535 réponses à ce sujet

[Halmiriliath]

sagequeen wrote...
Hot Intro Sequences:
Ashely - runs in and and shoots stuff dramatically
Kaiden - sits in a chair talking to joker
Liara - hanging in mid air making sultry eyes at shepard
Garrus - first time we meet him, arguing with his boss (granted, he did have a dramatic entrance w/ dr. michelle and his ME2 entrance was so cool i thought he'd stolen the game from shepard)
Tali - turning away turian advances, overloading guns, being generally cool
Miranda - slow pan up (over and over and over again)
Jacob - cowering from light mechs
Jack - slow pan up her body before taking out 3 heavy mechs (why can't she do that again?)
Samara - slow pan up her body (know she's not a romance option, but fanservice is there)
Thane - the ONLY cool entrance for a male LI. the only one!

Don't forget the hot intro sequence for the Biotic God. The way he stumbles around, the way he talks - you can tell he's got a lover in every port, the promiscuous devil that he is. He's bound to come back into Shepard's life with a heart-melting bang in the third instalment...

Just throwing my two penneth in here regarding what Liso66 stated, but from what I've seen of the female romance options (which I'll properly explore when I roll a female Shepard) they are in my mind just as appropriate as the way the male love interests unfold. The Jacob romance aside - 'I'm more interested in just talking for a bit...'; cue cringe every time I see it - the romances for Garrus and Thane don't come across as comical to me. It's in Garrus's nature to make light of things, but I thought the climaxes of his and Thane's romance were very touching. As I'm not female I wouldn't presume that my opinions would be felt by the female fanbase, but there seems to be quite a large group of female gamers who very much enjoyed the romance options for the female Shepard, and who also felt that there was just as much depth as the male romance options.

As an aside, I think issues of the pace of romances might also be a factor worth considering. Tali and Garrus are understandable - being former team-mates and all - while Jack is an early recruit and Miranda is there from the start. Jacob is the same as Miranda in this respect, albeit more distant, but Thane is a later recruit, so perhaps it came across to you as a rush of dialogue before the suicide mission? T'is important to remember that they think they're most likely riding off to their death, so they're much more willing to air all their closely-held opinions than they would be otherwise. Depth in this respect would in all likelihood be subordinated to a final display of their emotion before the ultimate battle.    

Modifié par Halmiriliath, 05 avril 2010 - 04:47 .

[Sad Dragon]

sagequeen wrote...

Hot Intro Sequences:
Ashely - runs in and and shoots stuff dramatically
Kaiden - sits in a chair talking to joker
Liara - hanging in mid air making sultry eyes at shepard
Garrus - first time we meet him, arguing with his boss (granted, he did have a dramatic entrance w/ dr. michelle and his ME2 entrance was so cool i thought he'd stolen the game from shepard)
Tali - turning away turian advances, overloading guns, being generally cool
Miranda - slow pan up (over and over and over again)
Jacob - cowering from light mechs
Jack - slow pan up her body before taking out 3 heavy mechs (why can't she do that again?)
Samara - slow pan up her body (know she's not a romance option, but fanservice is there)
Thane - the ONLY cool entrance for a male LI. the only one!

I agree with. Ash, Kaiden, Liara, Garrus, Tali, Jacob and Jack.

Lets start with why i kind of disagree with Thane - Its all the sound guys fault for ruining the scene. The noice thane makes in the vents might be directed towards me as a player but it is way to loud and runined his intro for me. Other then the fail from the sound department however it IS kickass.

As for Miranda and Samara. Fan service for the sake of fan service detracts more then it adds for me - probably in the minority of the male population in this but oh well. Other then the fan service parts however i cant say their intros where bad - though mirandas kind of just made her feel cold. -shrugs-

/TSD

[SuperMedbh]

I actually liked Jacob's entrance. He's not cowering, he's taking cover and blowing away mechs. Then he stops to be honest with you about Cereberus. It's only when he got back to the ship that things got weird.

[Sad Dragon]

JohnnyDollar wrote...

sagequeen wrote...
i may get some flaming for saying this, but look to NWN2 or twilight or just about any romance novel, movie, etc. written for women and you'll see what is popular:
2 hot guys that LIKE YOU.

^This is what gave me the impression.

What would you have rather seen with these 2?
Jacob?
Kaiden?

I think sagequeen was more refering to an earlier argument she posted - that i will quote below - rather then turning it into a romance novel.

sagequeen wrote...

the point is this: interested in interesting. people want to be wanted,
women and men. that's what makes for good romance plots - the characters
actually connect and want each other. me2 really didn't read that way
for femshep.

While i will have to disagree with her on this, as from what i have seen - iirc - then Thane does indeed become intrested in femshep during the course of the game. Though as i have only viewed the romances the pacing might be off so it feels like it comes about slower. I have to agree though that femshep dont have anyone that makes the first move.

/TSD

[Sad Dragon]

SuperMedbh wrote...

I actually liked Jacob's entrance. He's not cowering, he's taking cover and blowing away mechs. Then he stops to be honest with you about Cereberus. It's only when he got back to the ship that things got weird.

While its not a bad entrance i think we can both agree that it hardly makes Jacob look like a certified bad ass

/TSD

[Ray Joel Oh]

SuperMedbh wrote...

I actually liked Jacob's entrance. He's not cowering, he's taking cover and blowing away mechs. Then he stops to be honest with you about Cereberus. It's only when he got back to the ship that things got weird.

Yeah, we overlook it because it wasn't a fancy cutscene, but it was still an efficient way to show who he is and what he's capable of in an action-y way.

Love love love your sig quote.

sagequeen wrote...
i may get some flaming for saying this, but
look to NWN2 or twilight or just about any romance novel, movie, etc.
written for women and you'll see what is popular:
2 hot guys that
LIKE YOU.

Not all of us consider Twilight to be the standard of a good romance story.  And which LI doesn't like you?

Modifié par Ray Joel Oh, 05 avril 2010 - 05:19 .

[SuperMedbh]

Ray Joel Oh wrote...
Love love love your sig quote.

Shale FTW!

[Peppard]

sagequeen wrote...
We constantly see intros for the female characters where they are made to look sexy and cool, dangerous or vulnerable - sometimes all at once. Then there are the myriad shots of women's butts, boobs, etc. as a female gamer, i expect this and i go with it. comes with the territory. but there are no cool-guy-comes-in-shooting stuff for the male LIs - especially the human ones in this game. there are moments where the male LIs look good, but that's more an accident of the model being good and catching it with the right screen shot than anything intentional.

so Right there, you have room for improvement: just give the men LIs the same chance to look cool that the female LIs have. malehsep should be tough enough to take another cool man on this ship.

I agree about  the camera angles.   I hadn't really thought about the differences in the intros though, so I guess that didn't register for me.   I know they have a limited budget for "fluff designed to appeal to female gamers", so I'm not sure that I'd want that  spent on cooler, more cinematic intros for the male LI's as opposed to quality control in terms of writing better (and more interesting) interactive dialog in general.     From that one writer's comment about why Ken was cut as a "light" romance option, it sounded like the problem was the modeling cost for the cut scenes and the interaction.  i  I don't know that much about video game design, so of course, I'm just guessing.  
   

[Sad Dragon]

Peppard wrote...

From that one writer's comment about why Ken was cut as a "light" romance option, it sounded like the problem was the modeling cost for the cut scenes and the interaction.  i  I don't know that much about video game design, so of course, I'm just guessing.

If you mean light romance like Kelly i can say that unless they wanted to go for a dace scene like kellys - no idea what kens would have been O.o - the cost of modeling would have been 0. Also from what we have been shown - though hacks - as well as Kens model in the game it wouldnt have been a big effort in terms of animations. And as Kelly have no major cut scenes or any more interactions then normal i doubt this to be the reason as well. Time would have been a better guess or simply that the character changed in some way to make it less of an option for the devs.

/TSD

[They call me a SpaceCowboy]

Strike wrote...

Shinian2 wrote...

Maybe you should check out the jacob love scene. I've seen it on youtube and I don't really think it was designed with men playing women in mind.

Overall though I agree with you.

Yeah because women totally dig men calling them 'the priiize'

Oh, did he? lol.. I didnt pay that much attention to it. lol

[Saaen]

Coming from a male gamer, I can't agree with you more.

Thane's romance is the best out of the three, but it still feels like it's lacking something.

Garrus (Like Tali's) romance was in their for fans, but it was not done as well as Tali's.

Jacob's is just plain out bad.

[They call me a SpaceCowboy]

Shinian2 wrote...

Strike wrote...

Shinian2 wrote...

Maybe you should check out the jacob love scene. I've seen it on youtube and I don't really think it was designed with men playing women in mind.

Overall though I agree with you.

Yeah because women totally dig men calling them 'the priiize'

Oh, did he? lol.. I didnt pay that much attention to it. lol

And by the way, as someone else correctly pointed out, I don't think it was made with pleasing either gender in mind. I did say it was not with men in mind. I wasn't implying that it was meant to appeal to women.

At any rate none of the romance was satisfyingly filled out. At least Tali and Garrus have history with shepard to work on. The rest seem rushed because they have to be. That's the way the game is structured.

Dragon age romaces felt a little better because you built it up over a period of time. With this it's finish the loyalty quest and then straight to 'wham bam, thank you ma'am (or sir?)'

[KainrycKarr]

jlb524 wrote...

Liso66 wrote...

Having said that. I came to a final conclusion. I am sad that it seems that the Bioware writers created the female romance options, not for female players. It is geared for the male players, playing female characters.

I feel this is a bit ridiculous.  If BW was creating FemShep romance options for male players playing females they would have provided female/female options.  They did not, so it appears to me they are creating FemShep love interests with female players in mind.

This. At the risk of sounding like a sexist pig, I think many female Mass Effect players are taking the whole "we deserve stuff too!" thing to far.

You really think they designed the femshep options for GUYS playing GIRLS? As jib said, if that was the case, they wouldn't cut out the middle man and made Samara femshep option or something.

Talk about stretching.

Don't get me wrong...I agree to an extent.

But let's not be overdramatic. The maleshep romances aren't grammy-award winning either(except for Tali, pardon me, I'm biased as all heck)

[KnotEngaged]

The Femshep romances are awesomely bad. Garrus' romance just feels awkward the whole time, there is no sense of attraction or romance between the 2 of them. The whole thing feels like having sex with your best friend because you already know each other and both bored and horny.

Thane's romance would be a decent tragic love story if it weren't for Thane constantly moping about his son and his dead wife. That's kind of a mood killer. He's clearly not over his wife's death.

And then there's Jacob. The ultimate bro. He refers to you as "the prize", refuses to take no for an answer, and even pulls out a lame "I love you" if you tell him to get lost. The whole thing reeks of college frat boy antics.

[Marta Rio]

KnotEngaged wrote...

The Femshep romances are awesomely bad. Garrus' romance just feels awkward the whole time, there is no sense of attraction or romance between the 2 of them. The whole thing feels like having sex with your best friend because you already know each other and both bored and horny.
Thane's romance would be a decent tragic love story if it weren't for Thane constantly moping about his son and his dead wife. That's kind of a mood killer. He's clearly not over his wife's death.
And then there's Jacob. The ultimate bro. He refers to you as "the prize", refuses to take no for an answer, and even pulls out a lame "I love you" if you tell him to get lost. The whole thing reeks of college frat boy antics.

Agree pretty much with these points. 

I don't think any of this is evidence that the romances were written for males, as asserted by the OP.  The Garrus one just seems underdeveloped (they spend a lot more time talking about research than explaining any emotional attachment/attraction), the Thane one is fairly well done (but with that creepy dead wife element to it), and the the Jacob one is just plain terrible, no matter if you're male or female.

Maybe all it reflects is that there was a dearth of female writers in the room when they wrote these?  I would think that most women would be able to articulate what's "off" about each of the romances.  Not to mention calling out whoever wrote "the priiize" line.

[Siansonea]

Someone should overdub a video of the Jacob romance scenes with Lady GaGa's "Bad Romance" and post it on YouTube. Or has that been done already?



Seriously, from what I've seen on YouTube, the Jacob romance is completely wretched. I'd rather romance Random Normandy Door Guard #3. Jacob in general is a failure from a character standpoint. Nothing about him really leaps off the page. Especially compared to ME1 Kaidan, who had all sorts of interesting things to say about his past, and who seemed pretty levelheaded. Jacob is kind of a tool.



I haven't romanced Thane yet, but I found the Garrus romance scene okay. I do like his line "I don't have a fetish for humans or anything". I don't find him appealing per se, but I can see that maybe one of my FemSheps could look past the amino acid incompatibility and fall for the rugged turian. And maybe another of my FemSheps is a seafood fan, and could fancy Thane because he reminds her of her favorite meal: Presidium Fish.

[KnotEngaged]

Marta Rio wrote...

Agree pretty much with these points. 

I don't think any of this is evidence that the romances were written for males, as asserted by the OP.  The Garrus one just seems underdeveloped (they spend a lot more time talking about research than explaining any emotional attachment/attraction), the Thane one is fairly well done (but with that creepy dead wife element to it), and the the Jacob one is just plain terrible, no matter if you're male or female.

Maybe all it reflects is that there was a dearth of female writers in the room when they wrote these?  I would think that most women would be able to articulate what's "off" about each of the romances.  Not to mention calling out whoever wrote "the priiize" line.

That was kind of my point.  It's not that the Femshep romances are bad because they were written with male players in mind, it's just that they are poorly written.  The notion of a lack of a female prespective on the writing staff is a possibility, but if you are a professional writer you really shouldn't be having problems writing romances that appeals to both men and women.

Despite the differences in perspective, the notion of what constitutes romance is kind of univesal.  Cheesy pick-up lines, discussion about topics that aren't romantic (dead wife, sexual compatibility reseach), and no development of any kind of chemistry between the characters are not ways to establish viable romance.  Male and female Shepards both have three romance options, that is plenty of room to write three completely different and interesting options.  The failure to do so for FemShep is not inexcusiable (romance is only a minor subplot in the overall canon of the game),  but it certainly reeks of a lack of originality and time spent on the writing of the dialogue.  Compare this to either the Tali or Jack romances for ManShep and the sloppiness is even more apparent.

Modifié par KnotEngaged, 05 avril 2010 - 07:32 .

[Sad Dragon]

Just thought i should bring up the fact that female players have stated that they liked both Garrus and Thanes romances. So it clearly isnt universal to think that they are bad or that they need fixing. As such it is also just not true that they are bad. It is simply opinion based, and while there is nothing wrong with that it holds no true or false value.



/TSD

[Marta Rio]

KnotEngaged wrote...

The notion of a lack of a female prespective on the writing staff is a possibility, but if you are a professional writer you really shouldn't be having problems writing romances that appeals to both men and women.

Yeah you're probably right about that.  Bad writing is just...bad writing. 
I still want to know who approved "the priiize' line.  I wonder if somebody actually had used it in the past, got a positive response, and insisted that it was a good idea.  As in "Hey you guys, I used that on my future wife, and it totally worked.  She thought it was romantic.  We should put it in the game."  And now we are stuck with it.

[jlb524]

KnotEngaged wrote...


That was kind of my point.  It's not that the Femshep romances are bad because they were written with male players in mind, it's just that they are poorly written.  The notion of a lack of a female prespective on the writing staff is a possibility, but if you are a professional writer you really shouldn't be having problems writing romances that appeals to both men and women.

Right, whether you are of the opinion that the ME2 romance options for FemShep were good or bad, one thing I think most now agree on is that they were not written for men playing FemShep.

[KnotEngaged]

Sad Dragon wrote...

Just thought i should bring up the fact that female players have stated that they liked both Garrus and Thanes romances. So it clearly isnt universal to think that they are bad or that they need fixing. As such it is also just not true that they are bad. It is simply opinion based, and while there is nothing wrong with that it holds no true or false value.

/TSD

I was referring to the idea of what love/romance is when I said universal.  Most people regardless of gender have similar concepts of what is romance and what is romantic.  I didn't mean to imply that it was universally agreed upon that the Femshep romances are bad and no one liked them.  Rather that the writers seemed to ignore traditional notions of what romance is when writing the Femshep romances.  I'm pretty sure no one wants to talk to their boyfriend or girlfriend about their dead spouse that they were deeply in love with.  It's uncomfortable and doesn't exactly make me want to explore a meaningful romantic relationship with that person.  Just like of talking about sexual compatibility and blowing off steam, isn't romantic either.  The blowing off steam comment, while funny and kind of endearing just reinforces a feeling that Garrus and Femshep are friends looking for kicks.  

Modifié par KnotEngaged, 05 avril 2010 - 07:53 .

[bjdbwea]

I agree with the OP. Garrus was fan service, I don't understand the desire, but so be it. But Thane? No disrespect to his fans, and I don't dislike him, but... as one of only three romance options? Come on, BioWare. You can do stuff like that, nothing wrong with it, but then you have to simply provide more romance options, so that everyone else has a choice too.

Besides, all romances are executed in a quite disappointing way.

[Sad Dragon]

@KnotEngaged:
Just rewatched thanes romance so as to refresh my memory. I do not get the vibe from it that he is stuck on his dead wife Sure he has that recall, but there is no evidence of that meaning anything deeper. As the Drell have perfect memory i would also suspect that their culture works differently in regards to past events so that they do not get stuck in them. The whole romance i just rewatched was more a theme of Thane being unsecure and hell even wondering if he was worthy of shepard. Though he did state that he had feelings for her in a way that atleast i didnt doubt him.
Just my thoughts on Thane when it comes to his romance.

As for Garrus. He is the squadmate i would want to have at my side in any battle, comrade in arms and just over all my 'best friend'. With that said it should come as no surprice that i agree with your on a personal level. However those who where wishing for a Garrus romance might have a differnt point of view on this one then either of us. At least he does try to make the thing work and i can still buy that it could evolve after the events of ME2. But on the whole i, personaly agree with you on this one.

/TSD