What if romances were not marketed?

I don't care about the pre launch romance diuscussion. But I prefer to know who is romancable by whom. Regardless of whether I want to do a romance and don't want to waste time on an unromanceble character and potentially miss out on the oppurtunity to romance a different one, or whether I want to tell an unrequited love story and go for a character who I know won't return my character feelings. And while I didn't actually know who, if anyone, my Cadash would romance going into my first dai playthrough, I did know who was romancable which meant when I got to know Josephine I knew it was worth actually trying to romance her despite the fact that she was completely oblivious to my Cadash's initial attempts at flirting.

I don't care about spoilers, and I'd rather they show something in their marketing. Companions are the stars of the show in Bioware games, so it'd be bizarre not knowing about them beforehand. I wouldn't mind if which are romanceable and by whom was left a mystery, though; that'd lead to some nice speculation and juicy drama round these parts ahead of release

Me? I like a mystery, so I said play the game to me it's no different than the real life dating circuit you just never know what type of person you'll run across.

voted for let me discover in game, it makes it more organic in my opinion

I would prefer not a word being spoken about romances before hand.

As long as they say whether or not romances are a thing in the game, I don’t absolutely have to know who’s romanceable in advance. I did look at the options for DA2 and DAI, however in both cases I found that I ended up romancing someone other than who I’d initially planned.

Nah I don't want to try and pursue a romance with a character only to learn they can't be romanced.

As well knowing my romance options ahead of time helps me build what kind of protagonist I want to create.

A simpler option is that any love interest sex scene is always preceded by a choice to bail from it (without negating the relationship).
I could see them doing that.

I would also prefer that to m/f sex scenes being shown and other permutations being 'fade to grey'.

Everyone should get a sex scene (or a choice not to).

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More generally, detailed romance explanations in the marketing are only going to unleash a pile of internet nonsense and I'm not sure its worth it.

I don't mind if it turns out that someone I have been flirting with is unavailable provided it doesn't ruin my chances with someone else who is. This is why it was helpful knowing about Dorian in advance because whilst it didn't stop me flirting with him, it did mean I didn't ignore the prompt to flirt with Solas as well, which otherwise I might have done. So far as I can tell, ignoring the first prompt shut off his romance for good.

There was a similar thing with DA2 and Fenris. Now everyone there was player orientated, so no one was off limits. However, Fenris was really tricky in that having a fling with anyone else immediately stopped his romance from progressing. This meant there was no chance of you having a change of heart and realising your mistake.

So, I'd just like a bit of consistency with how the romances work but otherwise am happy to take it as it comes without knowing in advance. Maybe it takes a while for me to warm to someone instead of instantly falling for them, so I'd like my options left open and not cut off by failing to click on the heart icon the first time it presents itself.

To be honest, I'd also prefer a return to what we had in DAO, where the romance dialogue and the general dialogue were kept separate, so you don't feel obliged to follow the romance path to the exclusion of other dialogue options. Also, perhaps, for the other person to take the initiative some of the time as also happened in DAO. Some of the prompts in DA2 felt completely out of place in the conversation and being flirty when it really wasn't appropriate. DAI was better in that respect but it still seemed like my PC was always the one pushing the relationship forward, at least in the beginning.   It would be nice to role play my PC as perhaps a little shy and unassuming once in a while.

How I would feel if romances weren't marketed:

You are correct. I completely forgot about that.