930 réponses à ce sujet

[Knight Commander]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

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.

Its fine I never used Anders in DA2 anyways.

[Red by Full Metal Jacket]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

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.

Unfortunately, people get a little too, um, "invested" in the romances.  I've seen people here say verbatim that they would outright refuse to play a Bioware game if it doesn't have a romance subplot.  No joke.

joshko wrote...

Samantha's romance was really nothing but a softcore lesbian porn scene. I really wasn't impressed at all.

Steves was much better and natural. But it could have been more.

What I don't understand is why they spent all this time on Steve and Sam's dialogue and yet the devs couldn't be bothered to give them non-generic faces?

Modifié par Red by Full Metal Jacket, 08 juin 2012 - 03:26 .

[robertthebard]

TJX2045 wrote...

Ok, this is how I feel on this issue.

1) DA2 went the route of having EVERYONE available to romance regardless of sex. People complained.

2) ME3 went the route of defining everyone's "orientation" and had straight, gay, bi. People complained and other people complained that they wanted the option to kick the gay/lesbian characters off the ship.  Others were pissed that they couldn't lesbian romance Ashley.

So I think Option 1 is better because then you don't get people ****ing about "I am pissed I can't romance A & B because they are gay" or "I'm pissed I can't romance Y & Z because they're straight."

All I've seen is people expecting the bi/gay characters to be campy and stereotypical or thinking they'll be stereotypical and finding it strange when someone of the same sex hits on them in a game with violence like this because it's "unmanly." It's mostly insecurity. And who said a gay character couldn't be masculine? Look at Cortez in ME3.

Funny thing is some people were so upset about Anders being bi in DA2 because "he was straight." If you want to go off of stereotypes, sure he flirted a lot with women in Awakening. BUT he also had a cat he named Ser Pounce-a-lot. That wasn't suddenly added in there in DA2. It was established.

And even if someone is attracted to just one sex at the time, it doesn't always mean that they're one or the other and they can never be bi.

As far as the all-bi thing goes, the romances still play out differently with the male or female hawke.  They still have lines where they say he or she instead of just saying Hawke.  A good example of how a bi romance worked well recently is Kaidan in ME3.  There are different lines and they work better without being completely similar.  Both male and female Shepard get unique experiences.

Here's my take on Anders:  He was straight in Awakening.  Some time while he was losing 20 or so levels, and getting all possessed by Justice, he met Karl, had a few drinks, one thing let to another, and presto, he's bi.  Of course, it could also be that Justice made him bi.  Do spirits really have gender preferences, or are they more of an Isabela, if it feels good, or might feel good, do it?

[Vormaerin]

I do find it amusing that many folks seem to think being bisexual means you like men and women equally. Most bisexuals I know have preferences to one side or the other, just not exclusive preferences.

Nothing in Awakening precludes Anders from being bisexual. He may prefer women to men, but not be averse to men. He may just not found any of the men in the party attractive (though some thought he was flirting with Howe) so it didn't come up.

The only evidence he is straight then is the assumption that every guy is straight until proven otherwise.

[Iakus]

Vormaerin wrote...

iakus wrote...

Abispa wrote...

Hero-sexual LIs give everyone the same number AND give you choice of LI. You can have your black-hearted witch or your good-two shoes knight. Reducing the number of LIs to a single choice per persuasion would limit the choices of a player who wants to create all straight or all gay characters. You don't have to role play a lesbian in order to romance Merrill or Isabela in the current system.

Never said one choice per.  In fact, the most optimal setup I've heard suggested would have a total of six LIs: 2 straight, 2 bi, two s/s.  Everyone gets a minimum of two choices that way.

Its still less than six choices per person, which was the point of the original comment.

But it's still six as opposed to four.

One might consider four LI's pulling double duty for both male and female PCs to be eight romances, but it's really four just copy/pasted.  But with the way we have six unique romances.  No, you can't access all of them with the same character but that's what replayability is for.  I still consider that system to have more variety than the system we got with DA2.

No not everyone will be happy;  There are people unhappy that we can't romance Varric.  Or Aveline.  Or Cullen.  Or Sten.

Or Bethany 

Unless Bioware gets a blank check to make every single character in a game romanceable, we're not going to get 100% approval of any romance system.  So I say make as many as possible as unique as possible.  Perhaps making six "exclusive" romances (or a mix of them)  is more expensive than making four "hero-sexual" romances.  But I think we'd get more bang for our buck that way

[Vormaerin]

Well, its certainly true that it costs more to write another entire romance than it does to tune an existing one to either gender. So you are talking about a 50% increase in romance dialogues to provide everyone with half the options per play through.

The only players who would have equal options are those who play the game 5+ times and create PCs of every gender/orientation combination. I suspect that's a pretty small subset of the fanbase.

[Iakus]

Vormaerin wrote...

Well, its certainly true that it costs more to write another entire romance than it does to tune an existing one to either gender. So you are talking about a 50% increase in romance dialogues to provide everyone with half the options per play through.

The only players who would have equal options are those who play the game 5+ times and create PCs of every gender/orientation combination. I suspect that's a pretty small subset of the fanbase.

So was it a waste of time and resources to make six orgin stories for DAO? 

[Vormaerin]

iakus wrote...
So was it a waste of time and resources to make six orgin stories for DAO? 

It could certainly be argued.   Something like 5% of the DAO players played either of the dwarf origins.  Something over half (IIRC) only played the human nobleman origin.

I only actually used three of them, because after the 2nd one I realized the story was the same regardless.   (The third playthrough was when I got Awakening, because I didn't have either of those save games still).

So, yeah, a strong argument could be made that the effort that went the five non Cousland origins could have gone into additional story content.  I'd rather they made the other origins actually mean something, but that's a huge increase in resources spent, so something else would be gutted.

[Kulyok]

I felt like "everyone is bi" was a concern for me - I always pictured Anders as a person who didn't like man/man action very much, based on his dialogue with Oghren in DAO, and besides, I wasn't comfortable romancing someone who's into men, which was one of the reasons I chose Garrus over Kaidan in ME3 and chose to "disbelieve" that Anders had any relations with men, as the game thankfully didn't supply my female Hawke with any evidence(and Karl was, um, ugly, anyway). Yep, I'm okay with romancing aliens and elves and not okay with romancing gay people, strange, I know. Still, that's how it is.

I was quite comfortable with the choice DAO offered, however: two male/female only characters, Alistair and Morrigan, and two characters for whom their sexuality was a big part of their story, Leliana and Zevran - it worked very well for Zevran in particular. I think it could work very well for DA3, too.

[Vormaerin]

Kulyok wrote...

I think it could work very well for DA3, too.

Its very easy to be okay with doing without options you don't like anyway.   The question here is "What is the gain that justifies denying other people what they want?"

Is DAO better than DA2 because it offers half as many gay romance options?  If so, how?

[PsychoBlonde]

David Gaider wrote...


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.

Personally, I think it'd be cool if you had occasional "traveling" or "resting" pop-up conversations, where you get a very static scene with minimal animation (such as seeing two characters sitting in a cart while they're riding somewhere, or standing next to each other looking over a wall/bridge, that sort of thing, and they have a discussion.  While this wouldn't be a perfect solution it would radically diminish the need for animation/lip synching, which, if not the most (monetary) costly is probably the most time-consuming part of the process.

I have absolutely NO PROBLEM with you guys taking advantage of these sorts of tricks to squeeze more characterization/interaction/plot into the game.  Granted, I'm sure there'll be at least one person who will declare it the Antichrist, but c'est la vie.


And, anyway, if you want to fix the "bisexual LI" problem, the solution is clear: don't let anyone play a male.  Male protagonists are overused, anyway, and I never play one so, CLEARLY,  there's no point in having them in the first place.  Besides, this way all the people ****ing about how femHawke didn't get any advertising share won't have a leg to stand on.

Lo, I have spoken.  Get cracking.

/sarcasm

[Kidd]

PsychoBlonde wrote...

Personally, I think it'd be cool if you had occasional "traveling" or "resting" pop-up conversations, where you get a very static scene with minimal animation (such as seeing two characters sitting in a cart while they're riding somewhere, or standing next to each other looking over a wall/bridge, that sort of thing, and they have a discussion.  While this wouldn't be a perfect solution it would radically diminish the need for animation/lip synching, which, if not the most (monetary) costly is probably the most time-consuming part of the process.

That was actually bloody brilliant. It even adds a sense of travel at the same time. I can totally get behind banters, whether the protagonist gets to join in or not, in this manner. Might feel very mechanical if we know every time people start talking on the cart, the PC will be joining in - it'd feel organic if the PC was simply joining in most of the time instead of always.

Sense of travel, cheap animations, David's team gets to cram in more dialogue for nothing but the voice over budget... colour me seduced, sweet talker =)

EDIT: You really should create a separate thread for this. It's a great idea methinks and needs to be discussed properly by us and developers alike. I think having it mentioned in the weekly bisexual LI thread does it great injustice.

Modifié par KiddDaBeauty, 08 juin 2012 - 08:58 .

[AkiKishi]

Kulyok wrote...

I felt like "everyone is bi" was a concern for me - I always pictured Anders as a person who didn't like man/man action very much, based on his dialogue with Oghren in DAO, and besides, I wasn't comfortable romancing someone who's into men, which was one of the reasons I chose Garrus over Kaidan in ME3 and chose to "disbelieve" that Anders had any relations with men, as the game thankfully didn't supply my female Hawke with any evidence(and Karl was, um, ugly, anyway). Yep, I'm okay with romancing aliens and elves and not okay with romancing gay people, strange, I know. Still, that's how it is.

I was quite comfortable with the choice DAO offered, however: two male/female only characters, Alistair and Morrigan, and two characters for whom their sexuality was a big part of their story, Leliana and Zevran - it worked very well for Zevran in particular. I think it could work very well for DA3, too.

In Anders case you can put the blame on Justice. Everything that Dave has said would appear to indicate it's not done because it's the best option. But rather to placate players and save resources.

[Maugrim]

iakus wrote...

Vormaerin wrote...

Well, its certainly true that it costs more to write another entire romance than it does to tune an existing one to either gender. So you are talking about a 50% increase in romance dialogues to provide everyone with half the options per play through.

The only players who would have equal options are those who play the game 5+ times and create PCs of every gender/orientation combination. I suspect that's a pretty small subset of the fanbase.

So was it a waste of time and resources to make six orgin stories for DAO? 

In terms of significant amounts people who actually made use of them?

Unequivocally yes, it was a waste of time.  Human Noble Origin was ridiculously far and away the favorite origin.

For people like me who prefer options and heck even used them despite others who could care less? No.  Hmm now what does this remind me of...<_<

Modifié par makenzieshepard, 08 juin 2012 - 10:35 .

[Jerrybnsn]

Just make bi-romances day one dlc. People have the option of having bi-affairs and they get to pay for it. It's a win-win.

[David Gaider]

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

ba-dum-TISH!

[Cultist]

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

[Giga Drill BREAKER]

Its unrealistic to have every character Bi-sexual, every character should have there own unique personality.

[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 .

[robertthebard]

John Epler wrote...

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.

+1.  Buckling to "peer" pressure isn't courageous in the least bit.  In fact, I would go as far as to say it's pretty cowardly.

[Ihatebadgames]

As a old fart,I DON'T CARE who you do.what you do or what you take or toke to do it.
In my games there are no Bi companions as that would mean I'm in control of two main characters of diffrent sex at one time,hitting on the same love intrest at the same time.Since you can only control ONE at a time you're either playing the game straight or gay.Therre is no bi.

[Ihatebadgames]

Ihatebadgames wrote...

As a old fart,I DON'T CARE who you do.what you do or what you take or toke to do it.
In my games there are no Bi companions as that would mean I'm in control of two main characters of diffrent sex at one time,hitting on the same love intrest at the same time.Since you can only control ONE at a time you're either playing the game straight or gay.There is no bi.

edit for spelling

[AkiKishi]

For some reason that reminded me of Yoda....

[Cultist]

John Epler wrote...

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.

See? That's exactly my point. You are tring to appeal to EVERYONE. And as a result - Dragon Age 2, shallow characters without individuality, all-bi,all-accepting, all-supporting even after Hawke will do things they loathe - still supporting. A template companions with different voice and model.
LGTB theme is just a part of this, flawed, in my opinion, approach.

Modifié par Cultist, 08 juin 2012 - 06:06 .