I've seen marriage in Skyrim criticised a lot for being a bit crap, but then I found myself wondering what would make it better - in practical terms. I avoided marriage at first because I'd seen people say it was rubbish, but I'm honestly wondering if they could have made it much better.

1/The amulet thing is very contrived but it is functional. It allows you to look for specific dialogue options when you actually want them and the process of unlocking the option makes it a mini quest that stops the player making a beeline for their honey right at the start of the game and work a bit to be able to marry.

2/Divorce would be nice option (maybe with your heartbroken spouse sending the good old hired thugs or an assassin after you!) but
a/There would need to be lots of extra 'you left me, stay away from me' dialogue, work and audio space that could be better used elsewhere

or

b/People complaining their ex talked to them like they'd never been married

3/six would be comical at best, would raise the age restriction and might get the game banned in some places. Some randomly appearing spicy dialogue might be funny though. Bethesda seem to dislike tackling six for some reason though. Weird, as they seem fine with implementing cannibalism.

4/Lack of choices for some races is a definite issue

5/You get a ceremony, NPCs turn up and they live with you. The shop doesn't actually exist anywhere but it would be a nightmare to even try to make it appear near every potential home and your spouse actually does something while they're at home.

I really do find myself wondering how it could be better without expending lots of resources that would force corner cutting elsewhere. It does seem a bit twee, but also sort of fun.

How would people make it better in a realistic, practical and simple way that would actually work?

I'd be happy just to have the divorce/remarry option.

Yes, Marriage really is that bad.. oh wait.. in game??? 0.o meh...

I really just see it as another misc. thing to do to have more content.

Marriage isn't bad, it's just unambitious, it doesn't try to realistically simulate courtship (or fantastically simulate it, which is what we all want )

It is what it is.

This is how it works for me : tell Iona to live at my house of Honeyside, I can trade with her, and even buy back the Dragonplate armour I found. No Lovers's Comfort though. Ask her to move into her house, Honeyside, I get half the profits and Lover's Comfort, but no trading option. Go figure.

See I find it hard to imagine how they could do that. Spending several game evenings in the Bannered Mare listening to the bard until you unlock the "would you like to come back to my place for a sweet roll? (persaude)" dialogue option might be a bit tedious.

The only way I can think of doing it is to have something like Fallout New Vegas companion quests, but that would have to seriously limit your options.

It's a matter of quantity or quality, they could have a questline for romance (like Ahnassis Special Friend in Morrowind or the DA:Origins romances) but it would severly limit the amount of options (although there aren't a whole lot in Skyrim anyway)

While I don't find the mechanics of Fable's marriage systems much better (doing a bunch of social interactions with NPCs until they want you to get stuff), I did like the "date" part of Fable III a little bit. You'd have to take your intended to a specific location and hang out there for a while (or present them with a gift/dialogue options) before they'd let you get romantic. Just taking a walk in the woods around Riften together would be a nice prelude to getting closer

(On the character I intend to marry to Harrald, she goes and watches him practice for a couple hours every day. I imagine they talk while he's hacking at the training dummy.)

your post is entitled "is marriage really so bad?" and then you go on to list all the things that could/should have been done with it.

marriage is just, worthless, imo.

i agree with the argument you just proved, lol.

Relationship systems seem to make bigger developers and publishers nervous for whatever reason.

With the radiant story, they could have a limited number of quests, but assign each one to several prospective spouses. Maybe four, one for Housecarls, one for tooled up mages and warriors, one for less 'morally savoury' npcs, and one for clothes wearing townfolk. Little tiny bit of extra depth, no reduction in options. Just a thought.

Waving an amulet in from of a chick, after cutting some wood for her, that makes her asking you for marriage, is probably one of the most lamest things I've ever seen in a videogame.

I think the ceremony could've been a bit longer. Right now the priest says something, your fiancé says yes, you say yes, and before the priest can even finish his story your brand new wife already starts making her way towards the door.

The only romances that I really liked were the ones in BG2. It took literally months to proceed from cameraderie to friendship and love, but that won't work without a party or the modern parties where you travel with the people that are most useful instead of those your character likes. DA:O was in too much hurry for me, but it was still well written (especially when my female char had a love-quadrangle going on with Leliana, Zevran and Alistair, some funny moments when everyone had fun at the expense of Alistair.)

gamesas traditionally has enough problems giving NPCs personality, I really didn't expect much more than an amulet that says "available for bonking".

It's fine AFAIC except for the almost complete lack of dialogue. To me that doesn't seem to be all that hard to have done better. Last night I completed the Main Quest again. Then I go home to Aela and it's the same as ever: "Good to see you dear". I just saved the world and braved harrowing encounters with all manner of dragons and draugr and that's all I get? She has three or four lines that differ from when you're not married to her. Doesn't she notice she's living in the same house with Jordis, who absolutely adores me? Were there an option, I'd like to tell her I'm dumping her for Jordis.

But then again, I don't know what that would be like. I imagine it's exactly the same.

I don't want a whole SIMS type of game full of controversial relationships; just something that makes the marriage aspect of things more interesting. For instance, with Aela, if you don't take her on a quest every so often she stops giving you money and making you food. If you marry some non-fighting character then you have to give them money for shopping or the house starts getting sloppy and they become noticeably unhappy. Just some kind of mildly entertaining function that maintains the relationship.

Kids? Maybe; but not if it'd come at the expense of anything else.

My Cat-girl keeps finding that elf from Riverwood visiting her "wife" in Breezehome. What, is he looking for a threesome or something?

The only things I identified as lacking were some races lacking options and some sixy dialogue would be funny. I would like divorce, but said why I thought it would be problenatic. I'm trying to figure out how it could be better, particularly without taking up disproportionate development time and resources. Having some available Khajit and some dirty talk wouldn't change much.

I think the you pull your chosen spouse by doing something to please them - have a ceremony - move in together dyanmic is functional and adds a little bit of extra fun to the game.

merv-

for me, marriage is exactly the area i feel would benefit from adding "sim"-like aspects to rpg/roleplaying games (along with rts at the appropriate times.)
that's the only way i feel it would be time worth spent. yes, have all the extra and specific quests/dialogues, etc. but then add the sim-type controls to allow marriage to be significant throughout the game and beyond the immediate quests/dialogues. sort-of like a companion control wheel system. add radiant quests within this or whatever...

I suppose it wouldn't hurt to have a line of dialog that would state various things based off of what the player has done recently.

Just call it,"Heard any rumors lately?". So that way you generally always hear something new or different. If the player hasn't done anything new or note worthy lately, then the husband/wife will just state random things.

I don't think it would require alot of resources to implement and it would give conversation a little more depth. Which I think is what marriage is sorta missing in Skyrim.

It is bad.

If you adventure with someone you are married to, their dialogue doesn't indicate you are married at all. This is so easy to fix a mod could do it using voice files already in the game. It's that pathetic.

Of course, there's almost no marriage dialogue, which is pathetic. Then there's the fact your spouse runs a mysterious store out of the house that no one shops at, yet makes money....which is bizarre. Hard to fix? Hardly. One empty shop in each city or the ability to buy a shop or stand in each city from the people running it is all you'd need. Your spouse doesn't even always sleep in your bed. Sometimes companion NPCs come overand act very creepy (my character is married to Mjoll, she sleeps in the basemant and her friend stares at all as she sleeps).

Heck, AT the marriage ceremony, your spouse walks out of there as soon as possible, potentially making it difficult to find them and decide where to live. This is before all the dialogue about the marriage is even finished! Same with the guests, you don't even get to talk to them unless you decide to ignore the finishing dialogue.

There was very clearly almost no work put into it. I'm not even getting into features like divorce, remarriage, quests, and other things that would be nice. There's a ton of stuff wrong with what they decided to include.

its just pointless imo.

The towns folk dont even recognize or aknowledge that your married when traveling with your spouse.

Only bonus is what 100 gold? pfft. Also when i did marry Miuri she never even slept in the bed. She chose the freakin rug mat at the bottom of solitudes house.

not looking for the sims "whoohoo" just would like:

1) Towns folk to recognize your spouse and even start conversation with them.

2) Guards also to have txt replys good or bad when passing by with your spouse.

3) A larger selection of NPCs to choose from. (illia from darklight tower & vivianne onis from solitude)

4) Your spouse to travel and adventure with you, even if she or he was not a former hireling or house carl.

5) Any given outfit or armor to be always worn.

6) Should not have to pickpocket your spouse just to upgrade hers or his outfit.

7) When gifting or giving new equipment or clothing to any NPC including guards, house carl, wife or husband or hirling a comment either good or bad or thank you from them would be a nice small detail.

8) unique quests that involve you and your spouse to complete.

9) not looking for "whoohoo" but i think if i create/craft my spouse a new ring that she would comment something unique either good or bad. But better txt replys other then .........."thankyou for resolving my problem......X10000000000000"

10). and most important ---- Divorse, with possible random events after divorse.


On pc with mods im sure alot of the above is very possible, but for us XBOX360 or Playstation users it isnt. Beautiful world skyrim is, but the current marriage feature of the game is just worthless.

**Also.... if married, i know its probably asking for alot but - adoption or children should be an option.

Or let me at least help rebuild that orphange in Rifton and help build a school for those kids.

when i say sim i mean it in a companion wheel type of CONTROL way. not "The Sims" game.

Not at all. "Generic" merely means there's nothing novel about it. That doesn't mean it can't have some depth it. An extremely shallow marriage system is, if anything, non-generic since that's not how your run-of-the-mill marriage is.

For instance, saving a princess from a dragon through a long in arduous quest, then courting and wooing her until she agrees to marry you. That's generic. So is a huge and elaborate wedding and working together to run a kingdom, raise a family, and vanquish an evil witch. That doesn't imply it is shallow though.

I guess what I'm getting at is the more code and dialogue, the more work diverted from elsewhere. People have raised some good ideas for simple things (and some I think are bugs or oversights, like Mjoll's stalker). I kind of think sometimes expectations get a bit high for the range of features. I could spend all day slagging off Skyrim's flaws, but I also find myself thinking if you put in all the things people say on here are missing or should be expanded on in the game it would be on ten DVDs. I'm not disagreeing with anyone that it's shallow, or that a few simple things people have mentioned could improve it. But as a quirky little side feature I don't mind it.

Marriage in Skyrim is 10% gameplay and 90% roleplaying.