So most of the explicit cutscenes are still under construction, so I cannot say to what extent those scenes are necessary for character development, but I CAN speak to explicit scenes in other RPGs. In Bioware games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, it never seemed like the explicit scenes were 100% necessary for understanding a character or its development? If someone has a counterexample, I'd be glad to be proven wrong. Similarly, I don't see how the suggestions of having a fade-to-black on this forum resolve that problem, for if there is character development in those scenes, having a fade to black just strikes the development from the record? What is the proposed solution here for the balance of explicit scenes and underlying character development outside of watch-it-or-don't?
Is everything in a roleplaying game about character development? Considering roleplaying is about imitating life, is everything in life about developing your character? For some the highest, most noble motivation can involve love and romance. Sex can be the ultimate symbol of that. For others sex and vice can very much be necessary for understanding a character. People have multi-layered and diverse interests and the more art imitates life - the more immersive the experience will be.
Explicit scenes, if artistically represented, can very much heighten these character motivations or traits. You desire more than killing the next enemy, looting his corpse for your next +1 longsword and gaining your next level for your next ability. Romance/sex can be perceived as a break from that mechanical harshness. You can have a private live besides your career as a full-time adventurer.
Explicit sex can be compared to explicit violence and the same arguments can be made against it. Probably with better reason too. Why does some people want to see blood and gore so much? Are these people latent psychos? Does it further character development? I DEMAND a bloodless/painless rendition of violence! It offends me. Everything offends someone. Please leave your subjective morality at your door.
Are you forced to engage in romance? No. Are you forced against your will to 'do the sex' even if you want to dabble a little in romance (for purely scientific research reasons I'm sure)? I should hope not. The only argument here is the prioritization of resources - but in a game with multiple animated druidic wild shapes climbing ladders, I think its safe to say the cat is out of the bag.
I don't disagree with you, but the comment I was replying to was specifically about character development. My suggestions has been to allow people to skip it like any cinematic if they don't like it, just like they can skip any cinematic in the game (usually if you have seen the cinematic a dozen times). There is no change needed. I can skip any cinematic I want (and do, as I am sick of seeing the same cinematics over and over and over). I am a little confused at your reply? All morality is, to some extent, subjective in that moral propositions are statements which concern our experience of the world and what we experience as rightness or wrongness within the world as perceived specifically by ourselves. Moral propositions tend not to cover empirical content or external falsifiability. Unless you believe in some divine moral arbiter, the truth value of moral statements is not fixed by some metaphysical force. The truth of this statement is that mores have changed fundamentally over time, over space, over culture, and yet every time, place, and culture considers its own morality to be objective within its own frame of reference. But I imagine many people in this forum (myself included) would be uncomfortable if the game showed vivid depictions of the torture we engage in at the goblin camp, like showing the removal of skin and fingernails in graphic detail, providing lifelike renditions of burning flesh, complete with recorded screams from people who were actually burned alive in real life, or vivid, lifelike depictions of rape. Should we check these subjective moralities at the door? I am not appealing to the extreme to strawman the position; rather, I am pointing out that even if adult themes are designed to subvert the sociocultural taboos of media in the form of art, we still have limits and boundaries. "Graphic" sex is a spectrum that can range from a few suggestive scenes of bodies in motion against each other to full-on close up renditions of genitals, bodily fluids, and the like. Similarly, "graphic" violence can be a spectrum that ranges from telling us what happens and showing a bit of blood and gore to hyperrealistic renditions of such gore and horror based on, say, crime or combat footage.
Remember the human (This is a forum for a video game):
