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[Elite Midget]

It's mangled bones because there were no Gay Options in DA. Your character either got with the Bi Option or the Straight Option. That's why it's mangled bones.



Nothing stopping a straight character to experiment and get Zervran, Alistair/Morrigan, and Leliena. While a gay character can't experiment in the same such manner. Either they share Zevran and Leliena with straight characters or they don't get any love at all. While a straight character can ignore the Bi options and suffer no pentalty at all to their experience.

[ScotGaymer]

highcastle wrote...

While I agree with some of this in principle, the bottom line is it won't happen for marketing reasons. The gay options will always be bi (at least for the foreseeable future), because most people who romance those characters will do so with a hetero character. Sad truth that.

Also, the gay options in Origins were hardly mangled bones compared to the straight exclusives. I seem to be in the minority of folks who preferred Zevran to Alistair, but that's mostly because Al was a bit too innocent and it seemed clear there was more to Zev than was first apparent. Regardless of whether you liked the characters or not, a lot of time and effort went into writing all the romance arcs. They weren't afterthoughts.

I am sorry but the whole "the wont do it for marketing reasons" arguement no longer works. It Is Fail.

Fallout New Vegas - which last I checked was the best selling game in the charts across the board (PC, Xbox, and PS3) up until Call of Duty was released earlier this month (here in the UK).
It is 7th place (down from 3rd last week) on Xbox 360 chart,  3rd place (up from 4th last week) on PS3 charts, and 5th place (down from 4th) in the PC chart. Given that is nearly 2 full months of sales and many many new releases in that time the fact that the it remains so high (where Fable 3 that was released at the same time has nearly totally dropped out of the charts) after so long a time says summit.

I point this out because Fallout New Vegas has prolific (and exclusive) same sex encounters throughout the game and it doesnt appear to have hurt sales AT ALL. In fact Everyone on the Bethesda and Obsidian forums seems to be appreciative of these additional options.
Examples the NPC companion Arcade Gannon is gay. Exclusively gay.
You can have sex with male prostitutes (as a dude) and female prostitutes (as a girl) exclusively. Some are bi. Some arent.

Given Fallout New Vegas' success I think it fairly safe to assume that a company CAN include fully gay options and NOT damage sales.

If Bioware insists for DA2 and ME3 that they cant include gay options becuase it might damage sales I will point them straight to New Vegas.

Win for Obsidian. lol.

Modifié par FitScotGaymer, 18 novembre 2010 - 02:14 .

[ErichHartmann]

New Vegas cheated us with fade to black during "encounters".

[HopHazzard]

I don't think marketing is the issue. There really is no way you can say that the gay content in DA:O hurt sales. Hell, I don't even remember it creating a controversy. But in terms of development, there's a finite amount of time and resources to work with. So it comes down to making content that will be used by the most amount of players while still trying to provide content to niche players. Which is why we won't be seeing exclusively gay LI's any time soon.



Now whether you agree with that or not is up to you. But it's clear from dev comments that that's the premise the DA team is operating under.

[ScotGaymer]

ErichHartmann wrote...

New Vegas cheated us with fade to black during "encounters".

I prefer a fade to black over a stupid ass lame dry humping scene that happens in ME2. *boak*

[maxernst]

FitScotGaymer wrote...

highcastle wrote...

I point this out because Fallout New Vegas has prolific (and exclusive) same sex encounters throughout the game and it doesnt appear to have hurt sales AT ALL. In fact Everyone on the Bethesda and Obsidian forums seems to be appreciative of these additional options.
Examples the NPC companion Arcade Gannon is gay. Exclusively gay.
You can have sex with male prostitutes (as a dude) and female prostitutes (as a girl) exclusively. Some are bi. Some arent.

I've never thought the "it will hurt sales" argument could be taken seriously.  After all, everybody is bi in the Sims, and the Sims outsells everything.  The Fable series is the same.  But in neither of those games is there much additional work involved in allowing for gay content; in fact, there might be less.

But it does take additional work, and we are a minority.  Kudos to FO:NV for being so inclusive, but let's be honest:  including sex encounters takes a lot less work than real romantic storylines as in DA:O.  DA:O also allowed you to hire male prostitutes as a guy at the Pearl, but I'm pretty sure that the amount of development hours spent on making that option feasible were much, much less than were spent on putting the Zevran romance together.

Which is not to say that I don't appreciate the inclusion of a genuinely gay character in FO:NV---though I haven't picked up the game yet.  From what I've read, it sounds like he's a refreshingly normal character who happens to like guys.  How deep are your interactions with him, though?  Is there as much dialog written for him as for the romanceable companions in DA:O?  Is he romanceable or just sexually available?  Bioware's franchises are built on their character interactions, so each one requires a significant development effort.  I don't know if Arcade Gannon is really equivalent in terms of development hours to a Zevran or a Leliana.  I'm not saying he isn't (because I haven't played the game yet), but certainly the companions in Fallout 3 were not as detailed as their Dragon Age counterparts.

[ScotGaymer]

I uh managed to complete the game before I got thru Arcades dialogue trees. But the companions in FNV all seem to have a decent amount to say.

Hes fairly fleshed out as far as I can tell.



I quite like him as a character.



Would I put him on the order of a Bioware NPC? probably not.

[Saibh]

HopHazzard wrote...

I don't think marketing is the issue. There really is no way you can say that the gay content in DA:O hurt sales. Hell, I don't even remember it creating a controversy. But in terms of development, there's a finite amount of time and resources to work with. So it comes down to making content that will be used by the most amount of players while still trying to provide content to niche players. Which is why we won't be seeing exclusively gay LI's any time soon.

Now whether you agree with that or not is up to you. But it's clear from dev comments that that's the premise the DA team is operating under.

Yes, this would be it.

Kasumi and Zaeed are not characters made with the rest of the teams' resources. As DLC characters, they are made by the DLC team alongside the main team. They also cost significantly more than you might say they'd be worth. Kasumi costs ten dollars. On the PC, that means she's worth a fifth of the price tag of the actual game. Compare that to there being ten companions with a loyalty mission and recruitment mission in the game.

[David Gaider]

FitScotGaymer wrote...
I am sorry but the whole "the wont do it for marketing reasons" arguement no longer works. It Is Fail.

Fallout New Vegas - which last I checked was the best selling game in the charts across the board (PC, Xbox, and PS3) up until Call of Duty was released earlier this month (here in the UK).
It is 7th place (down from 3rd last week) on Xbox 360 chart,  3rd place (up from 4th last week) on PS3 charts, and 5th place (down from 4th) in the PC chart. Given that is nearly 2 full months of sales and many many new releases in that time the fact that the it remains so high (where Fable 3 that was released at the same time has nearly totally dropped out of the charts) after so long a time says summit.

I point this out because Fallout New Vegas has prolific (and exclusive) same sex encounters throughout the game and it doesnt appear to have hurt sales AT ALL. In fact Everyone on the Bethesda and Obsidian forums seems to be appreciative of these additional options.
Examples the NPC companion Arcade Gannon is gay. Exclusively gay.
You can have sex with male prostitutes (as a dude) and female prostitutes (as a girl) exclusively. Some are bi. Some arent.

Given Fallout New Vegas' success I think it fairly safe to assume that a company CAN include fully gay options and NOT damage sales.

If Bioware insists for DA2 and ME3 that they cant include gay options becuase it might damage sales I will point them straight to New Vegas.

Win for Obsidian. lol.

Two things:

1) We've never said "we won't do strictly-gay romances because it would hurt sales" or anything like. I don't think it would hurt sales any more than including them (like in FO:NV) necessarily helps sales. There are lots of reasons a game succeeds or fails that go way beyond what kind of romances it includes.

2) What we have said is that our content is expensive-- in particular our romances. If you'd really like to point to FO:NV's followers and say that that's the preferred way to do romances... well alrighty. I would point out that you're talking about far less interaction than you had with DAO followers. Any DAO follower, actually, romance or no. If you want to pretend they're comparable, that's fine, but don't pretend that the amount of work that went into the romanceable characters-- bi or straight-- was cheap and that we needed flimsy excuses to suggest that we wanted that content to be accessible by as many people as possible. That's just ignorant, and involves pushing an agenda I'm not entirely comfortable with.

Modifié par David Gaider, 18 novembre 2010 - 03:46 .

[upsettingshorts]

Yeah, I'd hardly call them comparable at all. Bioware writes romances. Bethesda/Obsidian writes brief encounters. They aren't even remotely the same.

[Leonia]

And haven't we seen ENOUGH of the Fallout New Vegas comparisons lately? It's almost as annoying as the old The Witcher 2 debates that would crop around here.

[Saibh]

leonia42 wrote...

And haven't we seen ENOUGH of the Fallout New Vegas comparisons lately? It's almost as annoying as the old The Witcher 2 debates that would crop around here.

Seriously, I liked Obsidian games a few months ago (although that basically translated into two titles), but all the comparions are making me more and more irritated at the company. I swear, I won't even be able to enjoy TW2 by the time it comes out, since all I'll be thinking of is the ludicrous comparisons people make about the game to DA2.

[ScotGaymer]

David Gaider wrote...

Two things:

1) We've never said "we won't do gay characters because it would hurt sales" or anything like. I don't think it would help sales any more than including them (like in FO:NV) necessarily helps sales. There are lots of reasons a game succeeds or fails that go way beyond what kind of romances it includes.

2) What we have said is that our content is expensive-- in particular our romances. If you'd really like to point to FO:NV's followers and say that that's the preferred way to do romances... well alrighty. I would point out that you're talking about far less interaction than you had with DAO followers. Any DAO follower, actually, romance or no. If you want to pretend they're comparable, that's fine, but don't pretend that the amount of work that went into the romanceable characters-- bi or straight-- was cheap and that we needed flimsy excuses to suggest that we wanted that content to be accessible by as many people as possible. That's just ignorant, and involves pushing an agenda I'm not entirely comfortable with.

Hi David.

Dont mean to be cheeky here but I think you have completely misunderstood my post.

I wasnt saying that Bioware said that they dont include exclusively gay characters because it "might" hurt sales. I would like to think that kind of institutional homophobia does not affect Bioware - it hadnt seemed to in the past.
Someone else actually said that Bioware wouldnt do gay romances for that reason - for "marketing" reasons.

I was merely refuting that person by pointing out that as you seem to agree with me on this actually the whole marketing arguement its Fail.

I also never said that id rather Bioware did a lot of companions in the same style as Obsidian did for FNV; I was merely using it as an example to support my marketing arguement. (That saying having gay content would damage sales is Fail).
I like the way Bioware does things generally.

I am not happy at the way M/M was stripped out of ME and ME2 - and the reasons that were given publically for it were flismy and no small amount complete and utter excuse me for swearing bollocks.
The reason was "Shepard is straight" of course. Which is patently untrue; Shepard is undefined in EVERY area except his or her voice and species. You can be a Female Lesbian kick ass Soldier Renegade War Hero Shepard, or you can be a Female Straight Diplomative Sole Survivor Paragon Adept Shepard.  Logically it goes to assume that you SHOULD be able to play as a Gay Male Colonial Paragrade Sentinel Shepard if you please; but you cant because for whatever reason someone decided only FemShep can be gay.

Given that and given that DA2 seems to be following more the ME model - ive heard some people call DA2 Dragon Effect in a sarcastic and condescending manner - its not entirely unreasonable that those of us who are gay and are fans of Bioware are worried that we might suddenly find ourselves excluded by a company we have always had the utmost respect and love for. After all they did it with ME.

I personally am not worried because unless I am mistaken DA is developed by a different team in a different location (unless that changed?) and the likelyhood of having diverse and inclusive romances as we always have had with Bioware being stripped out is low. Thankfully.

Of course I recognise that an awful lot of work goes into the romances - i wasnt comparing the FNV characters to DAO characters. They just dont compare. My point was more the fact that exclusively gay people were there, seen and acknowledged and not ignored or swept aside or dressed up as "bisexual" even if the interactions with them dont quite come up to the professionalism of Bioware's NPCs.
I am not complaining about having bisexual characters - id rather have a well written deep and engaging bi character than a shallow boring gay character or none at all of course - but it would be nice if we could have a chracter who was exclusively gay and exclusively a lesbian. Really really nice. Just so that we could feel more included, so we can more properly express who and what we are through the medium we enjoy like the straight fans of Bioware get to do.

I am sorry if I came off like I was insinuating that Bioware resorted to flimsy excuses to hide some sort of institutional homophobia. I certainly dont think that is the case. The only flimsy excuse ive ever seen used was (cant remember if it was Casey Hudson or Ray Muzukya) when it was said "Shepards Straight" but I tend to dismiss that as speaking without thinking it through properly than anything else. lol.

Modifié par FitScotGaymer, 18 novembre 2010 - 04:06 .

[upsettingshorts]

Well, Shepard might be gay, but it's entirely possible that all of his squadmates - with one exception - are straight. That would have been easier for them to sell. Even Liara/FemShep couldn't be described as "gay" as from the Asari perspective there is no such thing as sexual orientation or gender roles, so I can't imagine an excuse that would cover her. That'd make the argument more or less airtight in terms of it being objectively true as long as they say it is.

But that's nitpicking over which excuse they coulda used that would have been less open to obvious scrutiny.

As far as bi/gay goes, I think if Bioware made an exclusively gay character, there would be just as much hand-wringing on the forums demanding a straight romance as well, for many of the same reasons. Heck, there's already plenty of those about the protagonist's sister. Everyone wants to romance everybody, it's basically the first rule of the forums - gay or straight.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 18 novembre 2010 - 04:11 .

[ScotGaymer]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Well, Shepard might be gay, but it's entirely possible that all of his squadmates - with one exception - are straight. That would have been easier for them to sell. Even Liara/FemShep couldn't be described as "gay" as from the Asari perspective there is no such thing as sexual orientation or gender roles, so I can't imagine an excuse that would cover her. That'd make the argument more or less airtight in terms of it being objectively true as long as they say it is.

But that's nitpicking over which excuse they coulda used that would have been less open to obvious scrutiny.

As far as bi/gay goes, I think if Bioware made an exclusively gay character, there would be just as much hand-wringing on the forums demanding a straight romance as well, for many of the same reasons. Heck, there's already plenty of those about the protagonist's sister. Everyone wants to romance everybody, it's basically the first rule of the forums - gay or straight.

Yeh I was kinda revolted that some people actually wanted to romance Bethany.

And I doubt there would be hang wringing over wanting to have an exclusively straight romance because Bioware have ALWAYS had exclusively straight romances. Thats the default.

[upsettingshorts]

FitScotGaymer wrote...
Yeh I was kinda revolted that some people actually wanted to romance Bethany.

And I doubt there would be hang wringing over wanting to have an exclusively straight romance because Bioware have ALWAYS had exclusively straight romances. Thats the default.

And Bioware fans on this board would never ever object to there being a change to something they've gotten accustomed to.  There's no precedent for that!

In case it wasn't obvious - yeah, there definitely would be.  "We've always been able to" would definitely come up, I'd even put money on it. 

That being said, I see Bioware's own arguments when it comes to bisexual/gay romances - but don't tend to find too many of the other objections raised by forum posters persuasive.  So it appears I don't actually disagree with your earlier post in the thread that dismissed the issue over it being an issue of marketing.  I buy Bioware's assertion that it's simply about resource management.

[Saibh]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Well, Shepard might be gay, but it's entirely possible that all of his squadmates - with one exception - are straight. That would have been easier for them to sell. Even Liara/FemShep couldn't be described as "gay" as from the Asari perspective there is no such thing as sexual orientation or gender roles, so I can't imagine an excuse that would cover her. That'd make the argument more or less airtight in terms of it being objectively true as long as they say it is.

But that's nitpicking over which excuse they coulda used that would have been less open to obvious scrutiny.

As far as bi/gay goes, I think if Bioware made an exclusively gay character, there would be just as much hand-wringing on the forums demanding a straight romance as well, for many of the same reasons. Heck, there's already plenty of those about the protagonist's sister. Everyone wants to romance everybody, it's basically the first rule of the forums - gay or straight.

To be fair, I believe Casey Hudson said, male Shepard is straight. Well, really heavily implied it. He said that sexuality was not something the player could decide for Shepard because he was too predefined. Which...lord, is that the worst excuse, for so many reasons.

There's also the fact that sometimes you get flirty with women without controlling it. Flirty smiling with Shiala, the kiss from Gianna...saying slowly "Thanks, I guess" to the Consort and then inexplicably sleeping with her. This applies to both male and female Shep.

Modifié par Saibh, 18 novembre 2010 - 04:23 .

[Russalka]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Well, Shepard might be gay, but it's entirely possible that all of his squadmates - with one exception - are straight. That would have been easier for them to sell. Even Liara/FemShep couldn't be described as "gay" as from the Asari perspective there is no such thing as sexual orientation or gender roles, so I can't imagine an excuse that would cover her. That'd make the argument more or less airtight in terms of it being objectively true as long as they say it is.

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DiscountLesbians

[Shepard Lives]

Just my two cents, but I'm willing to bet the M/M option is in. Isabela is bi, and seeing as she's not a "discount lesbian" a la Liara (i.e. not human), Bioware will give both sides an equal treatment.

EDIT - Russalka above has a link to good old TVTropes that basically explains my post in further detail.

Modifié par shepard_lives, 18 novembre 2010 - 04:26 .

[upsettingshorts]

I'm not disputing that's what Bioware said but if their goal was to rule out gay relationships for story reasons - that the characters involved are simply straight - it would have been more effective to say that the NPCs were straight and not the PC we are presumed to have control over. Let's say they said what I suggested, that all NPCs - with the exception of Liara for reasons stated - are straight. Given that those characters are never presumed to be controlled by the player, it would be a more consistent and defensible position.

Russalka wrote...

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DiscountLesbians

What's your point?  The Asari are the Asari.  That's how they're written. 

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 18 novembre 2010 - 04:28 .

[upsettingshorts]

Ah, I see. No, that's not what I was saying. It'd still be gay for Female Shepard because the blue-skinned aliens have human female secondary sex characteristics. It wouldn't be gay for Liara because the Asari have no concept of gay-straight. Hence my argument that "the NPCs aren't gay" is more consistent and defensible than "Shepard isn't gay."

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 18 novembre 2010 - 04:31 .

[ScotGaymer]

Upsetting. I think uve confused me totally lol.



You seem to be insintuating that I am asking for all the NPCs to be Bi or Gay. And to take away the straight romances/characters. Which I am not.



I dont understand how you can get that.



Dunno if its what you meant but its how I read it.

[Shepard Lives]

Upsettingshorts wrote...
"the NPCs aren't gay" is more consistent and defensible than "Shepard isn't gay."

Quoted for great truth, but you know homophobes. The mere possibility of Shep being gay makes them completely lose their ****, and poor Bioware has to cope with that somehow.

Modifié par shepard_lives, 18 novembre 2010 - 04:35 .

[Russalka]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Ah, I see. No, that's not what I was saying. It'd still be gay for Female Shepard because the blue-skinned aliens have human female secondary sex characteristics. It wouldn't be gay for Liara because the Asari have no concept of gay-straight. Hence my argument that "the NPCs aren't gay" is more consistent and defensible than "Shepard isn't gay."

It reminds me of the "no homosexuality in Star Wars" fiasco that happened a while ago.

But how many times has the Liara issue appeared in these threads anyway? Is it off-topic?

Modifié par Russalka, 18 novembre 2010 - 04:37 .

[upsettingshorts]

FitScotGaymer wrote...

Upsetting. I think uve confused me totally lol.

You seem to be insintuating that I am asking for all the NPCs to be Bi or Gay. And to take away the straight romances/characters. Which I am not.

Not at all.  I think we're arguing entirely different points. 

I'll just lay out my opinion in general: I support gay/bi romances as long as Bioware has the resources to do them right even if I personally would not really bother with them.  I don't think marketing or sensibilities enter into the equation as some posters suggest, simply development time and money.  I've put this opinion out more eloquently earlier in the thread but I figure I should clear it up now.

What I'm talking about in the above post is simply which excuse Bioware could have given that would have made more sense than "Shepard is straight."  Not endorsing it one way or another.  

Russalka wrote...
It reminds me of the "no homosexuality in
Star Wars" fiasco that happened a while ago. But how many times has the
Liara issue appeared in these threads anyway? Is it off-topic?

I think it is on-topic if you cite it as an unnecessary double standard. Or in my case, as an example of how the "squadmates aren't gay" argument makes more sense than "Shepard isn't gay."

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 18 novembre 2010 - 04:37 .