258 réponses à ce sujet

[BlameBot]

It was worse than bad, it was lazy. Sorry, I agree with the OP. Choices are awesome, but if they mean nothing, if my choosing a gender is really just a aesthetic choice that doesn't effect gameplay, really, why should I care to choose?

[Demonhoopa]

Well I guess I can celebrate that FEWER choices make it so Jack is not available in Mass Effect 2 because it's "good writing". And I can celebrate that the love interests are limited to one dude and two lizards because again it's "good writing".

Uh....no, actually it pisses me off. 

Thank god they went with "bad writing" and offered us more choices for Dragon Age 2.

Modifié par Demonhoopa, 23 mars 2011 - 07:44 .

[the_one_54321]

ishmaeltheforsaken wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...
Look, this isn't about options.

Create tons of options. Create an individual option for every single person that plays this game if you want to. Create 1 million options. The more the merrier.

But do a good job of creating them. What they did here was a bad job.

I don't think that they did a bad job. I do think it could have been better. I think the issue of whether or not the characters are bi has absolutely nothing to do with how good a job they did.

Because real people don't just turn gay or bi all of a sudden.
Seriously, Anders either was't bi in Awakenings or he was trying really really hard to hide it.

[rubydog1]

the_one_54321 wrote...

We're talking about a world where it's pretty well known that there are giant spiders in the forests and in caves, bandits, and darkspawn constantly attacking dwarven cities under ground. That's a clever comment you made, but less so when you put it in the proper context.

Just because such threats exist doesn't mean that we should act like everyone is equipped to deal with such things. My Hawke is confident, and possibly a little desperate for cash in Act 1, but he's not a complete idiot.

I can't recall a single believable human reaction at all to life-or-death combat in this game. No hesitation, no fatigue. You just pull out the sword, yell the latest equivalent of "Go for the eyes, Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!", and get to it.  You might whine a bit when your health gets low ("I can't do this all day!") and you might even get "killed," but you're refreshed, recharged, and sometimes completely dry-cleaned in a matter of seconds when the fight is over.

They might speak believable lines of dialogue, but they do unbelievable things all of the time.

[the_one_54321]

Demonhoopa wrote...
Well I guess I can celebrate that FEWER choices make it so Jack is not available in Mass Effect 2 because it's "good writing".

Uh....no, actually it pisses me off.

So I should just be happy about lazy writing because it affords me more options in the way I play the game.
Uh... no, actually it pisses me off.

[Ryzaki]

These characters aren't real people.

I couldn't harden a real person with one hard line about "standing up for yourself." or whatever it is you said to Alistair. I couldn't change him from someone who would never drag his wife's name threw the mud by having a mistress tosomeone who is willing to have one with one sentence

Real life does not work that way! 

I couldn't change Leliana from a devout Chantry sister to a hard bard with one sentence.

They already don't act like real people.

They have very human reactions and the like but truthfully they'll never be fully human. 

There's not enough programming to make them fully human. The devs can make them realistic (which they have regardless of sexuality) but equal in personality quirks to a real person? Not happening. If so Leliana could have a preference for a certain facial structure, skin tone, eye color, hair color. She might be unwilling to date characters that look too unattractive to her. Yet she doesn't. 

As long as you pass a gender check she'll romance you. That is not how real people function. 

Modifié par Ryzaki, 23 mars 2011 - 07:47 .

[the_one_54321]

rubydog1 wrote...
They might speak believable lines of dialogue, but they do unbelievable things all of the time.

The big draw in fantasy games is extraodinary actions in extraordinary circumstances.

And in that sense I am completely with the idea of "include bi/gay romances." More choies are great.

So long as they are written and implimented well.

[Demonhoopa]

the_one_54321 wrote...

Demonhoopa wrote...
Well I guess I can celebrate that FEWER choices make it so Jack is not available in Mass Effect 2 because it's "good writing".

Uh....no, actually it pisses me off.

So I should just be happy about lazy writing because it affords me more options in the way I play the game.
Uh... no, actually it pisses me off.

Yes you should.  

[BlameBot]

rubydog1 wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...

We're talking about a world where it's pretty well known that there are giant spiders in the forests and in caves, bandits, and darkspawn constantly attacking dwarven cities under ground. That's a clever comment you made, but less so when you put it in the proper context.

Just because such threats exist doesn't mean that we should act like everyone is equipped to deal with such things. My Hawke is confident, and possibly a little desperate for cash in Act 1, but he's not a complete idiot.

I can't recall a single believable human reaction at all to life-or-death combat in this game. No hesitation, no fatigue. You just pull out the sword, yell the latest equivalent of "Go for the eyes, Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!", and get to it.  You might whine a bit when your health gets low ("I can't do this all day!") and you might even get "killed," but you're refreshed, recharged, and sometimes completely dry-cleaned in a matter of seconds when the fight is over.

They might speak believable lines of dialogue, but they do unbelievable things all of the time.

Um, you start the game fighting off hordes of Darkspawn for your life, and kill a giant troll that just smashed in your brothers puny face. An oversized spider isn't that big a deal in the scheme, really. 

[mesmerizedish]

the_one_54321 wrote...

Because real people don't just turn gay or bi all of a sudden.

Neither do the DAII LIs. I broke down the OP and answered each section in turn. Go back to the last page if you're interested

Seriously, Anders either was't bi in Awakenings or he was trying really really hard to hide it.

That's debateable. He flirts with Nathaniel once or twice, but if you just don't interpret it that way, I'd believe that's how you feel. In that case, he's been retconned, since Karl happened long before Awakening.

[the_one_54321]

Ryzaki wrote...
These characters aren't real people.

I couldn't harden a real person with one hard line about "standing up for yourself." or whatever it is you said to Alistair. I couldn't change him from someone who would never drag his wife's name threw the mud by having a mistress tosomeone who is willing to have one with one sentence

Real life does not work that way! 

I couldn't change Leliana from a devout Chantry sister to a hard bard with one sentence.

They already don't act like real people.

While we have identified that there is a single dialog choice that flags this change in the game, the conversation process is far from being "one sentence." It feels more like you are exploring the chracter than deciding for it.

Well, except for the Alistair thing, which even Gaider said he wishes they had done better.

How about putting something like that in for Fenris or Anders, hmmm? An exploration of their sexuality in the romance. A dialog tree where he says "I've never felt this way about a man before. I feel like I'm rediscoverng myself." Was there anything like that? Wouldn't that be better than "guess what, it turns out Anders was gay!"

[Ryzaki]

BlameBot wrote...

rubydog1 wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...

We're talking about a world where it's pretty well known that there are giant spiders in the forests and in caves, bandits, and darkspawn constantly attacking dwarven cities under ground. That's a clever comment you made, but less so when you put it in the proper context.

Just because such threats exist doesn't mean that we should act like everyone is equipped to deal with such things. My Hawke is confident, and possibly a little desperate for cash in Act 1, but he's not a complete idiot.

I can't recall a single believable human reaction at all to life-or-death combat in this game. No hesitation, no fatigue. You just pull out the sword, yell the latest equivalent of "Go for the eyes, Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!", and get to it.  You might whine a bit when your health gets low ("I can't do this all day!") and you might even get "killed," but you're refreshed, recharged, and sometimes completely dry-cleaned in a matter of seconds when the fight is over.

They might speak believable lines of dialogue, but they do unbelievable things all of the time.

Um, you start the game fighting off hordes of Darkspawn for your life, and kill a giant troll that just smashed in your brothers puny face. An oversized spider isn't that big a deal in the scheme, really. 

Did you miss Hawke's "OH ****" face when they first saw the ogre? 

[Parrk]

When you roll a new character then you meet them again and have no initial idea of their sexual orientation.

I've seen metagaming used for a lot of sinister purposes, but bigotry is a new one.


Grats on your originality.

Not so much on your felt need to deny others happiness.

[highcastle]

the_one_54321 wrote...

Look, this isn't about options.

Create tons of options. Create an individual option for every single person that plays this game if you want to. Create 1 million options. The more the merrier.

But do a good job of creating them. What they did here was a bad job.

When you play this game, the characters should feel like someone else is playing them. They should not feel like they mold themselves based on whatever you want them to be. The first is good writing, the second is bad writing.

How is it a bad job? I've thus far played through Anders and Fenris' romances with a male character. Next on the docket it Isabela with a female character, but I'm not there yet, so I can only speak to what I've experienced firsthand.

For the third time in this thread I'm going to mention that Anders' "coming out" if you will is one of the more intelligent and "postmodern" views on sexuality. He says roughly, "I fall in love with a whole person. Is it wrong if they happen to be the same as you?" This could come straight out of Orlando where he falls in love with Sascha without knowing her gender, then thinking she's a male, then realizing she's female. Gender has nothing to do with his attraction. He's attracted to her as a person first.

This is completely valid. It's also not a stance many people take, particularly in popular media. To see something like this come up in a video game was surprising, to say the least. To me, Anders comes across as "queer" in the sense he's not completely heterosexual. But I also wouldn't call him bisexual since gender doesn't seem to factor into his views on sexual attraction at all. Isabela, on the other hand, is a more traditionally bisexual character. She's definitely interested in men and women for what their genders offer (consider her "men are good for one thing, women are good for six" line).

There is still sexual diversity in this game. The ways each character expresses their sexuality are different and unique to them. With Merrill and Fenris, their views are a little harder to target since they don't mention much about their preferences, but they're still different from each other and from Anders and Isabela.

Once more, if you're uncomfortable with this content, don't flirt with someone of the same gender. Only Isabela and Anders will flirt with you first (and the latter only if you take a specific dialogue choice). Fenris and Merrill never make their preferences known unless you flirt first, so you could concievably go through the whole game pretending their straight or even asexual.

[Ryzaki]

the_one_54321 wrote...
While we have identified that there is a single dialog choice that flags this change in the game, the conversation process is far from being "one sentence." It feels more like you are exploring the chracter than deciding for it.

Well, except for the Alistair thing, which even Gaider said he wishes they had done better.

How about putting something like that in for Fenris or Anders, hmmm? An exploration of their sexuality in the romance. A dialog tree where he says "I've never felt this way about a man before. I feel like I'm rediscoverng myself." Was there anything like that? Wouldn't that be better than "guess what, it turns out Anders was gay!"

It's one conversation. Tell me ave you ever had one conversation tha made you drop everything you had believed up to that moment? Completely? 

And I did feel like I was deciding for Leliana. She doesn't even choose what to do with Marjoline. She just goes along with whatever you decide. That is doll like at its finest. 

Putting what? Why? Anders tells you he doesn't consider gender an issue and Fenris has been an slave all his life. Why do they need to justify not being straight? Did you need Morrigan and Alistair to justify being straight? 

Modifié par Ryzaki, 23 mars 2011 - 07:51 .

[BlameBot]

Parrk wrote...

When you roll a new character then you meet them again and have no initial idea of their sexual orientation.

I've seen metagaming used for a lot of sinister purposes, but bigotry is a new one.


Grats on your originality.

Not so much on your felt need to deny others happiness.

Did you even bother to read the arguments, or did you just go straight to troll?

Modifié par BlameBot, 23 mars 2011 - 07:51 .

[Tantum Dic Verbo]

I just wish they'd gone farther with all of this. I'm hoping that the only way to advance through the story of DA3 is to have a sexual liaison with every one of your team members.

[City6]

the_one_54321 wrote...

ishmaeltheforsaken wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...
Look, this isn't about options.

Create tons of options. Create an individual option for every single person that plays this game if you want to. Create 1 million options. The more the merrier.

But do a good job of creating them. What they did here was a bad job.

I don't think that they did a bad job. I do think it could have been better. I think the issue of whether or not the characters are bi has absolutely nothing to do with how good a job they did.

Because real people don't just turn gay or bi all of a sudden.
Seriously, Anders either was't bi in Awakenings or he was trying really really hard to hide it.

How on earth could you know if Anders was bi or not in Awakenings? He made one comment about settling down with a girl. I know this might come as a shock, but bisexuals settle down with girls too. I've many friends that I had no idea about their past love lives for years until it came up in conversation.

There was no "I am Anders! I love ploughing the lady-garden! I do *not* love man-flute!" scene in Awakenings. What you're doing is almost the definition of heterosexism: persuming someone is 100% heterosexual unless the has been an announcment otherwise.

It's as mad as saying "Ander's can fall for my ginger-haired Hawke, because there was no mention of him liking ginger-haired people in Awakenings, but he definitly mentioned a blonde".

Modifié par City6, 23 mars 2011 - 07:54 .

[mesmerizedish]

CaptainIsabela wrote...

I am surprised this topic is back up for discussion..ho hum..

Well, the OP's doing a decent job of actually having a legitimate issue, instead of just being a homophobic troll.

[BlameBot]

Why not go farther? Why not have them all at once? DA:O could mean something totally different.

[optimates0193]

highcastle wrote...

I'm actually for all companions being love interests for both genders. It opens up options to others and it doesn't hurt anyone. I don't get this whole "it's not realistic" argument either. Point A: it's a fantasy game. Realism only goes so far. Point B: read Virgina Woolfe, Jeanette Winterson, and other authors who touch upon gender, gender roles, and sexuality. Or read the research by Kinsey.

We tend to place people in this binary divide. Male and female (gender role, not biological sex). Gay or straight. We have a hard time finding middle ground. But that doesn't mean that middle ground doesn't exist. Kinsey suggested most people are bisexual to some degree or another. Woolfe suggested gender doesn't play a role in sexual attraction (or shouldn't, anyway), that we're attracted to people as themselves, not as male or female. Actually, listening to Anders talk about his ideas on love and Karl in particular support Woolfe's interpretation. He says he believes people fall in love with a whole person.

So don't say these things cheapen a character. They absolutely do not. It's not pandering, either, not if done well. And Anders' whole conversation makes it clear the writers have some knowledge of this subject. I was actually really impressed by it (although maybe I'm just seeing connections because of a recent re-read of Orlando).

 

I'm going to disagree with you strongly on your points. First off, while you may be correct that sexuality and attraction extend beyond simple gender, what you're ignoring is the effects of culture and a society's values. While everyone may be bisexual to some degree (a notion which I don't necessarily agree with) that doesn't mean that everyone would act on it or even consider it for that matter. We're just as shaped by our culture and environment and many societies simply don't encourage this, at least openly. Considering the fact that you're dealing with what is obviously a society based on medeival times which includes a strong, dogmatic church, it seems unlikely the game world would support it either.

As to your point regarding realism, it's really a simple point to get. All creative media takes advantage of something called suspension of disbelief.  A game has to create a believable world. The creators do this by setting rules. These rules have to make logical sense, and they're going to be influenced by a person's judgement and value. If I'm playing a fantasy game, I expect to see dragons. It's a long standing mythological creature, it's not going to break my suspension of disbelief, because it makes logical sense to be within the game, along with wizards tossing fireballs.

On the other hand, when every character is bisexual, that doesn't make any logical sense. It's gamey, clearly done to make every romance accessible. It doesn't make sense within either world (The real world or the game world) and so all it accomplishes is to distance the player from the game.

[Ryzaki]

For the love of christ.

All characters aren't bisexual.

I believe about 6 are. And only 4 of them aren't ****s.

[mesmerizedish]

Ryzaki wrote...

For the love of christ.

All characters aren't bisexual.

I believe about 6 are. And only 4 of them aren't ****s.

Stop your misinformation smear campaign.

THEY'RE ALL BI.

[the_one_54321]

highcastle wrote...
How is it a bad job? I've thus far played through Anders and Fenris' romances with a male character. Next on the docket it Isabela with a female character, but I'm not there yet, so I can only speak to what I've experienced firsthand.

For the third time in this thread I'm going to mention that Anders' "coming out" if you will is one of the more intelligent and "postmodern" views on sexuality. He says roughly, "I fall in love with a whole person. Is it wrong if they happen to be the same as you?" This could come straight out of Orlando where he falls in love with Sascha without knowing her gender, then thinking she's a male, then realizing she's female. Gender has nothing to do with his attraction. He's attracted to her as a person first.

This is completely valid. It's also not a stance many people take, particularly in popular media. To see something like this come up in a video game was surprising, to say the least. To me, Anders comes across as "queer" in the sense he's not completely heterosexual. But I also wouldn't call him bisexual since gender doesn't seem to factor into his views on sexual attraction at all. Isabela, on the other hand, is a more traditionally bisexual character. She's definitely interested in men and women for what their genders offer (consider her "men are good for one thing, women are good for six" line).

There is still sexual diversity in this game. The ways each character expresses their sexuality are different and unique to them. With Merrill and Fenris, their views are a little harder to target since they don't mention much about their preferences, but they're still different from each other and from Anders and Isabela.

Once more, if you're uncomfortable with this content, don't flirt with someone of the same gender. Only Isabela and Anders will flirt with you first (and the latter only if you take a specific dialogue choice). Fenris and Merrill never make their preferences known unless you flirt first, so you could concievably go through the whole game pretending their straight or even asexual.

Interesting dialog with Anders there. So lets say then that Anders and Isabela are the more believable of the characters. Still, I didn't feel anything gay from in Awakenings.

I'm not at all uncomfortable with the characters not being heterosexual. I've been hit on by gay men in real life plenty of times, and though it was a little rough needing to tell them I've flattered but straight every time, it was definitely more flattering than uncomfortable.

But this is where it's done poorly: everyone you can romance is bisexual? Really? All four of them? 

I know that this makes the folks who want to option to romance any of the available characters happy. But not me. It says "lazy" to me.