in front of the Clans as fully whole in himself and one of them. No more sideways glances, shrug.

 

But "too young"? By Mandalorian standards he's more than a full adult, both legally and morally. He's actually very, very experienced, and his maturity is strong enough that far too many players complain he's "boring" in conversations and interactions. But his patience and steady approach to questions and issues actually demonstrates he's a grown man and thoughtful enough to take care what he says. He remains my absolute favorite romance partner in the game, and I will be literally crushed if anything ever happens to him.

[Phyreblade]

Young, but at least they are adults and can be viewed as such.

 

Male consular gets Nadia who looks like a kid, sounds like a kid and acts like a kid. Every time she says, "Great! More exploring!" I think I have Dora the Intergalactic Explorer as an apprentice. It would seem very pedo to me to romance. The more so given the secretive nature of Jedi romances. And she's fugly to boot. I don't dig the space geishas.

 

She's still more interesting than Iresso. Not that Felix is a bad guy, at all. I just so wasn't interested. So I RP'ed my Consular was just as young a man as Nadia was a girl. Then it didn't seem too strange or weird. The fact he's literally a teenager running around makes my Sage even more fascinating to play. Although my guildies are constantly telling me to feed Brye a hamburger ... why are body-type-1 characters so ghastly-shaped?

[Magdalane]

I write a lot of fanfic, and I have an elaborate backstory for my legacy, specifically my scoundrel and Corso. In my head, I see him on the farm on Dantooine. He's buried himself in the day to day, trying to forget the day his wife's ship was found, floating dead in space, empty and looted. He visits the headstone he put on the hill close to the house, keeps it surrounded with flowers. He dreams of her almost every night, and would give anything to see her.

 

That's how I image the beginning of their reunion, because I just can't see myself playing without my favorite farm boy.

[Callaron]

; ; It's so sad because Torian is my favourite romance, plus he's voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch, my favourite voice actor. Seriously, why did the Bounty Hunter get stuck with 'the kids' as romance options? (Mako is only nineteen.) At least Torian, to me, doesn't seem like a kid, other than that godawful Bieber hair. Who in the design department thought that was a good idea?!

 

He probably looks and acts older because of the life he's led. (And the ritual scarring on his face)

As for the "kid romance options", the actual Bounty Hunter's age isn't set in stone. They have a few years on Torian and Mako, but by no means enough to put them in pedo territory. (Especially if we're following the logic of each chapter taking one year, and both romances don't really go anywhere until Chapter 3)

 

I always figured the bounty hunter to be in their mid-to-late twenties, which would put them at most 10 years apart (and likely less), which isn't exactly unheard of in the real world either.

I write a lot of fanfic, and I have an elaborate backstory for my legacy, specifically my scoundrel and Corso. In my head, I see him on the farm on Dantooine. He's buried himself in the day to day, trying to forget the day his wife's ship was found, floating dead in space, empty and looted. He visits the headstone he put on the hill close to the house, keeps it surrounded with flowers. He dreams of her almost every night, and would give anything to see her.

 

That's how I image the beginning of their reunion, because I just can't see myself playing without my favorite farm boy.

Awww, it's nice to see Corso get some love. Way too many people whine about him because he gets jealous when they sleep with the whole galaxy, right in front of him.

Edited July 6, 2015 by Callaron

[Estarc]

My prediction is that the meat of the companion content will be with the five new shared companions. I expect they'll come with full conversation tracks, some will be romanceable and that they'll have similar levels of reactivity to the companions in the base class stories.

 

I also think that each class will be given the option to recruit their old companions and love interests, but that they won't have a large amount of new content. I imagine they will have a rather cookie cutter roll in the main story, where say Kira and Jaesa have the same role for the Knight and Warrior respectively. You could consider it similar to Ashley/Kaiden in Mass Effect 2/3 I suppose. And it has been heavily implied we'll have the option to kill some of our old companions, so I imagine there will be an obligatory LS/DS choice somewhere where LS means letting an old comp die for the greater good and DS means saving them at the cost of an objective or lots of civilians or something.

 

With regards to companions from other classes, we've been promised some limited involvement, but I doubt it'll actually be full on recruitment.

[Callaron]

My prediction is that the meat of the companion content will be with the five new shared companions. I expect they'll come with full conversation tracks, some will be romanceable and that they'll have similar levels of reactivity to the companions in the base class stories.

 

I also think that each class will be given the option to recruit their old companions and love interests, but that they won't have a large amount of new content. I imagine they will have a rather cookie cutter roll in the main story, where say Kira and Jaesa have the same role for the Knight and Warrior respectively. You could consider it similar to Ashley/Kaiden in Mass Effect 2/3 I suppose. And it has been heavily implied we'll have the option to kill some of our old companions, so I imagine there will be an obligatory LS/DS choice somewhere where LS means letting an old comp die for the greater good and DS means saving them at the cost of an objective or lots of civilians or something.

 

With regards to companions from other classes, we've been promised some limited involvement, but I doubt it'll actually be full on recruitment.

 

I don't agree with the old companions getting little new content. They've got five years of character development to draw upon, and to give them a bunch of new things to talk about. Which is part of the reason why we're getting stuck in carbonite IMO.

 

Bioware's pretty bad at continuing ongoing relationships. Just look at their track record:

 

Mass Effect: Everything is fresh and new, easy to work some romance into it.

ME2: They "killed" off Shepard and broke up the crew. The only romance options you had were new ones to explore.

ME3: The one where they actually got it to work. (For the most part, I know there are a lot of people angry about losing their ME2 romances)

The Citadel DLC was quite excellent when it came to the romances as well.

 

Dragon Age Origins: See Mass Effect.

Dragon Age Awakenings: Your Warden gets split up from their LI, and no new ones to explore. (You have more important things to do!)

Dragon Age II: See Mass Effect.

Dragon Age Inquisition: Once again see Mass Effect.

 

The time skip will give them room to make things interesting again.

To be fair, they're not even the only ones that do this. TV shows have used it for ages. Season one the characters grow closer. Season two they almost make it, but some ex-partner or new love interest with more guts shows up to ruin everything.

 

Season three they finally make it, but at the end of the season one of them appears to die. Season four reveals that the character didn't die, but some years have passed and new complications have arisen. Season five... the (happy) end.

Edited July 6, 2015 by Callaron

[Xonell]

I don't agree with the old companions getting little new content. They've got five years of character development to draw upon, and to give them a bunch of new things to talk about. Which is part of the reason why we're getting stuck in carbonite IMO.

 

Bioware's pretty bad at continuing ongoing relationships. Just look at their track record:

 

Mass Effect: Everything is fresh and new, easy to work some romance into it.

ME2: They "killed" off Shepard and broke up the crew. The only romance options you had were new ones to explore.

ME3: The one where they actually got it to work. (For the most part, I know there are a lot of people angry about losing their ME2 romances)

The Citadel DLC was quite excellent when it came to the romances as well.

 

Dragon Age Origins: See Mass Effect.

Dragon Age Awakenings: Your Warden gets split up from their LI, and no new ones to explore. (You have more important things to do!)

Dragon Age II: See Mass Effect.

Dragon Age Inquisition: Once again see Mass Effect.

 

The time skip will give them room to make things interesting again.

To be fair, they're not even the only ones that do this. TV shows have used it for ages. Season one the characters grow closer. Season two they almost make it, but some ex-partner or new love interest with more guts shows up to ruin everything.

 

Season three they finally make it, but at the end of the season one of them appears to die. Season four reveals that the character didn't die, but some years have passed and new complications have arisen. Season five... the (happy) end.

 

This is a great post and deserves to be repeated. I think SOME of our old companions will have a role in the new story, but they'll be mission trailheads or something. I'm beginning to seriously doubt that we'll keep them as true companions at all. It's looking more like we're going to have five all new companions. (Which, if Lana is one and Theron is not, I will have a problem.)

 

Like others, I'm not too happy about this new direction in the story. I'm not happy about characters being split up for five years. For me, some of my characters will "retire" with their LI, like my Smuggler and Corso. No way I'd want to play through that kind of game with those characters. I've come up with a couple of character concepts that might work with the new expansion, but I'm hanging on to every scrap of news right now to determine if I want to continue my sub.

 

The poster above also pointed out that they do this with tv shows, and it's true, but it doesn't always mean the tv show or the game is good for sticking around. Some shows go on much longer than they should. Some games maybe shouldn't be written in the same time period as previous ones. From what it sounds like, fans of both the ME and DA series would have enjoyed a true sequel, continuing the adventures with the same crew, or gone with much larger time skips, like 30 years, and had each game focus on a new cast of characters.

 

C'mon, spoilers. I'm going to read 'em all.

[Callaron]

This is a great post and deserves to be repeated. I think SOME of our old companions will have a role in the new story, but they'll be mission trailheads or something. I'm beginning to seriously doubt that we'll keep them as true companions at all. It's looking more like we're going to have five all new companions. (Which, if Lana is one and Theron is not, I will have a problem.)

 

Like others, I'm not too happy about this new direction in the story. I'm not happy about characters being split up for five years. For me, some of my characters will "retire" with their LI, like my Smuggler and Corso. No way I'd want to play through that kind of game with those characters. I've come up with a couple of character concepts that might work with the new expansion, but I'm hanging on to every scrap of news right now to determine if I want to continue my sub.

 

The poster above also pointed out that they do this with tv shows, and it's true, but it doesn't always mean the tv show or the game is good for sticking around. Some shows go on much longer than they should. Some games maybe shouldn't be written in the same time period as previous ones. From what it sounds like, fans of both the ME and DA series would have enjoyed a true sequel, continuing the adventures with the same crew, or gone with much larger time skips, like 30 years, and had each game focus on a new cast of characters.

 

C'mon, spoilers. I'm going to read 'em all.

 

Thanks.

I think most of the LI's will be safe. They've already gotten preferential treatment in Shadow of Revan, where they were the only ones that got new dialogues. The rest of the companions... not so much... I suspect a great deal of them are going to get axed and replaced by the new ones.

 

Of course nothing is for certain until they finally give us more information on what's ahead. I'll be counting down the days between each Cantina event in the hope it'll reveal something new.

[Ellyria]

He probably looks and acts older because of the life he's led. (And the ritual scarring on his face)

As for the "kid romance options", the actual Bounty Hunter's age isn't set in stone. They have a few years on Torian and Mako, but by no means enough to put them in pedo territory. (Especially if we're following the logic of each chapter taking one year, and both romances don't really go anywhere until Chapter 3)

 

Oh yeah, I didn't mean they were actually kids, just that their ages skewed awful young. Mako and Torian definitely seem more grown up than other companions *coughcoughNadiacoughcough*. There's a five year gap between my Bounty Hunter and Torian and I don't care. My Smuggler is also two years older than Corso, but in my headcanon they broke up so it's a moot point.

[RameiArashi]

I'm wondering how new level 60 characters made for the expansion will work. Will a previous relationship with class companions just be invented?

 

My male jedi knight ran around RIshi with Doc and Doc talked in several places. He told me more than I wanted to know about his past relationship with some female who had feathers.

 

Treek and Hk-51 talk too. Hmm.... we going to have to rehire Treek? HK-51 claims it would server your offspring if you're killed. So maybe it hangs around with your spouse?

 

Oh, I would expect Vette to tell my darkside male sith warrior what he can do with himself, At which point he should pull out the shock collar remote he never got rid of it shock her one last time. That would be funny.

Edited July 7, 2015 by RameiArashi

[SubstanceKaon]

These are all the ages they give in the SWTOR Encyclopedia. Any with unknown, or not a clear age, were not given one by Bioware.

http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Old-Republic-Encyclopedia/dp/0756698391

 

WOW were my age estimates waaaay off! Talos is only 27?! That's insane; he's got some serious wrinkling going on, that fellow must have seen some crazy things. And Risha is only 21? I don't buy that for a second... yikes, this has really screwed with my headcannon. I imagined my female bounty hunter as early 30s, but with Torian in his teens... Yikes.

 

I'm going to go back to ignorantly assuming they're all the age I image them to be. Talos, you're early 40s, Risha, late 20s... honestly I think nearly everyone is at least 5-10 years younger than I imagined them to be. ..Aside from Gault. That crafty bugger has survived way longer than I ever expected him too, hah.

 

On the topic of companions in the KotFE, I'm really curious to see how they're going to handle things if we didn't max out affection with our companions.

As far as the affection thing goes, I think what will happen is that depending on the affection we had with that companion, it will either be very difficult or very easy to convince them to come with you on your mission and leave their current projects.

I think this is the theory I'm appreciating the most right now Yermog. I have so many characters that I haven't had time to max affection with everyone, and I'd hate to permanently lose a companion because I didn't have time to woo them before the expansion came out.

 

I'm kind of wondering how they'll handle the intro to the expansion in general. Will there be a warning letting you know you have one last chance to max out affection in order to see your companions stories? I assume once you've started the expansion, you don't get any second chances with companion missions you missed out on. Jeez, more than anything I'm just excited (and wary) about how they'll handle all of this. I don't really have time for raiding or group activities beyond a flashpoint here and there, so SWTOR for me literally is the story missions. I play through each class like it's own individual game, and the companions are as valuable here as they are in Mass Effect or Dragon Age to me. If they completely ignore or abolish everything we've done with the companions I think I'll be heartbroken.

[Yermog]

In the article that came out a couple days ago, Jesse Sky said that you'll be able to recruit more companions after you finish the initial chapters, though naturally he didn't release names. He also said "fan favorites" will be returning as major characters in later chapters.

 

My guess is that this means you can recruit some companions and not others. I still strongly believe that you'll be able to recruit your old romances though, because for those of us attached to them (and I include myself in that number) the game wouldn't be the same without them for our characters. Plus, as others have brought up, many players have spent tons of time and credits to max out affection, purchase customizations, find good gear, etc. etc. It would make most people very unhappy to loose all of that with this expansion. If they don't handle this well, it could have very bad consequences for them- a fact I am certain they're aware of, and want to avoid at all costs.

 

Because of this, I'm not as nervous as I was when they first announced this, though I do have some lingering trepidation. I'm very eager to see how they're going to impliment all of this in the expansion.

[Damask_Rose]

At this point, with how little concrete information we have, I'm planning to play the expansion with my free 60 in the event of a worst case scenario. If we get to re-recruit the companions I like, then I'll bring my alts through, on a case by case basis. I have zero faith that the "fan favorites" are my favorites

[Callaron]

At this point, with how little concrete information we have, I'm planning to play the expansion with my free 60 in the event of a worst case scenario. If we get to re-recruit the companions I like, then I'll bring my alts through, on a case by case basis. I have zero faith that the "fan favorites" are my favorites

 

I'm playing a couple of new ones that I'll continue with through the expansion. My others have already played through all the romances that I care to play through, so my new ones are redundant. If they lose their partner, then so be it.

 

Although I'm still pretty convinced that the love interests will be okay. In general you only need to walk around the fleet to see which companions people favor, and I've noticed a great many of them run around with their character's partner. So their metrics should back that up.

 

A visit to a site that has fan art generally tells you a lot too. Just search for Malavai Quinn, Jaesa Wilsaam or Vette on a site like DeviantArt for example and count the results, then do a search on the other Sith Warrior companions and the former will win by a large margin.

 

For fun (and I hope the search gets copied properly):

http://www.deviantart.com/browse/all/?section=&global=1&q=Malavai+Quinn

http://www.deviantart.com/browse/all/?section=&global=1&q=Vette&offset=0 (the results are skewed because of all the corvette's out there, but I'm getting a lot of blue twi'leks on the first page already, which bodes well for her )

http://www.deviantart.com/browse/all/?section=&global=1&q=Jaesa&offset=0

http://www.deviantart.com/browse/all/?section=&global=1&q=Broonmark

http://www.deviantart.com/browse/all/?section=&global=1&q=Lieutenant+Pierce (There's way too many different "Pierce"s to get a decent result, but I managed to get a few on my first page. All romantic in nature, which is no surprise since the option IS there in game.)

Even though he's no Warrior companion (yet!) http://www.deviantart.com/browse/all/?section=&global=1&q=Theron+Shan

Edited July 12, 2015 by Callaron

[Pietrastor]

Thanks.

I think most of the LI's will be safe.

On the contrary. They're first candidates to cut. Why? Their sheer numbers. TWENTY different romances and that doesn't even include Lt. Pierce & Tharan Cedrax. That's twice as bigg baggage Mass Effect 3 had and we're not even discussing recources/room needed for brand new romances which will surely happen (considering restart/instant-60 angle and all).

[Callaron]

On the contrary. They're first candidates to cut. Why? Their sheer numbers. TWENTY different romances and that doesn't even include Lt. Pierce & Tharan Cedrax. That's twice as bigg baggage Mass Effect 3 had and we're not even discussing recources/room needed for brand new romances which will surely happen (considering restart/instant-60 angle and all).

 

It won't be much different from what they have now. And if the other characters fall to the way side it still cuts the number of companions down by half. And besides, judging by the fact that they produced a long trailer for the expansion, they're not exactly worried about the costs.

 

Still, we'll see when we get there. I doubt we'll know anything for sure until the expansion's live, and they've gotten our money for better or for worse.

[Pietrastor]

And if the other characters fall to the way side it still cuts the number of companions down by half.

And we end up with potential companion roaster made up 95% of romanceable characters? You know it won't happen

[freeoftime]

DA:I had 6 of 9 companions be romanceable as well as 2 of the 3 advisors. TOR already has some classes were 3 of 5 (unique) companions are romanceable (smuggler, agent, consular can have a flirtation with Tharan in addition to the normal 2 LIs, SW I am told can have a sex only thing with Pierce if female, and has 2 full fledged romance options if male via Vette and ds Jaesa, meaning only Broonmark doesn't have any kind of romantic/sexual relationship content for that class). Doesn't seem too far fetched to me.

 

If anything, I'd be worried for non LIs and the less popular LIs who didn't get lines in SoR (Raina, Akaavi, ds Jaesa). If they do get rid of all the LIs as companions *and* don't allow you to continue the relationship with now the companions now as NPCs (like the advisors in DA:I)... there's gonna be a lot of angry people and personally idk if I'll be interested in subbing for another year if they take my fave romance in anything ever as well as my fave Star Wars character away by getting rid of Ashara :/

[PowerJediRanger]

I hope they keep all of the old companion romance. Because if they do get rid some of them I'll just have my toon be single all the way through the expansion.

[Shayddow]

I just hope there is some way to keep their gear, etc.

Having maxed out affection with all the companions in all 8 storylines <and working on getting a Lightside SW to the point where I can get LS Jaesa>,<although I'm still working on maxing HK on both Imp and Rep side ,maxed treek both sides>. SO..... I've spent quite a bit of time doing all that, plus gearing them all up to a moderate level - I don't want all my time and effort to be for naught.

 

So...... if I boot Skadge out an airlock, I want to keep his stuff....