I’ve been playing Dragon Age: Origins and this time deliberately working on the romance angle. I’ve never been all that interested in pursuing it in roleplay games, but with it being part of the companion experience in the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic, I thought I’d give it a whirl.

I still find it a bit odd to be sitting in the same room with my husband playing a game where I’m trying to talk an NPC into sleeping with my PC. But its all fictional and, especially with the non-voice over PCs in Origins, I don’t identify all that much with the character I’m playing. We’ll see how much that changes with the next DA installments and with SWTOR which are voiced. I do find my character in DA:O to be passive and disconnected and the romantic conversations are even more weird that way.

We like to joke about The Guild’s “date my avatar” video and other tales of “doorstepping”  woes, but I’ve actually had friends whose marriage was ruined because of a romantic attachment started in an MMO. I’ve had other friends who got “doorstepped” and ended up living together. I’ve always had the caution flag where video game romance is concerned.

These tales of woe are between players of a game, not a player and their imaginary friends, so maybe it will be a different situation with SWTOR. It might give players a non-marriage wrecking outlet for their romantic fantasies but I do wonder how it will work out within an MMO environment. In any case, my romancing the pixels experiment with other Bioware games will give me a better sense of whether I care to pursue it in Star Wars or just give that option a wide berth. Especially when I’m grouping with my husband’s character and have my lovey dovey companion in tow, awkward!