David Gaider Wrote…
My preference would be to not do any sex scene at all, to be honest. I know that any such aversion means we get posts of how we must be being censored, or how we're not embracing the "adult" grittiness that is the Witcher, but meh.
Chris Priestly Wrote …
I'm with David on this. My mind is far filthier than
anything we could actually (legally) add to the game. I'd rather we left
it up to the imagination.
So, you're working on a mature-rated game which has a strong audience expectation that romances will be a core aspect of the experience, and which was originally marketed as a dark, gritty mature rpg. And yet you're seemingly completely dismissive of criticism of (arguably) one of the most important aspects of that experience?
It's hard for me to understand that attitude. If a user of my databases found an issue with a database I'd designed, in a functionality that I personally didn't care about, and I was as dismissive about it I'd be deservedly reamed out by my boss.
Your competitors are increasingly moving towards showing, not telling/hinting and, to be bluntly honest, are making your efforts on this front look increasingly ludicrous. Sex while wearing underwear. 'Meh', indeed.
I've previously seen David comment on TW2 sex scenes as being 'gratuitous'. I disagree personally, but more to the point, I don't see many comments from people who find /those/ scenes to be unintentionally hilarious like those I've seen about the DA franchise. I also note that there hasn't been any sort of widespread outrage over TW2 in the media, no PR storm of excrement fitting the shan so to speak. I adored DAO. It's my favorite game of all time, but even I found the sex scenes to be unintentionally comedic. And one of them was a core plot point. It's hard to take the dark ritual seriously while viewing someone get pregnant while wearing underwear, IMO. Is that supposed to be some kind of visual metaphor for immaculate conception that went over my head?
I don't really care whether you are being censored by others, by yourselves, or simply whether you lack the desire to implement a particular game feature better than anyone else to date, but in my view, you are doing a disservice to your audience and to your repuations by doing a half-hearted job of it. It comes across as some kind of weird passive-aggressive implementation of a feature you dislike personally.
Do or don't do, those are your only real choices. If you decide to 'do', then do it right and aim to be the best at it. If not, then that's fine too. But being caught half-way between like this makes no one happy.
John Epler Wrote…
... we simply don't feel that the resources required for building
realistic-looking sex scenes for a wide variety of characters (because
remember, you have options both in terms of who the other party is as well as
your own gender, which is an enormous cost multiplier versus a
single-protagonist game with limited partners) are a good use of said
resources...
Well, that's an argument I can respect rather more. Permutation mathematics makes life difficult.
That said, I still think this half-hearted approach makes no sense. You are already spending zots on making sex scenes that simply don't work well for anyone, after all. The sex scenes in the original Mass Effect were far
better than anything Bioware has put out subsequently. Bioware have sadly regressed in this aspect of your games. Honestly, I've seen the comments elsewhere: you must be aware that the scenes in DAO and DA2 are the cause of a great deal of scorn? The fact is that much of your audience expects much higher production values and are mature adults with actual experience of sex. Avoiding nudity is a creative choice you are free to make. But that's a choice that carries consequences in a game which emphasizes cinematic storytelling, and risks in a marketplace where your competitors are starting to do this so much better in their mature-rated games. I think it's a choice that harms you rather more than it helps, although the ME scenes showed that it could still be done successfully. I just don't understand why you abandoned a very successful non-nudity approach for one that fails miserably. Were the scenes in ME really so much more expensive than those in DAO/DA2?
If you don't have the zots to do it right then I'd suggest skipping it altogether. On the other hand, I suspect that'd harm your sales as a large portion of your fans view romances as being important to their experience. And if the romances are actually important to sales, then that suggests that maybe sufficient resources should be spent on this part of
the experience after all. Certainly, I would argue, far more important than implementing new features like MP that have until now never been part of the Dragon Age experience.
This is a very visible aspect of your game for many of your customers. It's an area that could stand a lot of improvement as your competitors have ably demonstrated. Given that DA2 was a critical hit on Bioware's reputation, I would think you'd be looking for any and all ways to delight and surprise with DA3 in order to start repairing the damage to your reputation. This issue is low-hanging fruit and an obvious place to improve on both DAO and DA2 in a way that doesn't further exacerbate the growing divide in your fanbase. Instead the attitude seems to be "meh, it's good enough and I can't be bothered".
I'd say 'inconceivable', but I'm not sure what that word means any more.
Modifié par craigdolphin, 15 novembre 2012 - 10:00 .
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