Thank you so much, Salo, for this great Interview It's interesting and the three are so sympathetic.
A pity, that those thoughts and visions are not taken into account by (others? of) the Larian Team, when they produced the new kisses for the player's character's romance, regarding the player's character (suddenly portrayed as a sad and suffering non-consenting victim). Everything in this interview sounds so great and appropriate for an RPG...
Interviewer: "As I understand it, there's no sort of canonical like "true story" that is privileged above any other story..." Swen: "No." Interviewer: "...in Baldur's Gate 3. Like how do you as writers, as creatives, kind of keep yourself from attaching to a certain story? Or maybe you do, and you just have to kind of leave that to one side?" Adam Smith, writing Director: "For me, I think it's different for everyone probably, but for me as soon as it's released, it belongs to everybody else, it's theirs and they do what they will with it. And that includes the way they play. It includes the fanfiction. It includes the cosplay, includes the artwork, some of the artwork... (laugher) that's not canonical! (laugher) But It's that, it's really, you have to accept that the characters don't, they're not yours. They belong to the player. And fundamentally, like I said earlier, and I say this a lot, it's like a mantra for me, the main character of the game is the person playing the game, whether they're playing an origin or whether they're playing a "Tav", you know, custom character. They have to be the main character. So therefore that's the canonical story. Yeah." Swen: "We always aproach it as we are the Dungeon Masters, so the players are going to define everything, and we just have to anticipate, what all these players want to do, which is impossible, of course, but we try to do as much as we could. And so the process was very much when, and this was throughout all of Larian, I want to do this and I can't do this. So let's just add this so you can do it, because you're representing some part of the player population and they'll want to be able to do that." Interviewer: "And like a really good dungeon master, you can't be attached to a certain outcome or even a certain path." (*Swen, Adam Smith and lead writer Chrystal Ding shaking their heads*) Swen: "No, not at all." Adam Smith, writing Director: "They feel it straight away. If you try and push them, they know."
Oh yes, and how people feel it straight away.
Originally Posted by Natasy
Larian, if you're goal is to teach *adult audiences* lessons on love as if they were teenagers who have not already experienced hard lives and hurts... I think you're really misinterpreting what your *adult audiences* want. This is not the move. I truly do not care about a writers irl morality in games. I care about compelling stories. Lecturing us like we're children with our favorite characters is NOT compelling in the slightest. Poor quality control here, Larian.
Originally Posted by Ametris
(...) because it pertains to the most unimmersive, presumptuous and flabbergasting selection of lines in the game for me. The fact that someone would just lump everyone together like that and limit RP options for the sake of their own headcanon of the future players is truly astonishing. (...) What's wrong is screwing over players of one romance and cranking up artificial drama for the sake of making them feel bad for choosing a certain partner.
Originally Posted by Celesti4
It really breaks my heart that they did this and allowed players to be hurt like this. (...) Those kisses (esp. MC facial expressions) re-wrote history; they changed an already established concept which was the original vision for the romance; they're doing real damage the longer they remain. They're inconsistent to the story and character. They remove player agency in this romance. (...) Now by adding those kisses, to me it's like they said, "Look! Look how evil and abusive he is. You would be stupid to stay. Look how much you're suffering. Ready to break up with him now or reload? Good." And ironic, that such a dumb change on its own can ruin such a dynamic, loveable, and nuanced character. And this dumb little change can cause so much depression and anguish for players, to the point that many cannot even play it anymore.
Originally Posted by LiryFire
Well, it's wild in part - Larian wanted to make a scared character on February 14, in a fanservice patch, in a kiss that the player clicks on, to show how bad you did by doing the ascension (...)
Originally Posted by Sereda2
The thing is though, I feel judged. I wasn't feeling 'guilty' about the romance with A.A. (why should I?), but now I'm getting the impression that at least some of the writing team would like me to feel guilt and I resent that. There were already issues with the dialogue choices where the player did not prevent Astartion ascending. From the interviews, Mx Welch appears to assume the player was only doing it for some kinky vamp sex and they wanted players to feel bad about that. .
Originally Posted by KiraMira
Originally Posted by Metarra
It seems that Larian wants to discourage people from romancing AA. (...) but I still think AA fans should get satisfying kisses, which means not forcing unhappy expression on peoples' faces.
We are all adults playing an RPG. I think if we where sitting around a table and playing this together it would be unacceptable to have someone interrupting a player everytime they went for a kiss with their romance describing pain, fear and anger on someone elses character. Why would someone do this? To me it sounds like someone trying to punish and make someone else leave the table. The unwanted "evil" players perhaps? I really can't stand a justice crusade when it is targeting real people for thinking differently, I think diversity and creativity should be welcomed, not hammered back into place.
Agree. Why forcing sad, painful, contempt feelings/faces on the player's character in their own romance kisses, when Adam Smith is saying: "The main character of the game is the person playing the game (...) They have to be the main character. So therefore that's the canonical story." ? How different the visions of Swen and the writing director and the execution of a "simple" romance kiss in a patch after release can be.
"I would, thank God, watch the universe perish without shedding a tear."
It's interesting and the three are so sympathetic.
(...) Those kisses (esp. MC facial expressions) re-wrote history; they changed an already established concept which was the original vision for the romance; they're doing real damage the longer they remain. They're inconsistent to the story and character. They remove player agency in this romance. (...) Now by adding those kisses, to me it's like they said, "Look! Look how evil and abusive he is. You would be stupid to stay. Look how much you're suffering. Ready to break up with him now or reload? Good." And ironic, that such a dumb change on its own can ruin such a dynamic, loveable, and nuanced character. And this dumb little change can cause so much depression and anguish for players, to the point that many cannot even play it anymore.
