22 réponses à ce sujet

[Blacklash93]

I'm going to get my views on the "all bi" method of LGBT companions and romances out of the way right here.

I think they should make characters with defined sexualities. Bioware games are story-heavy and often charcter-driven and the company has said on the record multiple times that games *can* be on par with movies and books in storytelling. If that's the goal and style they desire then making character traits subject to the players' whims isn't going to fly.

That's the only reason I oppose the all bi thing. Developers with certain things in mind are usually better suited to approach things a particular way. Realism is quite relevant in these cases. Not for all, mind you, as there are a few games where lifting restrictions even at the cost of believability is appropriate. Just not here.

Under that premise, I'd like to make notes about how Bioware could better handle its LGBT dealings in its stories without expanding its romances in this way, thus the title. Pointing out a few trappings and patterns Bioware is falling into or may be falling into for these characters is a good place to start. Things like:

1) Making LGBT companions and/or interaction with them optional. Zevran and Leliana/Fenris and Isabela (if DA2 didn't do the all bi thing the bi companions would have been them) were completely optional in every way especially compared to their romantic counterparts who were mandatory in recruitment and could not leave or be killed until near the end of the story.

2) Making LGBT companions and their conflicts removed from the main story. Arguably inverted with Merrill and Isabela, but it remains true for everyone else. Zevran, Leliana, and Fenris had nothing about them that was or became relevant to the main story. While Alistair, Morrigan, and Anders did very much so.

3) Cliche or Sterotypical Personalities and Backstories. I loved Zevran and Isabela and they are some of my favorite characters in DA, but their promiscuous nature and fetishized tastes in sex pretty much painted them as your run-of-the-mill bisexual in entertainment. Leliana, while also among my favorite characters, was a (defintely more interesting and tasteful) variant of the psycho lesbian. Fenris is probably the stand-out here in terms of personality, but I believe it was said that he suffered sexual abuse from Danarius and we all know that story. [Merrill and Anders would have been straight if all romancable companions weren't bi in DA2 as I said before so I'm not counting them.]

Now don't read me as saying Bioware should avoid these things altogether as they'd just be falling into other predictable patterns and that's not something we want in any shape or form. Nor am I saying the DA dev team is necessarily falling into these patterns as with only two installments you can't really tell for sure. This is just advice bringing attention to tropes I fear they could be falling into.

Also maybe they could create more LGBT NPCs in the world that are not in your party. Orgins had Herren and Wade, no-name prostitutes, Branka and Hespith, and Isabela. DA2 just had no-name prostitutes and Serendipity. I also think one of the books had a gay couple. That's all I can remember. But it would be cool to see more LGBT characters outside your party at least above DA2.

[Allan Schumacher]

I was initially reserved about the idea that all the companions would be bisexual in DA2, until I realized two things:

1) I don't actually know what life is like in Thedas
2) In DA2, some are not explicitly bisexual, but rather you can only conclude that knowledge based on metagaming. Anders, for instance, doesn't make any references to the time he spent with Karl if the PC is female.

Point #2 is more about slightly changing the NPCs based upon PC sex. Now some might still think that's stupid or whatever, but I think if we're going to make romanceable NPCs available to all players regardless of PC gender, this is a good solution to it.

[David Gaider]

MKDAWUSS wrote...
Personally, for DA3, I'd rather have no LIs period. In fact, they should shoot you down should you try to advance on them.

That certainly does get tempting after reading a thread like this, where one would almost come to the conclusion that the entire point of the game is to romance someone. Anyone. Everyone.

Inevitably this means that, no matter what we do, someone will be unhappy and come to the forums to declare that's not realistic/not why they play the game/not done as well as it should be/was done better in some other game... well, such is life on the Internet, I suppose.

Modifié par David Gaider, 05 juin 2012 - 11:15 .

[Allan Schumacher]

MKDAWUSS wrote...

Personally, for DA3, I'd rather have no LIs period. In fact, they should shoot you down should you try to advance on them.

I'm actually not against this idea either, but I think I don't think it'd be very well received by our core.

[Allan Schumacher]

As someone who quit TOR because of it's lack of SGRA all I can say is, don't you even dare think about doing this.

Do you think it would have made as big of a difference had TOR not had any romances at all?

[David Gaider]

joshko wrote...
But this leads me to wonder... Are threads like these helpful to the devs, with the exchange of ideas and proposed ways of implementing something?

It depends. This particular romance topic has been discussed to death-- and the only idea which ends up being arrived at is that the only acceptable solution is to include twice the number of romanceable characters with options for everyone, and that the individual romances should have twice the content so they can react to everything.

Which is not very helpful, I'm afraid, and from a dev perspective it's where proposed solutions from the community tend to break down. They don't take into account the realistic limitations that we must contend with-- and I'm not sure how they could, as they've no idea what those limitations are (or reject the idea that such limitations should exist in the first place).

Then, when we say "we can't do that", the discussion changes to how we should thus do it this way or that way-- all based on a poster's individual preferences. The part where it gets annoying is when a poster starts condescendingly speaking to other posters (as well as us) about how their preference is the only one that should be considered, how it's objectively better, how other games did it to their satisfaction, how the majority clearly falls on their side and everyone who disagrees with them is irrelevant/stupid/unworthy/etc. Which is pretty much par for the course in any forum, but not particularly persuasive... and it doesn't make a dev want to spend time out of their day to come read it, that's for sure.

And what is really, the best way to communicate to the devs different ideas, impleminations, and inspirations, of the fans?

Be polite. Talk about the things you know-- what you personally liked, how it made you feel, what you'd like to see and why (with respect to those who might not agree). Report your feelings and observations without trying to draw your own conclusions (meaning "I felt x and y, therefore z is the cause and must change!" -- x and y are helpful observations, z is subjective and possibly completely incorrect and even if neither of those are true it might not be something we can or want to change anyhow). Be friendly-- because, surprise! Human beings tend to stop listening to aggressive, hostile people.

If a dev engages with you, listen to what they're saying. They might be playing Devil's Advocate, but if they are it's because they deal with opinions clear across the board and are thus trying to distill something useful out of your stance-- not argue. We don't come here to argue, and there's really nothing more tiresome than arguing with someone who a) feels entitled to your time and feels the things that are important to them should be just as important to you.

Not everyone comes here to communicate with us-- it's rare they come here to communicate with each other. The forums tend to be a place where people with opinions come to declare those opinions at each other. Repeatedly. Usually in the same thread, and when disagreement is encountered it means more repetition is required. If an opinion has been repeated enough on the forums, even if it's by a relatively small array of people, this should constitute the majority having spoken and Consensus Achieved.

What? You won't listen to the consensus? What kind of democracy IS THIS?

And that's the part where it's back to annoying. Thankfully there's a lot of people who come here who earnestly try to communicate and who are enthusiastically engaged. Else no dev would come here at all-- our presence is not required, after all, and we have a lot of work to do. But on a good day, y'all can be fun and sometimes have interesting things to say.

Modifié par David Gaider, 06 juin 2012 - 03:10 .

[David Gaider]

JustifiablyDefenestrated wrote...
Just out of curiosity, are there ways to increase the content without significantly increasing the budget/time needed to implement?

There are ways, yes, though whether those are acceptable (either to the players or to us) are really the question-- and there's no way to make content cost nothing. All content comes with some kind of cost attached, particularly written content... anything we write must be recorded, translated, scripted, animated and tested. There's a lot of "trickle-down" cost.

The most obvious way would be to eliminate the need for animation (or cinematics) to touch all writing-- so a way for some conversations to be done ambiently. No zoom-in, no animations or facial expressions (so the same way party banter is currently done) but yet still allowing for the conversation wheel to be used (though how this would be done with the player still possessing movement capability is difficult to say). This requires changes to the engine, and it's hard to say whether players would be okay having some conversations be done like this.

It's difficult to eliminate more costs than that, however. In that respect we're a victim of our own quality bar-- any attempts to cut corners (even if they're things that other games regularly do) are much more evident in comparison to the rest of the game. In some places these are things that can be mollified by improvements to the engine as well. A lot of it comes back to the engine-- as always.

[David Gaider]

BubbleDncr wrote...
At this point, if Bioware has a limit of 4 romance able companions, based on on budgetary reasons (since 4 seemed to be the standard from Origins and DA2), this is my preference - give one romance option to each gender/sexual orientation. So, one straight male, one straight female, one gay male, one gay female.

Using 50% of the resources needed to create full romances for gay-only romances would not be very realistic, despite how fair that might appear to you. I'm afraid that if the demand was "50% or nothing" then the answer would be "nothing".

Thus, it's fair to everyone, and more realistic than everyone being bi, or having characters' sexual orientation change based on the PC's gender - which to me, is the most frustrating thing.

That really assumes that everyone agrees that "everyone is bi" is a concern, that everyone thinks it's unrealistic or that they consider realism to be an overriding priority. I don't think that's the case. There are reasons I wouldn't mind trying a spread of set sexualities in followers if I had the resources to do so, but assuaging subjective concerns over realism wouldn't really be one of them.

[Allan Schumacher]

Knight Commander wrote...

I gave Anders the heart broke dialogue and he still flirted idk if its a bug or what, the thing is I just don't feel you know "comfortable" with every companion being bi. Trust me I have nothing against bi people, it's just that this is a game with a lot of blood and fighting and then all of a sudden I get someone the same sex hitting on me. As I said before I don't have a problem with 1 or 2 there is no need to overdue it with every companion being a same sex love interest.

Was it actually a flirt?  What was the line, if you remember?

It can be a fine line between overt flirting and some type of "bromance" type of dialogue.

[Allan Schumacher]

Hmmm, that probably is a bug.

The intention was for cutting off the romance to prevent these sort of things from happening later in the game.  Whoops.

[David Gaider]

iakus wrote...
But I think we'd get more bang for our buck that way

ba-dum-TISH!

[John Epler]

Cultist wrote...

We'll get all-bi all-approving companions once again.
BioWare have no courage to cut LGBT completely out of the game.

Why would we cut LGBT out of the game? Moreover, how would that be 'courageous'?

We believe in inclusivity, and content that presents options to a group that is traditionally underserved by media in general. Why shouldn't they be given the same opportunities to find characters and romances that they can identify with that the rest of society is given? Particularly since, whether or not you like to hear it, popular media is generally built to appeal to that majority group - games skew towards heterosexual, white male, and media as a whole is very heteronormative.

'Courage', in this context, would be to cut heterosexual content entirely. I'm not saying we should, not by any stretch, but if you want to talk about risky moves, that's far more risky than simply returning to the status quo and making all our content appeal strictly to the same people that the majority of entertainment and culture already appeals to.

We're not cutting either. In an ideal world, without resource considerations, we'd have more options and have those options would be more varied. I'm not commenting on what approach we might take in the future - I really don't know, as I'm not a writer. But, you know, if allowing an underserved segment of the population more choice is on the table, that's going to be my choice wherever possible.

Modifié par John Epler, 08 juin 2012 - 05:52 .

[John Epler]

iakus wrote...

John Epler wrote...

We're not cutting either. In an ideal world, without resource considerations, we'd have more options and have those options would be more varied. I'm not commenting on what approach we might take in the future - I really don't know, as I'm not a writer. But, you know, if allowing an underserved segment of the population more choice is on the table, that's going to be my choice wherever possible.

Choices are always good.  But I also think we can still have an abundance of choices fro everyone without doing a 100% overlap.  It might be cost-effective, but it seems...cheap.

In this case, unfortunately, it's either 'more choice' or 'more 'realistic' characters for some'. Were we to have unlimited resources, we'd likely do more on the sexuality spectrum, but a companion is a not-insignificant expenditure of resources. This has been true since at least DA:O for cinematic design, and I imagine true for writing for even longer before that.

In the end, not everyone agrees that having all the love interests be able to be romanced by either gender is hugely immersion breaking, and given the choice between 'more LI choices' and 'less immersion breaking for some', we're likely to fall on the side of the former. That's not to say that, as we find time-saving techniques, we might not start experimenting with companion rosters that have a greater variety on the human sexuality spectrum, but for the time being this is the decision we've come to as the best possible use of resources.

[John Epler]

iakus wrote...

John Epler wrote...

In the end, not everyone agrees that having all the love interests be able to be romanced by either gender is hugely immersion breaking, and given the choice between 'more LI choices' and 'less immersion breaking for some', we're likely to fall on the side of the former. That's not to say that, as we find time-saving techniques, we might not start experimenting with companion rosters that have a greater variety on the human sexuality spectrum, but for the time being this is the decision we've come to as the best possible use of resources.

This sorta leads to another question of mine:

How about LIs that aren't companions?

I thought ME3's use of Steve Cortez and Samantha Traynor as LIs who while crew, were not "companions", was a stroke of genius.

 I mean, virtually all the romance scenes and dialogue takes place at the PC's home base anyway, be it the old Amell manor, a campsite, or a stealth frigate.  Would it be feasible to have some LIs that the character comes home to, rather than fights alongside?  I don't know what if anything that would do with resource expenditure, but it would help keep companion rosters to a manageable level, wouldn't it?

That'd be up to the writers, but I'm certainly not against it.

I imagine (and I may be wrong, as I'm not a writer) that part of why we didn't really do much of this with either DA game is that there aren't really any characters that you spend nearly as much time with as you do your companions. Mass Effect is a little different - you're on the Normandy, and being in close quarters with all of these various people (crew, tag-alongs, etc.) means that you're going to develop a close connection to them.

Now, if we had it set up so that we could somehow place the PC in this same sort situation in DA (ship, a permanent base, etc.), that might be a little easier to pull off. Like I said - I like the idea of 'light' romances, although I will say that, from a resource standpoint, romances tend to be the most expensive things to do for companion characters - so the same would hold true for non-companions. But again - it's something I liked in ME2, and which they expanded on in ME3.

Short answer? I don't see why we couldn't do that, although it's ultimately up to the story the writers want to tell.

[John Epler]

KiddDaBeauty wrote...

Is it really that much more resource friendly to make a non-combatant available though?

I mean of course there is no need to flesh out their game play and equipment and things like that, but if we were to for instance - using DA2 examples - make Varric an LI, the added romance content would be just as costy as if Cullen was an LI, right?

Cullen would still need new scenes animated and voiced, just like Varric would. Hence the LI-ness of them both is just as expensive, no? Or am I completely off track here? I've never worked with you guys to get the real world know-how

EDIT: Swapped examples. Cullen is far less creepy to read about than Gamlen =)

Well, from a strictly technical sense, no. The animation work and such would be just as complicated either way.

But for an LI to feel 'good', you need character development. With companions, a lot of that is already handled - you adventure with them, and so there are a lot of opportunities to get to know them organically, through their interactions with the world and with the people in it.

With a non-companion, though, you have to either build content specifically for them (side quests, etc.), or you have to shoe-horn a lot more characterization and development into those in-camp dialogues. Or, you make them a 'light' option. You won't know as much about them as your companions, but that's not necessarily a barrier to romance - thus the concept of 'light' romances versus 'full' romances.

[Allan Schumacher]

This conversation is starting to flirt the lines of remaining open.


Feeling that the characters should have set types of sexuality because they feel that strengthens the character when seen from different playthroughs is a valid and fair opinion.

Feeling that characters should be "player-centric" in their sexuality because they feel it allows for deeper romances as it prevents splitting of romances is also a fair and valid opinion.

Discussions like the above are fine.  Making this personal and digging into how posters perceive sexuality and then making conclusions about the validity of their point based on those interpretations is only going to lead to bad places.


Thank you.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 09 juin 2012 - 05:21 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Filament wrote...

wsandista wrote...

The Anders situation. He tells males about his relationship with Karl while he doesn't tell females. This either mean he did not have a relationship with Karl when PC is female, or he does not want to tell people about Karl if the PC isn't male. Either way he changes depending on PC gender.

The second way doesn't involve him changing, unless the different ways you address different people, whether based on sex, status, etc, all constitute fundamental changes to your personality too.

It does mean, however, that you can only conclude that Anders is bisexual with out of game metaknowledge.

If you look at any individual playthrough as being self-contained, information learned in one "alternate universe" doesn't mean it's true in a different alternate universe.

[Allan Schumacher]

[quote]Alessa-00 wrote...

It does mean, however, that you can only conclude that Anders is bisexual with out of game metaknowledge.

If you look at any individual playthrough as being self-contained, information learned in one "alternate universe" doesn't mean it's true in a different alternate universe.

[/quote]

So, if I get you right, at a playthrough as female Hawke, his relationship with Karl is not true. That's exactly the impression that I got during my playthroughs as female Hawke, too.

[/quote]

I can't speak on behalf of what the writers were intending, but it's what I noticed.  I initially found myself going "it seems a bit weird for all the character's to be bisexual..." but when I looked deeper I realized that it was only metaknowledge that makes me think that.

For someone that only plays the game once, I think it'd be a fair assessment if someone did not conclude that Anders was bisexual.


[quote]Sexuality can be a distinct part of a character's identity and appeal,
and has a value that shouldn't be ignored. As much as some people didn't
like STEEEEEVE!!! in ME3, I feel that the fact that he was a gay...
widower? He-Widow?, point is, his homosexuality put a rarely seen
approach on the character. Both my fem-Shep and male-Shep got along
great with him from different directions, but had Steve been just as
open to a romance with Fem-Shep it just wouldn't have been the same
Steve.[/quote]

Fair point.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 11 juin 2012 - 07:49 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

As someone who quit TOR because of it's lack of SGRA all I can say is, don't you even dare think about doing this.

Do you think it would have made as big of a difference had TOR not had any romances at all?

I never picked up TOR because there were no same-sex romances.

If there had been no romances at all, I would have probably gotten it.

Were you insulted by it, or was it just that seeing the opposite sex romances would have just driven the point home that same sex romances didn't exist, making it harder to look past that.

[David Gaider]

syllogi wrote...
I think that if DA2 love interests don't talk as much about past lovers, it's more that the writers didn't want more complaints about "Carth Syndrome" and the like, not that they were hiding anything about the potential sexuality of the LIs.

This is correct. Despite how some people seem to think characters talking about their former loves is somehow defining, I don't really see it as necessary in every case. Even if we moved to having romances which are closed off to certain genders, that doesn't mean we would suddenly start having them all discuss former loves. Like with DA2, it would likely be some characters doing so when it's important to their character (like Isabela) and others not doing it at all because it's irrelevant (like Fenris or Merrill).

Which doesn't mean it's not nice to have that as an option-- but just because it's an option doesn't mean it's one that needs to be used. Like syllogi points out, there's really only so much "talking about ex-lovers" that you can throw around before it induces more eye-rolling than it does character-defining. And since there's so many other things that can define a character, that's not worrisome. To me, anyhow. If others are worried about it, I think they're probably over-thinking it... and trying to find causality in why they liked Origins romances more where it likely doesn't belong.

But, hey, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the pinnacle of character development is to have everyone talk about who they've had sex with in the past so it's possible for a player to easily define them. Most of the Origins characters did it, and people liked them, so that must be specifically why, right? Weirder things have happened.

Modifié par David Gaider, 12 juin 2012 - 02:45 .

[David Gaider]

BobSmith101 wrote...
A bisexual relationship by definition can't be exclusive.

Just gotta say: wow.

I would normally try to ignore this discussion as much as possible, but the thing that aggravates me is the idea that some people bring to the discussion that anyone who is bisexual is inherently inconsistent and unable to commit (to a relationship or a preference), and that this colors their argument to the point where what they're arguing isn't really what they're arguing.

So seeing it stated outright could be either mind-boggling or refreshing. I can't decide.

[John Epler]

BobSmith101 wrote...

syllogi wrote...
Could you explain what you mean by the bolded part a bit more?  If a bisexual woman is in love with another woman, she is not in a bisexual relationship, she is in a homosexual relationship.  What do you mean by "bisexual relationship"?

I'm asking because it sounds like you're saying that people who identify as bisexual cannot be monogamous and/or faithful within a relationship.  Which gets back to that ugly stereotyping I was hoping we could skip.

If the woman is with a woman she's in lesbian relationship.
If she's with a man she's in a straight relationship.

If shes being actively bisexual she can't be exclusive. Now exclusivity is something that holds different value to different people so I don't think there is any wrong or ugly about it. It's between the people involved to come up with a solution.


Sorry for the delay, watching the Euro's

So if a man has ever slept with a different woman than the woman he's currently with (not at the same time), would you say he's not exclusive? Because being bisexual means literally nothing other than your partner can be either male or female. It says exactly zilch about exclusivity or proclivity towards unfaithfulness - it merely says that you can be attracted to either gender.

I would recommend stepping back from this discussion and doing a little reading, or simply not engaging in discussions about topics such as this in the future. Because you seem to be quite conclusively demonstrating that you are not aware of what you speak.

[John Epler]

Anyways. This has gone way too far afield, so I'm going to lock it.

If you'd like to discuss romances in future DA products, please feel free to start a new thread.