Stardew Valley's Relationships are Really Rather Off-Putting

[Oldcodger]

You do realise that calling gingers 'flawed' and having 'freakish mutations' is actually ridiculous, don't you? Everyone knows gingers are homo sapiens' next evolutionary step up.

Anyway, regardless of the fact that I have no interest in the majority of the games that you're commenting on or reviewing, I always enjoy your lyrical virtuosity, occasional slip-ups notwithstanding. Prattle on, good sir.

 

[SmallHatLogan]

I agree with the idea that not every character should be romance-able. I'll admit, I was happy Tali was included in ME2, since I liked her the best in ME1 anyways. But by ME3 things had gotten completely ridiculous with the sheer number of crew members willing to sleep with you. (Though I don't remember there being quite so many bisexual-options. Liara, and who else?)

Kaidan has a thing for Male Shep in ME3. Then there's Diana Allers and Kelly Chambers, and I've just discovered Samara has a romance scene in the Citadel DLC if you tried (unsuccessfully) to woo her in ME2.

 

[Piorn]

Recently, I wondered. What if you have an AI that tracks events as nodes in a graph, and then associates these events with each other by proximity, maybe with a directed graph with propabilities attached to them. And each time events occur either simultaneusly or in close succession, you add this to the graph. Over time, you could aggregate some kind of pavlovian conditioning, where the listener expects certain things when perceiving events. You could have causality and correlation chances for events, and when faced with decisions, make educated guesses based on past experiences.

Just a thought. Not really related to stardew valley.

 

[hazydawn]

"Yay for giving the player a full range of choice but making every character potentially pansexual just leads to blandness."
I disagree. How much do you value gender preference in a persons personality? Fethishes carry more personality than that basic shit.

 

[Michael Dunkerton]

"Yay for giving the player a full range of choice but making every character potentially pansexual just leads to blandness."
I disagree. How much do you value gender preference in a persons personality? Fethishes carry more personality than that basic shit.

It's not just a matter of gender preferences. In this instance, pansexual means they are sexually attracted and romantically interested in every person, ever. Or more accurately, their preferences are set the moment you create your character--to be in love with you. It certainly does not feel special to me to have a relationship with someone knowing that they are equally attracted to everyone else in the world and would be just as likely to wander off with the next PC to come along.

 

[hazydawn]

It's not just a matter of gender preferences. In this instance, pansexual means they are sexually attracted and romantically interested in every person, ever..

Huh? What? Can you please not redefine words to express yourself? That should help communication and stop these words from becoming a meaningless mess. You might as well worry in real life what would happen if your special someone wasn't with you. Spoiler: They'd be with someone else. And they very very likely would like to fuck other people too. You are creating problems where none need to be.

Or more accurately, their preferences are set the moment you create your character.

That's also true if they are staight, gay, or bi. They still end up liking you. And the reason for that is that you want to have fun in games and not be limited by such BS. "I really like to romance this character. Such a shame he's not into [insert ethnicity]" The problem is not that they are potentially open for both sexes. Like I said, this doesn't affect their personality in any significant way.

 

[Michael Dunkerton]

It's not just a matter of gender preferences. In this instance, pansexual means they are sexually attracted and romantically interested in every person, ever..

Huh? What? Can you please not redefine words to express yourself? That should help communication and stop these words from becoming a meaningless mess. You might as well worry in real life what would happen if your special someone wasn't with you. Spoiler: They'd be with someone else. And they very very likely would like to fuck other people too. You are creating problems where none need to be.

Or more accurately, their preferences are set the moment you create your character.

That's also true if they are staight, gay, or bi. They still end up liking you. And the reason for that is that you want to have fun in games and not be limited by such BS. "I really like to romance this character. Such a shame he's not into [insert ethnicity]" The problem is not that they are potentially open for both sexes. Like I said, this doesn't affect their personality in any significant way.

Words mean different things in different contexts and I was defining it as it was obviously being used in the quote. Anyway, my point is that I want my character's relationships to mean something, not be automatic as soon as I boot up the game, provided I check some boxes. I get that people want games where they can just go screw everyone without investment, consequence, or deeper meaning. But there are games like that already. Fallout 4 was praised for that. But there have always been few games where relationships were more than checking boxes, and even those series (like Mass Effect and Dragon Age) are moving increasingly towards making everything an option at the cost of realistic characters and the dynamic of not only finding someone you love, but someone who loves you back.

 

[hazydawn]

Words mean different things in different contexts and I was defining it as it was obviously being used in the quote. Anyway, my point is that I want my character's relationships to mean something, not be automatic as soon as I boot up the game, provided I check some boxes. I get that people want games where they can just go screw everyone without investment, consequence, or deeper meaning. But there are games like that already. Fallout 4 was praised for that. But there have always been few games where relationships were more than checking boxes, and even those series (like Mass Effect and Dragon Age) are moving increasingly towards making everything an option at the cost of realistic characters and the dynamic of not only finding someone you love, but someone who loves you back.

Pansexuality is never used in your context. You can't just use context to excuse your false use of a word and it's not obvious that it is used in your made up way in the text. It is likely used to mean what the dictionary says it means, which is not your made up BS.

"Pansexuality, or omnisexuality, is sexual attraction, romantic love, or emotional attraction toward people of any sex or gender identity." -Wikipedia
It is obvious that is the way the word was used because that's what it fucking means. That does not mean a pansexual is attracted to everyone at all times or even possibly attracted to everyone. They also take attractiveness and other pysical or character preferences in consideration.

And in my original comment I said it shouldn't be restricted by gender. Because that takes nothing away from the character or the romance for the most part. Except maybe if a character needs to make a deal out of their sexuality. Most times they never talk about it. You can have your sophisticated romances and still let it be open for both sexes.

 

[springheeljack]

I still think that video games should take some cues from the best visual novels. The building of a relationship over time is one of the reasons I am still such a huge fan of Visual Novels. I also like that the romance is not just some side activity but pretty damn central to the narrative. Because of that many of the heroines in Visual Novels like Fate/Stay night are still my favorite characters in any media.