147 réponses à ce sujet

[Anariel Theirin]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love that you guys went this direction with romances in DA2. I'm heterosexual, but have no problem roleplaying any sexuality, and am highly supportive of anything that includes possibilities for any sexuality. It's an important step for the game industry to take, and I applaud Bioware for taking it.

[David Gaider]

Demon Velsper wrote...
And this telemetry is from DA:O? The game that had an achievement/trophy for romancing all characters? I can tell you this much: had the game not required Zevran romance for 100% trophies you would have had at least one less male/male romance in your telemetry.

I don't doubt that's a part of it, and we're aware of that, but considering Zevran need not be romanced by a male character in order to get the achievement anyone who did so "unwillingly" has only themselves to blame.

I'm on record in other threads as supporting the full
range of romance options and permutations in gaming. I also feel that
in the case of Meril and fenris that the 'hawke-a sexual concept did not
(to me anyway) fit their personas. It came across as: 'wow hawk is
cool' I think i want to fumble around in our combat gear now', at
worsed. AT best it came across as been open to experamentation because
thay trust him/her.

I will say that one element of the reaction to this I find interesting is the idea that so many people believe a character's sexuality actually changes because their exposure to it changes.

Anders isn't any different a person in a game with a male PC or a female PC, for instance, yet some people seem to think that because he doesn't mention his relationship with Karl to a female player it must never have happened... and he is therefore 100% straight as opposed to being 100% gay if it is mentioned. While the point of that is indeed to leave it free for the player to interpret for themselves, the part I find interesting is the assumption that the characters' personalities are somehow written differently based on the circumstance. I suspect that says a lot about how some people actually think about sexuality, which is if anything an interesting behavior to observe in the community.

Also i'd be very interested in your thoughts
with regaurd to disablity and sexuality in games. sexuality and
disablity are widly considered taboo subjects. More so than orentation,
athough if you combine all three it would be really explosive!

I think the issue with disability in games is that it's hard to combine it with the fact that game characters need to be very mobile. And if you include ways to trivialize that disability in-game (ie. "he levitates all the time so the fact he can't walk is irrelevant") then it's no longer a disability but something between tokenism and a character quirk. Provided that can be worked around, I'd say it's a non-issue... so long as there is something to recommend the character as a character other than the fact they possess a disability. If not, then you're definitely venturing into tokenism territory... in which case you're going to look incredibly insensitive.

Modifié par David Gaider, 06 avril 2011 - 02:54 .

[Dean_the_Young]

David Gaider wrote...

Demon Velsper wrote...
And this telemetry is from DA:O? The game that had an achievement/trophy for romancing all characters? I can tell you this much: had the game not required Zevran romance for 100% trophies you would have had at least one less male/male romance in your telemetry.

I don't doubt that's a part of it, and we're aware of that, but considering Zevran need not be romanced by a male character in order to get the achievement anyone who did so "unwillingly" has only themselves to blame.

You know, that's something that just really doesn't click with me in regards to a lot of the 'how dare you allow so many homesexual relationships': the romance options are bisexual.

No one can complain that they're prevented from a straight romance. Only that whoever they have their sights on wouldn't mind if they were a man or woman.

[Statulos]

Emperor Iaius I wrote...

Well, as far as Western theatre goes, we don't have to make that assumption because the Athenian theatrical tradition developed out of the City Dionysia, which itself was a Lacedaemonian import, etc etc. Given the social element of Greek theatre, whether as a collective ritual or as a public performance, the audience was always effectively part of the show and didn't necessarily become another person or identify with other characters so much as interact with them. So I'd say that theatre as we know it has identifiable origins, and I'd say audience identification with the performers was a Hellenistic (that is, post-classical but pre-imperial) development, along with the genre of the Hellenistic prose romance novel (another work where the reader can identify with the protagonist, this time usually a heroine: see Chaereas and Callirhoe) and the Roman love elegy (where indeed, the author becomes a character though it is cloaked as autobiography; one might see Catullus as the inventor of this genre, though Sappho is among his many inspirations, and it is likely that her work anticipated--by centuries, in fact--both the erotic aspects of elegy as well as the fictional autobiographical elements, as recent scholarship has decisively--though not conclusively--rejected extrapolating a biography from what remains of her oevre).

But this is just the littérateur in me waxing philological . . .

That is a very narrow consideration of theatre, if you ask me. In fact, the first incarnation of theatre is connected to neolitic traditions and in today's world, it would be called shamanism. In fact, the role of the shaman is that of the mediator between the imagined self (comunity) and the other (non human elements of the world, other comunities or even other groups in the comunity). Thus, theatre is a form of mediation and the mediator is that one who lives in a liminal area, thus being capable of interacting with both sides.

David Gaider wrote...
I think the issue with disability in
games is that it's hard to combine it with the fact that game characters
need to be very mobile. And if you include ways to trivialize that
disability in-game (ie. "he levitates all the time so the fact he can't
walk is irrelevant") then it's no longer a disability but something
between tokenism and a character quirk. Provided that can be worked
around, I'd say it's a non-issue... so long as there is something to
recommend the character as a character other than the fact they possess a
disability. If not, then you're definitely venturing into
tokenism territory... in which case you're going to look incredibly
insensitive.

Poor sight or blindness is an actual option; there is no need to cripple limbs.
Anosmia can be very hard to represent (it is hard even for films centered arround it like Tortilla Soup), but still an option.
And well, you can always go for the very sensible topic of mental conditions. It is very hard to represent respectfuly (unless you want a villain) but you already did in DA2 with a serial killer who is obsessed with kids. It does not have to be violent, though...

Modifié par Statulos, 06 avril 2011 - 03:31 .

[Arppis]

TheBlackBaron wrote...

This is a whole new side of Yahtzee. I love the guy's reviews but he seems like the type to absolutely despise the romance sideplots of Bioware games.

I despise romances too, there is just too much work to get some.... <_<

...Ohhh you ment in the game?! Ah yeah, they are ok.

[atheelogos]

Arppis wrote...

TheBlackBaron wrote...

This is a whole new side of Yahtzee. I love the guy's reviews but he seems like the type to absolutely despise the romance sideplots of Bioware games.

I despise romances too, there is just too much work to get some.... <_<

...Ohhh you ment in the game?! Ah yeah, they are ok.

[Apollo Starflare]

Good ole Yahtzee, he can all but attack my favourite games and still I can't help but love him. Great read, and yet again kudos to the DA2 team for implementing romances the way they did. I would imagine that when the primary complaint about romances and companions is that folks wanted to talk to them even more you know you've done a good job.

Now let's see you break down the racial barrier and stereotyping: Dwarf romance(s) for DA3!

[Statulos]

Apollo Starflare wrote...

Good ole Yahtzee, he can all but attack my favourite games and still I can't help but love him. Great read, and yet again kudos to the DA2 team for implementing romances the way they did. I would imagine that when the primary complaint about romances and companions is that folks wanted to talk to them even more you know you've done a good job.

Now let's see you break down the racial barrier and stereotyping: Dwarf romance(s) for DA3!

It is a shame that Awakening had no romances because Sigrun was a perfect candidate.

[Emperor Iaius I]

Statulos wrote...

Emperor Iaius I wrote...

Well, as far as Western theatre goes, we don't have to make that assumption because the Athenian theatrical tradition developed out of the City Dionysia, which itself was a Lacedaemonian import, etc etc. Given the social element of Greek theatre, whether as a collective ritual or as a public performance, the audience was always effectively part of the show and didn't necessarily become another person or identify with other characters so much as interact with them. So I'd say that theatre as we know it has identifiable origins, and I'd say audience identification with the performers was a Hellenistic (that is, post-classical but pre-imperial) development, along with the genre of the Hellenistic prose romance novel (another work where the reader can identify with the protagonist, this time usually a heroine: see Chaereas and Callirhoe) and the Roman love elegy (where indeed, the author becomes a character though it is cloaked as autobiography; one might see Catullus as the inventor of this genre, though Sappho is among his many inspirations, and it is likely that her work anticipated--by centuries, in fact--both the erotic aspects of elegy as well as the fictional autobiographical elements, as recent scholarship has decisively--though not conclusively--rejected extrapolating a biography from what remains of her oevre).

But this is just the littérateur in me waxing philological . . .

That is a very narrow consideration of theatre, if you ask me. In fact, the first incarnation of theatre is connected to neolitic traditions and in today's world, it would be called shamanism. In fact, the role of the shaman is that of the mediator between the imagined self (comunity) and the other (non human elements of the world, other comunities or even other groups in the comunity). Thus, theatre is a form of mediation and the mediator is that one who lives in a liminal area, thus being capable of interacting with both sides.

I take the "narrow" view because it's the direct progenitor of theatre as we know it. Are there other cultures with performative rituals that resemble theatre by analogy? Certainly. However, even if we took a shaman as the mediator betweeen the community and the other, it's a different step for the audience to interact with such a figure as it is for the audience to become such a figure: their dialogue with the "other," as you call it, is negotiated via the shamanic figure. I think it took a conscious, creative, step to move from that structure to one wherein the audience was invited to feel as the character does.

[SicoWolf-]

Apollo Starflare wrote...

Good ole Yahtzee, he can all but attack my favourite games and still I can't help but love him. Great read, and yet again kudos to the DA2 team for implementing romances the way they did. I would imagine that when the primary complaint about romances and companions is that folks wanted to talk to them even more you know you've done a good job.

Now let's see you break down the racial barrier and stereotyping: Dwarf romance(s) for DA3!

Romancing as a dwarf in DA: O was entirely possible, and then you have oddball dwarfs like Oghren. But that aside, dwarves are a very proud people that *like* their spouses short 'n' stout.

Also, it's not like elf/human relations aren't plentiful.

Modifié par SicoWolf-, 06 avril 2011 - 05:04 .

[Addai]

David Gaider wrote...
I will say that one element of the reaction to this I find interesting is the idea that so many people believe a character's sexuality actually changes because their exposure to it changes.

Anders isn't any different a person in a game with a male PC or a female PC, for instance, yet some people seem to think that because he doesn't mention his relationship with Karl to a female player it must never have happened... and he is therefore 100% straight as opposed to being 100% gay if it is mentioned. While the point of that is indeed to leave it free for the player to interpret for themselves, the part I find interesting is the assumption that the characters' personalities are somehow written differently based on the circumstance. I suspect that says a lot about how some people actually think about sexuality, which is if anything an interesting behavior to observe in the community.

I imagine part of that is because you posted somewhere along the line, before it was confirmed they would all be available for both genders as romance options, that your least favorite approach would be to have all the LIs bisexual.  Maybe what you meant is to have them openly talking about bisexual history, or hitting on the PC.  But it ended up that there was a lot of debate on the forum about whether the LIs are actually all bisexual characters or whether their orientation changes subjectively based on the player.  The fact that Anders doesn't talk about his relationship with Karl to a female PC reinforces this ambiguity.

[Zjarcal]

Addai67 wrote...
The fact that Anders doesn't talk about his relationship with Karl to a female PC reinforces this ambiguity.

But why should he even mention it to a female? It's perfectly normal for someone to keep certain stories to themselves if they feel it's not something the other person needs to know.

[Rinji the Bearded]

Zjarcal wrote...

Addai67 wrote...
The fact that Anders doesn't talk about his relationship with Karl to a female PC reinforces this ambiguity.

But why should he even mention it to a female? It's perfectly normal for someone to keep certain stories to themselves if they feel it's not something the other person needs to know.

tbh if a guy who was interested in me said something like that right off the  bat I'd be like "o..kay...," but perhaps Anders did not think it was really something he should talk about with a female that he was attracted to?  I'd be totally okay with him chatting about it later, pillow talk or something.

[Apollo Starflare]

SicoWolf- wrote...
Romancing as a dwarf in DA: O was entirely possible, and then you have oddball dwarfs like Oghren. But that aside, dwarves are a very proud people that *like* their spouses short 'n' stout.

Also, it's not like elf/human relations aren't plentiful.

I was mainly referring to Dwarf/Human relationships it's true. DAO worked because the player could be a Dwarf, but for whatever reason perfect love interest condidates Sigrun and Varric got overlooked! Basically I want to see a romance with a Dwarf NPC in a future game, I just threw that out there in quite a clumsy way.

Wasn't really referring to their portrayal otherwise either (again, clumsy) as I tend to find they balanced the Dwarves of Dragon Age perfectly between the familiar and the fresh, new and exciting.

But c'mon there wasn't even a female Dwarf NPC in DA2! There is definite room for improvement. I also disagree that you can classify every Dwarf as being a fan of short n' stout, although I'm sure that is the stereotypical example of beauty in their culture (particularly in Orzammar) they are obviously a varied enough people that it's not a stretch to presume it could be nullified as a reason for the prupose of having Dwarf LI's in a future DA game.

Modifié par Apollo Starflare, 06 avril 2011 - 05:24 .

[Addai]

Zjarcal wrote...

Addai67 wrote...
The fact that Anders doesn't talk about his relationship with Karl to a female PC reinforces this ambiguity.

But why should he even mention it to a female? It's perfectly normal for someone to keep certain stories to themselves if they feel it's not something the other person needs to know.

Why shouldn't he?  Or to turn it around, why mention it to a male PC?

[Zjarcal]

Addai67 wrote...

Zjarcal wrote...

Addai67 wrote...
The fact that Anders doesn't talk about his relationship with Karl to a female PC reinforces this ambiguity.

But why should he even mention it to a female? It's perfectly normal for someone to keep certain stories to themselves if they feel it's not something the other person needs to know.

Why shouldn't he?  Or to turn it around, why mention it to a male PC?

Why mention it to a male PC? I don't know... to let them know that he's also interested in men and hence could be interested in a male Hawke?

And as someone mentioned earlier, he may not mention to a  female PC right away, because he might feel it's not the right time and he'll do it later... somewhere in the the next 7 years perhaps?. I mean, just because we don't see Hawke and the companions have more conversations doesn't mean they couldn't have them.

People do act differently around men and women after all... that's pretty natural.

[Fraevar]

David Gaider wrote...
Anders isn't any different a person in a game with a male PC or a female PC, for instance, yet some people seem to think that because he doesn't mention his relationship with Karl to a female player it must never have happened... and he is therefore 100% straight as opposed to being 100% gay if it is mentioned. While the point of that is indeed to leave it free for the player to interpret for themselves, the part I find interesting is the assumption that the characters' personalities are somehow written differently based on the circumstance. I suspect that says a lot about how some people actually think about sexuality, which is if anything an interesting behavior to observe in the community.

He mentioned it to my femHawke. Is that a bug? I honestly didn't really consider it that big of a deal - I thought it fit perfectly well with is reaction in the chantry.

[David Gaider]

Addai67 wrote...
I imagine part of that is because you posted somewhere along the line, before it was confirmed they would all be available for both genders as romance options, that your least favorite approach would be to have all the LIs bisexual.  Maybe what you meant is to have them openly talking about bisexual history, or hitting on the PC.  But it ended up that there was a lot of debate on the forum about whether the LIs are actually all bisexual characters or whether their orientation changes subjectively based on the player.  The fact that Anders doesn't talk about his relationship with Karl to a female PC reinforces this ambiguity.

The ambiguity is there specifically for that purpose. The only weakness, speaking from my viewpoint as a writer, is that we need to focus on other things with the character... we can't really go into detail on their sexual history without sacrificing that ambiguity (or doing some heavy branching). It turned out, however, that this doesn't nearly need to be as big a part of a character's personality as one might think. I know, right? Go figure.

I'm simply saying that what I find interesting is how many people assume the sexuality is literally subjective... as in reality itself changes to accomodate the player... when the characters are in fact written to be no different. One always assumes that players live in a very self-centered universe, but it's interesting to see it taken to the extent where some people are upset at the perception of the characters as different people and calling it invalidating even when it's their own doing.

Anyhow. It's simply interesting.

Modifié par Luke Barrett, 06 avril 2011 - 05:45 .

[The Angry One]

I never even considered it ambiguity. It makes perfect sense to me that he'd mention it to a man to see if there's a possiblity that he's interested while not saying it to a woman.
Anders is already a character who omits truths when it's not necesarry to reveal them.

Modifié par The Angry One, 06 avril 2011 - 05:47 .

[Addai]

The Angry One wrote...

I never even considered it ambiguity. It makes perfect sense to me that he'd mention it to a man to see if there's a possiblity that he's interested while not saying it to a woman.
Anders is already a character who omits truths when it's not necesarry to reveal them.

In context, though, it would make perfect sense for him to tell a female PC that the man he just had to kill was a lover and not just somebody he knew.  At that point, Anders seems all about self-disclosure.  "Hey, I'm an abomination dontcha know!"

In fact, it makes less sense to me that he'd be testing the waters with any Hawke- right after killing his lover.  It just seems odd.

[The Angry One]

Addai67 wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

I never even considered it ambiguity. It makes perfect sense to me that he'd mention it to a man to see if there's a possiblity that he's interested while not saying it to a woman.
Anders is already a character who omits truths when it's not necesarry to reveal them.

In context, though, it would make perfect sense for him to tell a female PC that the man he just had to kill was a lover and not just somebody he knew.  At that point, Anders seems all about self-disclosure.  "Hey, I'm an abomination dontcha know!"

Anders doesn't disclose this before Justice manifesting makes it blatant, though.
And Anders strikes me as.. manipulative. Not maliciously so, but he knows what he wants and he'll say the things he needs to in order to get it.
In this case revealing his relationship with Karl to a woman might be considered by him a hindrance to his goals.

In fact, it makes less sense to me that he'd be testing the waters with any Hawke- right after killing his lover.  It just seems odd.

The convos work oddly that way. Sometimes you have a convo right after an event and days, even weeks are supposed to have passed (for example, after recruiting Merril you can go to her house and talk to her right after and she acts as if some time has passed).

[Statulos]

Emperor Iaius I wrote...

Statulos wrote...

Emperor Iaius I wrote...

Well, as far as Western theatre goes, we don't have to make that assumption because the Athenian theatrical tradition developed out of the City Dionysia, which itself was a Lacedaemonian import, etc etc. Given the social element of Greek theatre, whether as a collective ritual or as a public performance, the audience was always effectively part of the show and didn't necessarily become another person or identify with other characters so much as interact with them. So I'd say that theatre as we know it has identifiable origins, and I'd say audience identification with the performers was a Hellenistic (that is, post-classical but pre-imperial) development, along with the genre of the Hellenistic prose romance novel (another work where the reader can identify with the protagonist, this time usually a heroine: see Chaereas and Callirhoe) and the Roman love elegy (where indeed, the author becomes a character though it is cloaked as autobiography; one might see Catullus as the inventor of this genre, though Sappho is among his many inspirations, and it is likely that her work anticipated--by centuries, in fact--both the erotic aspects of elegy as well as the fictional autobiographical elements, as recent scholarship has decisively--though not conclusively--rejected extrapolating a biography from what remains of her oevre).

But this is just the littérateur in me waxing philological . . .

That is a very narrow consideration of theatre, if you ask me. In fact, the first incarnation of theatre is connected to neolitic traditions and in today's world, it would be called shamanism. In fact, the role of the shaman is that of the mediator between the imagined self (comunity) and the other (non human elements of the world, other comunities or even other groups in the comunity). Thus, theatre is a form of mediation and the mediator is that one who lives in a liminal area, thus being capable of interacting with both sides.

I take the "narrow" view because it's the direct progenitor of theatre as we know it. Are there other cultures with performative rituals that resemble theatre by analogy? Certainly. However, even if we took a shaman as the mediator betweeen the community and the other, it's a different step for the audience to interact with such a figure as it is for the audience to become such a figure: their dialogue with the "other," as you call it, is negotiated via the shamanic figure. I think it took a conscious, creative, step to move from that structure to one wherein the audience was invited to feel as the character does.

Then we're talking about catharsis, basicaly. And once again, even if it's not worded that way, it exist in other theatrical traditions. Ramlila in India is a very good example on that regard. In fact Ramlila operates on a double level, both changing the actor and the public. Interestingly enough, Ramlila is regarded as a religious act, just like tragedy (while not the rest theatrical genres); hence the very clear connection with shamanism.

At any rate, other forms of shamanism also include the public in the experience just like Greek tragedy: Voodoo and Santeria are very clear examples in that regard and both are quite non-western.

Modifié par Statulos, 06 avril 2011 - 06:11 .

[Darth Krytie]

Addai67 wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

I never even considered it ambiguity. It makes perfect sense to me that he'd mention it to a man to see if there's a possiblity that he's interested while not saying it to a woman.
Anders is already a character who omits truths when it's not necesarry to reveal them.

In context, though, it would make perfect sense for him to tell a female PC that the man he just had to kill was a lover and not just somebody he knew.  At that point, Anders seems all about self-disclosure.  "Hey, I'm an abomination dontcha know!"

In fact, it makes less sense to me that he'd be testing the waters with any Hawke- right after killing his lover.  It just seems odd.

I might be misremembering, but he calls Karl his first...so, I got the sense that the sexual part of their relationship was not current. Even if a strong friendship and intimacy remained.

[NKKKK]

The romances are fine, it's the game itself that sucks.

[highcastle]

Darth Krytie wrote...

Addai67 wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

I never even considered it ambiguity. It makes perfect sense to me that he'd mention it to a man to see if there's a possiblity that he's interested while not saying it to a woman.
Anders is already a character who omits truths when it's not necesarry to reveal them.

In context, though, it would make perfect sense for him to tell a female PC that the man he just had to kill was a lover and not just somebody he knew.  At that point, Anders seems all about self-disclosure.  "Hey, I'm an abomination dontcha know!"

In fact, it makes less sense to me that he'd be testing the waters with any Hawke- right after killing his lover.  It just seems odd.

I might be misremembering, but he calls Karl his first...so, I got the sense that the sexual part of their relationship was not current. Even if a strong friendship and intimacy remained.

No, you're right. He says Karl was his first and they hadn't been together in a long time. I got the feeling their relationship was mostly just a friendship at this point.

On another note, I've pointed out in other threads how I really like the way Anders character was handled. His "I've always believed people fall in love with a whole person" speech is very eloquent and shows a very different approach to sexuality than Isabela, for instance. It's really fascinating to me how people claim this game is unrealisitic with having 4 bisexual love interests, but there are ways of looking at sexuality beyond these hard divides. None of the characters came off as token interests for either gender, they all approached sexuality in their own unique way, and that is something truly refreshing to see.