218 réponses à ce sujet

[Evil_medved]

You saw those femshep numbers? Like 25% play as her, right? So what do you expect.

[suusuuu]

blacqout wrote...

suusuuu wrote...

There's also the fact that 100% of love interests for male shepard look human.

For the female straight Shepard we get 50% non-human, one human and Jacob (eww)

After the OPs comparing white males to plantation owners, this comment is especially sad.

Jacob might have dark skin, but he is a human.

LOL I didn't even see that remark, I think you're reading too much into it. And into my post as well. I don't give a **** if he's black, asian or whatever. I just find him downright repulsive - if Vega was romanceable, he would end up right there, next to Jacob.

[MissOuJ]

bobobo878 wrote...

Jipped USED to be a racial slur, not so much anymore.  Hooligan, vandal, barbarian, and cannibal all used to be racial slurs too, but languages change.

No. It is still considered a racial slur by many in the several different Romani communities.

[CheeseEnchilada]

Evil_medved wrote...

You saw those femshep numbers? Like 25% play as her, right? So what do you expect.

To be able to continue the relationships that Bioware gave us in ME2 and not be told there's only two 'correct' male options?

[tenacious_err]

I actually disagree with this. The fact is the only "deep" romances, imo, are Kaidan/Ashley/Garrus/Tali/Liara. That makes the count nearly even. Cortez is a nice addition in ME3, and I think it's good that Kaidan is bisexual now. But if we do count the above as the deep romances then there's one for a gay male (two if we count Cortez, which feels like the most well-done romance that isn't the above,) one for a lesbian, two for straight women and three for straight men which isn't the worst thing in the world.

All of the ME2 romances besides Garrus and Tali were brief scenes that, I believe, could not get you the paramour achievement. Thane was dying. He tells you that right in ME2. The fact that there was a Thane romance at all seems like a fan service to me.

I mean I could feel this way because I was a Kaidan girl so I was happy with ME3, but honestly I just don't think that there are more options for males means that there are better options. The only truly unfair thing in my mind is Jacob's romance. On the one hand it's an interesting concept that someone didn't wait around for Shepard, but on the other I wish that feeling was at least paralleled (if not directly cheating then with someone moving on,) in a female character.

[Orthodox Infidel]

Verkir wrote...

Not to bash your point but I would just like to point something out.

Mass Effect in general is(was) about your choices, however you choices were also influenced by the events around you, namely the characters. The crew of the Normandy isn't that large even across all 3 games. My point is that if you find yourself as a female gamer who wants a different kind of man/girl to romance well that is just part of the plot. Your Shepard is going to be lonely because you aren't around anyone you might be attracted to.

Now I know that sounds like a mega cop out and it partially is but the bottom line is while you pilot your own Shepard the game characters around you pilot "their" own lives. I for one as a straight male would have absolutely loved to romance traynor, she is smart, doesn't look like an inbred monkey and funny but i wadn't dealt that hand.

I do agree though that more romance options would be nice but logistically that just a nightmare, million of people play, you can't make everyone 100% happy.

I agree with this, though I think the OP's post is also valid considering that characters were added to as romance options throughout the series specifically to pander to elements of the fanbase that wanted options not originally presented.

The primary reason Traynor and Cortez are in the game is to be homosexual romance options. I think their characterizations are done well enough that you can say they're not totally token gay characters, but if the writers dropped the ball on that, that's what most people would say about them because that's what they'd be. 

Plus a large part of why Tali and Garrus are romancable is because portions of the fan base wanted them to be romanceable, in spite of all of the difficulties this poses in universe for both species.

Ordinarily, I'd say that having character's sexuality change with regard to Shepard's desires would be silly. As a matter of fact, I've argued that before when someone suggested a "sexual orientation option" at character creation. But Bioware set people's expectations up by offering Thane, Jacob, and Garrus in addition to Kaidan, and by signalling that they would offer more if people asked for it loudly enough.

[dointime85]

To OP. I can see where you're coming from and believe you're right to some extent.

However, as someone who belongs to the group who they cater to the most, straight men, I still like to play roles with my characters who are different from my real self in terms of morals and towards romances as well.

1. playthrough: East-African looking (I myself am Caucasian) male Shep, ME1: Ashley-romance, ME2/3 Tali
2nd. White FemShep. ME1 Kaidan and stayed faithful in ME2. Flirted with Garrus but then decided it would be better to stay friends
3nd. After LotS, White FemShep (Renegon, others more pure Paragons), ME1+2 Liara.

And I found all of these playthroughs very enjoyable.

[Semi-Sweet Serpent Charmer]

suusuuu wrote...


Yeaaah, when I learned he was actually a love interest I had weird feels. And it really pissed me off that femshep couldn't talk to him normally. All paragon dialogue options for Jacob sounded like she was hitting on him In the end, I stopped talking to him altogether, because it was just weird.

LOL made me laugh. I had no option to be nice to him without hitting on him.  Or him thinking I was hitting on him.  Typical!   Obviously me being friendly towards Jacob means I want to sleep with him! I ended up breaking his heart the first chance I actually got ot say something that wasn't either "Lets make babies" or "I hate your face and want to stop on your testicles." 

[Semi-Sweet Serpent Charmer]

dointime85 wrote...

To OP. I can see where you're coming from and believe you're right to some extent.

However, as someone who belongs to the group who they cater to the most, straight men, I still like to play roles with my characters who are different from my real self in terms of morals and towards romances as well.

1. playthrough: East-African looking (I myself am Caucasian) male Shep, ME1: Ashley-romance, ME2/3 Tali
2nd. White FemShep. ME1 Kaidan and stayed faithful in ME2. Flirted with Garrus but then decided it would be better to stay friends
3nd. After LotS, White FemShep (Renegon, others more pure Paragons), ME1+2 Liara.

And I found all of these playthroughs very enjoyable.

I'm glad you did! You're one of the rare people that can play outside of your comfort zone.  I confess I don't play men anymore, as I used to have to play male characters all the time when I was younger. There used to not be a choice and now I like to think I'm making up for lost time Also, from the vids I've seen, Tali and Liaras romances are pretty awesomely written.  What did you think of how Kaiden was written?

[CheeseEnchilada]

tenacious_err wrote...

I actually disagree with this. The fact is the only "deep" romances, imo, are Kaidan/Ashley/Garrus/Tali/Liara. That makes the count nearly even. Cortez is a nice addition in ME3, and I think it's good that Kaidan is bisexual now. But if we do count the above as the deep romances then there's one for a gay male (two if we count Cortez, which feels like the most well-done romance that isn't the above,) one for a lesbian, two for straight women and three for straight men which isn't the worst thing in the world.

All of the ME2 romances besides Garrus and Tali were brief scenes that, I believe, could not get you the paramour achievement. Thane was dying. He tells you that right in ME2. The fact that there was a Thane romance at all seems like a fan service to me.

I mean I could feel this way because I was a Kaidan girl so I was happy with ME3, but honestly I just don't think that there are more options for males means that there are better options. The only truly unfair thing in my mind is Jacob's romance. On the one hand it's an interesting concept that someone didn't wait around for Shepard, but on the other I wish that feeling was at least paralleled (if not directly cheating then with someone moving on,) in a female character.

Except that Miranda and Jack both give you the Paramour achievement. The only two who don't get it are Jacob and Thane. The former's romance was just utterly butchered, and while I get that it's an interesting concept, the fact that they chose to do it to the least popular character and give little to no follow-up with Shepard's feelings makes me believe it's more a developer's choice to axe the relationship than a new-and-cool thing. And why is it that you can semi-rekindle the relationship with Thane, but no one bothers to mourn him and he doesn't get the Paramour achievement? Even if you didn't romance Thane, the fact that no one cares that he died is a little irritating. If you did...well, look at a romanced Miranda's optional death scene. There is so much more emotion in an optional scene if you fail to save her than there is in Thane's mandatory scene, romanced or not.

Basically what it comes down to is the idea that neither the Jacob nor Thane romance were considered 'flings', but it's how they were treated in the third game. For PS3 players, or for those who don't have any interest in Kaidan or Garrus, you're basically being told you picked the 'wrong' romance options. In a game about player choice, it's a disappointing revelation.

[Joy Sauce]

I agree. I would have liked a proper continuation of the Thane romance. And why wasn't Vega an option for femshep? I could bone Allers and Traynor but not Vega, and when the guy mercilessly hits on me throughout the game. Doesn't make sense to me.

[Orthodox Infidel]

I think it may be legitimate to not let players fully romance Thane in ME3, because he's established to have a terminal disease, so there's at least an expectation that he might not live long enough to make it to the next game.

There is no excuse for Jacob though. His character undergoes total derailment in ME3, and not just from the romance angle. I didn't romance him (I haven't gotten any of my female characters to ME2 yet), but I'd be legitimately angry that the man who was presented as being the most morally upright character on the squad in ME2 (yes, arguably even more than Samara), suddenly fell in love and got another woman pregnant in only the six months that were established to have passed since I saw Jacob last. Ludicrous.

[Zalitara]

Yeah, I agree females still get's screwed on stuff like this, DA does better I think, at least DA:O did. Straight males got Morrigan, and Lelianna. Gay males got Zevran. Straight Females got Alister and Zevran (I think he went both ways like that?) and gay females got Lelianna. So it was pretty 50/50 there, it's a shame Mass Effect didn't follow it up.

Edit: Going for Garrus as a femshep was actually my favorite romance, as a straight male. It was really well done I thought, and Garrus was just awesome. So I'd rank that above my romance with Liara and Ashley when I was playing a male shepard.

Modifié par Zalitara, 22 mars 2012 - 09:03 .

[Semi-Sweet Serpent Charmer]

Orthodox Infidel wrote...

I agree with this, though I think the OP's post is also valid considering that characters were added to as romance options throughout the series specifically to pander to elements of the fanbase that wanted options not originally presented.

The primary reason Traynor and Cortez are in the game is to be homosexual romance options. I think their characterizations are done well enough that you can say they're not totally token gay characters, but if the writers dropped the ball on that, that's what most people would say about them because that's what they'd be. 

Plus a large part of why Tali and Garrus are romancable is because portions of the fan base wanted them to be romanceable, in spite of all of the difficulties this poses in universe for both species.

Ordinarily, I'd say that having character's sexuality change with regard to Shepard's desires would be silly. As a matter of fact, I've argued that before when someone suggested a "sexual orientation option" at character creation. But Bioware set people's expectations up by offering Thane, Jacob, and Garrus in addition to Kaidan, and by signalling that they would offer more if people asked for it loudly enough.

Yeah I'm not sure on the sexual orientation option either, as sexual orientation seems to be such a huge part of a characters identity and what makes them who they are.  I could be wrong, as it could only be a big part of someone's identity because our society makes such a huge deal about it, (and obviously no one in BioWare's game worlds do) but it would seem that if your sexual identity is a part of who you are from birth then it's not something that can just change without the characters identity changing as well.  Who knows?  I think BioWare does a pretty good job of handling bisexual characters, although sometimes it feels a bit off coming from some characters more so than others. 

I do remember the push to make Tali and Garrus romaceable and imo they're the best two romances you can have; I think because of the connections they have with their own different races and how they not only add to Shepard story as a LI but how they also add to the plot of ME with their ties to the Quarian and the Turian.  Go Inter species relations!

and I think since BioWare is a company that listens to fans (Tali and Garrus great examples) that if we do say 'WTF" to the addition of even more romanceable options for a majority who already has a ton, maybe they'll actually put some dev time into decent romances (maybe less of them, I wouldn't mind that) that are of higher quality for both genders and all manner of sexual orientations, instead of 6 romances for just one group. 

[Nefelius]

Ow, Jesus, next thing you'll want to complain about will be lack of LI for a necrophile.
This is a SCi-FI action game not a reality show.

[iorveth1271]

Everyone aside from Straight MaleShep got a bit of a bad share with the romances really.

Straight FemShep would have Kaidan, which works, Thane, who dies, Garrus, who's genetically incompatible and Jacob, who cheats on you. Except for Kaidan, all of them kinda sucky really.

****** FemShep would have Liara which works out and Kelly Chambers, who is having a rather short romance (and the cameo looks sucky in ME3 imo) and Traynor, who had a, well... okay romance.

And MaleShep... He had Ashley, which works perfectly, Liara which works perfectly, even Kaidan which worked out. Then Tali which has the same problem as Garrus with the DNA, Miranda (who's romance turned out a bit weak in ME3) and Jack (matter of taste). And then Cortez, which I thought was okay, if that's the kinda thing you're into.

But either way, it seemed to me that the FemSheps got an unfair share there. Might just be me though

[MissOuJ]

Orthodox Infidel wrote...

I think it may be legitimate to not let players fully romance Thane in ME3, because he's established to have a terminal disease, so there's at least an expectation that he might not live long enough to make it to the next game.

There is no excuse for Jacob though. His character undergoes total derailment in ME3, and not just from the romance angle. I didn't romance him (I haven't gotten any of my female characters to ME2 yet), but I'd be legitimately angry that the man who was presented as being the most morally upright character on the squad in ME2 (yes, arguably even more than Samara), suddenly fell in love and got another woman pregnant in only the six months that were established to have passed since I saw Jacob last. Ludicrous.

Totally agree with this. Thane we knew was living on borrowed time, but Jacob's retcon was just painful. It's almost funny how people were all "Making Kaidan a s/s option will ruin his characterisation! It'll be forced!" and then this happends.

If only they'd made Vega a romance option. I started to almost like him during the course of the game...

[Semi-Sweet Serpent Charmer]

MissOuJ wrote...

bobobo878 wrote...

Jipped USED to be a racial slur, not so much anymore.  Hooligan, vandal, barbarian, and cannibal all used to be racial slurs too, but languages change.

No. It is still considered a racial slur by many in the several different Romani communities.

I did have a gypsy steal from me when I was in Athens last summer. does that mean I can use it? 

Just kidding. Thanks for the heads up and I'll find another less offensive word to use in it's place! 

[Sifr]

I personally would have liked the option to start a romance with Tali and Garrus in 3. I mean, if they were going to hook up at the last minute, why wasn't Shepard allowed to do so, but you could with Liara?

Maybe Tali got over her crush on Male Shep, but still I found myself thinking;

"Hey! I gave you back your homeworld! Garrus wanted to throw ROCKS at it!"

[Semi-Sweet Serpent Charmer]

hazarkazra wrote...

The only thing you're showing with that graph is that more woman play then underage boys. Unless you are trying to say this game is targeting teenage boys it's a pretty irrelevant graph.

If you'll look at the graph closely, you'll see the pie chart is an overall percentage of straight up gender differences.  The quote below is a further breakdown of this information, mentioning that more adult women play than more teenage boys.   They mention this because teenage boys used to be the main demographic for video games.  (i.e. now we're all just older )  and it's now a point of interest that they no longer are.   This is why the numbers below the pie chart are different than the percentages in it, because they're simply breaking down the information further.

Graphs are sometimes hard to read, and the pdf this one comes out of is a mother. Yeesh!

Modifié par Short Cake Slayer, 22 mars 2012 - 09:10 .

[Semi-Sweet Serpent Charmer]

Sifr1449 wrote...

I personally would have liked the option to start a romance with Tali and Garrus in 3. I mean, if they were going to hook up at the last minute, why wasn't Shepard allowed to do so, but you could with Liara?

Maybe Tali got over her crush on Male Shep, but still I found myself thinking;

"Hey! I gave you back your homeworld! Garrus wanted to throw ROCKS at it!"

RIGHT? I hear if those two are not romanced by ME3 they hook up with each other  Scouts honor.

[Renzor004]

huh what? vega isnt a romance option?
really? that surprises me. how come he isnt for straight females?



also, i think it's a good thing what they did with jacob (and the whole cheating thing if you romanced him).
it kind of makes the whole game seem more real and believable imo. i kind of wish there would have been a female equivalent so that male sheps can feel the burn too. would have been good if they did it with miranda actually...

[Odd Bet]

CheeseEnchilada wrote...
And why is it that you can semi-rekindle the relationship with Thane, but no one bothers to mourn him and he doesn't get the Paramour achievement? Even if you didn't romance Thane, the fact that no one cares that he died is a little irritating. If you did...well, look at a romanced Miranda's optional death scene. There is so much more emotion in an optional scene if you fail to save her than there is in Thane's mandatory scene, romanced or not.

Patrick Weekes discussed this a bit on his blog. He attributed it to the fact that the team was so focused on dealing with reactions to the potential death of the VS (if you shot them in the confrontation) and the fact that Thane may not even have been encountered in ME3. Basically, he admitted that they neglected to address the issue of Shepard having potentially lost a lover/close friend, but said that it was not intentional.

[dointime85]

Short Cake Slayer wrote...

dointime85 wrote...

To OP. I can see where you're coming from and believe you're right to some extent.

However, as someone who belongs to the group who they cater to the most, straight men, I still like to play roles with my characters who are different from my real self in terms of morals and towards romances as well.

1. playthrough: East-African looking (I myself am Caucasian) male Shep, ME1: Ashley-romance, ME2/3 Tali
2nd. White FemShep. ME1 Kaidan and stayed faithful in ME2. Flirted with Garrus but then decided it would be better to stay friends
3nd. After LotS, White FemShep (Renegon, others more pure Paragons), ME1+2 Liara.

And I found all of these playthroughs very enjoyable.

I'm glad you did! You're one of the rare people that can play outside of your comfort zone.  I confess I don't play men anymore, as I used to have to play male characters all the time when I was younger. There used to not be a choice and now I like to think I'm making up for lost time Also, from the vids I've seen, Tali and Liaras romances are pretty awesomely written.  What did you think of how Kaiden was written?

Thanks.

I have yet to start the continuation of my second playthrough in ME3 (stupid final exams), so I don't yet. But what just came to my mind that my perhaps most emotional romance-moment in any Bioware game was when I romanced Alistair in DA:O with my female Wizard. I made him King and arranged a marriage to Anora for the sake of the kingdom. First, Alistair breaking up with my character was tough already (I hadn't expected it) but even more sad was when he did not let me strike that killing blow against the Archdemon afterwards because of our previous romance. That was really such an incredibly well-written scene, so moving because it created in me such a mixture of feelings. I was moved because his sacrifice proved he loved my character, yet still so angry with him for taking the cheap route out of his responsibilities as a king.

So yeah, I can get heavily invested in a story even if it involves romancing a man. :happy:

[Renzor004]

Short Cake Slayer wrote...

Sifr1449 wrote...

I personally would have liked the option to start a romance with Tali and Garrus in 3. I mean, if they were going to hook up at the last minute, why wasn't Shepard allowed to do so, but you could with Liara?

Maybe Tali got over her crush on Male Shep, but still I found myself thinking;

"Hey! I gave you back your homeworld! Garrus wanted to throw ROCKS at it!"

RIGHT? I hear if those two are not romanced by ME3 they hook up with each other  Scouts honor.

wait what?! garrus and tali hook up if you dont romance them? i must see a vid of this! i mean i remember them getting friendly and chatting on the normandy, but i didnt know they'd go so far as to romance each other :X


if that's the case... then i'd really rather choose to romance Jack and have tali and garrus get together i think...