Baldur's Gate 2 writer and Dragon Age veteran David Gaider recalls that the idea of adding love lines during development seemed risky and rare.
In an interview, Gaider talked about the development of Baldur's Gate 2 and shared a funny story about lead designer James Ohlen.
"This whole romance thing was an experiment. James didn't know if anyone would like it at all. We were writing long stories, they were cool, but romance? We thought, "Players don't come here for romance, they come to chop up enemies and beat dragons."
He calls himself "not the most romantic person" and didn't want to deal with the love stories of companions, but in the end he was assigned the story with Anomen and part of the dialogues with other characters, which were later cut due to problems with the Jaheira romance.
According to designer Lucas Kristjanson, who worked on Jaheira's quest, there were so many technical errors that "by the end of the project, James hung a sign on the door: "If it's about Jaheira, don't knock.""
Today, Gaider is skeptical about the "player-sexual" phenomenon - when almost all companions in RPGs can be in love with the player. He believes that this deprives the characters of independence. He prefers characters with their own desires and boundaries - those for whom a romance with the player is just one of the possible stories, but not a mandatory one.
