Hi there,
I'm glad that I found this thread, because I just planned to open something similar two days ago. First of all, I've read the whole thread now and I'm quite impressed, how nice everyone behaves so far and it didn't turn into a homophobic flame war yet. I really hope to see this thread continue on a mature basis!
Please read this SPOILER WARNING in advance: I know, that there are no spoilers allowed in this section of the forum, but I need to explain some details. To give you an idea, up to which point you should expect spoilers -> I'm about 79% done with the game, cleared the whole map already and I'm standing before the landsmeet in Denerim, but I think I can keep the plot spoilers to a minimum, if any at all. I'll also spoil big parts of the Zevran romance, so please don't read any further, if you want to explore it yourself.
I apologize for this big wall of text and I fully understand you, if you don't want to read through it all. I'd also like to excuse myself, if you will be offended by anything, that is written down here. I know, that the majority of the forum users is straight and because of that, I want to give the Developers feedback about the whole thing from a gay point of view. Maybe they are interested how their efforts are looked at, from someone who is actually gay.
Anyway, let's get started: I'm a gay man, which you already read by now and a computer gamer for almost 20 years. When I first heard about Dragon Age, I was really looking forward to this game, but I wasn't following the forum discussions about its progress very well. Someday, while digging a bit through the forums, I read the rumor about potential homosexual romances in the game and the first thing I thought was "Hah, someone has got to be kidding!", but when it became officially announced by the devs, I became really, really excited and tried to find every single piece of information about that topic. After thinking further about it, my second thought was more like "Oh well, they want to put a homosexual romance into the game? How well this could actually turn out? It certainly will be only a half-hearted attempt and nothing special.", but my worries were all for nothing.
I've read in this thread, that there were already games, which allow a gay romance, like Fable for example, but Dragon Age my first one, so it was all new terrain for me. Let me get it straight: I really like to thank you Developers for that great experience and I enjoy this option to its fullest extend. I was so baffled, when the flirting between my character and Zevran started and how nice the dialogue options were and how GOOD, funny and DIFFERENT it felt, to romance another man in an RPG. You did a great job on the Zevran character, how the whole romance fits nicely with his background story and his past. He only seeks the fun of the opportunity in the first place, because he was raised and taught to the direction to not let much room for real feelings. It was brilliant, how the dialogues became more and more tense and finally lead to the love scene.
One word of warning for all the people out there, who think gay dwarf romance is disgusting and makes them throw up or something: I'm playing a male dwarf. Maybe you straight people should skip the next paragraph, because there will be some gay admiring talk ahead.
I always play the dwarven race in RPGs, if it's available at all, because I just like how they are as the race itself in the fantasy world and second because that's just my personal preferance, how a man should look like (I'm into beards and body hair), but that just as a unimportant side note. Let's have a look at the love scenes. What now follows is just my sight of the things and not everyone might agree with me: It might sound odd, but from all the three different scenes, I like the dwarf/elf one the most. In my personal opinion, it is the most tender and most lovely scene (watched the others on youtube) I just can't tell you exactly why, but I'll try. Usually, the stereotype dwarves in RPGs are rough people, whit only beer and axes in their brains (at least thats what most people associate to them), but I was so surprised and just love, how tenderly that broad-shouldered, thick-armed dwarf deals with Zevran. When the romance music kicked in and my character held Zevran's chest from behind with his strong arm, eyes closed and that peaceful look in his face and in the next scene he gave Zevran that admiring look, slowly closing his eyes, I suddenly felt all warm and fuzzy inside and had that big smile in my face
. This just gave the whole scene this "there-is-a-soft-spot-in-that-hard-shell-of-the-rough-dwarf"-feeling and it was a great pleasure to watch him carefully touching Zevran. Nothing you would expect from the average dwarf out there. Whoever at Bioware came up with this idea of how the whole scene should look like, please note that you couldn't have done this any better. The other gay cutscenes with elf and human are nice too nontheless, but the dwarven one really got me. Two thumbs up, big compliments and please keep the gay dwarven romances coming, despite what other people say!
I have shown the cutscenes and all the romance dialogue with Zevran to my boyfriend too and we were talking for a while about all this. He is not that much into computer games like me, but he agreed with everything and thinks that this is is a good thing to bring up in games, as long as it stays optional for whoever wants it.
I was happy to see how Zevran slowly recognizes, that there might be something more, than just the thrill of spending the night in the tent with my character and suddenly admits, that he has other feelings for my him. He just doesn't tell you straight off the bat, that he loves you, but only makes comments in that direction and that was very nicely done, fitting perfetly to his assassin background. In that particular dialogue, when I asked him if there might be somethring wrong and why he refuses to go into the tent with me and after he expressed his true feelings, there was definately missing an (Take him into your arms and hug/kiss him.) dialogue option at the end!
Additionally, I found it really well done, that other party members in the camp react and give comments about the relationship with Zevran. I haven't finished the game yet and I'm looking forward, what happens next. Some more things I'd like to see: Don't get me wrong, the Zevran character was already nice and all, with his bisexuality and therefore open for both genders, but I won't mind if you implement a male-only (and female-only of course) romanceable character, which is a bit harder to crack than Zevran, with even much more emotions/romance involved. I won't go that far and say that there should be a gay marriage at the end, but the effort to successfully romance a male character could be the same like you would put into a male/female romance plot, with all the ups and downs. Also I'd love to see more than just one "tent scene" and that's it for the remainder of the game. There should be more emotional moments, as the romance develops further, like a deep kiss after a confession of one partner's love or something (this should apply for alle kind of romances of course, not only homosexual).
Overall, I'd like to thank Bioware once more a hundred times, for taking that tough step into this direction and make homosexual romances possible. For me this is a whole new experience in all my years of gaming and I fully encourage you, to implement such romances in your future games. I have zero problems, with romancing female characters like I did with Ashley in Mass Effect for example and other games I played before, but that way I'm able to delve even deeper into the immersion of the game. Well, I would buy Dragon Age 2 anyway, no matter if it contains gay romance or not, but I'd be a much happier customer to see this trend continue. For now, you have my sincerest appreciation and I'm forever grateful for this nice experience. Keep up the good work!
Thanks to everyone, who was actually reading all of this and I apologize once more, if I have offended anyone with this posting. I hope I haven't started a fire or poured even more oil into the flames.
Have a nice evening!
Arsaidh wrote...
Hot hot man-on-man FTW.
Too bad the only option is a twink, though... come on, BioWare, show some love for us bear fans. (^_~)
Good to know someone else around, who would also vote for a body-hair-slider in the character creator
. I was a little irritated, when I stripped the armor from my character once, only to see the body of a male dwarf so smooth like Ken from Barbie & Ken *rofl*
[X] body-hair-slider ftw!
EDIT: Paragraphs hopefully fixed now. Sorry!
Modifié par Soulscythe81, 19 novembre 2009 - 09:03 .
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