218 réponses à ce sujet

[Whailor]

Personally I don't care. I find that the males are getting, for the lack of a better word, "oppressed" anyway, so some female romance options are a moot point. I do not like how BW in their latest games tends to ridicule or downplay males. Males in many occasions are being shown in several of BW's latest titles as some clueless and dumb people, or people who always make the clueless and dumb choices, and then there's some female who "sets the things straight". What nonsense. And this cry for romance? Has any of you actually PLAYED a male Shepard before claiming anything? I bet not. Because if you had, then you'd know that:

1) Miranda as a "love interest": has pretty much no role whatsoever in ME3 so a lost cause;
2) Kelly Chambers: totally minor role, some jabbering in some dark corner and soon will be removed from the game;
3) Ashley: let's see, in beginning she's paranoid about Shep's "Cerberus past", then she's gone from the game for a while and later when she comes back, she's as useful socially as Zaeed was in ME2, that is she just quips some one-liners in her room, with an occasional "movie" in couple of places. Almost like a lost cause, I can't even believe what was the point to keep her as the "love interest" since ME1;
4) Tali: comes in pretty late in the game and doesn't do much anything either, some general chat and one liners and done;

Only char with whom male Shep has more dialogue options is Liara. Basically of ALL of the options what male Shep has, SINCE ME1, only Liara seems to have any point at all. Every other char is reduced to a pointless sideliner, is almost not used at all, or is killed. So don't say that only your options are limited, so are they for male Shep.

[Neeh]

I'm suprised there was no possible Vega action. Atleast with all that flirting going on now and then..

I was actually careful around him, not to say something wrong and give him the wrong idea. Didn't want to upset my LI.

[gamestress]

Well first of all my RL sexual orientation has nothing to do with the choices my characters make. I'm an old RPer from way back. I have a straight FemShep, who (thank goodness) was faithful to Kaiden, whom I adore. I want to go back and create a Garrus romantic interest as well to bring over (a shame I have to retro fit an LI). I also have a straight and gay maleshep. I happen to think Cortez is awesome. Now..all that being said..

Hell yea it should all be even! Why, oh why.. wasn't James created as a LI? He might come off as a meat head type, but I think there could be more to him that only an LI could discover. And if you make Kaidan swing both ways, why not Ash? (tho she annoys the hell outta me, and her new plumpy shiny lips don't help matters much..lol)

I've always seen BW as a bit of a pioneer in evening out the playing field of fem/male interests. They were the first to make attractive male characters (that I noticed anyway), instead of just focusing on hawt female characters to placate the majority of their audience. And i think in the process they picked up a lot of female fans. But yea, they are back sliding a bit!

[ravene]

the facts are bioware droped the ball big time on ME3 all the way around the auto dilog alal Zaeed for most of the game i never talked to zaeed or kasummi for this verry reason in 2, was anoying and took away the choice for alot of the game do i want to just walk up and click on someone to hear what they have to say or do i want to talk to them and have a choice what my char says since its game that has been marketed on chocie.

I wont go into details its been posted over and over but i will say i can't see how bioware though any of this was a good idea on the romance department for eather male of femshep but out of the 2 at least malesheps dident have to deal with scripted death you have the option of keeping all your li alive and staring new ones in 3, where as femsheps get being cheeted on dumped and then having salt poured on that open wound with the new gf's talk with shep, and no new lI if you didnet keep kaidan alive threw 1 and 3 so for straight femsheps who dont have kaidan they are forever alone.

Modifié par ravene, 13 mars 2012 - 05:31 .

[Babizokahh]

Whailor wrote...

Personally I don't care. I find that the males are getting, for the lack of a better word, "oppressed" anyway, so some female romance options are a moot point. I do not like how BW in their latest games tends to ridicule or downplay males. Males in many occasions are being shown in several of BW's latest titles as some clueless and dumb people, or people who always make the clueless and dumb choices, and then there's some female who "sets the things straight". What nonsense. And this cry for romance? Has any of you actually PLAYED a male Shepard before claiming anything? I bet not. Because if you had, then you'd know that:

1) Miranda as a "love interest": has pretty much no role whatsoever in ME3 so a lost cause;
2) Kelly Chambers: totally minor role, some jabbering in some dark corner and soon will be removed from the game;
3) Ashley: let's see, in beginning she's paranoid about Shep's "Cerberus past", then she's gone from the game for a while and later when she comes back, she's as useful socially as Zaeed was in ME2, that is she just quips some one-liners in her room, with an occasional "movie" in couple of places. Almost like a lost cause, I can't even believe what was the point to keep her as the "love interest" since ME1;
4) Tali: comes in pretty late in the game and doesn't do much anything either, some general chat and one liners and done;

Only char with whom male Shep has more dialogue options is Liara. Basically of ALL of the options what male Shep has, SINCE ME1, only Liara seems to have any point at all. Every other char is reduced to a pointless sideliner, is almost not used at all, or is killed. So don't say that only your options are limited, so are they for male Shep.

I agree with some of your points, even tho i'm a girl, but what you said goes for both Fem an Male sheps. I got to the point that i wished i had romanced Garrus instead of being faithfull to Kaidan. I hate the fact that we have no interactions at all with most of outr LI. I never played as a MaleShep, yet, and i can't say about their treatment, but i do know abou femshep and it's not satisfatory, at least during gameplay. sure, the final scenes are cute, but still, it lacks interactions before that. When you talk to Kaidan most times he says something random like "i have to finish this report". Seriously? Shep is the love of your life and you don't wanna talk to her because you have reports to do? cmon. and that goes for most squadmates. It just seems like the biggest problem is that most characters seems to have grown apart from Shepard, even after 3 games. And that makes most of the romances kind of pointless, for both Male and Female Sheps.

[Mara281]

Glad to hear some great arguements in here Yes, the language in my starting post is hard. Yes, it is meant to be that way. It's an arguementative essay, creating a stir is the point. Making a big fuss is the point. And no it's not necessarily JUST about the romance in the game. For me, I love Kaidan's and Garrus' romances the best, but it's not about how I play the game personally. It's about the principle of giving less to a female audience that they've built a fan base with. It's about BW marketing to us SPECIFICALLY for, as far as I know, the first time - raising our hopes for ME3 and then afterwards giving us less out of our game than they gave to the guys. We payed just as much money, anticipated the game just as much, have followed BW with the previous games as well and then out of the blue, they decide that we weren't worth the same amount of time and effort as manshep?

We already have to deal with the fact that the story was written mainly for manshep and that femshep's body and movements are simply superimposed over the manshep model. BW gave to female players at least a more equal ground with relationships in their recent previous games. BW had held to standard that I've come to expect from them and I buy their games because they have continued to grow in a positive direction. Because their previous games showed me that here is a company that cares about its female players. Here is a company that cares about its minority players (as evident that I don't have to play a white girl, I can actually choose my skin color to reflect me). Here is a company that will treat me like a valued customer. I expect more of BW because they gave us more. But when man shep has as many guys to romance as straight fem shep, and straight manshep has 3 times as many gals to romance as hetero fem... that looks like one hell of a problem if you ask me. That looks like taking one step forward and two steps back.

Also the dress is not the same in ME3 as in ME2 (at least not on the XBOX). BW completely oversexualizes females in all it's games, but because they oversexualize the men too in the same regard, that's fine. The issue with the dress isn't only that subjectively I think it makes FemShep look like she's working in the red light district, but that it's a COPY of Diana Allers dress as well, as far as I can tell on my system. ManShep gets a unique, classy outfit and FemShep get a copy? That is still lesser treatment, no matter what our opinions of the dress are. The biggest issue for me now is how this turn will affect FUTURE games and not just how they effect ME3. Because I don't know about the rest of you, but I really don't want BioWare to pull this crap again in DA3 or a future saga. They WERE moving forward. And I feel it's a responsibility for customers and fans to nip these trends in the butt before they start getting the idea that female game players don't matter that much.

Modifié par Mara281, 13 mars 2012 - 06:26 .

[KylieDog]

I want to know why Kaiden was made Bi but not Ashley. If gonna change one change the other also. They better fix this in DLC.

I decided my femshep is gay, my choices throughout the series:

ME1 - Nobody, aliens do not count.
ME2 - The side character joke that is Kelly and more aliens
ME3 - Crappy side characters, more jokes like Kelly, aliens.

A gay maleshep had the same problems, but now they fixed that with Kaiden in ME3...but not Ashley for women.

Modifié par KylieDog, 13 mars 2012 - 06:36 .

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

I have about a dozen plays with about 1/3 of them hetero female, 3/12 of them bi-female, 1 hetero male, and 1/3 of them lesbian. The Virmire choice was build based in many cases, so soldier Shepard left Ash behind, and squishy Shepard left Kaiden behind... usually. This of course made the bed, pardon the pun, for the LIs in the games.

My r/l sexual orientation has nothing to do with my orientation in game.

And... do I dare say it.... do I say what has gone unsaid... yes because I've hit the age where I say stuff just because I don't care what people think about anymore.....

.....Then I think about the stuff I've heard guys talk about two women love scenes, and it gets me thinking if THIS is the pandering that was done. Say it ain't so. Please say it ain't so.

[Anny78]

KMYash wrote...

If I remember correctly I heard that Garrus is only romance-able if you do some in ME2. So lets say you killed Kaidan in ME1 and didn't romance Garrus in 2 or killed him. You now have, let's count them. ZERO male love interests for Femshep.
...
 

True.

Also: if you create a new char in ME3 (=no import) a straight Fem!Shep has only the option to romance Kaidan (if he's alive). Garrus has no romance option at all same as Vega, Joker turns you down (and ends up with EDI), Jacob has a pregnant girlfriend and Thane is not in the game at all.

[Spiffy McBang]

To address a couple of the complaints about this thread...

1) Men as mindless clods: Cortez does not do this. Neither does Javik, Mordin, Garrus, Adams, Anderson, Hackett, shall I go on? Donnelly is a little goofy, but you hardly see him and there's nothing anyone has to "fix". Vega is treated much better in the brainpower department than marines often are in entertainment media, and to the extent he behaves like a meathead it's Shepard putting things right, so if you play a male Shepard the "females fix it" idea doesn't apply. Same with TIM and who has to fix everything he's done to screw the galaxy. Wrex is Wrex, and Wrex is awesome no matter how many objectively silly things he does- plus he's the leader of all krogan and clearly one of their smarter guys, which is something of a bonus to balance his negative traits, no? Conrad's back, but he's been the series moron from the start.  The only thing that really approaches this situation is the Quarian admiral who can't get his dick off the trigger, and Tali's open-mindedness is a large part of why the quarians and geth end up collaborating (if you go that route).

If you want to complain that women never do this silly stuff, that's true, as far as I can tell. But men are not routinely treated as buffoons; if that's all you see from them, I think you might be a little too used these positive traits existing for them in every other game that has male characters in it. The things they do right drastically outweigh the things they do wrong, and if anything could fix the problem, it's the same thing that would fix the romance issue some of us have about our FemSheps- stick in a few more male characters. (Playing as FemShep, regardless of how you perceive anyone's behavior, it did seem like I was dealing with 70% women.)

(Edit: I actually think the lack of women in the game ever being anything but kickass is arguably not good for female characters.  But it's a smaller point relative to the more obvious inequalities, so I'm somewhat loath to hold forth on the topic.) 

2) Would we complain if the numbers were 8 LIs for FemShep and 5 for ManShep? I don't know if complain is the word. But if you would be unhappy with that state of affairs, then you damn well should complain, and I'm pretty certain few, if any, of us in this thread would tell you to pipe down and suck it up. We'd be right there saying, hey, this guy has a point.

Modifié par Spiffy McBang, 13 mars 2012 - 08:43 .

[noxsachi]

I said this in the other thread about FemShep's lack of LI's but I really feel that that in general FemShep is just let down on all fronts. You mention the s/s options, but well Allers has no content at all and is utterly a fling, and while I do adore Sam, she lacks compared to Cortez, and as usual BW fails to make non squadmate romance equal to squadmate ones.

I think the only gain that FemShep has over M!Shep is that she actually says "I love you" to Kaidan, but in every other aspect there are far fewer choices, and what you do get are not as developed as M!Sheps.

[MartialArtsMaster]

I should point out, if it's any consolation, that it's not true that Garrus and Shepard can't have sex without being put in danger.

What Mordin actually said was, don't ingest. That means they can't kiss using their tongues, nor can Shepard stimulate Garrus' male organ with her mouth, nor can Garrus stimulate Shepard's female organ with his mouth.

They should still be able to have vaginal and/or anal intercourse, since neither of those sexual activities requires ingesting.

So female Shepards didn't get COMPLETELY screwed over.

[22percent]

Bluumberry wrote...
I don't get why people are so upset over Thane's romance. I'd understand if it's because it was out of character, but most seem to be crying since he dies. You knew he was dying in ME2.

Anyway I personally was really happy with what we were given (maybe biased since I adored the Garrus romance) but seeing this rage leaves me really puzzled.

And I don't get how people don't get why Thane fans are upset. For someone who was just a friend to Thane, his story was well done. But if you romanced him, it was all treated poorly. The thread "Protesting the Poor Treatment of Thane Krios' Romance" has a lot of good reasons if you're curious about it:  social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/325/index/9749360/17

My problems with how the romance was treated:
- He dies way too early for someone who romanced him (I was expecting him to die near the end of the game)
- You only get one short conversation with him before he dies
- No paramour achievement
- The death scene has very little difference between a friend Shep and romanced Shep
- Shepard doesn't even tell Thane she loves him or kisses him when he's dying (like you can with a romanced Miranda if she dies)
- No one on the Normandy even acknowledges Thane's death afterwards and talk about the VS instead

Also, if you look through that thread, you will see people throwing this gem of a quote around:

Patrick Weekes' livejournal said:

Yeah, I wasn't in charge of Thane, but I see Thane's death situation as one of those things that's the drawback of a large writing team. Lots of followers talk about the Citadel Event in terms of what happens with the VS, but because Thane was optional, it didn't click with any of us that the player could also have just lost a friend or loved one THERE as well. That was a dropped ball on our end.

So even Bioware acknowledges that Thane's romance wasn't treated well.

[PrinceLionheart]

Whailor wrote...

Personally I don't care. I find that the males are getting, for the lack of a better word, "oppressed" anyway, so some female romance options are a moot point. I do not like how BW in their latest games tends to ridicule or downplay males. Males in many occasions are being shown in several of BW's latest titles as some clueless and dumb people, or people who always make the clueless and dumb choices, and then there's some female who "sets the things straight". What nonsense:

Wait whut? Can you provide some examples because I've yet to experience any of this?

[shadey]

KelaSaar wrote...

I think part of what really burns is that Bioware actively took away love interests from FemShep. Thane was always going to die, but they certainly could have fleshed out the romantic aspect a lot more before he died, and there was absolutely no excuse for Jacob to do what he did. It didn't fit his character and it wasn't needed for the story. I think if they had left these two guys in, things would have felt much more even.

well jacob was the least liked character, they probably thought it wasn't worth it making anything more of it due to how few people would see it.

anyway it makes sense at least one character wasn't just standing around twiddling their thumbs waiting for shepard but moved on with their life and found love elsewhere. So it just happened to be jacob, shepard has the option of leaving LI's made in the first and second game for other people so other people do as well

Modifié par shadey, 14 mars 2012 - 12:54 .

[Spiffy McBang]

PrinceLionheart wrote...

Whailor wrote...

Personally I don't care. I find that the males are getting, for the lack of a better word, "oppressed" anyway, so some female romance options are a moot point. I do not like how BW in their latest games tends to ridicule or downplay males. Males in many occasions are being shown in several of BW's latest titles as some clueless and dumb people, or people who always make the clueless and dumb choices, and then there's some female who "sets the things straight". What nonsense:

Wait whut? Can you provide some examples because I've yet to experience any of this?

It's pretty much a bogus claim.  As I said a little further up, I don't recall any of the women in the game acting in a particularly foolish manner at any point, so technically you could read into that as "only the guys ever look stupid". But frankly, the guys do it so infrequently that it serves more to flesh out those characters than make them look bad.  Besides, how many times in gaming history have men had to save the silly women that got themselves in trouble without showing any type of flaws themselves?  If the tables are turned once in a while, suck it up.  It's going to be a long time before the number of games where women pull men out of the fire equals those where the boys save the girls.

Modifié par Spiffy McBang, 14 mars 2012 - 06:20 .

[Carfax]

Mara281 wrote...

That girls are just eye candy and guys need MORE romances when THEY play femshep to live out their own lesbian wet dreams? That your female fan base is not important to you except in only the most base manner? Or maybe it’s that we are so beneath your notice anymore that you can completely abandon female equality in one of your biggest and most anticipated games ever. What a statement.

I don't see why you're so surprised.  At most, females comprise about 10% of the Mass Effect consumer base.  You really expect them to cater to women the same way they cater to guys, who are 90% of their consumers?

If you're wondering how I arrived at 10%, I merely halved the supposed 20% (or 18% I should say) of FemShep players in ME2.  The other FemShep players are guys, the weak beta male types that prefer to play as a woman.  You can thank them for the extra F/F romances that made their way into ME3. 
 
Lesbian gamers lucked out I suppose, since so many men have an unhealthy fixation with girl on girl stuff..  If it wasn't for that, they would have gotten nothing most likely seeing as they're the smallest minority of gamers.

One thing I do support you on though, is having James Vega be a full fledged LI for FemShep.  For the life of me I don't understand why Bioware didn't make Vega an LI FemShep, since he's such a great masculine character.....an almost radical departure from the more sensitive masculine characters like Alistair and Kaidan that Bioware loves to push on it's female fan base.

[vengerturtle]

It was really, really obvious that ME3 was written with a straight male gamer in mind, for the most part. You take EDI's sexbot design, Ashley's makeover which was explicitly stated to be "to make her sexier", the lack of romance options for femShep (a symptom, imo, that other things were put first), half of the "armor" options...all of it speaks to designing the game for a certain type of audience. Hell even look at Miranda's catsuit design in ME2 - Miranda gets downgraded to cameo status and Ashley suddenly gets an ultra sexy makeover for when she appears in the trailers. None of it was coincidence, really. They added multiplayer to appeal to the COD crowd; is it any wonder that the rest of the game reeks of pandering to straight dudes? That's who they were trying to appeal to.

That being said, they did a lot of good things - imo the Kaidan s/s romance is great and Steve and Samantha are great characters - but yeah, this is the game in the series where it was most blatant who they were pandering to.

Modifié par missnicolec, 14 mars 2012 - 09:31 .

[rolson00]

missnicolec wrote...

It was really, really obvious that ME3 was written with a straight male gamer in mind, for the most part. You take EDI's sexbot design, Ashley's makeover which was explicitly stated to be "to make her sexier", the lack of romance options for femShep (a symptom, imo, that other things were put first), half of the "armor" options...all of it speaks to designing the game for a certain type of audience. Hell even look at Miranda's catsuit design in ME2 - Miranda gets downgraded to cameo status and Ashley suddenly gets an ultra sexy makeover for when she appears in the trailers. None of it was coincidence, really. They added multiplayer to appeal to the COD crowd; is it any wonder that the rest of the game reeks of pandering to straight dudes? That's who they were trying to appeal to.

That being said, they did a lot of good things - imo the Kaidan s/s romance is great and Steve and Samantha are great characters - but yeah, this is the game in the series where it was most blatant who they were pandering to.

Yes, yes, a cause, not a symptom,*breaths in deeply*  problematic

[Spiffy McBang]

Carfax wrote...

I don't see why you're so surprised.  At most, females comprise about 10% of the Mass Effect consumer base.  You really expect them to cater to women the same way they cater to guys, who are 90% of their consumers?

They've done it before.  If that sort of equal treatment wasn't expected, this would be chalked up to the gaming industry just doing what it does.  Bioware has proven they can do better, and much of the problem stems from the fact they failed when they've previously succeeded.

If you're wondering how I arrived at 10%, I merely halved the supposed 20% (or 18% I should say) of FemShep players in ME2.  The other FemShep players are guys, the weak beta male types that prefer to play as a woman.  You can thank them for the extra F/F romances that made their way into ME3. 

While only a man with the extreme testicular fortitude you possess can handle playing almost the exact same game with a worse voice actor and all the video game fantasy girls you can handle, I'm sure.

[SilentK]

I would be very happy for at least one more male LI for FemShep =)

Never romanced Garrus in ME2 so at the moment it's only Kaidan. I love Liara and have romanced her but I prefer to romance guys. I'm hoping that Vega will be a LI later on or that there will be some dlc-char to fix this later on. After this PT in ME3 I'll make a new ME2-PT to get Garrus. Have loved playing ME3 so I want to see the Garrus romance but that should not be the only way to get another man than Kaidan. Who I love and boy is his romance great.

On a funnier note:

FemShep(that didn't romance Garrus in ME2), Liara and Vega walks towards the airlocks.
Liara: How come you never bring Kaidan to any missions? I thought that you would be happy to have him back on the ship?
FemShep: And risk anything happening to the last male LI in the galaxy, no way! Kaidan ain't getting of the Normandy, ever!
The camera pans over the Normandy, Kaidan is seen looking out of the windows, longingly.

edit: spelling fail

Modifié par SilentK, 14 mars 2012 - 11:03 .

[llandwynwyn]

While I think ME suffers from too much romance, it's unfair dudebros get extra options.

MartialArtsMaster wrote...
So female Shepards didn't get COMPLETELY screwed.

Indeed.

[Mara281]

MartialArtsMaster wrote...

I should point out, if it's any consolation, that it's not true that Garrus and Shepard can't have sex without being put in danger.

What Mordin actually said was, don't ingest. That means they can't kiss using their tongues, nor can Shepard stimulate Garrus' male organ with her mouth, nor can Garrus stimulate Shepard's female organ with his mouth.

They should still be able to have vaginal and/or anal intercourse, since neither of those sexual activities requires ingesting.

So female Shepards didn't get COMPLETELY screwed over.

Mordin also mentions chaffing, and I'm pretty sure that would hurt

Modifié par Mara281, 14 mars 2012 - 06:35 .