9243 réponses à ce sujet

[ElitePinecone]

Kelliak wrote...

snip

You have valid points.

Firstly, this thread isn't demanding anything - it's a suggestion/discussion on ways to improve future Mass Effect titles, just like every other of the thousands of threads that suggest, for example, new guns, a return of the Mako or an alien species made of cheese. It is the opinion of many people here that future games would be made better, more mature and more diverse with the inclusion of same-sex romances. It's up to Bioware to do what they will. 

You're correct that Bioware may have planned NPC characters with certain romance options in mind - which is largely the reason why 'bisexualising' squadmates generally (in my view) isn't a good idea. Romances would always be improved if characters were designed with this in mind.

Shepard is different. S/he has been repeatedly, incessently and loudly proclaimed as a blank canvas on which the player is free to project his or her vision of the ideal hero, complete with customisable morality, background, appearance, service history and choices within the game. I respectfully choose to downplay the rather incoherent responses from Hudson and Muzayka when presented with a question about s/s romances, my feeling is that they weren't prepared for the question and gave wildly contradictory answers. 

[Kelliak]

If they feel the need to introduce same-sex relationships in ME3, it does need to be done with new characters and not the current. They definitely, as you mentioned, shouldn't be going back and "bisexualizing" given characters just for the sake of pleasing their gay fans.

I have to point out that your gay males actually got screwed over more than the women; you can still have Kelly Chambers feed your fish after all, regardless of choice in sex. She just isn't what you might call a main part of the cast.

So, with that said, Shepard is still open to sexual interpretation by the player. It's not like Bioware just gave the gay community the finger and said, "Deal with it!" You also need to take note that this game is very mainstream in terms of their various franchises,  therefore anything they determine to do can be more publicly noted and used against them.

Remember the whole "sex-box" ordeal with Fox?

Modifié par Kelliak, 17 février 2011 - 01:44 .

[Z-Dragon]

In all honesty, I doubt that well see a same-sex romance in Mass Effect 3.



For future Mass Effect games beyond the third one however, given that mods and code digging show you that the dialogue was recorded for it, I could easily see the developers involving it in the game.



I think that, as of now though, it's a bit to late for the developers to change Shepard's story to include "Oh, he's bisexual by the way."

[Kelliak]

Z-Dragon wrote...

In all honesty, I doubt that well see a same-sex romance in Mass Effect 3.

For future Mass Effect games beyond the third one however, given that mods and code digging show you that the dialogue was recorded for it, I could easily see the developers involving it in the game.

I think that, as of now though, it's a bit to late for the developers to change Shepard's story to include "Oh, he's bisexual by the way."

In truth, these little "sex" scenarios in Mass Effect come across as a bit odd to me anyway and shallow seeing as they can't evolve beyond your brief little scene. Relationships are about much more than just rubbing one out prior to likely getting yourself killed in a hailstorm of your enemies. That's why I actually find the entire battle for S/S kind of ridiculous currently to begin with.

Now in a game like Fable? Yes, I could better understand it because it is supposed to be a sim of sorts for you to do as you please with. There is more attached to that relationship than a brief cutscene to make you go, "Oh sweet, we did it." Same with games like The Sims naturally.

Until they evolve your love interests to expand the entirety of the game and be a constant factor in what goes on so that it has more MEANING, I think this entire debate is not worth the time for everyone involved. You're essentially scrapping it out for nothing more than an intermission from the action - the calm before the storm.

Modifié par Kelliak, 17 février 2011 - 02:01 .

[catabuca]

@Kelliak -- the point about mShep being screwed over more than fShep ... that's kinda my central point.

As Elite said, no one is demanding anything, and countless posts have been made to counter every new person who turns up here saying 'you're demanding something'. What I believe most of us are doing is firstly, expressing a desire to see something in the game that we would enjoy, and that we have seen in other BW games; and secondly pointing out the unfair and discriminatory way it's dealt with at the moment, where *sounds like broken record* fShep can identify as gay and have a relationship appropriate to that orientation, but mShep cannot. There is something fundamentally wrong with that, and we're not about to stop pointing that out. Well I know I'm not.

I had to raise my eyebrow just then, when you suggested Fable romances do it better than BioWare. Really? Really? I think we're gonna have to agree to disagree very early on on that point. Have you played ME1, incidentally? Because the romances are different ... and a lot of people seem to believe ME1's were superior (me included).

Since BW doesn't look like they're about to scrap romance in its entirety (which was what I got from your argument about if they can't do it well they shouldn't do it at all), then it really isn't out of the question that we should be asking they at the very least don't have an inherent unfairness built into the ones they do create.

[Maugrim]

Kelliak wrote...

Remember the whole "sex-box" ordeal with Fox?

If people don't stop bring up this bit of idiocy I'm going to be on Faux News for going on a murder spree.

Nobody cared except angry (justifiably) nerds who made life for Cooper Lawerence annoying for a few weeks. Sales, reviews and word of mouth were all phenomenal in the end this was the only massive effect (ucwutididthere?)

"Finally, the smartest idea BioWare had was to leak the fact that there's sex in this game. That probably doubled the sales figures right there, because the nerd is a tiresomely predictable creature to whom the promise of boobies is like a bacon sandwich to a starving wolf." - Yahtzee

THAT'S ALL END OF STORY GOODNIGHT AND THANK YOU.

Modifié par makenzieshepard, 17 février 2011 - 10:28 .

[catabuca]

Yeah, I wish people would stop giving Fox so much credit. The people they preach to, and the people who would have gotten up in arms about that piece on ME, aren't exactly the type of people who would have bought the game in the first place. They were preaching to the choir. And everyone else who heard about it simply because of the big deal that was made of it afterward were more likely to have their interest piqued enough to think 'heh, that sounds cool'.

"The only bad publicity is no publicity."

[catabuca]

@mackenzie - as the owner of a badass cat, I your avatar.

[ElitePinecone]

Kelliak wrote...
In truth, these little "sex" scenarios in Mass Effect come across as a bit odd to me anyway and shallow seeing as they can't evolve beyond your brief little scene. Relationships are about much more than just rubbing one out prior to likely getting yourself killed in a hailstorm of your enemies. That's why I actually find the entire battle for S/S kind of ridiculous currently to begin with.
 
-snip

Until they evolve your love interests to expand the entirety of the game and be a constant factor in what goes on so that it has more MEANING, I think this entire debate is not worth the time for everyone involved. You're essentially scrapping it out for nothing more than an intermission from the action - the calm before the storm.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong here, but part of the 'Love' that 'Fight for the Love' is fighting for is more mature and, I suppose, impactful romances in future entries (ideally, ME3). Bioware are fantastic at characterisation, and they've only been getting better in recent games with more opportunity to record lots of dialogue and cutscenes. Discussing and promoting s/s romances might be a focus of this thread, but I don't think anyone would disagree that deeper, meaningful interactions with characters would be a bad thing. 

In my opinion Lair of the Shadow Broker was outstanding in this regard, showing a very deep and long-lasting connection between Shepard and Liara even if they weren't romantcally involved in previous games (the friendly banter about omni-gel was brilliant). If this is the standard to which ME3 romances and reunions will be treated, I think we're in for something pretty special.

That being said, I respectfully disagree that we're wasting our time with the purpose of this thread. The 'Mass Effect 3 Wishlist' thread has 309 pages of responses, far more than this thread, and in roughly the same time-frame. Our functions are broadly similar: to suggest and discuss various things that might be nice to see in future games. Bioware don't have to take a jot of notice of anything in this thread - though we'd love if they did - but we'd still talk about it, because it's something we think would genuinely improve the game for a significant number of people. 

[catabuca]

Not that I am suggesting all squad mates or LIs be bi in the Mass Effect trilogy, but I'm quoting this because I think it's very interesting and might put into perspective much of the 'omg all LIs being bi would be stupid' talk we sometimes see:

David Gaider wrote ...

There's absolutely nothing wrong with making all romances accessible to any gender. It just requires a different approach, from a writing standpoint...

<snip>

Would we do this? I'm not really going to say one way or the other-- but if we did I think it's safe to assume we wouldn't set out to implement it in the worst way possible.

He's talking about Dragon Age, of course. But it's interesting nonetheless because, as I say, it gives a different (and official) perspective to the debate. We can safely assume the 'they'd never do it because it's stupid' doesn't hold as much weight now.

While perhaps not relevant to ME3, it may be something that is relevant to future Mass Effect titles, and indeed any other BW franchises.

[catabuca]

Here is his full comment, by the way (which also discusses the idea of toggles ... for those interested):

David Gaider wrote...

Just a few comments on this topic:

* No matter what happens, it would never be a situation of "the entire party hitting on you". All romances we do, no matter how they're set up, are going to require at least some interest expressed on the part of the player. Having a romance-specific icon should indicate when that's possible. While I agree that the idea of a character hitting on you first is realistic, it's not ideal for a game... and breaking it down to some kind of up-front menu choice that says "do you want a romance?" or "what sexuality would you prefer?" is getting just too blatantly meta for something that's a secondary element to begin with.

* There's absolutely nothing wrong with making all romances accessible to any gender. It just requires a different approach, from a writing standpoint-- you could have a situation where the sexuality of the character is subjective (meaning if you're romancing them and they're the same gender, then they're either gay or at least gay-curious, but otherwise they're straight) or they simply don't discuss it or discuss their past relationships-- meaning it's a romance with the player and sexual identity isn't part of the equation. It could also be that all the romances are bisexual to everyone... but that'd be my least favorite option.

Would we do this? I'm not really going to say one way or the other-- but if we did I think it's safe to assume we wouldn't set out to implement it in the worst way possible.

From this thread: http://social.biowar...index/5687716/1

[catabuca]

And more:

David Gaider wrote...]

We could indeed have made Alistair and Morrigan same-sex romances in DAO. It would have required how we set up the romances themselves to change, and possibly we'd need to look at some of the dialogues to be about different things or have different branches-- but it could have been done, if we went out of our way to do it.

People are inventing some silly excuses in this thread. There are many ways you can approach the issue to make the implementation not ridiculous. It will never be cost-free, but it needn't be crazy, either, and it needn't be a situation where everyone is coming onto everyone and constantly talking about how they sleep with both men and women.

(I'm quoting these, btw, because although they relate to a DA writer, they do deal with many of the same, broad gameplay issues that people raise time and time again in this thread, and it's useful to see a sensible person's comments on it, someone who actually knows that he's talking about ...)

[catabuca]

David Gaider wrote...

If we started out and said "the goal is to make all romances accessible to all players" and we were willing to accept the costs there as well, we could arrange the romances to make the costs as low as necessary and keep the impact on players who weren't seeking gay content minimal. That's not always going to be the goal, however, but it's a perfectly acceptable one.

[catabuca]

In the interests of full disclosure, I also include quotes that don't make me jump for joy, because at least they are honest and insightful:

David Gaider wrote...

We didn't (and won't) do strictly gay romances because a romance is very expensive content-- both from a writing, cinematic and testing perspective. It's one thing to add the extra costs to piggy-back on top of an existing romance plotline (and by this I don't necessarily mean "add gay option to straight romance"... it could just as easily be the reverse) and quite something else to have a romance created from whole cloth.

All content has a cost. Sometimes people forget that we as developers create content -- not romance options. It's not solely about whether you have the choice and how fair that is, but whether or not we can afford to make it and whether it fits into the rest of the project we're making.

[catabuca]

More:

David Gaider wrote...

davidk1991 wrote...

It's not so much making every character bisexual, it's making the love interests potential romances for any Hawke. A bit like in 'The Sims' games, any Sim has the potential to be flirted with etc. but it doesn't mean every character in The Sims is bisexual.

Indeed.

The problem with such a scenario, according to some, is the need to reconcile the fact that the character(s) in question could be gay -- even if they're not gay for the character they're currently playing. Such a character would either need to be canonically bisexual (such as Zevran, who says that he sleeps with both men and women no matter whom he's romancing) or would need to have a subjective sexuality (meaning the character is straight if the player is the opposite gender or bisexual/gay only if the player is the same gender... and presumably interested). Neither seems ideal, especially to people who feel the need to identify what the character "really" is.

All I suggested in my posts on this thread is that it need not be such a big issue, were this the route we chose to take. A character need not discuss it like Zevran did, and thus shine a spotlight on what they "really" are -- I know it's a shock, but we could have the character's story revolve around other things than their sexuality. It really depends on what goal we set out for ourselves when we begin designing the romances.

As for people concerned about the meta-aspect of "could my romance be gay for some player in another reality" ...well, they'd simply have to get over it in such an instance, wouldn't they? No matter which way we go with romance issues, someone's bound to be peevish. http://social.biowar...ticons/wink.png

[nevar00]

Fox News was already all over Bioware for alien sex, can you imagine the backlash for gay alien sex!?



Actually I don't mind; I doubt I would ever use that relationship but if others want it, I don't see the problem with adding it as a choice. There are bigger things to worry about imo though... like how the squad from ME 2 is used...

[Kelliak]

Firstly, I don't like any news organization let alone Fox (they're all pawns of some rich man) and I agree that the leak likely did them more good than bad. However, you must realize that gay relationships are a MUCH more touchy subect in this country. People drew up a fuss over a couple of minutes of tasteful (and in the scheme of things) meaningful interaction between digital characters. I can't begin to fathom what will happen if gay relationships get to the general masses prior to the game's release.

Last thing I would want is a damn army of soccer moms making my life a living hell. They're downright scary.

Secondly, I support S/S interactions within Bioware games - so don't mistaken me for someone who would desire otherwise. The only tme I even hesitate with such things is thinking back to the gay scumbags I've dealt with in my past. It makes me cringe at times to think they're getting what they want, even glorified in many ways over time. However, I remind myself of the good people I've dealt with and that they should not be punished for the grotesque bastards out there.

Thirdly, Fable 2 introduced marriages, children, buying a home - just seemed more detailed to me than ME's relationships in terms of love interests. I honestly would LOVE to see more complex and fleshed out love interests in ME3 myself and hope they do so. Right now the interactions feel too brief to really force an attachment from me.

Garrus is really the only character I've come to really cherish thus far in the Mass Effect universe and I intend to make my fem-shep known to him here shortly.

Modifié par Kelliak, 17 février 2011 - 02:10 .

[catabuca]

Of particular relevance, in recent days:

David Gaider wrote...

jlb524 wrote...

I think some just don't want to share their treasured LI with the other gender. But, as mentioned by others, I don't think it should matter what others do in their games.

I recall, after Jade Empire came out, there were a number of female gamers who were upset that their only LI, Sky, was shared with male players. His sexuality was subjective, but they felt their already small "share" of the romances was lessened by having him also available to male gamers (or female gamers playing male characters) in other games/realities.

Rational? Not really, especially considering that it involves a metagaming aspect that only someone who, say, comes to the forums or goes online to find out all the possibilities would even know about. But the element of possessiveness exists even so. Not that this is necessarily a reason to do or not do romances in such a manner, just that there's always going to be complaints from some corner.

(Again, I'm aware these posts aren't talking about Mass Effect, but I believe they bring up interesting points about game development and bisexual content more generally, and can be useful references for when we end up bringing up the same discussions over and over ...)

[catabuca]

And for those who don't know, David Gaider is lead writer for the Dragon Age games.

[Wittand25]

nevar00 wrote...

Fox News was already all over Bioware for alien sex, can you imagine the backlash for gay alien sex!?

Actually I don't mind; I doubt I would ever use that relationship but if others want it, I don't see the problem with adding it as a choice. There are bigger things to worry about imo though... like how the squad from ME 2 is used...

You do realise that the Fox incident likely increased sales and was beneficial for the game right ?
And that EA publishes the game, a company that when the upcoming release of a game set in a version of Christian hell did not get enough attention hired fake Christian protesters to demonstrate before the building. 
 
Being afraid that the game would be discussed in the media seems contradictory to EA´s and Bioware´s plan to bring their franchises to as many medias as humanly possible (comics, books, animated series, web series, movies ...)

In fact I am pretty sure that if it could be guarantied that Fox news would make a fuss about gay content in ME3 we would get "leaked" pictures of MShep making out with another man  shortly before the release of the game.

[ElitePinecone]

Wittand25 wrote...

nevar00 wrote...

Fox News was already all over Bioware for alien sex, can you imagine the backlash for gay alien sex!?

I won't mind.

As long as an over-opinionated and under-educated blogger who knows absolutely nothing about video games gets to use the phrases "the digital chip age in which we live" and "“Mass Effect” can be customized to sodomize whatever, whoever, however, the game player wishes. With it's "over the net" capabilities virtual orgasmic rape is just the push of a button away" again.

Needless to say, people who read this sort of drivel aren't the game's target audience. Players of such fare as Mass Effect tend to have more intelligence than your average shoe. 

Bioware have detailed telemetrics that give feedback as to what sort of game content is accessed most frequently, in what order, and so on. Their telemetrics from ME2, for example, shows that approximately 80% of players played as a male Shepard, and that two PC players completed the game 28 times. Telemetrics from Dragon Age: Origins - surprisingly - showed that more people than expected played as a male Warden and romanced Zevran. There is clearly a market appreciative of this content, make of that what you will. 

Edit: That'll teach me to check the BBCode... 

Modifié par ElitePinecone, 17 février 2011 - 03:11 .

[halokitty]

catabuca wrote...

"Everything catabuca posted."

Thanks SO much for putting together all these various quotes and discussions.  This is the sort of info I'm always looking for here on the forums and never actually find.  It's good to hear succinctly from Mr. Gaider about  the subject of "everyone's bi" and settle the point once and for all that it's not really an unreasonable request or impossibility from a gameplay or writing standpoint. 

Modifié par halokitty, 17 février 2011 - 04:25 .

[ElitePinecone]

An interesting article from PC Gamer: 15 things we want to see in Mass Effect 3

Number 5 on their list is interesting:

"The love interests in ME2 are like the Dr Evil henchman who caves if you ask him anything three times. There doesn’t seem to be any connection, attraction or reason for you to hook up, they just capitulate because the player executed the necessary number of flirts. Let us chase someone, make someone chase us, and let our potential relationships be based on something. Even if it means fewer candidates for Awkwardly Animated Sexy Time.

And please don’t close off all those options to players of the wrong gender. Great as it is, Mass Effect is not such a literary masterwork that it would completely ruin a delicately crafted character to check the bisexual flag."

Both of these points are valid - romances probably need greater depth and emotional resonance, and it wouldn't hurt to open up some options.

The rest of that article is also worth reading, they have some extremely good ideas.

Edit: Spacing issues are weird.
Edit 2: What the heck happened to that link? Sigh.

Modifié par ElitePinecone, 18 février 2011 - 04:58 .

[catabuca]

@halokitty - no problem. I always read things then forget where they are, then try to use them in a future discussion but come across sounding like I made it up. Thought it would be useful to have in one place (I've noted the page number so I can pull them up again in the future).

@Elite - I've read some of those 'things we loved; things we want to see' things before and they usually make great points that we see often all over BSN. I sometimes wonder if they spend any time over here.

They do make great points. The romances in general could do with some serious rethinking, to make them feel more meaningful rather than a dash for the finish line. Pixelated titillation is all well and good, but it just feels hollow if there hasn't really been any deepening of a relationship beforehand. It's tough, because when you analyse the ME2 romances, there clearly was an attempt to create some sort of connection between Shep and his/her LI, but for whatever reason it just fell flat. We know from ME1 that they can do so much better.

Their point about gender is brilliant -- it states it in a far less personally invested way than we do on here (not that there's anything wrong with the way we discuss the issue, only that we provide just one type of perspective to the issue). It just tells it like it is, that it really wouldn't be that big a deal to include bi characters as LIs, the world wouldn't implode, and isn't it better to offer more choice than to shut it down?

Some talk about all the extra work that would be involved. I can't see that it would be that much, honestly. Look at Liara: her romance went almost exactly the same way if you were f or m. The romance scene at the end was identical, apart from switching out the Shep model. The dialogue throughout the game is generally non-gendered anyway, and those few dialogues where someone says 'woman' or 'man' or 'Sir' or 'Ma'am' merely need recording twice, the whole conversation doesn't, just the lines with gendered pronouns. Yes, it would be wonderful if mShep had a completely different romance scene, dialogue and feelings with male character X than fShep, but at this point in time that's far too unrealistic to expect when we know resources are tight for this kind of content. I'm reasonably sure those who appreciated the opportunity to romance Liara as f didn't mind that it played out the same as the m romance.

Sometimes, all I can say is, 'Come on BioWare, because really, just, why not?'

[ElitePinecone]

I've been hearing some rumours floating around the interewbs (for example, this image: that seems to suggest the new ME2 DLC will be called 'Arrival'.

From the (admittedly very brief) description given in that image, it doesn't appear this DLC will feature a reunion with the Virmire Survivor. I could be very mistaken, of course, and this mission could be very Alliance-focused.

In any event, we may (I stress, may) need to wait until ME3 for a conclusion to the Kaidan/Ashley arcs. Does this have implications for how romances will be treated in the third game? Possibly. It may even be that there will be no opportunities for new romances at all.

Modifié par ElitePinecone, 21 février 2011 - 04:59 .