Attention, female Skyrim players

[sleepysugarlump]

But try to make it have story line though, but not tie it to a main quest line, and alternative bad and good would be cool to, a alternative ending, even though its not a ending

Yeah, that would be cool. Perhaps something similar to the Imperials vs. Stormcloaks? Two morally ambiguous sides whom the player can either join or ignore. Skyrim's main quest is cool, but I think the civil war storyline would have been strong enough to build a game on, especially if they'd fleshed it out a bit more in the way that the Warzones mod does.

 

Oh, and it can go horribly wrong if you wear that amulet around other NPCs after you get married--the marriage is broken and you lose half the gold in your inventory.

Haha, oh I love that. Divorce proceedings, and the player can forget to turn up so the NPC gets custody of the kids. There's no way I'm leaving that out of the game now.

Taking the NPC out on quests or daytrips is a nice idea and could definitely help the player to become attached. I definitely want there to be an emotional engagement, even if it's subconscious, so that the player isn't marrying just for the cooked meal and pocket money that a Skyrim spouse provides.

 

 

sexual orientation is not gender, not everyone is straight

Absolutely. The things discussed in this thread have been broad mechanics that could apply to any gender and sexual orientation. The reason I specified female-player-male-NPC in my original post is because I'm really looking for the subtle differences in how those mechanics would play out. A male NPC will converse and flirt with a female player differently to how a female NPC would a male player, or indeed to how an NPC would converse and flirt with someone of their own gender. It's not an issue in Skyrim, because the relationships aren't deep enough to warrant that level of granularity, but the key aspect that I'm aiming for in my game is realism. With that in mind, I'm seeking help because I'm a straight male and only have experience of being a straight male in a relationship with a straight female.

I'd love some input on how to handle sexual orientation in-game. Since my main concern is realism, I'm reluctant to go the Skyrim route of making every eligible NPC bisexual, but the realistic option is to assign NPCs an orientation, which would be frustrating for all players. Sid Meier's Pirates avoided the issue entirely, by forcing the player to be a straight male, but I don't want to introduce limitations where they needn't exist. Thoughts?

 

@Vagrant0 I bought "Summer Session", a dating sim, and gave it a try. It's been very helpful, especially in how to form the dialogue trees and spread them out over time. All the girls available represent a different male fantasy, with some hilarious results, but the system is sound. It's tricky finding any others that are in English though. Any recommendations for visual novels?

[Vagrant0]

@Vagrant0 I bought "Summer Session", a dating sim, and gave it a try. It's been very helpful, especially in how to form the dialogue trees and spread them out over time. All the girls available represent a different male fantasy, with some hilarious results, but the system is sound. It's tricky finding any others that are in English though. Any recommendations for visual novels?

Unfortunately it's a genre that never went very far in the West, kinda died out in the East, and was something that quickly gets into heavily erotic material once you start poking into it. I know there are quite a few dating sim "style" flash games at Newgrounds, and Ren'Ai has a number of works in English. But these are mostly fan created, of questionable quality.

 

I'm afraid I'm really not all that familiar with this stuff myself to recommend good ones. I only know what I know from a friend who was into this stuff that I was picking his brain in regards to a few mods which might have had stolen assets from hentai games. I do know that some anime and comic shops can sometimes order things from Japan, within reason, and there are ways to collect the text from the games and parse them through a translator into English. But I'm afraid I can't tell you much more than that. Even if I could, I suspect that much of this isn't quite kosher legally, so may not even be something I can responsibly suggest.

[Deleted472477User]

Whatever you do, don't make it one-sided in favor of the guys. That's the main failing IMO of incorporating sex and romance into the games. Baldur's Gate 2 didn't have good female options at all. Neverwinter Nights 2 was a little better. And with Morrowind, they didn't even try, other than whats-his-name wanting to kiss your female toon.

 

I realise that the main RPG demographic is still the male 14-34 demographic (looking at the mods here pretty much proves it lol) but come on! Having decent options for female players will not make your male players feel sexually insecure or "Oh teh noes, I'll be gay because there's options for females in the game I'm playing!" I've seen examples of that, unfortunately.

 

Rant over. My main point is just make it equal, and don't phone it in.

Edited February 24, 2012 by nyxalinth

[grannywils]

Somebody mentioned earlier some examples from the Fable series. Although they were somewhat simplistic, it might be a start for you. You could work off that and perhaps make it a bit less materialistic in terms of how you would approach your wooing, etc. I like the idea of keeping in touch with your spouse and paying attention to his/her likes and dislikes and interests, etc. A point system could be included to add to your overall game score if you were a successful spouse (or something along those lines)

 

Also, just as an aside, I am playing a female character in Skyrim and thus far have only been approached by females with marriage suggestions, so I do not think Skyrim has any gender bias one way or the other. It makes no difference to me if I marry a male or a female, but it would be preferable if I had an opportunity to develop an interest in said individual first. This game seems to treat it like a business arrangement, which has no appeal to me.

 

I have yet to marry in this game because my understanding is that there is not much point. You are basically taking on an employee to add to your income. I am waiting for some mods to improve the whole marriage scenario.

[Seshiri]

i'd like to see more npc flirting with dragonborn outside of dialogue box like passing. Npc approaching you flirting. Kissing, hugging, simple intimacy not AP styled intimacy. More spouce interaction and family interaction. Kissing and hugging makes npc respond positively to dragonborn with added lovers comfort benefit or something.