25715 réponses à ce sujet

[Maugrim]

Um the reason bisexuality is more prevalent in both Thedas and Mass Effect is because sexuality is less of a 'If you don't follow the average we'll kill//shun/make fun of you' than in our current timeline/universe. We know this by word of god/Dev for Thedas and it's a reasonable extrapolation for the ME universe .Kinda like how it seems like we have more gay people now than in the 1950's. Sexualities haven't changed, just peoples willingness to accept and express them.

Modifié par makenzieshepard, 05 juillet 2011 - 06:53 .

[Ryzaki]

@Dave: And? You telling me that in Planescape Torment the characters had self will? Really? The charactes run on premade tracks. They will never be people as long as that's true. They're programs. They don't make their own decisions, they can't decide to do something that the plot doesn't allow.  The closest they'll ever come is a mimicing of what an actual person would do. It's lower than a dog because even adog can decide what to do sometimes. A video game character can never choose to do anything the writer doesn't want them to. 

Modifié par Ryzaki, 05 juillet 2011 - 06:55 .

[bleetman]

DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...

In addition, having sexual orientation of characters "lock out" certain romance paths would decrease the increasing "dating sim" feeling Bioware games seem to be picking up by limiting the number of characters waiting to ninjamance a particular protagonist.

I'll say the same thing I said before. Any claims that Bioware games are becoming "dating sims" are utterly, mind boggling absurd. The combined romance content time for a character across the span of the game is a few minutes at most, never eclipsing any other aspect in terms of the game. In Mass Effect's case, shooty-wizz-bang-pow fun takes up dozens of hours. There's probably more time spent watching Shepard punch aliens.

A characters sexual preference is an astounding minor detail. Half of them are of an entirely different species. Two of them are mortally dangerous to have sex with for one partner. Given how easily they come across as Shepard-Sexual, it's really not that much of a stretch.

[Puzzlewell]

DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...

Ryzaki wrote...

The characters are never gonna be fully developed people. Ever. That's not gonna happen. The medium is too limited for that.

*Snip Torment loveliness*

But see, the difference there is PST is a Chris Avellone game and as much as I love BW, they still have yet to create characters that I love as much as the ones Chris writes (or write a story that effects me on the same level as his writing). DAO and ME1 came close (mostly with Lel, Wynne and Liara), but I'm not sure they'll ever get there...

Modifié par CalamityRanger, 05 juillet 2011 - 06:55 .

[DaveExclamationMarkYognaut]

Ryzaki wrote...

@Dave: And? You telling me that in Planescape Torment the characters had self will? Really? The charactes run on premade tracks. They will never be people as long as that's true. They're programs. They don't make their own decisions, they can't decide to do something that the plot doesn't allow.  

Yeah, and characters in books are the same. That doesn't prevent them from being written as fully realized people instead of ways to maximize fanservice potential.

[jlb524]

DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...
Theoretically, characters should be written as fully developed people and not as a collection of attributes designed to appeal to as many fans as possible. Now, you may have some bisexual characters in the mix, since some people are bisexual. But it's implausible to write every single romancable human character in the story as bisexual unless you have some story reason why bisexuality is more common in Thedas/the future/wherever you set the story than it is in the real world.*

'Theoretically'...but that won't happen.  Why don't they write gay only characters?   They won't do it...absolutely not.

Realistically, why not add in checks for things like morality, race, class, etc. for romances and not leave them wide open? 

DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...
In addition, having sexual orientation of characters "lock out" certain romance paths would decrease the increasing "dating sim" feeling Bioware games seem to be picking up by limiting the number of characters waiting to ninjamance a particular protagonist.

I keep hearing this...what is a 'dating sim' anyway?  And I still wonder why that critique doesn't apply to games like 'The Witcher'.

[Maugrim]

jlb524 wrote...

DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...
Theoretically, characters should be written as fully developed people and not as a collection of attributes designed to appeal to as many fans as possible. Now, you may have some bisexual characters in the mix, since some people are bisexual. But it's implausible to write every single romancable human character in the story as bisexual unless you have some story reason why bisexuality is more common in Thedas/the future/wherever you set the story than it is in the real world.*

'Theoretically'...but that won't happen.  Why don't they write gay only characters?   They won't do it...absolutely not.

Realistically, why not add in checks for things like morality, race, class, etc. for romances and not leave them wide open? 

And why don't people write angry screeds and start multiple topics where they throw around outdated stereotypes because these morality, race, class checks aren't implemented?  Hmm I wonder....

[Ryzaki]

DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...
Yeah, and characters in books are the same. That doesn't prevent them from being written as fully realized people instead of ways to maximize fanservice potential.

 

But at the end of the day they're*not* fully realized people even in movies and books characters are restricted by the plot and games are built on fanservice. 

A character's sexuality especially considering the romances have *no* hand in the plot is nothing to me. 

Now if we're talking about say a character turn around like TIM being all anti-human dominance I'd get the "Uh...no." pleas. As it is it's minor fanservice content to begin with. Expanding the fanservice to include more people isn't an issue to me and it boggles me why others think it is. 

The romances aren't some important part of the narrative. 

Not to mention if you're worried about character consistency that ship sailed a looooong time ago. Rather than worrying about sexuality you should be worried about why Liara and Garrus are acting so buddy buddy to renedouche Shepard. 

Modifié par Ryzaki, 05 juillet 2011 - 07:00 .

[jlb524]

DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...

Ryzaki wrote...

@Dave: And? You telling me that in Planescape Torment the characters had self will? Really? The charactes run on premade tracks. They will never be people as long as that's true. They're programs. They don't make their own decisions, they can't decide to do something that the plot doesn't allow.  

Yeah, and characters in books are the same. That doesn't prevent them from being written as fully realized people instead of ways to maximize fanservice potential.

So, you don't think BioWare writes characters as well as some others...okay...but why make it into an issue of sexuality (which I think is a very very small contribution to"making a character interesting/memorable") when there are tons of other things that could be built on and improved upon?

[bleetman]

jlb524 wrote...

Realistically, why not add in checks for things like morality, race, class, etc. for romances and not leave them wide open? 

That would be nice, yes.

[DaveExclamationMarkYognaut]

bleetman wrote...

DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...

In addition, having sexual orientation of characters "lock out" certain romance paths would decrease the increasing "dating sim" feeling Bioware games seem to be picking up by limiting the number of characters waiting to ninjamance a particular protagonist.

I'll say the same thing I said before. Any claims that Bioware games are becoming "dating sims" are utterly, mind boggling absurd. The combined romance content time for a character across the span of the game is a few minutes at most, never eclipsing any other aspect in terms of the game. In Mass Effect's case, shooty-wizz-bang-pow fun takes up dozens of hours. There's probably more time spent watching Shepard punch aliens.

A characters sexual preference is an astounding minor detail. Half of them are of an entirely different species. Two of them are mortally dangerous to have sex with for one partner. Given how easily they come across as Shepard-Sexual, it's really not that much of a stretch.

The dating sim thing isn't about companion sexual preference, it's about the number of companions the game (shallowly) tries to implement the possiblity of a relationship with. One is awesome, because the devs are able to devote time and effort into writing the relationship well and integrating it into the characters and the plot. Two is okay, because once again it doesn't stretch your ability to write it well and integrate it. When you get to 6 per gender and 10 total (with more on the way) it starts stretching the ability of the writers to integrate it into the characters and the plot (Liara, Ash, Kaidan, Thane, Jack, Garrus, Tali, Miranda, Jacob, Kelly.) At the point where romance = 1 more dialogue tree + sex scene + 1 line of dialogue, it's abundantly clear that the way they are writing this aspect of the game is adversely affecting its quality. It also stretches credibility that all these people are attracted to Shep, because generally speaking most people aren't waiting for the first relationship opportunity that comes by. In other words, I much prefer the way Kasumi's "romance" is written (i.e., one last big heist to get closure for her dead boyfriend) to the way Miranda's romance is written (i.e., flirting -> sex -> nada).

[Ryzaki]

bleetman wrote...

jlb524 wrote...

Realistically, why not add in checks for things like morality, race, class, etc. for romances and not leave them wide open? 

That would be nice, yes.

 

It would be awesome. 

Renegades and Paragons shouldn't be able to romance the same people. 

Frankly romance content should only be intergrated in the plot if the devs put friendship content in as well. I felt like both ME1 an ME2 were missing chunks (locker scene, jump into Omega 4 relay) where my Shep could've been talking to a friend. Instead because he didn't want to romance anyone I get no scene at all? Where's romance Shep can voice concerns? What kind of crap is that? 

Modifié par Ryzaki, 05 juillet 2011 - 07:07 .

[DaveExclamationMarkYognaut]

[quote]jlb524 wrote...

[quote]DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...
Theoretically, characters should be written as fully developed people and not as a collection of attributes designed to appeal to as many fans as possible. Now, you may have some bisexual characters in the mix, since some people are bisexual. But it's implausible to write every single romancable human character in the story as bisexual unless you have some story reason why bisexuality is more common in Thedas/the future/wherever you set the story than it is in the real world.*
[/quote]

'Theoretically'...but that won't happen.  Why don't they write gay only characters?   They won't do it...absolutely not.

Realistically, why not add in checks for things like morality, race, class, etc. for romances and not leave them wide open? [/quote]

Why not? That would be awesome.

[quote]jlb524 wrote...

[quote]DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...
In addition, having sexual orientation of characters "lock out" certain romance paths would decrease the increasing "dating sim" feeling Bioware games seem to be picking up by limiting the number of characters waiting to ninjamance a particular protagonist.
[/quote]

I keep hearing this...what is a 'dating sim' anyway?  And I still wonder why that critique doesn't apply to games like 'The Witcher'.

[/quote]

[/quote]

Because Geralt doesn't buy the women he bangs dinner first?

And I'm pretty sure you could say that at the very least Witcher 1 has "dating sim" aspects, because there are two LIs, neither of which you start out in a real relationship with. The second one only has one LI that Geralt is with from the beginning of the game, and depending on your choices may never progress beyond a casual level.

Modifié par DaveExclamationMarkYognaut, 05 juillet 2011 - 07:15 .

[jlb524]

DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...

The dating sim thing isn't about companion sexual preference, it's about the number of companions the game (shallowly) tries to implement the possiblity of a relationship with. One is awesome, because the devs are able to devote time and effort into writing the relationship well and integrating it into the characters and the plot. Two is okay, because once again it doesn't stretch your ability to write it well and integrate it. When you get to 6 per gender and 10 total (with more on the way) it starts stretching the ability of the writers to integrate it into the characters and the plot (Liara, Ash, Kaidan, Thane, Jack, Garrus, Tali, Miranda, Jacob, Kelly.) At the point where romance = 1 more dialogue tree + sex scene + 1 line of dialogue, it's abundantly clear that the way they are writing this aspect of the game is adversely affecting its quality. It also stretches credibility that all these people are attracted to Shep, because generally speaking most people aren't waiting for the first relationship opportunity that comes by. In other words, I much prefer the way Kasumi's "romance" is written (i.e., one last big heist to get closure for her dead boyfriend) to the way Miranda's romance is written (i.e., flirting -> sex -> nada).

That really has little to do with the bisexuality of these characters, as it doesn't take that much more extra effort to add in an s/s romance path for a romance character that already exists.  Simply having too many to begin with is another issue...but people like options.  Look what happened with Tali/Garrus.   They originally weren't romance options but people wanted them.  Others hated the ME1 LIs and wanted someone different.  That's what they gave them.

As far as the 'credibility' thing goes...as most of these romances are player initiated, you only know that these characters are interested in your PC from an meta-persepctive.

I do agree that ME2 just had too many romances and they were of poor quality, IMO (and that, again, has nothing to do with bisexuality as none of them were bisexual).  Going into ME3, there's even more to worry about (all the ME1 romances plus new ones added on).

I prefer the DA way of having two LIs of each gender, 2 females and 2 males (especially with DA2 where they were all open to both genders).

[AngelicMachinery]

DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...
The second one only has one LI that Geralt is with from the beginning of the game, and depending on your choices may never progress beyond a casual level.

Sounds like a dating sim to me.

[bleetman]

DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...

Because Geralt doesn't buy the women he bangs dinner first?

Yes, but it still tends to boil down to

DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...

1 more dialogue tree + sex scene + 1 line of dialogue

...from a whole lot of women, all of whom are willing to happily spread their legs for Geralt. So. Uhm. What? I'm confused.

[jlb524]

DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...

Why not? That would be awesome.

Resources.

DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...

Because Geralt doesn't buy the women he bangs dinner first?

And I'm pretty sure you could say that at the very least Witcher 1 has "dating sim" aspects, because there are two LIs, neither of which you start out in a real relationship with. The second one only has one LI that Geralt is with from the beginning of the game, and depending on your choices may never progress beyond a casual level.

But these BW romances could be played as casual too, depending on your choices.   I take 'dating sim' to mean any kind of romantic/sexual content that the player can initiate with NPCs.  I don't take 'dating' literally, as Shepard doesn't technically date any of the LIs.

Modifié par jlb524, 05 juillet 2011 - 07:22 .

[Siansonea]

Hmmm. Fanservice. You know what fanservice IS? Romancing an ALIEN. Because, you know, that's not something you can do in the real world. Human romances, s/s and otherwise, happen all the time. Boys kiss boys, girls kiss boys, and girls kiss girls. But there's not a person on this planet who has ever kissed a turian, a quarian, an asari, or a drell. So if we're campaigning to Stop Fanservice OMG, s/s human relationships are a really odd place to draw the line, in my opinion.

And what's so wrong with fanservice anyway? Why should people who want to romance aliens in a video game be made to feel like there's something inherently wrong with that? It's a video game. It's an optional sidequest. I'm happy to include alien romances for people who like them, no skin off my nose. Why anyone thinks that an option they don't want is in any way a detriment to their game is beyond me. Oh yes, "limited resources". Get off it already. BioWare, you can get rid of the Hammerhead and half the N7 missions if it means deeper connections with the characters, romance or not. Shooting up YMIR mechs to save CRATES wasn't that fun anyway.

And Witcher 2 wasn't a dating sim, it was a soft-core porn sim. Yeah, THAT'S an improvement over Mass Effect's system. <_<

If people have problems with how Mass Effect has treated romances, that's legitimate. We'd all like deeper romance storylines, deeper friendship storylines, deeper frenemy/enemy/rival storylines, and more interpersonal interaction in general. But don't heap all that baggage on the doorstep of s/s romances and act like the reason those things don't work is because a voice actor has to record two versions of a line of dialog. Give me a break.

Modifié par Siansonea II, 05 juillet 2011 - 07:24 .

[Ryzaki]

Also as someone who plays "dating sims" none of the romances in ME are detailed enough to apply.

[DaveExclamationMarkYognaut]

bleetman wrote...

DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...

Because Geralt doesn't buy the women he bangs dinner first?

Yes, but it still tends to boil down to

DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...

1 more dialogue tree + sex scene + 1 line of dialogue

...from a whole lot of women, all of whom are willing to happily spread their legs for Geralt. So. Uhm. What? I'm confused.

On the first quote, casual sex =/= dates. Also,

I like the way Witcher games implement relationships slightly more than Mass Effect games, because although both series are hilariously sexist in their own special ways CDPR at least remembers to give the romance some bearing on the plot. This was something that Bioware really only ever does in Dragon Age, and half of Dragon Age is terrible for other relationship-related reasons. But honestly the fact that I'm like "yay Dragon Age: Origins and Witcher 2 for being slighly less immature than the rest of the medium when it comes to sex and relationships" should tell you how terrible the medium as a whole is on these topics.

AngelicMachinery wrote...

DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...
The
second one only has one LI that Geralt is with from the beginning of
the game, and depending on your choices may never progress beyond a
casual level.

Sounds like a dating sim to me.

Yeah, you could make a pretty good case it is. It doesn't have multiple LIs and focus on starting relationships like most of the genre, but it definitely implements one through dialogue trees.

[Quething]

bleetman wrote...

That would be nice, yes.

 

Well, Bastila actually works just fine with DS!Revan, because her whole character arc is about her fascination with the Dark Side. (Likewise, Morrigan works just fine - actually slightly better IMO - with a kind, idealistic paragon-y Warden, because her character arc is largely about learning that there's more to life than being a douchenozzle to everyone she meets.) Something like Carth falling for DS!Revan or Leliana or Alistair falling for a Branka-backing Redcliff-abandoning jackass is problematic, though.

For that I think actually DA2 is a major step in the right direction, with relationships that play out differently depending on your actions and which can be permanently locked out if you do something too morally repugnant to the partner (Torpor&Anders, Orana&Fenris), but obviously the system still needs refining, and there really should be characters you simply can't 'rivalmance' (and again, they've done this well at least once, with Samara's... thing).

Ryzaki wrote...

Frankly romance content should only be intergrated in the plot if the devs put friendship content in as well. I felt like both ME1 an ME2 were missing chunks (locker scene, jump into Omega 4 relay) where my Shep could've been talking to a friend. Instead because he didn't want to romance anyone I get no scene at all? Where's romance Shep can voice concerns? What kind of crap is that? 

I actually really like staying faithful to Ash/Liara/Kaidan because the salute from Miranda is so awesome as a character note, but yeah. I think it's pretty well understood that ME2 in particular was seriously lacking in the "socializing with companions" department and that's as stark an example as any.

[DaveExclamationMarkYognaut]

jlb524 wrote...

That really has little to do with the bisexuality of these characters, as it doesn't take that much more extra effort to add in an s/s romance path for a romance character that already exists.  Simply having too many to begin with is another issue...but people like options.  Look what happened with Tali/Garrus.   They originally weren't romance options but people wanted them.  Others hated the ME1 LIs and wanted someone different.  That's what they gave them.

As far as the 'credibility' thing goes...as most of these romances are player initiated, you only know that these characters are interested in your PC from an meta-persepctive.

I do agree that ME2 just had too many romances and they were of poor quality, IMO (and that, again, has nothing to do with bisexuality as none of them were bisexual).  Going into ME3, there's even more to worry about (all the ME1 romances plus new ones added on).

I prefer the DA way of having two LIs of each gender, 2 females and 2 males (especially with DA2 where they were all open to both genders).

The "Bioware spreading itself to thin" thing is not caused by having a bunch of bisexual characters at all. OTOH, Bioware having a bunch of bisexual characters is a symptom of them spreading themselves too thin romance-wise. I would prefer that Bioware had a smaller number of romances that actually did something plot-wise and weren't afterthoughts - DA:O did it pretty well, IMO. It also seriously annoys me when Bioware says "but the meta-perspective doesn't matter" because players are always going to approach games from a partially meta-perspective, and if what they see from that perspective makes no sense they'll notice that.

More to the point, however, there's no particular reason Bioware can't write an exclusively gay character - especially if they write a bunch of exclusively straight characters.

Modifié par DaveExclamationMarkYognaut, 05 juillet 2011 - 07:44 .

[Nashiktal]

bleetman wrote...

DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...

In addition, having sexual orientation of characters "lock out" certain romance paths would decrease the increasing "dating sim" feeling Bioware games seem to be picking up by limiting the number of characters waiting to ninjamance a particular protagonist.

I'll say the same thing I said before. Any claims that Bioware games are becoming "dating sims" are utterly, mind boggling absurd. The combined romance content time for a character across the span of the game is a few minutes at most, never eclipsing any other aspect in terms of the game. In Mass Effect's case, shooty-wizz-bang-pow fun takes up dozens of hours. There's probably more time spent watching Shepard punch aliens.

A characters sexual preference is an astounding minor detail. Half of them are of an entirely different species. Two of them are mortally dangerous to have sex with for one partner. Given how easily they come across as Shepard-Sexual, it's really not that much of a stretch.

This, so much this.

Coming from a guy who loves dating sims (especially the game True Love,) I take the people who call Mass Effect a dating sim, or becoming one has never... EVER played a dating sim.

Not enough number crunching to be a dating sim.

[jlb524]

DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...
I would prefer that Bioware had a smaller number of romances that actually did something plot-wise and weren't afterthoughts - DA:O did it pretty well, IMO.

If you romanced Morrigan and Alistair...sure.  If Leliana/Zevran...not so much.  The same could be said of DA2 (Anders/Isabela...yes.   Merrill/Fenris...no).

DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...
It also seriously annoys me when Bioware says "but the meta-perspective doesn't matter" because players are always going to approach games from a partially meta-perspective, and if what they see from that perspective makes no sense they'll notice that.

Of course...but if you roleplay your character, that shouldn't matter.  When I RP ME2, neither Garrus/Thane/Jacob are interested in my FemShep...I don't even think about it as I play the game.  However, I still know they're options from a meta-perspective, but so what?

DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...
More to the point, however, there's no particular reason Bioware can't write an exclusively gay character if we think it's okay that they also write an exclusively straight character.

Gaider commented on this...they will not write exclusively gay characters.  Romances are already a small part of the game.   While a significant amount of fans do play the s/s content, those that play o/s content are in the majority and they will not add content that the majority can't see.  Plus, if they did something like this (say, make a lesbian only character), the complaining over "the hottest chick in the game being gay and not available for my dude character" would be epic.

Since they won't do this, it hardly seems fair to make exclusively straight characters, when it doesn't really take all that extra effort to make them open to both genders plus it's more inclusive and gives those that want an m/m or f/f romance more options.

Modifié par jlb524, 05 juillet 2011 - 07:44 .

[DaveExclamationMarkYognaut]

Siansonea II wrote...

So if we're campaigning to Stop Fanservice OMG, s/s human relationships are a really odd place to draw the line, in my opinion.

I'm actually drawing the line at the lack of exclusively s/s relationships. Bioware not including gay or lesbian characters in their games is kind of an issue considering that they pride themselves on inclusiveness.

Siansonea II wrote...

And Witcher 2 wasn't a dating sim, it was a soft-core porn sim. Yeah, THAT'S an improvement over Mass Effect's system. <_<

Cooper Lawrence? Is that you?

jlb524 wrote...

DaveExclamationMarkYognaut wrote...

Why not? That would be awesome.

Resources.

It
takes a trivial amount of resources to cut off paths based on your
choices, and adds a lot to the game in terms of responsiveness to player
decisions.