207 réponses à ce sujet

[Aluithly]

social.bioware.com/brc/1688802

[Deadly]

I hope you are joking, OP.

[Amairmeh]

http://social.bioware.com/brc/1529357

[Siansonea]

It is odd to see so many people who state that they do not see the appeal or value of romance in games, commenting on the value of romance in games.

The bottom line is Shepard is for all intents and purposes a tabula rasa at the beginning of Mass Effect. You can select from three different backstories (none of which mention sexuality), three different personality profiles (none of which mention sexuality), two genders, any race or appearance, six military specialization types, and you can even select a bonus talent that is completely at odds with the rest of your skill set, for instance an Infiltrator in ME1 can have Lift as a bonus talent, even though the Infiltrator is not a biotic class. Religion is briefly touched upon, and you can be devout or athiest, and probably anything in between. But the one thing you cannot customize if you are a male Shepard is your sexuality. You must chase women (or asari who 'aren't women' according to some rules lawyers) or no one at all. I guess the Alliance military in the year 2183 is still drumming out  homosexuals in grand American tradition. The female Shepard is a little less straight-jacketed, she can have a romance with the aforementioned asari without having to turn in her heterosexuality card (thanks rules lawyers!). Later in her career, female Shepard can also have a romantic 'fling' with a human crew member, who will don provocative clothing and dance suggestively for Miss Shepard. Somehow she is still given a free pass, and is not summarily drummed out of Cerberus. Perhaps Cerberus is more lenient toward this sort of thing because twochicksomgthatssohot. It has not been stated, so we are left to speculate.

All this illustrates that homophobia is alive and well, and living somewhere in Edmonton, Alberta.

[ImperialOperative]

Reason why there is no m/m relationships in Mass Effect games:

Because they don't ****n' feel like it. Period.

Modifié par ImperialOperative, 08 avril 2010 - 06:02 .

[Siansonea]

ImperialOperative wrote...

Reason why there is no m/m relationships in Mass Effect games:

Because they don't f***ing feel like it. Period.

Unacceptable. This is not a valid answer. And, why so vehement? You seem to be having quite a visceral reaction to the topic. There's no need for profanity, asterisked or not.

Modifié par Siansonea II, 08 avril 2010 - 06:01 .

[ImperialOperative]

Siansonea II wrote...

Unacceptable. This is not a valid answer.

That's a perfectly valid answer.

Siansonea II wrote...

And, why so vehement? You seem to
be having quite a visceral reaction to the topic. There's no need for
profanity, asterisked or not.

lulz

Modifié par ImperialOperative, 08 avril 2010 - 06:04 .

[Siansonea]

ImperialOperative wrote...

Siansonea II wrote...

Unacceptable. This is not a valid answer.

That's a perfectly valid answer.

Actually, it is not. It's clear that the material has been developed to a large extent, but excluded after the fact. This would require many man-hours of work to remove the content. A company doesn't remove content from a game because 'they feel like it'. Especially content that is controversial and politically relevant. Such self-censoring is not motivated by mere whim.

[MotoSkunkX]

Siansonea II wrote...
Unacceptable. This is not a valid answer.

How about this then:  Because they're gross and the majority of guys(and hence the majority of their fanbase) DO NOT WANT.

Why bother coding in something that will likely only disgust the majority of your customers?

[Kaiser Shepard]

Oh look, it's this topic again.



I say this one will derail into either a political debate or a full-blown flamewar before the fifth page.

[Siansonea]

MotoSkunkX wrote...

Siansonea II wrote...
Unacceptable. This is not a valid answer.

How about this then:  Because they're gross and the majority of guys(and hence the majority of their fanbase) DO NOT WANT.

Why bother coding in something that will likely only disgust the majority of your customers?

That is what is great about Mass Effect. No social interaction is compulsory, you can simply choose not to pursue romantic connections with other male characters if you find the topic too sensitive or repugnant. But depriving others who want the content simply because you find it 'gross' is not very equitable, is it?

[catabuca]

This should be locked. I've already reported the blatant homophobia in some posts. There is a perfectly good and civilised thread that's been happily chugging along for 200 pages in this forum - we don't need another one.



In the meantime, anyone want a hug? xx

[ImperialOperative]

♫Always, I always wanna be with you, and make believe with you, and live in harmony harmony oh love♫

[Heavensrun]

Kalfear wrote...

TOR wont have a openly gay NPC love interest!

How do you know?  Are you on the dev team?  If so, hey, are there going to be

Star Wars is a PG world and nothing they have ever done suggests they support or include homosexuality in their design!

There is absolutely nothing about simply "being gay" that exists outside the constraints of a PG rating.  Nobody's asking for hardcore sex scenes.  We're asking for inclusiveness in the same kind of romances that already exist.

Although actually, nobody's talking about TOR anyway, so I don't know why you brought this up.  Mass Effect is rated M for mature.

Got nothing to do with Bioware, thats a LA thing and Junarhi wasnt gay, thats just gays looking for something thats not there!

I could be wrong on this, but I believe that Juhani is -exclusively- gay in patched versions of the game.  IE: the bug wasn't that she could be romanced by female Revans, the bug was that she could be romanced by -males-.

As for the rest, Hathur nailed it entirely and I agree. See no reason to include it for 10% of the population (I doubt homosexuality makes up 10% of the gaming population btw, probably much much less).

Because gay people aren't -like- the rest of us, and don't enjoy playing videogames.

There is really nothing to say about your statement here except that there is no reason at all to assume that gays are less likely to play games.  And the gays that do play games?  Are -more- likely to be playing games by companies that have shown inclusiveness in the past.  Like, say...I dunno....Bioware.

In fact, Bioware likely has a statistically larger proportion of gay gamers than most companies.  And 10 percent of millions of copies sold of a game is hundreds of thousands of copies.  There are, quite likely, hundreds of thousands of people who would like to see gay relationships in game.  That's not even counting the straight males that would like to see lesbians included for reasons of personal interest.  (and -that- is arguably a large portion of the remaining 90%.)

I have no care if its there (long as its not shoved in face like Assassin in DA:O was) but Bioware owes no explanation to anyone on this topic. As I said above, far more important topic they do need to speak on that effect far larger (the majority) population of gamers.

You have no care if it's there, but you took the time to write a post griping about people asking for it, and being sad when there interests aren't included?  And exactly how was Zevran "shoved in your face"?  You had the option to kill him without even recruiting him, and if you did recruit him, he is very timid about approaching a male warden.  AND if you tell him you're not into that, he apologizes and never mentions it again.

I love it when people profess that they "don't care", when it so clearly drives them -insane- to have it included.

Modifié par Heavensrun, 08 avril 2010 - 06:48 .

[MsKlaussen]

Siansonea II wrote...

ImperialOperative wrote...

Siansonea II wrote...

Unacceptable. This is not a valid answer.

That's a perfectly valid answer.

Actually, it is not. It's clear that the material has been developed to a large extent, but excluded after the fact. This would require many man-hours of work to remove the content. A company doesn't remove content from a game because 'they feel like it'. Especially content that is controversial and politically relevant. Such self-censoring is not motivated by mere whim.

This is made clear by what exactly? At what point did it become obvious that Bioware had developed a male on male LI story arc? Moreover, how am I missing the indications of how much development went into fleshing out that arc before it was dropped?

Companies remove content from games all the time, and regardless of motivational justistication, they retain the option of doing it or not doing it. The question would be when do they remove content for reasons other than because they felt like it?

The game is their property. That there are romances at all is a value add, not fulfillment of obligation. I have a hard time believing that anyone this vehement about the sexuality of their game characters has remained in gaming for more than a few years because before that, characters were straight, and whether or not players liked it was completely irrelevant. Ultimately, if it is a dealbreaker, leave the game on the shelf. Shepard was not designed to be "you". Shepard was designed to be Shepard, played to a certain extent, "your way". They are not the same thing at all.

[Extacykillz]

ImperialOperative wrote...

Reason why there is no m/m relationships in Mass Effect games:

Because they don't ****n' feel like it. Period.

agreed..

[Siansonea]

MsKlaussen wrote...

Siansonea II wrote...

ImperialOperative wrote...

Siansonea II wrote...

Unacceptable. This is not a valid answer.

That's a perfectly valid answer.

Actually, it is not. It's clear that the material has been developed to a large extent, but excluded after the fact. This would require many man-hours of work to remove the content. A company doesn't remove content from a game because 'they feel like it'. Especially content that is controversial and politically relevant. Such self-censoring is not motivated by mere whim.

This is made clear by what exactly? At what point did it become obvious that Bioware had developed a male on male LI story arc? Moreover, how am I missing the indications of how much development went into fleshing out that arc before it was dropped?

Companies remove content from games all the time, and regardless of motivational justistication, they retain the option of doing it or not doing it. The question would be when do they remove content for reasons other than because they felt like it?

The game is their property. That there are romances at all is a value add, not fulfillment of obligation. I have a hard time believing that anyone this vehement about the sexuality of their game characters has remained in gaming for more than a few years because before that, characters were straight, and whether or not players liked it was completely irrelevant. Ultimately, if it is a dealbreaker, leave the game on the shelf. Shepard was not designed to be "you". Shepard was designed to be Shepard, played to a certain extent, "your way". They are not the same thing at all.

There are videos on YouTube of the Male Shepard/Kaidan romance from ME1, this is not a topic of debate. The content was hidden, but some enterprising PC users were able to modify the game to restore the content. The fact that the content clearly WAS developed up to a point was the point I was making to the other individual who posted that the team excluded the content based on caprice or whim.

Games certainly retain the right to control the content of their games. The purpose of much of this discussion is to illustrate that some content that they have developed should be reinstated, and perhaps similar content should be provided as an option for subsequent games in this franchise. If they choose not to include the content, then we simply have to live with their decision. Again, this is not a topic of debate.

I agree that Shepard is not designed to be an avatar of the player, but I believe it is widely accepted that many people play the game with this intent. Regardless, this is another non-issue. A person's play style has no bearing on the topic. I am an advocate of inclusion of homosexual content in the game for egalitarian reasons, I am not myself a lesbian or bisexual.

For the record, I believe customers like myself, who are relative newcomers to gaming, are much more valuable from a sales and marketing standpoint than established gamers. Established gamers are a reliable customer base, but no franchise can grow economically if they simply continue to sell products to existing customers without creating new customers.

[Heavensrun]

finnithe wrote...

I like the characters the way they are. There doesn't have to be a token gay person just like there doesn't have to be a person of every race on the Normandy.

I'm going to assume that you're a white straight male.

We live in a time of relatively -incredible- tolerance (in the western world, anyway) where for the most part, gays are allowed to live their lives and be part of society relatively unmolested by homophobes and violent bigots.

60 years ago, you could be beaten to death for being gay, and the police would probably ignore it.

20 years ago, you could still get your butt kicked.  Things today are much, much better, but there is still a practice in hollywood and the game industry of deliberate exclusion.  Gays make up a small percentage of the population, yes, but there are over 20 people on the normandy.  Statistically, at least a couple of them should be gay.  Others might be open minded.  That's not tokenism, that's -representation-. 

It's also an established fact that Shep is the almighty badass of the universe.  It's not hard to imagine some open minded people being cool with bending their orientation around such a special case.  ;p

Going back to my assumption about your race/gender/prefference:

If the Normandy had a crew that was 70% female, would that seem odd to you?  What if everyone was black?  Would you feel excluded, as a white person, from a future where, with no apparent explanation, no one like you seems to be around?  Gay/Lesbian/straight gamers feel excluded from ME2.  There's nothing wrong with asking to be -included-.  None of us have gone around making unreasonable demands.  My only complaint, really, is with Bioware's obvious PR spin answers to the question.

Why is it that Female Shepard's sexuality is absolutely allowed to be flexed, (regardless of the status of asari gender, they look female, sound female, act female, and have female parts, and only a lesbian shepard would be attracted to Liara)  While male shepard's is "a fixed aspect of the character"?  Muzyka's answers are obvious PR spin for "we excluded gay males because we don't want to drive away our mainstream market".  In fact, once upon a time, that was what they actually -said-, and I was fine with that.  I find the BS excuses to be patronizing.  It irritates me.

Modifié par Heavensrun, 08 avril 2010 - 07:03 .

[catabuca]

Heavensrun - would you cross-post that in our main thread please? It's a very good post Thanks.

[Tirigon]

RedTracer7 wrote...


We all know a 3-way with FemShepard, Tali, and (Insert Any Asari here) would be freakin' awesome.  And come on, Thane has to be gay.

Comments?

YES!


*thinks about asari porn*
:wub::wub:

[Heavensrun]

Lord_Tirian wrote...

----9----- wrote...

So Ray Muzyka is saying that Shepard is a 'predefined character', in a game that's classed as an RPG? Odd statement. So this is a Predefined Character Game.

From the differences between ME1 and ME2, I get the impression Bioware never had a clear trilogy game plan - they're just making this up as they go along.

In ME2, I also had a bit of the impression that it's less *my* Shepard than before. In ME1, I picked Shepard's history and attitude in the past (i.e. backgrounds), even got specific quests for that. In ME2 (partially due to the strong marketing of the default male shep), I start to get the feeling that some writers are pushing "their" favourite Shep, the strong square-jawed space marine. I also noticed that I got less dialogue selections in ME2, sometimes you pick something on the conversation wheel, get an answer... and Shepard just talks again, without giving you the choice to change the course of the conversation - leaving you thinking *no!*

Actually, regarding dialogue options, that's a bit misleading.  What they did do is take out the situations where you had "paragon" and "renegade" options where all the results were the same.  This happened several times in ME1.  Also, there were a lot of situations where the lines weren't as different as they ought to be to have seperate "choices", so they streamlined that.  Overall, you have a similar degree of dialogue choice.

I -was- really disappointed that there were -no- quests that revolved around your background this time around.  I'd honestly hoped that at least I would have those token background quests again.  I really liked that about ME1.

[Inquisitor Recon]

Fact - ****** sell, gay does not.
Fact - It's Bioware's game, they don't need an excuse.
Fact - It's the far future, if homosexuality is genetic, it has probably been cured.
Possibility - Perhaps society in the far future isn't as political correct and as far to the left as you want it to be.

But because I am a God-fearing, white, straight, proud American male, my opinion doesn't matter, and apparently I need to be sent to a "tolerance" reeducation camp.

Modifié par ReconTeam, 08 avril 2010 - 06:57 .

[catabuca]

I was thinking about this earlier actually. The choice of colonist/spacer/earthborn etc had zero impact on ME2. Regardless of importing me ME1 characters over, the Shep in ME2 really, really didn't feel like my Shep.

[catabuca]

ReconTeam wrote...

Fact - ****** sell, gay does not.
Fact - It's Bioware's game, they don't need an excuse.
Fact - It's the far future, if homosexuality is genetic, it has probably been cured.
Possibility - Perhaps society in the far future isn't as political correct and as far to the left as you want it to be.

But because I am a God-fearing, white, straight, proud American male, my opinion doesn't matter, and apparently I need to be sent to a "tolerance" reeducation camp.

Fact - Dragon Age has 'gay' and sold remarkably well. Gay sells. Games sell. Options and choice sells.
Fact - Yes they do.
Fact - Homosexuality is not a disease, there is nothing to cure, and you are a homophobic bigot and have been reported.
Possibility - if in the far future female humans are having sex with hot alien chicks then I'd say it's progressed sufficiently.

Because you are a homophobe you need reporting.