So, when did the idea of introducing marriage to TES came to be?. I began playing TES since Morrowind and only since I played games like KOTOR, Fable, Mass Effect, etc, the concept of marriage in a game where "you make your own path" became something imperative in the WRPG genre.

So, why does it feel incomplete and pointless here in Skyrim?. I mean, you marry someone and he/she might have a shop that gives you a couple gold coins every now and then. They can act as followers. But, what else?. Personally, I would've introduced marriage to TES as something that goes along with the main-story of the hero and not just some side-quest. In an open-ended game with such a rich story like TES or the Fallout series, I would like the Marriage system to be implemented with a little more care, so that it feels like it should be there in the first place.

I would like to see more of this in the future. Just not as a side-quest.


That is all.



PA: Am I being nit-picky about this?. I know it was the first time Bethesda toyed with this feature..Do you guys agree on any of this?.

I have never married before in Skyrim.

I do not mind the spoiler.

After you marry them, don't they permanently reside in your home?

What happens, exactly?

They will just "be" there. Whenever you walk by them, they'll throw in a "Good day, my love". Some Spouses will open shops in the town where they live now and give you a cut every now and then. They can also accompany you in your travels, but other than that, they are just..there.

It just feels awkward when that's all there is to marrying someone in a WRPG. In my opinion, it should be tied in some way to the Main Story or..ANY story for that matter. =/

They are just "there"?

I thought after you marry someone, you can get a house out of it.

I also thought your spouse actually comes to live with you as well.

Can you list all of the changes after marriage?

You are saying that a dialogue menu opens up with your spouse, and you can command them to follow you?

You don't gain a house. When you finish the wedding ceremony and talk to your spouse, he/she will ask you where you two will live. His/her or your place.

Yes. They can become followers. That and what I mentioned before is all that changed after you marry. Oh, when he/she dies, you get an inheritance of 100 gold coins. =)

Interesting.

What's this about them suddenly becoming shop owners / merchants? How does that work?

I don't think they have an actual stall or shop, but when you talk to them in your home, they'll sell you stuff.

That is weird. Your spouse selling you stuff.

Yes it's a shame it wasn't implemented better. When it was talked about pre release it got a lot of us really excited, but now I think most people just tried it once then didn't bother with it again. Which is a shame. A lot of unrealised potential there.

I certainly wouldn't have liked marriage to be tied into the main quest, but yes, more depth would have been nice. Poking around the Creation Kit, I noticed a bit of unused dialogue around breaking up with your significant other--it looks like they had more plans for marriage, but they had to be cut for whatever reason.

Ah well, what can you do? You never know what's going to happen with development. Maybe they'll flesh those features out in a patch, if we're lucky.

If we're very lucky.

Actually if the spouse had a house you can movein with them. Spouses don't become followers. They will remain followers but won't becme ne by virtue of marriage. Sleeping in a bed when your spouse is arround gives you the lovers comfort for 8 hours which is a 15% bonus to skill xp. This will work on any bed you can sleep in even in dungeons.

Personally I find it nice to return to my house to stash loot and store equipment and be greeted warmly. Also the homecooked meals are nice items.

They cook for you (well, some stop doing that after a while) and gives the Lover's comfort sleeping bonus as well.

But I agree it's a bit lame. I like the idea, for rp purposes, but I wish
A) there would be more dialogue (how was your day, I missed you, I've been doing this and that)
B ) they would get on with their lives, go to the inn for drinks, do some shopping, whatever, not just hang around the house all day
C) you could at least hug them every now and then
D) you could gain influence/wealth or make new friends (and enemies) by marrying someone important
E) you could adopt children from the orphanage
F) last but not least: there were marriable men with houses that wasn't past their fifties (apparently, in Skyrim it's custom for young women to own houses before they get married, but the men must be widowers with advlt children to have houses of their own...)

Just a wish list, not likely to happen. I do like the concept, though.

I noticed with Taarie at least if you move intothe spouses house they stick to thier normal schedule. It wouldn't be hard though for each house to have a spouse script so the husband/wife would tour the town.
All the young men with houses had no trouble finding wives while the successful women scared the men off.

This.

The idea of having a child would be nice, because the whole concept of marriage in a game like this is all about immersion in the experience, so if you're going to add marriage to the mix, then make it so, and let's face it, TES has always been about immersion and rping. Many of us like to play it that way.

I read in another thread, that you can marry any NPC in the entire game through console commands.

Now THAT is interesting.

No mod required.

Yep, I've done this a couple of times. Once, I married Lisette, the bard from the Winking Skeever. We moved into Breezehome, and she behaved like any "wife", puttering around the house, cooking, greeting, opened a store, and all the right spoken dialogue, etc. Then we relocated to Solitude, and she resumed her usual routine of playing at the inn, and she was never home, and kind of acted like she didn't want me to bother her at work.

In another game, my female Nord married the Jarl of Falkreath. We lived at his longhouse, and got along famously. I decided to see what happened when we moved to Solitude.... Well, he wandered around the house, working at the alchemy station or enchanting table, sitting and drinking, basically just goofing off. He slept in the empty store room downstairs. It was weird. In both instances he had a store but didn't actually sell anything, or buy anything; I'd ask him if he'd made any money, and he would say, "Of course, would you expect any less from me?" and hand me some money, "Here's you share."

All in all, marriage in Skyrim is a weird, broken system, partially realized, and generally disappointing.

To marry an NPC not normally available for marriage:

I think if Skyrim's developers had spent the time making the marriage aspect of the game realistic and "normal" - we'd still be waiting for its release. The complexities of doing that would require enormous rewriting and changes to NPC behaviours and dialogues. It would be a formidable undertaking. While marriage in Skyrim really isn't very realistic, the game is after all, an RPG. Some of it has to be left to our imagination. initially, I was disappointed to discover that Lydia's dialogue changed very little if you married her, and some of what she said afterwards made no sense at all, but I found that using my imagination helped tremendously.